Hey everyone, welcome to my blog. It's my place for jotting down my thoughts, opinions and ideas for things that interest me and may interest other people!
I'm a big gamer, this blog used to be all about games but I've since expanded to include everything I love!
The original Tomb Raider came out in 1996 on the Playstation and after watching it at a friends house I had to have it, little did 10 yearold Paul know how tough Tomb Raider would be. Restrictive save points, complex level design with multiple traps and difficult jumps that can result in instant death meant Tomb Raider was a particularly tough cookie to crack. I never finished it, the first Tomb Raider I finished was Tomb Raider 2 and I'm pretty sure I level skipped a couple of levels back then as well... But this has all changed! I have now as of October 2019, finished Tomb Raider 1... on PC! It had to be PC, I haven't got the motivation or disposable time to play the original PSX version and deal with the save points. Being able to save whenever I wanted kept the games pace up and allowed me to just enjoy it and not be frustrated by every death and also allowed me to be more experimental. For me, it's the definitive Tomb Raider experience; once you install Glidos and AntiMicro so the game doesn't look like a blur and you can use a controller instead of developing Carpul Tunnel syndrome with the keyboard. I'm always filled with a ridiculous amount of blissful nostalgia during the first area (caves). The music, the snow, the T Rex! All the familiar beats remind me of one true fact of the first Tomb Raider: it had top production values. You may say it's aged badly but I disagree. Sure, the graphics are blocky but with the aid of Glidos all the textures were sharp and the low draw distance actually helps build atmosphere and tension as buildings and sculptures emerge from the blackness with theatrical gravitas. Each area is so distinct in it's presentation. The colour palette that evolves from the grey caves, to golden Greece to sandy Egypt and then most otherworldly of all, Atlantis with it's pulsating walls of sinew. This is a game well designed and it's no wonder people were so amazed by it's graphics oh so long ago. Gameplay is simplistic in Tomb Raider, super-focused. Three elements encompass the entire game; exploration, puzzles and combat, the latter is actually the less prominent feature it really serves to break up the pace of the game and to also add in a scare factor, especially towards the end. Though simple the combat may be, it is fiddly and at times frustrating. Enemies charge at you and relentless attack and are often faster than Lara. So you're left jumping about almost haphazardly just to minimise time on the ground. Then worst of all, if you manage to find a place to cheese an enemy, they always back off out of attack range, proving that the developers were definitely aware of the AI shortcomings and took steps to force you into direct engagement with the enemies.
Exploration and puzzle solving are obviously intertwined, the levels themselves are on big puzzle. Things start fairly linearly, but once you get to Greece it suddenly takes longer than twenty minutes to finish a level. The puzzles are all pretty much well conceived, there were only I think two occasions where I thought that wasn't obvious, but fortunately those moments are very few and far between. Generally speaking, the solutions are organic and sensible. I think the two trickiest levels are The Cistern and Natla's mines. I further confused myself in Natla's mines because in my panic I fled from the cowboy but jumped down the lava pit, caught a ledge and just kept on going. Then I got a tad lost why I hadn't found my pistols yet and doubled back only to find a piece of the level glitched right out! I'm glad I've finally finished Tomb Raider and played in my opinion it's most definitive version and that's a statement I've written after playing Tomb Raider Anniversary, which I really didn't enjoy. The level design in the remake is in my opinion, uninspired which makes no sense as it should be inspired by the original. The levels are dummed down to tedium and the already weak combat element is made doubly worse with horrendous AI, poor QTE mechanics and just a general lack of pace and purpose. But I won't drone on about that, I'm here to say Tomb Raider Gold is awesome, I love it and it's a game I will urge my kids to play and I'm sure I will replay again in future.
When I was playing Bloodstained Ritual of the Night, I kept thinking back to past Castlevania games that I kept internally referencing against Bloodstained, Aria of Sorrow in particular is the game I compared with it most. After I finished Ritual of The Night, I did wonder to myself if I had, had rose tinted glasses on after all these years. It's always been the best of the GBA Castlevania's which in my mind is pretty indisputable. So, I put my memory to the test and booted it back up again. Firstly, when compared to Bloodstained, it has style. Don't get me wrong, Bloodstained has a look and it's by no means ugly, but it lacked style in my opinion. The map is large in AoS (Aria of Sorrow), and takes a good six to eight hours to completely explore. RotN (Bloodstained) took me around 12 hours to finish, but unlike AoS I had to do some grinding in places. You can also travel fairly quickly in AoS, you move faster and the rooms are generally smaller, it keeps the pace up. Though I will give RotN it's due, it had more warp rooms and at least one of those warp rooms was next to a save point. No such pleasantry in AoS. Progressing through AoS is linear but at least it's cohesive. You can get lost in a few spots especially if you forget a place that a new ability would allow you to explore. I was at the mercy of online guides to get the true ending for RotN, so much of it was poorly explained and not communicated through the level design and my god they made swimming convoluted. Player handling is fairly equal between the two. They seem to move at roughly the same speed, the attack animations seem practically identical although in AoS there are some pretty overpowered weapons not too far into the game that make the rest trivial. I found no such trump card weapon in RotN but both games suffer with greatswords being the best weapons to use thanks to their high strength, area of cover and ability to skip the attack delay by jumping. Souls and Shards next, wow these two games are really similar. AoS has fewer souls but less overlap with fewer balancing issues, but even still there are plenty of forgetable souls you can acquire. RotN has a ridiculous amount of shards but most of them are useless. RotN also suffers from having some very overpowered shards that just eliminate the notion of experimentation. RotN combat does rely more on Shards that AoS does on Souls, so you could argue RotN does better with the mechanic. Enemies and bosses, got to be the most divisive category here I think. Enemy wise, AoS has the advantage of familiar faces really, there aren't as many foes here but there is enough to keep the game fresh and other than the Valkyries and Medusa heads, none are especially annoying. RotN on the other hand is a different story, lots of reskin enemies (and giant versions in the late game, whoo for more crap!) and so many enemies just have a ton of health. I was at level 45 by the time I finished the game and there were still plenty of weaker enemies that still took three or more hits. The only demon I found who gave good hauls of EXP still took six to seven whacks to beat. Definetly tedious and irritating, especially when it crams so many areas with far too many enemies. AoS only does this