Indiana Jones and the Great Circle picks up a year after Raiders of the Lost Ark as Dr. Jones is roused from his slumber by the sounds of a break-in at Marshall College. Though he catches the bandit red-handed, he’s no match physically and awakens shortly after to piece together the mystery of what was taken and why. All signs point to the Vatican and so, to satiate a need for adventure, Indiana sets off on another globetrotting journey, leaving his problems in his rear view. 

Considering the game’s place in the series canon, I feel The Great Circle does well to bob and weave throughout established story and character arcs to find an earned, snug place it belongs. Even in between dalliances with Marion Ravenwood, the love of Indy’s life, Gina Lombardi is a graceful addition to the lineage of “Jones girls” although it’s her self-reliance and grace through the game’s narrative that makes her such a wonderful character. As with all great adventure films, Indy travels to the far reaches of the world and back again, uncovering The Great Circle. Across the main story’s ten hours, we’re whisked away to Egypt, Siam and the Himalayas in search of truth while finding mostly danger. It’s exciting, full of thrills, and has enough spectacular set pieces to make Nathan Drake at least sit up and take notice. 

The true measure of a story’s hero is its villain, of course, and Indiana Jones has often painted its German opposing forces as equal parts menacing and comical. Emmerich Voss is single-minded and doggedly determined to beat Indy to the punch at all legs of this journey, and he’s a tremendous foil for Dr. Jones’ brain even if he isn’t the most threatening in the brawn department. Just as Baron Zemo relies on guile and cunning to sow unrest within the Avengers, Voss exudes a similar brand of quiet confidence in his calculated plan. 

Adventure is truly the essence of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, and I do feel freedom to explore and unravel puzzles, ancient and new, is the game’s clear strength. Each of the game’s open zones is littered with a heap of fieldwork and investigative work Indy can complete as he skirts around the periphery of the primary goal—sourcing and keeping the stones that seem to prove the veracity of the titular hypothesis out of Nazi control. I didn’t find too many of the riddles put forth by the game to be too tricky, most solutions are often found in the same room or chamber as the puzzle itself. However, a couple included ciphers and keys that forced me to resort to the old pen and paper, which felt appropriate given Indy’s penchant for antiquities. 

I particularly enjoyed that each open zone’s main adventure is linked intrinsically with a key item that, once bought from the area’s vendor, will have a lasting importance as you continue on your way, chasing fortune and glory around the world. The camera you receive in the Vatican proves useful in snapping curios and people of interest to fill out Indy’s journal and earn “adventure points”, while the lighter and breathing apparatus from subsequent levels are integral for illuminating pitch black tombs and spending long periods underwater respectively. 

There are books throughout the game that, once found, serve as your many skills and buffs. Without a traditional upgrade path or skill tree, your aforementioned adventure points can be used to activate things like Lucky Hat, which is a second wind ability that grants a brief moment in time after being downed to collect your fedora, dust yourself off, and carry on with that trademark Harrison Ford smirk. There are others which prove more useful in the moment-to-moment, such as improved melee power or one that makes whip attacks on unsuspecting Nazis lethal. I do miss Wolfenstein’s approach which had the player meet a predetermined goal, like five stealth kills, for example, to earn the boost. That said, having to earn points through absorbing things of cultural significance is reward enough. 

Aside from the main adventure itself, each of the game’s zones does have a bevy of side content to churn through. Fortunately, if you’re like me and you storm the critical path first, you’re able to return post-credits to mop up all of the quests you missed. These range from broader Fieldwork, which I’d equate to what you’d expect from a side quest with cutscenes and the whole shabang, to Mysteries, which feel more emergent and truncated while serving to scratch that natural itch—not unlike the all-alluring map markers in other open-world titles. 

Where the experience does falter is with the combat itself and the balance the game attempts to strike between snotting Nazis in the nose or hiding from them. 

Stealth, save for a few exceptions, is a completely viable way to navigate The Great Circle, and it works due to easily dupable enemy A.I. Being able to collect so many random items within the map, from bottles right through to stone busts, and either brandish them as a weapon or throw them in an effort to distract guards, makes for a fun, emergent brand of gameplay. Relying on good old-fashioned slap stick pugilism and your whip, which can be used to disarm or trip enemies in combat scenarios, harkens back to the team’s pedigree in both Chronicles of Riddick and The Darkness. The only issue I took is with the bevy of holdable items in the game is that you’re forced to drop them whenever unlocking a door or climbing a rope, and are ultimately forced to leave it behind. This is softened by the fact that things things everywhere, however it’s still a baffling choice. 

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Fist fights are an up close and personal mix of stamina management, creating space with a well-timed dash, and landing a left-right goodnight to leave your enemy laid out in the Egyptian sands. For how slow combat looked in trailers, it feels pretty good on the sticks—except for when guns are involved. Wolfenstein is one of the better shooters in modern history, and the talent at MachineGames is undeniable. For them to have to put guns aside, for the most part, for thematic reasons is a shame. Still, there’s practically no circumstance in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle where I’d recommend scooping up a fallen submachine gun off of the ground and rattling lead toward the enemy, which is a shame given that the gunplay is tight. 

It’s just that it serves as a warning bell for every enemy within a one kilometre radius, and it’s often never worth it to invite that kind of attention to yourself—especially when, as I say, the A.I. is a little thick and the hand-to-hand works as well as it does. 

From a performance standpoint, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle does run rather well on console. I never noticed any significant dips in the frame rate, and unlike many other blockbuster titles of late, I noted no crashes. The team’s decision to develop the game in first-person, I feel, is justified immediately through the world’s fidelity and how hands-on you’re able to be. Of course, pulling back to see Indy in context-sensitive actions, such as swinging on or climbing with the whip, or in cutscenes is always a joy. It’s like a time machine seeing Harrison Ford looking so young without the aid of Disney’s de-aging sorcery. Having already touched on both the performances of Alessandra Mastronardi and Mario Gavrilis as the story’s co-lead and villain respectively, I must absolutely give Troy Baker his flowers. 

Having been witness to several Troy Baker performances, it’s hard not to hear when a little dash of Troy himself bleeds through. I feel like even for the most established voice actors, it’s hard to hide the self entirely. Troy Baker simply disappears into this role. What’s stunning is that he isn’t just playing as Indiana Jones, he’s playing as Harrison Ford playing as Indy and it’s a performance so nuanced and so studied, it’s going to fool so many who’ll have simply assumed they’d dredged poor Harrison up again. It’s a remarkable individual acting display from Baker, and with awards season cut-offs and the dreaded recency bias working against him, I pray voters remember this one next year. 

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is a sumptuous adventure that hits on so many of the high notes we’ve long hoped for from an Xbox first-party game, especially in terms of narrative and performance. I expect the game’s combat will divide critics, however its excellent crafting of its world, and its many puzzles, should shoulder the burden and deliver fortune and glory for a game that’s made for Indy fans by Indy fans. 

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It’s safe to say, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 has had a real turbulent launch and right now continues to do so. The launch was literally unplayable with thousands of players keen to get hands-on the shiny new title which ultimately crashed the game’s servers in the first few days. If you were lucky to get in, the game would often hang, get stuck, not load and the user experience frustration grew.

The issues stem mostly from the fact that the latest Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is being streamed directly to your platform rather than downloading a terabyte of plane and world data. Cloud gaming works but that doesn’t mean it’s bulletproof. There’s huge advantages with this method of delivery, especially coming from someone who had to endure massive patch downloads and long load times (sometimes 1-2 hours) from Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, so delivering a title like this where you can hop in within 5-10 minutes is a huge feat however the launch showed us the disadvantages.

Before I get into the nitty gritty of my review, I’m currently on gigabit internet so streaming 4K  isn’t a big issue for me. Quite in fact, having gigabit internet or higher in Australia has only really been a recent thing and not a lot of the population has access to fibre or even NBN. Having a title that relies heavily on cloud will shut a lot of players out, I just can’t imagine myself playing this on anything lower than my current download speed.

Once you get into the game, you’ll be greeted with a character creation screen, albeit not a fully fleshed out one but a welcome addition to creating your own pilot to take through the game and career mode creating an immersion into the world of flight sim. From there, you can take it to the skies.

There’s a few things MSFS2020 players will be accustomed to and that’s mostly the challenges and the world map. If you didn’t know already, Microsoft Flight Simulator allows you to drop a pin anywhere on the world map and you can start flying from that point taking the real-world sites backed by technologies such as Bing maps etc. You’ll see the roads in your neighbourhood and possibly your house; while not 1:1 – it’s sure damn close and a crazy feat in technology. People still get shocked when I show them this mode.

The career mode is the biggest selling point of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, you pick a starting airfield; literally any airfield in the world (personally I just picked somewhere down the road) and your pilot career starts from there as a company hires you. You’ll get a series of introductions in Career mode from basic takeoff and landing to more advanced scenarios before taking on more certifications which opens the doors to different career missions. Your life as a pilot is to complete the jobs to earn money and use that money to upskill your licence until you become a multi-class flyer.

Once you earn enough, you can even start your own aviation company which opens the doors to actually managing said company and maintaining your own fleet. This is probably the biggest step up and welcome addition to Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 giving the title a sense of purpose rather than just flying around in all the different planes you can get your hands on. While I managed to dump a few hours into the career mode, the game’s bugs and server issues often barred my progress and also increased frustration when things didn’t load in properly, planes missing landing gear (yes it happened twice now) and controls just not responding. These are all bugs that CAN be fixed and once they are, I’ll be definitely sinking most of my playtime into this.

Behind the curtain both technological and visually, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 surpasses the expectation of the previous title. They took the core sim and not only managed to make it look better but overall bring extra life to the already amazing world map with added terrain, textures, effects and more. I was quite scared my PC wasn’t up for the leap from MSFS2020 but the team did a great job with performance in this iteration; quite possibly thanks to the cloud technology. The title performs well in 4K with my ‘starting to age’ RTX 3070 graphics card which was quite surprising. 

The little aspects of improvement like better lighting and minor things like debris effects especially landing airliners and seeing things like snow on the ground get kicked up, or watching a dust trail your plane as you glide down the runway; it’s the minor things that visually brings out the immersion of being in the real world.

Weird at first but Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 allows you to take a stroll on the ground with your aircraft. Yes, you can take to the land and explore the scenery around the environment but also find fauna and just take in the sights. Walking around the aircraft also allows you to perform pre-flight checks (just like real pilots) if you want to give that extra level of simulation.

While a technological marvel when it works, the Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 user experience is far from ready and often smacks my face with a wall of frustration despite loving almost every bit of the new sim. Career mode seems to have a lot of issues when things often don’t load, and this is where my title kept freezing to the point my progress won’t even save anymore and I had to redo it over and over again. Sometimes bugs would happen in missions resulting in you failing it.

There’s also lots of controller issues with my playthrough where I spent half my time talking to other players and figuring out why Turtle Beach Flight Velocity HOTAS setup would often reset or simply won’t register half the time with Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. I had several issues and each of them being unique which frustrated the experience even further. Weirdly, I had no issues with the setup in the previous title so I was hoping for a clean transition into this but that wasn’t the case.

At times, sticks would weirdly respond, thrusters wouldn’t register, brakes didn’t work all of a sudden etc. It was a wonky experience and the UI for setting up controllers and equipment is oddly way more frustrating than it should be. Sometimes the mouse would disappear and not register – it was unpleasantly annoying to stop mid flight to reset settings again.

There’s a path of redemption for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 however as most of the issues stem from cloud and lack of polish, I can see the greatness it possess and potentially can be that title we want in the near future however at the moment – if you do decide to jump into it, you may crash – literally. 

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When one considers the circumstances around the development and release of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2, it existing at all seems like quite the miracle. It’s a video game that has Ukraine at the absolute heart of it, and the team’s peril throughout the ongoing conflict has been well-documented, especially so in the recent documentary “War Game”. If nothing else, it provides perspective and context that’s important to the game’s story, even if it’s relatively irrelevant to the bigger picture of how the long-gestated sequel, subtitled Heart of Chornobyl, is set to be received.

I’ll preface this piece by saying that I still want to spend more time with S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 so treat this as a review-in-progress, or rather an overview of my experience with this supposed forty-hour game thus far. It’s worth noting, for reasons that’ll become evident shortly, that I’m also playing on Xbox.

Whether deliberate or not, there’s a desperation that permeates this world’s Zone of Alienation. In fact, the world painted for us feels so permanently unsafe, devoid of hope, and analogous to Ukraine itself, it’s hard not to feel a lot of the team’s terrible, life-shattering experiences bleed through in the moment-to-moment gameplay of Heart of Chornobyl. You endure the Zone’s vicissitudes as Skif, a hardened stalker who, after being left for dead having been robbed of a sought-after artefact, is thrust into a branching narrative full of secret plots, warring factions, sides to take, and decisions to make.

As I’ve said I’m early doors as far as the story goes, but the mystery of who crossed Skif in the wilds and left him at the mercy of the Zone’s horrors is enough to drag the boat along for now. Skif might not be the most riveting protagonist, nor would he be any fun at parties, but fortunately many of the Zone’s other major players have starred in their small episodes within this larger journey. Conflicted scientists who pit their ethics against scientific curiosity, ravagers who’ll weaponise your own need for intel against their rivals as they look to secure their slice of slag heap region Garbage, and war-weary generals whose trust in their men is misplaced are but a few I’ve encountered in the game’s early acts.

Though I’ve enjoyed those who call it their home, the Zone itself feels like the main draw for Heart of Chornobyl. It’s a spectacularly hostile place that, despite being rooted in horror and science-fiction, feels so cruel, grounded, and ultra-real in its treatment of the player, bullets are devastating, creatures claw with ferocious efficacy. Even on the easiest of difficulties, it felt as though death crept about every corner. Spectacular emission storms turn the sky a blood red as blue, radiated lightning cracks and pings off the abandoned cars littering the fields, I definitely don’t recommend getting caught in one, however glimpsing one through a window, watching as the world near literally blows on by, is an undeniable thrill and truly sells the scariness of the Zone.

While I think S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 does a marvellous job reminding the player time and again that its world isn’t to be fucked with, its remaining systems managed to upend my enjoyment over and over. I constantly felt as though the game wasn’t designed with a controller in mind, which is fine in principle, so much of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. audience’s roots lie with keyboard and mouse, but so much of Heart of Chornobyl is downright painful to play on console. Inventory management, of which there’s plenty being a hybrid of both survival and immersive-sim genres, is cumbersome and slow, the gunplay is spotty and imprecise with its Bethesda-esque jank and AI pathing leading to frustratingly bad combat situations.

But these gripes aside, it’s really the performance on console that scuttles the whole thing. It’s not that I have played it on PC at all, though I’ll be shocked if there isn’t an enormous disparity between it and this console port because optimisation appears to have been an enormous problem for the team. I’ve not seen bugs of this magnitude since the launch of Cyberpunk, and there are a few that are just as egregious without being game-breaking.

Graphical hang-ups make up the crux of the concern, with unique cutscene assets, like cassette players and headphones, floating offset from their user and floating through the air, wall textures strobing on and off like an epileptic’s nightmare, and draw distance issues causing textures to pop-in at what I’d consider mid-range. Combat can be a tough pill, but it’s made tougher still when raiders magically materialise out of thin air and, in a flash, spot you and fill you full of holes. I also experienced a number of hard crashes, lines of dialogue simply not playing, and enormous plunges in frame rate that, hand on heart, would have been fortunate to register in double digits. I think S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 already caters to a niche audience by being a tough as nails, hard to the core apocalypse simulator steeped in realism, and having to contend with this performance shortfalls that mar that experience and render the game frustrating is disappointing.

The game tries so hard to present its world as an authentic, post-apocalyptic playground that’s super serious in tone, almost like a Fallout for masochists. I enjoyed plenty of my several hours with the game, it teaches you how to be frugal with resources and develops in you an edge that holds you in good stead for the game’s many moral quandaries. For a game crafted in a literal war zone, Heart of Chornobyl is, without question, an achievement. It’s a huge, enormously scoped game, and I admire the team’s ambition to swing for the fences despite the conflict that underpins their day-to-day lives. Sadly, I do think the console version is rife with issues that’ll hamper people’s experience at launch.

However, they’re all issues that can be ironed out and I hope Heart of Chornobyl gets its redemption arc, because bloody hell this deserves a feel-good story. 

The post S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl Review-In-Progress – Zoned Out appeared first on Press Start.

I’ve never been drawn to Farming Simulator games despite my friends’ constant insistence that the cozier, slower paced design of it all is therapeutic, but with Farming Simulator 25, they got me. An oddly cinematic trailer and the promise of worldwide farming was enough to convince me to dip my toes into the world of virtual farming. And while it’s not the best thing I’ve ever played, I’m absolutely in awe of how much depth and detail is hiding in Farming Simulator 25. It’s an experience that has forever changed how I look at these games.

I admit that’s in part due to my own ignorance, but it is incredible just how much is on offer here. The Farming Simulator games each offer the opportunity for players to step into the role of a farmer – usually through inheriting a farm which they can then develop as they see fit. You’ll expand your crops, harvest and sell them and then use that money to invest in expansion. Later games would add more detailed elements that go well beyond the traditional agriculture you’d expect – including livestock and forestry.

Farming Simulator 25 differs from the other games in a few ways. For one, you can now expand your farm beyond what has been typically provided – both American and European style farms – and begin cultivating Asian style farms too. With that, rice is a new crop that can be harvested, and, with that, many other aspects of the process change too. Other improvements with 2025 are the addition of livestock such as buffalo, which has a flow on effect of allowing you to engage in animal husbandry to make buffalo mozzarella to sell. There are some simple additions here, but it is merely adding to Farming Simulator’s already wide and varied offering.

And that’s really where Farming Simulator 25 really surprised me. It feels incredibly authentic. Not fussed with creating watered down experience for players, Farming Simulator 25 does exactly what it says on the box. While I’m not a farmer myself (in case you didn’t know), every aspect of running a farm, even those that I don’t even think about, is captured pretty authentically here. Whether it be managing crops, the aforementioned animal husbandry, or planting seeds and harvesting crops at the right time. The game feels realistic and, more importantly, when you see a big batch of crops come to fruition, it’s satisfying too.

Though it can take you a while to get there. There are some light tutorials at the beginning of Farming Simulaotr 25 but after that, the game really sends you on your way to do whatever you want. You can get out of the vehicles and go speak to people, who can often run you through the basics of whatever crop or activity you need to work out, but overall the game doesn’t hold your hand too much. This is both a blessing and a curse – it does feel like Farming Simulator 25 isn’t dumming things down for a casual audience, but for people like me, who are just getting into things, the constant trial-and-error approach to some of these crops could be frustrating for players less patient than me.

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But other improvements can help to remove some of the tediousness of some of the activities on your farm. While I’d argue that the simplicity and tedium of the tasks if some of the appeal with a game like this, you can easily implement AI-drive workers to drive vehicles from one point to another, plow a field of crops ready for harvesting or even delivering cargo for you. Their routines can be set individually or just looped, which helps you to focus on other things and, if you’re good enough, maximise your efficiency.

And that’s an important aspect of the whole experience, because you can really do a lot in Farming Simulator 25. It’s kind of impressive just how much variety there is here in terms of which crops you might choose to grow or where you’ll focus a lot of your time to expand and grow profitable. It feels like a true sandbox in many ways, and I guarantee that no two players will have the same experience, farms or even progression through the game. It’s this confidence in players to build their own farms in a way that they see fit that makes it easy for me to see why Farming Simulator has become the phenomenon that it has over the last fifteen or so years.

There are other aspects, some not even new to Farming Sim 25, that help to make the game feel more expansive, though they ultimately feel a bit like shallow window dressing than anything else. When I first started playing, I was excited to see that there was almost a whole world outside of the farm to explore – though ultimately the world is rather empty and feels more like a means to an end rather than an immersive space to buy, sell and trade in. Still, the ambition is appreciated though I’d love to see this aspect honed and improved upon in future instalments.

From a presentation perspective, Farming Simulator 25 is fairly rudimentary. It looks better than previous games though not by too much. The music is similarly what you’d expect from games like these – either no music at all or ambient tracks that help sell the atmosphere. The voice work is horrendous though, and I really hope that if GIANTS commits to a campaign in newer games that there is a bit more attention paid to this aspect of the games presentation.

Newer to this game are weather effects and improvements to the way water hits and flows off of crops, which sounds like a minor improvement, but it’s all smaller details that contribute greatly to the bigger picture. If you’re lucky (or I should say, unlucky) enough to be caught up in a tornado, one of the newer weather effects, you’ll no doubt notice how good it looks as it tears through your crops and pulls in a swirling mess of cloud and debris as it rips through your map. Other moments, like when you harvest crops as the sun sets, are serene and picturesque and really helps hammer home that cosy, relaxing effect that the Farming Sim games have.

All in all, Farming Simulator 25 is an earnest improvement on the previous Farming Simulator games. And while it doesn’t reinvent the wheel by any stretch, it adds enough new aspects to not only justify it’s existence but bring in new players, like myself without dumming down any of the intricate aspects that make it what it is. And while the onboarding can be fairly tough, especially if you’re completely new to this, sticking with Farming Simulator 25 will (mostly) lead to only fruitful harvests.

The post Farming Simulator 25 Review – Reaping What You Sow appeared first on Press Start.

Just a few years ago Xbox dropped its Wireless headset that was one of the best value for money wireless headsets on the market, and in the last few weeks its released an updated version, which is priced just at tiny bit higher but offers some solid improvements.

As far as the design of the headset goes, it’s pretty much the exact same thing as what released some years ago, but the green accents have now been also swapped out for black finishes which I much prefer as it takes the premium feel of the headset to the next level. The band feels durable, the earcups are an extremely comfortable faux leather that can also be taken off and replaced and the fit feels exceptional, without pressing down too much on my glasses.

In terms of build quality and fit, I’d put this ahead of the Pulse 3D Headset, which is the same price. You’re not getting any kind of noise-cancelling with this headset, which is to be expected for the price, but it does a good job of blocking out external sounds.

My absolute favourite thing about the headset is still how accessible the buttons (or lack of them) are. I really dislike how many buttons there are on the Pulse 3D headset and the fact that they’re all on one side but on the Xbox Wireless Headset, the entire earcups act as volume controls, so your right cup controls the main volume whilst the left earcup does your game/chat balance.

You’ve also got an easy to access mute button on the microphone as well as a button to turn the headset on and off (complete with a matching startup tone to what you’d be used to with your Xbox Series X). As far as buttons go, that’s literally it and compared to other units on the market, that’s a godsend. Xbox has kept it simple and that’s exactly what you want with a headset. Even on day one, I was never second-guessing where to find one of the buttons or how to turn my chat volume up. It’s perfectly designed.

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The headset is incredibly easy to pair to either your Xbox Series X/S or PC and all it takes is just holding down the power button to set it into pairing mode. Your Xbox or PC will then recognise the headset and connect each and every time it powers on. You can also connect the headset to multiple devices at once, meaning that you can connect to your mobile via Bluetooth whilst playing on your Xbox, and hear both devices at once, which is really helpful. You can also connect the headset to an Xbox wireless adaptor, which I highly recommend if you’re using a PC as it’s just going to be more stable than Bluetooth. This is still one of the best parts of the headsets as I feel that a lot of headsets at this price range don’t provide simultaneous connectivity.

As far as battery life goes, these have now been improved with a 20 hour battery life (up from 15 hours in the original version). It’s now the best in class in the market by any stretch these days, but it’s still perfectly fine, and you’re getting a quick enough charge from USB-C that it’s never an issue.

One of the original negatives on the original wireless headset was the microphone, and this has been improved quite significantly on the new headset. It does a fairly decent job at muting out background noises and also auto mutes when you’re not speaking. Again, it doesn’t rival the likes of the Arctis Nova Wireless but for sub $200 it’s perfectly fine for casual online gaming.

I was pleasantly surprised by how good this headset sounds for $150. Whilst it doesn’t experience the deep bass that I got with the SteelSeries Arctis 7X or similarly priced headsets  , those headsets are more than double the price. What I did get though, was an exceptionally crisp sound even when at the loudest volume. The difference between these and something like the Arctis 7X is probably closer than it should be given the price difference.

The headset now comes with a Dolby Atmos license out of the box which is a big improvement compared to other headsets in this price range. Whether you’ll be able to tell the difference is obviously down to your ears and how much you care about that kind of audial fidelity, but it’s great that it’s included.

@shannongrixti

The new Xbox Wireless Headset has a longer battery life, an all-black design, Dolby Atmos support included in the box and a better auto-muting microphone #XboxWirelessHeadset #NewXboxHeadset #XboxSeriesX #Xbox #XboxSeriesS #XboxHeadset #Xbox

? original sound – Shannon Grixti | Gaming & Tech

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I can almost guarantee you’ve never played anything quite like Slitterhead. Bizarre name aside, the game is the latest from the mind of Keiichiro Toyama, who was instrumental in bringing us some stellar titles like the original Silent Hill, Gravity Rush and Forbidden Siren. It’s an incredible artistic undertaking, blurring genres to offer a unique experience. And while Slitterhead feels like a game made precisely for people like me, it’s not entirely without its faults, especially from a technical standpoint.

The premise of Slitterhead is fairly simple. You play as a Hyoki, a non-physical spirit who can possess other humans. Affectionately named Night Owl by another character you meet early on, you “wake up” as the spirit and realise that your memories are gone. The only thing you do remember is that your life goal, for some reason, is to eradicate the Slitterheads from the living world. They’ve been let loose on the Hong Kong-but-not city of Kowlong, attacking humans and sucking out their brains through their eye sockets. It’s gross and fantastic and, obviously, goes in some pretty dark places.

All in all, across Slitterheads twelve-hour campaign, I was enthralled by the weird story that Toyama is trying to tell here. While the characters are flat, there were many times when the game would throw me a curveball that I was not expecting. It’s a fairly strong story, anchored in the occult, as you’d expect from a game about a ghost. But it’s the unique spin on typical horror conventions that Slitterhead puts on things that really helps it to stand out. If you’re familiar with how the Siren games tell their stories, you’ll understand what Slitterhead is going for. It’s an incredibly obtuse story that’s equal parts weird and fascinating.

The game is split into chapters, with each chapter having you track and investigate the source of the Slitterheads or other leads in Kowlong as key characters, called Rarities, find them. The missions themselves are semi-open, allowing you to roam the streets of Kowlong before undertaking some kind of platforming challenge or possession puzzle before eventually coming head-to-head with one of the titular creatures. It’s a simple enough premise – though each level is semi-open, the solutions are often linear and, even bizarrely, the game never gives you a map nor regular waypoints if you’ve got multiple objectives to complete.

The crux of the experience is you playing as the Hyoki, holding a shoulder button to leave whoever you’ve possessed and allowing you to float a short distance to another body you can see. There are a few simple rules to keep things fair – you can’t possess bodies that are far away, you can’t possess bodies that you don’t have a line of sight with, and you can’t possess bodies that you “don’t have good sync” with. It’s a fair system with simple rules that keep things from getting too broken as time goes by.

The possession mechanic really comes into play more substantially when combatting the Slitterheads. Essentially, the Hyoki can switch between multiple bodies and harness the blood of each individual to physically conjure weapons. Clubs, katanas and grenades: There are many combat options that you can use as time goes by. The Hyoki can “die” if the body you’re in dies while possessing it. To survive in Slitterhead, you must jump from body to body as regularly as possible. You get better combos and do more damage after moving from one body to another, too, incentivising the need to constantly jump between bodies. It’s a bleak take on things to see how little regard Hyoki has for human life, but a spirit’s gotta do what a spirit’s gotta do.

All civilians share similar abilities, but the crux of the strategising happens in the Rarities system. Throughout Kowlong, you’ll be able to find specific individuals who are “more highly attuned” to Hyoki and thus exhibit greater benefits when possessed. Essentially, these rarities form the main cast of the game and are the characters you’ll speak to between missions to better discuss what’s going on in the story. Even better, all of the Rarities are equipped with unique weapons and abilities compared to regular civilians and do more damage.

The first you acquire, Julee, uses large Wolverine-esque claws to do massive damage to the Slitterheads. The potential second, Alex can conjure a vortex from blood to draw enemies in before finishing them off with a charged bloody projectile from his shotgun. The elderly Betty can even convert fallen pools of blood on the ground into damaging blades. You can take up to two Rarities with you on each mission, so you can find your favourites fairly quickly and create a team that synergises well, as each has individual strengths and weaknesses.

Combat itself occupies a space solely between the more considered heavier mechanics of a Dark Souls game and the more hectic, over-the-top spectacle of character action games like Devil May Cry. It’s a good combat system with all the trimmings you’d expect from a modern action game – blocking, parrying, slowed time for perfect parries and meter management by literally soaking up the blood from the streets as it’s spilt. I was playing the game’s hardest difficulty and still having fun – many games like this often have janky mechanics that feel unfair or downright broken, but Slitterhead’s combat is tighter than you’d expect, especially as you unlock more skills.

But while Slitterhead plays much, much better than its initial trailers would have you believe, the combat does feel incredibly punishing when dealing with more than one enemy at once. You can unlock specific skills that make fighting multiple enemies a lot easier – even some of the Rarity unique abilities, too – but it does feel like there were a few moments where I would get teamed up on and be destroyed almost too quickly.

The other glaring issue I have with Slitterhead is the distinct lack of enemy variety. I can almost excuse the location variety being low – this story is solely the story of Kowlong and helps this smaller team to stretch their budget – but there are not many types of Slitterheads to fight. I adore the designs of what is here, however, once again harkening back to Toriyama’s work on the Siren games. To see a creature inspired by the Blue Ringed Octopus was also uncanny, as an Australian. However, they’ve been popping up more and more in Japan recently. A fun but incredibly irrelevant piece of world news for you.

But enough about cephalopods. Between missions, you’ll be thrown to a menu where you can chat with Rarities to reflect on the story, upgrade your skills or even gain new leads that’ll lead you to new missions. It’s also here where you can replay missions, framed as a time-travelling power used by the Hyoki to unlock new Rarities or complete optional objectives. There’s a lot to do in Slitterhead, both mandatory and optional, including small arena challenges hidden in each world. Additionally, how the story is handled non-linearly across multiple characters’ perspectives feels incredibly reminiscent of the Siren games.

Regardless of its shortcomings, Slitterhead is quite the looker. While character models can look pretty rough – sometimes plasticky, other times generic – the world of Kowlong is brought to life with incredible lighting. Every street and every alley has been drenched with astonishing lighting, shadows and plenty of neon to really sell the idea of this gritty, long-forgotten otherworld. It all pops in HDR, too. Even better, all of this runs at a very solid sixty frames per second. Perhaps a fidelity mode with raytracing would’ve been appreciated, as it would look perfect in this kind of world, but regardless, Slitterhead looks better than you’d expect from a game of this scope and scale from a team this new.

Where scope and scale is a bit more obvious, however, is with the game’s voice work. First, there’s barely any of it – most of the dialogue in the game is text with the odd grunt or giggle to help establish the speaker’s tone. There are some voiced moments in cutscenes, but otherwise, it does feel notably low-budget. On the other hand, Akira Yamaoka’s original soundtrack is excellent here. It’s the same ethereal score featuring dark synths, industrial noise and guitars that you’d expect from a Yamaoka soundtrack, but he especially cooked with Slitterhead.

I said earlier that Slitterhead feels like a game made for me, and I stand by that. It’s an incredibly unique idea with an even more unique combat system anchored to a bizarre but engaging narrative. It’s the kind of game that Japan Studio would be making if they were still around, the kind of ideas-driven adventure that you just don’t see as much anymore. And while there are some bizarre omissions – namely the lack of a map and a combat system that’s great only ninety per cent of the time – Slitterhead is a stellar debut from some incredible minds that excites me to see where Bokeh goes next.

The post Slitterhead Review – Possessed By Greatness appeared first on Press Start.

Treyarch has proven, once again, that they know what makes a Call of Duty multiplayer experience really tick. The return of the classic prestige system, a tight TTK, excellent map variety and the introduction of omnimovement build on the excellent foundations of recent Call of Duty games, making Black Ops 6’s multiplayer experience an absolute delight. It isn’t always perfect, but it’s the best it’s been in many, many years. 

Headlining Black Ops 6’s new additions is the introduction of omnimovement, which completely changes the way you can move in-game. You’re now able to sprint, slide and dive in any direction you want, giving you an endless amount of new opportunities for traversal. Whether you’re dodging and diving away from enemy fire, sprint-sliding into a capture point or simply throwing yourself off a roof into the pool below, omnimovement feels slick, fast and fluid.

While the game’s only been out for around a week, I’ve already seen players making use of the omnimovement system in ways I didn’t even think possible. It’s such a breath of fresh air for the franchise. That said, I can’t help but think it’s a sink or swim moment for some players, as the learning curve is definitely steeper than usual. However, it’s an excellent change to the traditional movement options available in Call of Duty and compliments the chaotic nature of the series.

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To compliment the omnimovement system, Treyarch’s also done a great job at creating a more seamless movement experience for those that want it. Intelligent Movement, as they’ve called it, allows you to toggle a range of options to remove the amount of button presses you need to make to get around a map. This includes four options: Sprint Assist, Mantle Assist, Crouch Assist and Corner Slice. Toggling any of these on will essentially tell the game to perform these actions for you when you go up to a relevant obstacle – the game will detect what you’re intending to do and perform the appropriate action. While I only played around with it a couple of times, it’s a great little accessibility feature that does a great job at allowing you to focus primarily on the action rather than getting stuck and losing momentum. 

Another major highlight in Black Ops 6’s multiplayer suite is the new game mode, Kill Order. A 6v6 teamwork-oriented mode, Kill Order has players on either side attempting to defend their high value target (HVT) while trying to kill the enemy team’s HVT, racking up points in the process. The trick here is that HVT’s earn more points than regular operators when getting kills, and earn the most points when killing the other team’s HVT, so there’s a certain element of risk versus reward. HVTs can also be revived, are a bit stronger than regular operators and can see enemies on their minimap. When an HVT is killed another player on the team becomes the HVT, with the mode continuously rotating until the score limit or time limit is reached. 

Unsurprisingly, strong communication plays an important role in winning games of Kill Order, and I’ve had an absolute blast with it. Wrapped up amongst the other beloved modes that Black Ops 6 ships with, Kill Order is easily one of my personal favourites. It feels like one of the strongest new mode additions in some time, and that’s likely due to how easy it is to understand and how it differs from most of the other modes on offer. 

Map variety is strong in this year’s entry, as well. Treyarch’s focused on maps that are generally a bit smaller than what’s been available in recent Call of Duty titles, leaning in on tighter angles and more vertical variety. Most of the maps are small to medium in size, with a couple of larger outliers. My personal standouts so far are Subsonic, a small map nestled within a bomber team’s training facility, and Skyline, a medium-sized map based on a luxury resort rooftop. Of the 16 maps at launch, I’ve only felt aggrieved when a couple make their way into the rotation, those being Red Card and Lowtown. Both maps are just a bit too big and are prime real estate for snipers to camp up the back and make everyone’s life a bit of a misery. Hilariously, a lot of the time these maps appear in the rotation most players will vote to skip so it can’t be just me who isn’t very stoked on either of them. 

The biggest gripe I have with the game so far – and it’ll likely come as no surprise – is the abhorrent spawns. In almost every game I’ll find myself on the wrong side of an enemy’s reset spawn location or I’ll spawn right in the middle of a gunfight, which makes getting back into the momentum of the game difficult. I do wish Treyarch and the team would look into this issue, as it’s been such a prevalent problem for so many years. 

In better news, Treyarch’s brought some of the most requested features from previous entries into Black Ops 6, headlined by the return of the classic prestige system. Once you hit Level 55 you’ll be given the option to prestige, taking you back to level 1 and forcing you to unlock all of your equipment again. There are incentives for doing this, of course, with many customisation options – from calling cards to operator skins – on offer. It’s great to finally have this system return as I found the other prestige relatively boring without any clear incentive. It also feels nostalgic in its own way, which for this veteran Black Ops player is always a good thing. 

There are a variety of other returning and new features, too, like customisable reticles for your optical attachments, the return of theater mode, a fully customisable HUD and the post-match winner’s circle. It feels like Treyarch has really listened to fans since Cold War’s launch in 2020 and have made it a priority to ensure Black Ops 6 looks both forward and backward, celebrating the previous entries while ensuring the game feels fresh, new and exciting in its own way. 

All of these new additions come together to compliment the ever-excellent Call of Duty gunplay to a tee. The game feels brilliant to play, and is made all the better thanks to the well-balanced TTK and a solid array of guns and equipment to experiment with. Streamlining the gunsmith was also an excellent move by Treyarch, as navigating through menus and looking through new attachments and weapon options seems a lot easier this year. 

While perks themselves haven’t seen a reinvention, the addition of the combat speciality perk certainly changes the game a bit. If you match the specialty of your three perks, you’ll be granted a combat speciality. Combat specialities give you a solid advantage in the battlefield, whether it’s being able to see enemies through walls for a brief period of time when you respawn or earning a score bonus for completing an objective or destroying enemy equipment. Playing around with your class and experimenting with what works for your perk specialities is important in this year’s game, and while it’s a small change to the flow of general gameplay I’ve enjoyed figuring out what works best for me and my team. 

Call of Duty Black Ops 6’s multiplayer suite is nothing short of excellent. I’ve had so much fun getting to grips with the new omnimovement system, figuring out the best way to get around the new maps and diving head-first into Kill Order. Returning features like the classic prestige system ensures that I’ll no doubt spend many hours in the game over the course of the year, and while it has some niggling issues that continue to plague the series, it’s the best multiplayer suite in a Call of Duty game in many, many years. 

You can find out more about our thoughts on the game’s campaign here.

The post Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Multiplayer Review – The Best It’s Been appeared first on Press Start.

Upon stepping back into the world of Horizon Zero Dawn for the Remastered edition, I was forced to reflect upon my time with the game, and it’ll absolutely go down as one of my favourite PlayStation games of all time.

Initially I tried to jump into the game at a save point around 75% of the way through and was overwhelmed, but then I decided to start fresh and realised just how much I love this world, and how fun the gameplay immediately is.

Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered doesn’t set the world on fire in terms of how it looks, and that’s mostly due to how fantastic the original already runs on PS5 at 60 FPS, but there are some pretty major differences. Fairly plain and simply, it runs almost identically to Horizon Forbidden West, but there’s a simplicity to the world of the original game that is definitely elevated by the improvements.

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When it comes to graphical modes, I played on the base PS5 (no PS5 Pro just yet) and you’ve got the same three options as you do for Horizon Forbidden West on PS5 with a fidelity 30 FPS mode, a performance 60 FPS mode and third balanced mode if you’re using a 120hz display that allows you to play at 40 FPS which is the sweet spot.

Probably the most immediate noticeable improvement to the core gameplay comes in the way of the improve foliage which has been totally re-worked, and is more similar to that of the PC versions. The world looks fuller, and more overgrown and it does make a big difference to the overall visual impact of the game.

Another huge thing that I noticed going back and forth was the haptic support of the DualSense controller which does a really great job of replicating water and the different types of terrains within the game, and similarly the adaptive triggers go along way to making you feel the intensity of the combat.

The character models have been totally re-done as well, brought over from Horizon Forbidden West, so Aloy looks far closer to that of Horizon Forbidden West, which makes her a little bit older and more mature, and the characters within cutscenes have all been re-done as well which makes each character feel a lot more alive, with the team going to the effort of re-doing new facial animations and improving lighting for the actual performances as well.

The other major improvements comes in the way of lighting. I feel like this era of first-party PS4 games were trying to look realistic, but the lighting wasn’t there to match which often left things too bright, too dark or unnatural looking and that’s been fixed here. Looking into the sky gives you a more realistic sense of the world, and I feel like characters faces are adequately lit allowing you you to see more of the detail.

It’s not just graphical improvements though as the team looked at making the world more lived in, mostly in the villages making sure that there were more NPCs, and there was also over 10 hours of additional mo-cap filmed to bring this more in-line with Horizon Forbidden West. I can’t say these greatly impacted the experience or left me feeling wowed, but I appreciate it nonetheless.

If you haven’t played Horizon Zero Dawn, you’re in for an absolute treat with Horizon Zero Dawn Remaster and if it’s been a while I’d recommend paying the $15 to jump back into this world as it’s very clear that a lot of love and care has been put into this version of the game. I’m eager to jump back in on PS5 Pro and see how that improves the experience.

ORIGINAL REVIEW

When considering Horizon Zero Dawn is developed by Guerrilla Games, it’d be easy to make the assumption that it’s a linear game set in an incredibly dark universe, with the gameplay focused on delivering as many bullets into enemies as humanly possible. But Horizon Zero Dawn is the complete opposite of all of these traditions which have been Guerrilla’s hallmarks for generations.

Moments into the game you’ll quickly realise Horizon Zero Dawn is a breath of fresh air that Guerrilla Games was  ecstatic about creating. Every little detail in the game oozes with the enthusiasm and passion of a studio which has had the ambition to create an experience far beyond what they’ve ever created before.

A core part of this experience is the protagonist Aloy, who Guerrilla obviously spent a long time fleshing out in order to create an encapsulating story. The majority of the game is a quest to discover exactly where Aloy came from, and why she’s a key figure in the world of Horizon. And from the outset, Aloy is an extremely strong and personable character. Right from when she is learning how to survive, all the way through to the later stages of the game, her personality stands out. And here story is an emotional roller-coaster and who you learn to respect and love after seeing her survive everything which is thrown at her. I don’t think I’ve ever been so emotionally attached to a female protagonist, and she’s an important character for many reasons.

Aloy is an outcast of the Nora tribe, a tribe of hunters who worship a goddess of nature, called Al-Mother. The Nora tribe believes they should stick on their own, without exploring the ancient lands of this post-apocalyptic Earth. Quite frankly, they stand for everything that Aloy simple won’t comply with.

There’s multiple plot-points in the world of Horizon Zero Dawn, including learning more about Aloy’s origins, why Earth has turned into a machine-filled wasteland and what lies in the future for this land Aloy calls home. It is a story which for the most part is intriguing, however it does feel like you’re being forced through smaller story-arcs in order to find out the bigger details. Which does get tedious at times, as I’d prefer the option to move on with the main plot which I found the most interesting.

Despite how strong of a character Aloy is, the various characters which you’ll come across in-game can be quite bland without adding much to the overall story. There’s a conversation wheel, but thankfully you’re always able to jump right out of these and proceed with the mission where you choose. I really appreciated this design decision for those times where I wasn’t particularly interested in a certain story arc. When I did want to know more about the situation, I was able to probe until I had all the information that I needed.

Thankfully, regardless of some underwhelming story missions and bland characters, Horizon Zero Dawn’s world is an absolute joy to explore from start to finish. Seriously though, Horizon is probably the best looking game that I’ve played on PlayStation 4 Pro and takes the most advantage of HDR to-date. Everything from the beautiful scenery which constantly amazed through the various elements, weather effects and different times of the day highlights the HDR functionality of the PS4 Pro. This is especially the case in the games’ Cauldrons, which are essentially underground dungeons. These house the secrets of the machines and allow you to gain the ability to override bigger and better machines to join your arsenal.

A lot of open-world games are quite repetitive in their mission design, but I never at any point felt like I was doing the same thing for too long in Horizon. In-fact, it was quite the opposite. I’d constantly forget about main story missions due to the fact that I’d constantly come across an epic herd of machines or somebody that needs my help in the middle of nowhere.

Speaking of the machines, they are the highlights of Horizon Zero Dawn. The way that they look and move as well as their overall design was intriguing and impressive throughout. When I played through four hours of the game a few weeks ago, I was impressed to learn there are over 25 different machines in the game. However, it was around half way through I realised quite a few of them are just slight variations of machines that you’ve seen earlier in the game, which was a little disappointing.

Luckily, despite this slight repetition in design, all the robotic enemies are a pleasure and challenge to fight. Even the Watchers, which are the smaller dinosaur like machines which you’ll meet early in the game, are a ton of fun to fight. This is due to the fact that each machine has its own personality and acts differently depending on the situation and other machines which are in the immediate area. The combat in Horizon Zero Dawn is by far my favourite aspect of Horizon and has made the game possibly the only Action RPG which I’ve been able to truly embrace. The combat is just deep and challenging enough without feeling cheap or like a chore. I lost count with how many times a massive machine would come out of nowhere and one-shot kill me, which was both hilarious and frustrating, but sums up the combat in Horizon.

Further to machines, there’s Corruptors which are machines that are being controlled by a demonic presence. They’re much harder to fight and rely a lot more on skill and careful strategy to succeed in combat. You’ll also be fighting humans in some instances and in my opinion, this is the weakest part of the game. They only get in the way of the amazing enemy design of the machines and are bullet sponges that feel like a way of extending the game length.

Aloy’s greatest asset in combat is her mobility, which allows her to dodge and get around quicker than most machines. Which is a key part of the moment to moment combat and a technique you’ll need to master if you want to survive. Aside from this, you have a number of bows, arrow types, traps, bombs and other heavy weapons at your disposal. Quite frankly, there’s way more than you’d ever need in one game. You’ll end up picking 2-3 weapons based on your play style but each weapon is unique and incredibly fun to fight with. Which gives you the room to mix your battle style up if you’re feeling stuck or become bored with one play style.

If that isn’t enough for you, you’re also able to modify each weapon with items which you’ll receive from machines. And you can modify your outfit to resist melee attacks or certain elemental types. Honestly, I found that the game has the perfect amount of customisation. It allows you to really craft and shape Aloy to your play style and advantage, without overwhelming you with the need to collect a million items and manage a hugely extensive inventory.

The post Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered Review – The Best Way To Play The Game appeared first on Press Start.

I can’t begin to tell you how often I was ready for Dragon Age: The Veilguard to make a colossal misstep. I’d spend hours upon hours completing optional and mandatory quests, expecting cracks to show and BioWare to disappoint again. But that moment never came. The truth is that the more time you spend with The Veilguard, the more obvious it is that things are only getting better. And, despite some incredibly nitpicky issues with some aspects of the game’s design, it’s easily BioWare’s best game in over a decade. In fact, I’d even go as far as to say it’s maybe even the best Dragon Age game, pulling the best of each game into a focused experience that’s nothing short of incredible.

The Veilguard comes to us a decade after Inquisition , mirroring the time that has passed in the game world with the real world. You play as Rook, a customisable protagonist hired by Varric Tethras to track the Dread Wolf, an elven god who reared his unexpected presence towards the end of Inquisition’s final chapters. Veilguard opens quickly, with Varric and Rook meeting with your first companion to stop Dread Wolf’s plan of tearing down the border between the realms. A whole bunch of stuff happens that ostensibly makes things worse, and it’s up to Rook to assemble a team of companions to help him (or her) fix it.

The story is just the start of what The Vanguard gets so right, adding a lot of depth and richness to the already well-realised world of Thedas BioWare started cultivating almost two decades ago. It’s a great adventure so I won’t spoil anything, but just know that it builds up and concludes incredibly satisfyingly, providing answers to theories that fans have exchanged since Inquisition ended. While I will always miss the grimier, darker fantasy vibe that the original Dragon Age employed, The Veilguard strikes a sensible balance. A balance between strong storytelling rooted in mature themes and some much-needed levity between the team during the downtime. It’s the most “alive” story I’ve experienced in a BioWare game, heck, any game, for a long time.

That’s owing to how much your choice matters in Veilguard. Some are minor – a character you might help will appear on the sidelines later to help or hinder you. Others take the story in a slightly different direction, physically altering the world and how others interact with you. This all starts at the beginning of the game, where you can select a custom origin story, class and race for your version of Rook. But the ramifications of your choices and their consequences are felt for the entirety of Veilguard’s runtime. I’d, once again, love to go into more detail about how the game weaves an intricate web of choice and related consequences, but Veilguard’s surprises are best experienced fresh.

Your choices permeate so many aspects of your time with Veilguard, too. After completing a side mission, you’ll hear your companions talking about how that quest played out. Even if a mission happens where said companion wasn’t present, they’ll still ask about it as if they’ve heard it around the home base. You can even see them, sometimes, catching up separately from you whenever you run through your base. It’s a unique aspect of The Veilguard that I really enjoyed – to have the people around me constantly commenting on what’s going on in the past or even in the present in relation to the past is pretty impressive. It really feels like the BioWare formula is hitting its peak here.

But so much of Veilguard’s achievement is in its confidence in itself, drawing from the strengths of the games that came before but still offering up an experience that is its own. While it’s not as open as Inquisition, the worlds you’ll explore are denser, with many things to discover. The sense of time and its effect on each place is similar to Kirkwall from the second game. And finally, how locations are handled for main quests feels incredibly reminiscent of Dragon Age: Origins. It’s an effective and honed mix of each game’s greatest aspects and helps Veilguard stand out from other RPGs.

Where things begin to deviate significantly from the other games is the combat, which veers more into Mass Effect territory than anything else. Veilguard’s combat is fast and snappy, encouraging you to find the perfect synergy between yourself and your teammates. I was concerned that this new combat system’s limitations – namely that you can only take three skills into battle – would make Veilguard feel like a gross oversimplification. But the flow of combat combined with the variety of encounters you come up against more than makes up for it. It’s an understandable concern, given how many spells you could use at any given time in previous games, but the more time I spent with Veilguard, the quicker my concerns would melt away.

That’s partly owing to the fact that each of the three classes you can pick – Warrior, Mage or Rogue – are a joy to play. Each has little quirks that make it unique from its previous iterations, pushing the boundaries of what you’d expect from these typical classes. I spent some time with all of them but ultimately selected the Mage for my playthrough. It’s phenomenal what BioWare has done with the Mage now – employing a clever mix of distant and melee combat that never gets old. Whether you prefer fighting from a distance or getting up close to your enemies, between the three classes and nine specialisations, there’s bound to be something for everyone in Veilguard.

Each class has its own skill tree, with each node having fairly typical stat bonuses and abilities you’d expect from an RPG like this. You have a lot of freedom and flexibility in approaching your build in Veilguard, being able to respect your or your teammate’s skill trees at no cost. It lets you get a feel for each of the three specialisations available for your class without incessantly grinding. That being said, I loved all three Mage specialisations, so I’d have appreciated some kind of loadout system to switch between them quickly without having to redo my entire tree. I guess that’s a testament to my indecisive nature, but it’s one of the very minor issues I have with Veilguard that’s probably only just my own.

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How the game handles its equipment and gear is much more ingenious. Every item you find in The Veilguard will have several perks attached to it, usually locked. Whenever you find a duplicate piece of equipment in Veilguard, rather than just having two of the same piece of gear, the rarity of that gear you already own will upgrade. Usually, that’ll unlock a perk for that piece of gear, too. It’s an ingenious way to hone the pool of equipment available to you and, when combined with the game’s already robust skill tree AND other optional enchantments, really helps you build a perfect build for yourself.

The other key element in building your perfect build is with your companions. They behave in combat similarly to those in the Mass Effect games, each having three to five unique abilities. You can pull them off with either hotkeys or a pause menu tied to the shoulder buttons, and layering the right combination of skills or spells will lead to a detonation that does more damage. While incredibly Mass Effect-like, it’s a simple but effective system that makes you think about who you’ll take and where. Companions are also levelled up through completing quests or speaking to them in downtime, which is a nice little way to subtly gamify the way you strengthen them, which ties into the narrative realistically too.

And you’ll want to take them all with you on every quest you do, too. The quality of the quests in The Veilguard is consistently strong throughout. Whether playing through a bombastic main story quest or some of the lower-key but still engaging companion or faction quests, they all feel good. There was rarely a moment where anything in Veilguard felt like the typical side content you’d find in an RPG of this size. There are still some minor quests, many of which have you fetching something or moving from A to B, but they aren’t incessantly repeated to the point of tedium and are still engaging.

And that really says something because I never got bored for the entirety of my time with The Veilguard, which well exceeded seventy hours. And while the notion of a game this large might be off-putting to you, know that Veilguard is dense with strong, quality tests that easily eclipse the variety seen in Inquisition. If you’re not keen on doing everything or immersing yourself in the world that BioWare has built here, I’d estimate you could easily get through the story in around thirty to forty hours, which feels well-paced. Given the variety of choices on offer and the sheer difference in combat styles between the three classes, you could also have as much fun on a repeat playthrough.

The game’s presentation is the big fat cherry on top of The Veilguard’s already delectable package. Easily showing off some of the best visuals we’ve seen from the now infamous Frostbite engine, Veilguard, quite simply, looks phenomenal. It’s always exciting to see which exotic locales the team at BioWare will whisk us away to with each Dragon Age game, and Veilguard does not disappoint. I had tangible excitement when moving to a new area for the first time, knowing that it would be a densely packed and lively locale framed by some series-best vistas. This rendition of Thedas is easily the best that Dragon Age has ever looked.

But from a technical standpoint, it’s not as clear-cut a victory for Veilguard. On consoles, the game offers two graphics modes – Fidelity and Performance. Fidelity and Performance both have great framerates, being locked at 30fps and 60fps respectively. But the picture quality in Performance mode is notably softer than in Fidelity, more noticeable than it is usually with games that offer both modes. If you’re playing Veilguard on a PC or even the PS5 Pro next month, this will presumably be a moot point, though it bears mentioning. Regardless, Veilguard is still a looker no matter where you play – the game uses everything it can, whether lighting, HDR, or other visual effects, to present what I’ve already said is Thedas looking at its best.

This is complemented by an incredible soundtrack composed by Hans Zimmer and Lorne Balfe. All of the tracks throughout Veilguard’s lengthy adventure are perfectly matched and help raise the emotional stakes in key moments. On a similar note, the voice performances from the entirety of the cast are nothing short of excellent. They all turn in some fantastic performances, especially for both types of Rook. They have some great performances and are easily some of BioWare’s best, helping to solidify this cast as one of my favourites from their many games. I can’t remember the last RPG where I liked the entire cast this much.

And that really speaks to the strength of Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Despite my constant insistence that Mass Effect was always the better of their two massive epics, Veilguard is easily one of my favourites from the developer. It’s a perfect and heady mix of fast, frenetic combat paired with an incredible story riddled with equal parts choice and consequence that I cannot fault. It feels so good to say this, but it truly feels like BioWare is finally back. And I couldn’t be happier.

The post Dragon Age: The Veilguard Review – A Densely Captivating Journey appeared first on Press Start.

Bringing back one of Life is Strange’s most beloved characters for a sequel was always going to be a gamble, especially given the way the original wrapped up. That said, Deck Nine’s delivered a worthy sequel that, while stumbling every now and again, makes up for it thanks to great character writing, some brilliant visual flourishes and a story that’s packed to the brim with twists and turns.

Life is Strange: Double Exposure takes place ten years on from the last time we saw Max. After the events of the first Life is Strange, she’s distanced herself from Arcadia Bay and has taken up a job at Caledon University in Lakeport, Vermont as a university lecturer. 

Max has changed a lot over the last ten years, though she’s still haunted by the events of the past. Double Exposure does a great job at exploring Max’s deep rooted trauma from Arcadia Bay in depth, whether that’s through moments in the story, optional collectibles you can find or journal entries that update as you progress. Her character development is one of the best parts of the game and that’s all capped off with Hannah Telle returning to reprise her role, delivering one of the best performances of the year. 

Unsurprisingly, the writing in Double Exposure is very good. The ‘whodunit’ premise that guides Double Exposure’s roughly 15-hour narrative kept me guessing all the way through, with plenty of twists and turns along the way. The game does an excellent job of building up Safi, one of Max’s best friends, as a character ahead of the events that lead to her death, and I felt compelled to continue unraveling the wild mystery all the way through. Just when I thought I’d figured it all out, Deck Nine would pull something else out of their hat that completely changed everything. With that said, the way the story weaves and winds may not be everyone’s cup of tea, however I thoroughly enjoyed the highly unpredictable nature of the game’s narrative. 

Double Exposure doesn’t always stick the landing, though. Some writing can be a bit hit and miss at times, and this filters through moments big and small. That said, most major moments hit in a way that feel meaningful and push the story forward in interesting ways.

The Life is Strange series has always had a strong supporting cast to push the narrative forward, with Deck Nine continuing this trend in Double Exposure. The new cast all have a lot of depth to them, with most interactions building out each character in meaningful ways. Alongside Hannah Telle’s excellent performance, Blu Allen’s Moses and Olivia AbiAssi’s Safi sink their teeth into their roles and add a lot of weight and levity to their characters. I really cared for each of these characters, and it’s a credit to the writing and performances throughout. 

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Much like other games in the series, choice matters in Double Exposure. There’s an handful of major choices to make throughout the game alongside an array of smaller, less significant moments that shape the way the game’s story unravels. With that said, I found the choices offered in Double Exposure lacked the gravitas of earlier entries. After rolling credits the first time, I didn’t have a strong desire to go back and see what making other choices may do to the game’s story like I did in other Life is Strange games, which was disappointing. There were only a few major choices that popped up that I genuinely had a strong sense of indecision about, which made my decisions feel less difficult than they probably should have been. This was especially apparent in later chapters, where I felt my input didn’t have too much of an impact on the journey I was taking and the inevitable outcome I was about to reach. 

Gameplay in Double Exposure will feel very familiar to anyone who’s played the previous Life is Strange games before, as you explore areas, interact with various objects and people and solve simple puzzles. The major hook comes through Max’s ability to shift between two different timelines – one where Safi is still alive and another where she’s dead. It’s quite an upgrade from Max’s ability from the first game, where she was able to rewind time to alter events. As well as being able to shift between timelines, Max can also ‘pulse’ into a timeline while still being part of the other. This allows her to listen in on the other timeline without actually moving across to it. 

Utilising both of these abilities forms the crux of Double Exposure’s general gameplay. And while it’s simple, it’s effective – as you move in and out of each timeline, you’ll meet the same characters that have relatively different personalities and opinions, opening up the door to further investigate who killed Safi and why. 

You’ll also use Max’s shift ability to get around obstacles in each timeline, like locked doors or blocked off areas. This particular type of puzzle was easily the weakest part of the game for me, as I found these barriers to be momentum breaking for the most part. It felt like they were implemented just to pad out a few extra minutes of game time.

One thing Double Exposure absolutely nails is its attention to detail, though. Of particular note is the game’s animation work, which continued to impress me all the way through. The facial animations, in particular, were terrific – lending a sense of credibility and realism to each major character. Whether it was the way someone reacted to a pivotal plot point or just a casual conversation at the university, Deck Nine’s managed to deliver some of the best facial animation work I’ve seen in a game in a long while. And it’s all through those intricate details – like a slightly raised smile, or the way a character’s eyes would shift to indicate they’re on edge. Those little bits of detail just made them look all the more believable. Paired with the excellent voice acting and writing, this all comes together to form a mostly immersive experience that felt genuine and down to earth. 

Unfortunately it doesn’t always come together, as my time with the game was plagued with bugs. Lighting issues that caused flicker in a variety of locations and misbehaving hair particles continued to rear their ugly head in each chapter, with setting changes on my PC not able to solve the problem. Similarly, characters would seemingly lose detail and almost fall out of focus at times, taking away from the overall experience. While these may sound like relatively small bugs, for a narrative-focussed experience that relies heavily on exploration and conversation, they were frustrating to deal with. 

Even so, I still think Double Exposure is Deck Nine’s best Life is Strange game to date. Barring the bugs, relatively dull puzzle elements and some writing that doesn’t always hit the mark, the game is otherwise excellent – the music is on point, as is the general character writing, which come together to compliment a great story that’ll keep you guessing. It might not hold a torch to the original, but I’ve absolutely loved catching up with Max, her new band of pals and unraveling a timeline-bending mystery. 

The post Life is Strange: Double Exposure Review – An Unpredictable, Wild Mystery appeared first on Press Start.

Given its penchant for science-fiction, the Black Ops canon was always a little tough to follow. Double crosses, government secrets, topped off with divergent story paths led to some of the Call of Duty series’ most enjoyable, if not batshit nonsensical, stories ever told. Black Ops Cold War reintroduced series regulars, CIA operatives Alex Mason and Frank Woods, alongside the debonair Russell Adler, as they pursued Perseus, a Soviet atomic spy, during the turbulent, early 80s. 

In terms of history, Black Ops 6 is placed nearer to the Gulf War and follows a now maimed, wheelchair-bound Woods, alongside his mentee and agency upstart Troy Marshall. When the latter is deployed on a mission to Kuwait to apprehend an Iraqi minister, the operation is turned on its ear by the emergence of Pantheon, a rogue paramilitary force that has access to a terrible bioweapon as well as apparent ties within the CIA.

Although you’ll drift between the perspectives of many over the course of this globetrotting adventure, you play a substantial chunk of Black Ops 6 as William “Case” Calderon, a handpicked member of Woods’ Black Ops faction. The goal, obviously, becomes to save the world for the umpteenth time while rooting out the mole and getting to the bottom of yet another warped, psychological conspiracy worthy of a geopolitical thriller like this.

The story is a lot of fun and dips to some expectedly bonkers places. The government’s research into mind control, MK-Ultra, has long been a lynchpin for the Black Ops narrative, and this sixth iteration is no different. Heavy artillery is, clearly, still an enormous factor in Black Ops 6, however you could make the argument the real war is psychochemical. Legacy players like Woods and Adler are given good stuff to chew on that respects where their weary characters have been, while newcomers like Marshall attack the game’s events with all the hallmarks of a conflicted leader, searching for truth in a world where the truth lies. 

And I won’t lie, seeing Lou Diamond Phillips, star of La Bamba, cameo as the agency’s figurehead got a pop out of me. He isn’t in more than a couple of integral scenes, though his gravitas is undeniable. 

As for the campaign itself, I do think Treyarch deserves a lot of credit for always trying to do new things you might not regularly associate with corridor-shooter Call of Duty. The original Black Ops felt like a revitalisation for what a story could look like within the franchise, while Cold War wasn’t afraid to holster the hardware in favour of tense, slow burn bouts of espionage that really sell the Mission: Impossible-like feel, the mission’s stakes, and the importance of the team. While I felt at points Black Ops 6 had a crisis of identity, with how radically it’d leap between mission structures and concepts, I was never bored. 

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Whether I was breaking into a government blacksite beneath a cocktail event held by governor Bill Clinton, or grifting my way into the high rollers lounge at a decadent Italian casino, I felt just as formidable in these moments as I did with gun in hand. Of course, when I did have a gun in hand, I was treated to the industry-leading gunplay the series has built its empire on. It’s as tight as ever, and made only more dynamic thanks to omnidirectional movement, the big new game changing feature of this iteration. Granted, its impact is likely to be felt more across its multiplayer suite, though I certainly felt snappy and fresh during the campaign even though, for reasons I can’t ascertain, the feature received no onboarding at all. 

All of the quiet moments in between took place at The Rook, Adler’s off-grid safehouse in Bulgaria that he cryptically leads the team towards early on. A stunning, picturesque mansion stradling an oceanside cliff, The Rook affords the player with momentary reprieves to chat with the team, solve black light riddles, and upgrade gear and perks in a very multiplayer-coded fashion. In fact, in any other campaign, Treyarch’s ability to pepper in core tenets from both multiplayer and Zombies would have fallen flat. In a game so driven by science-fiction, it manages to fit like a glove while serving as subconscious onboarding for the game’s long-life, evergreen modes.

With nearly countless studios devoting resources to it, it’s never surprising when the Call of Duty games look as good as they do. The cinematics, in particular, are rendered with lifelike fidelity, and although the in-engine action doesn’t necessarily quite measure up, it’s still one of the better looking games on the market every single year. Once again, the environment artists have gone to work creating some of the most detailed play spaces, kicking off the adventure with the stirring image of smoke plumes climbing into the clouds as Iraqi oil wells burn into the night. I can never quite expect the places these Black Ops campaigns will take us, and while photographing Clinton on-stage with bought-off senators or storming Saddam’s palace should be the peak of how buck wild it gets, I do think Black Ops fans will love a few nods to the older games. With a few instances of stuttering and muddied textures in the busier cutscenes, it perhaps isn’t as optimised as it usually is, however I’d say the frame rate held firm in the moments that mattered.  

After the misery that was Modern Warfare III’s launch last year, this campaign felt like a particularly confident foot forward for a franchise under new rule. Not only does it function as the best five-hour onboarding for Call of Duty’s multiplayer ever, it delivers the bonkers twists you’d expect from a Black Ops, a fun cast to rally behind, and it’s rooted in just enough real-world politics to serve as a compelling “what if?”

The post Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Campaign Review – A Mind-Bending Ride appeared first on Press Start.

Last year, Skull Island: Rise of Kong released to a Gollum-like reception, ultimately being deemed a buggy, half-baked mess. The Monsterverse, which has lurched tepidly through a number of films and TV adaptations so far, has turned around and declared that it’s trying again, unconvincingly, with Kong: Survival Instinct. Set shortly after Godzilla vs. Kong, the game deals with the destructive left behind after the titanic battle, similar to how the Monarch series tail ends Gareth Edwards’ Godzilla, told through a boots on the ground Metroidvania-inspired platformer.

Unlike Rise of Kong, which cast you as the greatest ape of all as he battles all kinds of bugs, native to Skull Island and otherwise, Kong: Survival Instinct shelves the titular titan for virtually the entirety of the game’s runtime. Instead, as the stodgy hero, David Martin, you explore the ruins of a decimated city in search of your daughter. 

Due to my eyes glazing over repeatedly while playing, I cannot speak at all to the story’s place within the larger canon of the Monsterverse. I can’t expect it’s going to really excite fans of the series, especially as the oft-spectacular kaiju battles are relegated to set dressing in the background. Although we’d been burned before, I can’t help but feel all of the action happening in between what remains of the city’s skyline would have made for a more spectacular King Kong title. 

Kong: Survival Instinct plays like a bog standard action-platformer that incorporates several elements of Metroidvania-like exploration. Sifting through the wreckage of the razed metropolis gradually grants you more extreme means of digging deeper into the ruins. Whether it’s a sledgehammer to open a passage to lower floors, or a grappling line that can be used as an improvised rope swing or winch cable to pull far-off items nearer, I did find the game’s progression through its stages to be one of its few strengths. 

The map design, however, feels extremely confused. It’s uninspired, largely repetitive, and what’s there feels like a developer’s attempt to slap together map elements, like drop ladders, that are fun without caring whether it’s believable. The game is rife with strange, distracting choices like this that constantly took me out. 

The combat in Survival Instinct is similarly miserable, especially if you’re stuck in encounters with relatively large patrol groups. Defending yourself hand-to-hand feels like a manageable task, it’s when guns enter the question that things can get a bit frustrating. Once you’re surrounded, which can happen quickly as enemies grapple and switch places with you, you open yourself up to a quick death. You can parry and dash to avoid knife jabs and bullets respectively, however the controls are too sluggish and inconsistent to ever feel in total control. You pick up a pistol yourself which can be a difference maker in desperate times, however I do think the game manages to make bullets feel scarce—yet, when you’re in need, it’s always made available in crates nearby to the locked doors and generators that need a well-placed bullet to proceed. 

This, I feel, negates the need to be frugal as the game tends to bail you out, and I feel the same is true of the mechanical parts needed to repair things throughout the world. It’s never really essential to stray far from the critical path, which kind of feels antithetical to the genre. In Survival Instinct, the Metroidvania of it all really only necessitates backtracking rather than genuine exploration. 

As you move from area to area by splicing together compiled audio files to lure titans like Kong and Abaddon, an enormous source of nightmares for arachnophobes everywhere, to the scene for a relatively exciting chase sequence. In a game with slicker controls, I’d remember these encounters for the right reasons. Sadly, they’re often marred by cheap deaths caused by getting snagged on geometry and awful checkpointing.  

As perplexing as the map design choices can be, the environments in Survival Instinct aren’t the worst. By setting up and sticking to everything it sets up early, like the shining glint on items of interest like padlocks and anchor points, there’s a readability to the environment design that’s pretty admirable. I also like how, depending on which titan has dominion over the district you’re in, buildings might be covered in spiderwebs or a viscous, purple sludge which, in turn, feeds into the problem-solving. Survival Instinct mightn’t have the irredeemably bad, wide-eyed, unblinking Kong of last year’s Skull Island, but ugly is as ugly does. It isn’t all bad, of course, the kaiju designs themselves, as sparingly as they appear, are a clear highlight, while the remainder of this world and inhabitants scream ‘generic’.

When you consider Godzilla, who is name dropped in this game several times and never appears, has one of the most iconic, instantly recognisable war cries in cinema, the fact this game’s sound design is so dull is a crying shame. Chatter on either side of battle is repetitive and delivered so wooden, it makes Henry Cavill look like a true Thespian. The primary frustration of dying mid-fight came not from having to start over but from having to hear the dialogue again. 

When I stop to consider why this game exists, it’s hard to land on a single good reason. Monarch proved a good kaiju story can focus on the aftermath, however the story chops here can’t carry what, otherwise, is a listless, uninspired Metroidvania game that inexplicably shelves its key attraction in favour of world-building nobody could say, hand-to-heart, they prefer over two big monsters beating the suitcase out of each other.

The post Kong: Survival Instinct Review – Monkey Business appeared first on Press Start.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This has been republished with the game finally launching physically in Australia this week. It releases on October 25th and the cheapest copy is at Target for $45. 

Time is relentless and unyielding – it’s– crazy to think that twenty-eight years ago we first witnessed Lara Croft and her adventures in the Tomb Raider series. Nobody could have predicted the critical acclaim that would come afterward, nor the discourse around her status as a cultural icon and her appeal to certain audiences. Even further to that is the expansive and muddled legacy that it created – multiple sequels, several reboots, and film adaptations as well.

When Tomb Raider launched in 1996, it was the first time in a long time that gaming had a strong female protagonist, skyrocketing Lara Croft to the same heights as Mario and Sonic, and putting her head-to-head with Sony’s own Crash Bandicoot. While most people were hooked on the wise-cracking Duke Nukem or ultraviolence of Quake and Doom, Tomb Raider made 3D platforming exciting by blending puzzle solving and action with freedom of movement and exploration. With a slew of sequels and expansions, the Tomb Raider franchise quickly became stale – too much of a good thing led to a lack of innovation, and despite continuing to sell games, the series never really moved past its origins (at least before the modern and grittier trilogy).

Having said that, Tomb Raider I-III Remastered helps you slip on the rose-tinted glasses to enjoy exactly what made Lara the icon she was, and to recapture a bit of that atmosphere when the games were first released. These are games that don’t hold your hand or guide you through with hints and suggestions; you’re dropped into an environment and forced to figure things out on your own, with the tools at your disposal. This is both refreshing and jarring – you could be spending hours wandering a level to try and find your next objective, while simultaneously uncovering the level’s secrets to get a perfect score before moving on to the next.

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The biggest thing I think this trilogy has going for it is that it is exactly as advertised, with a few quality-of-life improvements over the originals. You have all three Tomb Raider games in their upscaled glory, with an enhanced modern control scheme, and even a photo mode thrown in for good measure. The three games come with their PC-only expansions as well, available for the first time on consoles, so you truly are getting the full versions of each game with more modern graphics. On starting the game for the first time you’re also greeted with an opening card that states:

“The games in this collection contain offensive depictions of people and cultures rooted in racial and ethnic prejudices. These stereotypes are deeply harmful, inexcusable, and do not align with our values at Crystal Dynamics.

“Rather than removing this content, we have chosen to present it here in its original form, unaltered, in the hopes that we may acknowledge its harmful impact and learn from it.”

There’re going to be people who want to take that the wrong way, but personally I think it’s a great addition considering some of the story content of the games. There’s no overt censorship, no cut content, heck even the games’ cheat codes are active (but I couldn’t get them to work.)

One of the major changes here is the addition of “Modern Controls,” allowing you to play Lara in a more free-moving style as opposed to her classic “tank” controls. This comes with its own caveats – the levels were built around Lara’s strafing jumps, shimmying across ledges and shuffling to get a better angle on things, and more often than not she’d be hurtling into walls or off edges leading to a frustrating level restart.

To realise just how much time we spent with tank controls back in the day, perfecting a safety drop just to tap the wrong button and have Lara swan-dive into the ground below ending in a sickening neck snap is really jarring. To be able to do that in a lot less button presses with Modern controls is just annoying. I found myself constantly switching back and forward between Modern and Tank to get through levels, lest I hurl the controller through the screen. I even experimented with plugging in a DualShock for control, and found that Modern controls feel more comfortable with a controller, but Tank controls work better for keyboards.

Switching between control systems wasn’t the only thing to amaze me – the most impressive part of the Remastered trilogy is the work that’s been put into upscaling the graphics. At the press of a button you can instantly switch between classic graphics and modern graphics, and I’m not gonna lie – the modern graphics are identical to what I would have imagined the classic graphics being when I first played Tomb Raider years ago. Aspyr has made great strides in adding little quirks to the modern graphics, allowing proper light sources to shine in from above, or making certain consumables stand out just that little bit more from their classic counterparts, but sometimes this has flaws in itself as well.

The first level of Tomb Raider III is set in a jungle, which has a swamp you can drown in if you’re not careful. Switching between classic and modern graphics, I discovered that the classic graphics’ mud has waves like water, whereas the modern texture is solid and looks like the ground. Another level restart for me on that one after unsuccessfully trying to pull Lara out of the swamp. It’s small changes like this that make you err on the side of caution; whether this was a stylistic choice for Aspyr in developing the games or not remains to be seen. The game’s photo mode allows you to have a bit of fun while playing, and really puts you back in awe at the graphical changes between old and new, though I was a little uncomfortable with the ability to put Lara in a dressing gown in the middle of China.

The audio work goes largely unchanged from the originals, so Lara’s voice is the same as day one, grunts and all. The pre-rendered cutscenes are also unchanged but do get the benefit of upscaling – credit to Aspyr for not trying to reinvent the wheel with that one, The in-game cutscenes have additional facial animation to match the voices which was a nice touch. Nathan McCree’s iconic title theme brings a tear to my eye every time I boot up the Remastered trilogy, and the soundtrack for all three games with its classical influences is still some great atmospheric work.

The post Tomb Raider I-III Remastered Review – A Love Letter To Lara’s Origins appeared first on Press Start.

The thing about the runaway success of the A Quiet Place films (John Krasinski’s now trilogy-spanning horror franchise) is that the premise is absolutely killer. An alien invasion has turned the world upside down and now humanity is being hunted by creatures (Death Angels) with hypersensitive hearing, rendering any noise produced an almost instant and horrible death. It’s exactly the kind of inventive horror schlock that can sustain multiple films, ratcheting up the tension and scenarios that naturally occur from being unable to make a sound in a world that wants to kill you. For 90-odd minutes at a time, it rules. For 8-10 hours though…

A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead does its best to try. In keeping with the staples of the franchise, you play as Alex, a young woman who discovers she’s pregnant just as things in her makeshift commune of survivors start to go pear-shaped. Cobbling together a homemade sonar device to measure sounds and gathering up as many inhalers for her dire asthma as she can manage, Alex sets out into an uncertain world in search of some semblance of safety for her unborn child. It’s about as tropey a premise as you’d imagine for a series more concerned with setting than character, though the ability to play as a pregnant woman is at least fresh for mainstream gaming and it does provide the requisite motivations for the journey ahead. 

From the jump developer Stormind Games correctly identifies what the bones of a successful Quiet Place game would look like. Played from a first-person perspective with a graphical lean on realism/fidelity and polished sound design, The Road Ahead immediately looks to ape the tone and feel of the films. You’ll need to slowly crouch walk over puddles and leaves to avoid making noise, gingerly open and close drawers and doors to avoid making noise, steady your breathing and heart rate with medications to avoid…you get it. 

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This central tension of noise making is altered somewhat throughout the story as Alex will need to engage in several environment-specific physics “puzzles” or even outright Go Loud moments to break up pacing, but as the hours wear on and the game’s systems wane thinner and thinner, the most celebrated aspect of this franchise, the tension, is all but decimated. As a huge proponent for meticulously paced, even glacial, games (Death Stranding’s walking is good), it’s not that the prospect of a journey taken in halting, precious steps and choices can’t work, even over an extended period. But The Road Ahead is building on a framework designed for short bursts of sustained tension in a theatre, keyly relying on the magic (see technical trickery) of film to suspend disbelief and enable immersion. 

