Kena: Bridge of Spirits is one of those games you think wouldn’t even work on the Steam Deck, let alone be as good as it is. In fact, apart from one tiny aspect that really isn’t the game’s fault at all, it might be my preferred way to spend time with the glorious adventure that is Kena.

For starters, the original Epic Games Store release was one that pushed most PCs a fair bit. It’s no secret that this is a gorgeous game, and developer Ember Lab’s background in Pixar-like animated shorts is clear for all to see even just by glimpsing at a passing soundtrack. The game sang on PlayStation 5 as well, but again, it looked so good and so crisp, the idea of it running on anything handheld (ever) was not even a thought in my mind.

Before we get too into the weeds here, it’s worth noting that the Steam version of Kena: Bridge of Spirits isn’t coming with anything the other versions don’t get at the same time. New Game+ is being added, so you can restart the game with all your abilities, upgrades, and rot collected. There’s spirit guide trials which offer rewards for completing sections like wave defences, obstacle courses, and repeating boss fights from the main game.

Reward wise, you’re going to be unlocking outfits for Kena to wear, but there are also new charmstones in the game which are akin to the skulls from Halo which modify the game in some way or another. But other than that, what you’re getting in the Steam version is much the same great adventure detailed in our previous PS5 review.

That said, Kena: Bridge of Spirits Steam Deck performance took me by surprise. It was already a “Deck Verified” game pre-release, but I took that to mean it’d be a solid 30fps with maybe a few visual jaggies around the edges, but boy was I wrong. While the settings aren’t going to be put on “ultra”, they just don’t need to be. On the Steam Deck’s 7-inch 1200×800 resolution screen, even running on the lower settings this game looks great. 

It’s glorious, and full of colour. Sometimes it feels as though the combat arenas are designed around the visuals, because when you finish and remove the decay from the arena itself, the world reveals itself in an explosion of colour. Even if you’ve played the game before on PS5 and experienced 4K resolution and HDR visuals, I defy you to not be at least a bit impressed by what Kena: Bridge of Spirits Steam Deck can show you.

So down to brass tacks then, while the frame rate fluctuates, I was pleased I barely had to touch the settings to get it running well. With the “easy” visual settings (Kena’s version of low, I’d presume) I never saw the game drop below 30, but it hovered between 38-45 on average. Purists might bemoan the lack of a stable 60fps, but when you’re talking in the 40s range, you’re really not going to see a huge difference between 40fps and 60fps on a handheld device like the Steam Deck.

Visuals look clean and crisp, with the occasional noticeable jaggy or, perhaps, lack of anti-aliasing on some sections that aren’t even intended for you to focus on. In truth the only issue with Kena: Bridge of Spirits Steam Deck is that the game relies on using the bumpers for a lot of the gameplay. This isn’t Kena’s fault, but the bumpers on a Steam Deck are the one area I’d say need improvement: they just feel a bit squishy, unlike a traditional GamePad. However, the haptics on offer for Kena are impressive. You can tell this was a PS5 game, and that careful thought has been placed into how and when the vibrations occur.

It’s worth saying that Kena isn’t as simple a game as it looks. While the adventure overall is a delight, the combat on default normal difficulty can be challenging. We’re not quite talking Souls-level stuff, but it’s not as easy as the colourful and cute aesthetics suggest. Regardless, aside the bumper woes, playing Kena: Bridge of Spirits on Steam Deck is about as good as you could have hoped for. If you’ve played it before, sure, there may not be much for you aside the portability, but if you haven’t, and have a Steam Deck, this is a cracking title to enjoy on the go. Moreover, if you have a powerful PC to cloud-save between, you can even see it at its best visually, while also playing on the loo. What an age we live in.

(Video best watched on mobile for correct aspect ratio)

Kena: Bridge of Spirits is out now for PS4, PS5, and PC via Steam and Epic Games Store.

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I must admit, there are some genres of video game I don’t really play a lot of. I could play platformers and JRPGs until the cows come home, but because of that some genres don’t get much of a look in. How am I supposed to find time to play a compelling tower defence game when I’m busy grinding away on random battles or finding every last shiny collectable in a colourful world? Thankfully I found the time to dive headfirst into the Early Access build of ORX, which blends tower defence gameplay and deck building to create a really unique game.

In ORX you play as a faction of humans trying to survive wave after wave of attacks from the titular baddies. To do this you’ll need to build a selection of defences out of the cards you draw at the bottom of the screen. This is much easier said than done though, because this isn’t your traditional tower defence game.

You don’t just get towers to place in ORX, you get castle pieces. By combining multiple castle walls and corridors together you’ll create one complete castle that fires arrows at incoming baddies, and the power of said castle varies based on the cards you used to create it. You can probably survive the first couple of waves of enemies with castles made of two small walls snapped together, but when the ORX start bringing out special units and bosses you’ll need sprawling defences powered up by rune cards to buff their abilities.

There are more than just castle pieces in that deck too. The different buildings all have their own handy abilities, and there are paths that can help join your kingdom together. Villages and farms are extremely important to build early on, as they bring in extra gold which you need to play more cards. Without them the money flows pretty slowly, so balancing your kingdom is key.

Roads are important to join all your buildings together so they function correctly, but they’re also important for reaching vaults placed around the map. Once you build next to a vault you’ll unlock it and be given mini objectives, which if you manage to accomplish will grant you powerful new cards for your deck permanently. Since these last for a full run, making sure you unlock every vault is just as important as surviving the ORX.

Between missions you’ll have the opportunity to upgrade your deck, by either upgrading, removing or enchanting different cards. You can choose different routes through a chapter in a similar way to something like Slay the Spire, with each route offering different options to improve the power of your kingdom via the power of cards.

It may sound like ORX has some roguelike DNA making up its video game genetics, but don’t worry if you’re not a fan of the genre because there’s no permadeath. If (or let’s face it when) you fail a mission you’re welcome to retry it as many times as you like with no punishment at all.

It’s fair to say that ORX is a pretty complex game, and buddy you don’t know the half of it. The first of the two current factions (the Rune Wardens) play with the aforementioned castle pieces to create arrow shooting defences, but playing as the Desert Reavers is like playing a different game entirely.

As the Desert Reavers you place Barracks to train your soldiers, then every time you put down a building in range of it a little platoon of warriors is spawned on a random tile. It’s pretty wild how differently every aspect of the game works when you play as this second faction, and at full release there will be four of them available.

I think ORX is looking very promising so far, but in its current state it does (understandably) have some issues. There’s no playable tutorial to speak of, just a few screens of text and pictures that pop up when you first start a level, and it’s simply not enough. It takes a lot of trial and error to figure out how all of the intricate systems work together, and I can’t imagine everyone will have the patience to do that without much in the way of guidance.

I’d also say that at the time of writing the balance of the game feels a little off. I spent a huge amount of time trying to beat the first Act as the Rune Wardens and got absolutely flattened every step of the way. Then when playing as the Desert Reavers I didn’t lose a single battle, and never felt particularly threatened that it might happen. This could easily be updated before release, but was very jarring.

My entire time playing ORX was on Steam Deck, and the game ran really well on the handheld that everybody’s talking about. You will have to be fairly comfortable with the trackpad to play effectively, but when choosing cards and placing them on the map the action pauses which is really helpful if you’re a little slow.

ORX has a lot of potential to be a unique and entertaining game when it hits 1.0, but it’s fair to say it has a few issues currently. If you think the concept sounds like something you’d love then by all means get in on the ground floor, but be prepared to deal with a lot of learning on the job.

The post Orx early access review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

The Left 4 Dead games have played a huge part in my life. The series was one of the first my partner truly adored, and as a physically disabled man often all his body can take is a day playing games in bed. Before we spent these tough days exploring service games like Sea of Thieves and ARK, we would play hours and hours of the zombie co-op game where no two runs are the same. Because of this we were more than excited for Back 4 Blood, but unfortunately that game just didn’t scratch the same itch. But The Anacrusis is just around the corner, and after playing around eight hours of it I can confirm that this is the Left 4 Dead successor we’ve been waiting for.

Set on a stranded starship overrun by alien nasties, you and three friends are tasked with surviving waves of these “definitely not zombies” and making it to the next airlock alive. This isn’t just your standard bleak metal aesthetic though. There are colourful corridors and vibrant shopping malls packing the 1970s sci-fi pleasure cruiser with interesting environments to explore. It’s an incredibly stylish backdrop to a familiar gameplay loop.

The Anacrusis: the director is in charge

The Anacrusis isn’t afraid to wear its influences on its sleeve. If you ever played Left 4 Dead you’ll feel right at home. Unique special aliens, health kits and temporary health “booster shots”, doors that can only be unlocked by calling the alien menace to your location. All your favourite mechanics are here and work just as well as they did in 2008. Perhaps the most important of these though is the “AI Director”, which controls what aliens spawn and adjusts the difficulty on the fly. This works remarkably well, with every run feeling completely different to the last and bringing the right amount of challenge every time.

To face down the selection of extraterrestrials blocking your path, you have access to a variety of space age weapons to switch between. The three standard guns fit into the Assault Rifle, SMG, Shotgun mould. The the satisfying thud of the Plasma Rifle ensuring I chose nothing else. Your selected character also comes equipped with a puny laser pistol with unlimited ammo as a last resort. Perhaps the most exciting weapons though are the special ones that come with limited ammo but deal massive damage. The scorching Laser burns through even the toughest foes. The Arc gun chains lightning between enemies to stop hordes in their tracks. Even the grenades in The Anacrusis are interesting. There’s time slowing stasis grenades for hectic moments, vortex grenades to suck enemies into the air, and Goo grenades creating a safe area that foes will struggle to penetrate. I never tired of using whatever tools I discovered to attempt to overcome the odds.

Enemy variety

You’ll need all the guns and grenades you can grab to survive the alien menace. The standard aliens simply run in a straight line at you and require a few blasts to dispatch. But the special aliens are much trickier. There’s the Spawner who sends out rolling turrets that’ll shred through the team’s health if you don’t deal with them quickly. The Gooper encases allies in green mucus that you’ll need to blast off. Then there’s the Brute, who jumps and smashes into everybody and takes a hell of a lot of bullets to put down. I wasn’t sure how easy it would be to differentiate the specials from Left 4 Dead, but with creative ideas like an alien who blinds you all with bright lights or alien eggs that roll at you when disturbed, The Anacrusis has gone above and beyond in that department.

There’s one major difference between Left 4 Dead and The Anacrusis mechanically, and that’s the addition of perks. By finding hidden consoles in each level, you’ll be offered three perks to choose from that will upgrade your alien surviving capabilities. Some are pretty basic, like faster healing or higher max health. Others, though, are more active and game-changing. One run ended with me having a gun that blasted through enemies, the ability to heal allies above their max health, and goo grenades that healed them over time. Against an incredibly tough final survival stage I felt like an unstoppable healing god, and helped my team survive to save the day. 

The Anacrusis: simple, fun

What really sets The Anacrusis apart from other co-op shooters is the joyful simplicity of it all. There aren’t a bunch of stats to worry about or guns that all basically work the same, here. You just grab a weapon that works for you and get on with it. The action is frantic and situations involving multiple types of alien require split second decisions, but you aren’t having to deal with character builds or lengthy setup before jumping into the action.

In single player, the AI companions are rather impressive. There have been a few instances of them getting stuck or falling down a particularly easy to jump crevice. But for the most part they feel incredibly helpful and entirely competent. Fighting back a bunch of aliens is undoubtedly better with friends, but if you are a player or two short you won’t be frustrated.

The only aspect of the game I haven’t really been wowed by are the characters. They just haven’t really had enough back and forth for me to truly get to know them so far. I’m hoping that as I play more their personalities will shine through, because one of my favourite aspects of Left 4 Dead was the safe room banter.

The Anacrusis looks to be everything I want from a spiritual successor to Left 4 Dead. The pick up and play nature is compelling from the drop, and the 70s sci-fi setting is so refreshing. The AI Driver really makes every session totally different, facing different combinations of aliens in different settings doesn’t get stale. I know the next few months of my life will be spent replaying the game over and over again with my partner, and I can’t wait.

The Anacrusis is available via PC early access and Xbox game pass via preview program on January 13.

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While titles like Everspace, Elite: Dangerous, and Star Wars Squadrons have been keeping the space fighter genre alive, they’re somewhat niche games. Even Squadrons, despite being a Star Wars game, was only ever going to truly appeal to dogfight fans. Even if the universe initially pulls them in, space fighter sims aren’t for everyone. The control schemes can be difficult to map to controllers, and it can be hard to convey an effective story because there’s often such a disconnect between the player and their avatar. So the big question is: how do Fishlabs, the developers of Chorus, hope to change that?

I recently got to sit in on a remote Q&A session with Fishlabs’ lead developers and designers as they gave us an in-depth look at their new space shooter. While there are things I’m still unsure (even after playing it) there’s a definite sense that they have a clearly defined vision for their game. For a start, they want to tell a story – and not just through a bunch of cutscenes and dialogue played over dogfights.

Chorus: A different kind of space shooter

Everything about Chorus’ semi-open universe is designed to build on its own mythos. It becomes even more apparent when you’re in the cockpit, too. There’s a sense that each galaxy is lived in; these are more than just pretty obstacle courses to fly a ship around. The backdrops are striking, filled with things to see and wonder over – even if you can’t physically go there. As you weave through asteroid belts and between the structures of gargantuan space stations, it’s easy to be awed by Chorus.

It tales the tale of Nara, formerly a pilot with the tyrannical Circle. Having become disenfranchised with her former masters, Nara has turned renegade. She now helps the resistance fight back against their oppressors with the help of her ship, Forsaken, a sentient Starfighter that reminds me of Titanfall 2’s B2. The relationship between Nara and Forsaken is integral to the story, but also forms the basis for Chorus’ special abilities and character progression.

To call Chorus an RPG would be a step too far, but it does feature a progression system that sees you earning money and experience to upgrade Forsaken’s weapons and defences. There are also Rites, psychic abilities Nara can access to highlight targets and teleport through barriers, for example. The galaxy is also semi open, split into huge individual areas filled with side-missions and points of interest.

Rock and a hard space

Some of these missions might be simple escort affairs; others will branch into chains. There are also choices to be made that can affect relationships with NPCs later on in the game, leading to some characters giving their aid and others denying it. It’s not anything new, exactly, but it’s not something you see very often in this genre. Nara struggles with her own morality and the demons of her past, and it comes through in her conversations and interactions.

The demo I played was relatively short, featuring only a small handful of missions and spaces to explore. I played it through Steam, although it’s coming to both current and last gen PlayStation and Xbox too. Interestingly, Fishlabs have focused on gamepad control rather than HOTAS, as would be expected. It’s important to them that players have the same experience regardless of platform (although there will graphical improvements to next-gen versions such as 4K textures and higher framerates).

Comet me, bro

It always take me a while to start getting my head around controlling ships in space shooters, but with Chorus it felt easy. Steering is all in the right stick, while the left stick is used to control thrusters and perform evasive barrel rolls. Forsaken is equipped with a gatling gun, laser cannons, and missile launchers, each of which is stronger against a specific enemy ship shield type. There’s a wonderful smoothness to the way Forsaken controls; movement is slick and easy, with a pulled-back camera that allows you to take in as much as possible. Sliding between tight spaces and navigating intense space battles is easy and fluid, although I feel the difficulty needs to be balanced a little.

During the more frantic fights you’ll be taking damage from all side, and will often need to juggle weapon types to suit the situation. In these moments I felt Forsaken was too easily damaged. The repair function has a long cooldown while objective time limits are often short, which meant I’d often have time for just one heal even during intense conflicts. Perhaps this needs tweaking by the devs; perhaps I’m just not very good. Either way it didn’t ruin my time spent with Chorus, although having to listen to repeated dialogue every time I reloaded a save was a bit of a pain.

Space ace

Where Chorus deviates from the standard formula is in its approach to story, missions, and exploration. There are Temples hidden in deep space that must be navigated using Forsaken’s full suite of abilities, not to mention the Drift system. Hitting LB will allow you to turn Forsaken on a dime while maintaining forward momentum, something hugely useful during dogfights but equally essential in Temples. These physical and environmental puzzles are almost like dungeons in a RPG, housing upgrades to Nara’s Rites and other useful items. There are no cosmetics to unlock, partly because Forsaken is as much a protagonist as Nara, but there are weapon upgrades and masteries to work towards to give you something to chase.

Built with a very clear end goal in mind, Chorus’ playspaces are gorgeous and easy to navigate. Even in the heat of battle, clicking the right stick will correct your horizon, but it goes deeper than that. The areas are designed with a clear divide between what’s up and down, what’s left and right. Even when you’re tearing around in all directions, it’s easy to stay centred and focused on objectives. Hitting the left stick will propel you forward at intergalactic speeds to eat up the distance between objective markers, but exploration has its own rewards.

Chorus: Deep space fine

One of things focused on during the Q&A session was the music. Not because the devs necessarily wanted to discuss it, but because it was so unbelievably affecting that almost everyone there had a question about it. Composed by Pedro Macedo Camacho (Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus and World of Warcraft: Shadowlands), Chorus’ OST could be one of the year’s best if what I’ve heard is anything to go on. Sweeping orchestral music lends the game a sense of otherworldy grandeur that fits so well with its near-mystical lore.

Playing through the demo left me wanting more. A lot more. How Chorus holds up in terms of variety and, well, staying power, remains to be seen. It’s easy for games in this genre to burnout without a constant flow of new content like Elite or even No Man’s Sky, and while there’s a good spread of missions in the demo, we’ll need more to keep us truly hooked. But aside that, Chorus is looking like it could be an exceptionally fun game. The mix of exploration and space magic, the high-quality visuals and soundtrack, the simple control scheme and smooth combat – these things have me super excited to play more and see just what Fishlabs can do.

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Over the last 12 months or so I’ve played my share of tactics games and yours too. From Gears Tactics to Othercide, XCOM: Chimera Squad to Fort Triumph. All offered something that made them stand out from the growing crowd, which meant I never got tired of sampling them. After a short break from the genre, I’ve recently taken a look at The Last Spell from Ishtar Games.

The big difference between this and most of its stable-mates is that it’s also a roguelike defence game. Oh, and it’s also great. It’s recently hit Steam Early Access, and I’ve been getting stuck in to see how it compares to other tactics titles.

The Last Spell: Refreshing tactical action

It’s set in a world that teeters on the brink of destruction after a magical cataclysm and genocidal war against mages. As the few remaining magic-users prepare one last spell to save the world, your ragtag band of heroes will need to defend them night after night from hordes of monsters, zombies and demons.

Each phase comprises one day and one night. In the former you’ll erect defences, buy armour, improve the status of the town, and scavenge supplies in the form of gold and building materials. In the night, you’ll engage in turn-based battles against overwhelming floods of nasties. Initially you’ll have three heroes (or four, if you opt for easy mode). These are random, but you’ll usually get a melee fighter, a ranged archer, and a mage.

All your characters have a set number of action points with which to move, attack and defend. You have quite a few, too, compared to most other tactics games. And you’ll need them too, as the enemy come at you in force. Purple arrows tell you where an attack will come from. At first you’ll only need to repel on one front, but after a few nights you’ll have enemies come from all sides. If they defeat your heroes or kill the mages in the centre of the map, the run is over and you’ll need to start again.

Like all good roguelikes you’ll earn currencies while playing to unlock permanent buffs and upgrades. These include extra hero slots, more starting gold, or the ability to craft stronger gear in the village shops. Two otherworldy beings exist in a place called the Oraculum. Here you spend accumulated points to unlock buffs, or tick off objectives to improve your town and starting options. It’s a solid system similar to Hades’ boons, and each thing you unlock is a massive help.

A hard day’s night

Heroes in The Last Spell can be outfitted with armour, gear, weapons and items. Unusually for a pixel art game, what you equip will alter how you look, which is a really important touch in a game like this. It helps you get attached to your heroes, and so when you lose one it matters all the more. HP and magic points may or may not be restored each morning. You may need potions and items to stay on top of your game.

Basic attacks won’t cost magic points, but more devastating spells and abilities will. These may be volleys of arrows, melee attacks that hit multiple enemies, or magical explosions. Even from the beginning, each of your heroes feels formidable, able to take out multiple enemies each turn. Despite this, it won’t be long before the hordes are too large to contain. For this reason, you can build defences to hold them back. You can also construct shops and crafters to improve your gear.

The Early Access portion isn’t huge, featuring just one town. The size of the world map suggests that there will be multiple towns and settlements added down the line. Yet, even at this early stage, The Last Spell feels like something special. The art style is lovely, and the roguelike elements feel natural alongside the turn-based tactics. When the full game is released, I expect The Last Spell to take a lot of people by surprise.

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It may come as no surprise to learn that Back 4 Blood, the new cooperative squad shooter from Turtle Rock Studios is, in fact, Left 4 Dead 3 in all but name. Actually that’s not entirely accurate – there are some minor story changes too, as it’s now a species of parasitic worm causing people to mutate, rather than a rare viral infection. And they’re not called “infected” now (although they are referred to by that title in passing), but rather the “Ridden”. And that’s about it. In every other way, it may as well be the third entry in Valve’s legendary franchise.

Now I know we said this all before a while ago when World War Z launched, and we’ve seen a few other titles ape the concept strongly such as Warhammer: Vermintide, Earthfall: Invasion and, most recently, Second Extinction, but Back 4 Blood is different. There’s an element of … I don’t know what, actually. Quality isn’t the right word, and neither is it entirely fair to the other titles I mentioned. It’s more like putting on a comfortable jumper, or coming home after a long period away. Turtle Rock being at the helm makes a difference you can feel, if not fully identify.

Their last big release was Evolve, if you remember it, a very good 4 vs 1 monster hunting game that failed to find a long-term audience despite obvious quality and a decent stint as an esport. These are the guys and gals (or a large number of them) responsible for developing Left 4 Dead and its sequel for Valve, and it shows.

Back 4 Blood feels great to play. The guns have weight, and there’s a sense of impact to slicing through mutant heads that has been a little lacking in some of the pretenders. The closed alpha only featured one 4-act scenario, and four of the eight characters promised. Once again, which character you choose makes no difference to the gameplay, and only really affects which voice you’ll hear calling out the arrival of special mutants, incoming hordes, and the weapons and gear you ping for your teammates.

Even more than in Left 4 Dead though, you must work together. Wandering off alone or trying to be a hero will get you killed quickly, and if you’re clumsy enough to startle the flesh-eating crows and trigger a super horde you’ll probably all die. The AI Director returns again, to randomise the placement of loot, rooms in the map, the Safe House and special mutants. But there’s now something of a deck-building element to further increase the randomisation and replayability.

At the start of the scenario and between the Acts you’ll be able to select cards to build your Deck. These may be buffs to your movement or reload speed, or the ability to heal automatically when one of your teammates is in need of reviving. Some of them come with negative effects as a by-product, too, so you’ll need to choose carefully to maximise your effectiveness.

The enemy, so to speak, also has a Deck, which determines which special mutants will spawn as well as certain enemy behaviour. And the special Ridden are tough, although they don’t really do anything we haven’t seen before and there’s nothing quite as creative as the Witch or the Jockey so far. The Snitch, when startled, will trigger a horde; the Retch looks like a tank but is actually mushy, and will explode in a shower of blinding goo. The Tall Boy has a huge club fist, while the multi-limbed Hocker climbs on walls and spits something like webbing at you that must be struck with a melee weapon to remove. And then there’s the Ogre, a Ridden as big as a house that takes everything you have to drive back into the ground.

Whether more will be added in the full game, we don’t know, but it seems likely. After all, Left 4 Dead 2 introduced the Jockey and Charger specifically to punish players for putting their backs to walls or trying to shore up. Back 4 Blood will almost certainly follow suit – especially as, given that we live in the Age of the Live Service, Turtle Rock may add to this for a while following its release.

Another big change is the weapon economy. Instead of simply finding weapons in Safe Rooms, you’ll choose your starting weapon based on a card and upgrade it with Copper earned in the mission. You can add new sights, scopes, extended magazines and butts for stability, but you can only carry two weapons, which includes your melee slot. You’ll use Copper for everything else, too, including first aid kits, bandages, grenades, Molotovs, shareable ammo packs, and defibrillators.

Even this single mission has that same addictive flavour you’ll remember from the Left 4 Dead games, with the random elements adding to the replayability as you work towards the “crescendo event”, which in this case is radioing for help and making it across a destroyed bridge – again, similar to a scenario we’ve seen before but with a few twists to the formula.

There’s a lot of personality here, in the character interactions, the details in the world, the environmental storytelling. And there’s quality too, in the new deck-building element, the movement and ferocity of the horde, and the feel of the weapons and movement. For many, simply having this exact game made by this exact team is enough to sell it regardless, but in a genre that has grown ever more crowded in the long years since Left 4 Dead 2, will that be enough to satisfy everyone? We won’t know that for a while, unfortunately, but what I can tell you right now after a weekend of blasting through the Ridden hordes and failing way more than succeeding, is that Left 4 Dead is back in every way that matters.

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Baldur’s Gate is one of those watercooler games that every RPG fan over a certain age has a memory of. Harking back to a time when BioWare were a new studio, and the heady days of KOTOR and Mass Effect were still ahead of them and Anthem was but a vague curse yet to manifest, Baldur’s Gate is a game credited with making the isometric RPG sexy, or at least not utterly repellent to the object of its desire, which is more than many of us can hope to aspire to.

Having seen a recent re-release on Nintendo Switch, Baldur’s Gate 1 & 2 and the follow-up Icewind Dale, proved two things: firstly, that there is still demand for the universe and format; and secondly, that it really, really needed modernising. Ironically, the new threequel comes not from BioWare (who, let’s face it, need to do some serious damage control if they’re ever to get themselves on anyone’s guest-list again) but from Larian Studios, an outfit that has been indirectly remaking Baldur’s Gate for a couple of decades.

The reasons why this is the best thing that could have happened to this franchise are too numerous to count, but I’ll summarise simply by saying that Larian Studios knows its shit when it comes to CRPGs. The collective behind the ridiculously good Divinity series, it has proven itself more than worthy of shouldering BioWare’s legacy and carrying it into a new generation.

I’ve had the pleasure of playing through a pre-alpha build of the first act of Baldur’s Gate III, and I’m happy to report that, despite some teething issues and a host of complications that will slowly be ironed out during its early access journey, it’s shaping up to be an incredible experience.

Obviously, it’s far too early to review it properly or even really compare it the latest and greatest in the genre (Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire and Wasteland 3 are both incredibly good, and comfortably stand beside Divinity: Original Sin II), but my initial impressions have left me somewhat giddy.

Based in the Forgotten Realms universe and setting its stock upon the 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons Ruleset, Baldur’s Gate III’s early access incarnation has the hallmarks of a thrilling cinematic adventure. As with Divinity II, you can opt to pick from one of five pre-made protagonists or create your own, and have the other five become your party members as you progress. In early access the pre-made characters aren’t available to choose, though you can still meet and recruit them as you work through the campaign.

It begins with an extensive character creation suite, as you choose from a multitude of races, sub-races, classes and specialities, as well as picking an origin story for your custom character. As usual I spent roughly the same amount of time in the character creator as I did in the actual game – but it’s just so much fun. As with many other RPGs, all of these choices matter, from your background to your choice of race. While there’s no magical “correct” combination, NPCs will react differently to you throughout the game dependant on your character’s personality and history.

From here you’re thrown into the story headfirst, as your character awakens imprisoned on a Mindflayer’s sentient ship, with a mind-altering “tadpole” in your brain that will eventually turn you into a Mindflayer yourself. One thing leads to another and the ship crashes, at which point you and the assorted survivors band together to find a cure. It’s worth pointing out here that I missed a recruitable party member in my first playthrough because I didn’t explore thoroughly enough, and later one of the others was killed in a fight before I could even speak to them. Now it could be that both of these things will be different in the full release, but as Larian has promised more party members as we move through the early access period, perhaps not.