sparingly, there are places that are crammed and annoying and in the late game there was a bit that made my blood absolutely boil. But not a patch on RotN's constant mob slog. Finally onto bosses and I have to admit the bosses in AoS are largely forgettable. I like the head hunter and Balore seems a fan favourite, but yeah, not the most exceptional bunch. RotN has some cool boss designs and in all honesty, actually exciting boss mechanics, namely when fighting humanoid bosses. This is something I didn't appreciate when I was playing the first time around but after replaying AoS, I did miss the complex bosses of RotN. The only thing they screwed up is giving every boss far too much HP. The battles dragged out way too long. Lastly just some random things, both games are actually very close in damage received and HP totals. RotN probably has higher hitting attacks than AoS and you can get comboed to buggery where AoS gives you invincibility frames. What really does sway things further into AoS's favour is the fact that restorative items do not cost a fortune in the shop. In fact, making money in AoS is much easier that RotN. AoS may have been too easy but RotN was too stingy and the health potions were not as effective either which coupled with the drawn out boss fights meant you had to be near perfect most of the time to succeed. Considering all these points, I still favour AoS over RotN The only thing I would actually take from RotN and put into AoS are the boss battles, because they're genuinely the best thing the game had to offer. I'll be honest though, Aria of Sorrow isn't as amazing as I remembered it. It's still a good game but it's perhaps overly linear and a few areas are a bit bland to explore, like the floating garden for instance. I would still recommend playing it today if you haven't but it might be a while before I return to it. Bloodstained on the other hand, I don't think I'll ever get the yearning to replay.
Another little gem I found on the Xbox Game Pass, I downloaded it when it came out but only after beating Bloodstained did I decide to go for something that looked a little more mellow. Surprisingly Yoku's Island Express is another metroidvania game but instead of swords, arm cannons or whatever else one might use to kill something, this game instead uses pin ball mechanics. It's so cleverly ingenius and genuinely intuitive, the game plays and feels natural and looks beautiful too. Reminds me of the recent Rayman games, the gorgeous hand drawn sprites and environments. It has a real unique and distinguished look. I do have some nitpicks and firstly and this one is the biggest gripe! The fast travel system is a bit pants, you often have to do some slow travelling just to get to the fast travel pick up station. I didn't play much more beyond the story but I imagine back tracking to find all the collectibles is twice as much a pain in the ass as backtracking for objectives. To be honest, I really only struggled with one objective and that was because I failed to spot a certain NPC waiting to chat with me. Secondly, the pinball level paddles, not the paddles that help you go from A to B, but when you enter a lair and have to win the pinball game, I found you had to be fairly pixel perfect to get the paddle to whack Yoku where you need him. The game doesn't use a physics based system (which eliminates randomness), the paddles instead will send Yoku in a preset direction depending at what length of the paddle the ball is on, but you have to be incredibly precise and it can get a tad annoying at times. And lastly, I hat the Sootling leash. I despise the sootling leash, you spin so fast that it makes it very unpredictable where you'll end up and getting flung in the wrong direction often means lots of lost time. No fun. I didn't have to pay for Yoku's Island Express thanks to the Game Pass, it's a very fun game. Short if you're only doing the story but if you are a collecting kind of gamer, you'll probably double your play time. I think this is the kind of game I would replay and would say it's worth around £13, whether that means you get it during a deal or not is hard to say. £10 would be a definite bargain. Fun game, interesting gameplay, great visuals and I hate Sootling leash.
Spiritual successor to Symphony of The Night aye? I think bloody not! Bloodstained Ritual of the Night has to be one of the most infuriating metroidvania games I have ever played. It sweeps you in at first, it plays nicely, feels familiar and enjoyable. But it's all one big ruse, the deeper you go, the worse this game gets. By the time I wanted to quit, I had put in so much I felt compelled to finish the damn thing and I can say I have, true ending and all! The reason why I have so much anger towards this game are as follows: firstly, bosses have far too much HP and deal far too much damage. The battles drag out for a fairly long time and don't give the best tells for attacks. You take huge chunks of damage from any of their attacks, it's really new or casual unfriendly. The hit boxes are wrong, getting hit by air, hitting enemies but the game doesn't register it's just rough as hell and forced me to use greatswords as they have such huge range they're the only weapon that reliably hits anything. Loading times, dying to a boss results in a 10-15 second load screen. Just rushing through rooms incurs load times of anywhere 5 to 10 seconds, it's really frustrating, even accessing the menu freezes the game from time to time. I found it really jarring and really broke the flow. Too many enemies fill the areas and drop low amounts of exp or anything and yet take an absolute pummeling to beat. Lastly, bloated level design. The rooms are fairly large but most of the space is just empty. Then you'll come to some tiny room or corridor and it's packed to the gills with bad guys. The crafting system was convoluted in my opinion as well, other than enhancing shards I rarely seemed to find anything for crafting any useful equipment. As for cooking ingredients, forget about it. I think I only ever crafted one thing. One meal! Out of about 30 meals. Doesn't feel well thought out. And if you asked me about the story, I couldn't tell you what it was about, I skipped every cutscene. Sounds bad but the way the story was told at the beginning just didn't interest me in the slightest. Too much dialogue for a start that was underwhelming in the compelling writing department. It's an odd game too, you can finish the game and get one of the rubbish endings halfway through the game. The game world isn't very intuitive either, other than a few moments, there was nothing that clued me how to proceed the game to it's true ending. I used a guide. In order to swim you have to farm a specific enemy for a shard that allows you to swim. Which you need to use to access an area that allows you to learn a permanent ability that allows you to walk under water so that you can use another traversal ability underwater to get where you need to go. That in itself, is convoluted and stupid. I was happy to finish this game and get that amount of vindication from it, but I have to say this is probably the worst metroidvania I have ever played, granted I haven't played many from the indie circuit. But I've played all the Castlevania games that are based off Symphony of the night and this is by far below the standards of those games and even the later entries (Portrait and Ecclesia) which were weak in regards to Aria of Sorrow for instance. I wouldn't buy this game, so it's just as well I got to play it via the Xbox Game Pass. I don't think I'll ever think of coming back to it in future either. It's an experience, that's it. Nothing more.
