The controls for the game are fairly simple, but also complex enough to require a fair amount of skill to be good at it. B is Jump, Y is Shoot, A is Dash and X cycles through your weapons. Holding L locks the position of your gun in place so you can move without readjusting your aim. Hold R to use your shield and this is quite critical to know as your shield can block almost everything in front of you. If this control scheme doesn't suit you just right, you can change the controls in the options from the title screen.

All in all, while the game is hard, it is also very rewarding. Since the controls are tight and responsive, it is YOUR fault if you mess up, not the game's. Its music also gives the game a sense of actual accomplishment if you happen to do well. I personally felt very pleased with myself when I finally beat the game almost fifteen years after getting it as a child. So, if you want a difficult but rewarding game with tight controls and badass music, then Cybernator is your game. It is also available on the Wii's and Wii U's Virtual Console service. But until then, I'll be seeing you.

Score:

The premise of the game at first glance seems to be like most in the survival horror genre, survive until you die. What makes the game unique is that its utterly pitch black all day, everyday. Thankfully it seems like you can through various means and tools, create life affirming light. Unfortunately for you there are mobs of zombies who are attracted to any and all sources of light. So an interesting dilemma is offered to the players, how do you survive when you can't see anything and any light you turn on will bring zombies like flies to a neon light. Live only off what every light your torch provides or look for greater sources of light, and of safety or at least some safety.

Darkness Overrun hopes to be a open world, with a lot more ground to explore that what was shown in the reveal. It also will have base building. So hopefully you'll have the chance to go full I Am Legend and pimp a sweet pad to keep the zombies out and the light in.

The game is obviously in pre-alpha so it's a very long way from being done, but Shadow Zone is going to have a alpha demo live soon so you'll have a chance to play for yourself. If you're interested in keeping up to date with whats going on you can follow the studios Twitter @SZSGames.

(Disclaimer: Like before, any and all content that this game's beta contains may be changed or altered in its final release. Please keep this fact in consideration while reading.)

So first of all, what can I say that hasn't already been said? Each of the 70 stages and 9 bosses have their own unique challenge to them witch gradually increase in difficulty as you play. But I did have one major problem with one stage and one stage only: 5-7. Every regular stage before and after it were perfectly fine and a lot of fun when it came to their difficulty relative to where it was placed in the game, but this stage in particular was severely unbalanced. I get that the game is still in beta and is currently being tested for bugs, but when I'm subjected to a bullet hell while avoiding mines AND those thwomp-like enemies for nearly an hour where every other stage took roughly 5 minutes (bosses at no more than 10 minutes), it starts to feel more like a chore. The only other gripe I had with the game is that some of the achievements didn't proc when they were supposed to, but that didn't bother me too much. I've never been big on collecting achievements in games.

Now that one stage didn't ruin my experience of this wonderfully crafted game. It would take a helluva lot more than one bad stage to make me hate a video game; I'm not that petty. So like I said, my overall opinion was largely unchanged. And now that I've beaten the game, I feel that I can properly score this game like I have in every other review I've done. So until next time, I'll be seeing you.

Score

Now because of how new this app is and because no-one knows whether or not more game demos will be added to it in the future, it's only really best used as a "try before you buy" type program, but you can't really "try" unless you have enough amiibo to unlock everything so you can play them "before you buy." All in all, it is only really good for people like me and have a large collection of amiibo to use. Maybe you'll get some amiibo yourself so you can use this app, but until then, I'll be seeing you.

Score:

Returning from Super Smash Bros Brawl are the challenges. Challenges are in both versions of the game, but they are split up into three separate pages on the 3DS version with a total of 105 relatively easy ones to complete whereas the Wii U version has 140 moderately more difficult ones all on one page. Completing a challenge will give you a reward and a special picture to view as a little bonus.

Classic Mode also makes a return in these games as it always has since the series' beginning, but this time it has gotten a drastic overhaul. On the 3DS, you go through branching paths of varying difficulty (Blue = Easy, Green = Normal, Red = Hard) and it feels very similar to how Classic Mode has been in past games, but in the Wii U version, Classic Mode is more based on your actual skill level as there are multiple groups of fighters each with a varying number of opponents and the occasional rival and surprise ambush.

Now for the mode everyone knows about, SMASH MODE. This is the game's basic free-for-all versus mode in which you choose your character and beat the crap out of your opponent on one of dozens of different stages inspired by a game in Nintendo's MASSIVE repertoire of franchises. The types of battles that can be done include Timed, Stock, and Coin battles and each can be played in teams. Smash mode can also be played online in modes called "For Fun" which has all items on and uses every stage except for Final Destination, and "For Glory" which all items are turned off and the only stage available is Final Destination or a visual variation of it.

Stadium mode also returns from the previous games, but with some slight alterations. Break the Targets has been completely removed and a new mode called Target Blast has taken its place. The 3DS version only has one stage while the Wii U version has three and if you want an idea of what Target Blast plays like, think Angry Birds but instead of a slingshot, you're launching a large bomb with a character's smash attack. 15-Minute smash mode in the Stadium has also been replaced with a new mode called Rival Smash in which you have to knock out more opponents than a CPU controlled rival character. The Fighting Alloy Team from Brawl in Stadium has also been replaced with the Fighting Mii Team. I find this to be pretty humorous as the Mii's faces are taken from the system's internal memory (I have some pretty low brow ones on my systems).

Now, here is what is exclusive to each version.

Returning from Brawl are the Event Matches, but these are exclusive to the Wii U version of the game. Event Matches are special battles with very specific win conditions. Some examples would include defeating a specific character before a computer controlled rival, or even preventing a hoard of slowly falling enemies from landing of the stage. Each event also has a secondary win condition that will reward you with a special prize should you succeed.

Also returning from Brawl and are exclusive to the Wii U are the Masterpieces. Masterpiece are demos of classic games that last anywhere between 1 to 5 minutes in length. If you happen to like the game's demo by the time the timer runs out, you are given the option to buy the game from the eShop which is a very nice convenience.

New to the game and exclusive to the Wii U version is Special Orders mode. Special orders gives you randomized rules and opponents to fight with a guaranteed prize should you succeed. In Master Orders you pay a small sum of coins to take one of three challenges and the options reset with each win or loss. In Crazy Orders however, you can either pay a fairly high sum of coins or pay with an Orders Pass which can be won from Event Matches or from the roulette in Classic Mode. In Crazy Orders, you go round after round with most damage kept after each round until you feel like you don't have the confidence to continue any further. Whatever damage you accrued from the previous rounds will be then calculated into health for the final battle with Crazy Hand and any minions he may have helping him.

Now comes the verdict. The controls are tight and responsive, the music is fantastic, and everything else will keep you occupied for a very long time like collecting trophies and betting coins on the online spectator mode. If you're like me and enjoy playing games with other people in the same room, then get the Wii U version. Almost all the game modes in the Wii U version can be played in co-op mode with friend which is very nice. However, if you aren't the person who spends a lot of time playing TV games or if you travel a lot, then I would recommend the 3DS version as the game can be taken over to a friend's house for use as a controller for the Wii U version or you can play the 3DS exclusive Street Smash game mode when you encounter a random person with the game when out and about. I guess you could also get both if you have the money, but until then, I'll be seeing you.

3DS Score:

Wii U Score:

Beyond Earth is what I found easier then V to get a grasp of; the tutorial is just a little bit more user-friendly and it is perfect for any new Civ players. Other then that though I found it not much better then V. It's somewhat shorter and easier to win with only a small amount of corporations and the "large" map not being as big as in the previous game. There isn't much advantage to being one race over another which is okay and the choices you make affect the outcome a lot more then any choices you would make in V but there are no mods, nothing strange like being able to be a facist dick to everyone and that is where Beyond Earth just doesn't shine like the other Civ games. Beyond Earth is V with a fancy coat of paint, different enemies and a more intuitive tutorial. If you're new to Civilization, buy it, but if you're a Civilization veteran and you don't have too much money to spend then leave it be and just get some more mods.

Besides, it's fun being a Nazi Russian warlord on Earth, and you can't do that in space....right?

I have a bit of an unconventional taste when it comes to video games. I'll play almost anything as long as it plays well and how it looks is often unimportant. Yoshi's Story falls under that category. Sure, it looks like it was designed for younglings, but looks can often be deceiving.

All in all, I had a lot of fun with this game. While the music is overly happy and cheerful and the environments literally look like cardboard and felt, the gameplay is what really matters and I think it plays extremely well for what it does. If you want to legally play it for yourself, the game is available on the Wii's Virtual Console service. You may find that looks aren't everything as well. But until then, I'll be seeing you.

Score:

Alice: Madness Returns is what happens if Tim Burton had made a GOOD interpretation of Alice's Adventures In Wonderland. Madness Returns was developed by American McGee and his development team, Spicy Horse, and published by everybody's favorite publisher, EA. Alice: Madness Returns is a Third Person Action Adventure Platformer that puts a dark spin on Lewis Carrol's original source material. This is actually a sequel to American McGee's Alice originally released in 2000.

When Alice arrives back in Wonderland, the world, is bright and colorful, but the deeper she goes into Wonderland the more dark and sinister it gets. On her journey, Alice, is accompanied by the Cheshire Cat whom may or may not be a figment of Alice's imagination. In fact, the entirety of Wonderland may or may not be a figment of Alice's imagination and that is what Alice's story revolves around; her sanity.

After Alice's adventure to Wonderland in the first game she had been declared clinically insane and spent a majority of her life in Rutledge Asylum. Madness Returns takes place a year after her release at the age of 19 and she now resides in an orphanage under the care of a psychiatrist named Dr. Angus Bumby. The gameplay begins when Alice relapses into Wonderland.

The second story is Alice returning to Wonderland. Hence "Madness Returns". Wonderland is now falling apart. It is being destroyed by a mysterious train dubbed by the inhabitants as "The Infernal Train". Alice may be the only one able to stop The Infernal Train from completely destroying Wonderland, but is Wonderland as real as she believes it to be? I personally found Alice's story in the real world dealing with her sanity to be far more interesting and meaningful.

Out of combat, Alice: Madness Returns is a platformer. Again, not much new here, but at least it isn't flawed in anyway. Alice can now jump not once, not twice, but four times whilst in the air. She also will float if the jump button is held down to help guide Alice down onto a platform.

Though, there is one thing everybody seems to agree upon....

Alice: Madness Returns really is an underrated gem because it sets up nicely a sequel, but sales didn't meet their goals so it was cancelled which is a shame. There is hope though. In 2013, American McGee started a Kickstarter to fund a concluding chapter in the Alice series called "Alice: Otherlands". There was a catch though. It wouldn't be a game, but rather an animated mini series. The Kickstarter met it's goal and now Alice: Otherlands will be released some time this year. Again, there is more hope. American McGee still wants to make Alice Otherlands into a game, but it depends on the success of the animated mini series.

Alice: Madness Returns isn't perfect. The gameplay is pretty stale and the middle act has a lot of filler fetch quests, but I'd be lying to you if I said that I didn't like this game. I actuallygenuinely love this game. The art style, the story, the soundtrack, and Alice herself are all so well done that it is sad that this game isn't more well known. Do yourself a favor and pick this one up. You won't be disappointed. 8.5/10

Welcome to "Early Access Impressions"!

One of the great things about PC Gaming is the amount of games in Early Access.

For those not familiar with Steam's Early Access system, developers release their unfinished games at a reduced cost at both benefit to the user and the developer.

The user is essentially an In-Dev Tester(yes that means broken games) and they get the game once it becomes full release. This series will feature games in Early Access as I get to them. And there's a lot.

Onto the show!

Killing Floor 2 is a first person co-op shootin' wave survivin' gore fest.

Developed by Tripwire Interactive Killing Floor 2 is kind of like Left 4 Dead and Call Of Duty's Nazi Zombies had a Super HD and over the top cRazY baby.

The gameplay is solid. Running around the maps aiming down sights and blowing apart heads feels very satisfying. Teamwork is made very essential in KF2. While a solo mode is available I wouldn't suggest it, even on Normal difficulty, you're gonna have a bad time. These are very similar characteristics to the original Killing Floor although I'd say KF2 is a more fluid experience.

                                                                                                                                                                                    Visually this game is amazing. If you told me this was developed by a AAA developer I'd believe you. Above you can see me blowing apart the head of a Siren in Slow Motion. The picture really doesn't do it justice but the gore effects are very very nice.

The enemy types is something else to consider. At this point in the early access stage the game features the standard Zed, Scrakes, Fleshpounds, Sirens, Crawlers, Stalkers, Sirens, Bloats, Gorefasts, Stalkers, Ranged Zeds(who I cant find the name of) and  the newest addition, an end level boss.

Going by the name of Hans Volter, this is one boss you should not take lightly. Multiple times I've been blown up, shot or poisoned by Hans Volter. While difficult to defeat Hans is that much more rewarding a kill. The difficulty in KF2, I think, is just right.

After you and your team destroy those enemies that have spawned, after each round you are then prompted to go to head to the trader with all that Dosh you've earned. 

Weapon variety is something Tripwire definitely needs to work on. 

Being the crazy over the top gory shooter this game is, my commando class felt no love in the crazy weapon department. Although there is decent variety, it got boring very quickly knowing that every time i played I just had to save up enough Dosh for that SCAR-H to be destroying zeds effectively. Keep in mind, this is early access, so there's a very good chance more content is coming. Map variety also needs to be improved at this point in time.

Glitches?

I didn't see any. Other than the fact that the matchmaking doesn't seem to be 100% working yet (sometimes I'd get thrown into games outside my search preferences) this game is virtually glitch free. This is probably one of the first times I've looked at an Early Access release that is actually very stable. Good on ya' Tripwire!

Final Thoughts

-Killing Floor 2 is just great. As far as an early access release, probably one of the best.
 
-The gameplay is solid feeels great and offers enough variety in weapons and enemies at this point in time to be satisfying.

-It's visually amazing with great lighting very high quality water and gore effects that are all so shiny I couldn't wait until the next Zed exploded.

-I think what makes this game even more amazing is how impossible they made winning, without a team. This is a real co-op survival shooter.

If you are the kind of gamer who likes blowing apart zombie heads with shotguns or slicing them off with military shovels, Killing Floor 2 is a must buy. I would suggest getting it soon, as the price will only go up. Just pray Tripwire adds more content before the full release.

Story:

In Life is Strange you play as Max Caulfield. A socially awkward girl that has a passion for photography. While in her photography class, Max discovers that she has the ability to rewind time. but only so far. Max is the definition of socially awkward and is constantly shit on by other people who go to her school; which brings me to the first problem of the game.

Everybody is either a bully or a socially awkward victim. There is no in between apparently except for Max's friend Chloe who is introduced later on in the episode.

Writing:

It's blatantly apparent that the developers have no idea what real schools in this day in age are like. It genuinely feels like tumblr's idea of high school is. And unfortunately, that's what this game feels like. Tumblr: The Video Game.

Now, you could chalk this all up into "Maybe it's only this one school that is like this." Well if that were the case I wouldn't have a problem with it, but the dialogue is written so poorly that all the bullies' dialogue might as well have been written like "You're dead meat. I'm gonna pound you." And on top of that, the acting is just as poorly executed with the exception of one character. All the dialogue is acted out in such a stale manner. Like all the voice actors wanted to go home or something. Lip syncing is just as bad. Not one piece of dialogue matched up with any of the character's lips.

Decisions:

Just like in Telltale's TWD, Life is Strange, contains an actions and consequences element that happens through actions and dialogue. In addition to this, Max's rewind ability lets her change a decision she made on the spot. Saving you from a second play through. I actually like this because, more often or not, you're going to fuck up a timed event and with this you can save yourself the frustration of loading a previous save.
One problem I have with this actions and consequences system implemented is that so seem comical. Like, in one part of the episode, if you water a plant in your room you will get the notification that "Your action will have consequences." What's the worst that will happen? The plant hunts down and kills your mom for not watering it properly?

Graphics:

The graphics confuse me. Scenes like this one in the picture can look pretty pretty (?), but I still can't tell if the devs are going for a stylized approach like TWD or if they are trying to be realistic. It's like the developers stopped half way through making the decision and said "Fuck it. Just do both."

Opinion piece:

One thing I'd like to add that really bothered me (but probably wont bother you) is Chloe's step dad, David. Obviously this dude is going to be a huge antagonist further down the line and he's just a huge asshole the entire episode. Bulling people on campus and the lot. But it's his background and the way he's portrayed that bothers me.
David was in the military and is a huge asshole. Which I don't mind, but it's the way that his and Chloe's dialogue is written that bothers me. "I was in the military." "He was in the military." "You're paranoid." "War does that to you." It's like the developers are trying to imply really negative things about the military. And they just keep going on and on about how he was in the military and he's an asshole. But that's just me. So if that doesn't bother you, then more power to you.

Before I wrap up this review I'd like to talk about Max's friend; Delsin Rowe... I mean Chloe. Chloe's voice actress sounds like the only one in the entire episode actually trying. You can tell that she has some pretty intense demons under her tough punk exterior. She's genuinely interesting and I want to know more about her and her missing friend Rachel Amber.
Why the fuck aren't we playing a game about her?? Max is so stale and boring. It would be a lot more interesting to see Chloe change into the rebellious punk she is in Life is Strange. But that's just me.

I tried so hard to like this game. I really did. I brushed aside all the preconceived notions I had about it before playing and tried to get invested, but in the end I just couldn't. To me: the only one redeeming factor in this game is Chloe's character. I'm probably going to buy the rest of the episodes when they come out just to find out what happens to her.
Overall, it's lackluster to say the least. I was hoping for a deep story which game like from the likes of Telltale, but what I got was Gone Home meets The Walking Dead. Sound on paper, but was executed poorly. I wasn't going to recommend this, but given that it's only $5. So if you have the extra cash and have already bought every Telltale game; you should try it. Maybe you will get engrossed in it. Unfortunately, I didn't.
And if you want a numerical score: 6/ 10

*This review is written improperly because I originally posted it on FunnyJunk. The reason that I basically copied and pasted it from their is because I'm really proud of this piece. I've never had anyone else read my writings so constructive criticism is much appreciated so my writing will improve in future articles. I hope you have a wonderful day.

Scott Pilgrim Graphic Novel

Scott Pilgrim vs The World (Film)

Scott Pilgrim vs The World: The Game

Well, that's all I can say about this. If you wish to buy the books or the movie, you can get them from Amazon for pretty reasonable prices and if you wish to buy the game, you can download it to the PS3 and XB360 for about $15USD. But until then, I'll be seeing you.

Graphic Novel Score:

Film Score:

Game Score:

Unturned is in early access. Normally I'd steer clear of that too, but this is a great example of how Early Access should be used. The developer is constantly updating the game and keeping the players up to date with what he's doing with the game and what tweaks he's making. Believe it or not, but Unturned is actually also free. So if you are at all interested you can get it on Steam.

Unturned's map is of decent size. Consisting of small towns, waterfronts, a military base, and airport. You can repair cars to travel to these locations faster. Items also respawn after leaving your game so it's really easy to farm for more important items to fight off zombies and other players. Unfortunately, because famous YouTubers have played this game on their channels, you will find an abundance of little kids running around killing everyone. But you can still find normal servers or you can play by yourself in single player.

Unturned also has a fatigue system so you will need to regularly eat and drink to stay alive. This seems a bit extreme in game though. You will constantly have to be looking for food and water because you character begins desperately needing them after only about 5 to 10 minutes with out eating or drinking. 

Unlike Minecraft, textures aren't very detailed. They are usually only one color; even on the highest settings. This is upsetting, but again, Unturned is in Early Access so that can easily change somewhere down the line.  Unturned also doesn't currently have in game music. You may or may not like that depending on your preference. Walking around in the complete darkness of night with no music of sound can be pretty atmospheric, but some dark and lonely music in a setting like that would have been preferable. But right now, the only music is the main menu music. 