Either way, the character themselves are excellent (I’ve fallen in love with Shadowheart, the Half-Elf Dark Cleric), although as yet you can’t respec your party to suit your needs as you can in the similarly built Divinity II. Every character you meet and speak to is fully voiced and motion captured, and the difference this makes to the cutscenes is staggering. While most conversations are static (though there a lot of cinematic cutscenes, a lot of which are placeholder at the moment), the character’s expressions and deliveries are superb. Even with so much unfinished, nothing here feels half-arsed. Larian are pouring everything they have into this and it shows already.

The early access version launches with the first act, which Larian assure us is around 25 hours of play, although it can be experienced in multiple ways with different races, classes, backgrounds and, importantly decisions. Baldur’s Gate III is a decision-heavy game, compounded by the fact that the consequences of your decisions aren’t guaranteed to go the way you want them to. Almost every decision you make has a stat check, whereby a single D20 will determine success or failure, modified by your character’s proficiency in certain skills or knowledge in certain areas.

It’s hard to predict just how deeply this will affect the game, but on multiple occasions I closed off entire quest paths due to a decision made or a fluffed roll, and usually there are no do-overs unless you’re not adverse to save-scumming. And here’s a truth-bomb for you: some of you won’t be able to resist the urge to save-scum when Baldur’s Gate III decides to stick the emotional knife in. When an innocent child is killed because you missed a Persuasion Check, it’s hard to ignore the offer of a mulligan. Because it’s not a game that holds back. It’s mature from the get-go, mixing in body horror, violent deaths, and a smattering of swears like a half-filtered Game of Thrones episode.

Your party members have their own moral alignments and self-justifications, too, and they’ll agree or disagree with your decisions, which can have powerful consequences down the line. They often conflict with one another, which can put you in an awkward position when you want to please everyone. As mentioned, Shadowheart is equal parts adorable and formidable, but all the party members have their time in the sun, and honestly I like all of them so far.

Combat is so far mostly par for the course, lifting an awful lot from Divinity II. It’s turn-based, and uses an action point system and percentage-to-hit like a tactics game. At the moment it feels a little stingy, as you only ever have enough points to move and perform one action, while things like reviving downed teammates uses up all your points in one go and can lead to a frustrating loop of reviving a character only to see them immediately struck down again. It’s a difficult game, and it seems like luck is almost always against you. There will be other difficulties introduced later, but in the build I played I could only use the Classic difficulty and it kicked my arse a lot.

The sheer variety of skills and spells and actions, coupled with what is shaping up to be massive build diversity is really promising. From racial skills and class abilities, to scrolls, consumables and talents, your party can synergise in some truly exciting ways, mixing stealth with explosive magic, raw strength with environmental hazards. As in Divinity II, flames can be applied to your weapons from the environment, while a seemingly unprecedented level of verticality affords tactical advantages to those able to take and hold the high ground.

Outside of combat you’ll explore a huge world filled with dangers, treasures, enemies and NPCs. While you can zoom right out for the classic isometric viewpoint, you can also get close up so it plays almost like a third person action game. A handy jump move will carry you across gaps, and hitting “C” will drop you into a stealthy crouch to avoid enemies or get the drop on them. Setting up camp in the wilds replenishes health and cures most ill statuses, and gives you a chance to chat to your companions a la Dragon Age. And yes, romance is on the cards in certain situations.

Playing Baldur’s Gate III in its “pre-early access” state has had me giddy as a schoolboy, I’m not going to lie, yet in its current condition I’d hesitate to fully recommend it. There’s likely to be a long period of development on the following acts, which will add new storylines, areas, enemies, and party members, as well as untold quality of life improvements, so unless you’re absolutely chomping at the bit to play it, I’d say wait a little while at least.

That said, if you can handle some jank in the tank and don’t mind regular patches – or better yet, you want to give active feedback to Larian to help improve the overall experience, there’s still a lot of content here – more than you’ll get in many full releases. Be aware though, there is some horrendous texture pop-in, sometimes NPCs don’t move their mouths when they speak (which is a shame, as the lip-synching and motion capture is of an unprecedented quality for this genre), and there are bugs and glitches all over the place. If you’re willing to head in knowing this, then you’ll still have a great time, but some may want to wait for the finished product, however long that may be.

It might sound hyperbolic, but Baldur’s Gate III has the potential to raise the bar once set by its progenitor. This is a work in progress, but even in its adolescent state it’s showing glimmers of true greatness. That there is a massive amount of work to do is obvious, and something Larian is very much aware of, but it’s in the best possible hands. It’s far too early to use the word “masterpiece” in earnest, but this is a game that should be on everyone’s radar through 2021.

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One genre that never really seems to go away or diminish in popularity is 4X strategy. It would appear that gamers simply can’t get enough of playing god, whether building sprawling cosmic dynasties or steering a fledgling empire to untold greatness. What’s quite rare to see, though, is a real innovation in this area. I’m not suggesting that the genre has become stale; I’m simply pointing out that most of the conventions found within these games are well-established. If it ain’t broke, don’t take it back to the drawing board and completely overhaul it, as they say.

As with many other genres, the ones most willing to take big risks are the indie developers, those not relying on legions of fans to run out and grab the latest copy of Lord of Empires XII: This Time it’s Personal. The humble indie dev has no one to pander to, and is therefore usually more willing to try something that might not work. Which brings us to Ragnorium, a new sci-fi rogue-lite strategy game that recently entered into Early Access on Steam.

Ragnorium puts you in command of a fledgling colony of clones, a ready-made civilisation starter kit to be deployed like a “just add water” mix to some distant alien world. Every aspect of each colony is under your control, but like any other rogue-lite, a single failure in the face of many, many dangers will see you going right back to the start with only a handful of unlocks and achievements to your name.

Initially, you must build and name your colony ship, assigning four compartments for cargo and clones. Even deciding this has a part to play, as storage space is finite: you could launch four clones with no supplies, which would give you a higher rate of resource gathering once planetside, or just two clones but with two lots of cargo which will make their first few days easier.

Once you reach your procedurally generated destination, you can select a landing spot and deploy your cargo. Your clones will land unconscious and must be woken up and immediately set to work. At this point, it brings survival elements into play, as you must build a fire, gather materials and construct a shelter, research and craft clothing, weapons, medical supplies, and various workbenches. The clones will need somewhere to sleep, to sit, a means to purify their water, cook meat, and store goods they’ve foraged. From the moment you wake them up, Ragnorium is an onslaught of busywork.

Your clones will complain that they’re naked, then that they need shoes, and keeping them happy is integral to keeping them working. Before long you can assign research projects, which will mean either completing jobs in the small settlement you’re creating, or sending your clones out into dangerous alien territory to research ancient sites, local wildlife, indigenous civilisations, or anomalies. They’ll unlock skill points that convey permanent buffs like, for example, higher intelligence or physical resilience, and specific clones will learn specific roles, giving them a higher position in your hierarchy.

The thing is, each of these worlds you’ll attempt to colonise is incredibly hostile. From giant worms and killer alien bears to primitive tribes, disease, inclement weather, and simple rigours like starvation and dehydration, keeping your clones alive can be very difficult. And often I reached a point where I started to feel a little comfortable when, boom, a nearby tribe would decide to rock up and murder everyone in their sleep, or a giant bear would rip through the camp and eat my people.

If you can survive long enough you can call in more clones and more supplies; you’ll research weapons and defences, and soon have a crew of designated hard-asses to go out and do all your exploring. You may have a clone with a high food preparation skill, or one who can craft quicker. They all have names and elements of personality, and each can be individually outfitted and sculpted with skill points and experiences.

Ragnorium is an interesting title. As much a resource-gathering survival game as it is a rogue-lite RPG and a 4X strategy game, the amount of ideas baked in the apparent willingness to take risks and try new things marks it out as one to keep an eye on. I’m not overly keen on the art style, if I’m brutally honest. The aesthetic makes it feel like you’re watching everything through a monitor buzzing with static, which may well be intentional, but doesn’t look great. The UI is also impossibly busy, with boxes all over the screen obscuring half the action, and tightly packed info in various colours that is difficult to understand at a glance. Colours are washed out, the animation is clunky, and the clones have really weird faces. Also, the male clones walk around with great big todgers that just made me feel inadequate.

My insecurities notwithstanding, Ragnorium has massive potential. Having only dabbled with its Early Access incarnation it’s hard to tell exactly how deep the rabbit hole goes in terms of researching technology and developing each colony, as often my attempts were cut short by the harsh realities of life on an alien world, but there’s scope here for a very deep and emergent experience. The AI needs a tweak here and there, though, as clones can be disobedient or can simply take an age to get moving when they’re given a task.

Graphically, Ragnorium could use some work, and the AI and UI need attention, but this is early access after all, and the gameplay I’ve seen so far is a solid foundation for things to come.

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I’m mildly surprised that it’s taken this long for another game to step directly into the ring with Disco Elysium, but at first glance it would appear that Gamedec is doing just that. Using a similar viewpoint and a variety of unique-ish character progression systems, it styles you as a “game detective” in a cyberpunk world where people escape for hours or even days at a time into fully immersive video games.

Although each of these games has its own set of clearly defined rules and regulations, there are nevertheless those who use them to commit crimes. Anything goes in the alternate world of Virtualium, and people can be tempted or coerced into doing things they wouldn’t consider in real life. Bribery, blackmail, extortion, identity theft, fraud, they’re all crimes that can be committed inside games, not to mention good old fashioned theft and murder. A Gamedec’s job is to solve these crimes both inside and outside of Virtualium.

The case presented in the demo is called “Twisted & Perverted” which gives an indication of which kind of virtual worlds we’ll be exploring. It focuses on the teenage son of sleazy businessman-slash-criminal Geoffrey Haggis, who has been trapped in Virtualium in an almost permanent state of arousal for four days. Unable to wake his son without risking permanent damage or trauma, Haggis has hired you to pull the lad out of whatever grimy hole he’s got himself stuck in.

Initially you begin by choosing a background and former profession for your Gamedec. Although these choices have futuristic names they have practical applications that will serve you well in one way or another throughout Gamedec. A Glazier, for example, can erect and destroy firewalls and has extensive knowledge of hacking and virtual security, while a Scalpel is a former real-world surgeon, and a Sleeve spent time as a physical enforcer. Throughout the case these “classes” help to unlock different routes through investigations and while exploring the world, as the Gamedec calls upon his expertise to make deductions and inform his questioning.

Your main task is information gathering. The first thing you need to do is program the virtual assistant in your office, who will either be male or female (the latter being a heavily sexualised Cortana-lookalike, obviously) who you can then choose to be intelligent, playful, or flirtatious. What impact this stuff will have going forward I don’t know, because it has zero bearing on events in the demo after leaving your apartment.

Once you reach Haggis’ penthouse suite, the investigation begins. You’ll find his son Fredo still hooked up to the game using a state-of-the-art chair and suit designed to stimulate muscles, mitigate bodily waste, regulate temperature and emulate real-world feelings and experiences. Opposite is a hooker, also still wired up, who has been in Virtualium for seventeen hours. Upon talking to Tommy, Fredo’s friend who’s still waiting Nervously in Haggis’ office, you’ll learn that the boys went into Virtualium looking for some excitement in a world called Paradise Beach, but were soon tempted by the no-limits thrills of Twisted & Perverted, a dark world through which the hooker, Starlett, was to be their guide.

The first leg of the investigation involves talking to a noncompliant Haggis and communicating with Starlett inside Virtualium, whilst also trying to coax info out of Tommy. Some conversations are furnished with a slider that moves right or left based on whether or not you’re getting through to the subject. If you can get them on-side and push the slider all the way right, they’ll open up, giving you clues and info that allow you to make Deductions and further the investigation. You can attempt to wake Starlett and pull her out of the game, but failure to do so will leaver her comatose.

You can also hack secret compartments on Haggis’ office or access his virtual safe and email accounts to dish dirt. You can even “free” his AI assistant if you’re a Glazier, which allows her to roam Virtualium forever. She might even help you out later. Once you have the information you need, you’ll have no choice but to strap into Haggis’s spare chair and go retrieve his son from Twisted & Perverted.

Taking the form of a dingy network of back alleys, T&P features a bunch of fetishists hanging around on street corners. There’s a guy looking for his wife, a dude who died in the real world while under, and has lived in Twisted & Perverted ever since. There’s even a prankster unicorn offering some weird pleasures and trolling everyone he can. To get the info you need you’ll often have to do jobs or favours for the NPCs first.

The more questions you ask, the more deductions you’ll unlock, which mark your route through the case and open up new lines of questioning. At present there’s no voiced dialogue, and while the writing is decent it doesn’t have the same level of quality as its closest rival. It also may purely be down to this particular case, but the content in the demo is very sexually focused. Character portraits look straight out of a fetish club catalogue, which is kind of the point I guess, but right now it’s a little lacking in atmosphere.

There’s also a lot of jargon to get your head around in Gamedec, with terminology for the technology and all its various elements. The full game promises different player characters (or at least skins), and a branching, changeable storyline that reacts to your choices. In the demo the path is a little more rigid, but whether there will be an overarching story and how much bearing it will have on each case remains to be seen.

One cool element is how you can use the rules of Virtualium to your advantage. At one point we got stuck behind a burning car with no way over, but a handy mine in a dumpster killed us so we could respawn on the other side. The presence of the mine in the dumpster was contrived and overly convenient, admittedly, but it was a decent example of how it will work.

We’ve also yet to see how the world looks as a whole. Character interactions were limited in what I played and most of the conversation was a little one-note (I mean, everyone in Twisted & Perverted is pretty much that). Also, the end of the case had some pretty disturbing imagery which simply won’t be easy for some players to watch, even if the level of detail isn’t particularly high.

Gamedec has the potential to be deep and repayable, but as it stands it could struggle to find an audience. The writing isn’t brilliant, but the world and concept are intriguing, and the possibilities afforded by Virtualium are many and varied. Some will be turned off by the content of Twisted & Perverted, others will see the funny side of horny unicorns and a guy who can’t keep up with his sexually adventurous wife, but what more will come with the full release we just don’t know. What we do know for sure is that it won’t be predictable, and that can only be a good thing.

The post Gamedec preview | An intriguing cyberpunk detective experience appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

I’m going to be upfront right away here: I enjoyed every minute I played of the Marvel Avengers beta. Before you get all uppity, though, bear in mind the following three facts: One, I’m a bit of a Marvel nerd; Two, I’m easily pleased when it comes to explosions (yes, I like Michael Bay movies); and Three, I went into this beta with very, very low expectations.

To say I wasn’t overly impressed by the reveal last year is like saying Endgame made a few quid at the box office. I didn’t like the look of the Avengers game, nor the sound, nor the concept. So it’s fair to say I needed some convincing – but knock me down with an Asgardian hammer if I’m not just a little bit more convinced after the beta.

It’s the gameplay loop I enjoyed most. Smash bad guys, break boxes, pick up loot, level up, repeat. But I found the locales to be detailed and good looking, I like the fact that most of it is destructible, and I think the character models are solid, even if the game does look like a collection of scenes from the movies that they had to shoot with the stunt doubles. In many ways – far too many, for some – it reminded me of Destiny. There’s even a “gear score” which feels completely arbitrary, and once again has no real-world applications because you won’t understand how it’s calculated. These things are like corporate bonus calculations or lottery spending, in that you’re not meant to understand them, you just have to accept that what you’re being told means something.

You suit up, pick your hero (or heroes, in most missions), select an activity from the “War Table”, and the Quinjet drops you off at your destination, where you’re required to destroy everything that moves, follow objective markers and loot everything that isn’t bolted to the concrete. So, like I said, it’s got a very Destiny feel to it.

The characters though, are cool and pretty well built. Each has a variety of unlockable moves and powers; they have traversal abilities, ranged and melee attacks, and three Hero Abilities on cool down that are universally awesome. Captain America, sadly absent after the intro due to story reasons, is great fun to play with. Iron Man and Thor can fly, Hulk can throw himself around like a wrecking ball, bounding from wall to wall, Kamala Khan can swing on her weird stretchy limbs, and Black Widow has a grappling hook.

Once you’re in a room full of goons or robots and there’s more than one of you playing (or you bought some AI bots to the party instead), it gets very, very messy. Performance was fairly steady, but the screen was busier than Picadilly Circus during the bigger encounters and, while the action is satisfyingly punchy, the target lock is as much use as a cardboard garden hose since it disengages itself more often than Katy Perry.

The thing is though, I wonder if people are expecting too much from this game. While titles like Marvel’s Spider-Man or the Arkham games can laser focus on one hero and their particular stable of nasties, an ensemble title like Avengers is different. Concessions have to be made to get everyone moving at the same speed and with a balanced experience, and Crystal Dynamics have largely achieved that. Playing as Hulk feels very different to playing as Black Widow and yet both are equally useful in a fight, bringing trademark moves, styles, outfits and animations that mark them as completely separate entities – and that’s an impressive thing in a game with so much going on.

Only after a solid length of time with the full game will we know how much content it has, but while the campaign missions felt enjoyable, with some impressive cutscenes and a couple of serviceable – if a little straightforward – boss fights, the side content feels a bit tacked on. Dropping into a mission with three other players to literally fight a room full of enemies before being told the mission was accomplished was pretty underwhelming – to the point where I began to wonder if this wouldn’t have worked better as a straight story campaign with a bit of multiplayer tacked on instead of a live service model.

The live service element is what will turn a lot of people off, too. Each Marvel Avengers character has their own battle pass-style progression tree, and though we can’t see in the beta how this will be monetised, there is definitely a premium currency involved, which means real money. Each pass unlocks a variety of things from skins to emotes, but nothing essential to the game itself. In fact, while the skins are expected in a super hero game, they do conflict with the loot system. When I’m picking up vests and bangles and Odin-knows-what from loot chests, I want to see evidence that I’m equipping them. Unfortunately, likely in service to the skins you’re supposed to grind or pay for, this doesn’t happen.

Also, Crystal Dynamics’ versions of some of the characters are hit and miss. I like Banner in this, riffing as he does off Mark Ruffalo’s awkward performance in the movies, and Natasha comes off well, too. Thor, though, sounds bloody awful. Like, “Chris Hemsworth in Snow White and the Huntsman” awful. And Stark and Cap just feel… off. But maybe that’s just because of the MCU. It didn’t matter that Sony’s Spider-Man wasn’t Tom Holland, because we’re used to seeing Peter Parker sporting different faces all the time. I don’t like Kamala much, though. They over play the giggling fangirl persona so much that it becomes irritating and, quite often, out of place to the point of being inappropriate. Be excited to see Nick Fury, by all means, but not when you think he could be leaving you a message from beyond the grave. That’s not the time for gushy fangirling and it’s irritating. Also, if I’m honest, her power is just weird and cartoony and not particularly cool at all.

There were a lot of elements in the Marvel Avengers beta that I really liked, though. I liked poking around in the Chimera, snooping in Bruce Banner’s bedroom, I liked the level of fan service paid to those who are going to look for it. And I like the movement in missions, the feel of the combat and the variety of powers. I’ll enjoy unlocking skins and mixing up my team of heroes, and I look forward to seeing who else gets added to the roster. But I can’t help but feel that people are going to come at this game ready for a fight, ready to pick it apart for faults they’d ignore elsewhere. Sometimes, you have to let something exist on its own terms.

From what I’ve played, Avengers isn’t trying to be the “new” anything; it’s an action game set in its own version of an established universe that wants to entertain first and foremost, that sets out its stall early with a bombastic, over-the-top, knowingly clichéd action sequence and then just does more of the same, which, let’s face it, is what its source material has done for almost a decade. If you’re trying to tell me the MCU is a franchise made for thinkers, you’re kidding yourself.

Either way, there’s not long left until the full release, and the Marvel Avengers beta has given me a slightly cautious thirst for more. It’s not perfect, and it’s too early to tell if it has the legs to carry it, but I genuinely enjoyed everything I played, and I’m looking forward to seeing what else Crystal Dynamics can do with this universe.

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It’s hard to really get a feel for what Star Renegades will be from just the few hours I spent with the demo. Barely lasting past an hour itself, even repeated playthroughs of the two levels shown can only scratch the surface of what promises to be a unique and emergent turn-based RPG. The few missions available are unable to showcase the 45+ playable characters, the extent of the relationship system, or the scope of the procedurally-generated campaign. But I’ll tell you one thing: it’s got my attention.

Set in a galaxy plunged into inter-dimensional war, Star Renegades follows warrior Wynn Syphex, who gets shot down in the opening battle and witnesses her brother killed by the invaders. Wynn is sought out by Professor Zurek, who’s counterpart in another dimension has already witnessed the destruction of her world and sent her robot J5-T1N across dimensions to warn other galaxies.

At present it’s hard to know exactly how divergent the campaign will be, but the missions are dynamic and procedural, and the huge host of characters and classes (there are 13 classes in total) gave me serious flashbacks to Suikoden, one of my favourite JRPG series of all time. What seems likely is the small details will change, but the overall story will flow in the same direction each playthrough; it’ll just break around different obstacles every time.

An enemy hierarchy system seems borrowed from grander titles like Shadow of Mordor, whereby your opponent’s force will shift and change dependant on your successes, failures, and choices. A throneroom view enables you to appraise the enemy, watch its generals get promoted or replaced, and select your primary target. It’s not altogether new, but its inclusion in a turn-based RPG like Star Renegades feels fresh.

Combat follows a Reactive Time Battle System, which is a fancy way of saying you have an initiative meter that your party and opponents are spaced along based on which attacks or abilities you’ve chosen. The cool element in Star Renegades is that you can interrupt your opponents or counter their attacks before they make them, allowing you to disrupt their plans and even move along the meter. For example, if you can get an attack in before an enemy has a chance to launch theirs you haver a high chance of scoring a critical hit and “breaking” them, reducing their armour and forcing them back along the meter.

It’s a system that makes every battle feel different, and makes the composition of your team hugely important. Fill your squad with slow, heavy-hitters and you may well deal damage, but you’ll rarely get the chance to land crits or interrupt the enemy. Likewise, only specific characters can restore health or shields, while some can damage multiple enemies at once or use buffs and debuffs to influence the battlefield.

Beyond the combat, exploration and enemy evolution, interpersonal relationships may also be different for each player. Characters who fight together and interact during downtime between missions will form bonds. These bonds not only unlock combo attacks that can be executed once per fight for devastating damage, but can also lead to deeper relationships and children who, when grown, will become playable characters too because Star Renegades’ story spans multiple generations.

So, sure, it’s hard to appreciate or predict the ultimate scope of Star Renegades based on such a short demo, but everything about it feels ambitious and interesting. The animation is gorgeous, the muted pallet and inventive characters creating an art style that feels oddly familiar but somehow unique at the same time. It’s battle system is not the easiest to get to grips with, but it won’t take long to understand its intricacies. And I should say right away that the dialogue at this point isn’t voiced, so that’s lots of reading if it stays this way. But while some of the writing is a little on the cheesy side, it has a sense of light-hearted camaraderie and space-age derring-do about that will endear a lot of people – particularly fans of anime sci-fi.

Although I played the demo on Steam, Star Renegades is coming to consoles too, including the Nintendo Switch. I’ve got to be honest: that’s where I’m most excited to play it. Regardless of platform, though, Star Renegades is guaranteed to turn heads when it’s released later this year.

The post Is Star Renegades the next great turn-based RPG? | Preview appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

The New Game Plus Expo digital showcase is currently being shown on Twitch featuring announcements and gameplay from many publishers including Sega, Atlus, NIS America, Koei Tecmo America, Aksys Games, and more. Aksys Games’ announcements and reveals for the event include release windows for the many otome games for Nintendo Switch, Tin and Kuna, the reveal of Pretty Princess Party for Nintendo Switch, and more.

The otome games shown at the event include Collar X Malice Unlimited which is the follow up to Collar X Malice. Collar X Malice unlimited releases this August for Nintendo Switch bringing new play modes, content, and more to the world of Collar X Malice. This is the first time Collar X Malice Unlimited is releasing in English.

Piofiore: Fated Memories for Nintendo Switch arrives this October. The otomate developed game features Liliana Adoronato who is in the middle of three criminal organizations in the city. This is another otome game never released before in English that will see a release in the West on Nintendo Switch.

Tin and Kuna is a 3D puzzle exploration game for PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC arriving in October from blackriver studios in a colourful world. Originally set for just Fall 2020, Tin and Kuna arrives this October on all platforms. Watch the trailer below:

Cafe Enchante is the final otome game showcased at the event and it has you inheriting your grandfather’s cafe in Tokyo where you meet beings from different worlds including the king of demons. Cafe Enchante arrives on Nintendo Switch this November.

Pretty Princess Party is a new game set for Nintendo Switch release this December. It is a simulation game from Nippon Columbia and Aksys Games with more than a thousand items to use to decorate the caste’s various rooms.

What was your favourite reveal from the New Game Plus Expo today?

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Simplicity can be awfully deceptive. As a tactic in warfare, making one’s enemy believe you’re little more than a simpleton when in fact you’ve spent considerable time, energy, money, and expendable manpower laying an incredibly devious trap is very clever and effective. That is, as long as you know your limitations and, of course, aren’t in fact a simpleton.

Total Tank Simulator from Noobz From Poland, as an example, is very good at looking simple while simultaneously being a super clever little bugger with a lot more going on than an outsider might suspect. It’s also full of blocky colourful tanks, tiny identikit soldiers and paper-craft environments, all of which conspire to disguise the fact that it is an absolute engine of death and war and carnage. Seriously, the bodycount in this game is nothing short of staggering.

I had a moment during one match that reminded of that bit in Saving Private Ryan where the shellshocked soldier is wandering around looking for someone to reattach his severed arm, as all around me my compatriots were reduced to squibs, exploding tanks showered me with twinkling shrapnel like confetti, and a fighter plane screamed overhead, trailing black smoke like party streamers before slamming into a nearby farmhouse.

But, y’know, all colourful and twee.

Essentially Total Tank Simulator is a fast-paced RTS. Matches take place between various nations and comprise of a planning phase where you position your tanks, troops, planes, artillery, etc, and then a battle phase, where both sides proceed to blast the absolute snot out of one another until one is nought but a collection of smears on yonder hillside. You are able to zoom around the battlefield like a disembodied ghost, watching the action unfold below like a morbidly fascinated albatross, or get right into the thick of the fight.

Initially, this had me a little confused. I thought all I had to do was position my army and watch the battle transpire. As I went in all cocky and condescending and didn’t bother with the tutorial, I had no idea that clicking the right mouse button would transplant me directly into the driver’s seat slash cockpit slash cranium of any unit I moused over. I found myself staring down the barrel of an unfortunate infantryman’s rifle, for about 30 seconds. As no unit lasts very long, I was spat out fairly quickly like an apostate spirit and left to look for the next doomed wretch to possess in the roaring heat of bloody conflict.

Jumping into any unit presents you with a suite of controls. You can drive tanks, fly planes, run around as a rifleman, a sniper, a flamethrower unit; you can drive the repair truck or man the anti-air artillery. It’s not just rudimentary stuff, either. For instance, soldiers have first aid kits and grenades, back-up melee weapons, and Molotov cocktails. There’s a lot going on, a lot to get to grips with, and very little time to settle in before something is shooting at you or bombing you.

The beta only allowed play as either Germany or the USSR, but offered a taste of the campaign as well as Shadow Mode and Sandbox Mode. Sandbox in particular is fun, as you can select your biome, terrain, number of opponents, and how much money you begin with, which in turn determines how many troops and vehicles you can field.

In-between matches you can spend currency unlocking new units or upgrading existing ones, as well as hiring Officers to help direct the flow of combat and make your units stronger or more durable.