Instead, The Road Ahead’s smoke and mirror show gets in your lungs and eyes all too quickly as its ambitions collide with its scope. Death Angels here aren’t so much active stalkers in the world to be poked and prodded at, but static instant-fail sound triggers, outside of a few missions that let the concept shine. This isn’t a dealbreaker in and of itself but the game’s unreliable detection AI makes the off-screen creatures either far too keenly eared or generously deaf depending on the moment, while the Angels that roam certain levels adhere to fairly predictable pathing and inconsistent awareness. The game’s opening stretch, before these issues reveal themselves, is at least home to some genuine thrills as you accidentally make a sound and freeze in your tracks, senses on edge waiting to clock death coming at you. It’s cool and gets to the heart of what makes A Quiet Place such an effective world.   

Alex’s tools for dealing with the Angels will naturally grow throughout the game as you figure out how to throw objects to cause distraction sounds, pour sand in front of you to move faster over surfaces, and use your reliable phonometer to calculate sound and risk. These systems are fine enough, perfunctory first-person horror tools that are ostensibly elevated by the heightened setting but do little to make the game’s campaign retain any real thrills. Likewise, Alex’s asthma will flare up during physical exertion, regardless of severity, and requires a clumsy QTE to use an inhaler (which in this world are apparently single use) or else her vision will darken and heart rate tick up. Much like the distraction tools and the game’s meticulously placed noise makers (that can over there will get you killed), these systems could have been compelling in a tighter experience but are put under immense strain as the story and levels begin to layer on sillier plot devices and scenarios. 

Along your silent road trip, you’ll see glimpses of day one of the invasion as a means of delivering some much-needed detail to Alex’s character while trudging through the usual assortment of diary notes, scattered documents, and the odd fellow survivor. Like the systems before it, The Road Ahead’s narrative work is largely fine but never truly engaging, outright emulating portions of the films but failing to capture the catharsis of Blunt or Nyong’o’s leading characters. It is at least appropriately dire in keeping with the tone and vague thesis of the movies before it and fans of the franchise will undoubtedly get something out of another run at this world and its ideas. You can even nab yourself a collectible easter egg if that’s your vibe. 

A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead then is perhaps best enjoyed by folks who are clamouring for more of this universe. As an extension of that it at least allows fans to actively engage with its cool premise, provided they have the patience for its glacial pacing and wonky detection systems. But as a game in its own right, The Road Ahead is a largely inoffensive, if overly long, experiment in adaptation that would have been a killer 2-3 hour smaller title instead. Stormind Games is an interesting studio, its work on the criminally underrated Remothered titles (an equally wonky but infinitely more compelling survival horror duology) tells of a team with, again, a keen eye for the bones of a solid horror experience. It’s just a shame that The Road Ahead is more whimper than bang.     

The post A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead Review – Hush Hush appeared first on Press Start.

When Sonic Generations dropped in 2011, it was almost like a reinvigoration of the franchise; taking classic and modern Sonic and pairing them together, experiencing the best of 2D and 3D worlds, and paying homage to the history of the series in a neat little package. Thirteen years on, we finally get an updated version for modern consoles; but with it comes Sega’s push for their edgy, darker counterpart to take the spotlight – putting Shadow the Hedgehog front and centre by re-releasing Sonic Generations as Sonic X Shadow Generations.

The game is split into two components – the first being Sonic Generations, a remaster and update of the 2011 release with sharper graphics, reworked cutscenes and a few gameplay tweaks. At Sonic’s birthday party, a mysterious being known as the Time Eater warps Sonic and his friends into White Space – where past and future collide. Sonic meets himself from the past, and together they travel through their history to save their friends and stop Dr Eggman from teaming up with himself as he tries to erase his failures of the past and rewrite history.

But the Time Eater doesn’t just affect Sonic and his friends; Shadow Generations sees Shadow the Hedgehog also dragged into White Space by the Time Eater, where he is confronted by the imminent return of his greatest foe, Black Doom. The being that helped create Shadow, Black Doom seeks to return from the past and take over the world – so it falls upon Shadow to travel through his history to set things right, while obtaining new dark powers and being reunited with old friends.

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The problem with Sonic X Shadow Generations is that it doesn’t seem to know what game it wants to be. Is it a remaster? Is it a sequel? Is it a wholly new experience? Effectively it is two games in one – a remaster of Sonic Generations, while attempting to do Shadow the Hedgehog justice by tagging Shadow Generations alongside it. Sega are really making a focus on the “Year of Shadow” this year by releasing this game as well as having Shadow star in the Sonic the Hedgehog 3 film, set for release later this year. But in order to do both games their due diligence, you almost have to forget that Sonic’s game was released thirteen years ago, and view it as if it was just released – otherwise Shadow’s game seems like an afterthought.

To that extent, it’s probably better that Sonic Generations is paired up with Shadow Generations, so that you can understand the story behind both titles. Credit where credit is due, SEGA did a great job on remastering Sonic Generations for a new audience who may have missed it the first time around.

With two acts per level, you get the opportunity to play as both Classic Sonic and Modern Sonic through a variety of historic Sonic stages; with Green Hill Zone, Chemical Plant Zone and Sky Sanctuary Zone to name a few. The flip side to this, and something that makes the game that much more enjoyable, is the ability to play as Classic Sonic on levels released well beyond the years of the Sega Mega Drive (or Genesis for you international friends) such as Crisis City and Planet Wisp from more recent instalments where 3D gameplay is king.

As you bring colour back to White Space by finishing the levels and saving Sonic’s friends, you’ll come up against bosses from Sonic’s history, as well as unlocking collectibles and beating challenges such as time trials. This all leads up to the climactic battle against past and future Dr Eggman and the Time Eater, to save the world and restore time and space to normal.

When I say that Sonic Generations does its history justice, it isn’t just looking at things through rose-tinted glasses – Classic Sonic plays exactly like it should, and Modern Sonic is fun and fast. There’s nothing overly complicated about how each Sonic plays, and aside from maybe going a little too fast in certain sections, plenty of care has been taken to make each character play with a degree of familiarity.

Modern Sonic took a while for me to get used to as not only was it a jump from 2D to 3D (or 2.5D in some situations) but you also get lock-on and boost mechanics that extend your jumps and attacks – there is some fun to be had in bouncing from one enemy to another before boosting away to grind on a rail. In true Sonic fashion, going fast is the aim of the game regardless of whether you play as Classic or Modern Sonic, and it almost feels punishing if you aren’t going fast.

If SEGA weren’t pushing the “Year of Shadow” content, then we could end the review there, say that Sonic Generations is a great remaster of a decent Sonic game, and we’d be done with it. But Shadow needs time in the spotlight, and this is where things diverge just a little bit. If you’re not familiar with Shadow the Hedgehog, you’re given a narrative backstory which tells us about how he was engineered to be the Ultimate Life Form, being infused with DNA from the evil alien Black Doom. Created by Gerald Robotnik on the Space Colony ARK, Shadow befriends Robotnik’s daughter Maria, who is plagued with a terminal illness that Gerald seeks to cure through Project Shadow.

When the government becomes concerned about Project Shadow, they send forces from Guardian Units of Nations (G.U.N) to shut the project down; but Maria is killed in the process, and Shadow seeks to enact revenge for losing his friend. Shadow is captured and placed into stasis for over 50 years, and on his release he sought to ruin the world. Remembering Maria’s last words to him, he forced himself to stop – and became the anti-hero we now know today.

We open with Shadow on Space Colony ARK, tracking a strange signal. Rouge the Bat calls him reminding him of Sonic’s birthday party – and at this time the events of Sonic Generations take place, as everyone is dragged into rifts created by the Time Eater. Shadow fights off a being known as Doom’s Eye, later discovered to be Black Doom’s third eye set out to monitor Shadow in an attempt to revive Black Doom. In scenes reminiscent of the mirror dimension from Doctor Strange, the fights with Doom’s Eye are pretty crazy, and usually culminate in Shadow earning a new power if you manage to land a hit.

Shadow then finds himself in a similar White Space to Sonic, being forced to relive elements of his past in order to save the day. Where Sonic Generations’ White Space keeps to a 2D plane, Shadow Generations opens up the White Space to three dimensions, allowing you to practice and test out the Doom powers that Shadow will acquire on his journey. As you encounter Doom’s Eye, Shadow unlocks more dark powers to use on his journey – with the ability to surf across water or unleash devastating attacks on enemies unlocking through progression.

Shadow Generations’ White Space feels very awkward compared to Sonic Generations, and it isn’t just the jump from 2D to 3D in the hub space. In fact I found this was a flaw with the game as a whole – the controls for Shadow feel extremely clunky even though they have clearly taken example from Sonic’s 3D gameplay.

Some moments are too sensitive, others are extremely floaty, and there doesn’t seem to be any middle ground when it comes to controlling Shadow. The game allows you to keep the quick time event controls on screen when they happen, but even then it doesn’t seem to feel natural when attempting to perform it. Just like Sonic Generations, the game wants you to go fast – but sometimes it feels like it’s also a curse, as one wrong button press or slight adjustment to the direction and you’ve sent yourself flying off the side of the course and into the abyss.

Shadow’s Doom powers add an extra layer to playing the character that at times feels very fluid and inventive, and other times just feels like another button sequence to remember without being practical. In moments that feel very ‘blink and you’ll miss it’, you’ll be able to target multiple enemies with Doom Spears – but you may have already rocketed past them by boosting consistently, so it doesn’t really change things.

Filling the Chaos Control gauge makes for strategic moments where you need to pause time to get through a difficult obstacle (like falling or breaking platforms) and the game conveniently hands you everything you need to do that at the right places, but everything feels very on-rails when you’re in a level and so not as necessary to plan ahead. Overall, rather than feeling like a new or a different character, Shadow just plays like Sonic but with extra steps and bonus powers.

The post Sonic X Shadow Generations Review – Classic Sonic And Modern Sonic Together appeared first on Press Start.

This spooky season, which brings with it Fear the Spotlight’s release as the first in a very cool slate out of Blumhouse, feels like quite a culmination of a tremendous year for horror video games. After sampling the game’s horrific opening chapter back at Summer Game Fest, I was left wanting more. Fear the Spotlight really does feel like a tribute to so many of the classic games that paved the way for it, from its lo-fi, dithering graphics that leave enough doubt in your mind to jump at shadows, to its tactile, hands-on puzzle solving. 

Fear the Spotlight, which is an expanded upon iteration of its release only a year ago, begins on a stormy night as Vivian, the player-character, and Amy break into Sunnyside High to perform a seance in the school’s library. Quite predictably, things go haywire as the supernatural descends upon their night, leading to far more trouble than a simple breaking and entering should. Amy is found in a fugue state before she’s drawn in by a powerful light, forcing Vivian to descend deeper into the belly of the school, which has cracked upon a portal to its past which, it seems, has plenty of skeletons in its closet to unearth after a fire decimated the campus in 1991. 

Although they spend relatively no screen time together, it is the burgeoning relationship of the two schoolgirl leads that drives events forward. While I won’t divulge where the game goes, having seen where the original release rolled credits, I do think the direction of the expanded content is a genius move and undeniably builds out other characters within the game’s lore while servicing the story at large. The entire game might only be four hours, however not one, singular second is wasted.

Unlike Crow Country, another low-fi survival horror game that released this year, which gives its player the option to leave combat at the door entirely, Fear the Spotlight sensibly decided against turning Vivian into a super soldier who mows down ghosts and ghouls while trawling the locker bays. Although she’s resourceful, she is young, in over her head, and she’s absolutely terrified, which I think is evident through several of the design choices in the game—particularly the one to not give Vivian any offensive firepower, whatsoever. 

The character’s fear and vulnerability is integral to not only the game’s overarching themes, it also plays into the tense, hide and seek encounters with the fearsome titular antagonist, Spotlight. Leaving embers in his wake, he has sure but uncertain ties to the 1991 fire. He’s a tall, slender figure with an ominous, oscillating light for a head, which strikes a horrifying picture whenever he shows unexpectedly, forcing you to sneak behind and underneath desks toward the nearest door. Seeing the ashen ghouls, who I presume are symbolic of the students lost, peering around corners and watching you is unsettling as it is, but Spotlight’s sudden and heart-pounding appearances teeter at the periphery of being iconic. 

Where other games might equip you with herbs or bandages to patch your cuts up with, Fear the Spotlight once again leans full bodied into Vivian’s anxiety which can spike during these panicked chases. All it takes is a quick puff of her one-and-done inhalers with each hit serving as a calming cure-all for these moments of dread. 

She’s able to make use of her book smarts to solve several of the game’s riddles which, in keeping with genre tropes, often involve scouring the immediate areas for key items before backtracking and piecing the whole picture together. I enjoyed all of the puzzles in Fear the Spotlight, even if they do lean ever-so-slightly towards being too simple, there’s a satisfying flow that sees each problem Vivian faces snowball into the next, and it really helps keeping a great pace up. 

As I mentioned in the opening, there’s a wonderful, tactile feel to this game’s world and its objects. You mightn’t be able to thoroughly examine and turn items in-hand, however there’s an interactivity to everything that kept me locked in throughout. Whether it’s prying nails out of boarded windows, thumbing open the latch on a toolbox, or dialling in a phone number on a pay phone, you’re charged with every input and it’s a cool, albeit simple, touch. 

Despite an obvious, and deliberate, lack of fidelity due to the developer’s pursuit of the in vogue retro, lo-fi aesthetic, everything still has a surprising amount of detail. Obviously it carries with it the warts of the style, with plenty of clipping and blocky textures, however it’s one that lends itself so well to horror. The environment design is excellent, with the school itself getting extra credit for twisting its everyday halls into something dark and worthy of the tragedy that the school faculty swept under the rug. Darkness and shadow is used to great effect, as the dithering, the grain effect that helps cement the dated appearance Fear the Spotlight is shooting for, helps in creating optical illusions. 

Although there’s no real danger through so much of the game, you still second guess what the hard-to-see hallucination at the end of the hall could be. I also love that the game doesn’t resort to jump scares to unsettle its audience, relying solely on a slow, steady build to keep the player on edge. 

Unlike some of its contemporaries, Sunnyside High’s map isn’t an open one. This creates a feeling of linearity throughout, which itself feels like a guiding hand showing the way. By solving small, self-contained zones one at a time, it minimises the laborious, time-consuming backtracking that often plagues games like this, but it certainly shines a spotlight, so to speak, on both the game’s overall lack of difficulty and brevity. 

Fear the Spotlight might only clock in at around four hours, but it’s so well-paced and its puzzles, for the most part, feel as though they make sense in-world, which cements Sunnyside High, in my mind, as a horror spot that read the brief and passed with flying colours. It’s staggering what a team of two has been able to achieve with Fear the Spotlight, it’s a sublime survival-horror title that delivers in story and tone. 

Along with being a tremendous first blow for Blumhouse’s slate of smaller-scoped horror games, Fear the Spotlight could very well be my horror game of the year. I knew there was a reason I kept out of the library when I wasn’t to school, nothing good ever comes of it. 

The post Fear The Spotlight Review – Extracurricular Paranormal Activity appeared first on Press Start.

In a dark, long-forgotten system of caves off the Turkish coast, a small hit squad of hired goons is about to die. An impulsive mission to recover an ancient artifact from an even older tomb has ended in disaster as a young woman’s position was given away and her escape route blocked by men armed with guns and poisoned idealism. From the shadows, she projects herself through the ethereal realm and begins to pull the strings; she positions one goon’s rifle to fire at the head of another, guides yet another’s electric baton to slam into the ground next to a flammable canister, and calmly walks the remaining attacker into the soon to be explosion. She is pulled back to her body just in time to watch the chaos erupt as the world turns in her favour while she watches on, unseen and unknown. 

This is Unknown 9: Awakening at its best– a tightly constructed set of tools and a linear sandbox in which to deploy them, when the game clicks into place, you feel like a minor God. What developer Reflector Entertainment build around these tools is the quintessential AA gaming experience, for mostly better and only rarely worse. 

Unknown 9 seeks to somewhat invert the typical narrative bones of the action-adventure genre by placing us in the shoes of Haroona, a young Indian woman thrown headfirst into a sprawling world of magical intrigue and existential doom. Actively avoiding, and sometimes even interrogating, the staple of “affable bearded white dude blasts through South Asian culture”, Unknown 9 instead uses Haroona’s heritage and characterisation to ground us more thoroughly in these places and cultures, lifting heavily from aesthetics, architecture, and even leading actor Anya Chalotra’s own cultural heritage. 

It’s a successful gambit, the game’s clear appreciation for Indian culture a driving force behind its cast of (relatively) likeable side characters and vibrant litany of levels. It has become disconcertingly easy to dismiss games of this budget and calibre as cheaper imitations of what the AAA space can do, a shortsighted way of engaging with works like Unknown 9. You won’t see the best texture work in the business here but thanks to a killer art direction that feels of a piece with the best action-adventure romps, and smart use of pre-baked lighting and tight-level design, the world of Unknown 9 feels richly sweet.  

And while this cultural inversion lends the game an undeniable uniqueness in the market, its structure adheres much more closely to trends established well over a decade ago in the genre. This will be a make-or-break point for many, as while the likes of Uncharted have largely been able to paper over their mechanical status quo (stagnation if you’re feeling spicy) with breathtaking visual fidelity, Unknown 9 lands firmly in the AA development sphere, leaning more into art direction and vibes than outright AAA quality. In turn, its reliance on the usual flow of stealth in tall grass, clambering up rock textures and vines, crawling between cracks, and a light and heavy combat loop is laid far more bare. Unknown 9 is effectively a 360 game, then, and that kinda rules. 

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The linear narrative action-adventure path is as you might expect with that in mind; Haroona will scramble through just over a dozen chapters, chasing the bad guys around the world and uncovering the secrets of the Unknown 9 in a fairly breezy, pleasant fashion. Many of the game’s major beats you’ll see coming a mile off but Chalotra’s performance is incredibly charming and keeps the central throughline of a young woman coming to terms with a cruel world firmly in hand even as the backend of the game swings into melodrama. The quasi-fictionalised India and surrounding global situation is genuinely compelling though as the game paints a portrait of a people who are actively aware of their impending demise as part of a cyclical destruction that ravages society every X number of years. 

The fallout of this awareness is the forming of the titular Unknown 9, a cabal of immortal beings who seek to stop the cogs of time from churning in an effort that you just know can only end well. The niceties of this set-up are littered throughout dozens of collectibles and notes (Unknown 9 is itself part of a larger transmedia push including books, comics, and audio dramas) but the immediate effect is Haroona’s ability to use Am (magic) and the Fold (a kind of spirit realm) to interact with the game world.

Unknown 9 is equal parts stealth and action game, lifting the fundamentals of each but remixing them brilliantly with Umbric Abilities, skills that Haroona uses Am for. The biggest, and best, of them is the Step, granting Haroona the ability to astral project into the body of most enemies and pilot them around in suspended time, unleashing attacks or positioning them in front of environmental hazards before jumping into the next or recalling back to her body to set her choices in motion.  

Over the course of Unknown 9’s approximately 15-hour campaign, this never gets old. This is partly due to the game’s escalating scenario design in which the Ascendents continue to trot out more elaborate anti-Step machinery and cartoonishly over-designed big boys to deal with (one late-game enemy feels like someone ran Indiana Jones through an Evil Within filter and I clapped). It also helps that Haroona’s skill trees (stealth, Umbral, and combat) are packed full of expressive and fun mechanics that you’re free to chain together in any way you see fit. That cave encounter I mentioned earlier later saw me go loud with abandon, using a shield to parry bullets before double dodging to close the gap and Umbral push a soldier off a cliff while forcing my Am spirit out of my body to punch another in the face.  

Combat sits comfortably in the Arkham tradition of light/heavy, dodge, and parry to build up a stagger meter before delivering a final blow, but it can veer a little sloppy. The camera lock-on in particular fights you at every turn and as the game ramps up enemy numbers, it can begin to feel frustrating keeping track of powerful foes while managing your Am and health. These poorly balanced instances drag on an otherwise solid system, especially once Haroona can start pulling on Am to do AOE attacks and sick-as-shit astral combat abilities that let you close the gap between you and your foe without moving or breaking off of your current action. 

There’s a nice harmony to much of what Unknown 9 sets out to achieve and while its textures can be crunchy and its narrative structure a little flat, the essence of the experience is delightful. This is a text with foundational aspirations; in my preview, I noted that it feels as if we should have had several of these games had they kicked off in the 360/PS3 heyday and I sincerely hope Unknown 9 gets the chance to build off what has been done here. Chalotra’s Haroona is a charismatic lead in her own right and the systems built around her are cohesive and inventive, if in need of some fine-tuning. With time, there’s a killer franchise to be had here, but as far as origin stories go, an Unknown 7.5 ain’t half-bad.

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Although it’s still something that’s debated, there’s no question in my mind that video games are an art form. Some more than others, of course, however there’s a place that many come to occupy where their job is to kindle imagination and draw emotion from its player as though it were a bloodletting ritual. After Gris, and how it traversed the profound impact of grief, Nomada Studio has gone back to work to ensure their second project, Neva, is as much a doorway to devastation as their first.

Neva is a beautiful story, told primarily through its arresting audiovisual presentation, about the ever-strengthening bond between Alba and the titular wolf cub who journey, protecting one another, in a world on the brink of decay. Princess Mononoke feels like a lay-up in terms of comparison, especially with regards to design, however I feel the Studio Ghibli classic also shares thematic threads with Neva if you care enough to tug on and unpack them. The notion that nature is indifferent, often cruel and that living in total harmony with it might be a pipe dream is something of a through line for both. Neva is a game developed largely throughout the pandemic, so it is no surprise its world is a brutal one on its knees.

While I continue to question whether Neva quite exceeds the emotional summit of its predecessor, I’m at least glad it attempts to gamify its themes and deeper meanings a bit more. While both games are beautiful experiences from front-to-back, Neva folding combat into the formula Gris otherwise perfected on the first try is clearly welcome. On top of wonderfully designed puzzles and eking out microdoses of tension through titanic confrontations with mountainous, metaphoric tokens of Alba’s journey, being able to brandish a sword against the corrupted remnants of your dying world adds a little power to this fantasy.

Seeming to serve the cinematic feel of the game more than anything, Neva’s swordplay never really challenged me throughout the game’s adventurous, albeit modest, five hours. Even more critical, it holds back on its most interesting hooks until it’s too late, resulting in an exciting homestretch that makes the opening feel a bit limp by comparison.

Where others might have overcomplicated things, adding parries, heavy swings, and stamina bars in the pursuit of the oft-fruitful Soulslike tag, Nomada kept things exceedingly simple for their first run at combat. Alba might draw her sword with a flourish worthy of a practised duelist, however, her limited repertoire, which would prove dull in a longer game, leaves a simple, one-note attack, a downward plunge, and a dodge roll on offer for a bulk of proceedings. As the seasons roll by, Neva will mature into a magnificent, powerful wolf who evolves from travel companion to battle mate, as her paranatural abilities service both the game’s combat scenarios and late-game environment puzzles.

For those after a bit of extra credit when combing through Neva’s dying world, there are collectibles that can be found in the form of flower buds that’ll bloom with life once in Alba’s presence. A lot of them are straightforward and only require the player to veer ever so slightly from the expected path, though there are a handful that require a reasonable mastery of Alba’s platforming nous to reach. As in Gris, other hidden achievements task the player with completing small objectives throughout the adventure, whether it’s ensuring Neva, a growing cub, has had her fill of fallen fruit or startling all of the hard-to-spot birds perched upon snowy branches in winter. In a game where the story is largely inferred by the player due to a lack of spoken or written dialogue, these small moments felt like a subtle means of character building to me.

Neva marks the second coming together for artist Conrad Roset, who serves as the game’s creative lead, and fellow Spaniards Berlinist, the band behind the tender, heartrending arrangement that pairs with the game’s action better than fish and chips. As the narrative moves between seasons, Roset is able to experiment with and use specific colours so effectively, as the autumnal fall colours lead to Alba’s struggle, represented by bold, blinding reds that fill the sky before giving way to a blinding, white winter.

And while the world itself is quite beautiful, the designs of Alba, Neva, and the plagued creatures that wander it are incredibly Studio Ghibli-coded, it’s hard not to believe it’s an homage at least in part. The purity of Neva’s white coat, and her magnificent antlers, pop against the frequently colour burst backdrops, and even more so against the tortured, inky abominations that contort and shapeshift before you. So much illustration fences its colour in with bold outlines and, thankfully, that isn’t the case here.

It’s all crafted gorgeously with an express control of water colours and their painterly ways. Without spoiling it, there’s one portion of the game, about three quarters through, where Roset’s breathtaking direction for environment design feeds into both the combat and puzzle craft, it’s one of many incomparable five minute bursts that cemented Neva, in my mind, as a fascinating work of art. I can’t overemphasise how much of the game’s emotional impact stems from the marriage of Roset’s art and Berlinist’s virtuoso score. I’ve spent many hours streaming the Gris soundtrack, and I expect Neva’s will prove to be just as much an ear worm.

Although the game gets in and out pretty quickly, it lasts just long enough that its simple systems don’t get the chance to grow tiresome while its art, evocative music, and bond between Alba and her endearing wolf cub shoulder the burden of wringing out and exhausting everything from the player. By the end, as the credits began to roll, I was a glassy-eyed mess who knew full well I’d just experienced something special.

The post Neva Review – The Wolf In Watercolour appeared first on Press Start.

Metaphor: ReFantazio has come a long way to get where it is today. Initially announced as Project Re:Fantasy, Metaphor was conceived by Katsura Hashino shortly after he departed the Persona team over at ATLUS. Citing a need to explore new ideas untethered from Persona 5’s runaway success, Hashino established his own internal studio within ATLUS named Studio Zero. That all happened almost 10 years ago in 2016. That’s a long time for any game to be in development, but the anticipation for Hashino’s next big creative swing is palpable.

ATLUS is also now in a position where they don’t need to be entertaining creative ideas for new IP. Persona is a worldwide phenomenon that practically prints money, and Shin Megami Tensei is becoming more mainstream as a result. That aspect of Metaphor makes its existence even more impressive, especially when some of ATLUS’ strongest talent is involved in the project. There’s a clear belief in Hashino’s vision to bring something new to ATLUS’ expansive swathe of JRPGs. Though it might not be the gameplay evolution some are looking for, Metaphor is yet another win for ATLUS.

In the dead of night, the United Kingdom of Euchronia’s idealistic and benevolent king is assassinated in his sleep, instigating widespread chaos throughout the land. With his son rendered unconscious by a curse, the throne’s successor has never been more unclear. In his death, the king invokes royal magic, setting the stage for a tournament of kings to to decide who’s fit to take the throne.

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You play as a young boy of the Elda tribe, a group of people that’ve been ostracised due to their connections to the old world. The Elda are few and far between in Euchronia for a few reasons, but what’s important is that you’re entering the tournament on behalf of the prince, while also searching for a means to lift the curse placed on him so he can take his place as king. It’s a fantastically unique premise that’s ripe with potential and thematic musings.

While ATLUS games always have more going on under the surface narratively – especially in Hashino’s works – Metaphor feels restrained. It maintains a square focus on the tournament, its many players, the core cast, and how it’s all impacting Euchronia. There’s still plenty of great narrative surprises and the way in which it hones in on that central conflict means that it’s always the same themes, ideas, and characters being explored and developed.

Euchronia is not a nice place. It purposefully mirrors our own world, with its people romanticising their own works of fiction and the idealistic worlds found within them. These seemingly perfect worlds also have these problems, tough. It’s these ideas of fiction and imagination that Metaphor is most fascinated with. Hoping for a better world when the status quo seems so deep-rooted in Euchronia’s history that most people live in complete ignorance of the discrimination around them.

In no way is this better explored than through Metaphor’s core cast of characters. Citizens whisper about the presence of an Elda in the capital of Grand Trad, propaganda and misinformation from bodies of authority result in warped perceptions of people and tribes they’ve never even met, and foreign cultures are often considered lesser or under-developed because of their differences. Even the problems faced by the higher classes are explored to some degree through the likes of Strohl, a noble who joins the army after his hometown is razed by monsters known as Humans.

It does feel like Metaphor doesn’t go far enough in its commentary of these themes and ideas in its main plot, though. They’re often only addressed in a manner that’s surface level, claiming that these things are bad and need to be uprooted, but not the deeper effects it has on the people impacted the most. I think this is likely because Metaphor is largely concerned with touching on the many downfalls of our own world, instead of exploring a select few in more intimate detail. It lends the game an ethereal and, for lack of a better word, meta feel to its central ideas and explorations.

It’s also just too long. ATLUS’ tentpole JRPGs often have this problem and it rears its ugly head once again in Metaphor. It isn’t as offensive as the tail-end of Persona 5, but Metaphor feels one dungeon too long. The final sequence in particular has a drawn-out preparation phase that’s great for wrapping up unfinished side content, but the main narrative comes to a screeching halt as a result. It’s made more obvious by how tightly paced the rest of Metaphor is, with a structure that echoes traditional Shonen anime to remarkable effect.

On the spectrum of Shin Megami Tensei and Persona, Metaphor: ReFantazio falls somewhere in the middle when it comes to gameplay. It leans a little heavy of the Persona side (with a dash of Digital Devil Saga), but combines elements of both to differentiate itself from ATLUS’ titanic franchises. If you’re wanting something that’s different from ATLUS’ traditional offerings, Metaphor isn’t quite that. It does bring some new ideas into the fold, but calling it wholly original in how it plays would be overstepping.

That isn’t to say Metaphor is uninspired or overly iterative. ATLUS continue to show they have a fundamental grasp on the systems and gameplay elements that make modern Persona and SMT so engaging. Once the game gets going proper, it operates on a calendar system with deadlines for each major dungeon as you progress the main story. You can spend your time making progress in said dungeons, deepening your bonds with the people of Euchronia, growing your kingly virtues, and more.

The biggest change in the calendar system comes with the Gauntlet Runner. A bipedal vehicle commonly used to traverse the dangerous no man’s lands between Euchronia’s towns, dungeons, and key points of interest. The catch, is that it takes time to make a trip in the Gauntlet Runner. Maybe you get a side quest that requires you to visit a nearby town or deal with a monster lurking in a small dungeon. Not only does it consume a day to explore said dungeon, but also to actually travel there in the Gauntlet Runner.

There are still things to do to fill the time while travelling, but any trip away from whatever town your party is setup at needs to be considered based on your progress in the main dungeon and its impending deadline. It adds another layer to decision making in this tried and true gameplay loop, imploring you to make the most of your time and optimise your dungeon diving. The Gauntlet Runner itself also just adds so much personality to the game and the whole setup of the tournament. Nowhere is this seen more than in the way you can stop at Euchronia’s many natural wonders on the road, all of which are accompanied by reflective conversation from the party. It lends a real sense of journey and exploration, echoing a grand feeling that isn’t often felt in modern RPGs.

Metaphor: ReFantazio also brings with it some of the best Social Links ATLUS has ever penned. Known as Bonds within Metaphor, these smaller side stories that follow people from different walks of life within Euchronia benefit greatly from the dark fantasy setting and themes of this world. It’d be a shame to spoil any of them here, but these stories often have the deeper explorations of Metaphor’s core themes and ideas that are lacking in the main story. They aren’t afraid to dig into the grungy underbelly of this world and the positions its people are forced into, but also highlight how perspective and understanding of someone who’s different from you can make all the difference.

Bonds also tie nicely into the game’s job system, called Archetypes. Each Archetype pertains to a different class, with advanced and elite Archetypes evolving from the base ones to create a Lineage. Each Lineage is directly linked to one of your Bonds, and levelling that Bond up directly benefits its related Archetype. Whether it be unlocking the aforementioned Advanced and Elite Archetypes, increasing the total number of Skill Inheritance slots, or decreasing costs associated with unlocking Archetypes within that lineage, these rewards always feel meaningful and worthwhile.

Part of the reason this all works so well is because the Archetype system is so, so good. It’s a fairly traditional job system where party members can seamlessly switch between Archetypes to fill different roles as needed. Levelling up these Archetypes unlocks new skills that you can inherit onto other Archetypes, granting you access to skill combinations you usually wouldn’t have. You can also use these slots to combat elemental weaknesses or fill holes in an Archetype’s kit. There’re so many different combinations and Archetypes to experiment with here, and it all fits so well into Metaphor’s combat framework.

It should come as no surprise that this battle system is very similar to Shin Megami Tensei’s. It’s closest to the Press Turn system from those games, where striking weaknesses grants you an extra turn, but the same is also true for your enemies. It’s always been strategically rewarding, and remains so in Metaphor, but there’s a few new ideas thrown into the mix that set Metaphor apart.

The most obvious change is Metaphor’s approach to first strikes, or the preamble that happens before turn-based combat actually starts. It’s become commonplace in RPGs today, but Metaphor goes a few steps further in its own interpretation of this modern staple. You can lock-on to roaming overworld enemies and engage them in a simple yet robust third-person action combat system. You’ll jump on enemies with simple combos while dodging their own attacks to stagger them, giving you a significant advantage on the first turn of combat if successful. The same is true for enemies, though, and starting battle with disadvantage feels like an uphill battle.

Weaker enemies can be immediately dispatched with this combat without transitioning into the turn-based mode, and weaknesses even play a part in how fast you stagger enemies. It’s a fun system that helps with combat pacing and cuts down on a lot of unnecessary battling. It’s very reminiscent of Trails Through Daybreak, and that’s a very good thing.

There’s a couple of things inside of the turn-based combat that give Metaphor it’s own flavour as well. There’s a formation system where you can place party members in the front or back line of the party, trading physical offence for defence and can sometimes be used to avoid entire attacks if you read your enemy properly. There’s also Synergy skills, which use two turn icons for suped up skills that often deal more damage or provide more efficient support to the party. The coolest part of these skills is how they also work with the Press Turn system, netting you two extra turns if you strike a weakness with one of these skills.

All of these inclusions are welcome because Metaphor does offer some challenge if you go looking for it. It’s not an overly difficult game on its base difficulty if you’re familiar with ATLUS’ other titles, but some of the optional bosses are real strategic gauntlets that force you to use every element of the combat system to come out on top. It’s a nice shift given ATLUS’ recent RPGs have lost some of their edge due to excessive player power and over tuned mechanics like Persona 3 Reload’s Theurgy.

Another area where Metaphor yields mixed results is in its dungeons. The main ones are almost all great, offering some really unique locales to explore that employ labyrinthine design that’re satisfying to unravel. The optional side dungeons are less impressive, often recycling the same visual motifs and design spaces that leave them feeling largely indistinguishable from one another, and forgettable as a result. You’ll spend a lot of time in these spaces as well, which only serves to hammer in the monotony. They’re better than the likes of Mementos or Tartarus, but still don’t come close to the quality of the main dungeons.

Now to surprise absolutely no one as I gush about Metaphor’s production values for the rest of this review. It’ll surprise no one that ATLUS have done it again, Metaphor is effortlessly stylish in all aspects of its presentation. It’s also done in a way that’s entirely different from recent Persona entries, fully embracing its dark fantasy setting and lofty musings on philosophy to deliver some incredibly striking user interfaces, imagery, character designs, and architecture.

A special shout out should go out to Shigenori Soejima’s excellent character designs. Each one is instantly charismatic, identifiable, and unique amongst a pantheon of other countless designs Soejima has authored over the years. It would’ve been easy enough for him to replicate his work in Persona with a medieval twist, but Soejima goes above and behind to reinforce the difference in these races and tribes with remarkable effect. It’s some of his most varied and high quality work yet, and that’s no small statement.

Shoji Meguro also makes a fantastic impression with Metaphor’s original soundtrack. An ATLUS game isn’t an ATLUS game without their irreplaceable music, and Meguro delivers a score so different from his previous works that still maintains his signature touches. Battle tracks slowly ramp up towards thunderous choruses, overworld tunes are less subdued than what you’d find in Persona, really selling the idea of this larger than life tournament of kings. It’s no surprise that Meguro delivers here, but that doesn’t undermine how fantastic the whole thing is.

Metaphor: ReFantazio is another home run for a seemingly unstoppable ATLUS. It isn’t without some issues, and ATLUS have yet to escape their third-act woes, but it’s refreshing to see a new IP with a setting that’s such a hard pivot from what’s become so successful for the studio. It might not depart as drastically when it comes to overall gameplay, but that isn’t such a bad thing when what’s been established is of such high quality.

The post Metaphor ReFantazio Review – Peak Fiction appeared first on Press Start.

Loosely based around the 16th century Chinese story ‘Journey to the West’, and inspired by Hong Kong martial arts films, there would be very few people who would have foreseen the future popularity and impact that the Dragon Ball manga would have on audiences when it was released forty years ago. And while Akira Toriyama may no longer be with us to continue the story of Son Goku and his friends, his legacy lives on through the franchise’s numerous adaptations – the latest being Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero.

Seventeen years in the making itself, Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero is the ultimate love letter to Dragon Ball fans around the world, as well as those who have been hanging for a true sequel to the Budokai Tenkaichi games not seen since 2007. From Z to Super and even GT, Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero puts the thrill of high-speed and super-powered battles into your hands, between your favourite characters in familiar and highly-destructive environments, allowing you to play through the fights that you’ve always wanted to see.

I could write an entire article just on the story of Dragon Ball alone, but if you’re playing Sparking! Zero, chances are you’re already well-versed on Dragon Ball history. Thankfully, the game gives you the opportunity to play through the story through eight different characters in Episode Battle. With a mix between comic-style panels and in-game cutscenes, the game weaves through the narrative allowing you to take part in iconic fights from Dragon Ball Z and Super. Starting with our main character Goku, you’ll play through the Raditz saga and beyond, unlocking more characters as the narrative progresses – but with the added twist of diverting the narrative if you meet certain battle conditions. For instance, what would happen if Goku beat Raditz without dying?