My blog unfortunately ended up getting rather ignored during the Summer holidays, many family commitments and to an extent my own laziness, saw the blog get ignored. I did however, play quite a few games during those weeks. Most of my experiences were lows but there were a few high points. So, without further ado the first game I played and actually finished was the original Bioshock remastered for the Xbox One. It was fun to go back through memory lane but I one thing I definitely don't miss is the constant searching through every locker, box and desk. I like the survival elements, but I prefer a game now that paces gathering resources, rather than turn you into a magpie on steroids. It's quite a long game as well and I did kinda feel like it was out staying it's welcome. You hit a point where there aren't new enemies being introduced and the difficulty curve slumps. Enemies become fairly tanky but don't pose much of threat when you have so much ammo, plasmids and cash to bully your way through the latter few areas. The next game I played, woah man. What a point of contention and just talking about it to any other human being is liable to get me verbally or indeed physically assaulted. Zelda, Breath of the Wild. I quit this game, ten hours in and I was at worst bored and best aggravated. I'm not going to whittle in, it seems my gripes were not isolated and quite a few other people have the same opinion as me. I hated the weapon fragility mechanic, I hated the one shotting, I hated the far to big open world that was virtually empty, I hated spending 70% of my time climbing and I hated how aimless of a game it was. My experiences with the Zelda franchise aren't exactly spotless, I've had conflicts with entries before. The only title I've played and loved hard is Minish Cap, something about that game is just perfect but yeah, Breath of the Wild. It was a real misfire for me. I started to replay Call of Duty Ghosts' campaign, but when I finished a mission and the game crashed and lost all my progress I just gave up right there and then. No matter, Modern Warfare is out soon. I replayed Resident Evil 4 for the first time in years! Thanks to the Xbox Game Pass! (another mention, come on Microsoft, money under the table - know what I mean). I enjoyed it, I liked the new control scheme I was able to use and didn't think it looked to bad, I heard the the upscaled textures weren't amazing but it was still enough to creep me out here and there. Still can't believe how much ammo I ended up with, I had so many shotgun rounds I had to start spamming shots just to make room for other things. Resident Evil 4 is truly a timeless game. I started Devil May Cry 5 but for some reason I just wasn't able to get into it. The game isn't bad, not at all, I think it's a simple case of wrong game, wrong time. I got to Nero's second boss, the annoying flying creature. When I start proper I'll probably start a new game. Shame though because it really is a continuation of the original series, it was a bit jarring to play a hack'n'slash game and not use a shoulder button to strike. I also played my second ever battle royale game and if anyone knows me, they'll know I personally despise this genre of gaming, one of the reasons is fairly shallow. It's because battle royale games have had a negative affect on the industry and I also find them the most boring way to play a shooting game. Why someone would rather run around an enormous map for twenty minutes, following strangers and hoarding ammo only to die in 2 seconds from someone you probably never saw coming. The map is so open, there is so little cover you can't get a hunter sensation going. The variety of weapons and ammo types and power ups and armor and passive abilities just create so many unnecessary variables. I just really hate these games, they bore me to tears. I won my first match, I killed two people and played for over 20 minutes. In twenty minutes I experienced ten seconds, if that of combat. Wow! Player engagement is so high! But hey, these games are normally free and crammed with overpriced micro transactions and somehow, despite looking like a fucking horrible prospect, this business model works. So yeah, I won't be a BR convert. Lastly, I played Forza Horizon 4 which I was really enjoying until I qualified for the roster and then it turned into a live service racing game and lost any sense of racing career structure which was an immediate turn off for me. Have to say though, gorgeous game and it is fun driving around very familiar settings (though I've never been to Edinburgh). I just wish it had structure, I didn't realise until over ten hours later after racing with the same car for what seemed like ages, that you can swap your class or type of car to change the race, within reason. I also hated all the crappy dialogue and those Top Gear missions were the absolute worst, especially with the cheese ridden voice over. This game made me miss Test Drive Unlimited (which is a fantastic game, shame they made it crap with the second game). Anywho, that pretty much wraps my gaming experiences up. Only a few days time and I'll be playing Gears of War 5 which I'm very excited to play, hope the campaign is an improvement over Gears 4 and I'm also looking forward to giving the multiplayer mode and good go... Well, at least until Modern Warfare comes out then sadly I'm gone.