Total Tank Simulator, then, is an enjoyable, highly addictive little strategy game that hides its depth and intelligence behind a veneer of bright colours and charming papercraft. For anyone who likes a nice, loud ruck or, indeed, aficionados of large-scale tactical warfare in general, TTS is absolutely one to watch.

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I played an alpha build of Tainted Grail, a grimdark RPG from Awaken Realms, based on the boardgame of the same name that was the most successful kickstarter campaign of 2018. In this dark wreimagining of ancient Britain, King Arthur is lost, the Knights of the Round Table are scattered or dad, and the land of Avalon is falling to ruin at the mercy of the Wyrd, a dark cloud of evil and madness covering the land. The nights are long and dark, crops don’t grow and everyone who comes into contact with the Wyrd goes insane. Only the power of the Guardian Menhirs, ancient edificies erected by the legendary wizard Merlin, hold the growing tide of darkness at bay.

With no more heroes left to fight, it falls to a handful of untrained souls to band together and save the land. It combines Baldur’s Gate style exploration and player choice with deck-building combat, and its dark, unforgiving world oozes with atmosphere. There’s no concrete release date yet, but this is an early build and there’s lots more info and additions to come. As it stands, Tainted Grail has heaps of potential and could be a surprise hit for Awaken Realms.

This early build has only two characters, the burly smith Beor denied his place with the heroes due to a mysterious wound, and Ailei, an outcast apothecary shunned by the townsfolk of Cuanacht. At present both characters are identical in all but appearance, though we can expect greater variety in characters, gear, cards and tactics when the full game finally comes to Steam later on in the year.

In the meantime, check out the video preview below to get a peek at the world-building, combat and gameplay on offer:

Tainted Grail will be available on Steam some time in 2020.

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I know my way around a battle royale, but I must admit that my first foray into Planetside Arena was a bit of a confusing mess. There were large squads that simply abandoned one another the moment their drop pods hit dirt, there were Destiny-like hover bikes that could be summoned at the touch of a button, there were orbital strikes that instantly killed anyone unfortunate enough to be caught in their blast radius, and there were even tanks later on, for some reason. I was left utterly bewildered.

Before dropping on a random location, you spend time in the hangar of a starship, practicing your aim alongside your squad as the server populates. You can try out each of the three classes, fathoming out their individual special abilities and generally trying to work out how to play the game. Once you’re dropped planetside, that’s when the confusion begins. Unlike other battle royale games, you start already tooled up with weapons, instead finding upgrades around the map, as well as nanite. I initially had no idea why I was collecting this stuff (the game tells you nothing, going in) but eventually discovered that it could be spent during the match to gain access to rarer loot or even to respawn fallen teammates.

I’d never played Planetside before, which is apparently known for its massive-scale battles with hundreds of players. Dropping into Planetside Arena’s squads mode, with up to 25 teams of 12 all competing for position on the huge map, up to 300 people battling it out to stay in the ever-decreasing circles, is as chaotic as it sounds. Especially when orbital strikes and tanks are thrown into the mix. Even in early access, I was still impressed by how well the servers handled it all. I experienced no lag at all during my time with the game. I never actually saw a full server, but that’s likely due to it only just going free-to-play in Early Access.

It’s clear that there is still work to be done on the game, too. While there are plenty of rewards to be unlocked through loot boxes (yes, I’m aware that’s basically a dirty word, these days), duplicates are pretty common. Too common. The code we were given gave us access to the Legendary Edition, which unlocks 200 standard loot boxes to open up. Duplicates were already showing up within the first 15-20 of those boxes and, although I didn’t record the exact numbers, I would say that around half of those first 15-20 included at least one repeat offender. Those are some poor odds, which continued throughout the 100 or so that I opened. There’s only so many times you can watch an excitable robot unpack those things.

Unlocks in loot boxes aren’t just cosmetic either, as you can find weapon and suit mods that offer combat bonuses in-game. Not to mention new weapons with small improvements to their stats. Nothing too drastic, but it’s difficult to excuse any kind of advantages being dished out in this kind of game. Hopefully this is the sort of thing that this Early Access period will help to fix, but I’m not sure it’s something that can simply be removed from the game without major changes throughout.

Advantages can even be gained when you’ve dropped into the game. I’m not talking about the weapon upgrades you find in lieu of actual new guns, but things like armoured vehicles and actual tanks. Yes, tanks. These appear part way through matches and usually change everything. Not necessarily for the better. Not just because you might be on the receiving end of a tank’s shells, but because it feels completely unbalanced.

This is partly down to the player base being made up of already seasoned Planetside players, and partly down to the way you’re already tooled up before you even land on the battlefield. Battle royale games are often fun because everyone starts with nothing, but Arena sending players in with a full (and often upgraded) arsenal, then adding in tanks and vastly overpowered abilities like orbital strikes, just isn’t friendly to new players. Being able to go in with unlocked mods and better weapons just makes it even more beginner-unfriendly. There’s a very real danger that Planetside Arena will become a pay-to-win game and that is something Daybreak Game Company will need to address.

The actual gameplay is solid, which makes it doubly frustrating when the game is so impenetrable. It’s not pretty, looking like an early 2000s PC game, but the map does have plenty of different areas to explore and fight through. When playing, each class has its own special abilities on the F and 5 keys, such as the engineer’s auto turret and deployable shield or the medic’s healing bubble. A good team will use these things and combine them to devastating effect, and teamwork is essential, making it all the more annoying when your teammates run off in separate directions and then wonder why they’re not doing very well.

Planetside Arena is frustrating to play at best, completely unbalanced and impenetrable at worst. There’s potential for a good, new take on the battle royale formula, but not while the game offers paid advantages that remove all accessibility for new players. If you’re a Planetside player already, you’ll probably be right at home in Arena, but if you’re not, you’ll probably struggle. That’s what Early Access is for, and hopefully Daybreak Game Company uses the period to smooth out the problems and make Planetside Arena the fun shooter it could be. That’s how it will gain the wider audience that a battle royale game needs to survive.

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Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night from ArtPlay and 505 Games, was released recently on Xbox One, PS4, PC and Nintendo Switch. You can check out our review of it here, in which I said:

“Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is an incredibly well-made adventure, and a heartfelt ode to games long past. More than that though, it feels like a potential gateway to a new era of Castlevania games that could cherry pick elements from half a dozen other genres and present themselves with a modern sheen to appeal to a broad spectrum of ages and skill levels. While it at times struggles to keep up with itself and there are elements of frustration here and there, the overall package is immensely playable and lovingly made.”

Or checkout the video review here:

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Now that the dust has settled on another year of big announcements, CGI trailers, nice surprises and not-so-nice disappointments, the internet has had its say on E3 2019. The verdict? Lacklustre, apparently.

Although I’m inclined to agree, at least as far as some of the biggest names go, I couldn’t help but be drawn into the hype and the fun of the whole show. It’s the same every year and you know what? I bloody love it. I love the build-up, as we all throw our hats into the ring, trying to predict what will be shown and when that big game will finally arrive. This year’s pre-show was even better, with several games announced before the conferences even got underway. We had Death Stranding’s release date arriving with that almighty, eight-minute-long trailer that still managed to give nothing away. We had the surprise of the Darksiders Genesis reveal, brought to us by some of the series’ original creators at Airship Syndicate. We even got the long-awaited news that the creator of the stunning Divinity: Original Sin 2, Larian Studios, is making Baldur’s Gate 3! It might not be arriving anytime in the near future, but it’s still darned exciting.

When the show’s conferences began, or lack thereof in the case of this year’s EA Play, we finally got to see the gameplay for Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, which looks like it takes plenty of cues from The Force Unleashed, something I can certainly get behind. Yes, I’d still prefer a protagonist that wasn’t your usual human dude, but the post-Order 66 Star Wars era has so much potential and I hope Respawn does it justice. Those folks know what they’re doing when it comes to action games, so I’m quietly confident Fallen Order will deliver when it launches in November.

You know what else I love? The pre-Xbox chatter. Every year, before the Xbox, Nintendo and Sony (well, not them this year) shows, the social medias are buzzing with excitement for what the “big three” will announce. Yes okay, there are still an uncomfortably large number of people that still subscribe to the whole “console wars” thing, and love nothing more than to take shots at their perceived “enemies,” despite some of them declaring that they’re not fanboys of one particular console or another, but thankfully almost all of the people on my Twitter feed are decent folk who simply love games and want to be excited by them.

Deep down, I want to believe that most people enjoy the excitement and promise of what each first party might show, and I’m very rarely disappointed on that front. So when Xbox began announcing games left, right and centre, it was great to see the buzz online. Games like Minecraft Dungeons (still amazing to think that Microsoft is making multiplatform games) and Spiritfarer, both drawing “oohs” and “ahhs” like a circus performance; the almost unbearably delightful announcement of Forza Horizon 4’s LEGO DLC that had me grinning like a little kid, and last year’s acquisition, Ninja Theory, announcing its new PvP hero title Bleeding Edge. Okay, that one was leaked beforehand and honestly, it was disappointing to see a studio renowned for its storytelling moving away from that to pursue multiplayer stuff. Still, it’s always great to see Ninja Theory’s new games and it’s yet more proof that it’s a developer constantly pushing itself to try new things. You have to respect and admire that.

On a much more personal note, despite not really being an advocate for the next generation just yet, the Project Scarlett news and in particular that beautiful Halo: Infinite trailer and announcement that it would be a launch title for Microsoft’s next Xbox in Holiday 2020, really got me. The idea that I may get a new Xbox with a very shiny new Halo game (and probably a new Forza) was a sudden and surprisingly exciting prospect. I mean, that Halo trailer. Chills. Excuse me a moment while I go watch it again.

Of course, without Sony it was a strange E3, like something was missing. Still, Nintendo certainly didn’t skimp on the games and surprises, helping to fill the void of PlayStation’s absence. My Twitter feed was going crazy at the first appearance of Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and rightly so. Tom Nook will once again own our asses in March 2020. I know we wanted it this year, but with a more invigorated team under less pressure, I think we can all appreciate what Nintendo is doing and we certainly know that we’re going to buy Animal Crossing on the Switch, regardless of when it arrives. It’s Animal Crossing, for goodness sake.

I love how Nintendo brings out the child in all of us, how we all made heart-eyes at the sight of that adorable Link’s Awakening Amiibo, and seeing Gooigi had us smiling until our cheeks hurt. The Duck Hunt dog’s appearance, before fan favourites Banjo-Kazooie pulled the old switcheroo, announcing their appearance in Smash Bros., was masterful. But in the same Nintendo Direct, CD Projekt RED’s phenomenal The Witcher 3 was revealed to be coming to Nintendo’s hybrid console, in a move that makes us all wonder just what (s)witchcraft is being performed to get it running on hardware that seems rather underpowered. What little we saw, however, made it look surprisingly good!

Speaking of CD Projekt RED, how about Keanu Reeves announcing Cyberpunk 2077’s release date, as well as his appearance in the game? A breathtaking move, you might say. Normally, celebrity appearances are a bit cringey to say the least, but Keanu’s recent re-emergence into the spotlight and his genuinely nice personality earned him the most memorable moment of the entire show. He had fun on Microsoft’s stage, the crowd loved it, and it brought a real warmth to the evening. That warmth continued, with Tango Gameworks’ Ikumi Nakamura capturing the hearts of everyone watching the otherwise dull Bethesda show, as she enthusiastically announced her new game Ghostwire Tokyo. Ubisoft got in on the action too, with Jon Bernthal bringing his dog Bam Bam onto the stage during his Ghost Recon: Breakpoint appearance. Bam Bam was a very good boy, upstaging the whole Ubisoft show.

Ubisoft was arguably one of the biggest disappointments of E3 2019, showing a bunch of brown shooters and CGI trailers, not to mention a strange mashup mobile game featuring Sam Fisher, which didn’t go down too well with Splinter Cell fans whose patience is wearing very thin at this point. I also have a huge problem with Rainbow Six: Quarantine, as it strays well away from Tom Clancy’s original vision. Yes, it’s an expansion of the limited-time event from Rainbow Six: Siege, but could have easily been made into a new IP instead of once again relying on the Tom Clancy name.

Still, in a bid to keep this positive, Ubisoft did start strong with its extended gameplay debut of the impressive-looking Watch_Dogs Legion, and ended with the tantalising tease of Gods and Monsters, the stylised new mythology-based game from the team that gave us Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey. I cannot wait to get more info on that.

This article wasn’t meant to be a look back at the show, but there were so many great games shown that I needed to talk about them a little bit. But that’s the point, isn’t it? We all talked about them, as we do every year. We get excited about the big AAA games like Halo, and we remain passionate about the games that disappoint us, sometimes by their absence (I’m looking at you, Ubisoft). We love the big surprises and some of the fun talking points like Keanu Reeves. We love publishers like Devolver Digital and their insane branding, all the while bringing genuinely brilliant-looking games into the spotlight, usually by small developers that deserve to be seen.

E3 is certainly going through some changes, with EA’s reduced appearance and Sony’s total absence this year, and 2019 especially felt a little like a transition as we wait for the concrete announcements of next generation consoles. That said, this year’s release schedule now looks a whole lot more enticing and the beginning of 2020 looks like it’s going to have a bigger Q1-2 than ever. Before the show, I was in a bit of a gaming funk, as we all go through now and again, unable to really find any interest in anything. I went back to older games, as new stuff didn’t bother me and while I looked forward to E3, I couldn’t see much beyond that for me to care about. Thankfully, while many saw E3 2019 as a disappointment, I still revelled in its bombast – and my faith in 2019’s games was restored.

No matter what others see in the show, it always manages to excite me. Which is exactly why I still love E3.

The post Opinion | Why I still love E3 appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

This year’s E3 has been an odd one, hasn’t it? The big conferences were a mixed bag, with Microsoft and Nintendo delivering a lot of fan favourites and just tonnes of games, but the likes of Bethesda and Ubisoft being big disappointments. In amongst it all, there were a few gems from smaller studios that may have got lost in the melee. A few of them came via the PC Gaming Show, which often gets a bit overlooked, so you may have missed them.

If you’ve been following our E3 2019 coverage, you’ll have seen some wonderful opinion pieces by the Chrises, Mick and some from the returning Calvin. I chose not to focus on the biggest games and publishers however, deciding instead to focus my energies on some of the smaller titles that debuted at this year’s show.

Here are six of those games…

Unexplored 2: The Wayfarer’s Legacy – by Ludomotion (PC)

Quite honestly, I suspect you’ve not heard of Unexplored. I hadn’t. But when the trailer ran during the PC Gaming Show, the sort of low-poly, cel shaded visual style and the top-down, pulled-back camera is something I really like (it was the first thing that drew me to that original Below reveal) and I was well into the look of Unexplored 2.

A roguelike adventure, with a Legacy system that will see the game changing for each adventurer. Like Rogue Legacy and Swords of Ditto, death in Unexplored 2 will see a new adventurer continuing the quest to destroy the Staff of Yendor. The decisions and actions of their predecessor however, will affect the world for the next adventurer. Killing hostile wildlife may allow a village to expand, or a conquering army may ravage areas and make the game harder in later playthroughs.

Okay, it has survival elements (why do games insist on adding these?) that may eventually turn me off the game, but right now I’m really intrigued by this. Definitely one to watch.

Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout – by Mediatonic (PS4, PC)

I used to love Takeshi’s Castle. The absolute insanity of its setting and the ridiculously entertaining games, not to mention the almost slapstick nature of the comic violence when someone slams into a wall or does the splits during the stepping stone game, with a misstep. I also love Devolver Digital, as the publisher seems to always bring incredibly fun games to us, while never being predictable.

Thus, Mediatonic’s Fall Guys does something that I’m surprised hasn’t really been done before, bringing the Takeshi’s Castle formula to us via the Battle Royale genre. Going through various stages, each reducing the player count further during mad games, and all using a physics-based system like Gang Beasts and Human Fall Flat, for maximum hilarity.

Fall Guys looks like it could be the colourful, non-shooter game that the Battle Royale genre sorely needs.

Circuit Superstars – by Original Fire Games (PS4, Xbox One, Switch, PC)

Racing games are totally my thing. As you may recall from earlier in this article, so is the top-down perspective. Circuit Superstars, revealed during the PC Gaming Show, combines the two, bringing a surprisingly sim-like physics model along for the ride.

There will be motorsport disciplines from different ages, with classic and modern GT cars shown off in the trailer, complete with strategic pit stops, and I am incredibly excited by the prospect of Circuit Superstars. There may not be much known so far, but this one was easily one of the nicest surprises of the show.

Conan Chop Chop – by Mighty Kingdom (PS4, Xbox One, Switch, PC)

Another nice surprise, especially after Funcom showed yet another strange take on the Conan universe in its RTS Conan Unconquered, was that its apparent April Fool’s joke, Conan Chop Chop, was actually real all along!

A one-to-four player action-adventure, Conan Chop Chop combines stick figures and roguelike elements to create a comically ultraviolent hack and slasher that looks extremely entertaining. Okay, so it’s not exactly in keeping with the licence, but it does look fun.

Chivalry II – by Torn Banner (PC)

The original Chivalry was ace. It was also criminally overlooked, especially as it brought something a little different to the competitive multiplayer arena. It wasn’t full of guns and killstreaks, or heroes and special abilities, instead it simply gave you a choice of classes and sent you out to hack your way to victory in pitched medieval battles.

Chivalry II, currently only slated for release on PC via the Epic Games Store, looks to turn up the intensity and scale, with the trailer showing off sieges and the newly-added horses. I’m incredibly excited to see Chivalry making its return, and I’ll be keeping my eye on its development. I just hope my PC can handle it, or that a console version is announced, though that’s unlikely.

Unless you all start buying and playing the original on PS4 and Xbox One…

Spiritfarer – by Thunder Lotus (PS4, Xbox One, Switch, PC)

Alright, so you probably did see this one. It was unveiled during the Xbox briefing, after all. The latest from the studio that gave us Jotun and Sundered, Spiritfarer looks to eschew the difficulty of its other games in favour of something a little more sedate and emotional.

Spiritfarer does exactly what it says on the tin, as you ferry the dead into the afterlife. But you’ll also be able to explore the world, finding resources that will allow you build your ferry into a floating town, and meeting new faces and welcoming them aboard your vessel.

I like the idea of forging relationships with these characters, learning all about them, only to have to say goodbye to them when they pass into their next life. I like the idea of exploring a rich and vibrant world, building a community and following the stories within. Not sure I’m keen on being made to cry by cartoon animals (I still haven’t recovered from The Lion King), but I can’t help but be drawn to Thunder Lotus’ games.

This may have been a bit of a strange E3, but it’s also been incredibly exciting at times. We’ve had some huge announcements and the next year is now packed full of games, from big and small names alike, which can only be a good thing.

Were there any hidden gems that you’ve seen, that aren’t on this list? Let us know!

The post 6 games you may have missed at E3 appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

This weekend I got a chance to play Bandai Namco’s new action game Code Vein, thanks to the Technical Test. Essentially a beta, the test offered several hours of action and adventure through the Prologue and a bit of side content designed just for the beta. Initial impressions are very positive. While it will be compared to Dark Souls and Bloodborne by everyone and his gaping dragon (Ed: beg your pardon?!), it’s fair to say that the studio behind it – headed by Hiro Yoshimura, the director of God Eater – wear their influences proudly on their sleeves. Actually “wear” is too light a term: they all but roll up said sleeve and nail their influences to their bare arm with a ruddy great sword.

That being said, they’ve taken pains to ensure that Code Vein has its own identity and, while it undoubtedly borrows several core concepts from the FromSoft playbook, the world and characters feel interesting and fresh. Having spent a good 10 hours in the beta (4 of which were probably in the excellent character creator), there’s 6 reasons Code Vein well and truly has my attention now (none of which relate to the camera angle on the lady in white… because bloody hell, lads, it’s 2019).

1. It’s about Vampires killing monsters

The world of Code Vein is a dark one. The protagonist and most of the good (and bad) guys are Revenants. That is, they’re dead, and reanimated by a parasitic implant held in check by feeding it “Blood Beads” drawn from special springs. Without regular blood, Revenants become the Lost, essentially mindless killers.

Trapped in a dead city by an otherworldly barrier, the last vestiges of humanity must forage for sources of blood without wiping out what’s left of the actual humans. Beyond this we don’t know an awful lot. Characters in the chunk we played talk about the Queen, who was defeated long ago and whose death created the barrier. The militant force your character works for are known as the Queenslayers, but it appears that early on you’ll separate from the main force and forge your own path.

Being vampires means most of your special skills and spells are drawn from or utilise blood, which makes for a gory and macabre moveset. It’s all very cool and a little bit gross.

2. It’s Dark Souls meets God Eater

It’s a crossover of styles you probably weren’t aware you wanted, but the fusion of fast-paced, combo-based combat with parrying, dodging, and punishing difficulty spikes present a weirdly compelling mix. The world design takes cues from FromSoft, too, with routes opening up to make backtracking and re-treading easier, creating a world you’ll kind of instinctively “learn” to navigate better than your own living room in the dark. And, of course, there are “bonfires”.

By now a staple of the Soulslike genre, the eponymous bonfires are here replaced by Mistles, buds of a bizarre world-covering plant that must be awakened in order to bear Blood Beads, the macabre fruit that nourishes the Revenants. With the world of Code Vein stuck in a constant loop of death and rebirth, awakening a Mistle brings all the Lost in the area back to (un)life and allows your character a brief moment of respite.

As we’re becoming accustomed to in this genre, there’s a good chance much of the story will be open to interpretation. As I ran around walloping the zombie-like Lost with my giant axe, I kept picking things up with names that made little sense out of context. How much will be explained is yet to be seen, but I’d keep your wiki open while playing if I were you.

3. It has an accessible learning curve

The beta has a fairly comprehensive tutorial that introduces you to the three primary Blood Codes (or classes), Fighter, Ranger and Caster. The Fighter is fairly straightforward, dealing with direct damage, heavy armour, and massive two-handed weapons. Players of Bloodborne will be instantly at home here, whether wielding a sword, huge axe or a pike (the three weapons I found in the beta, along with a giant hammer which was really just a hunk of concrete on the end of an iron bar).

The Ranger is the agile class, combining quick strikes with a ranged attack and primarily using a bayonet. This is the class I struggled with the most, but it’s the one that may offer the most utility when mastered. And finally the Caster is the mage class, able to draw devastating offensive spells from blood. In all honestly, the Caster felt a little overpowered, but it will all come down to how the game handles resource management and cooldown, etc, to create balance.

A key takeaway is that Code Vein doesn’t feel like you’re thrown into the deep end. While that’s something many Soulslike fans look forward to, allowing you to find your feet with the slightly complex classes and skill design (and there is a lot to understand) isn’t a bad thing. Yes, the opening hour, at least in the beta, feels easier than other games in the genre, but there’s a lot to learn going in.

4. It’s a brand new IP

I won’t pretend that new properties are particularly rare, but I will say that every one feels somewhat refreshing as it sluices out on the rushing river of sequels and reboots. Although it bares similarities to God Eater and has an Anime aesthetic that could have been pulled directly from an existing show, Code Vein is brand new.

Developed by the team behind God Eater 3, it looks and feels somewhat familiar, but the environments are more detailed and the combat more considered. How well it’ll do as a fledgling property remains to the seen, but there’s no denying the minds behind it have solid pedigree.

5. The world is potentially massive

The beta barely scratched the surface, and in fact had elements in it made purely for testing purposes. But we saw a glimpse of the potential size of the world. Given that the opening area is a destroyed cityscape held at bay by the dead Queen’s forcefield (we still don’t know what she was Queen of, if she was human, or if she was related in even a passing way to Freddie Mercury), it seems likely that the story will see you traveling beyond the forcefield and into other such biomes in the ruined world.

I only make this assumption because one dilapidated city area is going to become a little stale after 10 or 12 hours, let alone 20 – 40, and there are elements of Code Vein that suggest longevity. For a start you collect materials which will likely be used for crafting at some point, which combined with the interesting take on classes and skills hints at greater depth. Also, the game’s to which it pays homage are hardly short affairs. I could be hella wrong, but I get the sense that Code Vein will be a behemoth of a game.

6. The character creator is next level

Judge me all you want, but I spent hours and hours in the Black Desert character creator. Before that, I lost chunks of time to Skyrim – hell, even Saints Row. Its an essential part of the RPG experience for me and many others, and Code Vein boasts an impressive avatar builder. It might say certain things about me that don’t bear analysis, but I get really itchy and uncomfortable if I stride out to face the forces of evil in pants that don’t match the shade of my warhammer.

I was pleasantly surprised by the sheer number of options for hair and features, the numerous default outfit options (all of which is altered further by equipped gear), and the accessories. The Accessory part is actually very interesting, as you’re given a set amount of points to spend and can then choose from a bevy of accessories including chokers, gloves, hair extensions, belt chains, arm bands, glasses, hats, scarves, backpacks and tattoos.

Yes, I know it’s all cosmetic and largely pointless, but it’s still cool. My hope is that these are unlockable in-game or unlocked from the beginning as they are in the Test version, and aren’t tied to microtransactions. It’s a possibility given the current climate, but we won’t know for sure until launch.

The post Code Vein Beta Impressions | 6 Reasons why Namco’s Vampiric Soulslike has our attention appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Let’s face it, you generally know what you’re getting into before you even boot up a From Software game. It’s going to be punishingly hard, it’s going to be semi-roguelike, you’re going to die a lot and you’re going to swear so much you’ll invent new cuss words without even trying.

It’s such a masochistically popular sub-genre that it’s no wonder many other developers have tried to ape the core mechanics in an attempt to get a slice of that rage-inducing pie. But determining which are worth your time and money, and which are just pretenders is tricky, so we’ve rounded up 5 of the best examples available today.

5: IMMORTAL UNCHAINED
Toadman Interactive | 2018

Developed by indie studio Toadman Interactive, Immortal Unchained is a far-future sci-fi that attempted to subvert our expectations of a Souls game by adding guns to the mix.

Despite some technical difficulties and the challenge of working with a low budget, Toadman have done a decent job here, managing to inject some real atmosphere – as well as a few cool ideas.

Sadly, its challenge comes as much from iffy balancing as from design, resulting in a slightly uneven experience. Still, Toadman’s recent updates, as well its overall likeability, mean it’s worth picking up if you’re a fan of the genre. Besides, who doesn’t want to run around like a ‘roided-up techno-freak for a few hours?

4: THE SURGE
Deck 13 | Focus Home Interactive | 2017

The Surge is a game about a bunch of really angry robots getting upset about essentially being slaves to squishy humies, and going uniformally nuts. As a result, it’s probably the most grounded game on the list, if you ignore the endlessly respawning enemies and homemade mech suits, that is.

While it’s easy to doubt the efficacy of a human smashing robots to death with bits of scavenged iron and steel, The Surge is actually a pretty polished experience – barring a few rare bugs that will kill your progress completely, if course.

As sci-fi action games go, it’s certainly an enjoyable enough romp; it just doesn’t quite capture the magic of the titles it’s aiming to replicate.

3: LORDS OF THE FALLEN
Deck 13 | City Interactive | 2014

City Interactive was one of the first studios brave enough to attempt to dip their toes in From’s pool, as it were, with Lords of the Fallen, a pitch-dark fantasy about Harkyn, a man with all of his crimes tattooed on his burly body as a reminder of his tragic quest for redemption.

He’s a miserable bastard for sure, but also pretty handy, as you can spec him in three very different skills that genuinely make you play differently. Although too short and not as clever or nuanced as From’s games, Lords did come close to the crown for a little while.

Minor gameplay tweaks like being able to “bank” your XP, so you keep it on death but earn less as a result switched up the dynamic just a little, and God, some of it looked really nice.

2: SALT & SANCTUARY
Ska Studios | 2016

Being a 2D action platformer reminiscent of something like Super Ghouls ‘n’ Ghosts, Ska Studios indie darling had everyone fooled – until its release, when we all realised just how Souls-like it really is.