Most computers shouldn't have a huge problem running it either. Unturned is very well optimized. You can customize just about everything in terms of graphics settings. There's even an option to enable a nifty little FPS counter to show you how many frames per second you are getting so you can change your graphics settings accordingly. 

Unturned also has a pretty good crafting system. Though it's mainly only used for creating structures like player made homes and forts. There isn't any in game recipes on how to create items so you will more than likely be consulting the Unturned wiki pretty often to make a basic house. 

Typically the best place to find any attachment is in the military base. So as soon as you find a map in game you should head there and stock up on guns and ammo.  Scopes are especially varied starting with improved iron sights to red dot sights to scopes that can practically see across the entire map. While guns with no attachments can still get the job done, it's still nice to have attachments to make the job easier.

While the game is free, there is a optional "Gold Upgrade" that gives you some improvements in game. They aren't anything that make the game insanely different or make you over powered, but they are noticeable. It's only $5 and a one time charge. I recommend that you get this with the game. Not for the upgrades, but to support the developer.  The developer of Unturned is a 17 year old kid and he's offering the game for free. In his own words when asked if the price of Unturned will ever change, “It will remain free, but the abilities provided by Gold may change. Nothing that will make the game pay to win, however.“

Unturned is a solid game that has a lot of potential and this potential may be realized since it is in Early Access. You have nothing to lose by checking this game out. 

I hope you all have a wonderful day :). 

Like every other game in the series, Dr. Mario Miracle Cure keeps the series tradition of eliminating viruses by matching them with like-colored pills (called Mega-Vitamins) in rows or columns of four or more. The pills can be rotated to better fit into certain areas, and if the entirety of the pill isn't vaporized, the remaining half will drop down toward the bottom of the bottle if it isn't blocked by an obstacle in its path. As you play, the bottle will fill with more and more viruses in each subsequent stage, with the drop speed of your pills increasing in later stages. Now if this were just a simple game of Dr. Mario, then I'd be done with my review right now, but it's not, and now I'll explain why.

This iteration of the series actually includes quite a few features from previous games in the series and even throws in a few brand new gameplay elements in order to keep things fresh and exciting. Starting by order of additions, we have the game mode called Virus Buster which actually first made its appearance in the DS game Brain Age 2: More Training in Minutes a Day as a bonus minigame. Virus Buster still goes by the same gameplay staple of connecting four viruses and pills of the same color to remove them from play, but the major difference is that the game is played with the stylus and two or even three pills can be dropped into play at once, although they fall at a fairly slow pace. Next is the Online mode which was introduced in Dr. Mario Online RX on the Wii. All it does is let you face a random player from somewhere around the world, or play against a friend on your 3DS's friend list. Then we have the game mode Dr. Luigi, which was introduced as the Operation L game mode in Dr. Luigi on the Wii U. This game mode drops two pills at once in the shape of the letter L with the long side of the shape often being comprised of all one color. This forced the player to think of new strategies as the unusual pill configuration and its large size made it difficult to maneuver in the confines of the bottle.

All in all, Dr. Mario Miracle Cure is a great entry to the franchise. It includes enough game modes to keep you busy for a long time to come and its new Miracle Cure power-ups make for a fine addition to the series. Hopefully we'll being seeing more of them in future installments, but until then, I'll be seeing you.

Score:

Developed by id Software and published by Bethesda, Doom is a first-person shooter with a nostalgic feel. This is the fist major installment in the Doom series since 2004 and has been anticipated by the loyal community. After playing the early access Doom beta, I thought the newly releasing game has a lot of potential but still isn't quite there. What I mean by this is that there were a lot of aspects of the game that didn't quite seem fully developed. Obviously this is a beta so the game isn't finished, but it still is a good representation of what it could look like when the game launches on May 13. Here were my initial thoughts after playing the beta for a couple hours:

Pro Features:

-Graphically looked absolutely stunning

-Movement felt very smooth and fluent

-Lots of customizable features for your character and weapons

-A brand new game that contains a nostalgic feel when playing

Possible areas of improvement:

-The guns seem VERY week and take a ridiculous amount of shots to kill an opponent

-The demon is extremely hard to kill and quite rare to obtain

-Weapon choices are very limited (most likely due to beta stage)

-Only 2 maps and 2 game mode (also most likely to to beta stage)

If you have not played the beta yet I recommend you download it and play it while it is open. The beta is open from April 15-17 and the full game launches on May 13. If you want to learn more check out my gameplay video on my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCF1BVKVnGbnZNwItlH50I2A

Unfortunately, I can not say the same for the plot. It's the common consensus that nobody plays Battlefield games for their story. So I went into Hardline with my brain "off" to try and enjoy the story to it's fullest. Even that didn't work. Even with my brain "off" I still saw every twist and turn come from a mile away. I'm more impressed with how Visceral was able to fit every cliche from every crime drama into Hardline.

The main hero is a new goody-two-shoes cop, His partner and friend turn out to be dirty and both stab the main hero in the back, main hero tells captain cop but turns out that the captain is dirty too, main hero is blamed for all the dirtiness, now main hero has to team up with dirty friend and a criminal to take down dirty captain.

And that's just a brief synopsis. You should count just how many more cliches the story is riddled with. I'm not sure if this was intentional or not, but I wouldn't be surprised either way.

You can level up Nick, our main hero, by playing certain ways, though playing stealthily rakes in more experience points. There is even a neat feature that allows Nick to raise his badge, announce he's a cop, and arrest the enemy. This is vital if you want to arrest enemies with warrants for an XP boost. The gameplay is the best that I've seen in a Battlefield game to date. Take notes Battlefield 5 (or Hardline 2, which is inevitable.)

I was surprised how much I actually felt like a cop (aside from the Michael Bay explosions). You don't just feel like a guy running around shooting people that happens to have a badge. I also found it fun to use Nick's phone scanner to analyze evidence, put together clues, and learn back story on this fictionalized take on Miami and L.A. and the enemies with warrants.

Environments can be such a pleasure to look at, but these are mainly for scripted events. So that may be a turn off to some people. The games run at a pretty solid 60 FPS on Playstation 4 and Xbox One. It's the resolution that's different. On PS4, Hardline, runs at 900p and on Xbox One it runs at 720p. Whilst, Hardline runs at 1080p and 60 FPS on PC. But doesn't every game?

The graphics did have to get toned down a bit in multiplayer on all systems to accommodate the large maps and frantic action. It's not THAT noticeable it's to be expected with how chaotic the multiplayer can get. So I can't knock off points for that.

What you won't find is Battlefield 4's large assortment of weapons. Hardline trimmed the fat of the guns in BF 4's multiplayer, but at the same time made the selection of guns feel really restricted. You also can't use all of the same guns on each team (unless you get over 1,000 kills with each gun). Cops have their own selection of guns and so do the criminals. Only the primary weapon and pistol you start with can be used on either team. This is a huge let down for an otherwise extremely fun multiplayer.

The destruction also feels lacking in multiplayer. Other than a few small buildings that can be blown up, the destruction feels even more heavily scripted than Battlefield 4. You can blow up a giant crane in one map that crashes into a building and changes the map a little. Wow...whatever happened to the days where destruction felt dynamic and you really feel like you are blowing up buildings like in Bad Company 2?

Now some may argue that cops and criminals wouldn't be causing the same amount of destruction found in Battlefield 4, but Visceral and EA are marketing this as a BATTLEFIELD game. If it were just "Hardline" then I would understand,but gamers know Battlefield as almost a destruction simulator. Why take that out?

The story coulddefinitely use work. And I don't mind the crime drama cliches, just don't use them as the main story. Use them in an entirely new and unique story ironically. Also, if it couldn't hurt, drop "Battlefield" from the title. The game would be better without it.

I would not recommend that you pick this up at full price, but rather pick it up when it is down to around half that price or even cheaper. You will enjoy it for that much. 7/10

Before I begin, I'd like to explain that I previewed/played the Xbox One version of The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited beta. So any and all problems I found within the beta may be resolved before the game's official release date of June 9, 2015.

That being said, I found the controls to be fine. I never found myself tripping over the controller trying to remember which button does what. You still use the left stick to move, the right stick to move the camera, Left Trigger blocks, and Right attacks. Those are the controls that need to stay the same to keep the game playable, and they are the same. 

I couldn't shake the feeling of how strange the first person camera feels. It feels....wrong. Like it isn't meant to be in the game. It's clear the developers put more time and polish into the third person camera, which works well.

The graphics for ESO on Xbox One can be very pretty at times, especially far off vistas. Standing on a mountain over looking Tamriel is a good example of that. ESO definitely has the look of a Bethesda Game Studios Elders Scrolls entry. The textures are a bit of a different story though. 

If you run up to an NPC or any texture in the world too fast then you have to wait a second or two for that texture to fully load. This is especially apparent when you run up to an NPC to open up dialogue and turn in a quest. And even with the texture fully loaded it isn't as pretty as the Elder Scrolls has been before. 

Though, I suppose this is excusable considering it is an MMO with a huge world and dozens of players with you at times. If ZeniMax Online tried to implement Skyrim level graphics into a game of this magnitude then it would more than likely run very poorly. Fortunately, ESO runs rather smoothly. One thing I have to commend ESO for is that there are no load times going into major cities. Similar to Morrowind. This was minor annoyance in Oblivion and Skyrim so it is nice to see it ironed out in ESO. The load times going into buildings is near instantaneous, which on console is a rarity so it's a nice touch. 

Magic also isn't as streamlined as it was in Skyrim. Your melee attacks are interrupted to use any magic attacks which are mapped to the face buttons. I found myself not using magic attacks at all really. Strangely enough, magic doesn't seem to be as important in ESO as it was in previous entries even though the game still encourages you to play with a magic style. Though, this didn't bother me very much because I rarely use magic in Elder Scrolls games; a lot of players still enjoy playing in the Mage class, but here it feels watered down.

In there attempts of being WoW, ZeniMax Online, have watered down the Elder Scrolls experience to the point where it, sadly, feels like a generic MMO with an Elder Scrolls coat of paint. 

Some things are strangely taking out of ESO that were in previous Elder Scrolls game. Like being able to loot all bodies, not in ESO. Only certain bodies can be looted. I suppose it's to help preserve the economy of the game so players can't farm the same types of enemies for hours. Not being able to read every book is gone too. Now, you can only read "lore books" which, yes, are still nice to read if you are into the lore, but there aren't many of those. Also, how is "The Lusty Argonian Maid" in ESO when it was written by an Imperial in the Third Era? I know this sounds like I'm really nitpicking, but it just furthers my concern with how canon this game is when the developers can't even get Bethesda's original lore right. 

You can't loot every object in the world either anymore. So no more stealing goblets and plates to sell for a few gold each. Strangest yet, no more sitting down on chairs and benches. Why this was taking out? I have no idea. Why couldn't the developers go for a more original experience rather than a WoW clone? It's the Elder Scrolls. It was one of the most original games back in the day.

If you aren't an Elder Scrolls fan, this isn't going to be the game that converts you. I am, however, a huge Elder Scrolls fanboy so I can still see myself getting lost in this game for hours upon hours when it officially releases despite these flaws. But again, like I said, this was a beta so everything I just said could be completely different when the final game launches. Maybe, and hopefully, all these issues and concerns are ironed out in the final product. 

I also recorded some gameplay if you are interested in watching the beta in action:

A big thanks to ZeniMax Online Studios and Bethesda Softworks for allowing me to participate in the limited access beta of The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited for Xbox One.

So what is Marathon? Marathon is a game that was developed and published by Bungie. A continuation of sorts from their late 90s IP, it takes the Extraction Shooter approach, while you explore the long-abandoned colony of New Cascadia on the planet of Tau Ceti IV. While on this planet, you take control of a Runner, an artificial shell housing your consciousness, and are thrust into one of four different maps currently available on the planet, where you search for loot like health packs, consumable buffs, and weapons. At the same time, the map is littered with other players looking for the same, and it essentially turns into a "kill or be killed" battleground similar to competitors like Escape from Tarkov. The loop itself is satisfying, rewarding players who are resourceful and cunning.

Despite its positives, I have personally found a few things that can be pretty jarring. First is the contract system. With this system, players are given tasks to complete by the many factions while exploring each locale. Difficulty increases with each completion, which is to be expected. That said, it is also not the most consistent system, as some contracts require tasks to be done in a single run, while others can be done over the course of several. This makes for an inconsistent difficulty that is unnecessarily tedious, and can potentially leave you feeling "stuck" in a contract for a prolonged amount of time.

Another issue I have found is with the way your Vault works. In game, the Vault is your storage space where all your equipment and consumables are stored. The issue stems from initial size, as the expectation is for you to gather as much loot as possible, yet the starting amount of Vault space makes it difficult to keep everything you have gathered. Even with the most recent changes to how items stack in your Vault, Vault space being as limited as it is when you first start playing feels unnecessarily restrictive. To make it worse, upgrades to Vault space feel too spread out between faction levels, making people who prefer keeping a larger arsenal have to choose what to keep, which feels unsatisfying.

While the gameplay is well designed and fun to interact with,  getting to release was not without some bumps in the road. Before development was completed, issues began cropping up surrounding art theft . In May 2025, there were a number of articles released discussing Bungie's use of art strikingly similar to art originally made by AntiReal (@4nt1r34l on the site formerly known as Twitter) in Marathon's early builds (see an example of one such article, from Paul Tassi at Forbes, here). At the time, AntiReal expressed issues with similarities between their own art and in-game assets (see below):

Despite all that, the game that has been released has been nothing if not impressive. Gameplay is what we have come to expect with Bungie titles: solid movement mechanics, satisfying gunplay, and a rich lore heavy world for people to experience.

This sparked a lot of discussion surrounding the game's quality, as this wasn't the first time Bungie had faced similar allegations. Most notably, a lawsuit was settled in November 2025 for plagiarizing a storyline that was then used as the first story focused campaign in Destiny 2 (initial suit was filed in October 2024, as reported in this Gamespost article, and the settlement report in this Gamesindustry.Biz article). This, along with the apparent winding down of Destiny 2's PvP content, combined with the lack of quality narrative content that players were accustomed to, has left the community with a lot more skepticism about the studio's future direction.

Ultimately, despite the controversies that have plagued the studio, Bungie has managed to deliver an experience that both feels similar to current competition like Tarkov and ARC Raiders, while giving a unique and refreshing spin through their shell system and heavy focus on narrative. Marathon stands as a solid foundation from which Bungie can build something special. There is so much on the horizon, with their latest roadmap promising plenty of content worth getting excited about. And while the art and plagiarism allegations had given them some difficulty, it clearly didn't dampen their creativity when building this world. I look forward to the next update, as I myself will complete "one more run".

I came across this game called Sisters: Faye & Elsa Episode 1, a puzzle-driven horror game. You play as Emmanuel Burke in the year is 1993 in Willahauk, Massachusetts. Your Aunt Faye has gone missing and you get locked into her house only to discover it may not be so empty after all.

The game is very creepy, there is no background music, only ambient sounds of your surroundings. I found a few of the puzzles so challenging I had to watch a walkthrough on YouTube. There were no hints throughout the game so you have to look for a puzzle within every interaction. I think if the game had some hints I could have enjoyed myself a little more. I found myself frustrated to the point where I couldn't play the game for a few days, though I am invested enough in the game that I want to finish the series.

The gameplay and the immersive environment that Otherworld has created in this game is astounding, and definitely worth the $7 price tag. This is a full 360° game unlike some other games I've played where you only use about 180° of the range to play the game in. It really helps give that horror atmosphere you would get from a PC or console game.

Storyline/features:

          Mark of the Ninja is a 2D platformer that focuses on stealth and otherwise being ninja. The story is set in the modern day, where ninjas have perhaps become slightly outdated. You play as a ninja (go figure) who's clan was ruthlessly attacked by mercenaries. Your task is to strike back at the man who ordered the attack, and regain your clans honor. However, to do it you accept the burden of the mystical Mark, giving you mysterious abilities; but these powers come at a horrible price. The marks powers hail from a mysterious plant, who's origins I will later discuss. Besides giving you superhuman abilities, it turns whoever accepts it mad, in time. Turning on anyone and everyone, killing with the only intention to end lives. To ensure the safety of the clan the bearer of the mark kills themselves, turning themselves in before becoming to powerful to stop. 

        One thing that you catch on quite quickly is that the game strives to keep elements of the ninja authentic, point in case is that you don't know who you are. Your name, and anything about you is shrouded in mystery. Perhaps the only information you have is Ora, your companion throughout the game, and the name of your clan, the Hisomu. This approach to a character, especially a main character is not a common thing. Even in other games where the main protagonist is a ninja, it's more common that his/her name is one of legend (or infamy). However the fact of the matter is that the identity of a ninja was completely secret. So much so that it would be quite common that ninja's from the same clan would confront each other in battle (1). This was the case because ninja families were born to serve lords, for honor of their lords and clan.

      I will admit that the storyline is not the most complicated, nor is it a epic that spans several hundred hours; but for the narrative it tries to tell, it is well done. Not only from what happens during cut scenes, but during the game too. Now in most cases I don't really enjoy collecting, running every which way to find small things that give you an arbitrary 100% that don't really affect the game and its story. In Mark of the Ninja there are collectibles in the form of scrolls, and artifacts. Artifacts only give you points that count towards your final score, where the scrolls contain Haiku's. There are three a mission, and together they tell a short story about the clans history. Here's an example:

       On a starless night,  An unkindness of ravens,  Lands along a wall

Drunken, laughing guards ,  Spill outside with joy to meet ,  The eyeless faces

A thick liquid drips ,   Down a silken thread that hangs ,  Above a pillow

This particular set of scrolls tells of a mission. One that brought the Hisomu clan into legend. Reading through them really gives you an idea of how things were back in the day. When ninjas were feared, for the unknown power they wielded with deadly precision, and how it has all changed in the modern day. This is a major theme in the games storyline, and drives the majority of the plot. The death of the Baron, who ordered the attack on you from out of nowhere. To the well kept, dark secrets of the ink plant. These events simply act as a story, a children's tale. Because the whole game leads to its finale quite literally, and figuratively. 

       Throughout the game, it feels like you are alone in your mission to save the clan. Like you have been knowingly abandoned to your death, and the only 'light' is your one companion in all this. Ora, who is that companion seems to follow you through the thick and thin. Through the castles, deserts and back home. During development, it was decided that Ora would have a big speaking role. Which is hard to imagine in a game about stealth. So what you'll notice is that she only shows up at select times during a mission. Most often at the beginning and end, with some exceptions. So she's a constant factor in how you see the different situations, always lending a couple quips to give you some perspective. One thing I don't like, is that it's a narrative you have to listen to, and her reasons are never explained. All you know is she's a 'friend'. It feels like she has no other use in game than to push an idea. Thankfully, or at least true to the games varying gameplay, you make the finale decision. Figuratively and literally.

Game play:

Mark of the ninja is a particular game in the sense that its a 2D stealth platformer with emphasis on lighting dynamics. It uses a number of small mechanics to make the game play .It also uses sound quite effectively in its design. Stealth is often based on being able to see the mark and in some cases hearing them move, there are also some instances where you can sense the unseen. Mark of the ninja's game play makes use of them all. In general game play, not standing in a spotlight's or flashlight's gaze means you are in the shadows. 

       The lighting system is really interesting, and I'll explain. All light in this game comes from a source: lights, chandeliers, spotlights, floodlights, flashlights etc. Each has a one of a few 'gazes', as in it propagates outwards from the source in a particular way. Chandeliers give light out in about a ~150degree radius, and the light reaches as far as the outline shows. Flash lights have a smaller ~25 degree radius but can be shown anywhere the guard points, so are flexible in their direction of gaze. However if the guard is looking for you it's much harder to move around. So being caught out by them will happen more often. Another example of a source are the floodlights. They are similar to the the flashlight and ceiling light, in that it is staitionary and has a smaller AOE; but it has a protection from another small game mechanic, which i'll get too soon. Being able to skirt light sources is key in staying hidden, and you'll have too look out for a number of different types too. Because as soon as you step into the light you'll know. If you take a look at the photo to the side, paying particular attention to the to left you'll see a small icon of the ninja. This is your stealth indicator, and the icon will become lighter, as well as your character model if you step into the light.