Every now and again I'll play a game I paid no attention. I see it one day and think; "yeah, I'll have a go" and it's like wow! Where have you been all my life! Time Spinner was that game for me; I got to play it via the Game Pass on PC (mentioning Game Pass in another post, surprise!) and I would have never purchased it beforehand. I'm one of those strange people that views all indie games with a suspicious and cynical eye. I think horrible thoughts like "I bet it's wafer thin on content" or "it's probably a procedural rogue-like" and "it's probably some shit cash grab with a bit of fancy sprite art". See, horrible, horrible mean thoughts that I tar every indie with like some sort of indie game bigot and I don't want to be like that, I want to be an open minded optimist but I don't have the money to invest in someones hopes and dreams that could potentially be a shit game. Fortunately, Game Pass mitigates my financial concerns and I can play indies with reckless abandon and thanks to this I've gotten to try some very fun games and one thing I can tell you, is that I'm slowly learning that the indie market is emerging to become the best place for singleplayer games. All the triple A games are interesting in anymore are games as a service and that means prioritising a multiplayer platform that can sustain interest over months or years and sell microtransactions. When I got into videogames years ago, there was a plethora of genres and individual games. New franchises appeared all over the shop, sure not everything was great. In fact most were probably average at best, but you had so much variety. Now publishers just want you to play the same game for eternity, paying real world money for digital hats or face paint so that they can mitigate the exorbitant cost of development but that's a whinge for another time! Talking about variety; when I'm going to rave about a Metroidvania game it seems like a misnomer, because the reality of it is, every Metroidvania out there is trying to be more like Dark Souls than Symphony of the Night. This is an important comparison, because Time Spinner has a lot more in common with Castlevania's apex Symphony of the Night. To call it a clone would be criminal but an homage it definetly is. Time Spinner handles combat, exploration and RPG elements with fine balancing, no element outweighs the other and you have a beautiful, if slightly linear experience. Time Spinner also has a multi-ending story that changes based on some key choices and whilst it's not Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Time Spinner's story is fun and entertaining with enough mystery to encourage further play. The combat is fun, there's plenty of enemy variety and elemental weaknesses and resistances encourage weapon variation. There aren't really many weapon types or abilities or even progression based skills, (more or that later). Time Spinner's protagonist Lunais, attacks her enemies with orbs that she can equip in each hand and successively attack with. You can mix and match orbs but I never bothered. It's not long before you're able to switch between three loadouts. You can also equip necklaces that act as spells that drain Aura (MP) and rings which act as passive skills, such as floating orbs around you that damage enemies. One of Lunais' most interesting abilities is to stop the flow of time. This ability is linked to Lunais' sand gauge, a literal hour glass that decreases as the ability is activated and restores when you deal damage to enemies. This ability is really well integrated in the game, initially the game uses it to teach you how to navigate the environment by jumping on enemies and later in the game you can even jump on projectiles whilst time is stopped to access secret areas. But it also comes into it's own in combat: most bosses have near unavoidable, high damage attacks and you'll think it's all so unfair. That is until you remember you can stop time and evade these vicious beatings with ease. I like that Time Spinner doesn't rely on it's time mechanics entirely. It'd be very tedious if you'd have to freeze time often, it's the carefully curated instances it's required that makes the ability fit in so well to the game. It's further evidence of the brilliant balancing I told you about. Like any Metroidvania worth it's salt, exploration is a big part of the reason you play. Time Spinner is probably one of the most linear Metroidvania's I've every played, but I still felt a sense of achievement as I progressed through the game. Only twice did I check a guide for my next steps but that was more a case of impatience on my part rather that utter misdirection on the game's. It's a breath of the freshest air after the last Metroidvania I played: Hollow Knight. (Warning! Unpopular opinion incoming): I played Hollow Knight for over 10 hours and explored most of the game and beat most of the bosses but I never actually finished it. That game was exhausting, not only was the combat Souls like but the platforming Meat Boy-like (not a thing yet, should be) but exploring Hollow Knights world was a fucking nightmare. I know it's fans/fanatics will claim that is the beauty and essence of the game. Getting lost, not knowing where you're going. I personally think it was a huge cop out and entirely unnecessary to put so many obstacles in the way of navigating a game I've ever witnessed. Hollow Knight was mean, it was cruel and that's fine when it's boss time. But when you just need to find a bench to save your game so you can go to sleep it's depressing. That's enough talking about other games! Time Spinner is great, the only problem with it is that it's all over so quickly, which is actually a blessing for me and the limited time I have to play videogames these days. I was yearning for more, left wanting and that's a far better feeling than "ooh, thank god that's finally over". You can extend your play time by trying the harder difficulty modes and achievement hunting, but for me. It was a nice slice of game pie, I was almost full. But I certainly couldn't have another portion... Oh dear, all this food metaphor bollocks has made me hungry. So with that, it's time to end this entry and get some pie.
One of my favourite things about Game Pass is that it allows me to play indie games I never normally would have, I'm far too frugal and apprehensive when it comes to buying games. I guess that's what happens when you've spent the last six years in the blissful risk-free realm of renting games. But you can only rent games that have physical releases and then there are still some games that are so amazingly fantastic that I know in another five years I'll want to replay it, then five years after that, show it to my children and then thirty years later to my grandchildren and so on until I'm dead. What I'm basically saying; is that eventually I found renting games wasn't the best option for someone who wanted access to the broadest range of games possible. I may have ditched the rental service (for now, nothing wrong with the company just my tastes have changed), but in it's place I've fallen in love with the Game Pass. Now, what was I actually meant to be talking about? That's right; Cluster Truck. I think I do this with every blog entry, talking about the Game Pass or why I use it, it's like I have some misplaced guilt about the whole thing, but ignore me. I'm nearing mid-thirties and over think my gaming time. So, I downloaded Cluster Truck after looking at a game to play with my children and since Cluster Truck doesn't involve blood, sex or drugs it seemed to tick the 'family friendly' box. Of course, when scouting for family friendly games, appearances can be deceiving. Whilst often innocent and cartoonish looking, I find these types of family games are often far too difficult for my children and are so frustratingly difficult or poorly made that I, as parent, end up cursing the air blue... Cluster Truck falls into the former category of difficulty. A simple premise of jumping from one truck to another complicated by avalanches, pendulums, missiles and worst of all; RNG. Each level is a short mobile obstacle course that creatively imply where the end of a level is, celebrated with an enormous goal sign. (That after watching some speedruns has a rather questionable hit box). It's a lot like super meat boy, lots of variety, short levels but padded out with a uncountable amount of deaths that surprisingly do not dissuade the player from further attempts. If I had to make a ridiculous comparison for the emotions of playing Cluster Truck it's this: starting the game is like meeting someone that you immediately develop a crush on. You want to spend all your time with them, make up excuses to be with them and feed off every scrap of their being that falls off of them. Finishing Cluster Truck is like finally hooking up with your crush. The sheen comes right off and you realise there wasn't a whole lot of depth to the person and in actuality, they're incredibly fucking annoying with their inconsistency and lack of personality. So you break up and move on, looking for something more engaging with greater depth, like Devil May Cry 5 or Final Fantasy 12 The Zodiac Age. I may have blurred the lines of metaphor somewhere there, but ultimately I'm hoping you have some clue what I'm talking about. To summerise, I loved Cluster Truck whilst I was playing it. I was bored and lacked any further motivation to play it once I finished it. I may have sounded awfully negative about Cluster Truck, but just like any crush it's a rewarding stage of development and there is still that sense of accomplishment like bedding your crush. Proving all the naysayers wrong and at least there's an achievement in Cluster Truck that's proof of my success... Yes, I am still talking metaphors, elements of my personal history haven't bled into this post. I assure you. Stop the discerning glances. Thanks for reading everyone!