Shipwrecked on a mysterious island and shit out of luck, your protagonist must make their way through the shadowed under-belly and across the monster-haunted surface, braving dark forests, deep catacombs and trap filled dungeons in an effort to, well, survive.

But it became apparent in mere moments that Salt & Sanctuary is every inch a Souls-like, even down to the respawning enemies, dropping XP and currency on death, and the timing-based combat. It was one of the best games available for the PlayStation Vita, may it rest in peace, and the perfect example of an indie studio playing to its strengths.

1: NIOH
Team Ninja | Sony/Tecmo Koei | 2017

Doing “Dark Souls in Japan” before Sekiro was an itch in From’s jockstrap, Nioh remains the best available Soulslike not actually developed by the progenitors.

The story of Westerner William lost in the shadows of an ancient, horror-story version of Japan, Nioh features copious amounts of Oni, lots of supernatural goings – on, spirit animals and, of course, that old familiar death mechanic.

If you’re a fan of the genre at all, you really should have played Nioh – it’s worth checking out for its incredible combat, often bonkers art design, and undeniably confident swagger.

The post Ranked: Top 5 “Soulslike” games not developed by FromSoft appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Believe it or not, Halo has been in our lives for seventeen years. Seventeen. I remember when I bought my first Xbox, or rather our first Xbox, as my brother and I paid half each because we wanted the new Championship Manager game. Part of me simply refused to buy Halo, because it was the only game Xbox owners would talk about, and I was a stubborn idiot. Well, more so than I am now.

Obviously, something changed.

I managed to borrow a copy of Halo: Combat Evolved, to see what all the fuss was about. Within 24 hours I had bought my own copy, because that stubborn idiot was wrong and ended up falling in love with the Master Chief and his wisecracking sidekick, Cortana. The visuals were astonishingly good at the time, showing off the power of Microsoft’s first home console, and the gameplay was light years ahead of anything else in the FPS market.

But there was something about the story of Halo, the depth of the lore surrounding it, that made the game more than “just another shooter.” Who/what were the Covenant, and why were they chasing down the Pillar of Autumn? What were the Spartans, and why did everyone stare and comment when they saw one? These were just some of the things I thought about, and that was before the Flood were introduced into the story and the true nature of the Halo became known.

Of course, as I said above, I just loved the interplay between the Chief and Cortana. From the moment she’s inserted into his suit and comments on how its architecture is similar to the Pillar of Autumn’s controls, you could tell there was already a bit of a “buddy movie” vibe to their relationship. Of course, there was an arguably romantic undercurrent to it too, which I never really subscribed to, and that only built over the course of the series. However you view these two characters, there is no denying the iconic status that they have earned, both in gaming and in pop culture as a whole.

That iconic status extended to the game itself too, and was cemented by that moment at E3 2004, when Peter Moore revealed Halo 2’s release date with a tattoo on his arm. Yep, that was the sort of daft publicity stunt that was around back then.

Before that, back at E3 2002, came a trailer that still makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. In around two minutes, Microsoft showed the briefest glimpse of Halo’s first sequel, and captured the imagination of so many people. Master Chief getting ready for battle, overlaid with radio transmissions and Cortana’s reassurance that reinforcements were on the way, with Master Chief looking out of a hangar bay window, over a wartorn Earth.

“What if you miss?” Cortana asks.

“I won’t,” Master Chief assures her, pulling the lever to open the hangar bay doors, before diving out into space.

As if that wasn’t enough, Martin O’Donnell’s iconic (there’s that word again) Halo theme kicked in as the Chief descended towards a Covenant ship, still in orbit.

Halo 2’s reception was huge for Microsoft, sealing the flagship series’ place in gaming history, especially as it brought with it the birth of Xbox Live. For those of you too young to remember the days before online gaming, Halo 2 was essentially the game that started it all on console. Halo: Combat Evolved was spectacular fun in splitscreen with friends, but Halo 2 brought players together from around the world, building on that brilliant (and often hilarious) experience.

Quite simply, without Halo, online console gaming would not exist as it does today. Xbox Live is arguably still the pinnacle of online services for console, but it really exploded onto the scene proper in 2005, when the Xbox 360 arrived. Unfortunately, there was no Halo to launch with the new console, though Halo 3 was announced a year later and its “believe” slogan became an internet sensation. When the game arrived in 2007, it was a massive hit, with more than one million online players in the first day. That may not seem like much now, with the huge numbers of players heading online after midnight launches and whatnot, but in 2007 it was a huge deal.

But what about that story – was it still as interesting and important after three games? You bet it was. While it’s true that Halo 2’s ending was abrupt and divisive, also making the wait for Halo 3 unbearable, I think most were happy with how the trilogy was wrapped up in its final chapter. The threads of the previous stories intertwined beautifully, with the Elites, Flood and UNSC forces all battling to save/destroy not only Earth, but the entire universe. The stakes were raised, as was the quality of the storytelling and cutscenes, but the gameplay remained as smooth and tactical as ever.

That’s not to say that Bungie rested on its laurels. Far from it, in fact. To this day, Halo 3 is remembered by many as the best in the series, thanks to some incredible level design and perfectly balanced gameplay. This was especially evident in the “Cortana” chapter, though I won’t spoil anything, for those that haven’t yet played the game.

After Halo 3, the series went in a different direction for a little while. It looked back, telling stories from the past. It also moved into a new genre with the RTS Halo Wars, telling a new story set 20 years prior to Combat Evolved, introducing a whole new cast of characters from a brand new UNSC ship, the Spirit of Fire.

Back in FPS land however, Halo 3: ODST told the story of an ODST (Orbital Drop Shock Troopers) squad and was set during the events of Halo 2, on the Covenant-occupied Earth. It also introduced Buck, played by Nathan Fillion (alongside his fellow Firefly actors Adam Baldwin and Alan Tudyk, as well as Battlestar Galactica’s Tricia Helfer), who would return as a major character in Halo 5: Guardians.

Personally, I loved ODST. After the big, bombastic stories of the main games, the story of the Rookie and his ODST unit was a smaller, more human tale. Not that it didn’t include some big battles, it just wasn’t the sprawling action blockbuster of the numbered entries, and that’s what gave the game its unique feel. It also introduced Firefight, a multiplayer horde mode that could be played with up to three other players online. I had some good times on there.

Perhaps my biggest foray into Halo’s online modes came in the next spin-off, Halo: Reach. Myself and a few friends had ridiculous fun playing Grifball, especially. But the multiplayer isn’t why Reach is remembered so fondly, or why it was so celebrated when Xbox recently announced it was in development for the Master Chief Collection. Halo: Reach was Bungie’s swansong before moving away from Microsoft to develop Destiny, and its quality is testament to a team that wanted to end on the highest note possible.

Halo: Reach was based on the tie-in novel The Fall of Reach by Eric Nylund, and told the story of the events leading up to Halo: Combat Evolved. The Covenant have wiped out most of humanity’s colonies, with Reach the next one in line, and a team of Spartans are sent to investigate a communications relay that has gone offline. This team, designated “Noble”, discovers the first wave of Covenant to land on Reach.

What made Halo: Reach’s storyline so powerful was that you knew from the very beginning what would happen. It’s right there in the opening scene, yet somehow you fight on, thinking that maybe you can change the course of history somehow. And man, that post-credits section was a real punch in the gut, and one of the absolute best moments in the Halo series.

Alas, what followed was arguably the most divisive moment in the series. After Bungie left, there was no way Microsoft would let its flagship title die, and so 343 Industries was born. Soon after, Halo 4 was announced as the beginning of a new trilogy, telling the story of the Forerunners, a race of godlike beings that have been around since before humanity existed. Now, I love Halo 4 and will fight to the hilt of an Energy Sword to defend it, but it was, let’s just say, poorly-received by many. Let’s just leave it at that.

Halo 4 has its issues with its new enemies the Prometheans, and their weaponry being a little too similar to the UNSC armaments, but ultimately it offers another evolution of the core gameplay that has been the backbone of the whole series. The thing I love about it, as with almost every instalment in the series, is its story. Halo 4 is as much about Master Chief and Cortana, as it is about the Prometheans and their leader, the Didact. I would argue that Halo 4’s story is perhaps the best in the entire series, rivalling Reach for its emotional impact.

Which leads me to why I was so disappointed when Halo 5: Guardians arrived. The first original outing on Xbox One, there’s no getting around how gorgeous it was. Still is, actually. However, its gameplay, despite the addition of squads, felt a little too by-the-numbers and its story completely undid all the good work 343i did in Halo 4. Cortana’s role as a villain, the endless battles with the caretaker, and being forced to play as a character nobody really cared about in Spartan Locke; I just couldn’t work out why 343i would make such strange choices with a franchise that I loved. Why they would make such huge mistakes.

Still, my faith in Halo was restored not by 343i, but by Creative Assembly. In a move that I certainly didn’t see coming, Xbox decided to commision a sequel to Halo Wars, and in doing so managed to tell a story that truly felt like vintage Halo. Halo Wars 2 picks up 28 years after the Spirit of Fire was left drifting in uncharted space, as the crew awakens from cryosleep near the Ark, a Forerunner installation capable of building Halo rings. What follows is not only a cracking game that I thoroughly recommend playing (it’s on Game Pass, just FYI), but also an introduction to one of Halo’s greatest villains, Atriox. And honestly, it features one of my favourite cutscenes in all of gaming, thanks in part to the beautiful work done by Blur Studio, famous for its work on other Halo CG scenes, most notably in Halo 2: Anniversary.

Halo Wars 2 also takes place after Halo 5: Guardians, but ties into that underwhelming sequel’s storyline nicely, leaving me with some hope going into the next chapter of the Halo series.

To that end, we arrive at E3 2018 and the Xbox briefing. I wanted Halo to be there but wasn’t expecting anything really. To my surprise, despite my disappointment in Halo 5, the sight of Master Chief and the sound of that distinctive Halo music got my heart racing. I found myself smiling, my eyes misty as only happiness and excitement can cause, and I found myself with that feeling that almost abandoned me: hope. Hope that Halo would once again be one of the best games out there, with a story that would pull at my heartstrings and fill me with joy.

There is no doubting that Xbox has struggled with its exclusives over the past couple of years, though it obviously isn’t without some top notch ones like the evolving Sea of Thieves and the magnificent Forza Horizon series, and I think now is the perfect time for Halo to return to form. After it was announced by Bonnie Ross that Halo Infinite will be at E3 2019, I find myself in a quietly optimistic state, though I also find myself wondering if it will actually arrive on the current Xbox, or whether it will be a launch title for whatever Xbox has up its sleeve for the next generation of consoles.

Either way, I hope that 343 Industries has learned from its mistakes with Halo 5. I hope that Halo Infinite follows in the footsteps of Halo Wars 2, creating a compelling story with great characters, and possibly bringing the Spirit of Fire and Atriox’s Banished along for the ride. I hope that Master Chief is returned to his former glory, and that Cortana’s good name is restored along with our Spartan hero.

I hope.

But more than that, as Halo 3 once put it…

I believe.

The post Halo: Then and Now appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Those of you who never played The Division, or those of you who played for the first few months and never went back for whatever reason, may well find the post-pandemic world carved out by Ubisoft and the late, great Tom Clancy somewhat daunting. While the core loop doesn’t differ that much from other shooter-looters, the outer framework is a mix of familiar Ubisoft tropes and a handful of fairly unique elements.

As you guide your rough-and-tumble Agent through the horrors of a war-torn Washington DC, you might find it difficult to fully get to grips with it all. Luckily, we’ve got your back. Here’s a bunch of useful tips to help you through the early hours.

TL;DR – check out the video version below:

1: ALWAYS BE IN COVER

You’ll be shot at a lot in The Division 2, from all directions and various elevations, and standing out in the open like a suicidal traffic cone is going to get you filled up with holes super quick. Hitting the cover button (defaulted to A on Xbox, Cross on PS4, and spacebar on PC) will cause your agent to throw themselves at the nearest wall, sign, car, or couch, available. From here you can either blind fire, which is about as effective as grabbing a handful of bullets and just throwing them at the enemy, or pop up like a pissed off mole who’s mad as hell at being whacked on the head, and isn’t going to take it anymore.

What you may not realise immediately, though, is that you can also move in and between cover for the entire duration of a fight. Holding down the cover button while eyeing up a vantage point will allow you to roadie run from wall to wall. You can even go into the control settings and adjust them so that holding the cover button will let you stealthily and safely navigate corners. Whenever you’re engaged with the enemy, always be in cover.

2: BE SELF-SUFFICIENT

It’s easy to say that The Division 2 is meant to be played in a group, and honestly it’s not far from the truth. The multiplayer element is beautifully seamless and often makes the tougher challenges that much more fun.

But there’s something about heading out alone into the wilds of DC that feels unassailably cool, and there are almost certainly going to be times when you’re the last Agent standing, and you’ll need to hightail it around the battlefield applying plasters and Savlon to your incapacitated team mates. For this reason I’d recommend having at least one Skill that can summon a little automated buddy to watch your back or harry the enemy.

The Drone and Turret not only work well to pull focus off you or the people you’re trying to save, they’ll also make you more self-sufficient. The Drone even has a variant that will shield you from projectiles. Couple this with perks that increase your Armour Kit and grenade capacity, and you’ll be a solo force to be reckoned with.

3: BUT HAVE A CO-OP BUILD, TOO

There are a couple of really good Support skills in The Division 2. The Drone can be modified to repair ally armour, which is good, but if you’re the type that usually prefers to help and heal your squad, you’ll find a few skills that really make a difference.

The Chem Launcher, for instance, is a great device that not only creates poison clouds and little patches of fiery hell for the enemy, but can also repair armour and health on distant allies. Another good one is the Hive, which is fun when you use it to unleash a cloud of little metal bees on a group of thugs, but can also be used to repair armour with a tiny swarm of nanobots.

4: TARGET ENEMY WEAK-SPOTS

In The Division, armoured enemies were bullet-sponge nightmares that you had to just shoot endlessly until they finally stopped walking towards you. To remedy this, the yellow-barred enemies in The Division 2 have armoured spots and other points of interest that you can concentrate fire on instead.

Helmets and body armour are obvious targets, but some have gas tanks or explosives on them, while enemy medics carry defibrillators that you can shoot to electrocute them. You can even shoot the ammo feed off a minigun to force a reload, buying you some time and opening up the enemy to a good old-fashioned passionate ass-whoopin’.

5: PUT YOUR TOYS AWAY

While your drones and turrets and nano-hives are all incredibly high-tech and cool, they do have hefty cooldowns attached. In a group that’s not so bad, since everyone has two to use, and a well-coordinated team can stagger or combine their abilities for maximum effect.

But when you’re running solo and in the thick of battle, a 3-minute cooldown feels like hours. The only real way to mitigate this is to hold down the ability button as soon as you’ve cleared a wave of enemies, before the ability ends on its own, and cancel it out. This will cut the cooldown in half and allow you to use it again much quicker. In a mission with several enemy waves or, for example, during a Control Point capture, this is a vital advantage.

6: CANCEL ANIMATIONS BY DODGE ROLLING

Speaking of cancelling things, you can also cut out of long reload animations by dodge rolling. Weapons like marksman rifles, shotguns and LMGs can take an ice age to reload, and if you find yourself flanked or taking heavy damage, double tap the cover button and roll out of the animation.

This also works to put out fire, which should probably be a top priority really.

7: UNLOCK FAST TRAVEL POINTS

As scenic as The Division 2’s post-apocalyptic Washington DC is, y’know, when you’re not stepping over bodybags and piking your way through the decaying bones of modern society, walking everywhere is time-consuming and bloody dangerous. You can barely go 50 yards without something kicking off and spoiling your day.

Circumvent those mood-killing, bullet-ravaged jaunts by making Safe Houses and Control Points a priority. Ubisoft have been very generous with travel points, so unlock them and use them. There’ll still be plenty to do when you get there.

8: LOOT EVERYTHING

This is kind of par for the course, but it’s easy to get caught up in the drama and action of Ubisoft’s world and forget that you should be exploring every nook and cranny. While enemies are an immediate and satisfying source of loot, there are containers, cases, boxes and bags stashed everywhere that contain all manner of useful goodies.

I found that after about level 10, vanity items seemed to become more commonplace, although I almost always found them in luggage containers while ransacking apartment buildings. But you’ll also find crafting materials, supplies for your settlements, weapons, gear and collectibles abandoned in crates, satchels and lock-boxes. And if you happen to see a gold-coloured key drop from an enemy, grab it, as it will open a faction-specific lock-box somewhere nearby. You’ll also occasionally come across orange supply crates here and there, usually hanging from trees or rooftops, which can be shot open for powerful loot and, if you’re lucky, gear dye.

9: ASK FOR HELP

In the harsh world of The Division 2, pride must goeth before the fall. While the incredible atmosphere has an uncanny ability to make you want to strike out on your own, a lone wolf against the darkness, doing so is usually a bit daft. Solo agents can be easily overwhelmed and flanked, and while getting a good flanking sounds like something fun to do on a Friday night, in practice it really isn’t.

When tackling control points you can pop a flare to signal nearby AI patrols who’ll rush to your aid and soak up some bullets in your stead, or alternatively you can head into your map and send a distress signal to any players currently online, in the hopes that they’ll rock up and save your overconfident arse. There’s no shame in asking for help, and coop in this game is so well-handled that it’s worth responding to distress calls too, as anything you achieve in another player’s instance will carry over to yours.

10: DON’T RUSH

In many looter shooters, the urge to charge through the campaign is too strong to ignore. When everything is promised in the elusive “endgame”, all that comes before it just feels like hard work.

The Division 2, however, is packed with things to do. In fact, I’d go so far as to say it’s one of the busiest and most feature-complete shooter-looters I’ve seen at launch. Main missions, side missions, safe houses, collectibles, the Dark Zone, SHD caches, control points, world events… There’s a ton of stuff to do and a ton of loot to chase. So much so that you’ll benefit far more from taking your time to go through it at a steady pace. Explore, loot, fight, progress, and enjoy the journey.

The post The Division 2: 10 Beginner’s Tips appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but for as good as Diablo 3 is, Blizzard’s slash-happy loot-a-thon doesn’t have much in the way of competition. Step forward Big Ben, and the newest title in the Warhammer universe: Chaosbane, where the theming is definitely Warhammer, but the stylings are unmistakably Diablo. That’s right this is a game that’s all about the numbers.

You’ll stroll around hitting things to make numbers come out of them, then pick stuff up or loot items from chests to increase your stats and make the numbers bigger. And despite all the number crushing, the hordes of chaos will still insist on getting in your face. You’ll hold X to attack and intersperse this with the other face buttons and triggers to use your chosen avatar’s skills for more efficient death dealing, so, very much like a Certain Other Dungeon Crawler. However, unlike Diablo 3’s mute, nameless avatars the characters in Chaosbane talk to the NPCs that dole out the quests, which, despite being voiced in American-styled medieval lilts, does make it feel more like you’re taking part in the story, which Diablo’s cutscenes did a very good job of pulling you out of before thrusting you into the fights. Here, cutscenes are still images drawn on parchment, but interactions are fully voiced between player character and the NPC.

Making up Chaosbane’s character roster are four classes; the Empire Knight, High Elf Mage, Dwarf Slayer And Wood Elf Waywatcher, but only the Knight And Mage are available in the beta. The different classes are divided into Tank, DPS (Damage Per Second) / Crowd control, melee DPS and Ranged DPS. I took the option to play as the Knight because I just like being in the thick of things ever since I first booted up World of Warcraft, but all things considered you shouldn’t have too much issue with finding yourself a class that suits how you like to play. The Mage, for example, is your typical glass cannon, but he can do some cool things with the elements that you won’t have seen before.

The beta wasn’t exactly short despite being confined to the opening of the game, your character being tasked with repeat journeys into the Castle’s sewers to help stem the tide of enemies from a Chaos cult who recently invaded the castle and put the king in a kind of stasis. I’m not sure how the world of Warhammer was created, but these sewers seem to have been built above bottomless pits, which is a rather baffling design decision in a time considerably backwards in technology. These repeated trips are filled to the brim with fodder to turn into mushy pulp with your ever growing array of skills. New levels give extra skill points which unlock further abilities, and as you progress you unlock better versions of them which require more skill points to equip. To begin with, you won’t notice too much difference in damage output from new weapons, but as soon as you tack on an improved skill you’ll certainly notice things dying a hell of a lot quicker.

The thing is, as good as the grime and putrid nature of the sewers is rendered, the constant trips back down into these grotty catacombs did become tiresome, and I started wishing for a change in location. While there’s one point where I finally ventured to an outside area, it was unfortunately short lived and I once again found myself ankle deep in fecal matter and impish corpses. But, when you’re duking it out with a combat system that just works it’s hard to care about where you’re doing it. I love Diablo 3 and Destiny for both their mechanics and the way the loot systems make you feel powerful. Here again, a mission rarely ends without you getting an improved item for an equipment slot, and coming out of a rush of chaos grunts in a barrage of yellow numbers feels oh so good.

One thing that is missing though, is a goofy element, as Chaosbane is much more po-faced than Blizzard’s work. I guess you could liken the voice performances to an element of comic relief, but they feel more like a Shakespearean actor trying his best to elevate the local council’s nativity play than something done in a tongue-in-cheek manner. Then think of how Diablo made you feel when you happened across an enemy with a giant yellow name like ‘Thaurgnar the Regurgitator’ above it’s head, knowing you could get some good loot from it. Those silly names made defeating them feel much more fun. Granted, Chaosbane is its own game and shouldn’t try to ape Diablo 3 in every aspect, but if you’re going to wear your influences so visibly then you should pay attention to all the elements people loved so much.

This is a beta though, and there’s still time to improve on an already impressive foundation. There are some sound bugs with dialogue overlapping and the odd audio pop and the occasional frame rate drop, but generally this is a solid package even for a beta. The game’s not due out until June so there’s at least two months until it goes gold for release, giving Eko Software time to add a bit of polish – and you can be part of it with more beta periods to come. Eko are the guys behind the Handball sports games, and some games you’ve probably not really heard of – but don’t let that put you off. From what I’ve played, this could be the game that puts Eko Software firmly on the map, and I look forward to playing the full release.

The post Warhammer: Chaosbane beta – Grime-fighting appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Probably the biggest name in graphics cards, NVIDIA has been busy of late. With the 2080 series bringing serious power to the high end PC market, NVIDIA has now released a powerful mid-range GPU in the form of the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti, available today.

Based on the 12thgeneration Turing GPU architecture, the GTX 1660 Ti takes advantage of all of Turing’s shader innovations to deliver 2x the TOPS of the previous-generation Pascal architecture. It supports concurrent floating point and integer operations, a unified cache architecture with 3x the L1 cache, and turbocharged performance using adaptive shading technology.

The GTX 1660 Ti is said to be three times faster than the GTX 960, which is about the level of performance that around two thirds of gamers currently use. It’s also around 1.5 times faster than the 1060, which is impressive for its relatively low price.

The GeForce GTX 1660 Ti features 1,536 CUDA® cores, 6GB of the new GDDR6 memory running at 12Gbps and a boost clock of almost 1.8 GHz, which can be easily overclocked for further performance.

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti is available now from many well-known manufacturers such as ASUS and MSI, from £259.99.

The post NVIDIA Launches New GeForce GTX 1660 Ti GPU appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Thanks to a frustratingly convoluted release schedule, Anthem is currently available to any PC gamer with an EA Origins Prime subscription (who can play the whole game now), any Xbox One gamer with an EA Access subscription (who can play 10 hours of the game now), and PS4 gamers (who can watch videos of it on YouTube, sorry). Having spent countless hours with both demos, the PC launch version and the Xbox One Access trial, I can now bring you our initial impressions of BioWare’s ambitious loot-shooter, as well as my opinion on things that need immediate improvement. First of all, I should start by saying that I’ve not only been hyped for Anthem for several years, but that I’m also a prolific apologiser when it comes to looters in general. That’s full disclosure right there, and I’m being honest off the bat because it’s important that you know just how keen I was for Anthem to be a true groundbreaker, and how disappointed I am that, at brass tacks-level, it’s just another sci-fi lootathon.

Which is not to say it’s bad. In fact, had my expectations of Anthem been lower, or even normal, I probably wouldn’t be half as disheartened by some of the design choices. I put it up on a pedestal, and extended its free fall distance considerably. But a lot of us did, and why wouldn’t we? A BioWare RPG with elements cherry-picked from one of the most popular emerging genres of this generation, bankrolled by EA who, let’s be honest, aren’t short of a few quid. This should be spectacular – and bits of it are, to be clear; just not all of it. Or even most of it.

In Anthem you take the role of a Freelancer, an Iron Man (or Woman) for hire, whose job is to protect the savage frontier of a world called Bastion from all manner of villains and beasties who want to take control of the Anthem of Creation, a powerful terraforming device left behind by a race of absentee gods. Having fallen on hard times recently, Freelancers are now little more than mercenaries, picking up contracts for Coin, defending settlements, finding missing persons and basically running errands. They do all of this while piloting an exosuit called a Javelin, which is perhaps the single coolest video game creation this generation; a walking tank capable of a multitude of loadout variants and fully autonomous flight. The Javelins are just excellent.

Speaking of which, one element of Anthem that’s turning out to be better than I expected is the story. There’s a wealth of lore and backstory to be found in the game thanks to the Cortex, a kind of encyclopaedia you build by finding collectibles in typical BioWare fashion. There are also reams of dialogue to flesh out characters and events, and the fully-rendered cutscenes are mostly excellent, showing off some amazing facial mo-cap and impressive delivery. The problem isn’t the story, but the storytelling. Anthem presents its story via the dual mediums of first-person dialogue and in-mission flavour chatter. The former works fine during the aforementioned cutscenes, but falls apart a little when you have to basically stand rooted to the spot as a character delivers exposition in a mechanic that felt old in Skyrim and feels ancient now. You’re offered dialogue choices, but they’re not even really binary, as several of them result in more or less the same dialogue from your Freelancer and they don’t seem to affect anything. The latter medium, whereby you’re supposed to listen to important details during a life or death firefight is just a little infuriating for obvious reasons.

Oddly, there a few cutscenes in third person where you can see your Freelancer, and these were the ones I actually preferred. In fact, the whole switch to first person for some cutscenes and the whole of your time in Fort Tarsis is a strange choice. Obviously BioWare want you to feel “in the moment” but it’s unnecessary. I spent 3 entire games watching Commander Shepard walk around and was never less than fully immersed. I can commend the world-building in Anthem; I can see what BioWare were going for, and if nothing else it feels like a world they want us to come back to. It has room to grow, and the characters that exist in it now feel part of it – I just wish Fort Tarsis wasn’t such hard work. The lack of placeable waypoints means you need to navigate by compass, and everyone is so far from everyone else that just picking up a new round of contracts is a major arse-ache. It’s compounded by the fact that you can do everything, including shop, pick up jobs and customise your Javelin, in the single-room Launch Bay. You don’t need Tarsis at all.

I’m happy to report that I’ve seen very few issues on PC, with the performance as a whole a vast improvement on the hit-and-miss demos. Even on a standard Xbox One minus the bells and whistles of the X, it also runs better, at a more or less steady 30 fps. I did experience a few bugs on console, however, as the game crashed once during the 10-hour trial period and froze for a worryingly long time on 3 occasions. There is a performance patch coming on Day One, however, which may address that, though I also had an irritating issue whereby the Y-Axis would revert to standard when I loaded in and I had to change it every time.