       This is when you know you can be seen. Which is interesting because it doesn't mean you will be seen. The guards that populate each level have a small area in front of them that they can 'see'. This is indicated by a light outline that propagates out their eyes. If you come into this area they'll see you, and being sighted is its own little mechanic. You can in fact stand right in front of them, if your in the shadows, without being noticed. Get too close though and you'll be spotted out from the flashlight. So here two mechanics come together to create a game play experience. If you're standing in the light, and a guard happens too look towards you, he or she will instantly spot you. Which means a light source effectively extends the guards sight range. I think this is a really cool because of how it mirrors real life, as light tends to help you see stuff. In game play it keeps you on your toes, as just because there aren't any guards on screen to spot you doesn't mean one won't. As far as I know the range is pretty big, but not infinite. So avoiding lights becomes immensely important if there are guards around, especially if they are looking towards you.  

       The other way you can be found out is by sound. Being a ninja, you were trained to be as quiet as possible, so moving around generally makes very little noise. Running however will make quite a racket, and anyone nearby will hear it. In the first play through of the game you can see how far the sound travels out from its source. The game indicates this by a transparent white circle that moves outwards from the source. So its omnidirectional, but in a 2D space (if that makes sense); and I think it does because if you think about it, the idea feels right. It makes sense when you play the game and hardly needs explaining, it's easy to grasp. Which is a recurring theme around Mark of the Ninja's game play, and this why I think the game does very well.

       Now its all well and good that you can see the sound visibly, but how does it affect the game play? I'll use an example; in the image to  

the left. Here you'll see two guards, and our ninja protagonist perched on a hanging platform just above. By the feet of one of the guards is the source of the sound (I'll explain later what it is). Now you can see by the outline how far the sound went, and that the guard is in that area. The smaller yellow circle around the guard indicates that he has heard something, and the fainter yellow circle is where he thinks he heard it. So you can imagine how this works now. Using something that makes sound you can get a guard to turn away, so you can slip by, or murder him.

         One thing you'll have to remember though is how much sound you make, because if you noticed, the sound in this game travels through everything. Its one of the slight gripes I have with the game but its fairly minor, and actually makes game play better. In the picture above you'll see the outline goes into the floor. In another case perhaps its at a wall; the sound would go through it and into the next room for anyone to hear. Thus the real life physics of sound absorption is omitted (its not the only time this game does that). You'll find though that this has very niche but effective game play uses. For example getting the attention of a guard behind a door, so that he comes outside and you can sneak into the building without being spotted. Its a peculiar interaction, but its quite cool to think about.

       Now for actual gameplay, the how do I ninja bizz. Controls in Mark of the ninja are really quite simple, left analog for moving and right for looking around. A button for jump, X to punch/kick, and Y to use your tools (if you haven't noticed I used a xbox controller). Other buttons do things but i'll get to that in time. In the beginning of the game you don't have much, in fact you have nothing. So everything is 'vanilla' and as the game progresses more tools are added, more powers tapped, and techniques learned. Each level is story driven so there's no generic kind of mission, but I'll use the first level as an example. The first mission is to free your ninja brethren from the mercenaries, and is quite simple as most first levels are. In order to do so however you need to stay hidden, or you get caught and there's no one to free anyone else, logically. 

        So you have to hide, and there are a lot of places to do so. Much of each levels design is centered around how you can move through them. For example a hallway will have doors that you can hide behind. Allowing you to avoid detection by sensors and patrolling guards.  Simply done by pressing A next to one. There are many other things to hide in and on, trash dumps, garbage cans, pots, statues etc. For a normal person, hiding behind one of these isn't too hard, if whoever is looking for you isn't trying very hard. So a ninja with superhuman abilities should have no problems. 

      Suppose however you can't hide. There's a guard who just won't look away long enough, what do? In Mark of the ninja you have to often think about 'how can I get past this, and what can I use to do that?' In most cases your tools are immensely helpful. They allow you to distract and kill, depending on how you feel. Historically a ninja would not kill anyone but his/her mark, to avoid being caught; and it is possible to end every mission without killing anyone (save a select few). If you do choose to kill, there are many ways to do it. A wide variety of tools, and death blows are at your disposal. Assassinations are sometimes necessary, and they work like a combo. Input the combo correctly and the mark dies silently, but mess it up and whoever is dying will make a lot of noise.  It's oddly satisfying to flawlessly take down an entire task force alone. But it also comes at a cost. A cost to your score.

       Now it might be odd to think, there's a score system in a ninja stealth game. What the diddley doo for? To create balance, and options for the player. You could kill everyone and hide their bodies (for extra points, plus safety) or just leave them be. Not killing them is harder to do, if your plan is to stay unnoticed, but also gives greater reward. At the end of each mission your score is tallied, and the points come from how you interacted with the guards. Either he/she never noticed anything, got distracted by a noise or something you did, or died at your hands. For the system to be balanced, each has a different point value. Untouched give the most while dead give the least. Additionally extra bonus points come from not killing anyone, and distracting no one. They are much harder to achieve but are possible. 

      Most of the fun in the game play for me was being able to choose. It felt like I chose my own path. If a particular area was too hard to get by without killing, then I would go find a different way past. And my favorite thing about the games is its vast array of possible plays. There is absolutely no reason to play a level the same way ever, if you wanted to. It was also a lot of fun to be a ninja, in the way ninja's really were.

Audio + visual:

The game looks like a cartoon, there's no denying this. The visuals are bordered with a small out line to make it easier to see, which is nice in the relatively small amount of light. Only the foreground, and things you can interact with have these visible outlines. The rest of the scenery though is very much beautiful. Mark of the ninja makes use of multiple layered backgrounds, and I think its a cool way to depict a city. There are 5 different areas, with completely different visuals, and its a treat to just look at them sometimes. 

It's not generally a thing to do, but if you stop and look once in a while you can see how much detail goes into this game. Especially when you listen a bit. In a game with patrolling guards, most of their dialogue is simple and repeats over and over. In mark of the ninja the guards have a huge repertoire of lines, and they hardly ever repeat something you've heard before. I mean they don't exactly say anything that has any particular importance to the game, but its that level of detail they put into the little things that count.

     The music is also quite dynamic. Each level has some ambient music that's played in the background, but there are many occasions where it transitions out. For example if you get seen and the alarm goes off, the music becomes energized and really helps give that atmosphere of panic. And generally I enjoy the music, and how atmospheric it is.

      The art style in this game is amazing and is definitely one reason you should play it.

Final Thoughts:

      For me this game is amazing. There's so much option, and each play play through can be different from the last. There just so many small mechanics that just mesh together so well, and its clear the developers really spent a lot of time building the system. Plus the finale is just amazing, the atmosphere is just amazing.

     This game definitely for me deserves a spot in my top 10 favorite games, and I highly recommend anyone playing it regardless of whatever type of games you enjoy. 

If you asked me i'd give it a  9.5/10

Developer: Lag Studios
Price: FREE
This game will cost you nothing, so why not try it? If you want to know what you are getting into, read on

(Spoilers Probably)

Spooky’s House of Jump Scares is exactly as it’s name states. This indie horror game throws you into a retro styled mansion, with a graphical style that reminds me of Wolfenstein 3D. Your objective, to get to the farthest room you can. The game is advertised as having 1000 rooms, I was only fortunate (and brave) enough to make it to 200.

The game begins with the main character, Spooky herself, talking to you and challenging you to traverse her house. Once inside the narrow corridors and creepy music don’t seem like your typical horror game.

Before I mention Gameplay, this game has some weird resolution issues. I usually screenshot through steam overlay but this causes weirdness. Being early access it’s fine to have technical issues, I just hope they do get fixed. Technical issues, especially getting resolution correct, is very important. In this version of the game there is a fix resolution option in the settings that you need to activate every time you play.

As you sprint down the halls little cardboard cutout ghosts, skeletons and other creatures unexpectedly pop out from the walls accompanied by cute sound effects.

It’s scary I swear.

Controlled with mouse of keyboard feels fine in the first person perspective. As you run through the rooms and are eventually chased by monsters, you will find challenge in having to manage your sprint and being aware of your health. There was one situation where I had to take a hit to make it through a room.

Even though some may find traversing hundreds of small rooms lackluster, I found the story and the mystery of why things are the way they are enough to keep me going.

For example there are random notes scattered around the house, from an unknown source who, in the past took the same path as you. Additionally, there is a random chance for little arcade machines to generate which feature 2D arcade games to play.

Below is one of the arcade games, where you play as Spooky herself and stab shoppers in a mall.

The variety of rooms and the way the gameplay changes is enough to keep me interested. Some of the different rooms feature blindingly white environments with audio puzzles while others are dark paths falling into darkness.

One of the things I cannot capture in writing is the sound. This game has fantastic sound design. While the voice acting of Spooky at the beginning is poor at best, the rest of the game sounds great. The monsters moans and screams and this one demonic track you are going to fear, as it just unsettles you and lets you know of danger being near.

Final Thoughts

Spooky’s House of Jump Scares is good at what it does. One second you’re laughing at the cutesy art style and the next you’re running for your life as demonic music plays.

-Its got a great graphical style
-Fantastic(and spooky) sound design
-Interesting backstory
-Surprisingly lots of gameplay variation

-Needs to fix resolution issues and steam overlay issues though

I suggest trying this game out!
Beware, this is not for the faint of heart.

Metro 2033 is where the bulk of the remastering went. It looks almost as if it were built from the ground up using the updated 4A Engine similar to that of Metro Last Light, but a more realistic idea is that the textures and placements of some objects were given a fresh coat of paint that still looks absolutely fantastic. Unfortunately though, the best comparison image I could find was a compressed YouTube image that doesn't do it as much justice as I would have hoped it would, but I think it still gets the point across. 

As well as a graphical upgrade, Metro 2033, also gets an upgrade to it's HUD and menus. Now it's exactly like Metro Last Light where you hold down a button or key that brings up all your tools. This is a million times more convenient than the older Metro 2033 HUD and menus though I can see why some people may not like it feeling like the same game, but i like it being two different games feeling like one huge video game ride. 

Some times you will be given a small side quest for money or a karma point towards the good or bad though it doesn't really matter because Last Light will always pick up after the bad ending. I can not say enough good things about this game. It's really more like an experience because even after you've finished the game you will never forget the experience you had with it. Since you can buy each game separately I give this game on it's own merit a 9/10. 

Metro Last Light picks up right after the bad karma ending to 2033 where Artyom launched the missle strike against the Dark Ones' nest, but only after it's revealed to him that the Dark Ones were actually good and mean't no harm to humans and actually wanted to help them rebuild humanity. Khan, from 2033, visits Artyom and reveals to him that one Dark One survived so now it is race to get the last remaining Dark One. You will fight against the Fourth Reich, the Soviets, and bandits as well as everybody's favorite mutated dog things; Nosalises. 

Artyom also gets a love interest named Anna whom the developers spent more time modeling her boobs than her face (you'll see what I mean in a minute). Anna actually goes through a bit of a character arch. She starts out as a real bitch to Artyom then through a set of events she respects and becomes attracted to him. Anna isn't given a lot of screen time though. She's at the beginning of the game then disappears for more than half the game to show up towards the end. Artyom still only speaks during loading screens and remains silent during gameplay which makes me wonder how he ever gets Anna. 

This is what I meant when I said that the developers spent more time modeling Anna's boobs than her face. I have to note that the breasts and nipples are the most realistic I've ever seen in a video game (which is warrant enough for a 10/10 amiright, guys??) The nudity is kind of strange in this game though. Both times it happens you are in a really intense fire fight then less than 5 minutes later you get boobs in your face. I'm not really complaining for that reason, but it did hurt some of the pacing for two really intense parts.

The first time you on a raft with another survivor fighting off mutated water monsters called "Shrimps" to get to a nearby station then you get a bare breasted lap dance. It is optional though. The second time you shooting your way through a metro station that is burning down and are trying to get to Anna because she was captured by the Soviets in the last mission. At the last moment the enemy breaks you gas mask and you are exposed to a biological weapon that the Soviets tested on the metro station with. You and Anna are then both saved and quarantined by Khan and his men because the biological weapon was Ebola. In the face of uncertain death Anna gets partially naked and Artyom and Anna make a baby. 

There are less side quests to do in most of the stations though. You'll still see your typical bum in the corner asking for a bullet and you can still give him one for a good karma point. Metro Last Light also has the ability to get a good ending and a bad ending except this time one of the endings implies a sequel to this game and the other ends the series. You'll see which is which depending on the ending you get. 9/10.

So, I'll stop gushing for a moment and get down to it. Metro Redux isn't flawless. Stealth is some times way too easy. There are some minor animation hiccups here and there. Last Light has minor pacing issues, but overall these games are amazing. The story is well told, the atmosphere is incredible, the gameplay is rock solid, boobs, and you get to kill Nazis. What more could you possibly want. Both Metro 2033 and Last Light have both been remastered and it shows (more in 2033). You also get both games for the price of one. I highly recommend you pick this one up on any platform of your choosing. I know that it should average out to about a 9/10, but I'm taking into account you get two games for the price of one. Overall I give Metro Redux a 9.5/10. It's that good. 

Now, unlike the show, the game actually has a plot. Because of how good Arino had become at classic games, he becomes a god-like demon called the Retro Game Master and sends the player into the 80's where you must complete gaming challenges in his domain. Now because of the licensing issues with making a game like this, eight brand new NES styled games were created instead. These titles replicate the look and feel of of the era they represent extremely well and could even be considered legitimate individual titles in their own right.

• Cosmic Gate (a space shooter inspired by games like Galaga and Space Invaders)
• Robot Ninja Haggle Man (an arcade platformer styled after Ghosts 'N' Goblins and the many ninja themed games of that time)
• Rally King (a racing game modeled after titles like Super Off Road and Bump 'N Jump)
• Star Prince (a space themed shmup designed after games like Gradius and Star Soldier)
• Rally King SP (a more difficult reskin of Rally King meant to parody "special edition" games given out as contest prizes)
• Robot Ninja Haggle Man 2 (the sequel to the first Haggle Man, it has the same gameplay, but levels are much larger and more difficult)
• Guadia Quest (an RPG inspired by games like Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy)
• Robot Ninja Haggle Man 3 (the sequel to Haggle Man 2, this game parodies how many games underwent a drastic redesign for their sequels. It is modeled after Ninja Gaiden)

All in all, this title replicates the games and magazines from the 80's extremely well. Each of the eight games are responsive, the music is well designed for the games they are made for, and after all of the challenges for a specific game are finished, you can play the game in its entirety from the title screen without any of young Arino's commentary. If you buy the game and happen to like it, I would also recommend the show from which it is based. Most of the episodes have been getting subtitled by fans and are being posted here. I think you might enjoy them too, but until then, I'll be seeing you.

Score:

For today, I bring you The  Plan, by Krillbite studio. You may recognize Krillbite studio as the makers of Among the Sleep. If you've played Among the Sleep you probably have a pretty good idea of what this game is like and whether or not you will like it. Nonetheless I bring you the very first Free to Play Sunday: The Plan

Gameplay

To be frank, the gameplay is lacking. You need nothing more than wasd to play and there is no strategy or thought required to reach the end of the game. In fact, you could likely just hold w (while occasionally switching it up and going for d) and successfully reach the end. There are a few events, if they can even be called that, that lead you to believe that there are going to be more obstacles in your way, but I found myself disappointed when I realized that failure was not an option. Playing as a fly, I expected to have to handle a few tricky spiders, and while there were spider webs, there were no enemies to be seen. There is no way to lose this game and so technically there is no way to win this game; your only real options are to complete it or to quit.

Story

In all honesty I am not sure how I feel about the story of this game. I am stuck somewhere between "this is deep (I think)" and "that was boring." It makes me think back to high school when an English teacher of mine would insist that there was some deeply significant meaning behind the presence of oranges before all of the death scenes in The Godfather (maybe Francis Ford Coppola just had a thing for oranges). I won't give any spoilers, just in case you really want to play this game, but if I were being forced to write a paper on the meaning of this game I'm positive I'd get an "A" for discussing mortality and the finite nature of life. Though I have to admit that the ending made me chuckle, and then briefly question whether or not I was a bad person for finding humour in the situation when surely the feeling I was supposed to have was one more akin to melancholy.

Aesthetics

Despite the disappointing lack of gameplay, and my mixed feelings on the story, I found both the visuals and audio in this game to be spot on. I'll start by saying that the visuals were nothing entirely special. The art style was basically the popular artsy-indie-shadowy style, similar to what you would see in Limbo,  or Grimind, or even Never Alone, that being said the graphics suited the game well and I believe that any impact that this game has would have been lost if another style had been adopted. My favourite part of this game was hands down the audio. It was altogether lovely, relaxing, and atmospheric.

Final Thoughts

Once again I find myself with mixed feelings towards this game. I'm not sure if it's brilliantly or boringly simple. This game has very little replay value, but it takes under 10 minutes to complete and you can even get an achievement (if you're into that sort of thing). If you enjoy laid back games that are more like poetry than like epics then you may genuinely enjoy this game, but all in all it's a free game available on Steam so at the very least you should give The Plan a play and see for yourself. You don't have anything to lose after all!

Submerged is minimalistic "relaxporation" adventure developed by Uppercut Games that puts you in a post-disaster world where you mosly scavenge for supplies to save a dying boy's life. Submerged is completely combat free and, instead, focuses all it's efforts on story and gameplay. With the post-apocalyptic art style of Enslaved: Odyssey to the West and the beauty and relaxed gameplay of Journey, will Submerged sink or swim?

Submerged begins with Miku and her wounded brother, Taku, arriving in a flooded and abandoned city in order to find supplies to keep Taku alive from his injuries.

The story seems simple enough and it remains that way until you begin finding story art cards that provide backstory on Miku and Taku before arriving in the city, and the flooded city as well.

I never really found myself caring all that much about Taku, but I did find myself very much caring about Miku and the city itself. I cared more about Miku's safety than Taku's, but that's probably because Taku spends the majority of the game lying on a bench and not doing anything. Though, to be fair, he is dying, but Miku's safety came first in my eyes.

The city's story and what happened to the people is also quite interesting. It's also quite interesting with how these stories unfold. You have to boat around the ruined city and collect story art cards that piece everything together, but you won't find them in order of story events. The story won't become completely clear until all the story cards have been collected.

Also, the developers created an entirely new language to further emphasize just how far society has fallen. If that's not impressive then I don't know what is. Though, I do have a gripe with the story. (The next tidbit isn't REALLY a spoiler, but rather, a broad statement with no specifics.) [spoiler]Over the course of Submerged, the game, begins heavily implying that there's going to an emotionally devastating ending that will leave you in tears, but there's a complete cop out. I wish it had gone with the course it was going because it was shaping up to be one of those endings you're going to remember forever; like Telltale's The Walking Dead and The Last of Us.[/spoiler]

Made with the Unreal 4 engine, Submerged, can look downright beautiful. The beauty is especially realized when the day becomes night and rain begins to pour down.

It's clear the developers knew just how beautiful the game is because there's a "Make Postcard" option that allows the player to stop time and rotate the camera around Miku and create absolutely gorgeous screenshots.

Allow me to put it like this: Submerged is so beautiful that I ended up using the "Make Postcard" option to take beautiful screenshots every time I was in game. Every time I started up the game; I saw something new and beautiful. Unfortunately, though, the graphics aren't perfect.