When I rented Doom 2016 three years ago, I really enjoyed it. It was like a breath fresh air in the first-person-shooter genre that had become steeped in samey games that emulated call of duty or battlefield. Doom 2016 is a true modernisation of a classic title. It maintains the formula of it's predecessors but refines it and augments it with quality of life additions we're now accustomed to and also the benefits of modern technology. It looks great, sounds great and plays great. Whilst you will never see Doom 2016 have a perfect score on a Meta Critic or anything like that, I personally think it deserves a 10 out of 10 review score. If you loved Doom, you should love this. I'm a recent advocate of the Game Pass Ultimate scheme Microsoft have released and I've got to say I'm digging it. Doom 2016 is part of the Game Pass plan, not sure when they added it but I'm glad they did. It gave me a chance to replay it again and I really got myself knee deep in. I 100% all collectibles and secrets! Something I pretty much never do in any game, though I have to admit. I did use a gameFAQs guide to help find everything. It can be pretty tough in some sections, even with a guide! Play Doom 2016 and doing more than just running and gunning revealed to me just how much this new Doom has in common with the originals. I love how the team channelled that history and brought us this amazing game that plays so well. If you enjoyed the original Doom for PC, or even looking for a first person shooter that is high speed and frenetic fun. Doom is definitely worth a go. One note of caution; if your favourite Doom so far was Doom 3. You may find Doom 2016 isn't quite what you're looking for. Whilst there is a coherent story and lots of lore to collect, it isn't quite the slow paced corridor shooter that Doom 3 was. The Game Pass is great by the way, I used to rent titles, but the downtime between sending and receiving was a small gripe. You can always counter it by paying for a rental package that allows two games at a time and I would still recommend Boomerang to anyone whose on a tight budget but would like to play fairly recent games, I say fairly recent because as a general rule of thumb it would take about a month before I would finally receive a new game that I had on my list. You can try the priority package, but personally I didn't find it helped the situation much. Especially is there are more priority subscribers than not. Another great thing about Game Pass is it often includes digital only titles which a service like Boomerang cannot offer, because of this I've been able to play some very interesting games. So if you're on Xbox and have £11.00 spare once a month, I heartily recommend the Game Pass Ultimate. It's Gold and Game Pass in one and works out a bit cheaper than buying the two separately. Thanks for reading and have a nice day!
I always find it jarring when I can't gel with a game that is universally acclaimed. Is it me? Is there something wrong with me? Perhaps it's just a case of the wrong game at the wrong time. I don't have a lot of free time right now and MGS5 is a fairly slow paced game, I know it's a stealth game and sneaking and taking your time make sense. But I've never felt an MGS title feel this slow. I love MGS4, it's probably the best entry in the series in my opinion. I liked the octo-camo suit, it made stealth feel really fun and also ticked that all important box for me when it comes to a stealth game and that is, it makes you feel powerful. You have a severe edge over your enemies, your suit blends in to any surface. The other thing I liked about MGS4, is if you were spotted and the proverbial feces hit the fan; you were a one man army. Armed with multiple guns, rations for health restoration. Snake could do a fair bit of damage all of his own. MGS5 really clamps down on these two points I like. Whilst the environs are open, wide and there are lots of places to hide. Your access to camouflage options isn't amazing and so enemies can still spot you from a fair distance. The spotted indicator is vague, and I often found it hard to tell where I had been spotted from or how close the enemy was. When things to go wrong, initially the game is forgiving. Surprised enemies make time slow and you can line up headshots with ease. Later on though, when the gauge empties or enemies are generally aware of your presence, this "focus" no longer procs. Venom Snake, is not very durable. He seems to endure an initial burst very well but after one round of health restoration, which as a side note, I dislike in MGS5. Why can't we just have rations again? Having to find a place to lay prone and hold a button to initiate health restoration is tiresome and, as usual, this free health regen system means to balance it out you should go to minimum health in the blink of eye. No need for health pack conservation, you can do it as much as you want. And you will. Over and over every other bullet. Other nerfs to Snake's abilities is silencers with durability. I don't find such things tactical or interesting, I find them trivial and irritating. Tranquiliser ammo is very weak unless landing a headshot (hard with the odd iron sights on the guns and heavily restricted access to custom sights) and you get so little of it compared to regular ammo. I know you can call in supply drops for more ammo but again - tedious! A purposefully to make sneaking around harder. Limited weaponry; unlike previous titles, Snake can't be a one man army. He is allowed two primary weapons (which can be the same type, so no two assault rifles, but an assault rifle and rocket launcher combo is OK) and two secondary. You have many slots for items and equipment but after completing ten missions I only obtained three new items. Most items in the game are crafted, the enemies pretty much use the same stuff and I never found any exceptionally different weapons in the missions areas. Speaking of the crafting; the mother base management aspect I didn't care for. It was high restrictive, like I said, ten of thirty or so missions done and I couldn't even craft a rocket launcher, which made a mission where you have two disable two tanks very frustrating. I hadn't even unlocked any weapon mods like custom sights or more durably silencers. Some people may like all that stuff but it just made the game more convoluted and took the fun out of the game by limiting weapon variety so harshly in the early game. This has been a fairly negative post, and I don't like to be brutal but these are the primary elements that turned me off from MGS5. I never played Peace Walker and it seems MGS5 has many similarities to that entry. I wanted another MGS4, sadly that's not what I got. It's a shame because that bonkers flair for story telling that Kojima has is here and it's very much in your face. The Man on Fire and The Skulls to name a couple, are so out of place from the rest of the game world but work so well in spicing up the situation and adding mystery into a story that is generally speaking, more covert than Snake in a lot of ways. I'm still looking forward to Kojima's next title; Death Stranding. I've seen that it has a large open world, stealth elements and the like, but I'm hoping it's more story driven that MGS5 which plays more like a sand box (no pun intended!) stealth game than a narrative driven story. Bring on October!