For me, the biggest issue Anthem has right now is the loading times. I’ve never seen a modern game with so many loading screens, and some of them are utterly unnecessary. There’s an incredibly intrusive feature whereby if you fall behind your squad, a tethering mechanism kicks in and drags you forward via a loading screen. The fact that this happens when you’re barely 100 yards away in the same instance is mind-boggling, but more irksome is the frequency at which it happens. Anthem’s world is designed to be explored. You’re encouraged to seek out treasure chests and crafting materials and secrets, but if you do so during a mission you’re almost immediately punished for it. There’s absolutely no need to do this unless your squad is entering another mission area, and frankly it needs to go.

Anthem’s saving grace – and believe me when I say it is enough to save it – is the action. Whether you’re flying through Bastion’s gloriously beautiful environments or engaged in a desperate firefight, this is where Anthem shines. It’s not spotless, of course, and there’s room for improvement where damage feedback and difficulty balancing are concerned, but Anthem is at its absolute best when you’re using your entire arsenal, working with your squad, and utilising the terrain. There’s a verticality to Anthem that I never knew was missing from other shooters until now. Flight is only part of it, since clicking the right stick (on an Xbox controller) will allow you to hover, giving you a height advantage at any time. It’s great for getting out of the immediate crossfire, repositioning, or popping off a few sniper shots to remove a pesky turret from the equation. It’s all helped along by the incredible sound direction, the satisfying clink of a successful combo, the rumble of explosions, the rattle of gunfire and the empowering roar of your Javelin taking off.

It’s too early for us to talk in-depth about the endgame or the loot economy, but the latter is currently a little concerning. Even legendary weapons appear to be the same as standard in terms of aesthetics, and this tier could really benefit from some unique or exotic designs to make them worth farming for. I’ve also seen no new armour variants dropping, which is very worrying. The loot does fall fairly thick and fast, perhaps too thick, as I’m always too impatient to really bother analysing what I got at the end-of-mission screen. I’ve also yet to fully get my head around the Gear Score, which I think determines your Javelin’s overall level which in turn affects which rarity of loot you’re more likely to get, but at the moment seems like an arbitrary mechanic used just because other loot-shooters do it. I fail to see, yet, how it really benefits Anthem.

So far I have a few issues with the reward screen, too. It’s nice to see the Alliance score going up, but the game does a poor job of explaining what that means, and it gives me a bunch of shiny medals every mission with zero context and no way to track them, so I fail to understand the purpose of it all. Likewise, I’ve reached higher loyalty levels with two of the factions but either didn’t receive rewards or I’m looking in the wrong place. This stuff should be explained in laymen’s terms; right now it’s as if the whole game was designed by committee, and there’s a bunch of stuff included just to appease an imaginary demographic.

I’ve a ways to go yet in Anthem’s campaign and then there’s the whole endgame to tackle, so there’s room for things to change. If the mission variety improves and the loot economy picks up in the elder game, I’ll be much happier. What I can say without blinking is that I’m enjoying Anthem. It’s a likeable game with an interesting world and a few things I’ve never, ever seen before, but it’s also a frustrating experience at times. It feels finished, to me, so I’m not going to excuse BioWare of a lack of demonstrable effort in any area, but there are some weird design choices throughout that make me wonder how they passed the testing stage.

There’ll be a full, scored review and video up in the next few weeks when I’ve spent enough time with Anthem to give it a fair trial, but right now it’s enough to say that what’s here is decent, and will certainly scratch the shooting and looting itch if you’ve got it, but the next month or so is going to be a very, very interesting time for BioWare.

The post Anthem review-in-progress appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Crackdown 3 is finally here. Don’t believe me? Well I’ve played it, reviewed it, and Adam has turned it into a rather explodey video review, which you can find below. But what did I think? You’ll have to read the review to find out, but here’s a snippet:

“With more and more looter shooters or expansive RPGs hitting the shelves, in a world where every FPS will soon have a Battle Royale mode attached, Crackdown 3 almost feels like a breath of fresh gunsmoke. It may at times feel like a magic mirror back to 2007, but its simplistic, unpretentious approach to good old-fashioned mayhem means it’s never less than a blast to play.”

If you liked that, check out the full written review here.

The post Crackdown 3 video review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Ubisoft’s semi-sequel to last year’s sterling Far Cry 5 is here, and Chris White has reviewed it. Here’s a snippet:

“Far Cry New Dawn isn’t as robust as its predecessor, and the story is nowhere near as decent, but I still had fun re-treading old ground. It’s obvious something is missing as it never really feels like a sequel – more of a hefty expansion – and after encountering a couple of bugs that had me more than frustrated, I was left wishing Ubisoft Montreal had focused on something new, and on somewhere different to provide an entirely new adventure.”

But for those who prefer it, we’ve also produced a video narrated by our own slightly insane spiritual leader, Adam Cook. Check it out below.

Enjoy that? Now read the full written review by Chris White.

The post Far Cry New Dawn video review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

So, we just had the Anthem VIP Demo, which if you don’t know was the first public demo of Anthem, available for subscribers to EA Access and Origin, and those who preordered the game. And then those like Godisageek and other sites who were invited by EA, and content creators, streamers and influencers who were also invited by EA, and those who were friends with those who were invited by EA, and those who randomly received a code from EA on Social Media, and those who…

You get the message. It was a bit of a shit-show. The servers overloaded in the first few minutes, and thousands of people couldn’t get on. It actually took me a full 24 hours to get in. I don’t know how a company like EA or BioWare could have allowed such a circus to happen, but they did. It was like they handed us a cream cake in one hand and then smacked us with a trout in the other hand. Lots of people got upset. I got upset. Twitter and Reddit got really upset.

When I finally did get in I enjoyed myself and, although I have good and bad opinions of Anthem at this point, I’m leaning more towards positive thanks to two main reasons. One: I unlocked a second class and it is the balls, and two: I took part in, and completed, the Mine Tyrant Stronghold, and holy shit. Holy. Shit.

But there are caveats here. For example, I don’t think this demo has done EA, BioWare, or the public any real good. People who were on the fence have not been won over by this, whereas people who were fully onboard have now jumped ship quicker than a crew of drunken sailors into a sea of Jack Daniels. I for one am still mostly excited, clinging to the last vestiges of a hype that a few days ago would have floored you like a deckchair to the face. I was psyched for this, watching footage of the hands-on events and lapping up the developer vlogs while salivating like a bulldog with a gobstopper.

And I’m still keen, I’m still mostly invested. But it’s muted now, it’s like I went to see a smoking hot stripper, but sat next to her boyfriend for the whole show while he just stared at me like I was some kind of degenerate and now I’m hesitant to go back next week.

There are issues. I’m not going to get into the technical stuff too much, because this is an older build but I’m pretty sure I only sneezed once or twice just in the general direction of the Xbox One, and it booted me out like my first girlfriend’s dad. Worse than that is the stuff I’m not sure BioWare are even gonna fix because I’m not sure they even know it’s wrong.

The Javelins feel amazing in the air and pretty good underwater, but on the ground they’re sluggish and cumbersome, which is kind of befitting a 9-foot walking tank, I know, but I came here for the type of wish fulfilment you get from blowing huge chunks out of cottage-sized bugs, not a physics engine that suddenly wants to get with the Realism the minute my feet touch the floor. The dodge evade is hugely satisfying, but the melee feels imprecise to me and now and then it felt like I was wading through knee-high treacle, which may have been down to the frame rate dropping like a breeze block in almost every fight with more than two enemy soldiers.

I have major issues with the Hub, too. I imagine Fort Tarsis is important because of the story, but the frames per second there felt somewhere in the region of four and a half. Its really bad, and everything has a fuzzy look and everyone is so far from everyone else that you have to wonder exactly what BioWare are showing off and why. I guess in the full game they’ll want us to care about Random Dude with Beard, or that Steampunk Mum can’t feed Steampunk Child, but the truth is it’s just a resource drain that we don’t need. Everything in Tarsis could be done with a menu and a few talking heads, maybe some cutscenes here and there.

That being said, one major plus is that the action is just tremendous. Even with frame rate dips, bugs, glitches and disappearing enemies, I had a blast in every firefight. The special effects light up the screen, the sound of gunfire and explosions and mumbled exposition fill the airwaves. In short, it’s just spectacular every time you get into a scrape. I didn’t even mind or notice the game chugging along like a broken old tugboat at times because I was just too busy spitting “wows” and “Hell-yeahs” and smiling like someone had handed me a big bowl of chocolate ice cream and Scarlett Johansson and said, “Go nuts.”

I had almost given up hope of getting hold of a second Javelin because the demo just wouldn’t save my XP gains after missions, but eventually I got lucky. I almost went with the stealthy, wasp-like Interceptor but at the last minute snapped up Storm, which is like a mix between Magneto and Iron Man and Emperor Palpatine from that bit where he fries the ever-living shit out of Luke with Force Lightning. Storm is squishier than Ranger, but more mobile and stacked with elemental goodies.

I took Storm for a test drive in the Stronghold, a mission where you need to take a squad deep underground to investigate a group of enemies trying to make a superweapon, which leads to a subterranean showdown against the Brainbug from Starship Troopers on hella cocaine. To be honest it was this event that got me. The fight is so much fun, reviving downed teammates and flying around the cave looking for cover or safety or a vantage point where you can do some damage. It’s excellent and I fell in love despite all the other issues that could have gotten in the way, and did many times. Also, the Ultimate moves I tried are both superb, but the Storm’s move in particular is a screen-filling mass of light and noise that just explodes in your face like Christmas at Rambo’s house.

And I really like the world. Its beautiful at times, close to something like Halo aesthetically. Rivers, lakes, waterfalls, craggy outcrops of rock, huge plunges into deep dark waters, a night and day cycle, weather effects and herds of alien monstrosities, flocks of birds, little clutches of wildlife. I loved everything I saw, like a tin-shack shanty town built on a cliff-face or the rusted remains of a gargantuan mechanical strider. But, by god, the map needs the option to place waypoints. I was constantly checking my direction in relation to map icons, which is an unforgivable oversight when there’s GPS in the missions.

Another positive is the customisation. Obviously they were going to put a lot of effort into this area as its apparently the only thing they’re slapping micro-transactions on, but it seems pretty comprehensive. I spent ages pratting around with colours, materials and vinyls, and I’m hoping there’s enough opportunity to earn Coin for cosmetics inside the game. Although the prices are placeholders in the demo, you do earn Coin for completing objectives so hopefully that remains a thing.

So what did I think? Cards on the table: I really enjoyed my time with the demo when I finally got in, and Anthem won me over, albeit with some serious caveats. BioWare need to address that slow-ass hub, and if the movement is always going to be this clunky and heavy on the ground, then a patchy frame rate is the worst possible thing they could let sneak into the final build.

How will it do on launch? I just don’t know. A lot of people want this game to fail, and this demo was like EA handing those people a loaded gun and then admitting they took the last After Eight. And then boned their mum. It was a clumsy mess and one that a company like EA should have and could have avoided; hell, they could have just called it a beta and been done with it. But in the end I’ve seen more positive feedback than negative and I’m still hopeful. If the content is there (because I’ll be honest: besides the Stronghold most of the activities in the demo were pretty samey) then they might just salvage this launch. I really hope they do, because in amongst all the infinite load screens, system crashes, bugs, glitches and fails, I saw glimpses of the greatness that could be.

Anthem launches on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC on February 22nd.

The post Anthem VIP Demo Impressions: Beautiful, brilliant, broken appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Whether you have played a Resident Evil game before or not, Resident Evil 2 does some things a little differently to its predecessors. Although it does give you enough information in the game to get you through, I’ve gathered together a few tips that might give you an early edge over those pesky zombies.

KNOW YOUR HERBS

Herbs have been a traditional part of the series since the original game, but you might not know that Resident Evil 2 brings in a new use for the blue herb.

There are three different herbs in the game: green, red and blue. But how do they work?

Green – on its own it will recover a small amount of health, put two together and the amount of health it restores increases.
Red – increases the potency of other herbs, especially the green herb.
Blue – removes toxins and poisons from the body.

Now, mixing green and red will produce an extremely strong restorative that will usually put you back to full health. Normally, this would be the best mixture available, but in Resident Evil 2 you can add a blue herb to that mixture that will even temporarily bolster your defences too.

So, before you go wasting that lone green herb, have a look around for others. You never know when you might need something a little more effective.

DON’T BE AFRAID TO RUN AWAY

Ammo conservation is essential to your survival in Raccoon City’s police station, and most of your enemies are slow, so don’t think that you have to clear every hallway to proceed. In fact, doing just that might leave you in a spot of bother later on, so why not try running around the shuffling undead?

SOUND IS YOUR BEST FRIEND AND WORST ENEMY

That said, you don’t always have to literally run past zombies. It might be the worst thing you can do, depending on the situation. For example, did you know that Lickers are blind? This means that they have exceptional hearing, and your awkward stumbling will only quicken your death around them. Then there’s the Tyrant. If he hears you running around or shooting, he’ll come stomping after you.

This is where you can use sound to your advantage. As you’re exploring, listen out for the telltale sounds of Lickers and the Tyrant especially. If you hear the rasping breath of a Licker coming from around the corner, slow your pace to make as little noise as possible. They won’t attack until they know where you are, so sneak past them if you must, but you’re probably best using this tactic to position yourself for the best shot. You don’t want to leave Lickers around for when the Tyrant inevitably spots you.

To avoid the Tyrant as much as possible, listen out for his heavy boots stomping around. Listen out for doors opening. If his footsteps are muffled, he’s outside somewhere, but if you hear them clearly, you know he’s in the same room as you. Either way, keep your pace slowed until you know you’ve got some distance on him, otherwise he’ll zero in on your location and begin hunting you.

USE THE MAP TO YOUR ADVANTAGE

This is one of the best things you can do in the game. When you’re being hunted by the Tyrant, open up the map and work out the best route to get around him, eventually these routes will become second nature if you study the map this way.

While exploring the environment, any items you pass are marked on your map for later, and rooms will turn from red to blue whenever you’ve found everything of note. Locked doors be noted with whatever key shape needed to unlock them, or will simply turn red if they’re locked from the other side. If you’re able to board up a window, those will also be noted on the map, and you can decide which ones you should prioritise once you’ve found another set of wooden boards.

THE RIGHT TOOL FOR THE JOB

Speaking of wooden boards, they are just one of the things you should learn to use to their greatest effect during your time in the RPD building. For example, there is a window on the first floor in the west wing, next to the darkroom. Boarding that up should be a priority, as you’ll probably be using that staircase often and you don’t want more zombies finding their way inside. You should use this way of thinking for every window you come across: is it a main path from/to the main hall? If the answer is yes, it’s worth thinking about boarding it up. You don’t want to leave yourself open to a surprise when you’re being chased by the big guy.

What about those defensive weapons? You should always keep at least one in your inventory, but which ones are best for each situation?

Knives – when your primary enemy is a zombie or three, a knife will do the job. Not just if they grab you, giving you a way to avoid a biting, but if you’ve downed one with a shot or two to the head, a few slashes of the knife can finish it off without the need to waste more ammo.

Flash grenades – these are good against most enemies in the game, at least in terms of creating an escape route. Throwing down a flash grenade will temporarily stun zombies and even the Tyrant, giving you a moment to make a run for it.

Hand grenades – these can hurt anything, even bosses. I would suggest keeping these for emergencies, but sometimes those emergencies can include running into a crowd of zombies when you’re in a hurry. Or perhaps a couple of Lickers have appeared in a tight corridor.

Defensive weapons are extremely effective, just don’t waste them.

DOCUMENT EVERYTHING

Read those reports and notes that are dotted around, they often contain information vital to discovering secrets or to solve puzzles.

Remember that you will always have access to any documents that you have picked up, via the inventory menu. So when you come across one of the puzzle statues like the lion in the main hall of the police station, remember that you may have picked up something that can offer the solution to that particular conundrum.

TAKE IT EASY – OR NOT

Choose the difficulty setting that fits your level of play, to ensure that you get the best first experience possible. Don’t worry about choosing the easiest option just because someone might scoff, your enjoyment should be your priority and that’s all there is to it.

Assisted difficulty is there to give you more ammo and health, as well as to help with your aiming and to generally make things a little less challenging for those wanting a slightly less stressful experience. It’s not an “I win” solution by any means, but it will help less confident players to experience Resident Evil 2’s story in full.

Whatever difficulty you choose, whichever character you play as first, I hope these tips help and I hope you enjoy Resident Evil 2 as much as I did.

The post A Newcomer’s Guide to staying alive in Resident Evil 2 appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

I’ve wanted to avoid using the term pre-review for a long time. When I first clapped eyes on it I thought ‘Isn’t that a preview?’, but considering I’ve been playing Ni No Kuni 2 and today is the embargo, I’m supposed to be furnishing the site with a review, yet I just don’t feel ready to do so. Previews are normally done weeks in advance on early build code, as such this is final code, hence why I’m actually using the dreaded pre-review term.

Now, while I don’t feel ready to give the game a score, I can assure you that I love it with every fibre of my being. This isn’t a short game, as many will know from playing JRPGs, but it’s one that is meticulously crafted to within an inch of its life. It’s not slow to start, the plot is not a meandering mess and the characters are actually all likeable: that’s a considerable achievement. There are several elements here, from the usual battles, to the RTS-lite and then the kingdom building, it’s all introduced at just the right time, and is all seasoned just right to make each part feel unique and yet still part of the same cohesive whole.

There’s a considerable degree of handholding here, the minimap always has your most important quest showing and as a result you’ll always be pointed in the right direction, and should always be levelled enough to be able to handle anything that gets in your way. After the regulation over-dramatic intro you’ll get into fights proper, and to be honest it all becomes second nature straight from the off. Combat is simple, yet effective, and while you’ll wince when you see an enemy that has a level much higher than your own, you’ll always have the capability to defeat it – within reason of course, don’t go taking on a level 50 when you’re 15 for crying out loud.

The new combat system feels better to me than the familiar system from the first title. Here it’s a more hands on approach, with regular and heavy attacks performed with X and Y respectively (on PC, Square and Triangle on PS4), and then special attacks executed by holding R2 and then pressing a face button. It’s simple, yet incredibly satisfying to dispatch a pack of enemies in double quick time, and even more so to establish yourself tactically in a more drawn out battle.

Here’s the thing though: the story is great, the combat system equally so, but I tell you what, I could get lost in the kingdom management side of the game forever. I’ve actually found myself wanting to get to certain milestones just so I can expand my kingdom. Laying down facilities, conducting research, recruiting new citizens… it’s just so addictive even if it does feel that F2P mechanics hold it back somewhat.

Don’t take F2P as a negative here, there are no extra purchases to be made within the game. Instead, certain elements are locked behind you accumulating new residents, others are from ensuring you have enough money to pay for them, and money is earned by time elapsed. It makes sense in the context of a kingdom and taxes, I just wish that I could expand my kingdom with a bit less pushing forward in the story. For instance, I wanted to upgrade my kingdom to level 2, but needed 25 citizens, and the only way to do that was to finish the next story chapter and then recruit them, and now I just need to ensure I have the money.

Anyway, I could go on and on about this game for hours, part of me wants to throw down all my thoughts now and whack a number at the end, but this would be doing the game a disservice. Ni No Kuni 2 deserves more than a half-assed attempt at getting hours in and an ill-informed number at the end, and you, the reader deserve more than that as well. What I will say though is that this is brilliant, it’s everything I wanted the game to be and maybe even a little bit more. Rest assured a full review is coming, but right now, I have a kingdom to create.

The post No No Kuni 2: Revenant Kingdom Pre-review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Ten years ago, the games industry was lamenting the lost art of the Graphic Adventure. But now, thanks to platforms like Steam and crowd-finding via Kickstarter, small-scale adventure games are a dime a dozen. Whereas gamers once had no options, now there is the problem of picking out the titles worthy of your attention. Dead Synchronicity immediately stands out as one that you shouldn’t miss.

First-time developers Fictiorama have eschewed the common route of cartoony, humourous adventure games, focusing on a much more serious, adult storyline. Shades of classic science fiction such as the work of George Orwell and Philip K Dick abound in this dystopian future. Players take on the role of Michael – an amnesiac who has awoken in a world ravaged by disaster and struggling to maintain a semblance of modern society. This isn’t just a cheap use of that old memory loss premise however, as the cataclysmic events happening around the world have not only caused some residents to lose their memories, but others to lose their minds completely.

The Great Wave hit, and sent the world back into the technological dark ages. Society tried to hold itself together, but a shortage of food, water and shelter has caused the situation to degenerate into a fight for survival – with the sadistic army declaring martial law and taking over. Those who have money can remain in the city, while the general populace – the Rats – are forced to live in refugee camps, which are more like prison camps. This allows for some grisly and unsettling scenes, where similarities to Auschwitz and other terrible places spring to mind.

Not only did the Great Wave knock out all technology and open a mysterious purple rift in the sky, but it also brought with it a terrible plague – with those who become infected known as “the dissolved”. Their mind begins to fall apart, leading to hallucinations, mental trips and visions of speaking with the dead. Not only does the populace live in fear of contracting the disease, but also of the over-zealous military who will kill anyone exhibiting signs of, or harbouring those with, the infection. These men must be avoided or appeased if you want to successfully live to fight another day.

It is in this atmosphere of distrust and tension that you must guide Michael. Himself saved by a Good Samaritan, he is now tasked with somehow tracking down a rumoured cure for the affliction, with the added promise of discovering more about his own past. The gameplay is classic point and click – with context-sensitive interaction icons that will switch depending on the most logical interactions with a person or object. This isn’t a complex or innovative system, nor does it need to be, and this serves the minimalistic, run-down aesthetic pretty well.

What makes Dead Synchronicity stand out against its peers, is that once you have played through the extended first act, the gameplay opens up and becomes more liberated than many modern adventures. Several puzzles and plot lines can be hanging open at one time, allowing you some freedom to tackle each in the order you choose. Thankfully, this means that whenever you find yourself stuck on one task, there is always the option to go back and investigate another lead, rather than becoming too frustrated. There is no in-game hint system, but the spacebar highlights all hotspots – eliminating the dreaded pixel-hunt. A journal system also keeps track of recent events and useful information, which is handy for moments when you have to back-track.

Not only is Dead Synchronicity stylish from a science fiction story point of view, but the visuals are also quite unique. Hand-drawn backgrounds really set the scene and portray the dirty, dank hopelessness of life after the Great Wave, being highly detailed and atmospheric, although maintaining a painterly expressionistic style. The character design is also very unique, with the characters appearing very angular and somewhat stretched – a reflection of the taught, painful reality of the situation they are in. Despite the 2D presentation, the camera is not passive and pans around backdrops, zooming in and out on important actions and conversations – providing a certain energy that many adventure games lack when using a static camera.

The action is punctuated by an eerie mix of electronic and guitar-driven music, which is a good extension of the atmosphere created visually. There were no voices in the preview build, but let us just hope that they can lend the sort of seriousness and weight that the tone of the story requires. One feels that Fictiorama will most likely nail the voiceovers, as the rest of Dead Synchronicity comes across as such a confident first outing. You would think the company had been developing adventure games for some time, such is the self-assured hand that has created this disturbing and immersive dystopia. It will certainly be exciting to join Michael on his quest in the full game, but we should be prepared for a sombre and disconcerting ride along the way.

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It is a fundamental fact that castles are incredibly cool. Just imagine owning a castle, it would be like owning your own small town, with a giant wall to stop anyone you don’t like getting in. As someone who has a fairly strong dislike of people that sounds amazing. Unfortunately, chances are I will never own a working castle, as they don’t really exist anymore, however Stronghold: Crusader 2 gives me the chance to command a castle in a virtual world.

Building your castle is a vital task in Stronghold: Crusader 2. Without well-built walls with strategically placed defenses the enemy player can just run a small group of units to your keep and kill your Lord, resulting in a loss. With a castle, however, they will have to send siege units to bring down the walls, along with dozens of ground units to bring down any archers you may have. Castles don’t only offer protection; they can also give tactical advantages, especially in the smaller maps. If you can build a tower close to a known chokepoint and fill it with archers, you will have a high ground advantage against any attackers.

Castle building requires stone that has to be mined in a quarry. Once you have enough stone you can select different parts of the castle to build. Walls are created by drawing them on the map, and other areas such as towers and gatehouses are placed like any other building. Unfortunately the castle walls are a bit of a pain to place, they often don’t sit on the terrain as they should, resulting in low or broken walls.

While castles are one of the cooler things in Stronghold Crusader 2, wood is perhaps the most important. Without wood, you can’t erect the majority of buildings. Without wood you wont be able to efficiently mine other resources. Without wood your economy will fail. Other resources such as gold or food can be saved by increasing taxes and reducing rations (which will make you quite unpopular), but wood needs to be collected 24/7.

The core of any real RTS game is the combat itself, and Stronghold: Crusader 2 features the traditional “lets throw loads of units at the enemy and hope we have more than them” combat style. Fights aren’t particularly interesting to micro-manage; just select the units and click on what they need to attack (although the unit AI isn’t great so you have little choice but to constantly micro-manage each unit.) However, selecting the right units for the job is much more interesting. You could send a massive group of archers to the castle, and they might do a great job or bringing down the enemies on the castle walls, but once they get inside they will never kill the Lord on their own. Pikemen will be more effective once the castle walls have been broken, but before that point they are slow sitting ducks for the enemy rangers.

There is a plethora of units available they are quite varied, especially when you add in siege weaponry. Weapons need to be forged in order to make units, and some require other items such as horses or armor. Each unit has advantages and disadvantages and creating a good mix will usually serve you well. However, archers are a must in order to defend a castle wall.

One of the most infuriating parts of Stronghold: Crusader 2 is the final fight with the enemy Lord. As soon as he dies it’s game over and victory is yours, but he seems to be some kind of invincible superman. Arrows deflect off him, siege weapons do nothing to his keep and some units just don’t seem to harm him no matter how many you send his way. Even more annoying is that a few times the enemy Lord will disappear inside his keep as you’re attacking, making it impossible for any units to target him, and literally making the game un-winnable.

If all of this sounds a bit complex there is no need to worry, as the learning curve isn’t particularly steep for newcomers. The tutorials and single player skirmishes give enough information for you to get the basics but leave enough unsaid that the joy of discovery is still present. Still, the difficultly may put some people off.

On the multiplayer side of things Stronghold: Crusader 2 has a few neat ideas, such as allowing two people to be on the same side, controlling the same castle and its resources. Ideally one player would be in charge of the economy and castle while the other is in charge of combat, but that never really works out, as everyone seems to want to rush the enemy castle themselves. Elsewhere, the 1V1 fights will probably offer the most replayability once you have beaten all the single player skirmishes, and are pretty much what you would expect, although finding a match can sometimes take a while.

Overall, Stronghold: Crusader 2 does a lot of things well. Managing the economy is important, but it doesn’t need to be constantly managed (although you do need to take the right resource path in order to succeed). Combat is the traditional RTS “smash into each other experience” but it works well (despite the questionable unit AI), and building your castle is incredibly pleasing despite the dodgy interaction with terrain. Irritating moments such as the enemy Lord fights and generally high difficulty detract significantly from the game, but it’s still an enjoyable romp for any RTS fan.

GOOD. A game that scores 7/10 is worthy of note, but unworthy of fanfare. It does many things well, but only a few of them incredibly well and, despite a handful of good qualities, fresh ideas and solid mechanics, it fails to overwhelm.

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The whole “undercover cop gets in too deep” storyline has been done a million times in both games and movies, to the point where it’s hard to watch a hardboiled detective story unfold without rolling your eyes and facetiously predicting the plot. “He’s a bad guy,” you say, as the veteran actor with the “and…” billing is introduced as either the hero’s mentor, superior or weirdly older friend. “Here comes the ‘difficult moral choice'”, you remark glibly, as the hero is forced to choose between his brother cops and the criminal family he has come to respect. “I bet he’s gonna die next,” you sneer, as your other half silently weighs the pros and cons of your relationship in their head.