What would happen if Gohan defeated Cell without allowing him to blow up? These pivotal narrative moments can be changed, branching out into new paths that will take the Dragon Ball story in new and exciting directions. You’ll even have the chance to step into the shoes of familiar foes such as Frieza and Goku Black as they take on our heroes in Vegeta, Piccolo and more. The narrative branching does get a bit frustrating however, as the conditions for changed results aren’t made clear at any point in the fight, and it isn’t until the fight is over that you’ll know if you’re on track or if you’ve branched off.

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As you progress through the Episode Battle you’ll gain proficiency in your characters and raise your player level, as well as earning Zeni which can be used for purchasing customisable unlocks in the shop. You’ll also complete tasks given to you by Zen Oh and Whis, which will give you even more opportunity to unlock Zeni and even characters to be used later in the game. If you want to take a break from Episode Battle, you can take yourself into Custom Battle instead, which allows you to create the scenario you’ve always wanted to see, or play through pre-made custom scenarios.

With over 180 characters to choose from, as well as iconic locations and the ability to set battle conditions, you can create, recreate and share the battles that you’ve always wanted to see. Want to see Cell, Frieza and Buu team up and take revenge on Goku, Vegeta and Trunks? You can make it happen. Want to see Nappa try and join the Frieza Force before teaming up with Vegeta? There’s a scenario for that. There’s almost no limit to your imagination when it comes to creating your own scenarios, as well as playing through some pretty interesting Bonus Episodes that have been created for the game.

Not long after a few rounds in Episode Battle, I found myself heading over to Super Training as my frustration grew and I began mashing buttons instead of being focused and tactical. Whether you’re an experienced player or fresh to the franchise, Super Training is a mode I would recommend you spend your time wisely in; while the game gives you a quick rundown of the controls when you first start it up, the combat flows extremely deep. Learning about techniques like Vanishing Assault, Z-Counter and Z Burst Dash will improve your fighting immensely, and coupling these with assault combos and ki blasts will make you the ultimate fighter.

But learning these things and putting them into practice are two totally different things, so I found myself consistently jumping back to training to re-learn what I’d already learned and why I wasn’t able to put it into practice. There is a classic control style for those who managed to find their PS2s and get back into the rhythm from the Budokai Tenkaichi trilogy, otherwise the standard control system is pretty easy to start with. Sparking! Zero’s frustration in its control system stems from the fact that input sometimes is required to be extremely precise, and one wrongly-timed button input can mean the difference between performing the correct attack and instead throwing ki blasts at random and exhausting your energy.

While keeping an eye on counters, knockbacks, ki blasts and everything else taking place, you also need to ensure you power up your ki enough to perform certain attacks, as well as the obscure number near your avatar that counts upwards as you fight. This allows for character transformations, which you will unlock with character unlocks, and be able to use where available. There’s nothing worse than trying to go Super Saiyan and not having the power or ability to do so. This is why it is important not just to jump online or into gameplay, but give yourself the opportunity to learn all that you can. Overwhelming is a word that keeps coming to mind when I think about the complexities of the game; as not only do you need to memorise so many different ways to dodge and attack, you also need to monitor your HP gauge so that you don’t accidentally go all-out and be pulverised in a fight. I’m sure over time the controls will become second-nature, but sometimes the fights can be a bit too much.

After you’ve had your fill of fighting, either through Episode or Custom Battle, or even through creating your own World Tournament fixture, you can head over to med with Zen Oh and Whis to earn rewards that you’ll accumulate by performing tasks. These can be as simple as battling with one character for a certain number of times, or meeting certain conditions in a battle such as using your Super Attack multiple times. Zen Oh grants your stamp cards which gives you Zeni, outfits and even player card customizations; while Whis can give you other items like Dragon Balls which can be used to summon the immortal Dragons. Be sure to visit them often to receive your rewards and use them to unlock more and more.

There is plenty to unlock when it comes to the Shop and Customise section as well; from classic outfits from the manga and anime, to voice packs and quotes as well as music, and even skill capsules for use in fights. Your Zeni will be used up pretty quickly as you buy up all of the items within the store. You can even unlock characters you may not have earned through gameplay or performing certain conditions in-game, and unlock even more to customise your player card. You can then head to the Come Forth… menu, where you’re given the option to summon one of three Eternal Dragons to grant you a wish that will assist with more unlocks, including characters, additional Zeni and even overall difficulty for the game. Both Whis and Zen Oh’s tasks intertwine with each other, so by unlocking one thing (or a range of things) you can then get a wish from Whis, which then allows you to unlock yet another of Zen Oh’s tasks. It’s the perfect cycle as long as you use as many characters as possible.

As someone who grew up with Dragon Ball Z, it always brings joy to hear the majority of the original cast still performing the voices, and they definitely don’t let down in the performance aspect. Although fans of the more recent Dragon Ball Super will recognise the voices better due to cast changes (Stephanie Nadolny will always be my Kid Goku/Teen Gohan voice, thank you), the voice acting is still top-notch. Should you prefer to have the original Japanese voice cast instead, you can jump into the main menu at any time to flip between them – and sometimes its a breath of fresh air to hear the different voice actors.

It is also great to see that we’ve finally worked out how to have three-dimensional characters still look like they are animated in a traditional sense – using a traditional animation design by Toei animator Naohiro Shintani, the characters look and feel genuine as if they could exist both in a two-dimensional and three-dimensional space. Coupled with colours that absolutely pop when characters are involved in beam struggles or powering up their auras, the game is an absolute treat both visually and aurally. Just don’t expect the Faulconer Productions music score any time soon, as awesome and classic as it would be.

At the time of review, online services were available however I was not able to enter a game. This will be updated over the coming week as services become available.

The post Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero Review – A Return To Form appeared first on Press Start.

Note: I speak about Until Dawn in these remake impressions assuming a bit of prior understanding from the reader.

For a refresher on what the game’s about, and how it plays, read Shannon’s full review originally published in 2015 embedded below.

The latest in PlayStation’s bold strategy to re-release all of their previous generation’s slate in one way or another, at least Until Dawn has been rebuilt from the ground up with all of the PlayStation 5’s advantages in mind. The original was the game that put Supermassive on the map and I believe it’s still their magnum opus almost a decade later, as they managed to perfect the choose your own adventure branching narrative many others had tried.

Although rumours of a Firesprite-led sequel might be swirling, perhaps in an effort to complement the looming film adaptation, this particular remake has been handled by Ballistic Moon. Not content with developing a 1:1 copy of the torch bearing original, the team have taken a number of liberties with certain aspects of the title’s identity, which has led to a bit of ire from fans—perhaps justifiably so.

In an effort to modernise Until Dawn, the team has sacrificed a few of things that felt essential to the tone and atmosphere struck by the first.

While I’m far from being in the camp of people who rally for the preservation of fixed camera angles, it’s undeniable that so much of Until Dawn’s tension could be attributed to them. In fact, being locked into one viewpoint felt like a key deliverable in the game’s thoroughly drummed theme of fearing the unknown and to give that up in favour of a freer, over-the-shoulder perspective feels like a shame. For mine, character handling was the thing that required an overhaul and yet there’s still a sluggish, shopping cart feel to everyone as they slowly trudge their paths across the Blackwood Mountain.

Similar amendments have been made to the game’s presentation at large, which I feel is something of a mixed bag. Although character models and environmental detail are vastly improved, this pursuit for higher fidelity has seen Ballistic Moon cast aside the original’s bluer colour grade in favour of a more realistic, dynamic colour palette. This again feels like a tonal sacrifice, though I’d argue it’s a worthwhile one in this case as the game, from the improved lighting alone, looks beautiful having been rendered in Unreal Engine 5 and is clearly on a bar above the original.

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Many of the cinematics have been completely reworked, and rescored, granting us a much more televisual perspective on certain events in the story’s canon. The prologue, and indeed the prank, that sets the game’s events in motion, for example, has undergone some creative reshoots to help reframe the scene with a more considered context as it switches seamlessly between two planes of action to a haunting remix of La Roux’s “In for the Kill”. It does drill home the vibe of a schlocky, made for TV slasher series on Fox, but that’s in keeping with the cheesy camp that made the original so fun.

The remake doesn’t really capitalise fully on the DualSense’s key features, unfortunately. Although I absolutely appreciate the triggers tensing up during key choices within the narrative, providing enough feedback for me to second guess myself, I felt they could have gone harder with it. For a game that relies so much on cheap jump scares, the implementation of the controller’s speaker to heighten that alert feels underwhelming, in fact I can’t say I noticed it once. For that reason, I’d probably recommend playing with a good pair of headphones.

Ultimately, if this is your first experience with Until Dawn, the game on offer remains a classic, near genre-defining horror title that is still its developers’ best work. However, it’s hard to say it’s the definitive iteration of Until Dawn with its considered, yet perhaps misguided, sacrifices to atmosphere, along that last generation’s Until Dawn is far better optimised now for a fraction of the price.

Original Review

Until Dawn was originally slated to be released on PS3 as a PlayStation Move exclusive game. The general premise of the game surrounds eight friends who have returned to Blackwood Pines on the one year anniversary of twin sisters Hannah and Beth. The twins mysteriously disappeared after being hunted by a crazed serial killer. The beginning of the game is extremely slow paced, which is necessary as the game allows you to learn about each characters personality and relationships with other members of the group.

The story of Until Dawn follows a very familiar trend for fans of horror movies; it’s over the top, incredibly cheesy and full of incredibly gripping scenes that would almost certainly never play out in real life. It’s all of these things and more that make the game’s story a complete success and one that you won’t want to step away from. The characters mostly end up fulfilling an archetypal role, but the freedom of dialogue choices and how your character can end up interacting with others makes the otherwise cliched dialogue quite fun.

The story is broken up by sessions with a psychologist. This sets the tone of the game incredibly early and was one of my favourite parts of the game. Your sessions early on will alter gameplay. Things like picking your biggest fears or phobias or which characters you dislike most which I assume would affect the way that the story plays out. This is very reminiscent of Silent Hills: Shattered Memories in a good way and adds another layer to the story that I wasn’t expecting.

The presentation in Until Dawn is a positive experience for the most part. The environments are incredibly dark, yet all have a lot of detail and interesting areas to explore. The game positions you with a light source whether it be a torch or a lantern, which is controlled by the analogue sticks or motion controls depending on which control scheme you choose. You can use this light source to better focus on the little details that can be found within Blackwood Pines. The acting in the game is close to the best that I’ve seen in a video game with Peter Stormare playing an interesting psychologist, and Hayden Panettiere and Rami Malek rounding out an all-star lineup. The motion-cap and animations are top-tier in the gaming industry and Supermassive Games are to be commended for this.

The music and sound effects within Until Dawn were a highlight for me. The score is brilliantly reminiscent of some of the best horror movies I’ve seen. It provides a lot of atmosphere in building up to key set scenes within the game. The sound effects are equally brilliant with constant birds fluttering, screams from within the woods and other noises that keep you on the edge of your seat.

The game is broken up via a series of chapters (ala Alan Wake) which is interesting yet odd. On one hand, it works perfectly to break the game up into different sections leading up to dawn but I couldn’t help but feel that the game was initially set to be episodic or something similar. At the beginning of each chapter you are presented with a montage of previous scenes leading into the current scene. This is great for those who might play the game over a series of weeks, but it seems over the top for those who will finish the game over the weekend as most chapters are only 30-60 minutes long.

Until Dawn is an extremely interesting mix of gaming and interactive experiences. The first few hours of the game doesn’t feature a whole lot of action which will annoy some gamers who want non-stop action. This really picks up from about 1/3rd into the game and doesn’t disappoint until the ending. Until Dawn features a series of gameplay techniques that are present from the beginning to the ending. The game is seamless mix of cutscenes, quick time events and character controlled sections. I found the balance of gameplay and story telling to be almost perfect.

For the most part, you will be split into a pairing of two or exploring environments by yourself. I wish that the game placed you in larger group settings more often. I found the constant jumping between characters to be a negative experience as it would often pull you from gripping experiences and put you with another character who is in quite a relaxed environment. I understand the need to do this within a horror environment, but I did find that it relieved some of the tension felt from the more crazy set pieces.

There are a bunch of collectibles within the game which help you piece together the story. These range from learning about the killer, to learning more about Hannah and Beth as well as other characters within the game. There are also totem poles which show you possible sequences that will play out sequences that may appears later in the game. It actually surprised me with just how much time that you can spend exploring each environment to find every last clue. It’s definitely a positive and provides a reason to go back to the game.

The most interesting part of Until Dawn is The Butterfly Effect. The theory of this is that minor decisions in life can have multiple effects going forward. Until Dawn plays on this theory quite a bit. Decisions that you make within conversations will effect set pieces and scenarios later in the game which means that no two play throughs will be identical. This also means that not all gamers will have the same characters die in their game. The amount of choices and branching paths in the game is surprisingly deep, and provides endless replay value and entertainment during discussion, as players will have vastly different experiences throughout the game.

Quick time events play a huge part in the game and form the bulk of the action gameplay. When running from the psycho you’re often presented with two options, one will be a quicker escape route but will require you to press the buttons much quicker. All it takes is one wrong button to permanently kill one character which means that you always need to be paying attention.

One of the more playful elements of Until Dawn was the scare-cam. Provided you’ve hooked up your Playstation Camera to your PS4 you can have it automatically record certain ‘jump-scare’ moments which litter the game, which you can then share online. While jumpscares are usually completely rubbish and a terrible cliche of horror conventions, the addition of having your scares recorded actually makes it a fun feature and the feature plays into the craze of ‘Let’s Play’ videos of people obsessing over horror games on YouTube just to watch someone’s reaction.

I played Until Dawn with motions controls and thoroughly enjoyed it. Decisions are made by tilting the controller in either direction and there are certain sections that require you to aim and shoot by moving the controller. There is also use of the trackpad with the copious amount of reading that you will do. The PlayStation Camera is also used for ‘scare cam’ which will take videos of you in the game’s jump scare moments.

The post Until Dawn Remake Review – A New Perspective On A Horror Icon appeared first on Press Start.

Diablo IV felt like something of a much needed course correction – not just for Diablo, but also for Blizzard. While Diablo III has plenty of its own successes, IV’s pivot back to the gothic grunge that underpinned the first two games just felt right. It’s narrative was another lauded high-point, offering up an engrossing tale that left the door open for inevitable follow-ups.

Almost a year and a half later, the first of which is finally here in Vessel of Hatred. For all intents and purposes, Vessel of Hatred is more Diablo IV – but that isn’t a bad thing. It’s an addition to the base game that sports many of the same strengths and even amends some of its weaknesses. It sometimes feels like it plays it a little too safe as a result, but Vessel of Hatred is a worthy expansion to the devilishly enjoyable base game.

Vessel of Hatred picks up right where Diablo IV left off. The Horadrim are no longer the group they used to be, fragmented by innate differences and perceptions on how the threat of hell should be combatted. The ever-optimistic Neyrelle has set off on her own journey in hopes of finding a way to destroy Mephisto once and for all. The choice she made to imprison the Lord of Hatred forces her to endure unbearable suffering and torment. Mephisto taunts and goads Neyrelle within her own mind, planting seeds of self doubt and uncertainty in the process.

It’s in the search for Neyrelle that we journey into the new region of Nahantu. A humid jungle dense with verdant foliage that contrasts to the relatively muted colour palettes of the base game. It’s a peaceful place left untouched by Lilith’s machinations, but one that’s quickly corrupted by Mephisto as he toys with Neyrelle, and also by the Cathedral of Light who hunt her in an indiscriminate frenzy without Inarius to keep them in check.

It can’t be understated how much Vessel of Hatred is benefitted by opting to revisit characters and factions from the base game. There’re still some interesting newcomers like Eru and Maka, but much of the focus is placed on Nayrelle’s internal struggles with Mephisto. This conflict doesn’t just manifest in his attempts to control her, but also through her survivor’s guilt after everything that’s happened to her. It feels like a natural progression of the horrendous experience Nayrelle was put through when trying to save Sanctuary, giving you an immediate reason to buy in to the plot being told here.

Its shorter runtime also means that its overall pacing is much tighter than that of the base game. There is no bloated middle act to pad out runtime or slow down momentum. Vessel of Hatred always feels like it’s squeezing every narrative drop out of its more constrained runtime, and is all the more engrossing for it. It all concludes in a thematically resonant and cathartic conclusion for the party – especially in regards to Nayrelle – and paints a clear picture of what’s to come next in Diablo IV’s second expansion.

Vessel of Hatred’s biggest gameplay addition is the all new Spiritborn class. These are warriors in-tune with Nahantu’s ties to the Spirit Realm, weaponizing animal spirits to push back the forces of hell. It’s very druid-like in concept, but Spiritborn offers a core fantasy that none of Diablo’s prior classes have before.

All of the Spiritborn’s skills channel a different Spirit Guardians with unique elemental affinities and their own kind of gameplay styles. While the Jaguar Guardian focuses on ramping up your attack speed for high action-per-minute play, the Gorilla Guardian opts for slower area of effect skills with a more defensive toolkit. There’s also the Eagle Guardian and Centipede Guardian, the former of which combines the Jaguar’s speed and fury with plenty of skills that can apply Vulnerable to enemies, with the latter focusing more on crowd control and debilitating status effects.

You can definitely slot into one of these archetypes and focus on their strengths, but the best way to play Spiritborn is by combining different skills pertaining to different Guardian Spirits to mix and match their strengths. It enables you to cover areas a particular Guardian Spirit is weak in, or combine abilities that result in lethal combos to get the most bang for your buck. Combining centipede and gorilla skills, for example, results in a kind of crowd control bruiser that dishes out poison and fears enemies to set them up for the gorilla’s less mobile attacks.

There are so many different ways you can take Spiritborn in Vessel of Hatred, and it really feels like a fresh experience amongst a pantheon of already fantastic classes in Diablo IV. No two Spiritborn builds or playstyles are going to be the same, affording a level of flexibility and adaptability that feels unique in Diablo IV’s sandbox. I was constantly shifting between different archetypes thanks the ability to re-spec for free at any time, and I can’t wait to see what kind of deadly combinations the community comes up with when the class is fully explored.

Nahantu is also a great inclusion here. It’s refreshing to explore a more lively and vibrant environment. It still has the same kind of gothic undertones that come through in its colour palettes and overall design, but it stands out against the variety of backdrops found in the base game. You can tell when you transition from Sanctuary into Nahantu, from the clear environmental shift to its Mesoamerican inspired designs in its iconography and structures. It also feels distinct in the broader scope of the franchise, tapping into a more spiritual side of the world and lore.

From a design standpoint, Nahantu isn’t too much different from the regions of Sanctuary. Its flush with side quests, world quests, optional activities, reputation-boosting collectibles, and more. If you enjoyed the loop of exploring the base game’s environments, very little has changed here in Vessel of Hatred. In some ways, this is a bit of a double-edged sword in the sense that it offers the same constant progression, but it really doesn’t feel all that different from the base game. Even the Altars of Lilith have their own parallel within Nahantu, and much of the Renown grind also makes a return here – for better and for worse.

One new feature with Vessel of Hatred that is really neat, is the inclusion of Mercenaries. Initially making their debut in Diablo II, Mercenaries are just as they sound – hireable NPC characters that will accompany you on your adventures through Nahantu and Sanctuary. There’s four launching with Vessel of Hatred, each of which brings their own skill tree and behaviours to complement that of your own class.

It’s a fun system that adds some nice secondary progression that runs alongside your own, and also provides solo players with a method to bulk out their party if the going gets tough. Each mercenary having their own skill tree is a great way to customise them to fit into roles your class typically wouldn’t. Raheir, for example, can act as an aggro drawing tank or a versatile bruiser that gets into the thick of things and inflicts vulnerable on unsuspecting targets. It’s also thematically resonant with Vessel of Hatred’s overall explorations of coming together in times of hardship and finding support in loved ones.

Vessel of Hatred also brings new activities and endgame content, the most enjoyable of which are the new dungeons. There’s a slew on offer here, but the best are undoubtedly The Dark Citadel and Kurast Undercity. These are dungeons specifically curated for Diablo IV’s endgame, with The Dark Citadel bringing challenging new encounters with mechanics that are a bit more involved than what’s found in the base game. It also has a really great loot chase in an earnable currency that can be used to purchase some incredible looking cosmetics – fashion is always the real endgame.

Kurast Undercity is similarly brilliant. It’s a timed dungeon with multiple stages and tweakable challenges that increase the quality of loot rewarded. It feels very similar to Hades in the way you can make runs harder for larger payouts, providing a scaling challenge as you increase your power with new gear. They’re both fantastic additions to Diablo IV’s swathe of endgame content, and will no doubt keep hardcore players busy for some time.

Even if you play Diablo casually, Vessel of Hatred is also introducing a new in-game party finder so you can group up for these endgame activities. It’s a nice way to get solo players or smaller groups into more challenging content where Mercenaries simply won’t do the job. It really streamlines the whole multiplayer process and has loads of filters so you can find like-minded players at difficulties appropriate to your skill level and power.

It feels a bit redundant to mention Nahantu’s beauty yet again, but it can’t be understated how much Diablo IV’s art style and overall aesthetic excels in this kind of setting. The jungles of Nahantu dense mazes of trees and vines, with the forces of hell lurking in the shadows and the Cathedral of Light occupying its winding paths. Despite its alluring and natural appearance, the unsettling feelings you get exploring Sanctuary also permeate throughout Nahantu’s environments.

It isn’t all jungle either, with arid desert regions skirting the natural surroundings so that it seamlessly transitions to and from Diablo IV’s base map. Vessel of Hatred also has its fair share of hellscapes to explore, all of which are as densely detailed and rich with distinct iconography. It continues to be one of Diablo IV’s strongest aspects, and reconfirms that this franchise is at its best when revelling in the dark fantasy undertones of its gothic world.

Vessel of Hatred is an undeniably fantastic addition to Diablo IV. It might play it safe with how it handles world exploration and its open world activities, but it’s hard to complain when the bones of it are already so competent. If you’re looking for an expansion that shakes up Diablo IV at a fundamental level, Vessel of Hatred won’t deliver. But if you’re just looking for more of the excellence that is Diablo IV, Vessel of Hatred is well worth your attention.

The post Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred Review – A Spiritual Success appeared first on Press Start.

The original Silent Hill 2 is held with such reverence amongst players that it is a seemingly impossible task to remake it. It’s one of the most harrowing stories told in games, and when it was released over two decades ago, it broke a lot of ground for the genre and the medium. Its psychological elements informed many of its failed sequels as many external developers scrambled to capture that lightning in a bottle once more. They didn’t. So it only seems fair that fans would be apprehensive about a remake of Silent Hill 2, let alone one developed by a team with a pedigree like Bloober Team’s.

Admittedly, I was one of those fans. Silent Hill 2 is a project well beyond the scope and scale of anything Bloober has ever made. But Bloober has done the improbable and come out swinging. Silent Hill 2’s success is two-pronged. It’s easily Bloober’s best game so far. But more importantly, it’s an incredibly well-put-together remake. It’s equal parts respectful and daring, not afraid to change things up without shitting all over the legacy of the original game.

While Silent Hill 2 is a sequel, you don’t need to have played the other games to appreciate it. There are some loose links to other games in the series, but the story that Silent Hill 2 so effectively tells is self-contained. You play James Sunderland, a man drawn to Silent Hill after receiving a letter from his wife asking him to return. But James’ wife died three years ago of a terminal illness. Hoping to return and find her, James begins a journey into Silent Hill.

Of course, it’s not that simple. This is a psychological thriller at its purest. James’ journey through Silent Hill is similarly structured to the original game, albeit with many liberties taken to expand the adventure. Bloober was not joking when they surmised that the game would take twice as long to complete. I was sceptical as to whether this approach would work, but it does. How Silent Hill 2 has been expanded is carefully considered. The new inclusions don’t mess with the lore; instead, they add an extra sense of texture and flavour to the world, making Silent Hill feel like the living and breathing entity it should’ve always been.

Besides the very short Born From A Wish campaign, nothing has been cut in the translation to remake. The additional scenes, many of which revolve around James and his relationships with the supporting case, humanise the characters and keep them relevant throughout the story so that their big moments hit harder as things come to a close. It’s a genuinely restrained yet clever expansion of the original game’s seemingly untouchable mythos.

The most obvious comparison is Capcom’s stellar reimagining of Resident Evil 2. A remake where the ideas the original game presented are still here but recontextualised to offer a new and novel experience. I appreciate this approach more than a shot-for-shot remake, as it allows for a different Silent Hill 2 to emerge from the minds of its creators. Silent Hill 2, as such, ditches the fixed camera angles for a now-genre-typical over-the-shoulder viewpoint. I’ll always have a soft spot for fixed camera angles for obvious reasons, but such a change dramatically affects Silent Hill 2 in two ways – how it plays and how it scares you.

While there are comparisons to continue to draw to Resident Evil, Silent Hill 2’s combat is much simpler than any of Capcom’s recent reimaginings. You’ll only ever have three weapons and a melee weapon, though the melee weapon is arguably more of a focus in the Silent Hill games. That much is still true for Silent Hill 2, as if you run out of ammo, the dodge and melee system is more than serviceable enough to get you out of a bind. It’s a surprise that the combat is so good, given this is Bloober’s first shot at it, but it’s also encouraging that something so crucial has been nailed down from the get-go.

Continuing with the idea of being respectful but expanding upon the original, the enemy variety in Silent Hill 2 hasn’t seen that much of a change. Every enemy you remember returns in the remake, though some that had smaller roles in the original game are expanded considerably. Given that the game runs for twice as long now, many variants of these enemies are introduced, too. They behave differently, some dramatically so, and do an excellent job of keeping you guessing as you make your journey through Silent Hill. The combat is a tad too simplistic for a game so long, though, so I wish Bloober were more adventurous with their additions.

However, no restraint is shown in how the bosses of the game have been reimagined. And I mean that in a wholly positive way. Where the original game had many boss encounters in a single room, the remake expands every boss encounter into multi-room, multi-phase events that are much more compelling, if not slightly goofy at times. The Abstract Daddy fight, for example, cleverly tells you a story while you chase it down and fight it, providing more emotional weight to the battle itself. The boss battles are all great reworks of the original game that I appreciated the most about this remake.

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Silent Hill is not Silent Hill without puzzles, but there’s plenty here. Both newcomers and veterans will appreciate that these puzzles are all brand new and are adjustable with a separate difficulty level, as was the case with the original games. Many of them have an abstract parallel to the main story, too. A few of them stumped me for a bit, especially playing on Hard, but they feel similar in tone to the puzzles you’d come across in the original games. They also come at the right times in the game – offering a nice little moment of downtime, always set to a nice piece of music or ambient sound, making them feel like little set pieces in and of themselves.

These elements combine to create a scarier version of Silent Hill 2. The original game is still at its peak, but I found myself much more tense and frightened when playing through Bloober’s rendition of Silent Hill 2. The game goes to great lengths to use lighting and sound to instil a sense of tangible dread in you as a player, and there were so many times when I would be genuinely upset that a door would be open, forcing me to progress into yet another room of unknowns. It’s a truly tense horror experience and a sense of fear I haven’t felt since Resident Evil 7.

The remake brings everything you remember about the original – including the notorious Dog and UFO endings – but two new endings have been added too. It would be remiss of me to spoil them here, but they are nice “what if” scenarios that I can take or leave. There are collectibles to find, too, though hardly necessary, many of which are “echoes” of the past that hint at items or actions you’d come across in the original game. A nice way to pay tribute to the past without cheapening things. Most players can expect to finish the game in around eighteen to twenty hours, which is a nice length for a game of this ilk. And more importantly, you’ll never feel bored.

And while Silent Hill 2 does so much right as a remake, it could be better. I do feel like the simplicity of the combat can get a bit repetitive as the game plays out, and some of the eeriness and, dare I say it, “texture” is lost with the transition to higher-resolution visuals. While I thought I would be bored of the game essentially doubling itself in length, there was only one area, which relied more on combat, that I honestly didn’t enjoy – the labyrinth. All other additions feel carefully considered and only seek to add to the experience.

And obviously, from a presentation perspective, Silent Hill 2 does looks a whole lot better than the original. The fog is thick, the lighting is perfect, and so many of the original game’s key moments are brought to life in a way that you couldn’t even comprehend when you played the original. The game supports a 30fps and 60fps option, too, though some weird ghosting effect in the 60fps mode left me playing in 30fps for most of the adventure. It’s still a great-looking game, at least on console, and is an excellent example of a game using its visuals, like lighting and fog, to really instil a sense of dread in the player.

But it also helps that these improvements help to sell the world of Silent Hill as a constant. You can see from one apartment to another if you peer out a window while exploring them. You’ll eventually hit the hospital as the sun sets, creating a beautifully calming sunset that washes through its halls from outside as you explore it before the sun disappears and rain hits as you progress deeper and deeper into it against the backdrop of a stormy night. In the original game, you felt like you were moving from level to level, whereas in the remake, the presence of the town is felt even when you’re indoors. It feels like a living and breathing world, in a way.

But even higher praise has to be given to the game’s audio design. Make no mistakes – no game does audio design better than the Silent Hill games, and the remake continues that trend. I’d almost argue it does sound design markedly better than anything that’s come before it. The way that the team have managed to build tension and atmosphere using random noises and effects is to be commended in this remake. Add to that an extensive soundtrack restored and reimagined by the series stalwart Akira Yamaoka, and it’s clear Silent Hill 2 remake is one of the best-sounding games you’ll ever play.

The performances are bound to be divisive, however. And that’s not because they’re bad – the remake’s cast does a phenomenal job of bringing these familiar characters to life. But they are arguably turning in performances that are very different in tone from the original game. The way Maria is played in a mystifying but manipulative way by Salóme Gunnarsdóttir is very well done. It’s a different take on the character, and any attempts to imitate Monica Horgan’s original performance would just fall short or invite unfavourable comparisons. The supporting cast is similarly brought to life – Angela and Eddie are both very different takes on the character that has (arguably) better-realised arcs than in the original. Luke Roberts rounds out a strong cast with a more sombre take on James.

And that’s my most telling and resounding compliment of the Silent Hill 2 remake. While I was very aware of where the story would go and where the game would take me, I never once thought that I wished they’d not changed something when the remake deviated from the original. It’s a spirited remake that captures the essence of what made the original game so great while expanding meaningfully without destroying the DNA of its progenitor. It feels nice to finally put these words to paper, but Silent Hill is finally back.

The post Silent Hill 2 Review – A Tense And Terrifying Affair appeared first on Press Start.

This year’s entry in EA Sports’ FC series has left me feeling indifferent. While the developers have finally introduced a smorgasbord of features I’ve been hoping to see in the game’s Manager Career mode, there’s little to be truly excited about gameplay-wise and across the other modes on offer. That said, why fix what ain’t broke? 

This year’s big new addition is Rush – a fast-paced 5v5 mode reminiscent of the mode of the same name from VOLTA Football. Rather than taking it to the streets, Rush takes you onto a smaller pitch and pits four outfield players and a goalkeeper against one another. Goals remain the same size and most football rules still apply, however the pitch is divided into marked thirds and formations are thrown to the curb. 

Rush is fairly frantic. There are no halves to catch a breather, and the introduction of the blue card as opposed to red cards, alongside the smaller pitch, makes for a nice change to FC 25’s other modes. Players who receive a blue card are sent off the field for a minute (think of it as a sin bin ruling). This puts your team at a significant disadvantage thanks to the condensed pitch, allowing the opposition to outright swarm you in these situations. Resisting the urge to trip up players and get unnecessary bookings plays a big role in winning or losing Rush matches.

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The mode has made its way to many of the other main game modes in FC 25, too. Bizarrely, there’s no way to play Rush outside of Kick Off, Ultimate Team, Clubs and Manager Career with your youth academy, though. While this sounds like a lot of options on offer, I’m surprised there isn’t a separate mode that allows you to pop a bunch of teams into a tournament and duke it out with one another.

Those hoping to see VOLTA Football again will be disappointed to hear it’s been completely axed from this year’s entry. It appears Rush was the catalyst for this decision, though I’m confused as to why EA didn’t keep the casual street footy mode – even if it meant it was neglected and received no new features (and let’s be real, this has been the case for years anyway).

On a positive note, Manager Career has seen a noticeable overhaul this year. Chief among the new additions is the introduction of women’s leagues. While there are only five leagues on offer this year – the National Women’s Soccer League in the United States, Spain’s Liga F, France’s Premiere Ligue, the Barclay’s Women’s Super League in England and Germany’s Frauen-Bundesliga – it’s still a huge step in the right direction. An added bonus is that you’re able to accept offers from both men’s and women’s teams throughout your managerial career, which was a potential oversight I was worried about heading into FC 25. 

The women’s game is significantly different from the men’s, both on the field and off it, offering up a different challenge to managing a men’s side. Budgets are highly restricted and expectations are different, however I’ve loved the fact the game challenges you to alleviate these constraints by focusing on the newly revamped youth academy system. 

Rather than assessing a youth player’s value after generating the first scout report like prior entries, FC 25 instead encourages you to look at the player’s potential. You aren’t able to see a player’s value until you’ve generated more reports on them, meaning your youth scouts need to be a fairly good judge of a player if you want to be bringing the best into your academy. There are a handful of other factors to consider too, like their wage, value and position, however the focus on potential is a change I’ve really taken to. It’s taken me out of my comfort zone and challenged me to be more analytical of the players I’m looking for, their potential and how they could fit in my side. It’s made me consider players with high potential as opposed to those with a high initial value. 

The reason potential is such a focal point this year is because it takes center stage in another new addition to Manager Career, youth academy tournaments. As mentioned before, Rush mode makes its way into Manager Career through these tournaments that come about every few months in the season. The glitz and the glamour seen in Ultimate Team and Clubs’ Rush modes are thrown aside for a more academy-like feel. There’s no swanky commentary here, and you’re not playing in front of any fans – youth tournaments are just played on the training ground.

This is where a player’s potential shines. Rather than playing with a bunch of 40-50 rated youngsters, you can use them as if they’ve fulfilled their entire potential. My team had a handful of youngsters who had a possible potential of 85-90, so the majority of them played like that.

It’s very cool to see this as an option (you can opt out and have them play as their current ratings if you wish), as it allows you to get a feel for how the players may end up in the future. It also serves as a nice change from the tried-and-true gameplay that can, at times, feel a little stale in Manager Career.

There’s been an upheaval of Manager Career’s menu design, too. It now resembles something more like Ultimate Team, and I can’t say I’m a fan. It feels clunky to navigate through the many menus and submenus, and there’s been multiple occasions already where my game’s gotten stuck and I’ve had to back out to the main menu and jump back in to resume progress. 

A major sore point in this redesign is the task list, which sits in the home screen. While it may seem like a good idea at first, collating all the various tasks befitting a manager (like player transfers, game preparation and managing team tactics) in one area leads to an overwhelming amount of stuff to read through. This is made worse thanks to the task list only showing three tasks at a time. Leave it to generate for a couple of days in a season and you’ll start to miss important information, as new tasks don’t get sorted to the top of the list. Because of this, I continually missed transfer offers and scout reports. I prefer having a dedicated inbox that I’d be immediately taken to when important information filters through as opposed to having to continually find that information myself. 

Another big change to Manager Career, which can be seen across other modes as well, is the renewed focus on tactics. It’s been a talking point in the lead up to the release of FC 25 and there’s a good reason as to why. You’re now given full control on how your team operates – whether that’s their attacking position when you’re on the ball or off it, how high a defensive line you want to hold or the specific roles of each of your players. You’re given the keys to the castle, really, and can play around to figure out what works for you. 

You can leave this to the generated presets if you like, or you can get really deep into the nitty gritty. The beauty is that either way the game caters for both. As someone who absolutely adores this kind of deep tactical nuance, I’ve loved being able to dissect everything my team does when in and out of possession, as well as being able to fine tune my 4-3-3 to suit my expectations when my team’s out on the pitch. Another neat feature I’ve been getting to grips with is the way you can align a player’s role with what they’re familiar with, which will in turn grant performance bonuses on the field.

I’ve also been particularly surprised by the variety of options on offer to you to fully customise your Manager Career – whether that’s the inclusion of transfer embargoes, determining the seriousness of the board and their leniency on you achieving their objectives, being able to apply for international roles or specifically choosing the positions you’d like your youth scouts to keep an eye out for. It’s great to see these little things make their way into the mode, as while they’re minor they do add a lot to the experience. 

One particular pain point is the way budgets are handled for the men’s and women’s teams, though. It’s something I’m unsure EA can do much about, but a financial takeover of 10 million pounds, for example, would net you very little when managing a men’s team, however it’s a very different story for a women’s team. Most transfer fees range anywhere between 40 to 300 thousand points for the latter, meaning you could amass the best team in the five leagues available with very little effort. Now you don’t have to use a financial takeover of course, but I’m very curious to see how things change as time progresses. Generally, teams continue to get higher budgets as Manager Career goes on into its later seasons, so I’m interested to see how that’ll affect the women’s leagues. I haven’t been able to dig deeper into this but I assume nothing’s really been done to address it. Fantasy football, eh? 

Player Career doesn’t see too much change this year, however there are a couple of notable new additions to inject some much needed energy into the mode. The first of these is being able to play as an icon rather than a regular player. While the selection is fairly limited at just seven icons right now, it’s a neat idea to be able to bring a player like David Beckham or Thierry Henry into the modern era. If you want to kick off as a created pro, you can choose your own origin story, which helps create a bit more of a narrative around your player. While neither of these are groundbreaking by any means, they are nice additions to a mode that tends to fall behind the other major modes in FC. 

After all is said and done on the tactics side and it’s time to actually play the game, FC 25 sticks to the ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ mantra. It’s all about smaller, incremental changes as opposed to the wide-sweeping alterations we usually see every three to four years from the series. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, though – the gameplay is as good as it’s ever been, however it’s not hugely different from last year. Even so, I’ve particularly enjoyed the swathe of new animations that have been added in, with these shining most prominently while you’re in the final third. Players tend to look a bit more realistic and natural when taking a shot at goal, and general passing play looks fantastic. Sliding in those picture-perfect through balls are a sight to behold, and the game continues to do a great job immersing you in the atmosphere of the game with mostly accurate crowd responses to situations on-field. Unsurprisingly, the game feels relatively slow this early in the release schedule but I expect that to change over time as has been the case in all of the previous entries. 