I haven't used sniper rifles in a Call Of Duty game this much since Modern Warfare 2. Oh, Barrett 50 Cal, where is thou! Anyway, this isn't a meta based review, Xclusive Ace does great detailed analysis of the game's weapons, no this review is based on my experiences leveling all the sniper rifles up to their max level, which could be handy to mid tier players like myself. It was also a sort of self inflicted torture of highest magnitude, though I haven't tried leveling the combat knife yet so that could trump this! So, without further ado let's get into it. SNIPING 101 So for some reason, the COD game that has small to medium sized maps with few long sight lines has four sniper rifles, three of which are bolt action with a one shot capability. The Paladin is unlocked by default and is arguably the superior of them all. Snipers are not aggressive, rush friendly weapons, it's all about locking down lanes and dominating a power position. Which is excruciatingly difficult when spawns are flipping or your team is completely unable to defend any flank. Peekers advantage will be your best friend, ADS'ing as you strafe a corner for a quick shot takes practise but it's not that hard to learn and is essential for counter sniping. Sniping is unforgiving, miss your shot and most players are going to liquidate you before you even re-chamber your next shot. Learning to calm down when you're being rushed is a pivotal skill that will see you survive close encounters. Normally you want to back off and hard scope and wait for your enemy to run out into your crosshairs. The Koshka with Laser Sight 2 is the only sniper rifle that can reliably kill in close quarters using hip fire, and with that it's like a sort of shotgun really, you can even out-shotgun the mog with a laser sight 2 Koshka! The one thing you have to remember when using the sniper rifles in multiplayer is that you are playing at a handicap. Every other gun is better than yours in the slew of maps we have, so accept that, take your deaths in your stride and enjoy no-scoping someone with a spitfire or saug as they rush you round a corner, cos' you know that guy is swearing at his screen right after. Maps and modes I find help useful for snipers are; Kill confirmed for starters, you can camp tags and shoot collectors, which is fairly straightforward on most maps. Domination is good on some maps, ones like Frequency where the B site has a lot of cover and alot of avenues to watch out for aren't so good. Domination and Jungle are sniper heaven though! Control on several maps is good, notably Seaside. You can snipe into the church from atop the tank outside. Domination is better than Control, with no respawn limit people are far more reckless and you'll likely pick up kills faster. Avoid hardpoint, there's far too much movement around the maps and spawn flipping, you'll most likely end up getting creamed. Avoid hardcore, at all costs. One errant bullet will end you, you need that extra health to line up shots. Safeguard is Russian roulette, if you're on the winning team it's like shooting fish in a barrel. If you're on the no thumbs team, you will be killed on your flanks so hard you'll want to give up. Most inconsistent mode I found for doing well in. Hopefully those pointers will be of some use, below I give my review of each gun and the attachment setups I used to help secure those max levels. By the way, just maxing each gun out once required over a thousand kills with Sniper rifles, so yeah, it's gonna take you a while. PALADIN
Slowest rate of fire in the category but biggest one shot kill potential thanks to generous multipliers with High Caliber 1, which you unlock first. Then it's just a grind until you unlock the stabiliser attachment, which more or less eradicates the horrendous idle sway. Those two attachments pretty much are all the Paladin needs. Sight loader is nice, helps maintain accuracy whilst locking down a position. The sole negative is the slow fire rate, so you want to stay very close to cover so that you can back off and reload. OUTLAW
When I started with this rifle, I thought to myself, "that's it, start with the crap one first". The Outlaw is a hit marker machine, high caliber is a waste of a pick 10 slot. You're better off monopolising on the weapon's strengths, equipping rapid fire, hybrid mags and a stabiliser. I tended to opt for the reflex sight and use the Outlaw for mid-range engagements. The poor one shot kill potential means at close quarters, you have to be very lucky to make that one shot kill. This gun's supposed saving grace is it's operator mod that turns it into a three round burst gun, the damage drops off slightly and the spread is fairly wide, so you're losing your ability to one shot kill at range, it brings this gun in the close to medium range, which in my opinion is scary. Of course, if you're only looking to max out the gun, you'll never have a need of this mod. Oh, one last thing; equip scavenger, this mod makes this gun eat ammo. SDM
My favourite sniper rifle, based purely on it's ability to be a consistent weapon that you can actually rush with! It has no one shot kill potential until you equip High Caliber, then any headshot will take out someone instantly. It also does well with stabiliser and grip 1 and 2. This will steady up this gun a great deal and you'll really be able to hold your ground in mid to close range combat, equip the dual scope and you'll be competent both a mid and far ranges. Gung-ho works well with the SDM, especially if like me you find it hard to stay in one place for too long. The only thing to remember, is whilst you're grinding for those early attachments it is a bit of a tough gun, especially with the default scope which is not helpful for lining up the second shot. As good as it is, it is sadly outgunned by any tactical rifle. KOSHKA