But part of the reason such stories are so successful and watchable is that we have become accustomed to them. There’s something comforting about a well worn plot, about knowing where a narrative is going before it gets there. United Front know this, which is why Sleeping Dogs takes almost no risks with its storytelling but still manages to deliver a thoroughly engrossing and enjoyable experience.

It’s no surprise that Sleeping Dogs proved so popular. It was released in a comfortable lull, and a combination of high production values and effortless playability outweighed the various graphical glitches and performance issues that threatened to hold it back. As with many good last-gen games, Sleeping Dogs is now receiving the Definitive Edition treatment as United Front port it over to PS4 and XBO along with all 27 (count them) pieces of DLC, from the zombie infested Nightmare in Northpoint, to various costume and weapon packs.

For those who missed the original release, Sleeping Dogs is essentially a rebuilt True Crime: Streets of Hong Kong. Rather than resurrect that under-performing franchise, United Front simply took the basic framework and setting and added as much cool as possible while completely reworking it. Sleeping Dogs tells the story of Wei Shen, a former low-level Triad player turned LA cop turned undercover mole, who has relocated to his hometown in an effort to infiltrate his old gang, the Sun On Yee.

Backed up by a handful of supporting characters voiced by, among others, Tom Wilkinson, Emma Stone, and Lucy Liu, Shen is a fairly textbook undercover hero, caught halfway between cop and criminal and unsure of which path suits him best. As the story gathers pace and it becomes harder for him to trust anyone or even keep his own secret quiet, Shen struggles to decide where his true loyalties lie. Which is all well and good and makes for a compelling, well acted plot, but what it ultimately amounts to (and this is not a criticism) is shooting people, beating up thugs and driving stolen cars ridiculously fast.

Sleeping Dogs uses the GTA template ably to allow you to commit questionable acts in a open environment, helping people out or beating them down as you work your way up the proverbial food chain. Combat is combo and counter-based, like a more arcadey Batman: Arkham Asylum, with retaliatory strikes and heavy-hitting combos interspersed with some truly mean environmental attacks (ram a guy’s head into a spinning fan for extra gore points). You can also partake of various side activities like street races or helping out random strangers with small favours.

As with many Definitive Editions, you’re getting a good deal here, especially with the DLC thrown in. The main game is a good size on its own, but now you’re also seeing it running at (an albeit inconsistent) 60fps, and the improved visuals bring the dark-lit streets to life like never before. People are more tightly packed and their interactions are noticeably smoother, and they don’t force the engine to grind to a halt when more than twenty are on-screen at once. That said, United Front haven’t ironed out all the bugs with this version which is a shame. The game still stutters during the high speed chases, and enemy AI still consists of standing around waiting to get kicked, shot or run over.

The driving hasn’t been tightened like we hoped it would be, and vehicles still feel a little tricky to control. Although the shooting is decent, the main draw among the three prime gameplay tenets is the fisticuffs. Hitting the counter button at the right time causes you to block and strike back, while holding X (on PS4) grapples an enemy and allows you to interact, often brutally, with your surroundings. It’s not always pretty as weird physics can damage the illusion as easily here as when you’re running through the streets and occasionally forget to hit the contextual free-run button, and Shen awkwardly climbs over a table with unnatural, out of place animation.

Despite such middling visual complaints, an incredibly playable game remains just that on current gen, maintaining its slightly broken charm and presenting a huge, sprawling adventure with DLC that extends the already impressive runtime by several hours. Definitive Edition is not quite an essential purchase – especially if you already played and finished the original release – but it’s definitely worth picking up if you’re hankering after the kind of open world criminal action that doesn’t take itself too seriously.

VERY GOOD. An 8/10 is only awarded to a game we consider truly worthy of your hard-earned cash. This game is only held back by a smattering of minor or middling issues and comes highly recommended.

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Every year, the Skylanders team somehow surprise me. Even in the year 2014, I expect games aimed at children to be average, or worse, yet every single year, Activision has released a Skylanders game that is entertaining for all ages – and to hell with my street cred, those toys are still cool, I’d have loved them growing up.

Where they once relied on the Spyro name to sell a new franchise, Skylanders has taken on a life of its own, and with the new consoles now on the market, they’ve taken a visual leap, as Trap Team looks gorgeous. The colourful imagery is everywhere, and it’s the antithesis of so many modern games. It’s vibrant, and the action pops off the screen for all to see like an explosion of sugar and sweets.

But the basics of Skylanders are now set in stone. Since Swap Force introduced a jump button, there’s not a huge amount that feels missing – though I’d still like to see camera control and online multiplayer at some point in the future. You’ll still go to levels, move objects about, go up lifts, and attack everything that isn’t nailed down.

So really, it falls to whoever comes up with the toy ideas to create something new and interesting that will make us want to collect them all over again. Initially it seemed an odd idea, too. The ability to trap your enemies and have them fight for you? Requires a new portal? Uh-oh, this doesn’t sound good, right? Luckily, the joy these simple touches bring to a child are better in action than they sound on paper, and create a whole new way to play and explore.

The basic concept is that you have traps you insert into the portal, and you can capture enemies instead of killing them, and there are around forty to trap. Once captured, you hit the L2 button and your Skylander will be swapped out for the baddie. This is amusing, but it’s when you start taking down the big bosses that it gets really interesting.

Of course, the characters are all daft and are there mostly for comedic value, but the first boss you fight (a weird little man who controls the Chompys) is enough of a challenge that it doesn’t resort to simple button mashing, and it’s rewarding because you’ll get to trap him and then use him against other enemies. Speaking of difficulty, while it’s not overly taxing (there are hard battles, though), it’s not too easy either – it’s well balanced, as you’d hope.

Thankfully, traps are reuseable, and you can go to a larger trap and swap out villains at your leisure, though obviously only one character can be in a trap at any given time. The portal talks to you, as well, and the bad guys will comment on things as you play along. Having a Sheep Creep “baa” at you randomly doesn’t get old, and Chompy Mage never stops being annoyed that he is incarcerated.

You can’t play as them forever, though, and each time you swap one out, you can only use them for a limited time, with damage taken reducing that time. What’s especially interesting is that the variation in attacks means you can have a Skylander on the portal that shoots (thus has ranged attacks), then swap to a trapped villain that is more melee based.

There’s a raft of new toys to collect, then. New Skylanders (series four), and now traps as well. Each trap is specific to an element, so you can’t use a life trap to capture an earth enemy. It might seem cynical, but as with previous games locking off areas to certain elemental Skylanders, it’s merely an extension of that idea. And there’s no shortage of content, with wave based modes like Doom Challenge, and Arena battle giving additional things to do outside the main campaign. The hard truth is that you’re going to want to collect them anyway, I’m sorry you had to hear that, but you knew it deep inside. As always, your previous Skylanders work on the new portal, and they keep their levels and skills from the other games. It’s a small thing to note, really, but one that is continually worth mentioning.

Kaos returns, as you expect, and this time there’s a band of evil-doers possibly more villainous than him. His plan is to undermine them secretly, so they fail and turn to him as the one-true king of evil. Being a bumbling fool, I’ll let you guess how that goes. It’s full of charm, and the voice acting is excellent, with returning characters everywhere.

Like The Simpsons (well, older Simpsons, anyway) there is plenty for all ages to laugh at, and even some more cheeky nods to the older audience. Some of the toys themselves will make you laugh – for example, Chopper is a small dinosaur with a helicopter on his back, and Food Fight is a small green chap that has a gun which shoots tomatoes. It makes no sense, but it also makes complete sense. There are minis to collect, too, and the giant called Eye Brawl is now available as Eye Small. Such a silly name change, yet for some reason it really tickles me.

It’s weird to think that with the fourth game, Skylanders has fully earned my trust. Games aimed at children don’t have to be rubbish, and they can engage with them on multiple levels. As well as the game itself, the toys are highly collectible (still) and there are even trading cards that come with each toy. I harp on about this because it’s true, but as a kid, the Skylanders would have been the coolest thing I could have imagined in game form, and the quality every year stays high.

The toys still aren’t cheap, and jumping in here (the new starter pack only has two Skylanders, as it also has two traps) means you’re probably going to want to get a few extra toys right out of the gate. But Toys for Bob continue to hold fun in the highest regard, and that’s worth championing. But Lord only knows where they go next.

VERY GOOD. An 8/10 is only awarded to a game we consider truly worthy of your hard-earned cash. This game is only held back by a smattering of minor or middling issues and comes highly recommended.

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Sometimes the very best things don’t come right for you like a South Park deer, they blind-side you out of nowhere. A few years ago a little studio named Rocksteady came careening out of left field to hit us with what turned out to be the greatest Batman game that ever was. It’s not that we didn’t know it was coming; we’d seen trailers and hype and lofty promises, but none of us truly expected Arkham Asylum to be as good as it was. The license had been abused so much, we just couldn’t trust anyone to do it justice, not even Warner Brothers.

Five years later, and history has been repeating itself like a bad curry ever since Warner Brothers announced Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor. Like Batman, Tolkien’s genre-defining fantasy opus is a license that has never really been used to its potential. Occasional gems have been found among the rough, but ultimately fans of the franchise have always been left wanting something more. Initial trailers and screens for Mordor were uninspiring, showing an Assassin’s Creed-like stealth-em-up with a Middle-earth sheen. No one could blame us for feeling apprehensive.

But then I put the disc in the tray, booted up Shadow of Mordor, and experienced undeniable deja vu. Because Shadow of Mordor, against almost all our expectations, is excellent.

Set in the years between The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring, this original story takes place within Mordor itself, as resurrected Ranger Talion sets out to avenge the death of his wife and son, as well as his own. Possessed by an Elfish Wraith, Talion has been brought back from the brink of death to destroy the Black Hand of Sauron, an evil tyrant determined to see the Dark Lord return.

Where Tolkien’s original tales championed the rejection of absolute power in favour of innate courage and sacrifice, Shadow of Mordor sees Talion welcoming the power of his ghostly symbiote, openly seeking the kind of bloody vengeance that Tolkien always avoided. As a result, it’s a darker Middle-earth than we’re used to seeing, and despite the familiar themes and visuals, it feels utterly original.

Much noise has reverberated around the obvious Assassin’s Creed comparisons both pre and post-release, but the truth is that it’s a less blindingly obvious game that Mordor draws the most parallels with. When you break it down into its component parts, Mordor is also Arkham Asylum in Middle-earth. While it’s true that Talion climbs solitary towers to fill in his map and can skulk around in bushes, his version of focused vision is closer to Batman’s Detective Mode than Eagle Vision, used to track quarry across the rugged terrain and find hidden collectibles.

Enemy interaction takes several leaves from Batman’s handbook, too, as you use fear and deception to destroy and disorient your foes. The Uruks of Mordor respond like the Joker’s goons, becoming bolder the more you struggle, or turning tail when your assault proves unbreakable. If you panic and run they’ll look for you, call their brutish buddies, maybe give voice to their fears if you’ve recently proven your lethality.

The final parallel with Rocksteady’s superhero masterpiece is the combat. Counter-based and reactionary, the combat is free-flowing melee that sees Talion slinging himself around the battlefield, executing downed enemies and performing stylised instant kills whenever his Wraith-tainted sword begins to shine. Combos are tapped out with the Square button, while Cross lets you evade incoming attacks and Triangle performs a stylish counter. The number of combat animations is staggering, and there’s an undeniable beauty and grace to Talion’s epic confrontations. Throw the Warg-like Caragors and hulking Graugs into the mix, as well as ranged units and a multitude of enemy melee styles, and Mordor’s combat moves into a league of its own.

Should you fall, the Uruk that dealt the killing blow will be promoted to Captain, and join the ranks of the Uruk elite. Most of the main story missions centre on tracking and killing Captains, and it’s here, with the Nemesis System, that Shadow of Mordor elevates itself above its contemporaries. There is an entire social network at play beneath Mordor’s flesh, where Uruk Captains war for status and supremacy. This simple addition makes the world feel truly alive, as though the lives of your enemies are going on without your presence. More than this though, the Nemesis System gives each of your enemies an individual personality and memory.

If you fall in battle, the killer will remember you when you rise again from the grave. If you put a Captain down and he survives, he will remember you and thirst for vengeance, and he’ll wear the battle scars you gave him. Run away, and he’ll call you a coward, exploit his weakness, and he’ll recall your actions with either respect or contempt. Interrogating enemies will give you additional information on Captains, and make you privy to their fears. If one is afraid of fire, throw him into flames; if he’s paranoid about Caragors, let one go, Far Cry 3-style, into the Uruk encampment. It’s an exceptional system that genuinely heightens your immersion in the world and makes you feel that it’s you and you alone dictating the fate of Mordor.

Should you decide you want a break from hunting Captains, you can partake of any of half a dozen or more side concerns, such as digging up artefacts (which borrows a mechanic wholesale from the Tomb Raider reboot), or freeing human slaves. Tapping L1 will call forth the Wraith to help you track down hidden treasures. Side quests also afford you upgrades to your sword, bow and dagger. While customisation isn’t really featured, you can pick and choose your skills as you progress, and you’ll acquire runes from dead Captains that add buffs to your weaponry. The combination of weapon runes and combat skills steadily increase Talion’s power and efficiency, and as his power grows and his humanity slowly seeps away, you will feel both his unease with his strange new gifts and his growing realisation that only by using these powers can he hope to avenge his family. It’s a powerful theme and Monolith use it well, conveying the sense of reluctant power without hitting you over the head with it.

Unfortunately, such quality in the gameplay highlights flaws elsewhere. For example, the environments of Shadow of Mordor lean towards the brown end of the spectrum, so much so that you’d be forgiven for thinking the Unreal Engine was involved. That being said, the world is well-detailed and the animation is exceptional. The sound design is similarly high quality, from the stellar voice work to the quintessential Lord of the Rings ambience. The score is epic and sweeping, carrying a menacing undertone when it needs to and raising your pulse when a ruckus kicks off.

Other complaints are just as minor, but important enough to warrant mentioning. For starters, the camera is occasionally a little temperamental, and the combat suffers the same problems with clipping and collision as Batman’s did. It’s not unusual to see an enemy drop after your elbow has barely connected, or to spot a body caught in the floor or scenery. Also, there’s simply no denying that by the time you’ve finished the 12 to 15 hour campaign, the combat will have started to feel repetitive and a little by-the-numbers, despite its quality, and hoovering up all those missed artefacts and side missions may lose some of its lustre.

Just like Batman before it, Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor is the greatest Rings game we’ve seen, and is easily the best use of the license to date. The combat and Nemesis System alone are worth the asking price, but it’s the world itself that steals the show. Mordor is alive but dying, still vital but mortally poisoned by Sauron’s festering evil, a darkness that threatens to consume everything – even Talion himself. In a brave move, Shadow of Mordor eschews Tolkien’s almost trademark black and white hero versus villain dynamic to present a protagonist who walks in the grey places, caught between doing the right thing and satisfying his own need for vengeance and absolution.

Dark, compelling, and occasionally unflinchingly brutal, Shadow of Mordor is Lord of the Rings for grown-ups. It’s not just a good game based on an established franchise, but a fantastic game in its own right and one that deserves to be judged purely by its own merits, and not by what has come before.

SUPERB. This is the mark of greatness, only awarded to games that engage us from start to finish. Titles that score 9/10 will have very few problems or negative issues, and will deliver high quality and value for money across all aspects of their design.

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Chariot, the latest effort from Canadian Indie developer Frima Studio, is a title that has seen a lot more attention than a game of its ilk would usually enjoy, thanks largely to its launch day availability on the Games with Gold program on Xbox One. Chariot is pitched as a couch co-op 2D platformer, so is it a great time for two or should it just be left alone?

The story Chariot weaves is surprisingly dour. It tells of a recently deceased king and his loyal servants, who must drag his moody corpse to a resting place his lordship finds satisfactory. The king is surprisingly greedy for a dead guy, as he demands that you collect plenty of loot on your way to his resting place of choice. Grim the premise may be, but Chariot doesn’t dwell on it for long – this is a light and cheery take on death and the afterlife.

You assume the role of one of the king’s doting servants, pulling his wheeled casket through the Royal Catacombs on a mission to find a suitable resting place . You have the choice of pushing the royal coffin from behind, or attaching a rope to it and pulling it along. Chariot is as much about solving problems as it is about pure platforming, tasking you with pushing, pulling and riding the casket over and around all manner of obstacles. After the menu screen, Chariot gets the action started immediately, which is quite jarring, as I was fully expecting some sort of cutscene. The cutscene happened eventually, and it wasn’t long before I came to appreciate what a good idea throwing the player straight into the action is. I had to figure out the controls myself in order to get things started: tap the right trigger to lasso the coffin, use the analogue stick to move, and drag the dead guy along.

On your journey through the catacombs, you find loot in the form of gems that come in different shapes and sizes. This loot collection can be used to purchase additional items that aid you on your journey – these items can only be purchased once the Royal Scrolls that describe them (blueprints) have been found, encouraging exploration. And explore you must, as Chariot’s later levels are sprawling underground wildernesses, with many entrances and exits. You will need to revisit these levels many times to find all of their secrets; I have no doubt that many people will get lost exploring some of Chariots more elaborate mazes.

You will find a relatively easy path through the level if you follow the well placed arrow markers, but for those willing to explore to find the most treasure, there are a staggering number of little off-shoots that will pull you in. All of this can be shared with a friend, with advertised sections of every level that can only be completed by a team of two players. I managed to coax the missus into playing along for a good hour or two, the feedback being that she enjoyed it, found it accessible and that she’d be coming back for more. For my part, I really enjoyed getting involved in some couch-based 2-player action – there is something about actually being in the room with the person you are gaming with, you know?

Where Chariot’s true joy comes from is its platforming. Having to worry about two on-screen objects instead of one (the player character and the coffin) is nothing new of course, you can go all the way back to Yoshi’s Island for that, but Chariot does do it rather well. There are some brutally difficult areas here, and I found myself repeating the same jump, capture and coffin pulling exercise excessively on numerous occasions. And you know what? I did it all with a smile on my face, and this is coming from someone that is easily frustrated by repetition. What I did get mildly frustrated with is the lack of overall variety on offer – the unlockable gadgets bring new challenges to Chariot, but on the whole, you don’t see anything brand new after the third stage.

Chariot is a challenging game, and it adds a little more challenge by throwing in enemies that want to take a piece of your loot stash. “Looters” are little creatures that appear when you make too much noise, and come out of the walls to attack the king’s casket and run off with some loot, so it is advised that you keep noisy manoeuvres to a minimum. You can fend off the looters with a simple melee attack, but they add another layer of interest to a game already bursting with qualities – another challenge in a world of challenges.

This is a particularly pretty title; its bouncy cartoony characters and luscious caverns are a real feast for the eyes. The deeper into Chariot’s catacombs you get, the more awesome stuff starts to look. Pathways that either the player character or the king’s casket can use react to their presence either with a barrage of ghostly skulls or a blossom of fresh green foliage. The plants and gems all glow with glorious phosphorescence. It’s an easy game to admire.

Frima’s title is yet another one to add to your bucket list of 2D platformers. I personally am loving the indie renaissance of the last few years – the online platforms have given developers the means to create some stunning games. Chariot is up there with the best of them: its take on puzzle platforming is unique enough and challenging enough to keep you engaged for some time. It won’t capture the attention or admiration of everybody, of course, but for those of you who yearn for days gone by, Chariot is a must see.

VERY GOOD. An 8/10 is only awarded to a game we consider truly worthy of your hard-earned cash. This game is only held back by a smattering of minor or middling issues and comes highly recommended.

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“Definitive” is the latest buzzword to be introduced to an industry seemingly built on them, but what it actually means is “now on next-gen consoles”. As we wait patiently for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One to fill up their catalogues with new titles, we’re being treated (and most of them are treats) to re-jigged versions of already-released titles, more often than not tweaked for 1080p and 60fps – a graphical upgrade which seems enough to justify a re-release all on its own.

CastleStorm, from Zen Studios (the team behind several awesome Pinball series, among other things), is the most recent title to make the transfer across generations, and it’s a welcome addition to the line-up despite the lack of significant change. A hybrid of RTS, Tower Defence, action and Angry Birds, CastleStorm is one of the more interesting titles to occupy that odd middle ground between indie and AAA, combining highly addictive gameplay with bright, colourful visuals to deliver an experience that is nothing short of charming.

The narrative centres on a fantasy world where knights and Vikings warred for centuries, until a Goddess cried two tears that turned to magical crystals. Each side took one, and peace reigned for decades, until the Vikings got greedy and decided they wanted both. Your part in the ensuing war is to defend your king and country as Protector of the Realm, a quintessential hero knight with blond hair, blue eyes and shiny shining armour. Armed with a sword and shield or a bow, you’ll be tasked with either heading out to meet the enemy head on, or leading the royal defenses to repel invaders.

Initially presented as a 2D physics game, CastleStorm gives you a meagre arsenal to begin with, affording you nothing but a ballistae with which to perforate hairy Viking skulls. As the game progresses you’ll unlock more, from huge spiked bolas to explosive missiles, and you’ll be able to deploy troops to defend you on the ground. The strategy element exists because troops cost food, and food costs time, so you’ll need to use your weaponry (all working on cooldowns) to keep the enemy at bay until you can field reinforcements.

From ground troops and archers to trolls, direwolves and champions, the enemy comes at you in steady waves, mixing it up enough that you’ll need to employ a combination of defensive strategies to stay in the game. If they take down your wall and make it back to base with your flag, it’s over. As with most games of this ilk, you can be riding high one minute and in a world of doodoo the next thanks to one bad decision or imprecise shot. If you do win the day, you’ll be rewarded with gold to spend on upgrades and new weapons or soldiers.

The targeting isn’t always as exact as you’d like, and sometimes the bright colours make it hard to discern exactly what’s going on during a fight or how much damage you’re doing to the enemy castle, but patience is usually the key to victory. Taking your time to line up a shot is way more effective than blind-firing, especially when you’re aiming to clean up on bonuses for, say, getting 20 headshot kills. The controls are simple enough, even during the missions where your plucky, chiselled hero heads out onto the field himself and you take total, single control of him. It’s an excellent change of pace, even if he does move a little ponderously sometimes.

The multiplayer mode ups the ante by pitting you against another devious and free-thinking human being, but besides this the core game is identical. The AI is tough enough during later stages that I never found myself hankering after a PvP game, but the option is there for those who prefer the challenge of out-thinking a person. If nothing else, playing against a player makes every match less predictable, and demands that you use everything you’ve got to win.

A castle building mode rounds off the package, allowing you to design your own base. There are plenty of options to fortify and defend your creation, but the controls can feel a little clunky and for some reason it never feels that satisfying to use your own base – partly because the pre-made ones are perfectly functional and, despite the inclusion of some half-decent buffs, all you’re really doing is adding layers and making it harder to bring down. Though, that’s the point, I suppose.

Although CastleStorm seemed right at home on the Vita, it fits the PS4 very well, too. The bright visuals pop and sing thanks to the increased power and the game runs as smooth as butter at all times. Addictive and entertaining, CastleStorm’s mix of fairytale whimsy and challenging strategy – as well as its mishmash of play styles – makes it a solid and enticing prospect whatever the platform.

VERY GOOD. An 8/10 is only awarded to a game we consider truly worthy of your hard-earned cash. This game is only held back by a smattering of minor or middling issues and comes highly recommended.

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From the moment you begin, the atmosphere is dripping from every corner of Alien: Isolation. Creative Assembly have successfully created not only an expansive world to explore and traverse, but also the fear that an Alien should instil. You don’t want to run into the perfect killing machine, and after the first time, you actually don’t ever want to see it again. But like Resident Evil’s Nemesis, the titular Alien stalks you as prey, and you’ll never truly feel able to assault it.

Let’s be clear about this: Isolation is one-hundred-percent a stealth game. Not a stealth game like Dishonored, where you can kill people and escape. No, if you are pulling your revolver out here, you’re doing it wrong and are either going to die, or have to hope you get lucky.

This is in part thanks to the relentless AI. It’s worth saying that, if you do encounter the Alien and it sees you, you’re dead. If you’re lucky enough that it appears and doesn’t see you, sure, you can hide and escape, but there are other enemies on the Sevastopol space station that are just as deadly. Scavenger humans, in fact, are the easiest to kill, but appear in groups and are smart enough to patrol in a manner that makes you easy to spot. Synthetics are brutally difficult to take down, requiring almost all of your ammo in one go, which is likely to attract more enemies thanks to the noise. In fact, they’re possibly too hard (even on the medium difficultly level), and can happily grab your melee weapon and throttle you, causing you to smash buttons to escape, then run for cover.

Everything wants to kill you, and as Amanda Ripley, you’re woefully under-prepared to fight back. Amanda has chosen to go on a company mission to the vast Sevastopol because there’s a hint that her mother might be there. Arriving with her colleagues, it’s apparent right away that something is wrong. Entering the station, an accident occurs and Ripley is left on her own, trying to uncover the mystery of what has happened there, and to reconnect with her colleagues before eventually escaping.

Characters are portrayed well, and respectfully – though perhaps more importantly, they’re all believable. Ripley is like her mother: strong, but frightened. She knows she can’t hold her own in a fight, but she’s smart and nimble. It’s early on when everything goes to pot that the incredible audio design first becomes apparent. A space walk to Sevastopol causes everything to become muted outside Amanda’s helmet, intensifying the audio and helping to create the bleak, hopeless atmosphere. Despite the vast expanse of space, she’s alone. Even entering a huge space station doesn’t help, because the people are scattered, frightened, and half the ship isn’t working.

It looks great, too. Every nook and cranny has been beautifully rendered, and the lighting effects are some of the best I’ve seen in a long, long time. But it’s the authenticity that truly makes it. The clanking sound of the Alien in the vents, the beeping of the motion tracker, the awkward speech of synthetic workers. It’s just brilliant, and there’s not a single misstep here.

You’ll be sneaking around, using all sorts of tools to help keep you safe, along with the motion tracker. A nice effect is that as you raise the tracker to view it (it shows your objective direction, as well) the rest of your view loses focus, blurring out. The shift of visual focus in this manner is something I can honestly recall seeing done, and you can hold a trigger to shift your focus back to the background, blurring the tracker out temporarily.

There are plenty of small mini-games that involve hacking, but they’re actually entertaining due to the feeling that you’re never safe. Stopping to hack a door when the Alien could be anywhere, ready to kill you, is horrible (in a good way), and every time you do it, you’ll feel panicked. Along with crafting noisemakers (and other assorted distraction weapons) from scavenged parts (don’t use up your torch batteries!), you can also tap into security systems and turn off lights, or the air purifier to create a smoky room, or even just make speakers malfunction to grab a patrolling synthetic’s attention – but you’re always risking your life doing so.

Even saving your game isn’t safe, as you’ll be warned that enemies are nearby, and it’s here that the biggest issue with Isolation rears its head: you can only hard-save. Harking back to days when games were harder, there is no auto-save at all. If you die, you’re going back to the last save you committed to. Forgotten to save for forty minutes and die? That’s forty minutes of progress you’ve just lost. The idea seems to be that quick-saving would remove all fear from Isolation, and while that’s believable, the lack of any form of checkpointing means that there will be moments of unnecessary frustration.

This, coupled with the difficulty of most enemy encounters, means that anything and everything positive I have to say (and there’s so much positive here, it’s ridiculous), needs to be read with the caveat that the save system will not be to everyone’s tastes. If you do make a mistake, and save somewhere dangerous, you can revert to the previous save, but that’s it. At one point I lost forty minutes, but it’s a testament to the quality of the game that I didn’t mind that much, and continued on for another hour beyond that. In fact, such is the quality here, that my first play sessions was four hours (the game is around fifteen hours long, though never outstays its welcome even for a second), and that’s not something I can say very often.