Upon closer inspection, some noticeable textures seem blurred and a bit dull. The framerate will even drop quite frequently and, seemingly, out of nowhere. At one moment, the framerate dropped so low that the entire game stopped and I thought it had crashed but, fortunately, it came back in a split second.

The gameplay in Submerged mainly consists of climbing and navigating the city streets with your boat. This creates a strong sense of relaxation.

Watching waves roar around as whales and dolphins swim by feels so relaxing. From an artistic standpoint, it's great, but from a gaming standpoint; not so much.

Sadly, the gameplay in Submerged gets redundant pretty quick. Gameplay in Submerged can be summarized in this order: boat, climb, collect ration; rinse and repeat. This was something I was afraid of and my fears were realized.

At first, I didn't think this would be an issue, but it slowly began feeling tedious and I realized that I wanted to do was sail around and admire the beauty. You can do just that, but you have to boat, climb, collect ration to progress the story. Once you complete the game, you unlock an "Explore" mode that allows you to explore the game world and collect missed story cards and boat upgrades free from distractions. This was my favorite aspect of gameplay.

The soundtrack is where Submerged REALLY shines. Composed by BAFTA-Award Winner Jeff Van Dyck, Submerged's soundtrack is hauntingly beautiful and intensely elevates the sense that you are alone in this post-apocalyptic world.

From somber melodies to more uplifting tracks, Submerged's soundtrack is one I hope to purchase and listen to whenever. It's quite amazing to stand on the edge of a decaying ruin with nothing but the wind and a quiet song playing evoking many emotions.

Submerged is just one of those games that help further the proof that video games are capable of becoming high art, but the redundant gameplay and weak ending hold Submerged back from realizing it's true potential. This beautiful apocalypse accompanied by gorgeous visuals and a haunting soundtrack makes Submerged an experience I won't soon forget.

If you care for the artistic nature of Submerged then I highly recommend it to you, but if you don't care about any of that then this may not be for you. Otherwise, Submerged is an experience worth checking out.

Blues and Bullets is a story driven episodic adventure that puts you in the shoes of Elliot Ness, a retired cop that gets dragged back into the life he thought he left behind. Developed by A Crowd of Monsters, Blues and Bullets is a unique blend of Telltale's The Walking Dead's gameplay and L.A. Noire's tone and themes while still maintaining it's own identity.

Blues and Bullets' story is very well executed that takes some of the common cliches found in Noir drama and adds a new spin on it.

The overall plot deals with the heavy subjects of murder, mutilation, torture, and revenge – topics that can only make a good story if executed perfectly.

The story follows Elliot Ness, a former cop and now diner owner, as he gets pulled into a job by Al Capone. The story isn't as straight forward as it seems with curveballs being thrown at you to keep you on your toes.

Elliot himself is surprisingly charismatic and likable with realistic motives and the personality of a retired law enforcement officer just trying to live the rest of his days happily. Though, not everyone's life can be so happy and it seems Elliot's can't be either.

The developers have done a fantastic job of keeping the Noir story in balance with the tone and atmosphere they have created with the soundtrack and visual style. This looks to be one of those stories that sticks with you long after you've experienced it all the way through.

The graphics in Blues and Bullets are rather impressive considering the engine it was made with, but boasts an even more impressive art style.

If you are a fan of the Sin City films, then you are going to love the visuals in Blues and Bullets. The game mainly features a black and white art style, but with accents of red to show off smaller details – and blood, lots and lots of blood.

The graphics just ooze with Noir mystery that will make you want to investigate every item of the environment to unlock back story and reveal more about the world the game takes place in, but the graphics aren't without their own flaws.

Some of the animations within the game are stiff and robotic, and lips won't always match up to some character's dialogue. Blues and Bullets isn't very well optimized either, with only 4 changeable graphical settings; Resolution, Full Screen, Quality, and Visual Effects. Because of this, I had trouble playing through Blues and Bullets at a stable FPS.

Don't expect to be just walking around and talking to people like similar games of this genre. Blues and Bullets does a fairly well job of including exciting action set pieces that don't feel tacked on with no rhyme or reason.

On top of investigating and shooting, you will also piece together a gruesome murder to figure out how to proceed with Al Capone's task. This was a gameplay element I was pleasantly surprised to see and I hope it is used again in future episodes.

There are also quick time events with Blues and Bullets. It's understandable to be turned off by this element, but there aren't many and they are fairly easy to accomplish once you've encountered them.

The soundtrack of Blues and Bullets fits the tone of the game perfectly.

Ranging from more lively upbeat songs to more quiet and somber tracks.

The same can be said for the voice acting. No one phones it in here and all the actors make this feel like you are actually watching a Noir film drama.

Also, the voice of Geralt from The Witcher series voices Elliot Ness, which is a great addition. Elliot's sort-of-not-really sidekick who accompany's him throughout the majority of the game has a more softer and down to Earth voice which is a great contrast to Elliot's gruff monotone voice.

Overall, I very much enjoyed my time with Blues and Bullets and will eagerly await the release of episode 2. The developers were able to succesfully blend everything great about Noir mystery dramas and turn it into a fantastic game.

The story, the graphics, and the gameplay tied up neatly with great voice acting and a stellar soundtrack make for an incredible experience that I won't be forgetting anytime soon, regardless of it's minor flaws.

Sigma Star Saga is a dual genre RPG/Shoot-em-up developed by WayForward Technologies and released for the Game Boy Advance in August of 2005. In it, you play as Ian Recker, a skilled fighter pilot for Earth's forces, who is tasked with infiltrating the ranks of an extraterrestrial species known as the Krill who attacked Earth by boiling away its oceans killing almost all life on the surface. While undercover, Recker meets Psyme, a female Krill that outfits him with a parasite suit that gives him enhanced strength and speed and allows him to interface with the Krill's living spaceships, which is where the game's main mechanics come into play.\r

The RPG part of the game works in a very unusual, but surprisingly logical way. In order to make sure the Krill (and Recker by extension) are safe during a mission on another planet's surface, the Krill scramble the battleships in low orbit above the planet to scout for intruders, but because the ships are unintelligent living beings much like cattle, they scare very easily. As such, they warp in a nearby pilot to help them rid of whatever is causing their distress a la Random Encounter. While piloting a ship, the game plays like a side-scrolling shmup much like Gradius or Sky Kid, but once all of the enemies in the battle are destroyed, you are rewarded with some experience points and the ship will quickly warp you back to the overworld shortly afterward.\r

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The overworld map on the other hand plays VERY different than what I was expecting for an RPG endeavor. Unlike most RPG's, your character does not engage in battle while walking around the map. Any and all enemies shown in the overworld are nothing more than obstacles that block your progression forward and most can easily be taken out with Recker's gun. Another thing that makes this very different is the fact that Recker can find permanent power-ups on the map for both himself and whatever ship that may beam him aboard. While Recker's abilities stack in the fashion of Metroid, your ship's power-ups are customizable allowing you to better fit your play style.\r

All in all, I had fun with this game, but it isn't for everybody. It is a very nice change of pace for fans of the shmup genre, but RPG fans may have a hard time getting into the battle segments due to them being much more action oriented, and the fact that the story can be overly complicated at times. But if you're the kind of person that plays through a game multiple times, then you'd probably enjoy the multiple endings and New Game +. It even has an extra secret ending if you manage to complete it 100%. If you have the time, you should definitely check this game out, but until then, I'll be seeing you.

Score

It's been six years since 2010's underrated gem, Mafia II. Fans have been waiting eagerly for not only a new addition in the franchise, but also answers to many of the questions raised in Mafia II. Hangar 13 have big tasks to complete with their first release. Especially since their first release is of a sequel to a beloved series and one of the biggest AAA releases of 2016. Let's cross our fingers and see how they did.

In Mafia III, players assume the role of Lincoln Clay, a Vietnam veteran returning home only to find his crime family owes a lot of money to the wrong people. After completing a job for them, Lincoln assumes all debts are paid, but is betrayed and forced to watch the death of his family. Down but not out, Lincoln swears vengeance. And in order to exact his revenge, he needs to recruit like minded criminals. These criminals come in the form of Cassandra, the leader of a Haitian gang, Vito Scaletta, previous main character of Mafia II and all around badass, and Thomas Burke, a father seeking revenge for the death of his son by the Italian mafia.

Lincoln starts out interesting enough. He's a man that just wants to do right by his family, and if that means having to kill some people in the process, he won't hesitate to do it. Lincoln doesn't necessarily want to kill, but it's just something that has to be done in his world. That is until the Italian mafia kills his entire family and seriously wounds Lincoln. Then he becomes just another generic, angry guy out for revenge. Anything that made Lincoln interesting, or even likable, is completely thrown away after only an hour or so of playing.

The entirety of Mafia III's narrative hinges on players sympathizing with Lincoln and wanting his crusade against the Italian mafia to succeed. The problem with this is that none of Lincoln's family are likable, none of his allies are likable (with the exception of Vito), and the villains are so over the top with how evil and dastardly they are that I almost forget that I'm not watching a Saturday morning cartoon when playing through Mafia III's story. Interestingly, Mafia III has the opposite problem that Mafia II had. Mafia II had boring, tedious combat sections, but had a brilliant story. Mafia III, on the other hand, has a boring, tedious story, but fun combat sections.

Race, violence, and oppression are heavy themes in Mafia III. 1968 was a difficult time for anyone who wasn't white, in both fiction and reality. Mafia III's depiction of racial prejudice is much better than, say, BioShock Infinite's disgustingly simplistic depiction of a serious subject matter, but I don't know how authentic it was compared to real life. It was a bit jarring at first hearing the "n-word" being used pretty casually, but I wasn't alive in a time in history where words like that were commonly used. Ten hours into Mafia III and I stopped even noticing that word being used. So either Hangar 13 did a great job taking me back to 1968 or I need to take another trip to the Museum of Tolerance to re-orientate myself. I knew Hangar 13 were afraid to dabble into those themes from the very start of Mafia III. What does it say about the state of the video game industry when we can't even have a game depict a real, appalling matter in an informative way without it beginning with a actual trigger warning?

Every Mafia game had a message. It may have varied from depending on interpretation, but it always came down to, "Crime doesn't pay." It may seem all well and good at first, but it always ends in disaster. In Mafia: The Lost City of Heaven, Tommy Angelo is forced to become a rat for the FBI and is ultimately killed by the mob. In Mafia II, Vito realizes that he may have gotten his best friend murdered by the mob in one of the most ambiguous cliffhangers in video game history. In Mafia III? Well apparently crime does pay because Lincoln gets away with an untold amount of money, guns, drugs, and women from running an entire city through crime. Not only that, but Hangar 13 also had to go and completely undermine the message of Mafia II's cliffhanger ending. Talk about not understanding your source material.

If there's one saving grace for Mafia III, it's the gameplay. As I previously stated, Mafia III's combat section are much better than II's. Where Mafia II had linear corridor cover shooting, Mafia III has larger more open areas allowing for more variety in tackling your objective. Stealth has been improved on tremendously from the last game, but that isn't saying much. Stealth was completely useless in Mafia II unless the mission specifically required it. Even then it was still so barebones that it made Skeletor jealous. Now stealth can be used whenever you want for almost every mission.

The guns feel great as well. Every weapon sounds and feels as weighty as they would in real life, and are just all around fun to use. It's just a shame that Lincoln is built like a tank, but can take less hits than a glass hammer before dying. Effectively turning full frontal assaults into "cowering behind chest high cover until the color on your screen comes back" assaults. Luckily Lincoln is able to carry medkits so that isn't too much of an issue, when you have them.

The same can be said about vehicles as well. Every car feels different and has a nice mix of real world car physics and arcade car physics. This makes car chases feel cinematic without going over the top. Speeding around a corner and watching your pursuers from your rear view mirror slam into a building at high speeds is always enjoyable. Vehicle laws are supposedly in place, similar to the first two games, but I never noticed them. I found myself speeding and crashing into cars and other objects in front of the police, but was never chased until I killed a cop.

Remember the surprisingly in depth hand-to-hand combat from Mafia II? Where you could chain together light and heavy attacks to form devastating combos? Well, good news! Just tap the melee button three times to win every time in Mafia III. What a strange omission. Hangar 13 give Lincoln the build of a brawler, but restrict him to simple punches and kicks? That fighting mechanic would have been much better suited for Lincoln than Vito. I have to admit that I'm curious to see who would win in a hand-to-hand fight between Lincoln and Vito in his prime.

So what's the catch for gameplay that's actually enjoyable? Tedious, boring mission structure. With more of an emphasis on gameplay, you would think Hangar 13 would build missions that would take advantage of that. Instead you get another helping of Generic Open World #72521. Damage racket, kill racket boss, damage racket, kill racket boss, rinse, and repeat. 10 hours later and you've completed Mafia III. It may sound like I'm over simplifying Mafia III, but I'm really not. Every mission is either destroy some stuff or kill some guys with an occasional car chase to break up the monotony. I found myself turning the game off every other mission because I was getting so burnt out doing the same thing over and over again.

The graphics really are the difference between night and day. They don't look too bad at night, and seeing the lights of the city bounce off of buildings and cars will cause you to drive a little slower to enjoy the view. During the day though, lighting is flat, textures are ugly, and the framerate dips out of nowhere. Outside of cutscenes, Mafia III looks like a game that could easily run on PS3 and Xbox 360.

That's unacceptable for a AAA game. It's been 6 years and Mafia III only manages to look just barely better than II? Perhaps this is only something that afflicts console versions, but if Mafia III looks this bad on consoles, it can't fair much better on PC. It can't possibly be hardware limitation because, for example, a like Grand Theft Auto V not only looks better, but was also ported from 7th generation consoles. I repeat, a much bigger game from 2013 looks better than this state of the art of AAA release from 2016.

Don't make the mistake of looking in the rear view mirror for too long during the day. You'll quickly notice an orange void consuming the world. You can't out run it. No matter how fast your go or how hard you try to hide, it's always there. I know it's October, but I didn't know this was a horror game. Yes, the view distance seen in the rear view mirror is shockingly short. It's like the fog wall from the Silent Hill HD Collection constantly following you.

One tradition in the Mafia series Hangar 13 managed to continue in Mafia III was the great soundtrack. Instead of the light classical and smooth jazz from the first two titles, Mafia III features early rock from the 50's and 60's. It feels good driving through New Bordeaux at night with Paint It Black by The Rolling Stones playing from your stolen car. The soundtrack fits the time period and, surprisingly, fits the mafia vibe in a new way.

I'm hesitant to even call Mafia III a "Mafia game." Just because a crime family happens to be in a game, doesn't mean it's a "Mafia game." If that were the case, any of the GTA games can be retitled "Mafia." What made the first Mafia game unique was that it was one of the first playable mafia simulators. Everything you would attribute to mafia films and the mob in real life were present in Mafia: The Lost City of Heaven. Suits, ties, old timey setting, long sitdowns, and Italians. Even Mafia II, with all the content that got cut, had all that and more. Mafia III has very little to offer in that regard. Sure, there are some characters that wear suits with ties, 1968 New Bordeaux is an old timey setting, sitdowns were few and far between but did still happen, and italians are present as the main villains, but none of those things are the main focus. The focus of Mafia III is a generic revenge tale under the guise of a Mafia game.

In the end, Mafia III is incredibly disappointing as a Mafia game and taken on its on merits. A dull, uninspired story, mixed with repetitive missions and graphics that would hurt a blind guy's eyes can't be saved by decent gameplay. Mafia III is without a doubt one of the most disappointing releases of 2016 and not worthy of the Mafia name.

The Cat Lady is a point and click adventure game developed by Harvester Games and published by Screen 7. This is genuinely one of the creepiest games I've ever played. The atmosphere and art style are so spooky that this feels like one of those haunted games in Creepypastas. Most point and click games in this day and age are underrated, but The Cat Lady takes the cake for the most underrated point and click game.

The story is very well told and you a genuinely begin to care about Susan and the people you encounter on your journey. Though, some people may not be who they say they are; thread lightly...

Other developers really should take notes from this gem on how to tackle depression in video games. The Cat Lady is really an emotional roller coaster that will leave you in tears during more intense moments of the game. Two things I got from this experience was a new found appreciation for life and a stronger will to live. You know when a game can do that to you that it did something right. That wasn't until I had finished the game though so if you don't finish it quickly while you're depressed it may make you even sadder so head my warning.

The Cat Lady is unlike anything I've ever experienced. It manages to capture the horror atmosphere of the earlier Silent Hill games and what made point and click games like The Secret of Monkey Island. There really isn't another experience like the one found in The Cat Lady. Even if you aren't a fan of point and click games you will still get enjoyment from this game. Same goes for people who aren't fans of horror. Another thing to note is that there aren't any damn jump scares which is as rare as Gearbox making a good game that isn't Borderlands.

In the end, I can't say enough good things about The Cat Lady. Horror and point and click adventure games have never mixed together so well before. The Cat Lady is not for people with weak stomachs though. There are some pretty intense moments and imagery. That same, "What the hell am I looking at? All I know is that it's horrifying and I want nothing to do with it" imagery that you got with early Silent Hill games. Play this gem in the dark and with headphones. 9/10

So you've got no money. Your Steam library is crying out , "Gimme a new game pleaaassee". Well, I've got a free to play shooter like no other. These guys took some simple parkour, great shooting and a fair model and have created what I think is one of the best free games you can play right now.

The game I'm talking about is Dirty Bomb. At the time of writing this Dirty Bomb is in Open Beta. Which means that everything I say may not be representative of the final product. I however find the game finished enough to get a good impression of it. Any drastic changes at this point would make no sense anyway.

Played from the first person perspective, Dirty Bomb is a fast paced objective based shooter. 

The game features different Merc classes which are pretty traditional as far as team shooters go. Characters like the Commando, Sniper and Medic should feel familiar. All with their own abilities each one can turn the tides of battle in different situations. For example Skyhammer has the ability to call down an air strike which can effectively wipe a team if placed correctly. He can also resupply allies with ammunition when need be by throwing down an ammo bag.

This is the main screen when you get into the game. It shows your progress along with daily quests as well as whatever is going on in the world of Dirty Bomb. At the time of reviewing the Phantom was the featured Merc and is sold for real money. This is probably a decent time to talk about the game's Business Model. Dirty Bomb is built around classes which are represented by different Mercs. To start there are a couple free Mercs to let you play and then one can either invest time to earn in game money or spend real world money to acquire other Mercs. Frankly quite a fair model considering the amount of content you get for no cost. Additionally you will not be at a significant disadvantage playing the game without paying money, the characters are quite well balanced.

Once you've bought your Mercs and played a few games you will come into contact with cases which contain random load-out cards. Sorry there are no customizable load-outs. This system however works well and motivates me to play even more. After playing a fair bit I feel the need to get golden load-outs and get better guns for my Mercs. Also the suspense of opening a case is a feeling I can't describe but thoroughly enjoy.

Combat is fast and bloody, shooting can be long distance or close up and accuracy is rewarded. A few successful headshots will take down enemies quickly while body shots will prove almost useless in a lot of cases. Additionally enemies are only put into a crawling mode after initially taken down, they need to be damaged more to be actually killed. This allows time for allies to bring them back into the fight or for the medic to use her instant revive ability. 

 Here I am playing the Fragger class, who brings a heavier weapon to battle along with 2 grenades. He is used mostly for defending objective as throwing a grenade into an enemy diffusing your bomb will probably help a bit. Ill be honest, haven't played a lot of the other classes, mostly because I haven't purchased them or they aren't on the free rotation but also due to the attraction to blowing stuff up. I've also unlocked a gold class for the Fragger, so it can be cool to show that off in lobbies.

Unfortunately, Dirty Bomb isn't always great, it's something they need to work on. 