This gun. This... Awful. Misguided. Stupid. Irritating. Gun. Let's take the Paladin, make you grind for High Caliber 1 and also make it less effective, not give it a stabiliser but increase the rate of fire by about a thousandth of a second and call it a fast handling sniper rifle! This gun is near enough on par with the Outlaw for finding hitmarkers until you finally unlock High Caliber. The only other useful attachment, laser sight 2, you unlock late into the guns life. Laser sight 2 pretty much turns this into a really skittish shotgun, and allows you to at least have some decent kill potential at close range. Quickdraw is slightly helpful but really this gun is just a struggle. It's outperformed by everything else. It's operator mod basically allows it to be the only quick scope-centric sniper rifle but the average player isn't going to take advantage of the strelock. I wouldn't waste the two pick ten points. This is gun is the pits, it pushed my sanity and endurance to new levels. Flipping from this to the Paladin is like night and day, you don't appreciate stabiliser until you cannot have it. There you have it, my review of the sniper rifles you can use in Black Ops 4 multiplayer. They're pretty out of place in the small frantic maps of Black Ops 4, there are places you can make them work but generally it's a battle of attrition mastering these guns. Incidently, it's probably the easiest class to get gold camos with because three of them require 100 one shot kills to progress into the final challenges, of which none are especially difficult, just time consuming. (no attachments, 100 kills? Yawn) I wish anyone grinding the sniper rifles the best of luck and if you're thinking of grinding away at them, then I hope this review was somewhat helpful or at least validated your thoughts that yes, the Koshka is a big steaming heap of garbage. EDIT: Just heard in the coming update they supposed to be tweaking snipers, the hate I will possess if it turns out to be some target assist while ADS'ing or something and I think I'm gonna cry.
I heard bad things about this game from when it released beforehand. Lots of videos detailing all the annoying and poor quality of life features. The devs promised to fix it post release with patches but I never heard anything about this game once the hate faded. Unsure what to rent next after Shadow of the Tomb Raider and thought I'd give Recore a try. Popped it into the Xbone, downloaded the big ol' definitive patch and strapped in. First thing to note is despite being an Xbone game it looks like an early 360 game. I know, graphics aren't everything but it's pretty surprising considering the pedigree of developers.
At first the gameplay is pretty fun, it's simple with the lock on and you're restricted to one weapon and so you have to use Mack your dog buddy to deal blue damage against blue foes. But it's pleasantly enjoyable. Further in the gameplay doesn't evolve beyond the colour switching mechanic and caps at four, even though enemies come in additional colours. You're stuck with Mack for a long time and by the time I had a new robot buddy, Mack was so OP'ed that the spider robot thing was getting wasted very quickly in any battle and did pathetic damage. I don't like the levels in this game, it's an arbitrary grind and I quit right about the time enemies came in levels 16 and above, so many would near one shot me and Joule (who you play as) takes one hit and gets staggered for ages. Coupled with the bullet hell like mechanics that emerge it's just one frustrating slog after the next. And I was level 14! And levelling is a grind and for Joule it appeared you only level up her gun (for damage) as you have to collect items to boost her HP. Unlike the robot assistants who can be ridiculously pimped by farming drops. Platforming was fine with Mack, throw in the spider creature and suddenly things get more convoluted. No fault of the spider, the camera is unhelpful at times and collision detection is hit and miss. They get very enthusiastic very quickly and the sudden shift was more than a little trying in a few places. Boss fights are naff as well, wave after wave of enemies come at you whilst you whittle the boss's HP down. And in order to kill them you have to complete a little quick time event that leaves you open to attack, and yeah everything beelines to you when you do it and enemies respawn fairly fast. So yeah, frustrating. That's this game in a nut shell really, frustrating. Long treks through barren uninteresting locales, fiddly platforming and aggravating bullet hell. All doses of frustration. At least when I played it they had some fast travel options, how did anyone bare this game without fast travel! Must have doubled the playtime all the back and forth. I hate to hate on a game but Recore deserves it's frosty reception. It has some interesting ideas but plateaus mechanics super early and relies on cheap mechanics to enhance difficulty. Grind does not equal fun. Personal score 3/10 Paul, do not try this game again. It's not worth it.
Well Christmas has come and gone. I hope you've all had an enjoyable one! I know I did, I've got the increased waist size to prove it! I was fortunate to get the opportunity to play Super Mario Odyssey this Christmas, and I gotta say it's been a joy to play. It's not been the only game on my roster this past week, I've been sharing it with another: Before before Christmas I received Okami HD from my rental service. I've got a bit of a history with Okami, in the past I followed it's development on the PS2 and then started it in earnest but then I got distracted with something else. I even tried again some years later but only got past the first boss before running out of steam. For all it's visual flair, tight controls and interesting setting I just couldn't get the morale to complete it. Was Okami style over substance? When I spotted the HD port on my rental list I made a promise to myself, to finally finish Okami and put it to bed. Some may think it's a shallow reason to play a game, to say I finished it. But it's great for closure and over the years I have learned that I get most of my enjoyment from finishing a game than say, collecting 100% of all items.
So here I am, four hours into Okami HD and I'm past the last point I gave up at. I have to say it does feel aimless. Your next objective is stated in a elongated section of dialogue but other than clearing up the cursed areas of the world we have no villain (other than I assume the reappearance of Orochi) and we're just sort of running from place to place clearing up curses. This could be a fullfilling objective if the drama felt palpable but I feels like a generic errand, one big fetch quest. Lifting the curse from any area requires very little effort on my part so far and I just feel like I'm on a voyage of collecting skills and abilities. I would be more engaged with the game's story, but the dev's choice of having every piece of dialogue hummed at you in a variety of annoying tones, means I don't have the patience to sit through the text. I so wished they'd had subtitled Japanese voice work or no voice work at all, but it is really grating to hear those noises. It's not like this game is dialogue light either, there's piles of the stuff! So, this has resulted in me skipping as many dialogue segments as possible which unfortunately has disconnected me from the plot. I'm interested to see what else there is to experience in Okami, but it's not the gripping adventure I thought it would be. But I'm feeling very confident I'll have it beat this time. I guess Okami is my white wolf... no good?