There are some nice features found in the PS4 version, such as the DualShock 4 speaker offering warning of motion nearby. A static beep lets you know you’re not alone in the area, and you can then lift the tracker up and study it. The PlayStation Camera (and Kinect on Xbox One) offers head tracking. Holding L1 lets you use the left stick to lean around corners, but with the camera, you can physically lean. It’s a nice touch that you’ll use for a few hours, then revert back to the controller. It’ll also (if you enable it) pick up audio from the camera’s microphone, giving away your position if you suddenly make lots of noise. Another nice idea, but one that is slightly at odds with the actual gameplay. If you’re sneaking around perfectly, but then sneeze or cough, you’ve given away the game.

But when all is said and done, you’re playing Alien: Isolation for the atmosphere and the alien, and Isolation delivers in spades. It’s a smart beast, and eventually the fear you have turns to respect. You’ll learn that you can (and will) die often, but if you play your cards right, it can kill your enemies before turning its eye on you. Brutal death sequences quickly remind you that it’s a killer and not a toy, but appearances are sparing in the first half, though often enough to never let you forget, before really ratcheting up the tension as it stalks you. The audio is so well designed that any sudden noise will have you jumping and going for your motion detector, and this is a game that unsettles as much as it scares.

Technically, for the most part, Isolation is a marvel, but not completely without issue. There’s an odd thing with the cut-scenes that looks like a frame-rate problem. There’s not so many of them that it affects the overall game, but it’s noticeable when it happens. Elsewhere, the UI is minimalist and there’s a glorious 80s vibe going on, especially during loading screens, with tracking lines everywhere, even on hint-text as it appears. It’s a loveletter to the era the Alien franchise came from, and it absolutely works.

There’s a clear option to return on higher difficulties, and potentially speed-run the game, because after you know what to expect, for the most part you can complete sections in double time. Survival mode adds a completely different aspect to Isolation, and instead of rewarding patience and slow-movement, asks you to quickly complete bite-sized tasks.

Alien: Isolation is a phenomenal title marred by only one major issue that some will overlook, and others will find a deal-breaker. It’s comfortably the best Alien game ever made, and delivers authenticity along with a new story that is worth seeing, experiencing, and fleeing from into the darkness. Never once allowing the immersion to be broken, Creative Assembly have done it. They have actually done it.

SUPERB. This is the mark of greatness, only awarded to games that engage us from start to finish. Titles that score 9/10 will have very few problems or negative issues, and will deliver high quality and value for money across all aspects of their design.

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I have never been a huge fan of the more anthropomorphic incarnations of Pac-Man, if I am brutally honest. It is a bit like when Tom and Jerry started to speak – it just doesn’t seem right. To me, Pac Man was always about the 2D waka-waka. It is often the same with time honoured two-dimensional classics making the transition into 3D – for every Super Mario 64 there is a horrible three-dimensional talking Sonic the Hedgehog. Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures 2 manages to combine both of the above conundrums, and also throws a dodgy television tie-in into the mix as its inspiration. The telly programme is as terrible as you would expect, and probably drastically over-estimates the popularity of the yellow gobbler in today’s climate of happy slapping, Flappy Bird and energy drinks.

The premise of the show is that Pac-Man is the last of his kind, a needy orphan consumed by guilt at having somehow released the vengeful ghost that threatens to destroy Pac-World. The ghosts from 1970s Pac-Man are present too, but here they feign allegiance to the baddies whilst secretly working with Pac-Man, in the hope that one day their souls will be redeemed and they can return to human form. It is some pretty dark stuff. But don’t let that upset you, kids – the first game based upon that sub-par cartoon was pretty good, and this sequel is more of the same, which is exactly what you would expect given that there is less than twelve months between the two releases.

Pac is once again in cahoots with his clunkily-named buddies Spiral and Cylindria, and once again the threadbare plot sees the happy-go-lucky trio face off against Lord Betrayus and his fiendish army of specters. The plot on this sophomore effort manages to avoid a lot of the separation anxiety and guilt from the source material and is another fresh, bright and breezy adventure that does not challenge your grey matter.

With mechanics straight out of Platforming 101, you explore your environs deciding on whether you look to uncover secrets and all of the hidden items, or simply get from start to fruit-piece finish without getting merked by a spook. Finding all of the hiding bits and pieces and waka-waka-ing up all of the glowing yellow consumables improve your end of level ranking score. In a nod to the games of yore, Pac has to hoover up pellets and fruit, can chow down on ghosts, and can access power-ups that give him special abilities. Some of these return from the previous game, but there are some new things to play around with, like the Ice-Pac, which allows you to create frozen platforms and stop enemies in their tracks with an icy blast, or the Magnet-Pac which allows you to access difficult-to-reach platforms or ensnare enemies using the baffling and impressive power of magnets. I searched desperately for a 2-Pac ability which transformed me into a doo-rag wearing gangster rapper, but this never materialised.

There is a lot to like about this Pac adventure. The simplistic nature of the platforming is very enjoyable, in a Skylanders or Ratchet & Clank kinda way. The way Pac Man can use a dash attack to chain together multiple ingestions of enemies and items is wonderful fun. It has excellent production values that elevate it beyond a lot of animation cash-ins, even if the voice acting is incredibly annoying. Some nice retro-y music, and of course the instantly recognisable noise when Pac Man gets killed, is present and correct. The new additions do not deviate it too far from its successor – there is an interesting rail shooter section, and an abundance of QTEs – and the new Pac-forms to experiment with.

This is another classic end-of-an-era title, the sort of thing that would have surfaced with regularity during the dying days of the PlayStation 2, albeit with a wildly inferior focus on quality control. Instead, Namco Bandai have produced another solid title that is an ideal distraction for the younger gamer, yet not insulting enough for an old timer to switch off and escape into for a few hours.

GOOD. A game that scores 7/10 is worthy of note, but unworthy of fanfare. It does many things well, but only a few of them incredibly well and, despite a handful of good qualities, fresh ideas and solid mechanics, it fails to overwhelm.

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Do you ever feel that probabilities are always in your favour? When most games say 70% chance to hit, it often feels more like a 90. Well when Wasteland 2 says something has a 40% chance to hit, it means 40%. Then again, a 40 in Wasteland 2 more often feels like a 10…

Wasteland 2 is a bastard, you see. That’s not even a bad thing – in many ways it’s humbling. Where other games fuel our hero lust through constant success and savoury outcomes, Wasteland 2 seems to take pride in punching you in the gut and laughing to itself as it kills your long time party member just after you’ve run out of suture kits to revive them with.

It’s a brand of cruelty that echoes the isometric pen and paper-style RPGs of the ’90’s, a heritage that Wasteland 2 is more than happy to embody. Baulders Gate, Planescape Torment and, most crucially, Fallout 1 & 2, are all apt comparisons for Inxile’s isometric strategy RPG.

Yet this is more of a full circle situation. The original Wasteland (released in 1988) was actually the inspiration for the Fallout franchise, so to find oneself in the harsh browns of Wasteland 2’s Arizona following an apocalypse in the almost flavourless 90’s after so many years accustomed to the 1950’s inspired retro future of Fallout is a peculiar one – Wasteland 2’s tone is, while still darkly comical, notably more stark despite presentational and narrative similarities.

The setup itself is nothing extraordinary. You start the game by creating a team of four Desert Rangers (essentially post apocalypse peace keepers) and are quickly introduced to Ace, who is dead. Your mission is to find out why Ace is dead while also carrying out his mission, which was to investigate strange radio broadcasts and establish connections with outlying radio towers.

How the game plays out – and the choices you make – is where the interest lies. Very early in the game, for example, Wasteland 2 gives you two missions simultaneously, but in heading to one the other changes (complete with distressing radio chatter while you’re attending to the chosen mission). Wasteland 2 never lets you have everything, but that’s a crucial cog in creating a savage world that feels alive. Wasteland 2 has to be a bastard.

That said, sometimes it’s too mean. Take navigating the world for example: it’s a really simple map to walk around from a zoomed out view, avoiding radiation and stopping at an Oasis here and there to fill up your water supplies, but it has random combat encounters. On a few occasions I entered fights that were downright unwinnable. This is a nuisance only because much of Wasteland 2 promotes creativity (not got a high enough skill to break a wooden barrier by hand? Use a shotgun), but it has occasional moments of outright mean-spiritedness.

This wouldn’t be so bad if combat in Wasteland 2 wasn’t unavoidable. This isn’t Planescape, and there will be violence. Admittedly the game has a great system for fighting – units move on an isometric grid, spending action points on moving, attacking and using items. Thing is, everything you do must be considered. The first time I shot an enemy, only to have the bullet go through it and kneecap my own party member, I winced. It was a harsh lesson, but one that, once learned, stayed learned.

Friendly fire isn’t the only reason for constant consideration, it’s also simply that combat in Wasteland 2 is desperate. Low ammo and low hit percentages in the early game combine with jamming weapons and ruthless enemies in encounters that always feel tight, if occasionally unfair.

But it’s every unlucky moment that enhances the luck. For every time your team flunks a strategy – weapons jamming left and right, backs against the walls, barely tearing through the enemies with bare hands and pixels of health – another encounter will see the sniper pull off two headshots while one teammate kites the explosive zombies and unloads some TNT amongst them in a perfect sequence of events. When something works there’s a distinctly unique satisfaction that is enhanced through the harsh nature of the game, and seeing your team pull it all together as you progress feels rewarding.

Wasteland 2 is really good at that, at making your team feel valuable. You’ll have the gunner, the smooth talker, the lockpick, the hacker, the healer etc. Everyone has a role, and seeing each person pull their weight is delightful. So you have a world that reacts and changes to your choices and a party of individuals that develop and build synergy like a real team. What’s not to like?

Well, I’ve already alluded to Wasteland 2’s unfair tendencies, and I’ll admit that the world map is pretty poor design on the whole, but it’s the whole saving/loading that flips the blame back on me. Now, I don’t know if there is an intended synergy between the way you can save and load at any time and the game’s cruelty, but the way you can simply mulligan instantly can add a frivolous vibe to Wasteland 2’s mean streaks. It’s so easy to rewind time outside of combat and try that 40% until it rolls in your favour, that it makes the game somewhat trivial unless you have incredible self-restraint. This almost seems like a trivial point to put against the game but it’s something you can do, and something that undermines the oppressive vibe of Wasteland 2 should you do it. So try not to.

Anyway, that’s not a reason to dislike Wasteland 2. If I was to sit and nitpick I could point out that skill use (select character, select skill, select object) can seem needlessly arduous for a modern audience, or that the frequently referential humour (one room is full of plants with descriptions of flauna from other video games, while another character outright talks about “a boy named Sue”) could grate for one person as easily as it could warm the cockles of another, but these are mostly flavouring issues and nothing game-breaking.

Wasteland 2 is a warm return to the RPGs of yesteryear. To quests that take hours to complete, to traps in every corridor, to desperate item foraging in light of dwindling ammo supplies. It’s not a classic of its genre, but it is ultimately a beacon of hope for a certain style of RPG – the video game pen and paper style – that many thought had been lost in more recent years.

VERY GOOD. An 8/10 is only awarded to a game we consider truly worthy of your hard-earned cash. This game is only held back by a smattering of minor or middling issues and comes highly recommended.

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There was a time when video games left you to your own devices and allowed you to explore every nook and cranny without obtrusive tutorials. Whilst those days seem like a distant memory for most, some titles do employ this tactic and The Vanishing of Ethan Carter is a prime example. Even before you begin your journey, you’re informed that your narrative-driven adventure game plaything won’t be holding your hand – the hand of supernatural detective, Paul Prospero.

Ethan Carter has called upon the services of Prospero to investigate some weird happenings in his home village of Red Creek Valley. A mystical power is affecting family relations within the Carter household and Prospero is just the man to investigate. Mainly because he has supernatural abilities that any mystical power would dream of.

Naturally, you’ll be required to flex your sleuthing muscles and uncover some truths about what’s going in the sleepy village of Red Creek Valley. The place is seemingly empty – it’s just Prospero, some old buildings and a number of dead bodies. These corpses act as the catylst for the rather simple puzzles The Vanishing has to offer. The first one you’ll find will be along a train track where, upon inspection, Prospero will show he’s a big fan of Benedict Cumberbatch’s portrayal of Sherlock and quickly rattle off a whole host of words, deciphering a portion of the mystery before your very eyes.

Every puzzle requires you to grab a number of items and put them in the right places, then go back to said human remains and inspect once again. Approximately four or five spectre-like groupings will appear in front of you, telling an unorganised account of the murder, and your job is to number these story beats in sequential order, in an effort to find out how the human being became a human dead. They’re not taxing and don’t require an awful lot of thought, but are telling a fairly satisfying narrative, albeit one that isn’t groundbreaking and allows you to telegraph its direction. The problem here is that as Prospero, you’re a passive participant in the tale. Like someone regaling you with a wonderful yarn, then proceeding to tell you that you had to be there. With that said, even as a mere onlooker, it’s enjoyable.

With regard to the puzzles, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter doesn’t want to tell you anything, so it’s very easy to pass by any number of these murder mysteries and be none the wiser, due to the fact that Red Creek Valley is an open playpen. To call it an open world would be a bit misleading as it’s not a sprawling map filled with points of interests. It’s more like you’re fenced in and certain areas are off limits, but The Vanishing gives off the impression that it is an open-world adventure. You are free to approach your time here in any way you like and in that regard, some will find that they’ll play puzzles in a different order to the next person. It doesn’t punish you for approaching things in your own way, but trying to find non-highlighted puzzle instigators that are hidden in the beautiful bushes of Red Creek Valley might suggest that some little form of direction would have been welcome. I had to backtrack in an effort to find at least two of The Vanishing’s brain-busters, which, once found, aren’t all that brain-busting. These puzzles do engage you somewhat, though. The term “walking simulator” is bandied around at any first person affair in which you don’t fire an AK47, but The Vanishing of Ethan Carter is an adventure game, first. A beautiful adventure game.

Red Creek Valley sits on a beautiful lake, with lucious greenery surrounding its perimeter. Honestly, the detail is truly breathtaking. Even the little details like the chipped railing on a bridge, to the individual specks of moss on cave dwelling rocks, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter will most certainly be one of the best looking things you’ll see this year. I rarely recommend something on looks alone, as I believe that there needs to be something more to your average game than just a pretty face, but even if The Vanishing’s number ordering pastime doesn’t sound appealing, you’ll be in awe of the exquisite landscape.

The Vanishing of Ethan Carter leans heavily on its Lovecraftian vibe with the peculiar paranormal happenings, and the ambient sounds of Red Creek Valley can have your skin crawling. There’s no real fail state (bar one area, though the punishment isn’t colossal), yet the developers have successfully sculpted a world in which you’ll be looking over your shoulder, just in case.

I admire The Astronauts and their declaration that they won’t hold your hand. In this day-and-age, it’s a rarity. However, it’s a step too far at times. Leaving an area and continuing your journey, before realising you have to go back and hunt pixels in the shrubbery for a puzzle is a frustration one can do without.

The relatively gratifying story and straightforward puzzles aren’t the real reasons to visit Red Creek Valley. The location is a good enough reason itself. More often than not people look to graphics as an indication for this medium’s progression and even though that’s somewhat of a falsehood, it has to be said that this spirit story’s looks are otherworldly.

GOOD. A game that scores 7/10 is worthy of note, but unworthy of fanfare. It does many things well, but only a few of them incredibly well and, despite a handful of good qualities, fresh ideas and solid mechanics, it fails to overwhelm.

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Sherlock Holmes has recently become a force to be reckoned with in entertainment. The BBC TV series is arguably one of the most popular shows they’ve aired in recent years, the Robert Downey Jr movies received solid reviews and the Elementary TV show with Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu is incredibly entertaining despite the questionable casting. With so much great Sherlock based entertainment. Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments has a lot of expectation riding on it.

The main source of Sherlock’s popularity are the fascinating mysteries, usually with incredible twists that you don’t see coming. Crimes and Punishments features a total of 6 cases to solve and, while they may not be on the same level as other Sherlock stories, they are easily enough to hold your interest. None are particularly easy to guess from the beginning, and a couple manage to make you think you have figured out the solution, before throwing in a twist that changes everything at the last minute.

The majority of cases involve a murder of some kind and it’s down to Sherlock (with assistance from Watson, as you would expect) to find the killer. In order to come to a conclusion you must find clues and link them together to discover what actually happened. Clues can be found by wandering the crime scene and investigating items by pressing X (on PlayStation). Finding clues isn’t particularly difficult, as whenever you can examine something a notification pops up. Due to the amount of evidence and the space between each piece, collecting it will take up the majority of your time.

Sherlock also has a number of abilities he can use to find evidence. Firstly, he can use his imagination to see missing items or imagine what may have happened at the scene. He can also use his superior mind and senses to notice clues that may seem like nothing but actually play a vital role. Both of these features are used regularly and create that extra sense of being Sherlock. Also available is the ability to use disguises, however this isn’t vital often enough and seems quite unnecessary when it is used.

Some pieces of evidence will need further examination to be useful. This may involve heading back to Baker Street to search for information in the archives, conduct an experiment on the evidence, or get Sherlock’s dog Toby to follow a scent. The evidence analysis mini games (along with lock picking) offer a nice change of pace and break up the game well. None are overly challenging but if you do get stuck they can all be skipped.

Finding hard evidence isn’t the only way to solve the cases; you must also interview witnesses, suspects and victims. For all the important characters in the case you can perform a character portrait, which allows you to pinpoint small visible details from the interviewee to form a quick profile about them. Information picked up in these portraits, along with other evidence, can occasionally be used to call out lies during an interrogation. The interactions with the other characters are what will mainly influence your suspicions. There were a few times where I would discount hard evidence because I trusted what someone had said.

Once you have enough evidence and you have linked it all together you can deduce who is guilty. However, it is possible to make the wrong decision. With all the evidence the guilty party is usually fairly obvious but if you miss something (like I did in the 2nd case) you will come away with an incorrect decision and may end up wrongfully punishing someone. When I discovered I had wrongly punished someone I did genuinely feel bad, especially because I dished out the harsher of the two punishment options.

The crime scenes are varied to say the least: some take place in London’s back alleys while others see Sherlock and Watson travel to Kew Gardens, ancient temples and a circus. Each of the areas is quite well designed, evidence isn’t always obvious (and would be truly difficult to find if the button prompt wasn’t present) and in some cases the layout of the area is a clue itself.

Unfortunately the visuals are sub-par for a game on the PS4 and Xbox One. Add in frequent frame rate drops, texture pop and obvious tearing and Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments becomes difficult to look at without feeling disappointed. The voice acting isn’t exactly great either; some characters are better than others, and Sherlock’s voice does grow on you after a few hours but the majority of the voice work is poor and leads to a few irritating characters.

Each of the cases offers a unique and interesting story, and discovering what happened at each location is fascinating. While constantly pressing X to examine what seems like every object in a room becomes tedious it is easily offset by eureka moments that pop up every so often. The environments you explore are great but are unfortunately not helped by ropey visuals and a slew of technical issues. Perhaps Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments’ greatest achievement is how guilty you feel when you punish an innocent person – even just being able to get it wrong is a superb idea.

GOOD. A game that scores 7/10 is worthy of note, but unworthy of fanfare. It does many things well, but only a few of them incredibly well and, despite a handful of good qualities, fresh ideas and solid mechanics, it fails to overwhelm.

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After an unsuccessful Kickstarter campaign in 2012, you might be forgiven for having thought that we may never see a sequel to the popular 2008 tower defense title Defense Grid: The Awakening. However, 505 Games and a private backer stepped in to bankroll development, and Defense Grid 2 is finally seeing the light of day, two years later. With twenty single-player stages and some new co-operative and competitive multiplayer modes, this sequel isn’t just a visual upgrade.

There is a basic story that introduces the new worlds involved in the title, but this is paper-thin and only serves as background noise really. You are here for some tower defense action, and that is what the game provides. You will need to build up your towers in order to survive between twenty to thirty waves of enemy attack. A variety of different towers are at your disposal, with new ones being unlocked the further you progress. Each can also be upgraded three times in order to make them more effective, but sadly there is no real customisation or evolution as they level-up. The twenty campaign stages can all be played solo or via local or online multiplayer, as well as the competitive multiplayer mode which is included.

This is all standard fare, but there are a few nice features that Defense Grid 2 possesses that makes it stand out from other tower defense titles. One welcome addition is the fast-forward button. There will be times where you feel you have created as good a defense network as possible, and simply want to see how it does against the aliens. Hit RB once and the game spins into overdrive and the waves will whizz along. Being a one-touch on and off feature, you can easily drop back to normal speed if something looks amiss and needs your attention. This makes proceedings far less tedious, and is a great idea.

Other than that, the level design allows space in each stage so that the player can direct the enemy and cause them to maze through their towers. With careful planning you can send the aliens round and round, in between your guns, forcing them to pass by as many of your high-ranked weapons as possible, thus causing extra damage and slowing them down. This is very satisfying when you make it work to your advantage, and is a great tactical option.

Also, rather than your core being damaged once enemies reach it, they take away individual energy cores, and try to escape the level with them. This gives you an opportunity to regain your energy, but also allows the aliens to chain up if one is killed, allowing the next nearby alien to pick up the ball and run with it. This creates an interesting tug of war situation, where you need to keep an eye on the position of your orbs on the map and give them time to slowly return to your base.

As each chapter loads up, you can customise each individual mission as well. There are a series of different modifiers to select, which can positively effect your scores if applied. For instance, you may choose to start a level with limited resources, in order to score a better top score, and to pose more of a challenge to yourself. On top of this, tower load-outs can be customised and you can unlock extra passive upgrades for different weaponry after successful missions. These different options really let you adjust the game to make the gameplay just how you want it; whether that be easier or more intense.

Co-operative modes work similarly both online and offline, with the two participants helping to build defenses and co-ordinate upgrades. There are toggles to share resources and positions, or to allocate each player separate scores and resources, so it can be played in a variety of ways depending on how independent each player wants to be. The competitive mode actually sees the enemies defeated by one player added to the attacking forces laying siege to the base of the opposing player – meaning you can pile the pressure on your opponent more the better you play. Multiplayer in tower defense titles is often such an afterthought, but the modes on offer here are thoroughly enjoyable additions to the game.

Defense Grid 2 may not be the most original idea, and lacks any real character in its story and presentation, but it is the unique gameplay ideas that make it a success. Hidden Path have tried to inject a few new tweaks and provide a twist on your expected tower defense conventions, and they all add enjoyment and streamline your experience. Yes, it may lack depth with the lack of skill trees for your towers, and there is little variety in the enemies which you are constantly mowing down, but the lack of complexity allows it to be an easy title to jump in and out of with a friend, and kick some alien behind.

GOOD. A game that scores 7/10 is worthy of note, but unworthy of fanfare. It does many things well, but only a few of them incredibly well and, despite a handful of good qualities, fresh ideas and solid mechanics, it fails to overwhelm.

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Review code provided by publisher.

The post Defense Grid 2 Review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Rhythm-action isn’t a terribly complex genre. Taking the most basic essence of videogames – the button press – and distilling it so thoroughly that it becomes engaging enough to form a game in its own right is no mean feat, but the product of said refining is always going to be a little one-note. And if you’re a one trick pony, that trick has to be bloody good.

Guitar Hero is rightly lauded because it got this theory spot on. Meeting the prompts had a tangible reward, missing them a clear punishment in the form of the bum-note in the middle of your favourite riff. Kickbeat though… well, Kickbeat doesn’t do any of this.

Transplant the chords from Guitar Hero’s instrument to the face buttons on your gamepad and the special power to L1. Instead of hitting scrolling notes as a rock-god, you’re now beating up goons as they approach from the compass points around protagonist Lee, all in time to music. Concept-wise it isn’t hard to grasp.

The backdrop for this is straight-to-DVD stuff. All of the music on Earth – housed in the ‘Music Sphere’ – has been stolen from the monastery of its caretaker monks. As a young Kung-Fu apprentice, it is up to you to get it back, fighting across a selection of songs that have been left behind in a handful of environments with four or five cutscenes fleshing out the narrative. It’s not a bad story, but there isn’t much there – aside from a Bieber gag that is so out of place with Kickbeat’s target audience it’s almost funny.

Enemies approach 90 degrees anti-clockwise from where they will attack you, allowing for a bit of forward-planning while keeping your view focused on the action, with Lee striking out in the direction you send him. Colour coding helps sort your rhythm, with Yellow grunts filing in one at a time, Blues striking in couples or triplets on alternate half-beats and Reds attacking in pairs.

Perfect hits build your Chi meter – which when unleashed adds points to your score – whilst your life will drop if you are hit too many times. Bonuses are also available from some enemies, either points or a health boost, claimed by double tapping the relevant face button when they attack.

It really is all very basic, and as such it should be tight as a drum – especially when you consider that this is a port of last year’s PS3 and Vita release. Kickbeat is not tight. For this genre, every successful button press should feel like a triumph. Instead you miss most of the action, focused as you are on the periphery rather than what Lee is doing: there’s no reward. Even worse is when you do spare a glance, you realise that his punches don’t always connect, and his kicks are just off.

Kickbeat’s cardinal sin, though, is that it doesn’t always get the rhythm right. Where Guitar Hero covers you when you’re a fraction late, here Lee isn’t tuned to the music, but to you. Press a fraction late, he’ll react a fraction late. It’s good in a sense that there’s generous timing, but it feels wrong.

Similarly wrong is the scroll in of your attackers. Coming from the left of the button needed to strike them, they approach in a perfect curve, before taking a tiny shuffle forward into the attack box. You’ll learn to adjust, but that direction change breaks the flow more than you’d imagine. It can also be a pain to work out what colour an enemy is on some of the stages – particularly the earlier ones – as they blend into the neon backgrounds, and the shaky camera zooming in and out of the action only makes things more frustrating, rather than harder.

Graphically, Kickbeat looks quite pretty, even if enemies are identikit clones, but some in-engine close-ups are dominated by muddy textures that you just don’t expect on this generation. With only 24 tracks (highlights include Pendulum and Marilyn Manson) there’s not much here in the way of longevity. Harder difficulties and a survival mode might interest you, but only if the track list as a whole grabs your attention. Sadly, the music importer of the Steam release isn’t included.

Kickbeat is a fairly generic rhythm-action title, hampered by loose core gameplay – something that really needed to be solid when there is so little in the way of content. It’s hard to recommend it when there are better examples of the genre out there.

AVERAGE. The epitome of a 50/50 game, this title will be unspectacular but inoffensive, charmless but amiable. We aren’t condemning a game by scoring it a 5, but we certainly aren’t championing it, either.

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In last year’s FIFA review, I joked that EA Sports might one day rebrand the game as Sky Sports’ FIFA, and it appears that my attempt at humour was bang on the money. A host of changes once again pervade the latest iteration of EA’s blockbuster football game, and while some are more successful than others, there are also areas that have been all but ignored for FIFA 15.

But let’s get one of the biggest changes out of the way right now: the presentation. FIFA 15 looks so much like a Sky Sports presentation, it’s uncanny. You could walk in the room as a match is starting up and double-take, it’s that well done. But aside from the graphical overlays that tell us who is playing where, an attention to detail has been given to the audio department, too. EA are quick to promote the fact they’ve been to the twenty premiership grounds and captured the various crowds in action – and when this is evident in-game, it’s fairly spectacular. The crowd singing “You’ll never walk alone” is something that could even make the hairs on the back of an Everton fan’s neck stand up. When a goal is scored, the volume increases like an explosion of passion and delight, and the camera visibly shakes to match the crowd’s raucous celebration. It’s fantastic, there’s really no other way to put it. Smaller but noticeable features like the pitch wearing as the match progresses are nice and add to the immersion, but the crowds break it a little as they still don’t look quite right.