The return of the full pre-match introduction package is very much welcome, and I appreciate that you can select whether it always plays or you opt-in during the quicker pre-match intro. Other little changes, like being given more than one suggestion for a quick substitution at a time and the substitute allowance/window counter being tucked neatly inside the team management screen, are also welcome additions. A reworked instant replay system is also a nice touch, allowing you to capture moments in-game through photo mode and its variety of filters and effects on offer. And while I thought it may be a little silly ahead of release, the player POV cam has been a breath of fresh air for capturing events in-game. 

I was surprised to see little has changed in Ultimate Team and Clubs modes this year (aside from the addition of Rush in both and the introduction of the clubhouse in the latter), and wonder if keeping VOLTA may have made this feel a bit more like a solid all-round package. The game just seems to be lacking a deeper mode that doesn’t take itself so seriously. 

With that said, Ultimate Team does continue the renewed push on tactics by changing up the way manager cards work. These cards now incorporate manager tactical presets, which echo their real world tactic preferences and can directly influence how your squad plays. Just like Manager Career, player roles and role familiarity also play a big part in Ultimate Team – to get the best out of your squad, you’ll need to dig into your tactics to ensure players are playing in roles they’re familiar with in order to get the most out of them. Other than that, there’s a new FUT stadium to build up with items and a variety of new broadcast elements to keep things feeling relatively fresh throughout the season, alongside cosmetic card evolutions that change the way a player’s card looks visually without influencing their stats.

While it doesn’t reach for the stars, FC 25 is still a great footy sim for fans and newcomers alike. Rush is an enjoyable addition and tactics take centre stage for those that want to dig deep into the systems of the game, while sweeping changes across Manager Career has made it a joy to play. Gameplay changes are slight tweaks more than anything else, however there’s no doubting it’s still the best footy game out there right now. 

The post EA Sports FC 25 Review – Small Steps appeared first on Press Start.

There was a time when you could hardly step foot in a game store without finding several rally games vying for your attention. Rallying in the real world was at it’s peak of popularity in the 1990s and rallying games were a dime a dozen. Colin McRae and Tommi Mäkinen may not be household names anymore, but Polish dev team Pixel Perfect Dude want to take us back. Approachable rally with depth to keep you playing, Drive Rally is for the most part a pleasant way to revisit rally’s glory days.

The key to any rally game’s success is the driving experience. In this aspect Drive Rally excels. Each of the driving surfaces like dirt, snow and tarmac have a distinct feel. Driving in snow at speed feels exhilaratingly dangerous, your ability to slow down severely hampered by the near total lack of traction. Dirt isn’t quite as slippery, but still poses a challenge. Transitioning from a slippery to dry tarmac is a real test of good road-feel in a rally game and to me Drive passes this test swimmingly. It feels so good to slide into a corner and shoot out the exact direction you intended once the grip of bitumen grabs you.

Throwback games like this sometimes choose to go for a low-res, low-poly look reminiscent of the original hardware. Drive Rally instead goes an entirely different direction. It takes the best aspects of the flat-shaded look and combines it with some wonderful lighting and high resolution sharpness to great effect. Cars are bright and colourful with sharp shadows to make sure they look at home in their surroundings. The environment shares the well-lit flat look. On higher graphics settings, sunny tracks are bathed in a dreamy haze that really drives home the nostalgic feel the game strives for.

None of the cars are officially licensed, but I really enjoyed their designs. They are clearly modelled as tributes to rallying greats, and it’s fun to see recognisable design elements among the stylised cars.

Championship mode is where I spent most of my time, and it’s the primary way you progress through the game. Each championship is set in a particular location. Snowy terrain, arid deserts and dense rainforest are on offer. Each comes with an associated set of cars to gradually unlock and a co-driver to help you along the way. Championships are linear sets of races. As you progress you’ll unlock car customisations and new cars, and gradually ramp up the difficulty in both track complexity and vehicle speed. I found myself getting better at handling the vehicles in various terrains as I went along, eventually leading to me absolutely nailing sections of tracks that felt fantastic. It’s pretty bare-bones as far as a career mode goes, but does it’s job in letting the actual racing take centre stage.

The co-pilots however, drove me mad. Intended to bring a little personality to proceedings, I found they mostly detracted from the experience. You have four to choose from currently, each a paper-thin stereotype. From Hans who speaks like a Schwarzenegger impersonator to Emma whose personality seems to be ‘being an airhead’ and getting randomly angry at you while giving cornering advice – each of the co-drivers were grating in their own special way. Sometimes they even just straight up missed giving me the details of upcoming corners because they were too busy making some quip about Deutsche Electrik company. Comedy and character can come down to taste, but to me at least they were bad enough that I wished I could do without them.

I also encountered some display bugs, like the names of the championship stages showing up as placeholder text. The cornering advice I mentioned before could be improved as well. Even when they don’t miss them entirely, your co-driver doesn’t really communicate well when turns lead into one another. Even as simple as adding “Left 1 *into* Right 2” would make it so much easier to understand the upcoming twists – much like a real rally co-driver giving pace notes.

I’ve been assured by the dev team that the display bugs and pace notes issues are known and that they’re planning to tackle them before release. Given it’s releasing into Early Access, bugs like this are hardly unexpected. Aside from the aforementioned cornering advice issues and text issues, I had an overall stable experience with Drive Rally.

The post #DRIVE Rally Early Access Review – A Return to the Golden Era appeared first on Press Start.

There’s no better way to indicate the rarified air that Epic Mickey finds itself in than there truly being nothing else like it from Disney since its sequel released. While Disney have maintained a relatively strong presence in the console market, few projects have managed to capture the same originality and flavour of the Epic Mickey duology outside of Kingdom Hearts. Combine this with Epic Mickey’s limited availability due to Wii exclusivity, and there couldn’t be a better time to return to Mickey’s platforming adventures in the form of Epic Mickey: Rebrushed.

After entering Yen Sid’s workshop through a magic mirror, Mickey’s curiosity is piqued by a model resembling Disneyland. A well-intentioned expression of art quickly turns into an accident that results in the creation of a monster called the Shadow Blot. Mickey panics as the Shadow Blot attacks, prompting him to hurl paint and paint thinner at the beast in a desperate attempt to clean up the mess he’s made. Having survived Mickey’s onslaught of ink, the Shadow Blot descends into the model world, sowing its own chaos there instead.

Decades later, an unsuspecting Mickey is ambushed by the same monster, abducting and bringing him into to the very world the Shadow Blot was initially banished to, now known as Wasteland. A place where forgotten characters and ideas from Disney’s expansive works reside. Mickey’s previous tangle with the Shadow Blot has resulted in some real damage to the people and places found within Wasteland, encouraging Mickey to help all those he can while he searches for a way to return to his own world.

It’s this setup that gives way to Epic Mickey’s genius setting. It’s a true homage to Disney properties both past and present that thoughtfully characterises Mickey and his adventure, one that places its commentary on IP abandonment right at the forefront of its unsettling atmosphere. This is most intricately explored through Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, a character who originally starred in some of Disney’s earliest theatrical shorts before the studio lost rights to Oswald in a contract dispute with Universal Studios.

As the first inhabitant of the Wasteland, Oswald became its ruler in order to help those who’ve been rejected or forgotten by Disney as the wheels of industry continue to turn. He’s seen as something of a hero to those who’ve found new lives in the Wasteland, but he isn’t without faults. He’s short tempered and resents Mickey for taking his spot as Disney’s flagship character. The damage that the Shadow Blot has done to the Wasteland has also left it in a state of disrepair, further complicating the unseen ties between Mickey and Oswald.

Deeper themes and ideas aside, Epic Mickey tells a fundamentally engrossing story. It’s a carefully balanced mix of weaponised nostalgia, trademark Disney hope, and a dash of poignant melancholy. It’s a joy to see Mickey and Oswald grow over the course of the 10-15 hour story, and the way that new personality and character is infused into the world and characters through side quests makes the world feel like real care and attention was put into bringing it to life. Even if you aren’t crazy about Disney history and the titular Mickey Mouse, there’s a lot of value to be found in the story and characters of Epic Mickey.

Playing Epic Mickey in 2024 is a stark reminder of how few 3D platformers there are nowadays in comparison to the 2010s (excluding Astro Bot, of course). It takes inspiration most heavily from classic collectathon platformers like Banjo-Kazooie and Super Mario 64. Large non-linear levels are populated with NPCs who offer sidequests, Gremlins to free, and of course, collectibles to snatch up. Where it differentiates itself the most, is in its painting and thinning mechanics.

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Equipped with the same magic brush from Yen Sid’s workshop, Mickey can use paint and thinner to interact with different elements of Wasteland. Aside from it being Mickey’s main form of defence against the Shadow Blot’s forces, paint and thinner can be used to create and dissolve different parts of the environment. It’s a straightforward idea, but one that is used in so many different ways throughout the adventure. Unsuspecting walls can be thinned to reveal hidden areas with treasure, puzzles often require apt use of both to reach solutions, and the destruction left in the wake of the Shadow Blot can be painted back into existence.

The best aspect of this mechanic is undoubtedly the way it informs a simple morality system directly tied to how you choose to deal with problems. All boss fights and enemy encounters can be resolved in different ways. Where paint will liberate those under the corrupting influence of the Shadow Blot, thinner will dissolve them into nothing. The people around Mickey react differently according to your decisions and it makes you feel like you have a tangible impact on Wasteland and its inhabitants. It adds an element of roleplay you don’t often see in 3D platformers, and works well to reinforce Epic Mickey’s core themes.

The other aspect that helps to build this feeling of reactivity is Epic Mickey’s aforementioned side quests. The game’s hub levels are absolutely packed with familiar characters who need help with odd jobs and requests that only Mickey is fit to deal with. In a way, Mickey is responsible for the plights of these people due to his creation of the Shadow Blot. It’s worth mentioning that some of these quests aren’t always available, and they’ll eventually expire or be entirely inaccessible if you move on to another area. Leaving these quests as incomplete also changes the way these characters interact with Mickey, and can often make your journey more difficult in certain ways.

As a 3D platformer, Epic Mickey is mostly serviceable. It’s less interested in creating difficult platforming challenges, instead investing in finding ways to weave in painting and thinning the environment to progress forward. It’s largely satisfying, but some aspects of Mickey’s control aren’t quite up to snuff. Jumping brings his momentum to a grinding halt, and it often feels like finding ways to get through areas through smart use of Mickey’s movement set is discouraged and inflexible.

The game also has a slew of 2D platforming sections that serve as stop gaps between Epic Mickey’s major areas. Inspired by some of Disney’s earliest animated shorts, they’re a nice way to break up the pace between all the 3D platforming and combat. They do feel a little on the simple side, though, and often end before they truly get started. One nice change in Rebrush, is the ability to skip these levels if you’ve already completed them, cutting down on time spent backtracking. The camera is also much improved across all aspects of the game thanks to dual stick controls, making the whole experience much more enjoyable.

Rebrushed’s most immediate updates come in the form of its visuals. Now free from the constraints of the Nintendo Wii, Epic Mickey looks fantastic on modern hardware. The game looks great at these higher resolutions, but perhaps most importantly, is that the aesthetic and atmosphere of the original is carefully kept intact here. Wasteland’s painterly visuals are dripping with mood and artistry, with flawless performance to boot on PlayStation 5.

The raw visual upgrade wouldn’t be enough on its own if Wasteland wasn’t already a unique setting. It really sells the idea of abandonment and found family in the characters and places that have fallen to the wayside in light of Disney’s other successes. It’s a side of Disney we simply haven’t seen anywhere else, and is sobering in its presentation and handling of IP abandonment. It’s all in service of building a world that seems antithetical to everything Disney stands for, but peeling back its gnarled surface reveals the same kind of eager happiness and hope that they’re always associated with.

Epic Mickey: Rebrushed is perhaps most valuable in the way that it makes Epic Mickey more accessible to those who’ve yet to experience one of Mickey’s best gaming experiences. It’s setting, narrative, and ideas are just as inspired as they were in 2010, and its paint and thinner mechanic is stretched to a satisfying logical extreme. It isn’t without some issues, but Epic Mickey: Rebrushed is the definitive way to play Epic Mickey today, and is well worth experiencing if you missed out on it more than a decade ago.

The post Disney Epic Mickey: Rebrushed Review – An Artful Return appeared first on Press Start.

Santa Monica Studio and Jetpack Interactive have done an exceptional job bringing Kratos’ second Norse journey to PC. Much like the 2018 reboot, God of War Ragnarok brings a host of welcome additions to the PC version, while also bundling in the excellent Valhalla mode, making the final chapter in Kratos’ Norse adventure a brilliant experience on PC – whether you’ve already experienced it or are going in for the first time.

Ragnarok on PC supports a handful of nifty features to fully take advantage of higher-end systems. Chief among those is the option to unlock the frame rate, making the game feel much snappier, as well as being able to play the game at native 4K if your setup supports it. Playing the game on higher settings will also net you enhanced reflections and lighting, alongside increased geometric detail over the PlayStation versions.

Of course, you’ll need a decent gaming rig to be able to support the added detail and unlocked frame rate. Thankfully, Jetpack Interactive hasn’t skimped on upscaling options. The game supports DLSS 3.7, AMD FSR 3.1 and Intel XeSS 1.2, giving you a wide range of upscaling options – no matter what kind of system you’re playing on.

I was able to easily maintain a consistent 4K 60fps on the game’s high preset with my 7800X3D and 3080 Ti-fuelled build while having DLSS on the ‘quality’ setting. Throughout my time it felt like the game didn’t skip a beat, even during busy sequences. The game runs brilliantly and looks incredible.

There’s a range of options available by way of graphics customisation as well, giving you enough tools to tinker with things until you find something that suits your rig. Like most modern titles the game has a VRAM indicator in the settings menu, allowing you to see how your finetuning will directly affect performance on the GPU. While the game initially shipped with a 6GB VRAM requirement to launch the game, that’s since been pulled in the latest update. Mileage may vary depending on the GPU you’re currently running, so be sure to check the game’s minimum spec requirements.

Taking the experience over to my Steam Deck OLED garnered somewhat mixed results. While the game’s opening chapter ran really well, hovering between 40 to 60fps on a combination of low to medium settings with upscaling settings on, the game tends to struggle the more you progress. If you’re looking to play Ragnarok the entire way through on a Steam Deck (or any of the other handheld PC options available right now), be aware it may not be the smoothest of experiences.

I only have a few qualms with the game’s port, and they’re fairly minor issues. The first is the lack of any benchmark tool to stress test graphics settings, which would help get a better idea of how systems like the Steam Deck would fare later on in the game. Another is the lack of a borderless fullscreen option. While the latter isn’t a major dealbreaker, I do like having the option to drop my resolution on borderless fullscreen in order to crank those frames and quality settings and I’m sad to not see it included.

I’ve also experienced a handful of various UI glitches during my time with the game, the most notable being a touchpad prompt appearing while I was using an Xbox controller, which left me a little confused.

@shannongrixti

God Of War Ragnarok (AKA the game of the generation) is the latest PlayStation game to arrive on PC #GodOfWar #GodOfWarRagnarok #GodOfWarRagnarokPC #PC #AYANEO #AYANEOFLIP #AYANEOFLIPDS #Handheld #WindowsHandheld

? original sound – Shannon Grixti | Gaming & Tech

God of War Ragnarok is the first PlayStation game on PC that requires a PSN account to play, as well. It’s a baffling decision considering the game is a single-player only experience, so keep that in mind if you aren’t keen on signing up.

With all that said, Santa Monica Studio and Jetpack Interactive have delivered a fantastic PC port of a stellar game with all of the glorious graphical bells and whistles included. For more information on what we thought of the game itself, read our full review of God of War Ragnarok here.

The post God of War Ragnarok PC Review – Godlike Excellence appeared first on Press Start.

Some brief history – as this review is long – I’ve always been a fan of Grasshopper games. They’ve never been massive-budget blockbusters, but they’ve had some incredible ideas and interesting worlds that I’ve adored visiting in their games. Lollipop Chainsaw is where I’ve always been a bit torn. On one hand, the action is simplistic. On the other hand, the way the story is told is incredible, and the characters themselves are all just so charming. So when a remaster was announced two years ago, I was excited. And now, having played RePOP, I’ve got a greater appreciation for what Lollipop Chainsaw was trying to do all those years ago. But I’m not sure RePOP is currently the right way to experience it.

Lollipop Chainsaw follows Juliet Starling, a cheerleader at San Romero High School who is excited to introduce her boyfriend Nick to her eclectic family on her eighteenth birthday. Unfortunately, as the day begins, a zombie outbreak has occurred. But not just that – an evil goth kid named Swan has summoned five intelligent zombies, called the Dark Purveyors, to take over the world. It’s just as well that Juliet is descended from a long line of zombie hunters, thankfully, and sets off with her trust chainsaw to cut up some rock music-worshipping lords of rock.

At the time, Lollipop Chainsaw was an exciting prospect as it brought together No More Heroes’ Suda51 and James Gunn to create something truly bizarre and out there. Revisiting Lollipop Chainsaw today, the charm is still there. You can see the influences that James Gunn would eventually implement in his tentpole films like Guardians of the Galaxy and Suicide Squad. But Lollipop Chainsaw feels like so much more than the exploitative adventure it initially presents as. It’s a genuinely fun and subversive romp that had the perfect vibes if I could anachronistically use those words back then.

RePOP is a remaster of sorts that brings the game to modern platforms. The original game has been stuck on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 for almost twelve years, so RePOP feels needed. This remaster tweaks the gameplay to be much more accessible, especially to newcomers, and adjusts things so the game puts its best foot forward early. Much effort has been made to ensure players can access many more upgrades and combos earlier, which helps with the flow of combat.

The other enhancements are what you’d come to expect from a modern remaster – a higher framerate in particular – but the newly added RePOP mode doesn’t serve much of a purpose. It replaces the blood effects, which were already pretty cartoonish in the first place, with purplish flourishes instead. I suppose it’s an attempt to get newer players to try the game out, but it feels like a pointless addition and a glorified visual filter. What colour of fluid comes out of a person when you chainsaw them in half isn’t going to convince them to play a game where they otherwise wouldn’t. But that’s just my opinion.

At its core, Lollipop Chainsaw is a hack-and-slash adventure that sees you, as Juliet, mowing through enemies with a combination of attacks from your pom-poms, chainsaw, or both. The game does a pretty good job of introducing new abilities across its modest eight-hour runtime, and using a combination of these abilities is the best way to kill zombies efficiently. In terms of mechanical complexity, as a fan of the genre, I’d say it’s closer to something like Dynasty Warriors or No More Heroes rather than Devil May Cry or Bayonetta. It’s a simplistic combat system that is easy enough to grasp, though RePOP makes it easier to master.

RePOP has been tweaked to run much faster than the original game. Juliet moves quicker, and I could swear that her attacks come out quicker, too. Couple this with adjustments to the in-game shop, which goes as far as halving the cost of some of the better special moves. It’s clear RePOP puts great effort into giving you all the toys to play with early. Later on, you’ll even get a projectile weapon that needed to be cocked after a few shots in the original. Now, in RePOP, it can shoot continuously. It’s a much easier experience, which I’d normally lament, but I welcome it given how Lollipop Chainsaw is structured.

This is something I rarely would praise in a remaster. But despite the vivacious nature of the world and the incredibly tongue-in-cheek humour the game hangs its story on, Lollipop Chainsaw is straightforward. Encounters with enemies, while sometimes erring into the creative, feel they carry on for a smidge too long. It’s made especially worse if you die, as checkpoints are oddly uneven, and you’ll have to repeat a lot of it again. The game is fun in short bursts, and given how simple the combat is, there is just not a whole lot here beyond what you unlock in the first third of the game.

These moments are broken up briefly by sections where you can use your boyfriend Nick to control a zombie and make a path for Juliet. But they’re too few and far between and don’t do anything creatively interesting, though I appreciate the way Nick is used in the story to subvert the typical expectations you’d have for someone like him in a story like this. I can’t say much more without spoiling, so I won’t.

The highlight, like many Suda51 games, is the boss battles. Each of the Dark Purveyors is modelled after a type of rock music – a, once again, incredibly Suda51-like decision. The cast of bosses you’ll battle are all fantastic, taking inspiration from punk rock, Viking metal, psychedelic rock, funk and good old-fashioned rock and roll. They’re great little battles that carry themselves with such a huge visual flair that you almost forget about the key element of Lollipop Chainsaw that RePOP is missing.

And that’s the music. Almost all licensed music that appeared in the original Lollipop Chainsaw has been scrapped for RePOP, replaced with original pieces that quite frankly don’t suit the mood or feel of the original. We’ve all had that moment when we watch an older series on Netflix we love, only to see the music from key scenes changed to generic tracks that fail to capture the feel of the original. That’s RePOP’s problem, and while The Chordette’s iconic Lollipop plays as you shop for upgrades, all of the original music is gone. It’s a huge shame, given how integral these tracks were to the original vibe.

Thankfully, the voicework of the cast is still pretty fantastic, especially the star-studded ones. Michael Rosenbaum does a great job playing Nick, while Linda Cardellini, Michael Rooker and Shawnee Smith round out a great voice cast playing some of the Dark Purveyors. But you can’t discount the incredible work that Tara Strong does in bringing Juliet to life. She nails every line and makes me happy that they didn’t go the recast route like so many remasters sometimes do. Unfortunately, for some reason, all of the audio recordings are incredibly low quality, so this remaster feels especially lo-fi.

However, the missing licensed tracks are only one prong of a larger issue that RePOP carries – the presentation. There was real potential here to revive the original game with a more colourful and vibrant visual style to complement the hyper-sweet Lolita style the original developer was going for. Instead, while the game runs at a much better framerate than the original, many odd visual glitches bring down the experience. Lighting is all over the place, sometimes just filling the screen with a white glow to the point where you can’t see anything. Sometimes zombies disappear, and other times, students disappear but still speak their lines to Juliet after being saved. Heck, sometimes characters don’t speak their lines. I hope these issues will be fixed with patches, but it means RePOP is currently not the best way to play Lollipop Chainsaw.

Outside of the game itself, odd issues persist, too. Menus and load screens are blurry and compressed, looking like low-quality images your weird aunty downloads off Google and then uploads to her Facebook as her profile photo. The menus that let you scroll through your achievements and abilities are also barebones, with some even disappearing after selecting an item on them. It’s, once again, something I’m sure will be fixed with future updates, but it’s a strange choice to have such average-looking assets in a project that’s about bringing the best version of the original game forward.

This is a massive shame because RePOP is only a passable revision of the original game, which is arguably the worst way to play right now. The faster combat system is appreciated, as is the speedier framerate, but the myriad of glitches and missing effects that have reared themselves in place of them are not worth the trade-off. And that’s before we even consider what has been lost due to presumable licensing issues. If the worldview weren’t so damn charming, I’d be reticent to recommend RePOP at all. But there’s something here, and I hope it’ll eventually bloom into the remaster that Lollipop Chainsaw deserves.

The post Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP Review – A Sour Aftertaste appeared first on Press Start.

Almost three decades ago, I was left with a certain sense of wonderment when Pixar proposed the idea that toys adhere to the “when the cat’s away” philosophy and spring to life when nobody is in the room. All Possible Futures, an Australian-based developer, has reframed that concept through picture books, their lesson-full tales of light versus dark, their heroes and villains, and, page-by-page, has left me with that very same sense of childlike astonishment. For me, The Plucky Squire isn’t just a game for kids, it’s a time machine for big kids like me to relive a little bit of that youth.

Jot, the titular squire with a daring disposition, is the hero of his story, and with his ragtag friends Violet and Thrash he frequently bests the nefarious sorcerer Humgrump, saving the good people of Mojo all the while. That tireless loop of gallantry remains the status quo until Humgrump learns to harness the power of metamagic, which ousts Jot out of his colourful tome and into the world that exists on Sam’s desk. 

Within the confines of the page, Jot is a flat, two-dimensional squire who adventures with a sword in hand, not unlike many of the classically-inspired action-adventure titles we grew up with. Out in the “real” world, Jot takes a plump, three-dimensional shape I’ve, in the past, likened to Homer Simpson after he explores the peculiar, rendered space in the nook behind his bookcase. It’s a shame that, thanks to the necessity of advertising, this detail wasn’t able to be kept under wraps, because when Jot is first forced from his papered home it’s a spectacular upending of everything the game had sold us to that point. 

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As Humgrump desperately tries to keep the trio at arm’s length, and the roadblocks in their path grow greater, the core loop of The Plucky Squire settles into a rhythm of exhausting the problem-solving potential of the tools you do have before having Jot venture outward into the relative danger of the desktop plains to collect the next plot device that’ll help them plough through their obstacle. Said plot devices tend to grant Jot near omnipotent control over the book, though you start by modestly retreating back to prior pages and plucking certain words from their place and giving them new context elsewhere.

That said, by the end you wield all-powerful gauntlets and stamps that let you mess with the book’s properties and physics from above, from freezing items in place to transferring certain items from page-to-page. And with each new ability, it added layers to how you’d need to combine them to meet the increasing complexity of the puzzles. It kept ramping up just enough to remain engaging throughout. 

Make no mistake, the puzzles might be crafty and undeniably wholesome, however they’re definitely designed to be intuitive and the game hand-holds quite a bit, which never took me out when I considered the intended audience. Ultimately, the solutions are one-track and while experimenting with different words can offer moments of levity, punctuated more so by the game’s pleasantly couth, and very British narration, it’s unfortunate the way forward is such a straight line.

No matter the dimension you’re occupying, the game’s swordplay feels simple and accessible. Lunging ground pounds and swirling spin attacks, which can be upgraded at vendors throughout, keep the combat from being entirely one-note though it never quite evolves from its ‘see a creature, whack a creature’ approach. Fortunately, the way the game incorporates Jot’s newfound powers into fights helped supplement what is an ultimately rudimentary attack system. 

The game geniusly subverts expectations over and again over the course of its ten decently-sized chapters. Similar to It Takes Two and its teams willingness to implement a fun, off the wall gameplay idea for a two-minute bit, The Plucky Squire juggles its aforementioned swordplay, which already feels like an homage to Jot’s capped contemporary in Link, with so many neat moments that they feel like carefully composed, copyright-evading love letters to so many other games. I couldn’t help but grin big enjoying the nods to Punch-Out, match-three games, and even Lunar Jetman. What’s great is that, while Jot is the titular hero, the story isn’t solely about him, both Violent and Thrash, through these mini-games, get their small pound of valour on offer. 

Put simply, The Plucky Squire is pretty as a picture book. It’s bold, colourful, and through James Turner’s stint at Game Freak, the similarities to something as instantly recognisable as Pokémon is clear. Creature design is fun, though I love how rich and saturated the art style is, with bold-stroke outlines and full, vibrant colours filling every inch of the page. Jot has all the makings of an instantly iconic mascot, and although the game jokes about The Plucky Squire penetrating other media, I definitely believe it could. With sections that’ll have you fighting top-down, side-view or in three-dimensional space, animation and movement remains crisp regardless of perspective.

I did play the game in full on my ROG Ally, and the game ran smoothly for the most part, I did definitely notice an amount of slowdown during transitions from book-to-desk, which isn’t exactly surprising. Having two separate instances running simultaneously, one still on the page and the other happening all around Jot, feels like magic in its own right. The only other problem I encountered occurred when I managed to break sequence and skip a fight altogether which led to some unfortunate fatal crash errors. To the developer’s credit, their autosave system made it super easy to revert back only a handful of minutes to avoid the same mistakes on a prior save. 

The Plucky Squire is a darling experience that I’m so glad exists. It’s yet another earned feather in the squire’s cap belonging to Devolver Digital, and it’s a wonderful achievement for games development down under. It isn’t quirky or weird like many of the publisher’s other gambles, The Plucky Squire simply answers the call of anyone who has wished for a charming, family-first adventure game that’s oozing with creativity.

The post The Plucky Squire Review – A Book Worth Checking Out appeared first on Press Start.

It’s daunting to think the original Dead Rising is almost twenty years old. When it was first released on the Xbox 360, I remember it being so mind-blowing that so many zombies could be rendered on-screen simultaneously. It felt truly next-gen. But it’s been a long time since then, while I had a chance to revisit the game eight years ago, some aspects haven’t aged well. Now, Capcom has done the seemingly impossible with Dead Rising: Deluxe Remaster. They’ve made Dead Rising a lot more approachable, but without sacrificing the game’s unique identity.

But to get one thing out of the way here – Capcom is underselling themselves by calling this a Deluxe Remaster. From a visual standpoint, it’s closer to a full-blown remake. The game has seen a significant visual upgrade thanks to Capcom’s ever-gorgeous RE Engine, but it has seen numerous gameplay improvements, too. As such, Deluxe Remaster firmly occupies the space between an exhaustive restructure seen in games like Resident Evil 2 and the very barebones remaster treatment the original game received eight years ago.

That said, a lot has stayed the same with how Deluxe Remaster is structured. If you remember the best path through the game, it’ll work here. As such, the story is the same too. You still play as Frank West, a photojournalist investigating strange goings-on at Willamette Parkview Mall, only to discover that the population has been turned to zombies. You have three days to learn why, which equates to around six hours in real-time, and you can use that time in whatever manner you wish.

Back then and still now, Dead Rising is structured uniquely. The main storyline is tied to cases Frank must investigate, which occur in the world at a certain time. If you’re not there when it starts, the storyline ends, and Frank must start over. There are many ways in which the game does a great job of communicating this to you, and the meat of the Dead Rising experience is discovering and planning the best course of action that’ll result in maximum returns for Frank. But if you fail, it’s not to worry because you’ll be able to start over with any upgrades you’ve earned for Frank (and the ever-powerful sense of hindsight) to do better.

It’s more complicated, though. From time to time, Frank will be contacted on radio about scoops. Scoops are essentially side quests that are plopped into Frank’s journal for him to investigate as they get called in. They’ve all got individual timers attached and are at different points throughout the mall, so you’ve really got to prioritise who you’ll save and when. The more people you save, especially at once, the more experience you get. But the challenge comes in the balance – grabbing particular scoops and getting everyone to safety, all while the main story is about to progress somewhere else in the mall, can really be stressful.

It’s excellent news, then, that the Deluxe Remaster does everything possible to make this experience more convenient. Controls have been completely overhauled, with special moves mapped to face buttons instead of strange analogue inputs as in the original. Frank’s dodge roll also feels smooth, performed with a single button press. It may sound like a small change, but it makes Dead Rising feel much more modern. I returned to the original game last month to prepare for this one and it was bizarre how the control scheme was set out – which is still selectable in Deluxe Remaster, mind you – but this newer modern control scheme is a massive step in the right direction.

The other most obvious adjustment is improving the AI driving the survivors. It can still get pretty tense sometimes, especially when you’re escorting a larger group, but they tend to follow Frank closer or move quicker through hordes. This removes much of the frustration that might’ve been present in the original game, as it makes things easier. Some might have an issue with this, but at that point, I have to ask – what are you missing here? Is bad NPC AI really part of what made Dead Rising so special? I really don’t think so.

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The way survivors work in Deluxe Remaster has similarly been overhauled. A new affinity system can improve their behaviour and performance in your party. Each survivor now has a set of items and weapons they prefer, and if you give them to them, they’ll be more likely to help Frank. They might become better at attacking, pointing out hidden collectibles or weapons or even helping other survivors. It’s a cool system that, as a series veteran, didn’t have to engage with much, but one that is, once again, making the experience more accessible to newcomers.

But while everything is becoming less challenging, the boss battles feel like they’ve stepped in the opposite direction. The bosses were great in the original, but you’d often stand there, trading blows with them. They were unfortunate victims of the janky control scheme that the original game had. But in Deluxe Remaster, every boss battle has seen some adjustment. There are still some frustrating moments, particularly with one enemy introduced late in the game, but overall, the game flows and plays so much better now.

These improvements are sensible. If you kill a convict driving a car, one of the other two will change seats and continue driving the car now. Cletus, the maniacal gun shop owner, would stand there and take bullets from you, occasionally fighting back. Now, he ducks under the counter and crawls around until you stop firing. They’re small changes that do mean the boss battles take longer now. But given how quickly you can do everything else in Deluxe Remaster compared to the original, it doesn’t dramatically break the game’s balance.

Other smaller improvements all contribute to a better experience for players. Every item you pick up now has a visible deterioration meter, so you know when your trust bat might break. Everybody is also now voiced, which is especially useful when you first walk into an area and hear them screaming out at you. You can now skip through conversations with the shoulder buttons, which might sound like a small change, but it is a huge improvement over the original, where (text-based) conversations would restart if either of you got hit with something mid-conversation. And, of course, at any save point, you can fast-forward time if you’re left with nothing to do, so the game doesn’t drag if you find yourself being efficient.

Of course, the most obvious change is in the game’s presentation. Undeniably slicker than the original game, the world has been overhauled to look richer and denser than in the original. The parks are filled with more trees, and every mall is accented with bright and vibrant neon lights. Rubbish adorns the main concourse of each mall. Hell, even sculptures have been added where they make sense. It all comes together to show off the best version of the Willamette Mall so far.

More contentious is the way nighttime is now handled, as it is particularly dark, but when the moonlight and the storefronts are the only things lighting up each mall, I personally adore it. It is a huge visual jump, and while it is much less colourful than the original, the density and detail of everything make up for it.

But one point where I’m not sure if there is an improvement is in the game’s audio – specifically, the new voice work. Everyone has been recast in Deluxe Remaster, including Frank. And while it’s a bit jarring to hear Frank not be played by TJ Rotolo after so long, he’s not the one I have an issue with here. Most of the new cast for the supporting characters, barring Isabella and Carlito, fall flat. They sound less enthused than the original – perhaps in a bid to suit the more realistic look of Deluxe Remaster’s overhaul. But it lacks the original’s charm or, dare I say it, soul. Barring that, everything else feels epic – the original music used in each boss battle is especially electric.

So, while Deluxe Remaster calls itself a remaster, it does a lot to insist that it’s so much more than that. This is a remake – fair and square – with many improvements. It’ll be up for debate as to whether fans think the quality-of-life improvements make things too easy at the end of the day, but Deluxe Remaster is such a faithful translation of the original Dead Rising experience that I’m firmly in the opposite camp. It’s far and away the best version of Dead Rising we’ve ever had, and I can only hope we’ll be fortunate enough to see the same treatment with Dead Rising 2.

The post Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster Review – More Than A Simple Remaster appeared first on Press Start.

I have to confess. I am a long-reformed Funko Pop! Vinyl addict. Back when you could buy them for a mere $18 a pop (heh) in Australia, I would buy anything and everything. It’s an admission I’m not entirely proud of, but I’ve since done great work in culling my collection. But now, it seems, Pops are back in videogame form with Funko Fusion. And while it’s great fun and a real throwback to the times when LEGO games weren’t bloated and distended, Funko Fusion isn’t without its faults. It’s one hell of a guilty pleasure, albeit rough around the edges.

Funko Fusion opens with an extravagant battle between Freddy Funko, the manager of the Funko Factory, and Eddy Funko, his sludgy evil twin. Eddy is desperate to be recognized, so he steals Freddy’s crown, breaking it into seven pieces and hiding them across the universe. It’s up to you, the player, to retrieve these crown pieces and restore Freddy to his plastic glory. It’s a simple premise that works pretty well, and it’s fun to see how Eddy uses his powers to distort the stories that Funko Fusion immerses you in.

The stories within Funko Fusion are a diverse and quirky mix. With seven worlds, each based on a major film or TV series, the game offers a unique retelling of these narratives in a humorous, LEGO-like fashion. The worlds, inspired by Hot Fuzz, The Thing, Jurassic World, Battlestar Galactica, Umbrella Academy, Masters of the Universe, and Scott Pilgrim, each bring their own distinct flavor to the game. Smaller properties like M3GAN and Jaws also make cameo appearances, adding to the game’s eclectic charm.

The general structure of Funko Fusion is familiar to those who’ve played the early LEGO games. You begin in the Funko factory, each floor themed by one of the previously mentioned seven worlds. You can unlock each floor with crowns collected at the end of each level, with each floor having between five to seven levels to pay through. You can unlock future floors, too, given you’ve got enough crowns, so if you grow tired of one, you can jump between them all.

When you unlock a world, you can play four base characters from that world. Some might move quicker, others have different weapons, and some might even have special abilities for use in exploration and puzzle-solving. There’s a nice mix of abilities here, though each world is clearly designed to be revisited as each area requires abilities from others. You can’t unlock a level in the Hot Fuzz world without bringing a Flamethrower from The Thing, for example. Completing a world unlocks extra characters from that world but also allows you to take those characters to other worlds.

Each world is split into levels that retell major setpieces from whatever it’s based on. Think Hot Fuzz’s final showdown in a village of miniatures or the moment all hell breaks loose in the opening of Jurassic World. Each world has you performing different objectives on a larger map, with each level having a different objective. It’s not as gracefully done as it was in Super Mario 64, but it’s closest to that in terms of how objectives work. Every level has a degree of openness to it, too, with optional missions and collectibles to find within each. And plenty of vinyl to find.

Vinyl is this games version of studs. Everything you hit in the game drops vinyl, and it can be used for a few different things. Each world has ideas that you can “research” by bringing fragments of them back to 3D printer-like stations. Once you’ve fully researched an item, you can mould your vinyl to create said item at these stations. Every item you can make has some use in combat and exploration, and the ones you unlock can be taken back to other worlds to open up optional areas.

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The crux of the optional content comes in the form of Cameo Levels and Cameo Quests. The former is usually unlocked by retrieving a keycard hidden behind an ability or item to unlock portals in certain levels. They centre around another film or brand – like Jaws, NOPE or Back To The Future – and are more minor levels that cleverly capture the most iconic moment from whatever they’re based on. Cameo Quests are a bit different; you activate them in a certain level and then must follow up with that character in other levels to unlock them. For example, in the Hot Fuzz world, you can find Chucky and play a game of hide and seek with him to activate his quest. He then hides in other levels and can be found six times to finish the quest.