Now I get to talk about the little Plumber with the red cap; Mario Odyssey is a refreshing game. Not that it's breaking the mold or anything, but it's just refreshing to play a colourful and adventurous romp. I find Mario Odyssey a very relaxing and easy game to get into. The pacing is really good in Odyssey, unlike previous main console Mario games, collecting a Moon (this game's version of a Star) doesn't boot you out the level. You get to run around and collect the Moons as you wish. The game always lets you know how many Moons you need to proceed to the next stage and I think it's good that not every Moon is a mission in and of itself to obtain, you can collect a fair few just generally exploring and completing minor puzzles or platforming sections. I love Odyssey's controls. They are so precise, much more so that previous games. I normally find Mario is quite a floaty character to control and he normally slides a bit too much on normal terrain, but he feels so tight in Odyssey. I have yet to feel frustrated due to Odyssey's controls. Probably one of the biggest praises I could lavish on it. It's also such a colourful and vibrant game, it has a great deal of energy in it. The worlds are so well designed aesthetically and for playability. This game feels like Mario has been distilled and bottled. The best criticism I have is that the bosses are a little too easy, but at the end of the day this a game aimed primarily at a younger audience and that's a good thing. I can give the controller to my four year old Daughter and she can play and enjoy Mario, as she should. It's still engaging to me as an adult, especially when it comes to obtaining the well hidden Moons.
So far so good, I'm hoping to make a huge dent in Okami by the end of next week and I imagine I will have wrapped up Mario Odyssey by then as well. Which will nicely fulfill my "game completed" urges. As always I hope you enjoyed this blog entry and what have you been playing this past week? What are you looking forward to playing? I am always interested to know, so feel free to leave a comment. Have a great weekend everybody!
Hello everyone, and a Ho! Ho! Ho! It may be Christmas but I haven't had much to write about that's Christmas in spirit, but gaming news is still dripping out, what with the Death Stranding trailer, COD WW2's first DLC map pack reveal and this; Catherine remake for the PS4 and Vita. Now, I enjoyed the original game. I like the Atlus games, they're stylish and the blend of mythology and modern culture appeals to me. Catherine as far as story goes, is kinda weak. It has it's twists and turns and is well paced as an enigma that unravels, but ultimately the characters are paper thin and the dialogue is ham fisted. "No awards to anyone who guessed, Rin is transgendered" Fortunately, the gameplay was solid. You don't see many puzzle games designed like Catherine, layering story elements over does make for an engaging game. Though my poor wife did get tired of hearing the TV yell "edge, edge, edge, edge" over and over again. It's compulsive gaming and it's so fun and addictive. The only downside is that difficulty wise, the game can be a little steep. The difficulty does ramp up pretty extreme, especially if you want to see the true ending which sadly was out of my grasp. Any who, the game has had a new trailer reveal for it's remake that includes an additional love interest story line, new gameplay features and tower levels. However it's the new love interest Rin that is causing quite a stir.
No awards to anyone who guessed, Rin is transgendered and it's Vincent's look of horror that has upset people. This isn't the first time Catherine upset people with it's depiction of a Transgendered character. The character Erica was a Male to Female Transgender and she was at points ridiculed by the other male characters. Such as Vincent telling her she couldn't join the Women's Wrestling, because they wouldn't allow her in. Her love interest Toby; who has a huge crush on her, regrets having a sex with Erica when he discovers she is Transgendered. Many people also took offense to Erica experiencing the nightmares the Male characters experienced. This latter reason is a tad more ambiguous and perhaps a very sensitive subject, far too much so for a game about climbing a tower whilst being chased by some demented nightmare creature. Vincent himself is an absolute dick. The game stipulates that Men experience the shared nightmare because they are denying their women the chance to have children. (Due to unfaithfulness or reluctance to commit). Erica enters the shared nightmare when she begins having sex with Toby, due to her being a Male to Female Transgender, she cannot become pregnant and give Toby children. Hence she experiences the Nightmare. Whilst logical to the game's story, you can't deny it's a delicate and sensitive subject. Especially as the game does not suggest she is unfaithful or non-committal. The point of the Nightmare was to punish men, so Erica is therefore punished with them. To my knowledge, Catherine is the first game (at least main stream) that has featured a Transgendered character, but that in itself is no good thing. The Catherine game portrays men very poorly as well, Vincent himself is an absolute dick. He's a complete misogynist and seems to get let off because he is so gormless and laid back. The female characters don't fare better, they're either flirtatious sex symbols or reserved prudes. This game is not giving it's characters depth. Vicent is definitely the wrong character to have interact with a Transgendered character, because he is so juvenile, the character's over the top reactions were always going to cause offense but we also know that by the end of the game he will get over his reservations and end up loving Rin for the person she is and not fear her for whom she once was. So, will the ends justify the means? Is the LGBT community overreacting? As a Man, I'm of no experience to comment on how a Transgendered person is going to feel about this representation. Personally, I don't think Catherine is a serious enough game to take umbrage with, it's portrayal of it's cast is paper thin personalities. Y'know it's not really making a statement but it is making a mockery of it's Transgendered characters. It's like they're only included to be the butt of some of it's jokes which is inherently wrong. Hopefully we'll see some constructive examples of LGBT characters in videogames in the coming future, but for now it looks like there's some growing up to do. Have a great weekend everybody and a merry Christmas.