Remember how I told you about the free rotation of Mercs? At the time of writing the least balanced class(the phantom) is only available via purchase.   Now while the paywall makes it so that the character isn't super common in matches the fact that you can be an invisible sword wielding maniac is kinda OP. Imagine combining the Demo Knight's damage and the Spy's invisibility. Yeah, it's crazy. On another note the menu can be randomly glitchy at times. Now remember this is still a Beta build, but sometimes while matchmaking I will get booted from the screen even though I'm queued to join a server. 

Overall, I really like Dirty Bomb.

This twitchy tactical FREE shooter is the kind of thing I'm into. The collectability of cards and the leveling system motivates me to play while the rewarding gun play keeps me amused in games. While Dirty Bomb definitely isn't perfect(due to a few glitches and the business model being close to the best ever in free games) but i can look past all it's flaws for the combat just feels too dang good. The free experience as well, just rocks. I have spent no real world money at this point in time and I honestly don't feel like there is anything to be sought after(except maybe playing the temporarily OP character).

So yes, I am suggesting Dirty Bomb. Go play it. It's free of course. Put a few matches in, see if you can get friends to play or at least randoms who communicate and the experience is amplified by a lot.

Just remember to play the objective and all will go well!

After the unfortunate cancellation of Rainbow 6: Patriots, many fans worried if there would be complications with their beloved series. Between September 24th and October 4th, fans were able to play a closed beta of Rainbow Six: Siege and give feedback to developer and publisher Ubisoft. The version of the closed beta I got to play was on the Xbox One.

It's important to remember this was only the beta and most of everything shown is subject to change, but how much will exactly change by release has yet to be seen. With that being said, there's an issue with the graphics right off the bat.

Upon booting up the game and getting into a match it's clear that there was pretty noticeable graphical downgrade from the E3 footage. The graphics in the Siege beta weren't bad by any means, but it's still rather unfortunate that they weren't nowhere near as pretty as early footage from E3. Siege runs at 1080p on PS4 and 900p on Xbox One.

In my time with the beta, I never ran into any issues with the graphics and the frame rate remained consistent, for the most part. The graphics were passable but, like I said before, they aren't anything that will blow you away.

Without the support of dedicated servers, the beta for Siege suffers from frequent lag and difficulties joining games. I encountered more error messages and (what felt like) near infinite loading screens than actual game time. This is a serious issue that needs to be fixed by launch.

The gameplay in Siege is where I believe most people will have split opinions on. Hardened Rainbow Six fans that have been following the franchise for a while will probably the miss the more tactical team-based gameplay of previous entries, whereas, newcomers and fans open to innovation will probably be happier with Siege's faster paced action oriented gameplay.

The two multiplayer modes offered in the beta (other than Terrorist hunt) are both Offensive and Defensive modes that are essentially take over a bomb planted by the Defense. It was actually pretty fun playing on defense and barricading the area of the bomb in an effort to keep the Offensive team out.

The problem with this though is that, in most of my game time, players did not care about the bomb and simply only wanted to kill the entire enemy team before they were killed. This especially went with people who didn't use mics.

No matter the player you might be, it is absolutely essential to play with friends that have mics or random people with mics. There is no other way of communication and it's almost a death sentence to play without mics, at least for the offensive team. Defense doesn't necessarily need mics, but it's better with them.

There were actually only 2 times where my team and I distracted the enemy team, stealthily made our way to the bomb, and defused it. I would complain more about the lack of stealth and players wanting to kill everyone rather than going for the objective, but that may be more of a gameplay style for Ghost Recon.

The classes (or in this case, "Operators") were seriously disappointing. In previous Rainbow Six games you could customize your character's individual armor pieces and clothing, but in Siege you don't get to do any of that.

Instead, you choose your Operator (after unlocking them with points), choose which gun you are most likely to use the most (you can change it any time in the menus), and then you get to customize that; that's it. The reasoning behind the absence of character customization is beyond me, but it's still severely disappointing nonetheless.

The variety of guns is about standard in what you'll find in most shooters. You have assault rifles, sub machine guns, shotguns, and handguns. Nothing really stood out to me, besides the shields. The shields can either be your best friend or worst nightmare.

Only a few classes on the Offensive team can use a shield, but all that team needs is one player in a shield class to tip the odds unfairly in their favor. The only way to kill a player using a shield is to shoot them from the side or the back. This makes it easy for them to rush into a room and kill everyone with their handgun and their teammates following behind.

Many walls, windows, floors, and ceilings in the environment are destructible. Creating your own door ways and flanking the enemy is a welcome addition to Rainbow Six; just don't expect the same destructibility of the Battlefield series.

The unique cover system that was found in Rainbow Six Vegas 2 is gone, and now has simplified it to a lean feature. While aiming down the sights, players can click in either left or right stick and lean left or right. It was an interesting feature, but I rarely found myself using it.

As a long time Rainbow Six fan, I have to say that I'm intrigued to see Siege in action at launch. Nothing in the beta really worried me about the overall quality of the game, but there were features in the beta that saddened me by being absent.

If Ubisoft listens to players and fixes the aforementioned problems with Siege, then Siege will have the capability to rival the current FPS giants that have, arguably saturated the market. I wish Ubisoft a good luck in the endeavors.

Stay tuned with us here at novoGamer for future Rainbow Six news.

But every game has it's flaws as much good as I wanna say about Hotline Miami. One of those things would probably be that while playing Hotline Miami you die a lot. The game play is extremely fast paced and doesn't pull punches. Getting hit once with a weapon or by even one bullet will kill you in this game. If you mess up for even a split second you're likely to die.

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Regardless I like the challenge and the fast paced gameplay. I'd definitely reccommend playing this game if you're looking for something to take up your time when you're bored and have nothing else to play.

All in all I rate it 8.5/10

The latest in the Super Mario Bros series is New Super Mario Bros U Deluxe. The game is both New Super Mario Bros U and New Super Luigi U from Nintendo's Wii U system, now combined for the Nintendo Switch. I haven't played a platform Mario game since Super Mario Land 2 and Super Mario Run. That is what NSMBU Deluxe reminds me of the best and worst Super Mario Bros games put together to make an Ok game. It's not game changing like Mario Bros games from the past. Super Mario Bros 1 helped popularized the platforming genre. Super Mario 3 gave us a way to reply levels and a new structure of gameplay. Super Mario 64 gave us our first open world to the universe that led to some of the best sandbox games we have ever played. The mod community forced Nintendo to create the best Mario game of them all, Super Mario Maker.

Though we are not here to talk about that amazing game, we are talking about a port of a Super Mario Bros game from one of Nintendo's most disappointing console next to the Virtual Boy. NSMBU Deluxe may be easy, this is the first time I've seen an option for an easy mode since Super Mario Land 2. A lot of people have talked about the controls and I couldn't agree more, unlike Super Smash Bros you can not remap these to your preference. Playing with one hand using the pro controller I found it kinda of hard to do things like getting a boost with the flying squirrel power. It was also tricky to do a butt breaker first try.

I know we are in 2019, though it is sad when retro looking indie games look better than a triple-A title like NSMBU Deluxe. I wish they gave us a downgrade option in the graphics to give it more of that classic look. To me, it just feels like Super Mario Run meets Super Mario Bros 2 for NES. The reason why I compare this to Super Mario Bros 2 for many reasons. It's the first time you have the option between different characters since Super Mario Bros 2. There are aspects of the game people love about it, along with dislikes. Though even if there is a love/hate relationship with Super Mario Bros 2, which I found out a few years ago was originally Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic (translated as Dream Factory: Heart-Pounding Panic and usually referred to as Doki Doki Panic) in Japan, and remade into Super Mario Bros 2. You'll always be pleasing the hardcore Mario fans. If you're really good at platformers this is a short experience with story mode.

(History of Super Mario Bros 2 by the Gaming Historian)

There is some ok level design in both Super Mario Bros 2 and NSMBU Deluxe. I feel NSMBU Deluxe will have the same fate as Super Mario Bros 2. It seems like RND took the worst parts of the Famicom Super Mario Bros 2 controls and tweaked them to be even worse for NSMBU Deluxe. Though there are some fun aspects to NSMBU Deluxe. The challenge mode is actually quite fun. It's a great break from the story mode. Though I don't know if it is enough to keep people playing. Like I said there are some great indie platformers that have a great balance and are expanding on the genre for a third of the cost of NSMBU Deluxe. You could get four or five indie titles for the same price as NSMBU Deluxe. Though if you are a lover of Super Mario, this game may be for you. For me, I'll play this off and on throughout the year, though I'm holding out for SNES ports to finally make their way to the Switch.

Like I said in the beginning, I have not played a platformer Super Mario game in a long time. I wanted to see what I was missing seeing I never owned a Wii U because I thought it was a waste of money for me because I could never play the gamepad with one hand. So Nintendo graciously sent me a copy to play. I just hope we see some really good stuff seeing January was not so good with first-party titles and delaying Metroid Prime 4 for a few more years. We believe in you Nintendo, you can do it!

The music certainly fits the theme of the game very well and it can be pretty catchy at times, but unfortunately it is hardly what I would call memorable as I hardly ever remember how any of the tracks go, especially when the fights sometimes drown out the music. Also, when playing I've noticed that the pokemon don't use their 4Kids officiated voice overs and instead use their original Japanese VA's. In all honesty, this is probably a smart move as hearing those obnoxious American voice overs in a competitive fighting game would drive me nuts. That's not saying there isn't any English voice acting though. On the contrary, there is English dialog spoken from the trainers and key characters shown in the Single Player campaign, although you're going to want to turn it back to Japanese or even completely off as the "voice acting" (if you want to call it that) is absolutely abysmal; No personality at all. It's like they were just blandly reading their lines from a script and waiting to get paid. But that's beside the point.

Now the game has sixteen playable fighters (two of which that need to be unlocked), fifteen pairs of support pokemon (only three pairs to start with), nineteen arenas (eleven of which need to be unlocked), and six "cheers" that Nia, your guide, will use to boost your support pokemon and/or your synergy gauge (only one to start with). Just about all of the locked content can only be unlocked by playing through the single player campaign and it gives you a decent idea on how some fighters would play online, but at a much more beatable skill level. Now each playable pokemon plays very differently from each other as many of them have various combos that naturally link into each other, but the game does offer much more complex combos for more experienced players. I've been victim of these harsh combos when playing online. Needless to say I'm not very good against fiercely competitive players. But alas.

Now, where this game really shines (in my opinion) is the Phase Mode mechanic. During battles, when you take or deal enough damage, the phase of the battle will shift between Field Phase: where you roam around the arena in 3D space and combat is mostly ranged; and Dual Phase: where combat is restricted to a 2D plane and most of the fighting is done in close-quarters. These two phases drastically change the attacks and combat mechanics so mastering the constant shifting between phases is crucial to winning a match. In addition to this, pokemon can also gain experience and level up which in turn can be used to increase their stats such as attack or defense. You can turn this feature off in Versus mode if you wish, but I'm still uncertain if it is possible to turn it off during online play.

All in all, this game is an excellent first entry in what I hope will be a permanent spin-off series for the Pokemon franchise. While it's a bit light on playable characters (and it pushes this fact in your face as there is VISIBLE space on the roster for at least four more fighters), they all play very uniquely and each stands out as a whole. And if they wanted to, they could always add more through updates and/or DLC. Also, if you have the extra cash, definitely get the fight pad to go along with it, even if only works with one Wii U game. But until then, I'll be seeing you.

Score

Video Game

This game is fantastically good and a helluva lot of fun, even if the difficulty on the Normal setting is a little unforgiving. The music is fantastic as well and the character and enemy designs are extremely creative and fit the theme of the game superbly. The story can be a little confusing at times, but it all comes together nicely in the end. However, depending on which version of the game you get, it can be either an extraordinary experience, or torture for the eyes. If you decide to get the game, go for the Xbox 360 or Wii U version of the game as the PS3 version is plagued by terrible frame-rate issues making it look awful to watch, let alone play. Plus as a bonus to those that get the Wii U version, Nintendo themed costumes for Bayonetta are also available which alter some minor aspects about the game without affecting the gameplay. All in all though, just avoid the PS3 version.

"The Eyes of Bayonetta" Artwork Book and DVD

Now despite how interesting and informative the artwork books was, the "Making of" DVD actually was what I more interested in. The development process was quite a sight to behold. As it turns out, the main character, Bayonetta, was designed by Mari Shimazaki with the only instruction that she should look feminine. Needless to say that this gave her a lot of freedom and she rolled with it. She wasn't the only one that was given a lot of freedom in her work, just about everyone involved in the game's creative process was allowed to let their imaginative juices flow freely. The way everything meshes together really shows that love and care was put into the game's creation. The DVD is definitely well worth the watch; the dev's personalities show in both their commentary and their work.

Animated Film

Closing Statement

No matter what medium you enjoy Bayonetta in, this first entry in the series definitely had a very strong impact. Bayonetta as a character is probably my favorite female protagonists of all time as well. She is strong, independent, knows that she's sexy and casually exploits that fact in her work, which she also enjoys. If you can get any of these things, definitely go for it, just remember to avoid the PS3 version of the game due to a very shoddy porting process. But until then, I'll be seeing you.

Game Score

Book Score

Film Score

So if you have somehow lived under a rock for the last 3 decades roughly, the Pokemon series is a game about exploring a new area, catching the magical elemental creatures that fill the area, and using them to battle other people in the world. There are also multiplayer features such as trading and battling with your friends, with some Pokemon only evolving via trade to promote the multiplayer element as back in generation one some of those Pokemon were the best you could get as well as get some exclusives that are only available in 1 of the games. We have gone through many regions through out the main line and spin off games and 1025 different Pokemon with more to be released. So now lets talk about the games.

Generation 1- Every series has a start and for Pokemon it was back on the Game Boy and the Game Boy Color with Pokemon Red, Green (japan only), Blue, and the Special Yellow edition that let you have a Pikachu as your first partner Pokemon. Pokemon Yellow also followed a story closer to the anime rather then the games. The generation 1 games have you travel through the Kanto region. The plot of almost every Pokemon main games follow is you are a new trainer just in the 10-16 year old range, depending on the region, you get your first Pokemon from that region's professor, then leave home to beat the 8 gyms of the region deal with the evil team of the area, then challenge the Elite 4 and their champion to take the title of best trainer for yourself. Then the post game tends to be just catching them all or training a team to play against your friends, with the post game changing from game to game. Generation 1 didn't have anything to do outside of catch them all and raise a team. Many people look at gen 1 and think its the best in the franchise but I disagree. We have gone back to Kanto so many times and I have had many chances to evaluate the region and I gotta say its one of my least favorite when I look back on it. Guards that will only let you into a town if you bribe them with team, glitchy game play, nearly nothing to do after you catch them all, poor level spread for wild Pokemon leading you to having to do a ridiculous amount of grinding between the final trainers and the Elite 4. Wild Pokemon even give less experience then their trained counterparts which feels so taxing to run around the final cave, Victory Road, and running back to the Pokemon center to heal up to repeat over and over until you team is strong enough to survive the final challenge 5 trainers in a row with the highest level Pokemon in the game with only the items you can carry as the way to heal. The evil team of Kanto is iconic, Team Rocket, which are basically the Mafia who catch Pokemon to use for extortion and stealing from others. You fight many of their grunts throughout the area and stop them from stealing from people and taking things that they will just use for their nefarious purposes. When all is said and done with the evil team in Kanto feels like a threat when they take over a town and keep you from being able to go to the gym as you storm a large office building to defeat the mafia who infects in. But otherwise their goals aren't clear unless you read the Pokemon Adventures manga. All the Pokemon manga follow the story of the games rather than the anime that is the story of Ash. Turns out Team Rocket created the strongest legendary Pokemon in the region Mewtwo, a human Pokemon hybrid with incredible psychic powers. In the games you get a bit of lore on Mewtwo in the burned mansion, a old destroyed lab that was created and funded by Team Rocket to make the most powerful Pokemon. When you defeat the leader of Team Rocket the final time he disbands the team. You get the opportunity to catch Mewtwo once you have beaten the Elite 4 but that is your last challenge. But with the end of generation 1 we move to the next games. 

Generation 2 - This was a big jump for Pokemon we get to go to a new region with a whole slew of new Pokemon to find and a whole new world we live in. This generation was made up by Gold, Silver, and Crystal version. Crystal being similar to Pokemon yellow with being a game released after the initial 2 and it adding new stuff to the story and cleaning up the games just a bit. Now gen 2 was a fantastic sequel but feels like it lingered too much in the leftovers of gen 1. So in this game you are now in the Jhoto region a new land that shares a border with Kanto. This region has all the same story beats as Kanto, new trainer, go battle the gyms, deal with the evil team and then go challenge the Elite 4. But this game takes place a few years after generation 1 story wise. You find that the remnants of Team Rocket are still active here in Jhoto. You beat the remaining admins of Team Rocket and get them to fully disband. You also have a different Legendary Pokemon to catch in each region Ho-oh for Gold, Lugia for Silver, and a whole new side story for one of the legendary trio Suicune in Crystal. The end game of Jhoto though is miles above Kanto. Once you have beaten the new Elite 4 and their champion you now get the chance to go back to Kanto see how its changed and fight all their gym leaders in their prime. Then once you do that you can climb Mount Silver the most dangerous area on the map, and at the peak you can find the main character from Generation 1 with an iconic team, sporting all the starters and some other powerful members for one of the harder battles throughout the whole series this game also has its issues of a poor leveling spread that feels like it stagnates a bit mid story as you get the chance to take on 3 gyms in any order you want which means they had to keep them all around the same level range so you don't feel like you go against any of them too early. You also had access to transferring Pokemon between Gen 1 and 2 via a time machine that lets you send Gen 1 Pokemon between both games but you can't send any new new Pokemon back to Kanto. Jhoto also added a feature that becomes a staple in the franchise and one of my favorite things Shiny Pokemon. Shiny Pokemon are just a color palate swap but its incredibly rare to run into with a 1 in 8192. So any shiny Pokemon you find is sure to be a status symbol. Is gen 2 perfect, still no but the series is gaining momentum and it feels like a definite step up that sadly lingers a bit too much in the story and success of generation 1 with the whole post game revolving around exploring Kanto again and finding and beating the player character from Gen 1. Next is one of the most controversial jumps in the series Gen 3. 