On the one hand, the Cameo Levels are a great idea. It would be tough to extend the story of a film like Jaws into a full, five-level world, so focusing on a key memorable set piece is an excellent idea without ruining the story’s pacing. The Cameo Quests are a good idea, too, but their execution doesn’t feel as well thought out – it is quite frankly tedious to seek out these characters multiple times and even when you’re done doing so, you’ll probably be done with most of the game.

That said, Funko Fusion feels like an old-school LEGO game in many ways. For one, the levels are replayable, with many things to find within each. Some collectibles unlock new weapons that any of your characters can equip with enough vinyl, while others grant buffs like one that improves the speed of your Pop. The more you complete, the more characters you unlock, though some of them are gated behind 40+ collectibles, including the iconic Colonel Sanders, which does feel like a bit much. People who loved collecting in the LEGO games will be at home here, but by the time I play as the Colonel, I’ll be done with the game.

But while I might sound down on Funko Fusion, there is a delightful game with great potential here. The objective variety is strong, with each level really slotting into the world it’s inspired by pretty well. Combat is a satisfying mix of shooting and melee, and boss battles are clever. There wasn’t a moment where I felt the game dragged or any of the worlds overstayed their welcome, as each employs unique mechanics that make sense for that particular world.

But at the time of writing, the game is incredibly buggy. I’ve had cutscenes skip, my controller stop working, side quests refuse to progress, and even boss AI glitch out. It’s disappointing, making Funko Fusion hard to recommend right now. I have confidence that most of these problems can be solved with a few title updates. But now, Funko Fusion can be a battle to get through.

And that’s not to forget that the game is lacking in the multiplayer department despite feeling like the perfect game for it. Online co-op is coming, which is a cool idea, but it’s being rolled out on a world-by-world basis, which seems a bit odd. The lack of offline co-op is also disappointing, as this game feels almost made for it.

But it’s hard to deny that Funko Fusion is dripping with passion and charisma. There is a huge amount of content in here to get through, especially for a team so new and so small that it harkens back to the days when LEGO games were at their peak. Even better, the worlds have been crafted in a way that pays great homage to the films and shows that have inspired them, but with a distinct sense of humour and charm that isn’t afraid to poke fun at itself. It’s a humourous and engaging journey that I’m convinced will improve over time.

The post Funko Fusion Review – A Promising Pop Culture Potpourri appeared first on Press Start.

The soft pitch for Caravan SandWitch is killer. What happens when you take the smooth brain checkboxing of a Ubisoft open-world title and filter it through a French indie lens? Gingerly sprinkle in some tried and true genre tropes and vaguely cozy aesthetic touchstones and you’ve got the individual components to build something charming and contemporary.

Caravan SandWitch plops you in the Lois Griffin-coded shoes of Sauge, a young woman compelled to return to her backwater home world after receiving a distress call from her older sister. The kicker is that this sister disappeared several years ago and your dad, her ex, and almost everyone in your hometown tells you that a distress call is impossible given that the planet has been effectively annexed by the Consortium, a mega-corp that has a monopoly on every aspect of life in this sci-fi world.

Something of a mining town without a mine, Cigalo is a world in the grips of a glacially paced apocalypse. An ominous energy storm dominates the otherwise cloudy blue skies to the south but nobody seems particularly fussed, instead, the various residents and denizens busy themselves with busted water filters, failing crops, and the thousand other bits of busy work to be found in a place ravaged by industry and left for dead. A striking landscape of jagged cliffs, sporadically defiant greenery, and coastline, Cigalo’s Provence-inspired palette allows Caravan SandWitch to dabble in frontier aesthetics and vertical world design while keeping the game within relatively balmy tonal parameters. 

Shot through with sci-fi trappings and a diverse cast of charming locals, Cigalo practically begs exploration, an impulse Caravan SandWitch struggles to wrangle against its greater narrative ambitions and pacing. Sauge is promptly gifted a 4×4 van, an upgradeable and semi-customisable vehicle that lets you zip along dirt roads and careen into the wilds with (relative) ease. Smartly veering more arcadey than sim, the van (and Sauge) are immune to damage and can Skyrim horse themselves into all manner of positions, only ever amusingly stumped by a small rock that stops you in your tracks. There’s a healthy dose of simple platforming and puzzle-solving to be found in Cigalo too, easily Caravan SandWitch’s best expression of streamlined open-world sensibilities and a small joy I never tired of. 

As you progress the game’s story, as paced through hardline chapter markers, the van will pick up several tools that allow for deeper exploration of the map and points of interest. These upgrades are purchased using scrap found in the world and gifted for completing quests, ranging from common green to rare purple. Toss in some map uncovering via radio tower destruction and a few collectable questlines and you’ve hit all the markers on Ubisoft’s golden path to smooth-brained joy in an open world. 

Only, Caravan SandWitch digs potholes for itself before setting off which frequently turns smooth into bumpy. The world is effectively open in its entirety after the game’s first hour and given how gorgeously inviting it looks, you’d be forgiven for gathering up some small requests for this or that and trekking out to simply vibe in this space. But then you find you can’t pull that door open yet, you can’t hack that elevator, or ride that zipline to a cool point of interest. Your impulse to roam is thoroughly roadblocked by your inability to interact. So, you snap some nice screenshots, hyper-focus on gathering enough scrap for the next upgrade, and head back out only to begin the cycle anew, just truncated sightly. 

It never stopped feeling antithetical to both the genre the game plays with and the breezy sense of openness Caravan SandWitch works overtime to maintain. By pacing the tools needed to enjoy the space out the way the game does, it funnels you into focusing on the main quest and gathering cycles to reach a stage where you feel you could actually venture out and allow your eye line to dictate your course and not your lack of tools. But Caravan SandWitch is also peppered with time-sensitive quests, meaning that if you progress the story (automatically occurring when an upgrade is crafted) without completing your chores you’ll lose the chance to do them, creating a strangled tension between player and game. 

This is a shame because the various comings and goings of Caravan SandWitch’s cast and world are fairly charming if not always compelling. The game’s bigger picture ideas are a rogue’s gallery of indie talking points, from the organic drama of human connection to space capitalism woes, which dabble in momentary depth but largely settle into a comfortably familiar cadence. But in the margins this world comes alive; a race of native frog-creatures observe humans with coy fascination as you help them gather their young and learn about memory as understood through shared consciousness. Or the small family struggling to decide if life in a small, dying town will be existentially better for their kid even if he misses out on big city opportunities. 

You might also be wondering about that big, missing sister neon sign that kicked off the adventure and Caravan SandWitch feels unsure how to handle that. Where Breath of the Wild and its ilk avoid the narrative dissonance of Quest: Save the World and Side Quest: Johnny Needs Six Apples by simply refusing to acknowledge it, Caravan SandWitch frequently points to what should be Sauge’s singular care. Much like the halting use of exploration tools, the game’s competing desires to be both open and focused pull at its edges in strange ways- it’s pleasantly skilled at building a world for you to enjoy at your leisure but unable to edit its ideas down to a point where doing so feels organic.  

Your mileage on Caravan SandWitch’s tensions will vary greatly depending on your relationship to open-world titles and the cloying tropes of cozy indies, but an immacuate eye for aesthetics and some hidden gems at least bring it together to be almost more than the sum of its parts. It helps too that the whole thing hums along with Antyomy’s score, a kind of French-draped “lo-fi beats to roam to” that infuses the game with a sense of place and tone befitting its better intentions and impulses.

But as I trundled out into the wilds to gather up my umpteenth bit of scrap, I couldn’t help but wonder if Caravan SandWitch’s attempted subversion of the open-world genre had been bogged on its otherwise gorgeous dirt roads.

The post Caravan SandWitch Review – Oh Sister Where Art Thou appeared first on Press Start.

Very few crowdfunding campaigns gain my attention and even fewer see me reach into my pocket. Stoic, as it happens, is one of the few developers I’ve been happy to dig deep for. It’s a team I truly admire, they’re artists and I revere The Banner Saga in such a way, I was always going to be eager to see what came next for them. Their partnership with Xbox, a match made in heaven for me, has yielded Towerborne, a project about as far removed from what I’d expect from Stoic as it gets.

It’s as if after The Walking Dead Telltale went on to make a third-person shooter, it’s surprising. Though it’s absolutely playable solo, the game is designed as a four-player beat ‘em up not unlike Castle Crashers. And although I cherish the impenetrable long-game of The Banner Saga’s Chess-like combat, the offering in Towerborne is so easy to pick up and mindlessly slog through that it means anybody can play it.

With that said, there’s also a surprising depth to its combat classes and systems that grew on me the more I dove in. I neared a point of writing it off as mundane and one-note before something clicked and I began to unravel combos, positioning and strategy through its gear and Umbra mechanics, opening up doors once closed to me. There’s a lot that Towerborne does to keep its combat from growing stale, and much of that comes down to each of the four classes feeling rather distinct—I ultimately fell in love with Pyroclast, however it’s rewarding and recommended that you chop and change considering certain class-specific weapons boast special attacks that are super fun to toy around with and can change the flow of battle.

There’s one tiny thing that Towerborne does that’s such a small quality of life thing, it almost feels silly to note it—but I can’t help it, I love it. If an enemy slips past and threatens to flank your unprotected rear but they get clipped by your attack on their way through, they’ll rubber band back in front of you, open to receive the barrage that’s coming. Being an online game, one that could, theoretically, be scuppered by latency issues, I see this as a micro effort to remove the potential for lag-related deaths.

I must emphasise that this game is designed with co-op in mind and my experience has, so far, been entirely solo. I’m happy to report that one-out is a completely viable way to storm the grasslands at the foot of The Belfry, as the game scales based on a number of other factors like player count and level. The combat itself quickly falls into a rhythm of bearing left or right, delivering punishing combos, and carefully dodging the precise attacks of the Gobo legion. Much like there are multiple classes of Ace, the Gobo army runs deep and there’s a lot of variety that can, at times, force some consideration just as the game’s rather standard hack and slash fare is starting to wane.

It was at a certain point that I realised that I did find Towerborne repetitive, however the brawling itself wasn’t the offender at all. I’d grown bored of the core loop and of its mission structure. The game’s map, which is set up kind of like Catan’s honeycomb grid, has so many stages to trudge through, it’s disappointing a vast majority of the missions are what Stoic call “discovery” tiles, which are simple end-to-end brawls with a loot chest at the end.

The other main events they have are ventures, which are treated more like mini-raids and include matchmaking where the others do not. They’re often capped by boss fights which do look cool without prompting much of a change in approach. As your legend grows around the Belfry, you can qualify for higher ratings of Danger Level, which both broadens your literal horizons and unlocks more of the map, while letting you replay prior “ventures” at a higher difficulty, leading to a different pre-mix of settings, events, and enemies. It sounds great in theory, but it doesn’t quite achieve the replayability I’d hoped for.

All of the player “progression” occurs loot-side, there’s no role-playing elements to speak of, which keeps it clean and simple. The chase of grinding levels and having bigger and bigger numbers against your equipped items is about as exciting as things within Towerborne’s menus get—which is unfortunate, as you spend plenty of time in them. Although any agency over back story or name is snuffed out right away, there’s enough depth in character creation to inject a shred of identity into your avatar.

The Belfry itself functions as any other service game hub world. It’s the point of retreat in between missions and is a key scene in much of the game’s onboarding, of which there is plenty. It’s an enormous space, and while there are many world maps installed about the place, you’ll still do plenty of trotting back and forth to talk to everyone. Though I couldn’t see anywhere to buy weapons, you’re certainly able to upgrade them at the Belfry’s blacksmith, and there’s a personified mirror who can grant you the gift of transmogrification in the event you grow bored of your Ace’s look. Bounties give you something to work towards in combat, although they’re a rather average assortment of tasks thus far, however the coin you receive in exchange can be used in Towerborne’s item shop which teeters at the cliff face of egregious microtransaction nonsense, but we’ll likely have to wait until the game is properly live to see how bad it is in practice.

Towerborne feels like such an enormous departure from The Banner Saga both in style and tone, it’s hard to reconcile they’re from the same studio. They’re both gorgeously hand-drawn, though Towerborne feels more vibrant and family-appropriate, which feels like a cool breeze on the face after the depressing caravan-led death march the team cut their teeth on. It’s more stoic, hopeful, and triumphant and this bleeds through in both the game’s bold, colourful biomes and its original score, from frequent collaborator Austin Wintory.

Though it might lack the polish of something like Hades II, whose only similarity here is that they’re early access contemporaries, Towerborne shows just enough promise and holds just enough aces that I feel it could make something of this rather shaky, inconsistent start.

After crafting one of the most arresting tactics trilogies of all-time in The Banner Saga, which had a recognisable identity in its own right, I do applaud Stoic for venturing beyond the relative safety of their pedigree in trying something new. It doesn’t offer the same emotional resonance, however Towerborne’s seeming goal of “Castle Crashers except pretty” delivers on what is a mindless, yet moreish, brawler.

Towerborne releases on Steam in early access September 10, 2024. Find more information here.

The post Towerborne Early Access Review – A Promising Venture appeared first on Press Start.

You can’t take two steps without stepping on a Capcom collection of some kind, it seems, and Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics is yet another example of Capcom’s strong willingness to honour their history and ensure that the games that made them famous are playable even today. But this one feels especially treasured, as, through the fault of licensing and other mishaps, Marvel vs. Capcom games have been notoriously inconsistent with how regularly accessible they are. So here we are, yet again, with another re-release of the revered fighting game. And thankfully, this is the best way to play all of them so far.

Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics is another collection combining seven titles that Capcom developed and released in arcades between 1993 and 2000. What’s offered here is similar to the last Capcom Fighting Collection – arcade-perfect ports with the addition of other features associated with modern fighting games like spectator modes, exhaustive practice modes and rollback style online support. While the last Capcom Fighting Collection had a lot of games debuting outside of Japan, the Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection is a slightly less dramatic debut. Most of these games have been available previously, some recently as the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, but have since faded from digital storefronts thanks to the ever-pervasive threat of licensing expirations and renewals.

Others are appearing in a format for the first time since they debuted on home consoles or arcades in the late 90s. Those games are X-Men: Children of the Atom, X-Men vs. Street Fighter and Marvel Superheroes vs. Street Fighter. While all these games (and most others) are versus fighting games similar to Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat, an arcade-perfect port of The Punisher, a beat-em-up, is also included. But more on that later. The package is rounded out by Marvel Super Heroes, Marvel vs. Capcom and Marvel vs. Capcom 2, the latter of which is arguably the cornerstone of this ambitious collection.

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The collection is typical of what you’d expect from a Capcom collection. The modern game additions include save states and a simplified Smash Bros-esque control scheme for easy hyper combos or special attacks. Beyond that, a museum mode includes a heap of concept art and design documents from each game. They’re interesting if you’re interested in developing games like these, and like I said for every Capcom collection before it, it’s always fascinating to see how these games come together from simple drawings on a page.

But what of the games themselves? There are not many duds here. While drawing from both Capcom and Marvel’s storied history, each game does its own thing to stand out from its contemporaries. For example, you use Infinity Stones to power yourself up in Marvel Super Heroes. There is something utterly appealing about the earlier games, especially X-Men vs. Street Fighter, where the concern wasn’t about balance and just allowing players to come up with the most batshit insane combos they could. Children of the Atom, a 1v1 X-Men fighting game, is charming in its own right for how simple it is and how it looks and plays just as well as it did in 1993.

Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes is where you can see it all start to come together, though, with Capcom expanding their side of the roster with characters beyond those that appeared in Street Fighter. It’s an interesting game because while you pick two characters, every match allows you to pick a third support character from a separate roster of oddball choices. Think Jubilee from X-Men or Arthur from Ghosts’ n Goblins. It’s an novel mechanic that has never entirely made a return to the series since.

But as I mentioned earlier, the cornerstone is Marvel vs. Capcom 2. It is arguably one of the best fighting games ever made – and while the jump to 3D visuals for many backgrounds loses some of the charm of the games that came before it, there is just no other fighting game (besides Smash) with a roster like it. The roster for Marvel vs. Capcom 2 features 56 playable characters from all stages of both Marvel and Capcom’s history at that time. We’re talking about Street Fighter, Resident Evil, Darkstalkers, and even out-of-pocket picks like Cyberbots and Star Gladiator. And, of course, timeless Marvel characters like Storm, Gambit, Wolverine, Captain America and Iron Man. It’s an amazingly well-rounded roster that I cannot get enough of and will never grow tired of.

Besides the other games, which are all still fantastic, the inclusion of The Punisher game is fascinating. I’ve never played it before, but it’s a beat-em-up similar to games like Street of Rage, Final Fight and Double Dragon. In it, you can play as either Punisher or Nick Fury as they try to take down Kingpin and his criminal enterprise. The game is considered to be one of the better in the genre. I can see why – it’s just as strong as Capcom’s other beat-em-ups but incorporates the trademark violence that you’d expect from a Punisher game in a way that I don’t think was being done back then (besides Mortal Kombat, of course). It’s tough as hell, mind you, but it’s still a great inclusion, and the arcade port included here is much better than the previous home console release on the Sega Genesis. You can play it co-op locally, too, though not online.

Speaking of online, the lobby system works like the previous Capcom Fighting Collection. You can search for ranked or unranked matches through matchmaking or create private lobbies, too. You can even choose whether to play a game offline, enter practice mode or browse the museum mode while waiting for a match to be found, which is appreciated given it’s a key feature Mortal Kombat 1 still doesn’t have. Even better, you can select which of the six fighting games you want to queue for, so your pool of players is always as deep and wide as you pick. I only got to sample a handful of matches online, but like the previous collection, the rollback netcode works like a dream.

From a presentation standpoint, Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classic is slick. Each game utilises sprite work, which still stands the test of time today, though some of the 3D effects seen in Marvel vs. Capcom 2 are getting a bit long in the tooth. The collection has many options to adjust the display – filters that mimic the CRT screens you would’ve played these on back in arcades, options to adjust the aspect ratio and artwork for borders to help fill the screen without ruining the aspect ratio. There are plenty of options and choices here, so I doubt many would be unable to find their own sweet spot with how these games are presented.

But regardless of your taste in presentation, one thing is certain—Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics represents the best way to experience these games and, even more importantly, understand why they were revered as classics in the first place.

The post Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics Review – An Incredible Showcase appeared first on Press Start.

I’d be tempted to call Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland nostalgia bait if it didn’t go ahead and nail exactly what it set out to achieve. Developed and framed from the get go as a throwback to classic, licensed platformers from the nineties, Adventures in Gameland is unequivocally a “made for Gameboy” title through and through. And that right there carries with it a bit of good, and plenty of bad as the game’s beautiful presentation struggles to bear the burden of frustrating, clunky, and dated platforming—not that the game sticks around long enough for it to grate at you.

With just six levels, carefully crafted with an understanding of Tommy, Chuckie, and the twins’ creativity in mind, as well as a keen understanding of Rugrats deep cuts, Adventures in Gameland truly encapsulates a “classic” experience with its truncated runtime of just a couple of hours.

Although I do love how each stage is framed as an episode of the series, complete with the hallmark “ba-baaaa” title treatment, each level is rather formulaic in its construct as you, playing as any of the four babies on offer, carefully crawl and jump through imaginative twists on otherwise mundane settings around the Pickles residence, recover Tommy’s trusty screwdriver, and unlock the baby gate safeguarding the level’s boss. 

There’s nothing that really sets each baby apart aside from their unique jump, and how much lift they get. Based on this, I feel like they do fit into the Super Mario Bros. roles to a degree with Tommy being reliably compact and sturdy as a squat plumber, while Chuckie and all of his trademark trepidation fits into the Luigi archetype. Phil and Lil feel similar, save for the fact that Lil has a floating glide at the tail end of her leap that makes her feel like Peach. 

And it’s not that the babies control badly, although I do feel like the input gets confused if you’re trying to do too much, it’s everything else in Adventures in Gameland that is far more frustrating. The player hit box is the size of California, checkpointing can be pretty punishing in the game’s final stage, and I don’t recall the game explaining anything. For a game where you’re able to butt slam with the crushing force of a night’s full diapie, pick up and stack blocks to climb onto, and crawl, the game really does just let you work it out for yourself.

Fortunately, for as frustrating as the finicky platforming can be, the game does at least offer a few difficulty options, which is a nice modern addition for a game that tries so hard to recreate the Gameboy’s classic sensibilities. After a few cheap deaths, I was glad to be coddled by the simplest newborn mode. 

From a presentation perspective, I don’t think Adventures in Gameland could be much better. As I’ve already touched on, the levels themselves dive deep into the enormity a child’s perspective can grant to pretty humdrum settings—for example, how a relaxing day at a backyard cookout can suddenly become an adventure throughout a tree hollow battling wind-up toys. It’s wildly imaginative and I think pays wonderful homage to some of the situations the babies found themselves in during the show’s run. 

It might not include voiceover performance, and I admit I do miss E. G. Daily’s trademark Tommy Pickles voice cracks, but the game’s scripted dialogue is extremely on point nevertheless. The game’s soundtrack more than makes up for it, not only does it open with the expected, absolutely iconic Rugrats theme tune, we get so many great renditions of the same theme throughout including an aggressive metal one that does slap. 

For those wanting an even more authentic Rugrats on Gameboy experience, you’re able to toggle between a pretty, almost true-to-animation high-definition setting and a classic 8-bit that’s more in line with how the game might have looked a few decades ago. You’re also able to switch between a full screen and bordered view, which restricts the action to a smaller share of the screen, more in keeping with the Gameboy’s original 10:9 aspect ratio. 

As a nineties kid, who absorbed more cartoons than I’d care to admit, likely while white-knuckling a Gameboy, Adventures in Gameland is an extremely nostalgic regression to a simpler time for game design. It bears the warts of the era it’s attempting to emulate, by being a bit clunky and frustrating, however as a Rugrats property it’s as authentic as it gets. In fact, to borrow a bit of the gang’s babble talk, it’s been a worthwhile ‘speriment. 

The post Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland Review – What A Baby’s Gotta Do appeared first on Press Start.

It’s been over a year since Hogwarts Legacy, and despite that game doing such a good job of capturing the essence of being a student at Hogwarts, there was a glaring omission. Despite spending many hours in the castle and its surrounding grounds, you never get to play a game of Quidditch. Quite the phenomenon, apparently in both real life and the world of Harry Potter, it always felt odd that Quidditch wasn’t in Legacy. And while it’s been a hot minute – since 2003 – since we had a new Quidditch experience, Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions has the basics down pat. But while it gets so much of the core experience right, it still feels undercooked.

The game occurs around the same time as the Harry Potter stories. You’ll run into many series stalwarts like the Weasleys, Hermione and most students who make a sizeable appearance in the series. The game’s very loose structure has you building a fully customisable team that must work through the various tourneys to win the Quidditch World Cup. There’s not much of a story here, honestly, and it feels very small scale.

There are multiple ways to play Quidditch Champions, whether with your friends or against them. But you’ll be disappointed if you’re looking for a wealth of single-player content. There is a “campaign” of sorts, which sees you competing in three different cups – a school, interschool and international – but that’s really it. The “story” is a cutscene before each cup, explaining what the cup is and narrated by a low-rent soundalike of your favourite Harry Potter characters. The Seeker of each team, such as Cho Chang or Cedric Diggory, might pop up beforehand to say a sentence or two, but that’s really it.

The campaign really serves as a loose tutorial to teach you the basics of each role and how Quidditch works, especially as a video game. The beginning of the game wastes no time teaching you how to fly your broom, selecting which camera controls you want to use and even showing you how to drift. Each role is also explained to you and has unique controls and mechanics, but that’s really it. It feels more like an extensive prep course to prepare you for multiplayer, though I appreciate that no matter which mode you play in Quidditch Champions, there’s still online functionality with full crossplay available, too.

In this version of Quidditch, two teams of six battle it out until one side reaches a hundred points. A goal is worth ten points. The roles are simple – there are three Chasers, a Keeper, A Beater and a Seeker. Chasers play the leading role in the game, chasing after a ball called a Quaffle, scoring points by throwing it into the opposing team’s goals. Keepers are goalkeepers, but they can lay down rings that other players can fly through to buff or debuff their speed. Beaters are the most interesting, armed with bats and controlling a magical iron ball called a Bludger to knock other players off their brooms, while the single Seeker must look for the Golden Snitch, a fast-moving object on the field.

The most significant change with Quidditch Champions is how the Golden Snitch works. It appears roughly twice in each game’s seven minutes, and the Seeker must boost through rings left behind it to stay close to the Snitch to fill a meter. Once the meter is filled, the Snitch can be caught. Rather than ending the game, however, it gives the team thirty of the required hundred points towards their win. It’s a nerf, but it has a remarkably positive effect on the flow of the game and keeps things fair right up until the very end, as sometimes grabbing the Snitch can be the difference between winning and losing.

The other roles, barring the Keeper, are all just as fun. Something is satisfying (if not slightly macabre) about beating people off their brooms as a Beater or sending your bludger after the opposing Seeker to give your team member a better chance at catching the Snitch. If you want good old-fashioned sports, the Chaser is more of a role for you, coming with the typical functions you’d expect for a player in any sports game – sprinting, tackling and the like. There’s something for everyone here, even if you’re not typically into sports games (like myself).

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And while the AI is pretty average sometimes, most of the magic happens when you’re playing online. The online modes are fairly robust for a game of this scale, offering role-specific queuing or any role queueing to reduce wait times. For the most part, I wouldn’t be waiting for more than two minutes to find a match, so the population seems healthy right now, but it’ll be interesting to see how long it will stay like this. Online performance is great, too – everything works, which is excellent but rare in today’s gaming climate.

Online games work differently from offline. Three players control two roles each, and they can switch between them on the fly as needed. Your roles are assigned to you as you’re put into a game, though you can choose your preference before matchmaking. It’s a great system that keeps things interesting, though, much like any multiplayer game, it can get frustrating when your Seeker doesn’t actually go for the Snitch.

It’s an absolute dream when a team of humans plays their roles correctly in Quidditch Champions. A fast-paced game that has all of the twists and turns to keep things tense and chaotic. But beyond that, Quidditch Champions doesn’t have much more going for it. The primary sense of progression is a Battle Pass-esque system where you unlock cosmetics as you complete matches and earn XP. It’s a tried-and-true system, but it feels empty at this stage and fills pretty slowly.

At first, I assumed this was because the game wanted to sell you all the trimmings that often come with games structured like these – skips, experience boosters and the like. But remarkably, Quidditch Champions doesn’t have any microtransactions. All progression is earned in-game and can’t be purchased with real currency. This is a relief, but at the same time, it also masks something far more telling – there’s just not a lot to earn or do in Quidditch Champions.

Which is a shame, because the core gameplay is solid. Quidditch Champions plays incredibly well. But the other elements surrounding the game, that compelling reason to stick with it and keep playing, just doesn’t exist yet. The game is structured as if it will set up new content drops as future seasons come, but it feels rather barebones for now.

From a visual standpoint, Quidditch Champions looks decent enough. It employs a stylised artistic direction, allowing it to be visually distinct from Hogwarts Legacy and whatever other Wizarding World games are coming. It runs well, too, with no performance hiccups to note in my time with it. Novelly, the game also is the first time we’ve seen both the Durmstrang and Beauxbatons schools realised in a video game (or perhaps ever), which is a nice touch for those deep into the Wizarding World.

However, there is a real gap in the presentation regarding the original score. Harry Potter films have some incredible music that could be used significantly in Quidditch Champions, especially while you’re playing the Seeker. Instead, what’s here is a pale imitation of what came before. It all feels incredibly flat and wooden, especially during the final moments of each match. I thought we’d hear some of John Williams’ soaring music here, but what’s here instead is just unremarkable.

While the actors are soundalikes, which I can handwave away given how expensive the talent would be to get back for recording, the commentary is seriously lacking. Even worse for what is ostensibly a sports game, it’s arduously repetitive, too. There are about one or two lines for each event that might occur in the game, and when you’re playing across seven minutes, it can get incredibly grating to hear “HOGWARTS GAINS POSSESSION” more than ten times in the span of a few minutes.

So, while Quidditch Champions has the potential to grow into something more, right now, it’s too barebones to hold your attention for long. Hopefully, with time, there’ll be a more compelling reason to jump back on the broom, but it needs a little more time to capture the magic it’s missing.

The post Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions Review – A Strong Take-Off With An Iffy Landing appeared first on Press Start.

You know those moments in games where spectacle has you thinking; ‘they’re gonna do it, aren’t they?’? Thor jolting Kratos back to life in God of War Ragnarök, facing down the Soul of Cinder in Dark Souls III, embracing the darkness in Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. They’re events that always come up when discussing these games, and for good reason. There are so many other examples of this in gaming and other media, almost all of which play a defining part in a title’s legacy.

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 is full of these moments. 40K fan or not, Space Marine 2 is a rollercoaster of eye-popping spectacle, all of it infused with the utmost reverence and care for the source material it hails from. In some ways, it’s a miracle sequel, delivering on the promise set by the first game all the way back in 2011 in effortless fashion. Even if you aren’t deeply invested in this universe, it’s an unmitigated joy to step into the shoes of Captain Titus once again.

A century after his run in with the forces of Chaos on Graia, Captain Demetrian Titus continues to grapple with the scars left on his reputation thanks to accusations of heresy. Stripped of his former title, Titus joins the Deathwatch as a kind of self-inflicted penance. Despite having conceded that he’s destined to die combating unknown alien threats on the frontlines, Titus is reinstated into the Ultramarines as the unrelenting Tyranid forces begin to overrun the Recidious System. Made to lead a new squad of Ultramarines against the Xenos threat, Titus steps back into the fray as an angel of death.

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Things aren’t quite right in the Recidious System, though. Outside of the obviously problematic Tyranid invasion taking place, Titus and his squad also uncover traces of Chaos throughout the system. Furthermore, the Adeptus Mechanicus are in a hurry to protect a weapon under the name Project Aurora, casting suspicion over their intentions and the motivations of the Imperium who seek to protect it. Titus is naturally skeptical about all of this given his role on Graia, but his reputation haunts his convictions and strong moral compass.

You don’t need to be a 40K fan to get drawn into this plot. It makes an incredible first impression with a banger of an opening mission, and doesn’t let up on the gas from there. In a twist I didn’t at all expect, Space Marine 2 also ties back to the first game very nicely. The story being told here feels like a natural extension of what came before it despite the time jump. Titus feels different, but still sports many of the qualities and traits that made him such a great protagonist to begin with. He’s battle-hardened, stoic, but struggling with finding his place in the Ultramarines again.

Titus is accompanied by Chairon and Gadriel. Two Ultramarines at pivotal points in their tenure as willing and rageful weapons of the Imperium. Gadriel is a clear callback to Leandros, who’s blind faith in the Codex Astartes often led to narrow-minded viewpoints when it comes to Chaos, corruption, and the roll Space Marines play in the broader universe. A key difference, though, is that Gadriel isn’t set in his ways just yet, leaving him susceptible to outside influences and perspectives – both positive, and negative.

Chairon feels much more mature than Gadriel by comparison, but his experience is still dwarfed by what Titus has had to endure. He feels more level-headed and often serves as a bridge between Titus and Gadriel when they have a disagreement. They make for a fantastic duo in the story that’s being told here, and most importantly, serve as figures key to the development of Titus and what he goes through.

All of this is as strong as it is because Space Marine 2 is just so well written. Every line feels intentional, delivered with perfect tone, cadence, and emphasis to suit the situation. Tension will rise and fall between the group as they combat the Tyranids and forces of Chaos, testing their bonds and trust in one another. You so desperately want to see this squad succeed despite the odds being stacked against them, and that sentiment rings true right up until the credits roll.

There are also just so many of those aforementioned jaw-dropping moments throughout Space Marine 2’s runtime. Every mission has some kind of spectacle to gawk at, only often times you’ll find yourself right in the middle of it. Whether it’s storming through trenches as Tyranids attempt to overrun your position, or squaring off against a hulking Helbrute, Space Marine 2 has unforgettable moments aplenty. While it certainly helps if you’re a fan of the IP, there’s no denying how absurdly awesome some these moments are.

My only real gripe with the story is that the third act does feel rushed. It’s filled with plenty of fantastic moments, but it doesn’t feel like it has as much room to breathe as the first two thirds of the game. It definitely delivers by the time credits roll, but I wish I got to see and learn more about its key players and components. It certainly doesn’t derail the entire experience, but just feels off given how deftly handled the rest of the campaign is.

That isn’t to say Space Marine 2 is trying to veil anything else by barraging you with its presentation, because the gameplay also kicks ass. It’s the same third-person melee/shooter hybrid as the first game, but presents its power fantasy in a different way. Space Marine, much like the recent DOOM games on lower difficulties, was a pure power fantasy. Few games were able to capture the kind of carnage you can unleash as an Ultramarine, so it was a novel experience for the time.

Space Marine 2 hasn’t lost that luster, but definitely focuses more on being mindful and strategic with moment to moment combat decisions. The power fantasy is still here, but it’s less accessible – you have to work for it. That’s through a few key new additions and shifts in how the game handles resources and enemy types. The big new features mostly come in the form of defensive mechanics; parrying and dodging.

You still dish out light and heavy attacks in an attempt to stun units, opening them up for brutal and satisfying executions. The enemies in Space Marine 2 don’t take hits lying down, though, and will often unleash their own assaults that can be parried and/or dodged to open them up for counterattack. Smaller units are immediately executed on a successful parry, as Titus swats them out of the air before they can get so much as a claw on his armour. Larger units, on the other hand, are stunned and opened up for a critical shot, where the camera pulls right in, and Titus delivers a devastating point-blank shot.

Executions and critical shots both refill Titus’s armour, imploring you to make the most of these new mechanics to keep healthy in combat. Perfectly timed dodges will also leave an enemy open to a critical shot, so mastery over enemy attack patterns and timing is heavily incentivised – especially on higher difficulties. It takes a bit to get used to, but once it clicks, you feel unstoppable. It feels incredible to yank an enemy out of mid air, crush them underfoot, only to parry an incoming attack and deliver a critical shot to whichever unlucky foe dared to challenge you.

The reason that this all works so well is because Space Marine 2 isn’t a game you can auto-pilot. Jumping into a wave of enemies haphazardly is often a recipe for swift death. You’re implored to balance your limited ammo with ample opportunities to unleash melee carnage when favourable opportunities present themselves. The combat sandbox is further deepened by Fury, a rage mode that lets you regenerate health and throw caution to the wind as a result. Jump packs also make their return in some missions, where you to take to the skies and rain death from above.

Speaking of which, the tools of the trade have been much expanded in Space Marine 2. Melee weapons have unique movesets that keep them distinct from one another, there is a swathe of returning and new ranged weapons, and the selection of grenades on offer is also quite sizable. Missions are dotted with resupply points and weapon drops, so you can regularly switch up your loadout if you feel like a change or need something else to get the job done. Each weapon also looks and sounds suitably visceral, especially when you’re hitting headshots.

This campaign is also entirely playable in three player co-op, and if that isn’t enough to satiate your 40K cravings, Operations have you covered. These are additional missions built to be replayed across different difficulty levels in a squad of three. Operations can also be played in co-op, in-fact, I’d go as far as saying the higher difficulties are designed around it. Completing missions will net you experience points for the class and weapons you used in that mission, awarding you with upgrades and cosmetics to use in higher difficulty Operations.

The coolest aspect of Operations by far, is that they’re almost all centered around events that entwine with the campaign. An example is Decapitation, an operation that’s undertaken at the same time as the game’s fifth campaign mission, Voidsong. To clear the Tyranid hordes for Titus and his squad, another group of Ultramarines have been tasked with eradicating a Hive Tyrant, effectively rendering the Xenos threat useless. You hear about the escapades of these supporting squads within missions, but it’s another thing entirely to actually be able to play them.

It is also crazy how high quality some of these are. Some rival the campaign missions in scale, scope, and ambition, offering many moments of spectacle that you don’t get in the campaign. It allows Saber Interactive to explore corners of the 40K universe that don’t get touched on during the campaign. They also aren’t too long as to outstay their welcome, and replaying them on higher difficulties mixes up enemy placement, resource numbers, as well as health and damage values.

Each of the six playable classes bring their own unique skill to use within Operations. Some are more support oriented, like the Tactician, who can make use of the Auspex to mark targets and weaken them for nearby allies. Other classes are much more selfish, like the Vanguard, who’s equipped with a grappling hook to get in and out of the fray quickly. Each is limited in what they can bring in each of their loadouts, so they feel different from one another outside of just their abilities. Each of these weapons has unlockable variants that scale into the higher difficulties, so there’s lots to chase.

It can’t be overstated how much fun this mode is with friends. Ash Wayling of WellPlayed and myself spent many hours getting in the trenches. Slaying out with each other was a complete blast, and finding ways to overcome tough encounters through smart use of class abilities and resources was always rewarding. I can only imagine how crazy some of the higher difficulties get, especially with a party of three, but it’s the kind of action and chaos you’ll absolutely want to revel in.

Space Marine 2’s multiplayer mode, Eternal War, is also a great time. It’s a fairly standard offering as far as competitive multiplayer goes, but it fills a void left by the likes of Gears of War. It uses the same classes from Operations and has a similar degree of flexibility in weapons loadouts. While most classes feel on par with one another, there are a few that feel a bit on the weaker side, especially with the low time to kill in the current sandbox.

Some balancing woes aside, the overall sandbox is fun to play around with and the game modes presented here play to the strengths of the game’s combat. It’d be nice to see something more complex on the mode front, but a slew of great maps and the promise of more on the way means Eternal War is a worthwhile offering at launch. There’s very little not to love here if you enjoy the campaign and Operations, and it’s a fun excuse to spend more time in the world of 40K if you love some simple, no frills attached competition. It’s also just so cool to play as Chaos.

As always, though, fashion is the true endgame. Space Marine 2 is perhaps one of the greatest examples of this trend. Each class can be customised, from armour pieces and decals, right down to individual colours of trimmings and accents on armour. You could spend hours customising one of these classes, let alone six. There are so many different Space Marine Chapter colours available as well, including the ability to customise individual armour pieces separate from one another.