That said, the presentation can take centre-stage too often, and unskippable scenes during matches are annoying. After you’ve seen the ref brandish a yellow card, where the players react and show the much vaunted emotion of FIFA 15 for the tenth time, you just want to skip it – but you can’t. It’s inexplicable as to when it happens, but it’s almost always when a card is flashed, or when you’re in a hurry and want to get on with the game. On the subject of the “emotion”, I honestly haven’t spotted too much of it. Players will look annoyed when a striker misses instead of passing, or fall out when things are going against them, but it doesn’t seem as big a deal as you’d think.

But it’s the on-the pitch action that matters, and the changes to the gameplay are both a blessing and a curse. First of all, attacking play in FIFA 15 is some of the most satisfying I’ve ever experienced – when it works. There does seem to be a propensity for shots that go in (or wide) off-the-bar, almost as though EA Canada are trying to give you wow-moments, as the audio of the bar being hit is like a dynamite explosion. However, this could also be because wing-play is a lot harder, and swinging a ball in seems to have had its effectiveness reduced. Expect to run down the left with a nippy winger and hit a cross that either doesn’t reach the target, or is ably defended against. Headers are not easy to score on anything above semi-pro difficulty any more, though when you do, they’re often screamers.

This results in a lot of attacking play coming through the middle, where the more realistic dribbling either works really well, or frustrates beyond belief. You can’t turn on a sixpence any more, and you’ll have to learn how to use the sprint button and trick stick to get by, or else rely on quick movement and passing. It’s an impressive re-enactment of the beautiful game, but it also reduces the fun factor. Those who hanker for a more realistic football experience will delight in this, but those of you who just want to lose yourself in a video game may find it less fun.

For once, the players feel unique, though. A quick winger will be muscled off the ball by a strong-arming defender; likewise, a slow centre back will be left for dead by a Navas, Walcott, or Messi. The more lifelike physics mean that if you mistime a tackle, that player is out of the game. Ray Wilkins would love FIFA 15, because it’s all about staying on your feet and making it count. If you aren’t sure you’re going to win the ball, then you need to contain the attacker instead, or bring in a second player to hustle them away from goal as you step in for the tackle.

Sadly, there are still moments of extreme frustration when defending. Three successful tackles and they’ve still got the ball? That’s still in, I’m afraid. It’s a steep learning curve, so expect to drop back a difficulty to begin with, just for the defending part of the game alone. It’s a strange beast, actually – often you’ll feel as though you are fighting the physics, because there are so many individual components that maintain the random nature of the game, that it doesn’t always work for the game.

Keepers have been vastly improved, too. Don’t expect many one-sided batterings here, unless you’re playing on Beginner. They will parry, save, punch or otherwise stop you from easy goals, and that’s if the defenders even let you get a shot away in the first place, as they throw their body into the way as if their life depends on it. Keepers can be inconsistent, though, and you’ll go from the sublime to the ridiculous; suddenly scoring the most outrageous long-shot you’ve ever seen, before then taking part in a complete shut-out in the following game.

One touch that is most welcome is the ability to switch to the receiver when taking a corner or a throw-in. A flick of the right stick allows you to command a player and call for the ball. With throw-ins this seems a far more effective way of actually getting the ball, though corners are hit or miss; though this led to me taking a lot of short corners and calling for a runner.

The ball feels looser here, as well. Often in previous FIFA titles no matter how hard you hit the ball, it always felt like it was pre-ordained to arrive to the target. Here, the ball is a physical object. You’ll sky it over everyone for a throw-in, but because the players are physically realistic, you’ll also miss that last ditch attempt to keep the ball in. But there are anomalies, and I lost count of the times the defensive AI would hit a huge panicked clearance that bypasses the entire midfield and coincidentally lands at their attacking man, who is now in a one-on-one with my last defender.

But oh, when it all works, it’s delicious. I lost count of the times I shouted “Xbox, record that!” or hit the Share button. Numerous times I visibly jumped from my seat in excitement, the swelling of the crowd cheering me on. Despite it all, there are moments of absolute gaming bliss to be had here.

Ultimate Team has had numerous additions, though most of them are short-term prospects. The idea of loaning one of the best players in the game is ace, but once you’ve used them, that’s it, and the Football Catalog has a limited number of loanable players, which (like everything in EASFC, which itself has undergone an upgrade, allowing you to share, comment, like and dislike happenings) are one-time use. You can’t loan legends on Xbox One, either, which feels a missed opportunity. Concept Squads are nice, allowing you to create (but not play with) a dream squad and share with your friends, and these are at least slightly more long-term, allowing you to see how a potential player might gel with your squad, then go out and buy him. The biggest new feature to FUT is friendly seasons, meaning you can play against your friends, rather than random online players that you’d have to normally.

Disappointingly, Career Mode has been all-but ignored this year, bar a few cosmetic changes. that are present in the rest of the game anyway. The team management is now a more visual affair, with player’s faces appearing on a pitch, allowing you to move their positions on the fly (PES has done this for years, just FYI). Unfortunately, it’s a mixed bag, and takes up far more real estate than the old version, which was admittedly slow and cumbersome. You can create and name multiple teams, so you can (as we all do, every year) decide on a team for the league, and one for cups.

There’re some nice touches in the commentary during Career Mode, though. It feels more true to life to hear Alan Smith comment how you won the last match convincingly, but that it was against Crystal Palace, and Everton might pose a more severe threat. They did, incidentally, hammering my Arsenal 2-0. I could barely get a shot away. It’s also in Career Mode that the new tactical offerings such as all-out attack or park the bus appear more often. Seeing that Everton literally park the bus once 2-0 up was impressive, but frustrating. You can’t be too mad about a gameplan being executed by the AI, though.

Elsewhere, aside cosmetic touches, the only major change is to the online lobbies, which are far better to use, and show you live updates and scores while you wait to join the next match. You can also have more control over scouting players to join your Pro Club, but in truth, it’s likely most people are going to stick with their friend-group, anyway.

FIFA 15 provides moments of exquisite pleasure, and also obscene frustration. When the planets align and you score a wonder strike, you’ll feel like a God, but when you’re playing away on a rainy night in Stoke, unable to breach a parked bus defence, you’ll long for less realism altogether, even though the on-the-fly tactical changes are themselves very impressive.

EA Canada can’t win in that respect, because whichever angle they cater toward, they’ll always be upsetting someone else. It’s a shame Career Mode has seen such little love this year, but regardless, there are enough changes overall that FIFA feels a very different game this year. They’ve not reinvented the wheel, just put shinier trims on it, and perhaps this isn’t the year that the presentation needed to take centre stage.

VERY GOOD. An 8/10 is only awarded to a game we consider truly worthy of your hard-earned cash. This game is only held back by a smattering of minor or middling issues and comes highly recommended.

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Review code provided by publisher.

The post FIFA 15 Review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

The Wii U is increasingly becoming the indie developers (and indeed indie gamer’s) best friend, with an ever increasing number of once PC only gems finding themselves at home on the Wii U’s eShop. The latest title to make the jump from PC to Nintendo’s living room console is Teslagrad, from Norwegian dev team Rain Games.

Teslagrad can be best categorised as a 2D puzzle platformer, but that description only scratches the surface of what’s on offer here. After a moody menu screen backed by a melodic backdrop, Teslagrad throws you straight into its dark and unforgiving world. Rain lashes down from a dimly lit sky, pounding off every surface. A hard-nosed looking man darts from house to house, scaring people into fleeing for their lives. Most of them get caught, but one boy makes a success of running away. You take control of the boy, and the game begins.

Running and jumping across rooftops, the backdrop slowly changes from a scene that is dreary and residential, to the fiery heart of an industrial furnace. Teslagrad’s entirely wordless narrative is brought to life by the excellent art direction. The mixture of classic steampunk and 50’s style animation is absolutely gorgeous, and brings to life a fusion of the worlds of Limbo, Steamworld and Disney’s Pinocchio all at once. The story that unfolds shows us a world ruled by a ruthless king, who has suppressed a race of technological wizards that once resided in a massive tower in the centre of the city of Teslagrad.

So we know it looks good and tells a nice story, but how does Teslagrad actually play? From the offset, it’s obvious that this isn’t a pure platformer, as the way your character handles isn’t exactly genre-defining. Jumping can be imprecise and floaty, and it kind of feels like you’re running on ice most of the time. Thankfully, Teslagrad redeems itself by slowly ratcheting up the complexity, throwing in special abilities that you find along the way.

Early on our little hero discovers a pair of gloves that allow him to punch specific objects in the environment and turn them either red or blue. The red or blue colouring indicates that object’s magnetic polarity – and that is where the most of Teslagrad’s puzzling comes from. Being clever with magnetism is nothing new, however Teslagrad plays the magnet card very well indeed. You can use different coloured blocks to defeat enemies, open new pathways and create a magic carpet which you can use to cruise around the level. The use of magnetism isn’t restricted to objects in the environment, with your character able to take on a red or blue hue, allowing him to float above objects of the opposite colour. You take on the red or blue hue either by interacting with one of the many little robots wandering about, or walking through strategically placed plants (all of which are either red or blue in colour, indicating their polarity).

Another power afforded to you is the ability to teleport a couple of feet in front of the direction your character is facing, Dishonoured style. This power is the easiest to get to grips with, which is great, because it’s also the most fun. Darting around Teslagrad’s beautifully realised world is great fun, and does a good job of disguising the otherwise ropey handling. Put all of these puzzle elements together (something that happens early in the game), and you have a recipe for some real brain teasers. The deeper into Teslagrad’s world I got, the more out of my depth I became. This is coming from someone that has played 2D scrollers my entire life: Teslagrad is nails. You will flit from a real sense of achievement to unsolvable puzzlement, immense frustration and back again – and that’s just in the first hour or so.

Combat is pretty much non-existent, since our little dude dies at the slightest touch – adding to the games prominent “old school” feel. Level areas are bookended by boss battles – huge mechanical beasts that will push your skills to breaking point. You need to jump, dodge and teleport to avoid the boss’ attacks, all the while trying to hit it with a dose of magnetised death. In a world of one-hit kills, these are bosses that will test the most hardened of gamers. The difficulty here will really polarise (get it?) opinions on Teslagrad – 16-bit era gamers will love its unforgiving nature and will battle through to the end; as for everyone else? I’m not so sure.

Rain Games have created something beautiful in Teslagrad. Its opening scene alone should win some kind of award. Its mix of mind bending puzzles and unforgiving boss battles, not to mention some pretty hit and miss platforming, make it a game that will really split opinions. Fans of the genre will find a new hero in Teslagrad – but casual gamers should be wary.

GOOD. A game that scores 7/10 is worthy of note, but unworthy of fanfare. It does many things well, but only a few of them incredibly well and, despite a handful of good qualities, fresh ideas and solid mechanics, it fails to overwhelm.

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If you were to give out awards for putting your best foot forward, Disney Infinity 2.0 wouldn’t be anywhere near even qualifying. A horribly long load time into the Marvel Super Heroes play set (included with the starter pack), and clunky, heavy-to-control characters dominate the opening mission which introduces us to Disney Infinity again.

The general idea is that our heroes have just unfrozen themselves and need to save Avenger/Stark Tower before it’s overrun by Loki’s Frost Giant minions. The combat begins and it’s pure button mashing repetition; everything is linear and you just go from corridor to corridor before ending the level, and choosing whether to continue the Marvel story, or be introduced to the Toy Box mode.

Thank God, then, that immediately after the dreary opening mission, the larger, more open area of the city is yours to play in. Suddenly you’re allowed to take to the skies as Iron Man or Thor and can explore the world with freedom, gathering all manner of collectibles, some of which add to the Toy Box mode, while others just unlock concept art. Interestingly, among the multitude of collectibles, there are crossover tokens, which, once ten are collected, allow characters to appear in each other’s playset.

Immediately, Infinity 2.0 feels a better game. Initial fears subside, and you start to enjoy the mechanics far more. Button-mashing combos are still prevalent, but as you progress through the skill trees and level up your individual heroes (the cap is twenty for all heroes, including ones from the previous game), more options become available. Super moves and changes to standard combos change things up, and you can improve core skills as well. One problem that rears its head early on is that the environments seem tailored towards characters who can fly. You can climb via jump pads and lifts, but overall, you’ll initially play more as Thor and Iron Man, just because they are more fun to navigate the world with – you’ll end up playing Black Widow mainly when you transition to the indoor missions, then later when you unlock a certain vehicle that lets everyone take to the skies. It’s an interesting way to add movement speed to the non-flying characters, because the motorbike you unlock first handles very heavily, and is best avoided.

There’s not a huge amount of variety to missions, either. There’s certainly an attempt to change things up, adding things like motorbike races or horde-style combat challenges – but they’re not enjoyable enough to make you want to come back and improve your time, let alone try and top the leaderboards. Indeed, most missions will involve going from place to place, beating up on some guys, then doing it all again in the next mission. The enemies do get progressively harder, but the techniques to beat them don’t really change.

Things are improved when playing with a friend (or one of your children), as you can both explore the world at your leisure, before joining up for a story mission. If you find it too easy, simply adjust the difficulty. There are also numerous mission nodes around the playsets that allow you to play competitively, and these are a surprising amount of fun. As Iron Man, facing off against your son as Thor is silly, especially when you both take to the skies in your enclosed battle arena, seeing who will blink and go to ground first, which is where the combat is really intended to be.

Thankfully, the technical issues that plagued the previous game appear to have been ironed out. The open-world sandbox area of the Marvel play set is hitch-free, and the frame rate is mostly solid, but prone to major drops in missions that take place inside. It’s not the most visually taxing game for the hardware, but it looks pretty when cutscenes play, and though the city itself is a little on the bland side, the colour comes from the characters. There are elements of humour, and occasionally the gags work really well, but there’s no mistaking this is a game aimed at children. That said, the voice acting is fun, and Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury is a lovely bonus. Generally speaking, the atmosphere and character is there for all to see on screen.

Interestingly, both of my children jumped immediately into the Toy Box mode. This is a clean slate where you can add environments of your choosing, as well as characters, enemies and, well, basically everything that’s in the game. While the truly creative will go for the absolutely empty sandbox, you can choose from numerous presets to get you started. This time around, you can save and share your boxes with other people, and if you don’t feel like spending hours making missions and worlds for others, you can just download community created content. Some are better than others, and the devs have created a few to give everyone ideas. One platforming based level I tried was okay, but the controls aren’t precise enough to really make overly taxing jumping much fun.

Without question, the Toy Box is where Infinity still shines. A sandbox that truly lets your imagination run wild, only now you can share or download creations via the internet. But the play sets are a vast improvement over the first game and a lot of fun in their own right, while the technical performance is far better, too. Being able to bring your existing Infinity toys into 2.0 is a nice touch, but something you’d expect.

It’s going to cost you a fortune, though, because once you start to enjoy dashing through the air as Iron Man, you’ll want more of those pricey heroes to throw into your game, because they’re wonderful little toys that look and feel good. On that note, this seems an ideal time to remind you that we don’t accept any responsibility for any overdraft charges you may incur after playing Disney Infinity 2.0.

GOOD. A game that scores 7/10 is worthy of note, but unworthy of fanfare. It does many things well, but only a few of them incredibly well and, despite a handful of good qualities, fresh ideas and solid mechanics, it fails to overwhelm.

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Review code provided by publisher.

The post Disney Infinity 2.0: Marvel Super Heroes Review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

If there’s one thing that’s categorically awful about GoD Factory: Wingmen, it’s the name. I mean, seriously, why so grandiose? GoD Factory: Wingmen is a surprisingly good four-versus-four space combat game, but that name does nothing to conjure up images of the nerve shredding hit and run space-chase gameplay that defines it, it just sounds confused. It’s a shame, too, as GoD Factory: Wingmen is pretty excellent.

The multiplayer shooter sees two teams of players start at their huge carrier, and their task is to eliminate the enemy carrier drifting a reasonable distance away while the rival team attempts the same. Simple stuff.

Except in execution it’s far from easy. For starters each player has two custom ships (chosen from four core archetypes) that they can customise as they rank up and buy new parts with the in-game currency. Parts include simple augmentations, such as travel speed, to more drastic alterations, such as different weapons. But in combat those ships are finite. Lose a vehicle during a game and you can’t use it again in that match, seeing it replaced with a far inferior drone. This is a simple design choice, but one that goes a long way to enhancing the cat and mouse gameplay vibes of GoD Factory: Wingmen.

Those gigantic cruisers that you’re attacking and defending aren’t simple health bars, they come with their own mechanical wrinkles that improve the game tenfold. These huge ships are made up of parts, as well as an overall hull. Shooting anywhere damages the hull, and destroying the hull wins the game, but destroying the ship’s various elements cripples your opponent’s abilities.

Destroy the radar and their sensor range is diminished. Break the repair module and ships will take longer to fix themselves when returned to the docking bay. Flying inside the ship you’ll find the shield generator, and destroying that will improve your overall damage to that ship, although that’s a hard task in itself and is best attempted through an organised strike with allies.

Cat and mouse, that’s the sort of relationship that defines GoD Factory: Wingmen. One minute you’re a mouse, avoiding enemy eyes and chipping away at their ship, scurrying at the first sign of enemy aggression. The next you’re the cat, prowling your territory for tasty morsels to pounce upon. This works because of the nature of GoD Factory: Wingmen’s ships.

Because your ship is lost on death, you want to survive. Ergo, coming under fire is a terrifying thing. Fortunately, flying in GoD: Wingmen is thrilling, and supports keyboard and mouse, controller or joystick, so you’ll find a comfortable set up. Speeding up and slowing down is easy, with a face melting boost available for limited periods when you need to dash, while the space bar lets you pull off 180 degree turns, shunt your ship backwards and forwards, and even pull off 90 degree turns for precision chasing/escaping.

Switch to first person, and the flying feels superb. Winding around a meteor to avoid enemy fire, or dashing out a tiny vent in pursuit of an offensive opponent is a thrill made all the better for the tight, responsive flight controls.

Where GoD Factory: Wingmen falls down, then, is not in its gameplay. I could happily sit and fly around, engaging in pursuits, escapes and bombing runs all afternoon. So it’s a shame that, as of writing this review, the community is a little tiny. It can sometimes take ten to fifteen minutes to wait for a room to fill up, if it even fills up at all, and that’s a huge shame given the quality of the title.

You can introduce Bots to the mix if you really want, but it’s not the same. Bot flight patterns pale against the unpredictable nature of human opposition, and you can’t organise co-ordinated attacks and pincers with AI as well as you can humans.

Perhaps it’s a perceived lack of variety. For its wealth of ships GoD Factory: Wingmen only offers one map. Considering it’s space combat, not a lot would change from simply adding different debris placement, but there’s no denying that looking at the same landscape can get tiring by the virtue of simply being the only environment to play in.

It’s a shame because these two negative points would be fixed with more people and a little more development time. But without new people, would making more levels be worth it? I’d like to think so. GoD Factory: Wingmen is a superb multiplayer game, with design working at so many cerebral levels that it deserves more praise and attention than it has found. As such, these negatives shouldn’t be viewed as standing criticisms, but rather as things that can easily be fixed should the game find the audience it deserves.

GoD Factory: Wingmen may win the award for worst named game of 2014 thus far, but this naming blunder masks one of the smartest multiplayer team games of recent years. Layers of thoughtful design are married to tight, responsive, spontaneous space flight controls to make a four-versus-four online space shooter that’s both thrilling and satisfying in equal measure.

VERY GOOD. An 8/10 is only awarded to a game we consider truly worthy of your hard-earned cash. This game is only held back by a smattering of minor or middling issues and comes highly recommended.

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Review code provided by publisher.

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Forget about this Naruto lad summoning all kinds of ninja spirit things, because as a scummy games writer like me, sometimes it can be difficult summoning the enthusiasm to attack yet another anime tie-in fighter. But then every year CyberConnect2 end up enticing me in with a worthy set of improvements, more ridiculous cutscenes, and another review is born. This is the fifteenth instalment of the long-running series. Fifteen! Blimey. Is it worth your time and investment? Of course it probably is.

Because what sets Revolution apart from its predecessors is the fact that CyberConnect have decided to catch up with some of the trends that reached other fighting game franchises yonks ago. You still have the usual team of three, in-battle items, and choice of two jutsu attacks so bombastic they would make Shaggy blush. But there are new elements going on here. Focusing on improving the button mashing nature of gameplay is most welcome. After all these years, there is a semblance of a proper hardcore fighter at play here. Finally you are able to utilise techniques like guard breaks and a more sophisticated counter-attack mechanic.

The former allows you a limited number of opportunities to open up your opponent like a tin of beans with a crushing blow that leaves them a sitting duck to have their face rearranged. Counter-attacks can be employed with a well-timed action that knocks your foe out, and prevents them from calling upon their allies temporarily. Like the break attacks, using the counter is limited and will drain your Chakra.

Also given a much needed overhaul is the way that you use your support characters. You now get a choice of three ways to play. Drive drags your support ninjas into the fray to protect your main character, creating an effective sealing barrier that prevents your opponents from hitting their jutsu specials. Awakening lets you trigger your enhanced awakened state from the kick off, whilst the excellent Ultimate Jutsu option sees your trio combine to carry out a stunning Ultimate Combo Jutsu – an attack that is different depending on which combination of the staggering 118-strong roster you have chosen to enter the fray with.

There are loads of possible permutations for these team-up combos, and while they aren’t necessarily any more powerful that your standard Jutsu, seeing your old anime favourites combining in the way nature intended is a thrill and excellent fan service. I particularly liked Gaara, Kankuro and Temari triggering the painful sounding Scorching Heat Sand Binding Coffin ultra, with an honourable mention going to Obito and Madara’s Heavenly Insertion Hammering Star.

Speaking of characters, while there are admittedly a fair few palette swaps, one of the new entrants to the roster is of particular interest. The creator of the source material Masashi Kishimoto has got on board and engineered a bonkers new form for main man Naruto: his completely awesome Mecha form which combines a Three Tails guise with a moves-laden Mecha variation, offering you the chance to mess around with a two-tiered awakening. This may not mean much to the bystander on the street, but for fans this rad Naruto mash up will be big potatoes.

The actual gameplay itself is undoubtedly enhanced by these new bits and pieces, but they would be irrelevant without some interesting modes in which to test them out. The newly added and excellently named Ninja Escapades mode takes you through three specially-created stories (complete with some all-new cutscenes) via a series of set-piece battles. Ninja World Tournament brings back the popular free-roaming style from Naruto games of old. It’s a huge playable story set upon Festival Island, with a series of ranked battles, including dust ups where the environment plays a part, and characters brawl over collectable orbs which grant status enhancements in a throwback to the mighty Power Stone. Working your way through the battles opens up new places to explore and new missions to embark on, including the all important Mecha Naruto chapter which allows you to unlock him as a playable option.

Online is, as always, a bit of a mixed bag. Fights can be a tad laggy with everything that is going on, and you will get beaten quickly if you venture outside of Europe in search of an opponent. The inclusion of Network Clones is a curious new accoutrement, however. During your time on Festival Island you will encounter NPCs that are representative of other gamers’ online personae. You can create your own clone and send it on its merry way, and it will fight other Naruto fans around the globe, returning with experience points and even some handy items.

VERDICT: It would have been easy for me to have written a one-liner for this review:“It’s Naruto again!”. But hell, they have delivered once again – not only to the core audience but also in a manner to start attracting fans of more sophisticated beat ‘em ups. It is still miles away from a BlazBlue, but it is much more intuitive to play. There is a ridiculous amount of fan service going on, including more original movie sections than you can shake a nunchaku at. CyberConnect, don’t you ever change.

VERY GOOD. An 8/10 is only awarded to a game we consider truly worthy of your hard-earned cash. This game is only held back by a smattering of minor or middling issues and comes highly recommended.

Our Scoring Policy

Review code provided by publisher.

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Flockers is instantly recognisable, for a variety of reasons. The latest puzzler from veteran developer Team 17 is an attempt to bring the maniacal spirit and gameplay of Lemmings to the new generation. Take away the Lemmings and replace them with sheep, is that what we have here? Well, not exactly…

Ah, Lemmings, what a classic. I remember Lemmings very fondly, those green haired suicidal cuties (as for many people) were a part of my gaming education. So it was with great enthusiasm that I picked up Team 17’s take on this classic game mechanic. Before I get too ahead of myself, let me explain what to expect for the uninitiated. Flockers takes place in a 2D environment, with your job being to guide a heard of zombie minded, endlessly walking sheep to safety. Always wanted to be a shepherd? Well here’s your chance.

Your flock of sheep will vary in size from level to level, dropping from the stage entrance ready for you to help them on their way. Those of you familiar with this brand of A-to-B puzzling will find the powers you can afford to your sheep familiar. You can make them jump, stop, stand on each other’s shoulders, and build stairs for their woolly friends. Team 17’s heritage comes into play with the addition of the Super Sheep power. All sheep lucky enough to get this power will don a fetching red cape and have the ability to fly up vertical structures. There is one more power on offer from the get go, which, though not new, leads me to one of Flockers more unexpected features: the exploding sheep power. This can be used to detonate one of your flock and clear obstacles, and also showers the environment in a spray of blood and sheep entrails.

The first time you pick up Flockers, it will only be a few seconds before you see your first massacre, with the screaming, desperate sheep tumbling onto an array of deadly implements. Buzz-saws, spikes, and gravity itself are all waiting to claim the lives of your flock. Where Flockers really excels is with the intricate level design, as each level progressively provides more of a challenge than the last. It’s not just a case (as with previous titles Flockers borrows from) of building bridges and getting from A to B, Flockers requires far more thought than that, especially if you want to finish the level with a respectable number of your flock still intact.

Your flock will unwittingly walk over buttons that trigger traps, and it’s up to you to come up with ways to avoid them. Sacrifice a sheep, or two, or three? Do it once , maybe twice, but suddenly your back is up against the wall and you only have one exploding sheep left. Getting your timing right is crucial if you are to avoid a bloody mess, especially when you have two distinct flocks of sheep plodding around the level, having come out of two different level entrances. This isn’t a game for the easily deterred. Those who persevere will try to get three stars on every level, as points are earned by the number of sheep saved and the amount of time left on the clock.

Flockers’ steampunk art style lends itself well to some of the more complex level’s set pieces. Your flock of sheep will find themselves riding on gloriously constructed vehicles that have the sort of throwaway charm seen in LittleBigPlanet. Your journey through Flockers will take you through three distinct worlds, from the steampunk beginnings, to lush farmyard inspired fields, and all the way to the desert. Most of the levels are constructed out of bits of old pipe and rusty tools, with the sheep looking most at home in the grassy surroundings of the second world. Flockers is a charming beast to look at, if a little unspectacular. Worms fans should look out for a few familiar artefacts, too.

Where would a Team 17 game be without an array of ludicrous sound effects? Flockers comes fully loaded with the sort of audio we have come to expect, that being absolutely class. A moody soundtrack gets lost behind a wall of visceral chainsaws, sheep squeals and general chaos. Delightful.

Flockers comes with nearly seventy levels to navigate your way through, with the challenge of achieving a three star score on all of them likely to take even the best players to the edge of their sanity. There a number of unlockable, and quite dashing, sheep to unlock, and online leaderboards if that is your thing. There is no question that the challenge will put off the less patient player, and my attention was beginning to waver dramatically at just past the half way point, as there really isn’t much the game does differently to keep things feeling fresh throughout – and this is a key point, if you can’t concentrate, you can’t possibly hope to save any of your flock.

VERDICT: Flockers is a welcome new IP from Team 17. How lovely it must have been to work on something different after so many years of putting out Worms sequels. Flockers brings new life to the A to B puzzler, with its use of new age tech and brilliant level design making it a must see for fans of the genre, and a great place to start for those who have never seen a Lemming with green hair.

GOOD. A game that scores 7/10 is worthy of note, but unworthy of fanfare. It does many things well, but only a few of them incredibly well and, despite a handful of good qualities, fresh ideas and solid mechanics, it fails to overwhelm.

Our Scoring Policy

Review code provided by publisher.

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