Generation 3 - These games are where I feel Pokemon starts to hit its stride and reach the pinnacle of its s game play to me, its not quite there yet but its close to that peak. These games are Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald. We also get 2 remake games where they took Red and Green and made Fire Red and Leaf Green, where we go back to generation 1 with generation 3 mechanics and graphics. Generation 3 is where Pokemon moved from the Game Boy to the Game Boy advance and with a big change in the coding and mechanics game one of the more controversial things in Pokemon, the break in transferring Pokemon up the generations. You could move your Pokemon from Generation 1 to Generation 2 with the time machine which means you can play with your favorite partners from your first story. Due to coding changes and huge overhauls in design change in the games Pokemon from Gen 2 couldn't get transferred into Gen 3. Which many people couldn't get past and caused Gen 3 to be many people's dropping point in the Pokemon series. So lets get into the new games. Ruby and Sapphire got released at the same time with the differences being the version exclusives and the evil teams being different in each game. Team Magma for Ruby and Team Aqua in Sapphire. The story is ultimately the same with the Pokemon used by the evil team being different and this is the start of the legendary Pokemon on the box being the goal of the evil team you fight. But this generation also had Emerald the first in what can be considered the combined or true story of the region, we get a few of these from the generations here on out. Emerald has both Evil Teams at different parts of the story and it is up to you to defeat both evil teams. Now lets talk about them since they are the biggest difference in the games and the only games to have 2 different evil teams, Team Magma are wanting to expand the land and Team Aqua the Sea, both are looking for the Legendary Pokemon that expanded the land and sea to complete their goals. Team Magma is themed by like devils while Team Aqua pirates. In Emerald you run into both in different parts each trying to complete their goals of Eco-terrorism with Emerald adding story for Rayquaza the large green dragon who lives a top a giant pillar and who embodies clear skies. Ruby and Sapphire added the end game of the battle facility of the Battle Tower which was a single battle arena where you climb a tower of elite trainers who's Pokemon are built for competitive battle. You have to keep battling till you beat 7 or you are defeated. This gets fully fleshed out in Emerald with the Battle Frontier which hosts 7 unique battle facilities to test your teams against. Now you can just go at them with your existing Pokemon but you are likely not to go far. But if you E.V. train and breed up a team then you have a chance at winning. Each facility has a different gimmick some you use your own Pokemon, one you use rental Pokemon, another you just chose your Pokemon and based on their nature they will battle on their own. You have to win 7 in a row 3 times on both the level 50 run and the level 100 run in order for you to complete and beat all the frontier brains. Its a very rewarding experience and probably a bit too difficult for some kids but going back and replaying Emerald and prepping for the battle frontier was a delight. This generation also added what becomes a staple in the rest of the games, Double Battles. Where you use 2 Pokemon on the field at one time, so some moves can get both targets or even damage your partner if you aren't careful. Finally this generation added secret bases where you could make your own little room and if you mixed records via the link cable with a friend they get your based in their world and you get theirs. Their trainer avatar will be there and you can battle them with whatever team they had equipped when you guys mixed records. Otherwise Ruby Sapphire and Emerald hit the same story beats that all the main line games do. 8 gyms yada yada I have said it twice before. Now to address the remakes, Fire Red and Leaf Green, they are faithful adaptions to Red and Green from generation 1 but with graphics and mechanics updated. I am going to sound like a bit of a broken record but this is now the 3rd time we have gone back to Kanto. Its nice to remember your roots but never leaving them and dragging everyone back to the old story over and over again can get a bit waning. But there is a new addition to these games via the Sevii Islands which you get to go to the first 3 after you beat the 7th gym and the rest as part of the post game. Finally gen 3 added one more final kinda questionable gimmick to the mix which we never see again. The E-Card Reader. This was a special expansion to the GBA that let you swipe cards to get special events unlocked in your game. Stuff like event legendaries in R/S/E and new islands to go to in FR/LG. The issue is is some cards you could only scan at participating locations which there is a chance that you were no where near one and you had to have the e-card reader to be able to even swipe the event card. Meaning if you don't emulate the games or use an action replay or game shark you are locked out of so much content for the game. We also see this issue in a few other games in the franchise where local events are a timed part of the game but the E-Cards just feel bad to me. Gen 3 to this day is my 2nd favorite generation despite all it does wrong though. Anyway it time to leave the tropic region of Hoenn and head to generation 4 in the cold mountains of Shinnoh. 

Vigilantes follows 3 people Koichi, Kazuho, and Iwao. Who take on the vigilante mantles of The Crawler, Pop ⚝ Step, and Knuckle Duster. Though Pop ⚝ Step isn't so much of a vigilante and more of a street performer. Koichi didn't start off as a vigilante either he just wore an All Might hoodie and a mask to clean up trash around his neighborhood and be the friendly neighborhood Nice Guy which was his name before The Crawler. He gets around with his quirk called Slide N Glide which lets him create friction-less fields he can use to slide long surfaces not just forward, backwards, and side to side but up and down walls too, but only as fast as a bike. Pop ⚝ Step's quirk is called Leap, she can super jump and land safely as long as she had a steady jump point. Finally Knuckle Duster, he is investigating into a drug problem in the area that has a side effect of turning people's tongues purple after using it. He is quirkless just a buff boxing brawler who uses brass knuckles as a weapon and he drags Koichi and Kazuho into his technically illegal hero work. As Japan has strict licensing laws on what heroes can use their quirks to fight villains and wear those costumes. As of right now the manga has been finished for a few years and the anime just got its season 2. So I am not going to say much here other than this series is something I am excited to see in action and to the people watching the anime and not wanting spoilers you have a great story to look forward to. This series is a prequel to MHA some fan favorite heroes make cameos through out the series but since this is prequel you know that they will be fine. I will say this series is going to be much shorter than MHA with Vigilantes only have 126 chapters so I can only see this series having 3ish seasons. But this story is much darker and much grittier with the story following a college kid and a very much adult man dealing with drugs and some implied sexual violence. Don't worry its all implied nothing shown or anything actually happens more of just threats. Nothing like Goblin Slayer. All I can say is buckle up anime watchers and get ready for a superhero ride that I only wish still existed in the American comics industry. 

After many delays since its announcement in 2013, January 28th to February 2nd, people who pre-ordered The Division (or some lucky individuals that were on a long waiting list) got access to a closed beta for The Division. As this is a beta, it is entirely possible that any and all grievances or admirations can be changed. The version of the beta I got to play was on Xbox One.

Let's get the obvious out of the way. Yes, the graphics have had a bit of a downgrading since The Division's initial reveal. This is unfortunate, but I suppose it's to be expected considering the developer/publisher. Besides this, the graphics actually were still quite impressive. The Division really benefits from having a day/night cycle and this is mostly evident during nights and early morning.

As the sun rises, sun rays pour out from between buildings and, at night, snowflakes begin to fall and even a small blizzard will sometimes roll in. Although, it's still a shame to think that the graphics could have been much better if there wasn't a downgrade.

Textures are a bit of another story. Character models are decent, and textures on clothing look good, but environment textures all look flat and dull. And, besides sun rays in the morning and headlights in blizzards, the lighting is pretty flat overall. It's as if more work was centered around one aspect of graphics than others. There also appears to be a character customization feature allowing the player to create his or her's desired face, but the beta limited this into a few default choices for male or female.

Some of you may roll your eyes when I say that The Division is a cover based shooter, and that's understandable. The cover based shooting is, admittedly, rather dull. There's a lot of cover so you can flank and get around the enemy, but all encounters are usually the same. Run up to a group of enemies, take cover, shoot, change cover, shoot, win, repeat. It's standard and doesn't do anything to reinvent the wheel of this sort of gameplay, but there is one flaw that ultimately hurts the entire side of gameplay.

You can not crouch or go prone in The Division. This is absolutely unacceptable for a game that touts itself as a more tactical focused shooter. Without crouching, stealth is no longer an option (even though you can still equip your guns with suppressors) and it's too difficult to coordinate a team that can only stand around and get shot unless they tap 'A' to take cover. Perhaps not being able to go prone is acceptable, because not all third person shooters let you do this, but not being able to crouch is not.

As well as being able to take cover, you can also climb on top of cars and other large objects to shoot down at enemies, but you'll just be standing on top of said object looking like an easy target since you can't crouch or go prone. Just don't expect the tacticality and player interaction that can be found in other Tom Clancy games like Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon.

Something that surprised me right off the bat is that guns have actually weight to them. It didn't feel like pulling the trigger on cap guns. Weapons also sounded fairly accurate as well. The Division also claims to be both an MMO and an RPG. Both of these elements are really simplified. You can team up with a small group of players, but you won't see huge groups of people like you would in other MMO's like WoW. The Division does have RPG elements. You can choose perks from three different tiers, but it's very simple. Almost to a negative point.

The Division is also loot based. Meaning that enemies will drop weapons and items. In the PVE (player vs enemy) areas, enemies won't always drop worthwhile loot. You will have to go into the PVP (player vs player) area known as "The Dark Zone" to get good loot. Inside The Dark Zone, you have a completely new level system and a brand new form of currency to use at Dark Zone vendors. The Dark Zone is actually pretty interesting. You can either choose to team up with other players to hunt down enemy NPCs and get loot from them, or you can choose to either go solo or team up to kill other players to steal their loot. The only catch is that the loot is infected with a virus so you have to call an extracting helicopter to take your loot from you whilst in The Dark Zone. You are a huge target while waiting for it.

Like previously stated, all grievances and admirations can all be changed in The Division's official release on March 8th. Yet, overall, The Division still hooked me and got me very excited to play it when it finally is released. Some things like not being able to crouch and go prone are borderline unacceptable, but here's hoping that is fixed for it's release. Let's just hope that The Division is worth the long wait from it's 2013 announcement in March 2016.

Remember when Quantic Dream actually developed video games rather than glorified movies that let you walk forward on occasion? I know it sounds crazy, but that actually happened. Granted, the later games Quantic Dream developed had intriguing and involving narratives, but they still were too akin to films with little gameplay. In the wake of David Bowie's unfortunate passing, we've decided to go all the way back to 1999. Which saw the release of Quantic Dream's first video game that had story input, cameos, and original game tracks by the man, the myth, the legend, David Bowie; in Omikron: The Nomad Soul.

Omikron: The Nomad Soul may have the strangest story in video game history, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. The Nomad Soul begins with our protagonist, Kay'l 669, directly speaking to the player. Kay'l 669 asks the player if they can help save his dimension, but first, the player must "transfer their soul" into the body of Kay'l so they may control him. Things only get stranger from here. After the player "transfers their soul" into the body of Kay'l, he is then transported into Omikron; a dark cyberpunk city on a world called Phaenon. Once the player enters Omikron as Kay'l 669, they must continue his investigation into a string of serial killings with his partner, Den. This quickly escalates into anti-government conspiracies, demons, and an ancient religious order led by David Bowie himself (as a character known as "Boz").

The plot initially feels overwhelming and convoluted, but once you trek further into The Nomad Soul's narrative and begin to understand what exactly is going on, you will quickly become engrossed in this world's story. Admittedly, to me at first, the story felt too strange and awkward at first.

This almost got me to completely give up on The Nomad Soul, but I was glad that I sat through until the end because my initial feelings soon went away. The Nomad Soul's story isn't perfect though. While the overall plot eventually gets more engaging, the characters always feel so one dimensional. You never care about their struggles or how their fates play into the overall scheme of everything. That is with the exception of one character.

I'd be going too deep into spoiler territory if I said too much, but David Bowie's performance as Boz is absolutely fantastic. Although Boz has odd motivations and isn't around long enough to become likable, David Bowie portrays him in a way that intrigues you every second he's on screen. I even purchased Omikron: The Nomad Soul again on Steam to play through to his part.

For 1999, the graphics are fairly good. The darker shading and non-reflective surfaces help bring the dark Blade Runner-esque world to life. Granted, the graphics were good, but they weren't anything to write home about.

Sadly, this is a poorly optimized game. The only settings you are given to tweak are resolution, clipping distance, display sky, display shadow, street activity, and detail level.

This may not sound like an issue since most of our computers were built after the dinosaurs died off, but there is also a 30fps lock that hinders your experience with the game. I even had an issue running at a framerate above 20fps due to an issue with the 30 fps lock.

The Nomad Soul also happened to be one of the earlier games to use motion capture technology for some actors, including David Bowie. The technology was still fairly primitive back in 1999 for games, but it was still nice to see slightly more animated faces on some characters.

Decent gameplay and Quantic Dream usually get along together about as well as Anakin Skywalker and a group of younglings. So, is it different in this case? Yes and no. Yes, there is a lot more gameplay in The Nomad Soul than what you will find in Heavy Rain or Beyond: Two Souls, but it feels pretty awkward and clunky. I can't really blame the game for that because a lot of older games played in modern times feel clunky and awkward. Times change and so does player accessibility.

There are two types of combat gameplay. First, we have hand to hand combat. Hand to hand is also the less awkward of the two. Once you've engaged in a fisty cuffs battle, you control kicking and punching with the WASD keys. I never could get a good pattern so I just mashed them until I won. The second is gun combat. Once you are given a gun, you are put into a first person perspective. While serviceable, the gunplay in The Nomad Soul feels stiff. Especially when you have enemies from all sides and you have to work with the Resident Evil style tank controls. Overall I've had better, but I've also had much worse.

With the inclusion of David Bowie, you would think that the soundtrack would be absolutely amazing, right? Well, it certainly is great, but it falls short of perfection because of the lack of David Bowie sung songs. There are a few songs sung by Bowie himself, but the rest from him are purely instrumentals and you would have to be a diehard Bowie fan to notice. The other side of the soundtrack comes from Reeves Gabrels. His additions are also good and add to the dark cyberpunk vibe. Gabrels' additions also sound akin to Bowie's genre of music.

Voice acting in The Nomad Soul is also convincing with an exceptional performance from David Bowie himself as Boz. The distorted computerized effect to his voice is also a great addition. A lot of expository dialogue is, unfortunately, just in text. This is most similar to examining an object in Silent Hill and Resident Evil. Along with the fixed camera positions, you will be right at home to many of the features of The Nomad Soul if you are coming off of Resident Evil or Silent Hill.

With the inclusion of many strange features and elements, one would think that Omikron: The Nomad Soul doesn't always know what it wants to be. And you may be right with that conclusion, but that doesn't make it a bad game. In fact, The Nomad Soul does just enough different from other games to remain entirely unique. This is an Underrated Gem in every sense of the word. Just as I did for the late Lemmy Kilmister with Brutal Legend (which was uploaded before his passing), this Underrated Gems article is dedicated to David Bowie.

I suppose it's understandable to see why many people forgot about this gem, but that doesn't mean it's a bad game. It may take some extra hoops to jump through to get this to run on modern machines, but you can still buy Omikron: The Nomad Soul on both Steam and GOG for less than usual microtransaction. I highly recommend you give this game a try.

This is arguably Quantic Dream's best game. An intriguing story, David Bowie, a great soundtrack, AND actual gameplay? It feels like a dream, but it's not. It's a Quantic Dream.

Rest in peace, David Bowie (1947 - 2016)

So you are now free to explore the land of Pharloom. Standard Metroidvania stuff of side scrolling platformer with enemies to face and hazards to avoid. Bosses were charming and fit the areas they were found in. Some enemies are passive but only deal damage on contact while others dive bomb you like missiles or stay out of needle range and taking well timed dive attacks or pot shots from the air. I loved learning how to deal with all the creatures I encountered in my journey, some bosses were definitely more difficult then others to learn and finally beating them was such a relief. But some normal chump enemies deal 2 damage out of no where, which is a problem when you only get a max of 9 masks in acts 1 and 2 and 10 max in act 3. This is balanced out by Hornet's heals doing 3 HP compared to the Knight's 1 HP. With bosses always having a standard of 2 damage. So in bosses or in areas with the 2 damage enemies or hazards cuts your HP total in half. It was frustrating but not anything that kept me from moving forward. But I would be lying if there wasn't a few bosses that walled me so hard my first play through that I had to get up and take a walk to my local game store to calm back down. Then I would sit down throw myself at the boss a few more times until I stopped being bad at it and finally started feeling like the demi-goddess batman that Hornet is supposed to play like. Which her tool belt is massive and the many ways to swing her needle change with the various crests you pick up along the way. 

Pharloom is full of characters Hornet can interact with and get the stories of and some stories are harder to get to the end then others. Some are part of the main story and the NPCs just do their thing as you do yours while others require Hornet's involvement for the story to go forward. You even get someone who feels like a rival named Lace, who ends up being the silk made daughter of Grandma silk, the final boss. The art style is just as charming if not better than Hollow Knight and the world is massive and expansive but not being too big to feel overwhelming. I do think that SilkSong is missing a lot of the normal back tracking that Metroidvanias are supposed to have but it still exists mostly to find hidden tools, mask shards (which are this games health), or spools (which are this games mana). But every time I got a new movement ability I would turn around find the nearest Bell Beast Station and call over my trusty steed so I could run the map all over again just checking to see where else I can go now. This game is very much about exploration and persistence. No matter how walled I would get I would know it was my fault for not being good enough and not the game being too hard. So I would just keep working to "get good" and finally see this game to the end. The first wall I hit was The last judge but I eventually made it through. The next wall embarrassingly was the dancers and they telegraph their attacks so obviously and it was my fault for being greedy on damage and not dodging, my final wall was the high halls gauntlet. Which was honestly harder then the "final" boss. Grandmother Silk. Once you beat her you get the credits and the first ending. But if you are awesome, saved all the fleas, did all the quests, bought yourself a house, and seen your local map mommy to find her master, then you can get a final quest that unlocks act 3. Getting here is where the real challenge begins. Grandma silk is trying to pull herself and her daughter out of the abyss you cast her into as part of the quest to get into act 3. Hornet now needs to find a way to survive the abyss and kill Grand mother silk to save all of Pharloom from her Abyss soaked threads. You go track down old leaders of the areas around Pharloom, enter dreams and fight dream variants of them at their peaks to get their hearts for a spell. You need 3 hearts but there are 4 bosses. So 1 gets to be a trophy in your house. Which ever 3 you choose to kill gives you their hearts and the ingredients to the spell to get the item you need to survive the abyss, 1 Boss is much easier than the others and in my personal opinion easiest to hardest was Nyleth > Green Prince > Khann > Karmelita. Though my first play though I killed Khann last because he has a big multi level gauntlet before you get to him. My issue is the long drawn out fights where my resources run thin. But as far as the actual boss fight he was a chump and Karmelita is a dancing singing badass. Finally you have your true descent into the abyss. Where you fight corrupted Lace and Grandmother silk is trying to maintain a protective cocoon in the abyss, you best Lace in her 3rd fight Grandma silk gives you the last of her strength so you can escape with her youngest daughter. With an ended that was so hype I was genuinely excited.

Over all this is my game of the decade not just my game of the year. Was it the perfect sequel to Hollow Knight? No but it was pretty damn close. As I said the random hazards and random fodder enemies that can deal 2 masks of damage are far too common but hey just teaches you those areas are supposed to be the toughest, but the way Hornet moves feels so much better than the Knight that going back to Hollow Knight honestly feels like a downgrade and I was missing the freedom of movement that Hornet has to her sibling. The 7 crests give such a unique way to play for her though one of them gets you back to playing like an upgraded version of the knight. All the various tools and upgrades just feel marvelous.

I would give this game a 9.5/10 and I have played through it on my Switch 1 so many times. If you have $15 to spare team cherry has made a game that is well worth the price and blows all current triple A game devs out of the water and shows them what gamers want and the experience they deserve with free DLCs already announced and the first one being claimed to release 2026. The 7 year wait was well worth it. Good Job Team Cherry and thank you for the experience. 

-Ignus PhoenixQuill

Atari Flashback Classics for the Nintendo Switch is a compilation of all three volumes previously released for XBox One and PlayStation 4 over the past couple of years. Individually they each had 50 games; roughly 10 arcade titles and a handful of home games, most of which from the Atari 2600, to pad out the total. As such the Switch version has all 150 games without the need to swap volumes. This is a very nice convenience especially since the Switch version is $20USD cheaper than buying each volume separately.

Visually, the games in the collection vary in terms of quality. Some look stunning even to this day, but many others look like a steaming pile of digital feces. This is also reflected while the game is undocked as many of the Atari 2600 games that had sprite flicker don't show up very well on the Switch's screen. That doesn't always reflect how the game plays though. There are a small handful of games in the collection that look like crap, but are some of the most fun games of the bunch. If you can just stomach past their looks and have a friend that will play with you, online or otherwise, I'm betting you'll have a grand time.

Now considering that most of the arcade titles on this collection, and some of the Atari 5200 games, used special controls like a trackball or dial, they can't be emulated perfectly. That being said, Code Mystics did a decent job with what they had. While the left stick controls are WAY too sensitive even on the lowest setting, they ingeniously managed to incorporate the Switch's touchscreen for controlling many of the games that had those unique controls. It's just a shame that those controls are only available when the system is undocked.

Overall while this collection is miles above the plug-n-plays that AtGames has been producing, it is not for the average gamer. It is for collectors, and for those who grew up with these games. Like I said at the beginning of this review most of the games on this compilation did not age well, but there still glimmers a shining light within those crusty visuals. The addition of achievements and the inclusion of the manuals for the 2600 and 5200 games is very nice and I love the fact that they also included the SwordQuest comics from back in the 80's. It's little touches like that that really make collections like this stand out, even if they only stand out an extra inch or two amongst the crowd.