Even if you aren’t a fan of 40K and you don’t know all of the Chapters and what they entail, it is just so damn cool to be able to craft your own Space Marine. If you can think of it, you can likely do it. Some of the coolest cosmetics are restricted to a high number of Operation completions, offering a way to showcase your mastery of a particular class to other players. There’s so much longevity and flexibility in how this can be approached, I can’t wait to see what the internet comes up with, and I suspect the motivation to unlock the best looking gear will drive me to keep playing.

Part of the reason customisation is such a success in Space Marine 2, is thanks to the sublime presentation of this whole package. This game is presenting constant eye candy. It felt like every frame was screenshot worthy no matter where I looked. It’s positively dripping with 40K’s grimdark aesthetic, offering unique visual directions that occupy different corners of this universe. Nowhere is this better seen than in the battle barge, Space Marine 2’s hub area that feels so much bigger than it actually is thanks to all the set dressing and detail on show.

Where Kadaku is a muddy, dense jungle planet packed with Tyranids, Avarax is a once-glorious Hive World that has quickly buckled under the weight of the Xenos invasion. The undefeated standout is Demerium, a blue and purple tinged battlefield of a war long-since passed, its earth shaking again under the rumblings of war. The enemy density is also insane, with Tyranids flooding into arenas in literal waves, clawing to climb up walls as they clamber over each other with little regard for one another.

It all runs so smoothly as well. This game gets so chaotic at times, there can be so much going on at once, it’s impressive that it doesn’t buckle under its own weight. My PC was able to comfortably support the game on high settings with no issues. While I’m not sure how consoles will fair, it has been confirmed they’ll support multiple modes at launch. Even if you opt for the regular performance mode, be sure to check the game out at its highest graphical output – it’s a true technical marvel.

I don’t think it’ll surprise many that Space Marine 2 is good. The first game established a winning formula that would’ve done the job with current production values and some multiplayer modes thrown in for good measure. What is surprising, is that Space Marine 2 goes far beyond that, offering a tightly paced campaign, truck loads of meaningful progression, top-tier production values, and most importantly, a whole lot of superhuman slaying. It’s made for one of 2024’s best games, and an undoubted game of the year candidate.

The post Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 Review – The 40K Game You’ve Always Wanted appeared first on Press Start.

It hasn’t been a year yet, but Capcom still seems fit to grace us with yet another Ace Attorney collection. But this is an exciting time for Ace Attorney. It marks the first time that all the games are available on modern platforms, and with Ace Attorney Investigations Collection, the first time that the second game in the very good spin-off series has been available outside of Japan. But while we’ve been arguably bombarded with regular Ace Attorney releases, the quality has yet to falter. The same can be said with Ace Attorney Investigations Collection, which continues Capcom’s trends of honouring the past while hopefully laying the groundwork for the future.

The Investigations games are different to the other Ace Attorney titles. In Investigations, you play Miles Edgeworth, a rival to Phoenix Wright and one of the best prosecutors in the country. While he’s had a more villainous appearance in the earlier games, the Investigations games do a better of fleshing out his character with more depth than previously seen. They’re also set between the large time gap between the third and fourth Ace Attorney games, leaving a lot of opportunity to bring back characters and see how they interact with Edgeworth. However, the major difference is much more significant – the Investigations games rarely enter the court.

While both games in this collection have unique features, they share a similar structure comprised almost entirely of investigating. However, it’s more involved and interactive than the other Ace Attorney games. You directly control Edgeworth, moving him around crime scenes, gathering evidence and interviewing witnesses and potential suspects. It feels more “playable” than just tapping through menus as you would in an Ace Attorney game, though it is a much more linear experience. There’s nothing wrong with that, to be clear, but there is a different flow of progression compared to other Ace Attorney games.

The more involved investigations are complemented by new mechanics, which only improve the experience. Edgeworth’s assistant, Kay Faraday, can use her gadget, Little Thief, to create crime scenes in real life. In the second game, she can view the same crime scene at different points, adding more depth to the investigations. It’s nonsense technology, of course, but you have to go with it. Including Little Thief is a good way to break up the investigation segments, though, like some other aspects of the second game, I wish it was used more throughout.

But besides investigations, the crux of the drama will come from arguments that you’ll have with the people involved in each case. These segments stand in for the courtroom segments, as you’ll use evidence to point out any contradictions in what people tell you. I have always had concerns about whether these moments might be less exciting, given that there are fewer objections flying around, but thankfully, they’re still just as good. Some of the revelations in both the Investigations games, especially in the final case of each, are some of the most shocking in the series.

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But it wouldn’t be a game about Edgeworth without an extra layer of deduction, and that’s where the Logic system comes in.  Designed to perfectly represent Edgeworth’s calm and cool sense of deduction, it lets players piece together information to form conclusions. Said conclusions can then be used as defacto evidence in arguments to make opponents buckle. The Logic system is an excellent addition for a few reasons. For one, it allows Edgeworth (and the player) to keep track of any lingering mysteries discovered. But it also adds an almost endlessly satisfying gameplay loop of connecting information.

The Logic system is built upon in the second game, Prosecutor’s Gambit, with the addition of Mind Chess. When Edgeworth is in a significant argument during a case, the argument is visualised as a game of chess. Similar to cross-examinations from the previous game, you, as a player, must determine the right “move” to make when verbally speaking with an opponent. Sometimes, not making a move (ie. Staying silent) is the better option, too. The timer in these moments makes things especially tense, which might put off some players, but the heightened tension makes them incredibly exciting. Though, like I mentioned before with Little Thief, I’d love to see more of Mind Chess. It can also be too obvious which answers are right.

But while these changes to the formula are obvious, the less obvious question is how these games play. Resoundingly, they are well worth your time. Both games are built around strong stories that grab you from the beginning, standing beside the mainline games with no issue. I adored the first game when it was released for the DS, but replaying it, I can’t deny there are some pacing issues with some of the cases, especially in the final case where the final contraction (while shocking) feels incredibly protracted.

The second game is often talked about as one of the greatest in the series, and, having finally played it, I can see why. The villain is great, the twists are shocking, and the pacing is a considerable step above the original game. Even more so, the overarching narrative is incredibly engaging and easily a step above some mainline games. I’ll obviously not explain much more for the sake of spoilers, but it’s quite frankly criminal that Prosecutor’s Gambit wasn’t officially available to the wide audience until now. It is well worth your time.

Besides the obvious, the collection also includes the typical fare you’d expect from an Ace Attorney collection. A new set of achievements or trophies, a music player, a character viewer, and an art gallery round out an already complete package. The art gallery is particularly cool, allowing you to examine art from the episodes in greater detail. The character viewer feels like a step back from Apollo Justice, lacking the “create your own” mechanics that the collection had. But it’s a nice inclusion that, as always, makes this compilation feel all-encompassing.

Though, easily, the most significant overhaul the games have received is visual. The original game featured a cute pixel-based sprite style, zooming into the better-detailed portraits whenever characters spoke to each other. Ace Attorney Investigations Collection features a new high-definition art style that closely mimics the style of the portraits when in conversations instead. The completely redrawn visuals are great, making the animations look much more lively and consistent with the other Ace Attorney games. That being said, such a dramatic change is bound to upset purists, so the original art style is selectable, too, so both camps are catered for here.

And it’s just as well, too, as, like previous collections, Ace Attorney: Investigations Collections follows in similar footsteps to the previous collections Capcom has been putting out. It’s far and away the best way to experience these games; no deductions needed.

The post Ace Attorney Investigations Collection Review – A Deductive Delight appeared first on Press Start.

It’s been almost four years since Game Science revealed Black Myth: Wukong to the world. A lot has happened in the industry in that time, most importantly for Game Science, is the increased success of triple A titles from the East. While Japan has always been a force to be reckoned with in gaming, countries like Korea and China had yet to tap into Western audiences in a big way.

That’s all changed in the last few years, with miHoYo’s live service behemoths shaking up the landscape of free to play experiences and Shift Up’s Stellar Blade also making its long-awaited debut earlier this year. This newfound audience coupled with some pretty impressive showcases painted Black Myth: Wukong as a technical showcase for Unreal Engine 5 with high-octane melee combat. The end result is an enjoyable experience that feels a bit lost in its muddled identity and frustrates in many aspects of its design.

The one thing I cannot fault Black Myth: Wukong for, even if I tried, is in its story, world, and characters. Even as someone who isn’t familiar with Journey to the West, it’s clear that Game Science have a deep appreciation for the source material and its impact on East Asian culture. Each of the game’s five main chapters is thematically rich, dripping with little story details and lore that’s always a joy to uncover. It certainly helps to have familiarity with the original works, but even an outsider can admire the artistry and faith with which its all presented.

Instead of retelling a story that’s been told in many formats over the years, Game Science positions Black Myth: Wukong as its own story supplemental to the original works. Long after Sun Wukong fell to the Celestial Court, a monkey of Mount Huaguo comes to be known as the Destined One. Tasked with collecting six Relics that pertain to each of Wukong’s six-senses, the Destined One sets out on a journey across China to bring the Monkey King back from his incapacitation.

The categorical highlights of the story are the utterly gorgeous animated cutscenes that serve as bookends to each of the game’s chapters. These pieces employ their own distinct animation style, offering a different visual treat as you close out a major portion of the Destined One’s story. From traditional Chinese paintings all the way through to stop-motion animation, Black Myth: Wukong keeps you engaged in its narrative with wildly imaginative and varied presentation. They also provide more context to the events and characters found in the related chapter, expanding the world and story in satisfying fashion.

There’s been a lot of comparisons thrown around to try and describe Black Myth: Wukong. From Dark Souls to the recent God of War games, it’s hard to properly pin down where Wukong fits on the spectrum of action games. I think that the most apt comparison is to Team Ninja’s recent titles, specifically Nioh, and Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty.

Much like those games, the Destined One has access to a light attack combo string and heavy attacks. The key difference being that heavy attacks are charged and empowered with Focus, which is generated by successfully landing light attacks. You also have access to three distinct stances that change how the heavy attack behaves, but there’s no substantial evolution from there in terms of combos and weapon attacks. It’s all managed by a stamina system which dictates how often you can attack, roll, run, typical stuff if you’ve played a Souls-like before.

Where a lot of the combat flexibility comes in, is with Spells and core progression. As you move through the early chapters, the Destined One will gain access to a slew of Spells to use in combat. These are governed by a Mana bar separate to Stamina, and also go on cooldown once used. That’s because these effects are quite powerful. From freezing enemies in place for free hits with Immobilize to creating countless clones of yourself to wail on enemy on combat through A Pluck of Many, there are plenty of ways to pull yourself out of tricky situations when the going gets tough.

You also have Spirits and Transformations. The former are very similar to Yokai Skills from Nioh 2, allowing you to absorb enemy spirits, taking their own hard-hitting attacks into your own toolset. Transformations are similar to another Nioh 2 mechanic called Yokai Shift, letting you take the form of another being for a brief window. Not only does this transformation have it’s own health bar, but also has its own attacks that often inflict elemental ailments and are capable of dishing out big damage in fights.

All of these things plug directly into Black Myth: Wukong’s progression system. Levelling up nets you skill points which can be invested into many different trees that provide static and active upgrades to the Destined One. There is so much to choose from here, allowing you to experiment with builds that focus on different stances and build goals even if you’re always doing the same dance in combat. It helps that you can respec these points at any time to trying something new, affording a level of flexibility in how you approach combat that isn’t often seen in these kinds of games.

Another creative stroke that plays into builds is how Black Myth: Wukong handles its healing. Not unlike Souls, the Destined One has a gourd with a set amount of drinks per rest. It can of course be upgraded to increase its capacity, but it can also be customised to change its effect. You can choose what kind of Drink to fill the gourd with, fundamentally altering how each sip heals you. You can go for a Drink with a front-loaded healing burst, or one that offers less on initial consumption, but ultimately heals for more over time. You can also add Soaks into these drinks to improve your stats or resistances upon using a drink, further deepening the customisation.

Because there isn’t much going on beyond weapon combos and dodging in the moment-to-moment combat, there’s a lot riding on enemy variety and encounter design. Black Myth: Wukong is a bit of a mixed bag in this regard. There are a load of unique enemies to contend with here, steadily rolled out across the different chapters. The main issue is that they aren’t really placed with much rhyme or reason. The exploration of areas between bosses often feel phoned in and arbitrary in that regard, leaving much of the focus on those tentpole encounters.

Bosses overall fair much better. They’re incredibly cinematic, awe-inspiring in scale, and some offer some genuine challenge that I got a thrill out of overcoming. There’s also a ludicrous amount of them for a game of this type, even more shocking is just how high quality some of them are given the sheer number of them. Not all are made equal, though. A few have attacks or mechanics that can feel unfair, there’s myriad hitbox issues, and the camera doesn’t like to cooperate at the best of times. It means that chapters constantly bounce between some very high highs, and some frustrating lows.

It’s difficulty is also wildly inconsistent. The first chapter has a pretty steady curve that the game fails to maintain in its subsequent levels, often throwing easy boss after easy boss at you until the challenge suddenly spikes, roadblocking you for the near future. I’m all for a challenge in these kinds of games, but it often feels like Black Myth: Wukong is scared to commit to going full Souls-like. What’s more mind-boggling is that there’s no way to change the difficulty, so those who are less accustomed to Souls-like tendencies are in for a rude awakening if they’re expecting an experience more akin to God of War.

If there’s one Souls-like element that Black Myth: Wukong absolutely nails, it’s exploration and secrets. There are plenty of opportunities to venture off the beaten path, especially in later chapters. These detours are almost always rewarded with boss fights, side quests, gear, upgrade materials, and more. It’s always worthwhile to poke your head around the corner to see what might be hiding in the corners of Black Myth: Wukong’s world. Few games manage to evoke the sense of discovery and elation when you solve the game’s many mysteries.

The only real issue with this stuff, is that the game often struggles to define where level boundaries start and end. Each area looks and feels organic, which is a real treat to look at, but often means you’re met with invisible walls or unclimbable surfaces despite other similar geometry being traversable. Coupled with the lack of a map of any kind, and Black Myth: Wukong can often feel labyrinthian and restrictive in how you explore its environments. The final chapter in particular really suffers due to this, as it adopts a much more non-linear design with nothing to guide you in the right direction.

Being the next big technical showcase for Unreal Engine 5, there’s been a lot of anticipation for Black Myth: Wukong’s production values. I’m happy to report that this game far exceeds many of the expectations set by prior trailers and demos, making incredible use of Unreal Engine 5’s strengths in tandem with an art style that’s all too fitting for this kind of game.

It is consistently packed with detail, from the individual detail of each hair strand on the Destined One to the wildly imaginative design of the creatures you’ll encounter on your journey. Each area brings its own environment, colour palette, enemy designs, and overall visual aesthetic, delivering a swathe of diverse and detailed areas. It feels truly otherworldly in a way that few games do. While I can’t speak to the performance on PlayStation 5, the PC version held a steady framerate, even on my mid-range rig, which is very impressive given the sheer level of visual fidelity on display here.

Black Myth: Wukong might not be the definitive game of the year candidate most were hoping for, but it’s undoubtedly another feather in the cap of triple A games coming out of the East. If this is just the first step for Game Science in a franchise or other games like this, it’s a very solid foundation, and I’d be very excited to see what else they can do if the studio took another crack at this sort of experience.

The post Black Myth: Wukong Review – An Inspired Journey appeared first on Press Start.

Favourable or not, a review is unlikely to change the present discourse around Concord. It may already be too late for the ambitious, PVP first-person shooter — and the debut release from the new PlayStation first-party studio, Firewalk Studios. The internet seems to have already made up its mind.

Concord, as a reminder, is the Guardians of the Galaxy-esque hero shooter first announced at a PlayStation showcase last year. It’s the latest iteration of PlayStation’s live-service push, albeit with an emphasis on narrative with weekly story vignettes. A beta for the game occurred some weeks ago and was met with a middling reception.

Several factors might explain the poor reception. The announcement received backlash for leading with the narrative elements before revealing it was a hero shooter. An understandable scepticism surrounds PlayStation’s much-critiqued shift in strategy towards live-service titles. The $60 price tag attached to the multiplayer-only title stands in stark contrast to the free-to-play model adopted by many of Concord’s competitors.

It’s a shame. Concord is a nicely presented, well-designed and surprisingly unique competitive hero shooter. The decisions holding the game back seem more strategic blunders than the fault of the developers. Speaking to them recently, they tow the party line whilst speaking ever so passionately about the game and world they’ve built.

They should be proud, as any developer should. Spending the majority of the weekend playing the game, I find myself writing this eager to play more even with its shortcomings.

Concord’s design is a unique twist on the hero shooter genre. Rather than pointing players towards a single character — and ‘maining’ said character — you are actively encouraged to flick between a few mid-match.

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Different classes of character (or Freegunners, as they’re called) award Crew Bonuses, awarding perks to each you select thereafter. Play as Emari and get increased healing. Then play as Lennox, you’ll keep increased healing and add improved weapon range. Switch to IT-Z and get both bonuses, plus improved mobility. Every character is enjoyable to play and a meaningful addition to a crew.

Assembling a crew and putting a plan into action is immensely rewarding. I often started a match as Roka picking up some quick elims whilst getting a mobility buff, before switching to Haymar and improving my range. That allowed me to play Emari without as significant a penalty to her mobility as a tank, and better range on the minigun.

When it all comes together, combat is super rewarding and produces some tense, competitive matches. Each character’s loadout is varied but equally versatile, the gunplay is tight, the dodge makes for handy last-minute getaways, and the mad dash to a health pickup creates some tense cat-and-mouse moments. Certain the moment-to-moment gameplay is the game’s strong suit.

Been playing a tonne of Concord this weekend and enjoying it thoroughly! Here’s a tidy 7 elimination streak playing as Lennox ?? pic.twitter.com/EDcn96eaHl

— Ewan Roxburgh (@Ewan_Roxburgh) August 25, 2024

For now, the game has six modes grouped into three playlists: Takedown (team deathmatch), Trophy Hunt (kill confirmed), Area Control (domination), Signal Hunt (hardpoint), and the no-respawn modes Cargo Hunt (search and destroy) and Clash Point (king of the hill).

Plotting out which characters you’ll select in different phases of the match, across different modes, adds an interesting layer of strategy that makes the game deeper than it appears at face value. The team at Firewalk are right to compare it to a trading card game in terms of planning out late-game plays by carefully selecting the cards (or characters) you play first.

Frustratingly, the game does a poor job of explaining this mechanic. Those without the attention span to look beyond a Freegunner’s loadout and abilities might miss one of the more interesting elements of the game.

The added tutorial section to the game post-beta doesn’t do enough to explain it but a welcome addition to the game to onboard new players. Concord seems rather approachable for newcomers to the hero shooter genre.

For now, however, the game feels light on content. Granted it’s only the first week, but over a couple of evenings I completed my weekly, seasonal and variant challenges, leaving me with little consequential to progress until the weekly reset.

Of course, you could continue ranking up your Freegunners and your overall Reputation level, but often there’s not much of a carrot being tangled.

Progression feels a little unrewarding. None of the skins or other customisations you could unlock excited me. Even if they did, how you unlock any particular item is not explained. You can only ever see your next unlock and must wait until you complete that to see what’s next.

Uninteresting unlocks seem to be a consequence of character design that prioritises recognisable silhouettes over player expression. Granted, it works well on the battlefield; at a glance, you can see who’s coming at you and adjust your approach accordingly. Comparing it to another hero shooter though, Apex Legends did such a great job of offering interesting character and weapons customisations without confusing.

Concord lacks a little personality. An effort is no doubt made but like an over-enthusiastic guy at a party trying a little too hard to be your friend. There’s a heavy-handedness to the delivery that irks me. Given that you can skip straight past them, I expect these vignettes to do something rather special to earn the view.

An introductory cutscene and the first week’s vignette favour Lennox over the others. It’s early days sure, but there is little to showcase the characters out of the box. The rest of them have a single throwaway voice line repeated upon selecting them in a match and touches of dialogue in-game. The only one I can say is particularly memorable is Roka chanting “Roka, Roka, Roka” after running up a streak.

What the game lacks in charisma, however, it makes up for in art direction. I adore the 70s sci-fi aesthetic; the maps, characters and weapons are all distinctive but fit together. It carries over to the UI and sound design too. Bar a couple of hiccups in the framerate and menus sometimes not loading, it’s a smooth experience with the level of polish you would expect from a first-party release.

PlayStation has been eager to promote the world of Concord in the marketing of this new IP. I hope Firewalk Studios gets the opportunity to explore it further, but for now, it’s not terribly impactful. Presently it feels like a missed opportunity to set up each match with little than some text suggesting “a rival crew is challenging you.”

I’m eager to see more weekly vignettes, for however long Firewalk can justify doing so. Hopefully, surprising stories emerge.

Outside of the vignettes, Concord’s lore is relegated to flavour text and the Galactic Guide. There are some interesting concepts tied up in this. The

Tempest at the far left side of the map is an unexplained phenomenon seemingly gobbling up and distorting parts of the galaxy. Gloom, one of my favourite maps in the game, has an asteroid in the centre that the Galactic Guide reveals was the focus of religious studies by an ancient species that once occupied the planet.

There’s interesting lore embedded in here that may influence how the game shapes and evolves. I foresee a day when The Tempest swallows up sections of the galaxy in an event akin to Fortnite’s major map resets.

Will a community be there to bear witness to these events? Concord wouldn’t be the first live-service game to turn things around should it pull it off, but the odds are stacked against it at this point.

Much has been said about Concord’s pricing. Truthfully, I can rationalise the $60 price tag: all that purchase Concord gets its 6 modes, 12 maps, 16 characters and unlocks, wrapped up in a premium, AAA package. If three-quarters of the unlocks were tied to a Battle Pass, I have little doubt there would be a negative reaction to that too.

It doesn’t differ all that much from Helldivers II where the first Warbond was included in the same $60 price. Given the opportunity, I’m sure Concord will introduce more paid elements too.

What I can’t rationalise regarding the price is the lack of competitive analysis. Going up against the likes of Overwatch, Marvel Rivals and Apex Legends — to name a few — fans of the genre are accustomed to the free-to-play model.

Saw someone do this in Concord and wanted to give it a go myself ? pic.twitter.com/9TuEkOuVGW

— Ewan Roxburgh (@Ewan_Roxburgh) August 26, 2024

Without hype or an overwhelmingly positive word of mouth, it’s hard to imagine many giving the game the time of day. Adding Concord to the Game Catalogue reserved for PlayStation Extra and Premium subscribers seems like a no-brainer to me.

Content brings community, and a community brings content. It’s an almost chicken-and-the-egg scenario, or at least a delicate balancing act.

For a live-service game, I feel like the game lacks a little staying power. The core gameplay is engaging and is the reason I’m coming back for now, but I struggle to see what keeps me coming back long-term if not more modes, ranked lobbies and must-have unlocks.

From there, the full extent of Firewalk Studio’s ambitious vision can come alive.

The post Concord Review – Time To Change Course appeared first on Press Start.

Star Wars Outlaws lives and dies on its most marketed aspect– the scoundrel fantasy. Shifting the perspective character in the galaxy far, far away from sword-wielding monk or Rebel pilot to a humble street rat gifts Outlaws a unique viewpoint and gameplay systems with which to push and pull at the edges of an otherwise familiar universe. This is, we’re told, decidedly not an epic tale of light and dark but a more personal story as we get to put boots on the ground of Star Wars’ seedy underbelly, the syndicate-dominated world of illegal trade, fast lies, and faster Credits.

Clambering her way out from the lowest socioeconomic rung of the opulent Canto Bight, Kay Vess’ ambitions of a new life land her current one squarely in the scope of the emerging crime syndicate Zerek Besh. Having crossed its leader Sliro and landing on the wrong side of a much wider conflict, Kay and her pet bestie Nix commandeer a ship and lightspeed jump into scoundrel on the run before either of them are ready. For all her bluster, Kay is a small-town girl in a big-city world and with a looming Death Mark dogging her every move, she soon finds herself in the employ of the smooth-talking Jaylen and his impossibly hot droid, ND-5.

Structurally speaking Outlaws cribs a lot from classic heist films; a likeable everywoman needs to put together a crew of appropriately quirky specialists while navigating the competing needs of the crime world’s biggest and baddest. This loosely allows developer MASSIVE Entertainment a narrative framework to implement the patented Ubisoft Open-World loop as Kay can freely-ish move between a handful of planets, gathering up resources, taking on odd jobs, raiding bases, and planning the big final heist, you know, the one that’s gonna get them all out of the game for good this time.

THE CHEAPEST COPY: $89 FROM AMAZON WITH FREE SHIPPING

Landing somewhere between the third-person action-adventure structure of Uncharted and the open-zone, immersive Star Wars vibe-extravaganza of Jedi: Survivor, Outlaws plots an uneven path through the galaxy. It is, on paper, exactly the kind of game fans have been clamouring for and will undoubtedly scratch a deep-seated itch for many. It’s also keenly aware of this though and subsequently seeks to craft an experience as frictionless and smooth as possible within the confines of its genre and tropes. Whether or not that gives you a bad feeling about this is up to you.

Outlaws, despite its scope and scale, is strangely hyper-focused. The limited range of action verbs it offers the player as Kay has a flattening effect on the game’s mechanical pacing, the final heist feeling systemically identical to the dozens of repeated Imperial bases you cleared while exploring and the tutorial mission you did way back when this all kicked off. It runs amok on the sense of scale in the galaxy, as everything from syndicate hideout to Imperial garrison to ancient waterways feels functionally indistinguishable thanks to heavy asset reused, linear climbing sections, and endlessly recycled hacking minigames that lose their charm before you’ve left your first planet. 

There is a small escalation of available tools as Kay meets Experts, named characters who exist to abstract traditional skill trees into ostensibly more immersive, free-form gameplay expressions. Say you want Nix’s senses to reach further or your stealth takedowns to impact heavies, instead of investing points in a menu now you’ll run odd jobs for palatable faces and complete arbitrary challenges while exploring. In many ways this is a step in the right direction for Ubisoft, especially given that the skills Experts offer aren’t linear and can be focused at your discretion. But even a glance at the full list of upgrades reveals how little Outlaws will offer you at your best and how much it has stripped from you to do so.

Some of it tracks with conventional modern RPG-lite design; health upgrades and additional inventory slots bolstering additional stealth options like smoke bombs. Others though seem to have been reverse-engineered for the sake of it; your speeder, a BMX hoverbike, is awkward when you first begin exploring but can be “upgraded” to feel like something you’d actually want to use, same with your ship the Trailblazer, which controls like a shopping cart full of rocks until a Glup Shitto says its time for it to start feeling fun. Throttling the player like this feels like an attempt to slow the inevitable realisation of how little Outlaws has to offer beyond its opening hours but it has the opposite effect, rapidly exposing the game’s dated and overly simplistic mechanics.

These rudimentary systems are truly put through their paces in the game’s middling level design and mission structure. Outlaws leans surprisingly hard on stealth, often placing you in instant fail scenarios that expose baseline limitations and odd pain points. Moving through a space, Kay can crouch to ostensibly muffle sounds, crawl through vents to avoid line-of sight detection, and use Nix to distract enemies and so on. You’ve seen these loops before, but Outlaws struggles to make them functional; I would frequently and loudly jog behind guards who remained blissfully unaware, those same guards just as likely to walk over a dead body as they were to react to it, though could clock me from a mile away if they decided it was time to.

This strains on moment-to-moment enjoyment and immersion but has a disastrous impact on segments that will boot you back five minutes if spotted even once. And it cascades from there with Outlaws as missions break requiring hard reloads, level design and garish UI fail to communicate basic directions, and enemy pathing and AI feel absent. It grates more often than it impresses but MASSIVE rightfully has a reputation in the shooter space for its work on the Division titles and there are moments in Outlaws that feel of a piece with this legacy. A stripped-back third-person shooter that forgoes a constant arsenal or cover for an on-the-fly vibe, Kay will wing it in skirmishes by picking up dropped enemy weapons with limited ammo so as to always return to her reliable sidearm. This concept truly thrives during the Empire’s WANTED threat as imperials bring Hell down on Kay in escalating and tense shootouts. 

It’s a nice bit of narrative and mechanical synergy and the blaster, a fully customisable weapon with several alternate firing modes and power modules, feels decent if never truly great. MASSIVE’s pedigree rears its head with some of the stray weapons you’ll find during combat, with a solid range of blaster types and a Star Wars arse shotgun that I would have killed to always have on me if just for how much fun it was to use. Kay can also whip out a thermal detonator or two but doing so is staggeringly clumsy, requiring you to hold left on the D-pad to access a submenu, fully halting movement as you leave the left stick cold in the process.  

So, Outlaws finds itself with two distinct playstyles but no real penchant for either, oscillating between fine and frustrating, basic and busted. For all the mindless vibes of the Far Cry games I could at least rely on their shooting to be consistently enjoyable and stealth systems, however stripped back, reliable. Outlaws offers no such smooth-brained ease, no flow state as Kay trips around scenarios that feel unpolished and fundamentally unengaging. To say nothing of the space combat that places you in some admittedly stunning nebulas but only provides barebones shield and laser management and a whole lot of dead air between where you jump into a system and the planet you’re trying to reach.

Comfort then is to be sought in the gorgeously rendered open-zones, the wheeling and dealing of syndicate powers and the loosely desirable “Star Wars” of it all. Here, at least, MASSIVE’s promise of immersion finds some solid ground as the assorted planets and environments Kay can meander through are universally impressive from both a technical and vibes perspective. The Snowdrop engine puts in the work as spaces feel appropriately dense and gritty, evoking the sights and sounds of Star Wars in ways that lull you into a serene and welcome sense of place, made whole by the game’s excellent emulation of camera lenses from the original trilogy.

Where Outlaws struggles is finding much meaning in this impressive tonal recreation. Not a single explorable hub location feels untouched by care but not a single one I found offers anything markedly different from any other, a series of beautifully crafted theme park attractions where the workers can sell you something and not much else. Kay can’t flip a table in a cantina and fire stray shots, civilian hubs deemed non-combat areas.

Likewise, the lauded Lens Project (MASSIVE’s use of Snowdrop tech to capture the specific lighting and image composition off 70s camera lenses) is a neat trick deployed to no discernible end as the game’s in-engine cutscenes showcase no cinematic flair and the pre-rendered ones move like YouTube fan films. It’s a long way to go to create a world so laboriously dedicated to Star Wars without bothering to understand that it wasn’t the camera or dirt that made those films what they were in the first place.

The syndicate system is ambitiously interesting at least, allowing you to define Kay’s loyalties through a series of choices big and small that impact your standing with any of the four major crime organisations in the game. So, as an ardent Solo: A Star Wars Story defender, I lent toward aiding the rise of Crimson Dawn and its queen Qi’ra, taking every chance I could to steal, frame, and sabotage other syndicates if it helped my CD pals. This raises a reputation bar and unlocks higher level missions (most of which have you doing the same stealth/shooting loop but with a dangerous tag on them for some reason), unique items and cosmetics, and how thugs in the world react to your presence. The syndicates themselves are relatively affable, from your iconic Hutts and Pykes to the strangely coded Ashiga Clan, an Outlaws original creation that leans all the way into Orientalism and has insectoid aliens espousing the “ronin” path and honour codes. 

It also falls apart in the face of Outlaws’ competing priorities as a linear narrative experience. You can spend hours roaming planets running missions for the syndicate of your choice but if the next major story beat requires that same syndicate and Kay to have a falling out, enjoy watching your Reputation decrease and your investment deflate. The final mission of the game jarringly remembers it ostensibly allowed you to align yourself with someone and folds in whichever clan leader you have the highest rating with at the time, which for me meant I went from a rather hardline rejection of a character to playing buddy with them within the space of two hours and no additional context.

It’s not hard to be sympathetic to the balancing act of wanting to allow players to fulfil their fantasy while also wrangling the narrative into a functional shape but Outlaws seems entirely unsure about how to go about this, let alone what it even wants to be by doing so. It’s not just that its composite parts might be incompatible when assembled, it’s a permeating disinterest in its own ideas and world, edges smoothed so nobody could possibly cut themselves and the game becomes incapable of drawing blood.  

Kay Vess is archetypal to a fault, a broad outline of a character whose lines are only beginning to be filled in as the game reaches its goofy narrative conclusions and sidelines her entirely (flowers for Humberly González who does her best to elevate the material). Much ado is made about the relationships that develop between the crew, especially Kay and ND-5, but missions rarely provide more interactivity than idle radio chatter and key moments rely heavily on telling you how much these characters have grown to care about each other rather than showing you in any meaningful way why, or even how, that came to be.

When I first played Outlaws earlier this year, I flagged the potential pitfalls of a game playing with this subject matter trying to remain largely apolitical in its writing, but Outlaws pushes this tension to breaking point with its narrative choices, firmly cementing it as an experience that wants the aesthetics of drama without bearing the weight of perspective or stance. I won’t spoil how things break bad but if you’ve seen any Star Wars media from the past five years you can hazard a pretty likely guess, Outlaws capitulating to fan service in such a convoluted way as to render its already flimsy “scoundrel fantasy” framing and overarching themes mute.

Something you could forgive on a game meant to be this broadly appealing at a scale of production this high if it weren’t for last year’s Jedi: Survivor, a game that Outlaws echoes in a disconcerting number of ways but lacks the perspective and refinement to stand shoulder to shoulder with. The best-case scenario is that this is MASSIVE’s Jedi: Fallen Order, a flawed but relatively ambitious experience that millions will play, and millions more will forgive so that a better version of it might see the light of the twin suns further down the road.

Impressive aesthetic charm and neat ideas aside, Outlaws is simply too unsure of itself to make much of a lasting mark. For a game so keen on living the scoundrel fantasy, Outlaws is oddly afraid to shoot first. 

The post Star Wars Outlaws Review – Far, Far Away From Perfect appeared first on Press Start.

At a trivia night a few years ago, I shocked my teammates by correctly naming the winner of the first season of Big Brother Australia, which aired in 2001 (Ben Williams). The name stuck with me in part because I have a cousin with the same name, but also because I was really pulled in on those first few seasons of Big Brother. I watched diligently every weeknight. I tuned in for evictions, even convincing my mum to let me spend a few dollars on voting for the season winner. I’d sneakily watch the uncut Up Late version in my room, and sometimes the even later live stream, which was often just the housemates sleeping.

The Crush House, from Reigns and Card Shark developer Nerial, tapped right into those memories – and they really are memories rather than nostalgia, because the whole “knowing every little detail of a handful of people’s very public lives” part of the show never really went away. The Crush House is the hottest reality show of 1999, and you are the show’s sole camera operator, charged with catering to audience interest every day until, at the end of the week, you and the contestants are fed into a mysterious slide so that the whole process can begin again with a new cast.

It’s important, going in, that you not know too much about the “mysterious slide”, suffice it to say that there’s much more going on below the surface of The Crush House, both literally and figuratively. The metanarrative – which is foreshadowed enough that mentioning it is not a spoiler – is canny in its satire, but even if you bounced off it entirely, The Crush House would still be an interesting game. The moment-by-moment focus is very much on being the best cameraperson you can be, making great television and getting caught up in the house’s drama in the process. 

The housemates, who speak in an Animal Crossing-style gibberish that is subtitled into dialogue, are all distinct characters, and they all feel like they would have fit right into a late 90s reality show (albeit one with more progressive queer politics than most late 90s TV – you’ll be filming a lot of same-sex smooches). There are twelve potential residents, and for every five episode “season” you can pick a new combination of four of them. You’ve got your nerds, your jocks, your heartbreakers and hippies and contrarian shitheads, and it’s up to you to pick different combinations to see who clicks, who doesn’t, and which couples have enemies-to-lovers potential. The character dialogue is extremely fun throughout, and even if you’ll see quite a few repeated lines, each housemate feels distinctive and well-drawn.

Each day, you’ll be given a list of audiences who need to be appeased, with their requests popping up along the side of the screen as though they’re comments on a live feed. You’ll need to appeal to most or all of your audiences if you want to avoid cancellation at the end of the episode, which means aligning your shooting with what they want to see. Some of these audiences want very specific items to show up in the shot. They might love fish, or plants, or lighthouses. Pervier audiences might be into butts, or feet, or bikini bodies, so some days you’ll need to be a bit sleazier. Some audiences are more abstract in their desires. The elderly like to see people sitting down and being nice to each other, the film studies students love a dutch angle, and conspiracy theorists will read into certain background details of your shots and grow excited.

Playing the game means serving as director, producer, and camera person all in one. “Ayo and Emilie are fighting in their bathing suits near the pool! Run over and capture it! Bea is doing weights upstairs – the divorced dads in the audience will love it! Try to frame that potted plant behind Priscilla and Gunther while they’re making out!” It’s not a perfect system, though.  Some audiences will reduce the quality of what you’re filming. If fish fans tune in, you might spend most of your day in the room with the fish tank, for instance. There are some audiences I never figured out, or tended to only appeal to purely by accident, and it can be difficult to determine why certain audiences are or aren’t being pleased by what you’re capturing.  

On regular difficulty, missing your target results in a game over, forcing you to restart the current day until you get it right. The audiences will reset each time too, which can save you if you’ve encountered one of the most unfortunate quirks of the game’s design – it’s possible to get an audience split that is all but impossible to please with the selection of housemates you’ve picked for that season. Some audiences naturally synthesise around particular footage, but there were some days where I struggled to please anyone, let alone everyone.

The housemates will eventually start breaking the show’s “no communication between cast and crew” rule to make requests of you, and it soon becomes clear that completing these quests is the only way to progress the story. These tasks always involve capturing certain footage, and range from straightforward to quite intensive. Fitting them in around appeasing audiences can be a fun challenge, and they add an extra layer of tension to proceedings as you try to juggle everything.These tasks can break up the repetitive nature of the game, which I was thankful for: I spent many days capturing very similar footage, or running back and forth between a few areas to keep recapturing whatever objects the audience most wanted to see that day.  

The Crush House works because it’s satirising reality television without insulting it. There’s a core understanding here of how these shows are often very good television. It’s genuinely fun and interesting when two characters change their relationship dramatically over the five day season, and finding ways to line up shots that will please multiple audiences at once feels very satisfying. I can imagine watching The Crush House and finding it to be a fun guilty pleasure. But at the same time, the game’s narrative speaks to what it means to constantly be inundated with new celebrities, ones whose fifteen minutes of fame actually end after fifteen minutes.  