AUDIO

CHALLENGE

CONTROL

VISUALS

ORIGINALITY

EXECUTION

PROS:

• Lots of games
• Cheaper than buying each volume separately
• Online play
• Achievements
• Touchscreen support
• Small download size

CONS:

• Quantity over quality
• Stick sensitivity is too high even on lowest setting
• Online leaderboards only work with paid service
• Visuals degrade when console is undocked
• Some games are duplicates for different Atari systems

Below is the original script for the video, yes the spelling is horrible, Ed can't spell, I'm sorry. And yes, this is satire. -Cat

100% Accurate Review Of:
RISE OF THE TOMB RAIDER (PC)
By Edward Luke DeYoung, Pants Gaming.

Rise of the Tomb Raider is a F***ing piece of sexist S***!

It’s 2016 and sexist piece of S*** games like Rise of the Tomb Raider are still being made. Games like this set back what Feminism has been doing for the last 100 years. Rise of the Tomb Raider is made by Crystal Dynamics, now the most sexist game developers on Earth and here’s why.

Everything about Rise of the Tomb Raider triggered me. Seeing a women get hurt, triggered, being shot by disgusting CIS White Men who haven’t F***ing checked there privilege, triggered, Lara feeling pain due to the harsh weather, triggered, animals attacking her because she’s a woman, triggered, Lara getting hurt by the environment, triggered, the fact that people are treating Lara differently due to her being a woman, triggered. I bet she only has 70% total ammo compared to the men in the game.

Even in cut scenes, Lara is being told what to do and can’t think for herself because the game developers believe that woman are unable to think and make decisions independently without the help of a strong white man.

Throughout many points in the game for the plot to move forward a man is always needed. Like when Lara needs to climb to the top of a mountain she is unable to climb up without the help of a man. When Lara is trying to escape from prison she is forced to escape with the help of a man. When Lara is trying to find a secret entrance to a lost city a man is the one who reveals the entrance to her. For F***’s sake! Everything about the character arc of Lara Croft involves the unnecessary assistance of a man which is F***ing sexist and shouldn’t be allowed in video games.

I was barely able to finish Rise of the Tomb Raider with all this triggering that was happening throughout the game. I think I might even have PTSD! Not the type the people in the military get, REAL PTSD.

Everything about Lara’s character design is sexist, her clothes are to revealing and insinuate her slim figure, her breasts and but are too big and the biggest problem with Lara’s character design is that it f***ing fat shams “larger women“ who have REAL curves. At one point a “larger character“ in the game dies due to their size. When will game devs learn to not set unrealistic body standards for people who identify as a woman. This is not what real beauty looks like. Check your F***ing privilege your S*** lords. F***.

That’s the other thing about the writing, other characters in the game refer to Lara as a woman. What the F*** is this gender binary Bull S***. No one at any point in the game asks what Lara identifies as or asks what pro-nouns to use to describe her gender. Like I said earlier, this is a very difficult game to play due to the heterosexual nature the game normalizes and forces down your throat.

And then the game forces typical tropes in the story like Lara having to save a heterosexual male. Why the F*** isn’t he a LGBTQAR! Like seriously, the gay and trans community is completely under-represented in this game to the point of THERE IS NO LGBTQAR CHARACTERS IN THIS GAME, For F***’s Sake!

I am sick of this F***ing S*** that keeps happening in the gaming industry where it forces these incorrect behaviours down your throat. Why can’t more main stream games be like; Life is Strange, Gone Home, Sunset, Depression Quest, Emily is Away.

Wouldn’t Rise of the Tomb Raider be great if Lara was; body size realistic, homosexual, trans fluid and independent who uses their own pro-nouns and corrects others when they describe Lara as a gender binary woman instead of who Lara really is.

Imagine if the game started with Lara and Jonah climbing the mountain and Lara explaining her gender identity and what pronouns Jonah should be using when talking to her. And also it would be great if Lara could talk about why feminism is needed in First World countries where women are oppressed and marginalized because of the CIS White Men that inhabit it.

This is why more games need Feminist on the writing team so ideas that I wrote above can happen and improve the representation of feminism video games.

There are other elements to Rise of the Tomb Raider like the gameplay which has been improved from the previous game but you’ll probably not notice any of these changes due to all the triggering you will go through whilst playing this game. As a Feminist, I actually had to take a break from being a Feminist to actually notice the gameplay changes, but even when I turned it off I still got triggered, like at the start of the game:
Lara can dive under water, but can’t stay under for too long cause she’ll run out of air. Look at this lazy as piece of S*** game design. How I would’ve designed the dive mechanic is by having Lara identify as a fish for these segments so she’d be able to breathe under water perfectly.

The other element to Rise of the Tomb Raider is the graphics. The presentation looks okay I guess, other than the sexualize clothing all the women have been designed to wear by the heterosexual males at Square Enix.

First the game will trigger you for violence against a women because Lara’s a women, then you’ll get triggered because the game developers force gender binary beliefs down your throat, S*** on anyone who identifies as trans or homosexual and have designed pro men story arcs that Lara can’t go through without the help of a man. And the lazy, unintuitive gameplay and sexist graphics will have you wanting to turn this game off in the first 10 minutes and get a refund.

Final Thoughts
My gender neutral friends, I really wanted to like Rise of the Tomb Raider I really did, but due to the disgusting treatment of women, the LGBTQAR community and for fat shaming every person who has real curves and every other problem listed above I have no choice but to give Rise of the Tomb Raider a 0/10.

Due to all the PTSD this game has given me, to help pay for my medical bills support me on patron, go fund me, kick starter and possible. Thank you. And please like and subscribe.

Two Years after the aftermatch of Human Revolution, Mankind Divided throws Adam Jensen and the player into a new world of hatred, prejudice, and oppression. After augmented people were sent into a killing frenzy, the natural world began to reject the augmented and their values. Augmented people and natural people are segregated apart from one another and those with augmented limbs or abilities are treated as second class citizens, and Adam is stuck in the middle of the turmoil.

Our battery acid gargling protagonist, Adam Jensen, is back and just as enjoyable as he was in Human Revolution. Adam begins as an agent for a task force in the Czech Republic that may or may not be controlled by special interest groups. As he arrives in Prague, the train station he stops at is bombed and all the blame is put onto the controversial pro-aug group known as the Augmented Rights Coalition. Now Adam must solve a mystery that could topal entire governments. If that all sounds somewhat vague, then it's supposed to. It's best to go into Mankind Divided with little to no knowledge of the events after Human Revolution.

Perhaps Adam isn't as likable as he was in human Revolution since we no longer can sympathize with him having no choice in augmenting his body. Adam finally embraces the machine he is and it's your job to progress through the story as the nicest guy in Prague or just as rude and abrasive as the Czech state police. Thankfully, you can always pick when you want to be good or bad, but you can also settle comfortably in the middle as well.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided also focuses on conspiracies much more than in Human Revolution. Often times you will have to choose who to side with during arguments and choose who to give plot important items to. I loved the return of the "this is bigger than all of us" conspiracies. It really helps harken back to the original Deus Ex.

The social commentary was enjoyable and rarely became preachy. Once in a blue moon you'll stumble onto a document or TV broadcast that does seem to be a bit one sided though. The social commentary also isn't forced down your throat either. Besides the Augmented Rights Coalition during the main story, you will only find it in optional newspapers, e-books, and television broadcasts. So if you disagree with everything Eidos has to say or get offended easily, you're in luck.

Side quests are also much more dynamic and satisfying to complete than in Human Revolution. Most times, you will stumble out of a building and see a commotion off in the distance. Investigating further will likely activate a new side quest to complete. My personal favorites were The Harvester and Last Harvest side quests. In those quests, Adam becomes a bit like a consulting detective when he helps an ignorant detective solve a string of murders upon augmented people. The revelation is great and is written in a way that makes the world feel so three dimensional. That not everything is about you and your adventures.

All is not good in Jensen town though. The story has major issues. For starters, new characters to the series are never properly introduced. They just sort of show up out of nowhere and help advance whatever quest you're doing. Adam clearly knows them and has a past with them, but they weren't in Human Revolution so my only guess is that these characters were introduced in a secret game set in between Human Revolution and Mankind Divided that was never released. The only logical explanation is that Eidos got too close to the illuminati with this middle game so they made Mankind Divided and just advanced the story a few years. Or they were probably introduced in the midquel novel and we're expected to buy that too.

The main story has issues too. I can easily look past its serious pacing problems, but what really bothers me is the blatant sequel bait cliffhanger ending. With Human Revolution, it could have easily stand on its own as a prequel to the original Deus Ex. But it seems Eidos Montreal is getting cocky and probably plans a trilogy of to tie into the original game. It also doesn't help that the main story only clocks in at about 12 - 15 hours. Side quests add about another 5 or 6 hours though. Which is a let down compared to Human Revolution's 20 hour main story and 10 hours of side quests.

"If it it ain't broke, don't fix it" is and isn't true in Mankind Divided's case. Not only is it clear that Eidos Montreal took fan complaints about Human Revolution to heart and remedied them, but they also built onto the established gameplay to make Deus Ex fresh again. What does that mean? Well the overall clunky feel from Human Revolution is gone, but it also doesn't devolve into generic first person shooter territory either. Combat, stealth, and ghost gameplay have been improved on dramatically.

Now no one approach to a situation is anymore viable than they others. Want to stealthily navigate around your enemies to get to your objective? Look around your environment. There is often a door or a vent conveniently placed near you to avoid frontal assaults. Are you one to tackle your problems head on? Loud combat approaches are made all the more enjoyable with a larger arsenal of weapons at your disposal as well as a much needed overall to the controls.

After meeting up with the ghost of Prince, Adam learns that he has unstable experimental augs hidden away in his body that can be activated at a cost. That cost is overclocking his own body causing overheating and severe glitches. This is actually a nice and believable explanation to addition of new augmentations that does eventually tie into the main story. The balancing of your experimental augs is actually well done as well. To ensure that you can use those augs with serious side effects, you have to temporarily shut down another branch of augmentations to cool your system. This can be overridden with a plot device about half way through the game though so you can use everything without consequence.

Augmentations are just as fun to use in Mankind Divided, if not more so. All the augmentations that could be unlocked in Human Revolution return with some new friends. New additions include remote hacking, titan armor, nanoblade, and a few more. Augs are all the more fun to use with the return of Biocells. Instead of having to recharge your bio meter with random foods and drinks, Biocells can be used and are now craftable, buyable, and findable. For those who don't know, this is an item that was absent in Human Revolution, but found in the original and Invisible War (although under a different name).

Weapons also have gotten an overhaul since Human Revolution. Darting between cover and picking off targets both lethally and non-lethally has never felt better. Guns feel much more in line with usual first person shooters and that's thanks to the new control options. Now you can choose between classic Human Revolution controls, new Mankind Divided controls, and typical FPS controls. Your augmentations weren't the only thing that got upgraded. Guns have always been customizable in Deus Ex, but now you can customize to your heart's content on the fly. All you have to do is hold down the reload button/key and Adam will hold his gun out and allow you to change attachments, rate of fire, and even the ammo type. It's a bit like Crysis, if that makes sense. None of the gameplay really feels streamlined from Human Revolution. It just seems that Eidos fixed the problems people had and added more to the game. More developers should take notes.

Unlike Human Revolution that featured multiple decently sized city hubs, Mankind Divided instead opts for one large city hub where the majority of the game takes place. Many main missions and side quests are played out in the Prague hub, but a few missions are played out elsewhere like Golem City, an augmented ghetto. While Prague isn't a bad place for a city hub, it just isn't as memorable as Detroit or Hong Kong from Human Revolution. The samey grey buildings do get tiresome after hours of exploring. Perhaps this was a design choice to make landmarks like The Red Queen stand out more, but it still doesn't make that "been there, done that" feeling go away.

The amount of detail, be it large or small, is incredible. From Adam quickly switching the safety on when holstering his gun, to enemies calling out your location and what weapon you're using in real time. Segregation is a theme and Mankind Divided, and it shows when you board a "Natural Only" metro car. Other passengers will glare at you and the state police will warn you not to do it again once you get off. I hadn't even realized what I did wrong at first when I stepped off the Natural Only metro car and got scolded by the police. I assumed that the segregation areas were just for show, but there were actual consequences for stepping over the line. It's clear that a special amount of love and care went into Mankind Divided that may be overlooked by many players looking for cheap explosive thrills instead

Even for 2011 standards, Human Revolution still looked a bit dated compared to other AAA releases at the time. Mankind Divided on the other hand looks downright beautiful thanks to the Dawn Engine. Clothing, faces, and weapons all look as if you could reach out and actually touch them. Bright neon lights reflect off of objects and NPCs. Rain will stick and drip off of Adam's well toned augmented body. Mankind Divided is candy for the eyes, for the most part.

Some textures don't get the same treatment. Textures such as certain walls, miscellaneous objects scattered around the world, and the little foliage that can be found are often incredibly basic textures that made me wonder if I was even supposed to be looking at them. But the biggest issue regarding the graphics is the frame rate. I played through Mankind Divided on the PS4, and I found an abundance of frame rate dips. "Dips" doesn't even begin to describe the problems with the frame rate. "Frame rate plummets" is a much better description. Even the act of walking down a lonely alley way can result in the frame rate tanking like the Titanic in a tsunami. Thankfully, the actual story missions stay at around 30 frames per second the entire time.

Besides the frame rate, the most noticeable issue with the graphics are the idle animations and lip syncing. Lip syncing ranges from serviceable to just plain bad. Outside of prerendered cutscenes, characters look like dogs when they have peanut butter in their mouths, filmed it, and then the developers just looped dialogue over that. Now what about animations? Well combat and takedown animations are great to watch and even seamlessly transition back into gameplay. Idle animations are another story. Often times characters will flail their arms about and shake their heads when they didn't say anything that would warrant that.

But by Philip K. Dick's ghost, that cyberpunk atmosphere though. Where Human Revolution was overflowing with cyberpunk cliches and a yellow and black color palette that often overstayed their welcome, Mankind Divided instead goes for a more nuanced approach to the cyberpunk genre. Much like the original Deus Ex. That doesn't mean Mankind Divided is any less cyberpunk than it's predecessor either. Neon still soaks through subtlety, especially in the red light district. Synthesizers still plays perfectly to the situation you're in. Whether you like to be bombarded with cyberpunk visuals and jargon or prefer or more realistic take on the genre is a matter of opinion.

If you thought Human Revolution's soundtrack was great, you're in for a magnetic treat with Mankind Divided's score. Following the gameplay's "if it isn't broken, don't fix it" mindset, the score in Mankind Divided is an orgasmic ensemble of synthesizers and cyberpunk good times. Expertly switching between slow and somber for depressing moments. Then ramping up the energy in each track as you go guns blazing after a botched stealth approach. If the atmosphere and story weren't cyberpunk enough for you, then the soundtrack is what you need.

The sound even factors into the gameplay. Just walking around a building that you're supposed to infiltrate can lead to wondrous discoveries. Many times I began to overhear idle chit chat between two NPCs discussing the building or location they are outside of that lead to me figuring out alternative paths that were pretty well hidden. Footsteps also make a welcome return. Nothing is more infuriating than a stealth where you can't hear your enemy's footsteps. Footsteps echo off of different materials and even your own footsteps are affected by the type of floor you're walking on and how fast you're moving. Thankfully, Mankind Divided remembers its stealth roots.

Elias Toufexis is back as Adam Jensen, but Stephen Shellen does not return to voice David Sarif. And that's a shame too. Shellen's performance as Adam's aggressive boss was one of the most memorable elements of Human Revolution. While Sarif's new voice actor does a more than serviceable job, it's still a shame that we won't hear "ADAAAM" in the right voice again. I'm not personally Czech, believe me I checked, so I can't comment on the authenticity of the accents of the Prague NPCs, but they sound believable enough. Almost every character has an accent so I hope it's authentic.

No game can be this good without an ugly sore hidden somewhere. That sore comes in the form of Breach. Breach is the incredibly unnecessary multiplayer mode for a single player centric game. Those who have played the original Deus Ex know that multiplayer isn't exactly new to the series, but not like this. Take the single player from Mankind Divided, neuter the gameplay, add actual microtransactions that forms a pay2win business model, neuter the gameplay even more, and bam: Breach mode. It isn't worth your time at all. Especially with new game plus for the base game. Luckily it can be ignore altogether.

To answer the opening rhetorical question: Mankind Divided proves that Human Revolution wasn't a fluke and the Deus Ex franchise has a bright future ahead of it. If you liked Human Revolution, you'll love Mankind Divided. It isn't exactly the definitive cyberpunk RPG, nor is it even the best in the Deus Ex serious, but it gets damn near close.

It's been almost exactly 3 years since the first episode of The Walking Dead: Season 2, and ever since, fans have wanted more. So Telltale Games answered that call with The Walking Dead: A New Frontier. Introducing new characters and bringing back old ones, A New Frontier serves more as an expanded narrative rather than a direct continuation of season 2. So is the first episode of The Walking Dead: A New Frontier any indication that this season has been well worth the wait?

Ties That Bind - Part 1 (episode one) begins with a surprisingly well executed prologue that introduces new characters just as the zombie outbreak has started. Shortly after, we jump forward several years after the initial outbreak with our new group. A simple task goes horribly wrong and the adventure begins. If you've played the previous seasons, there's nothing wildly different here. Since this is only the first episode, I'm not sure how much I can say before it becomes a spoiler so I'll leave it at, "It's your standard Walking Dead story."

There's been a shift in focus on this new season of The Walking Dead. We no longer get to play as Clementine. In fact, she's actually become a secondary character. This may be a disappointment or a breath of fresh air depending on how you look at it. I'd be indifferent on the matter if the new characters were even half as likable as the cast from the first two seasons. Sadly, this isn't the case.

After the aforementioned introduction, our new group is revealed: Javier, Kate, Gabe, Mariana, and eventually Clementine. Javier is so bland that it almost hurts, Kate only cares about herself. Gabe is a drama queen, and Mariana is the new innocent little girl we're supposed to care about. Clementine, on the other hand, is still a joy to be around. The natural progression of Clementine over the course of these three seasons felt natural and it's nice to see her finally adapt and accept the world she's forced to be in. While we do actually get to play as Clementine in very brief flashbacks, Javier is our new main playable character, and I can already tell that making it through each episode is going to be an absolute chore. It's common practice to have the playable character void of all personality so that the player can imprint themselves onto them, but considering Javier has a vivid backstory that the player experiences, he really should have had his own personality.

The natural response to those criticisms would be, "Well it's only the first episode. These characters might grow on you and become likable as we approach the end of the season." While that is true, it still hurts the overall narrative. In the first two seasons, the player knew who was likable and who wasn't in the very first episode. Those characters still would grow and become more or less likable as time went on. The problem with starting everybody off as unlikable just makes the player not care about anyone and have no desire to push on to the end, and that's where Clementine comes in. Perhaps it's just me, or maybe Telltale intended it this way, but Clementine is the only real reason I want to finish this season. She's just as, if not more, likable as she was in seasons one and two.

Seeing as how this is a modern point and click adventure, gameplay is the standard point and click fare. You walk around, hover your mouse cursor over an item or person, and click to interact. Quicktime events also make a return, but are a bit more in depth than they were in season 2. Although it still comes down to a variation of WASD and Q or E. If you are familiar with the combat in Telltale's Batman series, you'll see the similarities immediately.

Here's where the boring characters affect gameplay. Just like before, there are times where the action stops and you can walk around and talk to various characters that are in the area. The problem? Since the characters are so bland and uninspired, why would you want to talk to them? Giving them the time of day won't change your opinion about them. It just seems that the love and effort that went into the characters of the previous seasons is lost here. Now it seems like Telltale have adopted The Walking Dead show's formula of "little to nothing happening for the entire show then drop a crazy twist/cliffhanger at the very end so you'll have to tune into the next episode."

I know it may sound like I'm being overly harsh on The Walking Dead: A New Frontier, but overall, I actually did enjoy the first episode and look forward to the rest of the season. Perhaps the overly critical nature of this review is due to my love for The Walking Dead series, and Telltale games in general and how I don't want to see the series fizzle into mediocrity. Despite it all, I do recommend episode one of The Walking Dead: A New Frontier.

I'm going to be straight with you, horror games are not for\r everyone. I've noticed that while people will almost indefinitely play out\r RPG's they are quick to give up on horror games after a few good scares, and\r while it's not proven (by any means), I suspect that this is because the\r average player cannot identify with many of the protagonists of horror games in\r the same way they can relate to the hero's and anti-hero's of other games. This\r is completely reasonable as much of a games enjoyability comes from the player\r being able to project aspects of who they are, or aspire to be, onto the main\r character. This is also why Among the Sleep stands out as a\r horror-adventure. In Among the Sleep you play as a young child who is searching for his mother. This is one of the most fascinating aspects of the game because everyone knows what it is like to be a child who is scared -and maybe a little lost. 

One of the first points that I'd like to make is this: the narrative in this game, while a little on the short side, is pretty good. Granted, it is nowhere as in-depth as say Amnesia: The Dark Descent, but it is fairly compelling despite its simplistic nature. As previously mentioned, you are a toddler, 2 years old to be exact, who has woken up in the middle of the night to find that something is amiss in your house. Like any scared child you stumble through the house (keeping your faithful companion, Teddy, close by) and eventually make your way to your mothers bedroom to seek comfort and reassurance that there are no monsters in the closet. Unfortunately, upon making it to her room you find her bed empty; this is where the story truly begins.

Playing through this Among the Sleep with the unique perspective of a child lends an added creep factor to the game. While on your quest you find yourself in various strange dark places; many of which appear to be distorted memories of the child protagonist that have been overcome by nature. The scenery in this game is an eerie amalgamation of unsettling and whimsical and works well as a metaphor for the themes of destruction and loss that are present though out the game. 

Some of the core game play is also driven by the petite stature of the playable character. Toddlers are not particularly adept at walking and so they occasionally revert back to crawling; in this game you can switch between the two at will. The two methods of movement also offer different benefits and weaknesses. While walking you are able to interact with objects and hug teddy (which provides a little bit of comforting light), walking, however, is slow and makes you more visible. Crawling, on the other hand, is fast and allows you to hide under things. You also have no way of fighting, well... what ever that thing is, you are only 2 after all.

Most of the "horror" that comes from this game is rooted in the environment, there is a thing eventually, and a few jump-like scares here and there, but ultimately it will be the little noises and movements that send chills down your spine. As a bit of a side note: this game is oculus compatible. I have not yet played Among the Sleep on oculus (though I might try to get around to it within the month) but I have played a few other horror games/demos on the oculus and I believe that this game would be infinitely better on oculus. The atmosphere developed through the maps is what really shines about this 

Overall this game is a great introduction to horror games. The puzzles are not overly complex, nor do you have to dedicate too much time to finishing the narrative. At $21.99 CDN Among the Sleep is a little bit expensive, considering the quantity of content (and I've never been a fan of characters body parts passing through walls either), but aside from some minor flaws with the character models the quality of this game is great and I would strongly recommend it to anyone, horror and non-horror fans alike.

Momodora: RUtM (Reverie Under the Moonlight) is a game about a small priestess named Kaho who comes across the lands to a foreign kingdom where a dark magic has been slowly encroaching into hers. Kaho is no ordinary priestess though; she wields a small maple leaf that doubles as a sword/fan/thing? She also wields a bow, of which she is seemingly a master at. Her travels bring her to Karst City, the home of the kingdoms queen and hopefully an answer to where the curse is coming from.

Don't Ask me to explain. It's magic, there is none.

The games art style is obviously pixelized, but it makes the game look very charming. Combined with the music it can be very atmospheric at times. Mechanically the game works very well, combos feel satisfying to land, multiple times in a row with a few shots from the bow for good measure. But the thing to tie it all together is the dodge mechanic. A short and simple roll in one direction is by no means exciting on its own, but with a quick paced combo'em up style combat system it makes everything feel tighter. Granted your i-frames won't always save you. The game also packs a few upgrades/items that make things a little bit spicier. As well as the staple healing item in the form of 'Bellflowers' that work on a charge system (reminds me of orange juice for some reason).

Its obvious that Momodora: RUtM pulls inspiration from several sources, being a metroidvania, but packs quite a unique feel that sets it apart. It is however fairly short, and is possible to finish in one sitting (including all item collection, if you really wanted to). But has an NG+ system along with several hard to get achievements for those completionists out there. If you're experienced with metroidvania styled games you'll find this one easy enough to progress through, with just enough challenge to keep you trying again and again. If its too easy you can ramp up the difficulty all the way to hard, you masochist.

Beware amazing chest, in short try attack.

In my opinion the game was a blast; a short little gem packed with action and some good ole-timey exploration. However I feel like it could have been so much more. More enemies, more bosses, more challenge, more areas, more more more! But having played the previous iterations of the series I can say for damn sure that this is by far the best, in every way.

The story however for me is the most lacking aspect. Characters in the game operate similarly to those in Dark Souls where you'll encounter them at certain points of the game if you aid/interact with them. Dialogue is sometimes weird in English (likely a byproduct of translation), and the story arcs are a little confusing sometimes, but it's a minor gripe.

Whatever you say, Sans.

Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight is now available in the Steam Store for 8.99 Euro, 9.99 USD. A reasonable price when you consider its replayability.

Recommended? Yes, definitely for those who enjoy the metroidvania genre. And for some if their looking for a game to pass a couple hours with and not have to get completely stuck in.

A solid 7/10. Hopefully enough incentive for another one to be made.

http://www.bombservice.com/momo4.html - Dev's Website.

Having been the inspiration for the Fallout series and given a new chance at life with a sequel on Kickstarter, Wasteland 2 is back again with the "Director's Cut" that includes a number of new features and improvements on top of the Wasteland 2's original game.

Developed by inXile Entertainment, Wasteland 2: Director's Cut is an open world turn based RPG that sets out to improve on many of the issues players had with the original release of Wasteland 2. These improvements overall affect the graphics, gameplay, and sound design.

Wasteland 2's story begins with the death of a fellow Desert Ranger named Ace. The circumstances of his death are very suspicious, so General Vargas tasks a team of recruits, under the code name "Echo", to investigate Ace's death and figure out who was really behind it.

Nothing from the story has changed since Wasteland 2's original release, but what has changed is the amount of voiced dialogue. Over 8,000 lines of new dialogue was recorded for the Director's Cut and it shows. Not every line of dialogue was voiced, but it is still a welcome addition to hear exceptionally more line spoken. All the new spoken dialogue sounds just as believable as the voices in the original release of Wasteland, so there are no poor performances to speak about.

The visuals in the original release of Wasteland 2 weren't bad by any means, but weren't anything special either. With the upgrade to Unity 5.0, inXile were able to improve the visuals.

All the textures in the Director's Cut look much sharper and the frame rate seems to be much more stable as well. It's clear a lot of hard work went into reworking the visuals and that this isn't just a quick port job to consoles.

Unfortunately, despite the clear upgrade, the visuals for the Director's Cut still aren't anything special which is a shame because the game itself is special. Though, if you are coming off of the original release of Wasteland 2 then you are going to notice the visual upgrade and appreciate the game even more.

On PS4 and Xbox One, Wasteland 2: Director's Cut runs at 1080p 30fps and remains stable at that; for the most part. I briefly stated that the frame rate seemed to be more stable in the Director's Cut than in the original release, which isn't a lie, but there were a few time I ran into a drop of frames when enter a random encounter. They were few and far between so it wasn't anything that hindered the gameplay.

The thing I was most worried about for the Director's Cut's journey to consoles were the controls. It was going to be tough for inXile to pull it off, but they did it. These are some of the best controls from a PC ported game that I've ever seen. The face all do what you would expect (X for interacting and O for canceling), but the triggers are where the magic happens. When the left trigger is used it brings up all of the skills you can use at that given moment, and when the right trigger is used it brings up all of the combat options you can use for the given situation.

If I did have a complaint regarding the controls, it would be that the map is still somewhat difficult to navigate and I could never really tell if I was heading in the right direction when I was trying to get to a new undiscovered location.

Gameplay in the Director's Cut remains largely the same, but with the exception of one feature that makes Wasteland 2's gameplay feel even more involving.

During combat, you now have the option to bring up a "Precision Strikes" menu that allows you to pick individual body parts of your enemy to attack. If you are familiar with the original Fallout games then you will feel right at home with the combat.

There are a lot of variables to consider when using this Precision Strikes mode though. Things like weapon level, elevation, and cover can either make or break a successful strike. I just wish that this system would factor into damage a little more. Rather than, say, shoot at a raider's arm so they can't hit you as properly, the Precision Strikes mode really is only for increasing the likely hood of you connecting a shot.

To further add to the feeling of role playing, inXile have added a "Quirk" system. This system is similar to perks, but this gives your players a "quirk" that usually has a great benefit and an equally impactful drawback.

Of course, this isn't necessary and you can choose to forgo a "quirk" altogether, but I wouldn't recommend it if you are trying to role play.

The character creation also remains untouched from the original release of Wasteland 2. Being able to create your basic look and giving yourself a decent starter outfit is nice, but I can't help but feel this feature to be lacking. I suppose I've been a bit too spoiled with other RPGs and their robust character creators.

Never did I find did I find a face (or "head") that I liked and same goes for hair style. This is a game that could have really benefited from an in depth character creator since you are encouraged to make your 4 person squad by creating each member individually.

Usually, I can never get into turn based games. I want to like them so much, but for some reason, I can never just sit down and play them. Then Wasteland 2 came along and changed that for me. Wasteland 2 was already a fantastic game in it's original release. Now with the release of the Director's Cut, it could have only gotten better, and it did. Wasteland 2: Director's Cut is a truly unique experience that you won't find elsewhere in the PlayStation Store or Xbox Live Marketplace.

For years, Remedy Entertainment have been pioneers of storytelling and gameplay. From Max Payne to Alan Wake, Remedy have started trends and awed viewers with their unique stories, and with their newest outing on Xbox One, is Quantum Break also able to hold a candle to Remedy's legacy?

Developed by Remedy Entertainment and published by Microsoft, Quantum Break is a third person action adventure with an all star cast. Quantum Break was actually the first game ever announced for the Xbox One all the way back in 2013. So let's see if that long wait was worth it.

The end of time is rapidly approaching due to a time travel experiment gone horribly wrong. Starring Shawn Ashmore, Aidan Gillan, and Dominic Monaghan; Quantum Break follows Jack Joyce (Shawn Ashmore) as he attempts to stop the end of time with his new founded time manipulative powers while his once best friend, Paul Serene (Aidan Gillan), uses his powers to let the end of time to take it's course.

Time travel isn't exactly an original story basis, but Remedy have found an exceptional way of making it fresh again. Typically, whenever a story has the involvement of time travel, you can expect countless plot holes and "scientific" elements that make absolutely no sense. You won't find any of that here. Quantum Break features the most realistic depiction of time travel you will ever experience in a form of media. It's apparent that Remedy spent years researching the plausibility of time travel and how it could be applied to the real world. It's difficult to describe without experiencing it for yourself, but even with limited knowledge of time travel, Quantum Break displays the most true to life use of a time machine and the consequences that would inevitably follow.

Anyone who has witnessed a Hollywood actor in a video game knows the worry that follows. Hollywood actors phoning in their performance and waiting for their checks to clear is a common practice with video games, but not here. Everyone brings their best performance and every character feels real; Aidan Gillan as Paul Serene and Dominic Monaghan as Jack's brother, Will, being stand out additions. There is one problem though, and it's that you will never really feel that attached to anyone. Sure, they're well rounded characters, but you never really feel the same desperate need to help or save another character in danger like you would have in Max Payne or Alan Wake.

Quantum Break is further proof that true to life graphics are just around the corner. Remember how amazing the facial capture of L.A. Noire was back in 2011? Well, I'm glad to report that the technology behind Quantum Break manages to not only look better than the facial capture found in L.A. Noire, but also make you question if you are watching the accompanying live action show or an in game cutscene. Every detail of an actor's face is captured in shocking detail and each of their animations are captured so well that it looks like you are finally playing as a human being and not a plastic doll. It's also quite humorous seeing Aidan Gillan aged 17 years in reverse at the beginning.

Texture detail on everything from firearms, vehicles, walls, and the ground; to even little details like posters and TV/computer monitors are some of the best that I've seen in years. Even the time distortion effects are great and original. Every time Jack uses his time powers or the entire world freezes in time, the effects are neat to look at. Polygons are ripped apart and objects appear to look as if they are in two time periods at the same time. Like a broken mirror displaying an object from different angles. If time did begin to break down, this is what it would look like.

The only problem with the graphics lies in its resolution on Xbox One. This is the first time I was ever able to tell the difference between 720p and 1080p. 720p is the base resolution for Quantum Break, but it also hosts 4x MSAA to present high pixel quality and complex shading/effects. While this is nice, sometimes the picture just isn't that clear and it's a shame because Quantum Break is a phenomenal game in every other regard. We can blame hardware limitations on this one.

Going into Quantum Break, I expected Alan Wake with Max Payne-esque bullet time. While that is, in a sense, what I got, that would be a huge oversimplification of the entire product. Unlike the first two Max Payne games and Alan Wake, Quantum Break is a cover shooter. Before preconceived notions of Gears of War cover shooters come to mind, know that Quantum Break is not at all like that.

Those who played the 2013 reboot of Tomb Raider will feel right at home with this cover system. Unlike, say, literally every cover shooter on the market, you don't tap a button and become instantly glued to a chest high wall to shoot at enemies. Instead, once you are in a combat situation, Jack will immediately duck behind any cover he can fit under, but you can still move around freely. While this is an option, you will hardly ever find yourself doing this because of your borderline overpowered time abilities.

Within the first couple acts, you are given almost all of your time powers. Standouts include: being able to see through walls, the ability to dash across the room and slow down time to pick out targets to shoot, and creating a stasis bubble around enemies and firing into it so that a hail of bullets flies into them when the bubble dissipates. Even on the hardest difficulty, I dare you to die once outside of the tricky time manipulated platform puzzles. As long as you hide behind cover and give yourself time to heal when you are low on health you will probably never see the death screen.

The problem with giving the player almost all of the powers the game has to offer is that you will find yourself doing the exact same thing all the way to the end. It sounds like it becomes repetitive or even boring, but that's where the show comes in. Once you begin to tire of the gameplay, you have finished the act and unlocked a new episode, but I never found myself bored. In fact, I had to break myself away from the game so I wouldn't finish too quickly. Even after taking my time to enjoy every little detail Quantum Break had to offer, I still clocked in at a little over 9 hours (not including the TV episodes). This is a little on the short side for a purely single player experience, but the game is built around multiple replays so you can change your decisions and see how the story ends differently than your last play through.

Where Shawn Ashmore as Jack Joyce is the star of the game, Patrick Heusinger as Liam Burke is the star of the Quantum Break show. Shawn Ashmore is reduced to a mere cameo in each episode, but that's okay because Patrick Heusinger absolutely steals the show as Liam Burke. Blurring the lines between good and bad, the Quantum Break show mainly focuses on Liam Burke as he discovers the truth about Monarch Solutions and what is really going on with time ending.

The show features almost an entirely new cast from the game (with the exception of Aidan Gillen), featuring: Patrick Heusinger as Liam Burke, Lance Reddick as Martin Hatch, Marshall Allman as Charlie, and Mimi Michaels as Fiona. Although given less time than their in game cast mates, the cast of the show also have just enough time for all their characters to become three dimensional and feel like real people.

The way the show works with the game is that at the end of each act of the game, you are given control of Paul Serene as he makes a decision that will affect the next episode of the show and, consequently, the rest of the game. At first, the choices you make as Paul seem purely cosmetic in nature, but soon you will be making choices that affect the locations you visit and which enemies you will face. Each episode only runs for about 30 minutes; which is plenty of time to cool down from all the action you played through. You are also able to skip each episode, but that is not recommended if you are paying attention to the story.

The way Remedy interjected the show into the game without it feeling forced is impressive, but one thing almost kills it. The show is streamed rather than being on the disk. This may not sound like a huge problem, but one slip up in your internet connection (or no internet connection at all) will cause the show to buffer and will force you to watch in a resolution that can dip below 360p at times. The one saving grace to this is that you have the option to download the offline episodes as free DLC, but the download is 75GB, so get ready to clear up your hard drive to avoid the pesky "Content Buffering. Please Wait..." icon plaguing your viewing experience.

There are some genuinely impressive shots in the show and the action seems like it could have been intense to watch, but someone seems to have forgotten to tell the director that filming close up to the action and using a shaky cam is awful and (or should have) died off in the mid-2000's. Although small, it was still a bit disappointing that the show wasn't standalone. Say you have a friend that would love the story of the show, but doesn't play video games. You wouldn't be able to have them watch the show because the show depends a bit too much on the narrative only seen in the game. Like I said, it's a small annoyance, but it doesn't detract from the overall exceptional show that could rival the likes of Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead. Let's hope for a season two.

The number one killer may be time, but you will have a killer time with Quantum Break. To this day, Remedy has never disappointed with their incredible writing and storytelling abilities, and Quantum Break is no exception. Despite a few odd graphical problems and streaming issues, Quantum Break is a definite contender for game of the year and a worthy successor to Max Payne and Alan Wake.

If you liked the fast paced, retro, ultra violent challenges that the first Hotline Miami had to offer then I assume you'll love Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number even more. Hotline Miami 2 comes with a revamped soundtrack that still holds the style of the prequels music and it gets you super pumped at times. The most notable thing about Hotline Miami 2 is the expansion on the game's lore. In the first Hotline Miami the player was left to make inferences and the only real bit of story occurred towards the game's ending. The story in Hotline Miami 2 gives insight on the first game and expands even more and ends up becoming a crazy existential crisis that leaves you feeling like you just got round housed by your own mother, assuming yo momma is fat. In Hotline Miami 2 the story is in depth and takes place over many different characters, locations, and time periods. The levels are also a lot bigger so if you like challenging fast paced game play Hotline Miami 2 delivers even better than it's predecessor. The story in this game is one of the things that kept me motivated to keep playing. Even after all the dying in each level finding out what came next in the story compelled me to keep trying.

A sample of the awesome soundtrack.

If there was anything negative I had to say about Hotline Miami 2 it would be that sometimes the rooms within the level are far too big and cause a lot of stress and anger. But with a cool head you can still enjoy the game.For those of you who are new to Hotline Miami I have one tip for you, and that is to not get angry. Dying is a very big part of this game and there's no health bars. One bullet and one hit can kill you faster than you can say, "What the hell was that?" One more thing that slightly upset me would be that the creators of the game got rid of masks and replaced them with the multiple characters. There is still variety, and even more depth to the game because of the new characters, but it still doesn't have the classic Hotline Miami feel without the multiple masks that added more of a challenge to the game and allowed you to mix up your play style. Another thing that let me down personally is that the main character from Hotline Miami 2's prequel : Jacket is only shown briefly and is not playable.

If you do find yourself looking for more of a challenge you can try out the hard mode that unlocks after you beat the game for the first time. Hard mode adds in extra special enemies, and gives them a better reaction time which is harder to get around than it sounds.  Hard mode also flips each levels layout which makes each level feel refreshed and new. There's also an added secret in hard mode that will put things in perspective. For those of you reading who have played Hotline Miami 2's prequel you should keep your eyes peeled for secrets and Easter Eggs to get more of an insight on the game's story line.

A small peek at the game's play style.

All in all I'd give Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number an 8.5/10  As no other game has made me feel like more of a badass killing machine than this one.