The Crush House isn’t the deepest satire, but it’s certainly clever. I’ve played games where you operate a camera before, but nothing quite like this – the actual entertainment value of the cast and the game’s good writing butts up against the ways you’re forced to make the show actively worse to please certain fans in a way that is pretty interesting and clever. 

To generate money to unlock new items around the house, which can prompt new interactions and please certain audiences or cast members,  you need to run ads. Switching the camera off automatically starts an ad roll; that might sound a bit dull, but the ads are one of my favourite parts of the game. Most of them are fun references to other beloved indie games. Without ruining the fun of discovery for anyone, the Immortality ad (for Maria’s Two of Everything soundtrack on cassette) is particularly great. Money accumulates quite slowly, but there’s a good sense of progression as you purchase new objects for your cast to admire and use.  

The Crush House might be a tad on the repetitive side, and occasionally a little unfair, but I found it just as compelling as those first few seasons of Big Brother. The allure of uncovering the house’s dark secrets is a strong pull, but when the credits rolled I found myself a little sad that there would not be a season 6 of The Crush House unless I started the game over again and did a little worse this time.

The post The Crush House Review – XOXO appeared first on Press Start.

I’m certain no good would come from typing this game’s title into Urban Dictionary, though that doesn’t change the fact that Pepper Grinder is already one of the year’s most slick, outstanding, high seas-adjacent platforming experiences. 

Pepper’s grinder, otherwise known as the big fuck off drill that rests on her arm, is, at first, a catch-all tool used for mashing and dashing alike. Bashing narwhal pirates into a pulp is certainly fun, but using the rotary implement to burrow into the sand, mud, and snow is the game’s absolute selling point. So good is the traversal via drill that it makes any moment you’re exercising traditional platform-hopping a little whelming.

Although it perhaps mirrors Ori’s burrow ability more than anything, it reminded me a lot of controlling the porpoise with purpose Ecco the Dolphin, whose head-first careening through infested waters is bound to be a core memory in the hearts and minds of SEGA kids. It feels as though the drill has a mind of its own as it bores a hole through the earth, pulling Pepper through its wake like a ragdoll. It feels tremendous, and the way the ideal path through is signposted by the buried gems you collect is a stroke of design genius. 

In fact, the level design in general sets a high bar. Although you don’t have vines to swing from like in Donkey Kong Country, bursting skyward with a well-timed rev from the drill provides a similar verticality that lets the team hide secrets and clever nooks just out of view of the screen. It’s reminiscent of the big ape’s adventure right down to the inexplicable floating cannons that fire you off, far beyond the periphery of the screen, to explore unseen wonders. 

Similar to the game’s surface-level Super Mario-like approach to its bare bones story, which is propelled forward by character grunts and enemy attire that suggests they’re overly protective pirates safeguarding their plunder from Pepper, the overworld feels reminiscent of just about any platformer from the nineties. In any other setting Pepper Grinder has a lush, colourful pixel art style that stands out despite the game’s breakneck speed, however its map is paletted with a chalkish charm and is quite crudely scrawled by hand. It’s a striking separation that’s struck between the action and the moments between that prevents Pepper Grinder’s first impression from growing stale. 

There wouldn’t be more than around twenty levels in all, spread evenly enough between a handful of clichéd biomes. Outside of the many mechanics they do introduce, I’m glad the team worked in some clever ways to make each world feel a little different. Dousing magma, found in one of the few volcanic stages, with water to see it become a crust that’s safe for stepping felt particularly inspired. 

There’s a reasonable challenge to be found with the game’s platforming, even if it doesn’t hit the punishing levels found in contemporary titles like Celeste. The boss encounters, however, are not for the faint-hearted, and the nutty escalation of their theatrics is undeniably bloody rad. And though there aren’t a huge number of levels, the pursuit for full completion of the irresistible and often out of reach treasure couples nicely with asserting dominance in the time trials to make Pepper Grinder quite moreish. It only took a few hours to complete the story and hit roughly 60% completion, it’ll be the remaining 40% that’ll really put hairs on the chest. 

And while there are no skills to unlock per se, Pepper does pick up a trick or two throughout her crusade. By the end, you’ll have swapped your drill bit out for a blunderbuss to end piracy like the Copyright Act of 1968 never could, as well as a literal rocket launcher for clearing your path of debris. Pepper Grinder does an exceptional job of doling out new things to tinker with up until its very last stage. In fact, the game presents a few particularly wild scenes that, without spoiling them, caused a few frame rate plummets that I’d not seen until that point in my ASUS ROG Ally playthrough. 

Although there isn’t a photo mode per se, Pepper Grinder gifts players with a ‘sticker book’ which functions as an arts and crafts mode where you’re able to adhere stickers of any and all things, from Pepper to the plain old wooden crates that litter the scenes. Even if it’s relatively pointless, it can be fun to slap together a few unlikely scenarios. Though it’s the unlocking of the stickers that seems naff. Thumbing thousands of coins into each stage’s Curiosity Shop pachinko machine to pursue a full set of stickers through random chance is a dumb, albeit cute, distraction. Without said machines though, the shop’s only stock would be health bumps and coloured wigs and shawls to make your Pepper your own.

If there’s one thing Pepper Grinder puts at the forefront, it’s the energy conveyed through its attitude, score, and action. There’s a crisp pace that keeps things moving along at a steady clip, and proves again and again through its retro-modern level design that a worthwhile playground goes a long way.

PS5 IMPRESSIONS (Kieron)

Having finally had the chance to play through Pepper Grinder thanks to its newfound PlayStation and Xbox release, there’s really not a lot I can say that Brodie hasn’t so eloquently put to page already.

If you, like me, have been holding off on drilling down while the folks at Ahr Ech put the final garnishes on these next couple of platforms, the great news is it’s every bit the compelling experience it was on PC and Switch. Even better for the PlayStation Players is that your adventure is augmented by the usual DualSense haptic feedback shenanigans and there’s a bevy of trophies to unlock. I was lightly surprised by how brief the experience is, but I thoroughly enjoyed every moment and, in my eyes, wanting more of a game is only ever a good thing.

The post Pepper Grinder Review – Crack The Pepper appeared first on Press Start.

Flock might feel like a cosy riff on the Pokémon formula for creature round-up, but more than anything it feels like a love letter to both flight and a keen eye. Observation and discovery are both integral to the game’s core loop and I quite enjoyed how the team found peaceful departures from Nintendo’s regular loop of conquering through force in favour of the kindness of charm, singsong mimicry, and recognising patterns and habits. 

Palworld, for all of its iron fist rule, might have been the Pokémon game people had been wanting, but I think I prefer Flock’s softer approach where no creature, sheep or otherwise, is harmed for the sake of a little fun. 

Flock is a charming take on the “catch ‘em all” formula, placing a huge trilling bird under butt to let you soar like a leaf on a breeze through a vivid, colourful uplands full of several biomes. Those nearest to your Aunt Jane and Uncle Reg’s quaint farm are made up of non-descript grassland, but with every cloudfall more of the game’s world is revealed to include mossy mushroom forests and wetlands.

The ultimate aim of the game is to use the power of your peepers to observe an enormous catalogue of curious creatures in their habitat, charm them and, ultimately, welcome them into your entourage. If you’re off-track and struggling to unearth rarer species, the encyclopaedia can offer vague hints that point generally in the right direction. In any case, the way Flock rewards a studious nature is certainly a gentler approach that, I imagine when compared to grinding your soon-to-be captive pet down through an arduous battle, delivers a better message to a younger audience. 

The game’s sixty or so critters are catalogued by species, and can ultimately be recognised from their specific characteristics and behaviour. Bewls are worm-like little cuties and Skyfish are exactly what you’d expect, the creatures feel like they’re pulled straight from page-to-screen out of a Dr. Seuss picture book. In addition to the many animals you’re able to charm, you can discover, name, and shepherd a small flock of sheep that can be let loose to graze in meadows that obscure the game’s many secrets: valuable whistles required for charming, baubles that somehow increase your flock’s capacity, and fashion catalogues full of fresh wardrobe ideas that let you convert your sheep’s shorn wool into handsome scarves and mittens among other things. 

For all of the menus Flock has, one thing I repeatedly found to be a tad obscure was the game’s narrative structure and how things like cloudfalls were triggered. It was clearly tied to the discovery of a few “legendary” variants, happening upon these quest lines felt like a happy accident more than anything else. I’m able to see so much in the menus: a hugely customisable map with more toggles than you’d know what to do with, a comprehensive catalogue of the creatures I’ve seen and charmed, what I can only describe as an “about us” team splash page for my sheep, and yet there’s no meaningful objective tracker beyond a small text box that can appear on the heads-up giving a pretty vague goal. This should feed into the game’s overall spirit of discovery, however I would have liked a little more structure here.  

I’m in two minds about the flow state of Flock’s flight. Your pitch is determined automatically by environmental contexts around you which, as you can imagine, can lead to some finicky, frustrating instances of not ending up in the optimal spot and having to circle back for another pass. On the other hand, soaring majestically above the uplands makes for some of the most crisp, satisfying movement I’ve had in a game for a while—perhaps since Marvel’s Spider-Man, which captured the web-swinging so perfectly. 

For all of its claims to have been designed with multiplayer co-op in mind, I actually much preferred my time exploring the uplands solo. It handles progress well enough in that if a player enters your game who isn’t at the same depth of cloudfall as you, they’re gated to earlier areas and, more often than not, just do their own thing. It feels more like a means to populate the world and make it seem more social, when in reality the game isolates your goals and achievements from those playing with you.

There’s a simplicity to Flock’s presentation that is rather disarming. Though it’s showy in its use of strong earthy colours and the creature design is fun, the human students and the world itself are visually kind of flat and no-frills. They mostly amount to big, saucer eyes on a shape that is vaguely human, though the animals, for obvious reasons, have defining factors beyond their animal origins. Pinning down their species literally hinges on the player’s ability to recognise the subtle differences between so many similar creatures, whether it’s darting frantically through the air or it has a tuft of fur on its chin, and I think Flock succeeds at making these minor differences readable.

Without any real voice performance in the game, Flock’s original score is forced to do a bit of the heavy lifting—I remember considering it inoffensive and pretty in the moment, but couldn’t hum a bar of it back to myself as I write. If only the player’s hunt was accompanied by the singsong melodies of the creature whistles which don’t feature as much as they could despite their heartwarming, ocarina-like tones. 

As someone who became disenfranchised with Pokémon games in the post-Silver and Gold era, Flock is the last game I expected to get its hooks in me. Obviously, it’s a wildly different take on that time-tested blueprint, placing a greater focus on bearing witness to the wild life than raising your hand to it, and I think Flock is an unexpected shepherd’s delight.

The post Flock Review – Ahead Of The Pack appeared first on Press Start.

Nobody Wants To Die is an ambitious debut. I previewed the game last month, and it was obvious that the team behind it was incredibly passionate, working hard to bring their neo-noir adventure to life and pay great tribute to its inspirations, like Max Payne. But I often wish that modern adventure games had more – I’d always prefer to play a part in the game and take advantage of the medium’s interactivity rather than let events unfold before me as I walk through it. Nobody Wants To Die is ambitious; it tries to do so much. But despite some stellar presentation, it falls victim to the many pitfalls that permeate this genre.

The game takes place in a dystopic version of New York. The year is 2329. People can become immortal, transferring their consciousness between other bodies for the right price. Of course, this means that the rich and corrupt tend to live longer while the impoverished die quicker, leading to a myriad of socioeconomic issues. You play a detective, James Karra, who is investigating a rogue serial killer who seems to be targeting the city’s elite. An incredibly intriguing premise set in an even more exciting world, and of course, nothing is as it seems.

As the story forms such a strong part of the experience of Nobody Wants To Die, I won’t spoil it here. But it does build upon this already interesting premise to deliver an intriguing narrative from beginning to end. Multiple threads are intertwining throughout the story at any given point, and it’s impressive that most are tied up by the end of the game’s modest runtime. But even more important is that these threads all come together satisfyingly. So much so that I hope we’ll be able to step into this world once more.

But I can’t say the same about James. He’s a stereotypically gruff detective who’s seen everything and is tired of it all. But so much of his personality and humour fall flat. Carrying all of the charm of your uncle at the family Christmas function, making jibes that aren’t funny and laughing at them himself, he falls flat. Perhaps that’s on purpose, but it makes James fairly unlikeable, especially in contrast to the voice in his ear, Sara. She’s infinitely more interesting and endearing, especially so as her arc develops two-thirds of the way through the story.

Similar to other narrative-driven adventure games like Edith Finch, Firewatch, or the more recent Still Wakes The Deep, Nobody Wants To Die is a linear adventure. You play James as he navigates through the story, discovering how each crime scene has transpired and moving from area to area as the story demands. It’s a straightforward design that serves the story being told, but only to a certain point.

The crux of the investigations involves James’ wrist-mounted reconstruction device. After gathering enough data about a scene, James can use the device to “rewind” the crime scene and explore it as it plays out in real-time in front of him. It’s an incredible feat on a technical level – being able to scrub through and walk through a scene with just the triggers. But the game almost always highlights which section of the replay to progress the story, so you never feel like you’re engaging with the crime scene naturally.

Other tools at James’ disposal are an earnest attempt at mixing things up but fall flat. A portable X-ray device allows James to see within bodies or walls, but the gadget is rarely used for anything beyond following cables from one device to another (usually hidden) power source. An ultraviolet lamp similarly detects trace evidence but is seldom used beyond following a trail of bloodstains from one body to another piece of evidence. They’re fine additions but feel underutilized compared to the rest of the game.

And that’s where my main gripe with Nobody Wants To Die lies. It’s got some really great ideas, at least mechanically, but they’re stretched too thin across an already modest six-to-eight-hour runtime. The reconstruction device is a novel idea that, while not totally original, is used to significant effect here in a way I haven’t seen in a game before. But you use it the same way each time, which becomes somewhat repetitive. The other tools need to do more to alleviate the repetitious nature of the core gameplay loop, too.

The other central gameplay element is the evidence board. You use it about three times throughout the story, allowing James (and the player) to catch up on all the story beats you’ve gathered so far. Mysteries will appear on the board, and you’ll have to drag a piece of evidence you’ve collected to that mystery to create new links and new mysteries to solve. Once you reach the end of a line of thinking, you can summarise the case and move forward.

Once again, it’s not entirely unique and has been done in games as recent as last year’s Alan Wake II. However, the interactivity and the way James and Sara’s dialogue add flavour to the evidence, making it stand out. This is the part of the game where I felt like a detective and that Nobody Wants To Die was making good on its premise.

While the game is linear, there are still different ways in which the story progresses, though these are only surface level. Around two major endings can be unlocked, with two variants of each. All endings are affected by some choices late in the story. But other smaller choices are more interesting. For example, how you speak to Sara will influence how their friendship develops, if at all, and unlock new dialogue options as the game progresses. Same as with James and the other characters in the story. They’re not essential to the big plot but give a sense of permanence to the characters and how they engage with the world.

And that world is easily the highlight here. Nobody Wants To Die has an incredibly strong sense of presentation. While lots of Unreal Engine 5 games are starting to look similar, developing a distinct look that I hope we will step away from, Nobody Wants To Die’s strong artistic direction brings this distorted version of near-future New York to life with great fervour. Whether it’s the busy streets of Manhattan or the quiet now-holographic paths of Central Park, the strong sci-fi flavour marries perfectly with the distinct 1930s-inspired art deco interiors to provide the perfect backdrop for a neo-noir story.

The score leans towards the latter, playing heavily into period-authentic sounds to give the game a broody noir atmosphere. It’s a strong score, riddled with elements of big band, jazz and swing, providing a solid atmosphere for the game’s already breathtaking scenery. Despite this, I’d wish the music would be more subdued during the evidence boards since you spend a bit of time there, and it’s overbearing. The voice work is similarly excellent, with Keaton Talmadge’s Sara being the highlight. James’s performance is decent enough, but the script does his character little favours.

Putting everything aside, it’s evident that Nobody Wants To Die is a real passion project for the creatives that produced it. It’s an awe-inspiring debut from a studio I’ll be forever keeping an eye on. And while it’s yet to quite reach the heights of its potential in my own eyes, there’s some great opportunity to improve upon this already strong foundation.

The post Nobody Wants To Die Review – A Moody And Promising Debut appeared first on Press Start.

More often than not, the survival horror genre depicts otherworldly creatures that make the hairs on your neck stand on end. Some do it better than others, but designing the perfect, alien creature to go bump in the night is an enormous part of the brief. Conscript is unique in that it presents its chilling brand of horror through the lens of World War I, where the monster isn’t some contorted, pulpy mass of eyes and limbs, it’s man. The first-hand, personal violence of conflict is illustrated so deftly in Conflict, as are the consequences of war, both direct and indirect, in a far more grounded, gut-churning manner than we’re used to.

What’s scary here isn’t the unknown terrors lurking around dark corners, it’s the mortal scar that man can cause in the name of God and country. 

Staging a survival horror game in the midst of the Battle of Verdun is novel in its own right, the tale of two brothers at the heart of it maintains a personal, relatable thread throughout what is an otherwise confronting video game that’s a matter of fact show and tell of a battle that claimed more than 300,000 lives. As André, you scour no man’s land itself in search of your brother Pierre, who’s been missing in action prior to the game’s start. You thrust yourself through hell on the hope of reuniting and keeping your family intact, and the dreamlike vignettes where you experience André’s pre-war life at the family’s French cottage are surprisingly nuanced, their quiet is juxtaposed by the thunderous bombardment that’s frequent throughout the remainder of Conscript. 

The game is formulaic as far as survival horror design goes, and remains true to the blueprints trademarked by those who’ve come before. It might not be Spencer Mansion, but Conscript’s trenches, forts, and devastated battlefields form such a memorable, multi-faceted map that reveals more of itself as you progress. It’s a big game, but Conscript’s in-game map is so easily readable I never had an issue in finding a path through the chaos. I wish the same could be said for your objectives which seem to reveal themselves through the commands of your superior officers, but are never noted within the handful of menus you have. From a UX experience, this could have been remedied, and justified narratively, through small diary entries by André as he attempts to quantify the horrors he’s seen. 

Mechanically, it definitely leans classic with a control scheme that’s kind of outdated but exists in service of tension, so I respect it. The movement feels fine, you’re even capable of short jogs and tactical rolls if your stamina permits, it’s the “stop and prop” shooting that left me a little offside at times. To reiterate, I do like the sense of urgency and fear of having to stop and aim carefully before firing, but it’s a constant frustration trying to thumb a full serving of rounds into these century-old firearms which gives the enemy ample time to close the gap. The fear is only heightened courtesy of an erratic crosshair which becomes harder to focus if you’re right in the pressure cooker, and it also speaks to the reality that the French conscripted young men who were far from marksmen. I think that instinct to survive translates to Conscript’s gameplay, regardless of the issues I do have with the weapon reloading, and there’s a brutality that’s extremely evident when you’re rearranging the features of a soldier’s face with a trench shovel. 

In terms of surviving the trench warfare, the biggest issue I faced was the bloody rats. They’re an interesting mechanic in their own right, however, as they’re a direct consequence of death in this war. Until you’re able to collapse their small tunnels, they’ll enjoy the body buffet left behind and happily nip at your heels which is so frustrating. 

While things can get a little abstract in these classic survival horror titles, Conscript’s puzzles felt relatively to the point and kept progression well on track. I’d routinely find a key or tool needed to access the next part of the map, and it never got more complicated than realising that the fire extinguisher you’d found was needed to put out the flames raging in front of the one door leading to the front. However, the need for juggling so many key items does highlight the pain of inventory management that’s prevalent here. For all of the ammo you need to carry to get bang for buck from this low capacity, turn of the century weapons, I wish there could have been a second inventory for quest items to lessen the need for frequent visits to the storage trunks scattered in the game’s handful of locations.

As stated, I do think the game’s maps,  and specifically the environments, are well done. While the bunkers and their dingy lighting are the most claustrophobic and scary parts of Conscript, there’s something profoundly upsetting about the scenes from the overworld. So many buildings reduced to cinders, bands of horses left dead in roadways, and bodies piled up or tossed nonchalantly into creeks. I feel like Conscript is the first game since Spec Ops: The Line that really depicts war as it really is, free from the glamour and “glory” it’s often dressed with. The game’s lo-fi visuals, as well as the brief fully-rendered vignettes that punctuate certain story beats, call to mind a point during the nineties where Conscript’s fidelity would be cutting edge. Thankfully, coupling pixel art with so many poorly lit scenes never compromised the readability of the action, opposition soldiers scrambling toward you were instantly recognisable and collectible items would glint as if to cry out. 

Having seen Conscript on expo floors a smattering of times in the last few years, the game is still a huge surprise for me. It makes such an inspired decision in setting that everything else is icing on the cake, and even the stuff I don’t adore still feels in service of what the developer is aiming to achieve in ratcheting the tension up several notches to create one of the most suffocating video games about war I’ve ever played. 

The post Conscript Review – They Shall Not Pass appeared first on Press Start.

As one who’s never understood the hype, Dungeons of Hinterberg is a unique case in that it single-handedly has left me wondering, based on its dungeons alone, whether I might have slept on The Legend of Zelda for all of these years. While the answer is irrelevant, I think that speaks volumes of just how fun and creative the core pillar of this weird, genres-in-a-blender Frankenstein game actually is. As a final product, it attempts to do too much and lacks focus and, more importantly, polish as each of its parts feel lesser-than when compared to the games it emulates—whether that’s Persona, Breath of the Wild, or any action game worth its salt. 

Dungeons of Hinterberg begins with a getaway for its protagonist Luisa, a law student who retreats to the Austrian Alps in search of escape and adventure. She quickly grows familiar with the townsfolk, builds a rapport with many of them, and discovers an unsettling truth about the magic-borne dungeons that mysteriously appeared in the town, transforming it into the tourist hotbed that it is. I dig the way the game frames conquering these dungeons from multiple angles—what they mean to academia, “slaying” the monsters inside for sport, and their worth to the town and how far those in power will go to ensure the magic never dies. 

Everything you experience in Hinterberg is presented through a very Persona-like four-block cycle that runs from dawn to dusk. The mornings and afternoons would basically be reserved for story beats and bookending the day’s events, while the evenings and nights would be for slaying, and shopping for resources before socialising with any one of the friends you make around town. As you’d expect, spending enough time to turn these acquaintances to friends sees Luisa reap rewards that feed into the game’s other systems, like loot and combat. Obviously it’s dependent on where you spend your time, but I found the cadence at which my combat rewards unlocked, and their proximity to the game’s ending, gave a sense of “too little, too late” in serving as a life raft for the game’s pretty vapid combat. 

While you’re able to unlock combo multipliers through one of your alliances, the meat and bones of Dungeons of Hinterberg’s combat is rather basic. It’s a standard affair of light and heavy attacks, interwoven with well-timed dodges to whittle away at a creature’s health. There are also attack conduits, which are basically special abilities that cool down after use, and they’re certainly helpful in dealing quick bursts of damage—my favourite was the ability to call down a meteor shower in the arena. That said, I definitely do not recommend punching above your weight as taking on waves of enemies several levels above you will spell a quick end for you. There’s definitely a challenge to be found in the game’s combat, it’s more that it becomes mind-numbing and never excited me quite like the puzzles did. 

Each of Hinterberg’s regions has a unique magical hook to it that is confined to that particular area after you earn it from the skill shrine. Whether it’s the hard light snowboard you can use to rail grind to upper decks of a snowy tundra, or enormous jelly blocks you’d use to get a leg up on an unreachable ledge, these powers are also woven into combat situations including one of the most frustrating boss encounters I’ve experienced in a while where I had to take advantage of the infrequent opportunity to lob a plasma orb into a hose on the big baddie’s back like it was the trench run on the bloody Death Star. Most other applications for Luisa’s powers mid-fight were great and added layers to a combat system that needed something else, however I nearly put the game down at this point. 

While the social aspects of hanging out in Hinterberg served to spotlight the magic of friendship, the real magic can be found in the game’s twenty-five, or so, dungeons. A mix of combat and thoughtful puzzle mechanics, they’ve honestly made me ponder on my likely controversial aversion to games like Breath of the Wild, as there’s been something so enriching about the intuitive nature of peeling back the intricacies of these dungeons to earn that stamp at the end—like I’d cleared customs at the border of a strange land. With a handful of biomes and their respective skills to riff on, there’s an undeniable breadth of experiences to be found, including ones that introduce once-off, perspective bending levels and shapeshifting environments with subtle, recognisable changes each loop that signal the maze’s exit. It can be very clever in its design and I definitely took joy, like a real Hinterberg tourist, in chasing all of the stamps on offer. 

For a game so intent on emulating the chic style of the Persona games, it truly fumbles the bag at a user interface level with some ghastly font choices and menus that didn’t exactly inspire me to spend any meaningful time within them. Fortunately, the remainder of Dungeons of Hinterberg is like a charming, eccentrically coloured comic resembling a paint-by-numbers gone mad. The alpine tourist town runs the seasonal gamut, offering not only beautiful snowy slopes but stunning autumnal woods, and the monsters that inhabit it are a fun design mash-up of miry goo adorned with masks inspired by Austrian fable. It might look a little stiff in action, but there’s no denying Dungeons of Hinterberg is a pretty game. 

Nearly all of Dungeons of Hinterberg’s many moving parts feels like a “something borrowed” from other video games that have invariably done that thing better. The dungeons themselves are a clear highlight and their clever design goes a long way to shouldering the spirited sense of adventure that moves the game along. Had they managed to make the loot and social rewards matter instead of routinely handing out the next leveled-up piece to practically open the door to the next dungeon on the list, I might have reflected upon my time in Hinterberg more favourably.

The post Dungeons Of Hinterberg Review – It’s A Kind Of Magic appeared first on Press Start.

Back in the day, when games were cheaper to make and experimentation was rife, Capcom was one of the leaders in that department. It’s easy to forget how much that Japanese powerhouse was putting out during the PlayStation 2 era. While I am inclined to appreciate their output more than anything else these days, I’ve longed for games that experiment a little bit more than experiences like Resident Evil and Monster Hunter. Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess feels like the Capcom of old, in a good way, and while it isn’t perfect, it does earnest work in fusing two genres to offer up something totally different.

In Kunitsu-Gami, you play as Soh. They’re a warrior tasked with protecting a divine maiden named Yoshiro as she works to cleanse the defilement brought to the holy mountain of Kafuku by a demonic presence called the Seethe. It’s a simplistic storyline that helps to give context for why Soh and Yoshiro are making their way down the mountain, but there’s not much surprise to be had here. The story is clearly the lowest priority for the developers here, as most of the story is told through optional collectibles, and while there is some cinematics, they have a minimal presence here.

Despite this, Kunitsu-Gami is still a great game and plays incredibly well. It’s a unique combination of action and strategy, with the gameplay being split into two distinct but obvious halves. Tower defence veterans will understand what’s happening here – during the day, Soh can cleanse the area to earn crystals, which can then be used to assign rescued villagers a combat role. During the day, Yoshiro ritualistically dances towards a demon gate to cleanse it, but during the night, she stops and needs protection from the Seethe.

At first glance, this setup is similar to any tower defence game. But everything else that is unique about Kunitsu-Gami helps it to stand apart. For one, Capcom has drawn on their experience with action games to impart Soh with a complete set of moves and abilities, giving you much more agency in defending Yoshiro. While the goddess is being attacked and villagers protect her, you can use various skills to fill any gaps in your defence. Too many melee villagers? Use Soh’s archery skills to fill that gap. It’s an elegant way to keep things interesting rather than just watching battles play out like you would in other strategy games.

Of course, it’s not just about Soh either. Each stage has a set number of villagers to save, each of which can be specialized into a specific role in exchange for the crystals you earn from cleansing each level.  There’s already a degree of strategy here – choosing how to spend your crystals – but as you progress through the game, there are twelve roles to choose from. Some are as simple as the woodcutters, who act as simple melee attackers. In contrast, others lay down buffs or debuffs to make your defence easier. While some roles are underutilized, there’s a big enough mix to complement your playstyle with Soh in whatever way you wish.

The strategy element comes into play when considering how many choices must be made when preparing your defence. Every choice you make will cost you elsewhere. Whether it be crystals to specialize your villagers or time to repair specific structures with your on-site carpenter. The carpenter can also be directed to rebuild structures that’ll assist in your defence – whether it be towers that expand the range of your ranged units or barriers that’ll slow the flow of the Seethe. Choosing which structures to repair means you won’t fix others, and it can often also be the difference between a successful run and a disastrous one.

The Seethe are more than just your regular demons, though. Around twenty-four different types offer a wide variety of enemies you’ll encounter on your path of cleansing. Each is inspired by and designed after yokai from Japanese folklore, and the variety helps ensure that the action never gets old across the whole campaign. Like the villagers, some are simple melee attackers, but others are more complex, limiting Soh’s abilities to command the villagers or debuff them entirely. While this might seem unremarkable on paper, the unique and eclectic design of the Seethe helps them stand out.

Such a design philosophy dovetails beautifully with the boss encounters that Soh will come up against. They’re all unique and require some degree of strategy or team management to defeat effectively. Most are challenging but not brutally tricky, but others aren’t afraid to change the formula to keep things fresh. For example, one of the bosses doesn’t even let you bring villagers with you, requiring you to battle with Soh in a one-on-one fight. They’re an excellent way to break up an already well-paced campaign.

And I say that with no shred of irony. At first glance, I was sceptical as to whether Kunitsu-Gami might become tiring after a few levels or even the generous demo released earlier this month. However, the campaign continually introduces new elements or gimmicks to keep the formula fresh from beginning to end. Whether introducing a new enemy to a standard encounter or making Soh commandeer a boat through Seethe-occupied, Kunitsu-Gami leverages a substantial degree of enemy variety and objective design to provide a well-paced and enjoyable campaign.

However, other elements of the game may be interpreted differently. With each stage you cleanse, said stage can be revisited as a “base” for your team. When exploring each base, the villagers you’ve saved in the stage prior can be assigned to rebuild structures as needed. These serve as de facto side quests in the game, with the rebuild progressing as you finish missions by either replaying them or pushing forward. Completed structures reward a few things, be it buffing talismans, experience to upgrade, or lore drops or sweets to gift Yoshiro. Only two of these things arguably impact the gameplay, so your mileage may vary regarding whether you’d find value in replaying missions to earn them.

Another issue I’m not even sure is worth bringing up is the challenges system. Each level has three challenges that can be completed to earn extra experience points to upgrade Soh and the villagers. But these challenges aren’t revealed until you have finished the level. If you complete them on your first run, you’ll still be rewarded for them, but it does feel like a way to artificially force replayability rather than providing a fun challenge for those who might want to min-max their first run. However, some of these challenges are clearly unattainable until you revisit the level with better teams, so maybe I’m making a big deal out of nothing.

While I’ve left it to the last thing to speak about, Kunitsu-Gami’s strong presentation further demonstrates the strengths of the ever-versatile RE Engine. While it never quite reaches the photorealistic heights of the Resident Evil games, the solid artistic direction makes up for it. Drawing strong influence from Japanese art styles like Ukiyo-e, Kunitsu-Gami’s creative direction has a great fantasy feel highlighted with bright and vibrant colours. The result is a style that, if you screenshot any frame with a character or enemy, could look like a piece of artwork. And that’s even before considering the game’s strong performance, supported by a buttery smooth aptly named 60fps performance mode.

Such a similarly strong sense of presentation is bolstered by the game’s original score, which employs traditional Japanese instruments to sell the tone the game is going for. Instruments like the shamisen, koto and taiko drums do great work elevating the battles in a way that’s authentic to the time period the game draws from. The quieter tracks that play during the lighter base management moments are nothing short of beautiful, either. An unnecessary but appreciated touch is that your villagers will all dance to the music as they wait for the Seethe to approach them, giving Kunitsu-Gami’s already strong presence a great sense of personality, too.

And that’s what sets Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess apart from other games of this ilk. It takes some pretty typical elements of two very well-trodden genres and spits out something vibrant, colourful and unique with personality. And that’s why, even if you’re not typically a fan of these genres, I’d still recommend Kunitsu-Gami. It’s well worth your time and something we need right now in games – something different.

The post Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess Review – A Divine Fusion appeared first on Press Start.

Anger Foot isn’t a game for everyone. It’s weird, crude and chaotic, not in the slightest bit shy of being silly. But nor should it be. Doubling down on the weird is what makes Anger Foot wonderful. The game is at its best when it leans into the outlandishness, delivering one of the year’s most unique, adrenaline-inducing experiences.

Free Lives, the South African indie developers behind the game are, of course, no strangers to the absurd. They’re a perfect partner for publisher Devolver Digital, having previously collaborated on games like Genital Jousting and Broforce. The insanity they channel into their games is evident in the title. If not Anger Foot, what else would you call a game in which kicking goons with a gnarly green foot is the primary mode of combat?

In case you’ve somehow forgotten the trailers from Devolver Directs of yore, I’ll try to describe it as best as I can. Anger Foot is a fast-paced, first person shooter following a balaclava-wearing protagonist in violent pursuit of his prized sneaker collection. With the unique ability of a lethal leg kick, you must navigate each of the game’s 63 levels in the fastest time possible to unlock new sneakers that imbue your feet with different enhancements.

It’s a formula that doesn’t overstay its welcome. Hurrying through, the game can likely be played through in a matter of hours. Levels are knocked over in mere minutes, but the stars awarded for completing the bonus challenges will draw you back in for a redo. Whether it be posting a faster time or dispatching members of the Debauchery Gang differently, these harder tasks suck you in for more playtime.

Some of the levels are surprisingly grueling. Death comes quickly; give an enemy the opportunity and you’ll swiftly have to restart the level. Much like other games of its type, there’s an element of puzzle solving required to navigate each level and survive the various enemies awaiting you with an assorted arsenal of ranged and melee weaponry. If you’re not careful, a pistol-wielding gangster might stumble out of a toilet cubicle with their pants down and start blasting. Learning which enemies to knock off first, which exploding barrel could be kicked to knock out a crowd, and which guns are best to steal is essential for swiftly sweeping through a level.

The bosses serve as refreshing changes in pace with multiple phases creating narrow windows of opportunity to land a kick, but aren’t particularly formidable. Instead, tougher armoured and shield-carrying enemies gradually up the intensity as you progress, with the real challenge arising when countless enemies fill a room to the point performance would occasionally stutter.

The powerups granted by the new shoes warrant the extra time spent perfecting a level. Some introduce quirks to the gameplay that contribute to the often hilarious situations the game thrusts you in. Others offer new ways to approach a level that dramatically change how you navigate the course. Certain sneakers will have you circling back to prior levels suddenly feeling better equipped. It all adds to replayability, but I was grateful you don’t need to perfect every level to unlock all that are on offer.

No doubt the design will sound familiar to fans of Hotline Miami and Neon White. I’m certain that fans of those games will find a ton of enjoyment within the game’s addictive loop, even if a handful of shortcomings holds it back from standing alongside them.

Anger Foot’s titular kicking mechanic has a slight delay to it that makes the game feel less sharp than the likes of Hotline Miami or Ghostrunner, two games I love for their snappiness. I quickly adjusted, but it makes the feet a little less powerful then they deserve. Often I gravitated towards the guns scattered about the levels in lieu of my kicking apparatus.

Levels also tend to blur together, not switching up level design or enemy variety at the pace required. Right from the opening level of each added area, I was expecting to be confronted by something new. Anger Foot flirts with increased verticality and platforming, but doesn’t come close to rivalling the likes of Neon White. The various gangs don’t feel appropriately distinct either, with the same enemies reappearing across the four different gangs you encounter. When I would suddenly encounter a new enemy type halfway through a new set of levels, it felt mistimed, like a missed opportunity to treat the introduction of each new gang and accompanying missions with a whole new look and feel.

Anger Foot’s presentation otherwise very much suits the tone of the game, with a rough-around-the-edges, cartoony style reminiscent of Squanch Games’ work. The character models all have an appropriately backwards look to them that complements the dystopian, drug-addled world. The rather industrial techno soundtrack wasn’t quite to my taste, but was always fitting as bullets ricocheted off explosive fuel tanks.

The post Anger Foot Review – Fast And Furious appeared first on Press Start.

How do you follow up your magnum opus? It’s a question that permeated my anticipation for Elden Ring’s first and only expansion. One that promises to explore untouched corners of the Lands Between and the characters that reside within the penumbra cast by its monolithic namesake. It sounds simple enough, but is made more complex by Elden Ring’s own nature. It’s arguably FROMSOFTWARE’s greatest achievement, its sheer scale and density rivalled only by its ambition and unwavering commitment to a vision that most would dismiss at first glance.

Shadow of the Erdtree isn’t just more Elden Ring. It’s a fundamental expansion of the world and character dynamics of the base game, iterating upon its free-flowing gameplay loop as to implore you to venture into its myriad depths. It occupies a space entirely different to that of the Elden Ring, offering an experience that doubles down on the best parts of the Lands Between in a world that feels introspective and left behind in the wake of great cataclysm. It stands alongside the likes of The Old Hunters and The Ringed City, and in a lot of ways, surpasses them.

After defeating Mohg, Lord of Blood, interacting with the cocoon in Mohgwyn Dynasty Mausoleum will whisk the Tarnished away to the Realm of Shadow. A forgotten land veiled by the shadow of the Erdtree in all its grandeur, one that holds the missing god Miquella after being stolen away by Mohg. You’ll quickly be greeted by Leda and her allies, unified in their search for Miquella as they trace his footsteps throughout the realm in hope of ascertaining the fate of the long-lost Empyrean.

If you’re familiar with Elden Ring’s lore, I don’t need to explain why this setup is immediately engrossing. Miquella’s place in the Lands Between is unlike the other Shardbearers. He’s separated from them in the way that compassion and kindness are his guiding qualities in a world brimming with conflict and tension. It’s fascinating to learn what Miquella has been up to since the Shattering, and it paints a richer portrait of dynamics and character motivations when it comes to the Golden Order.

The spotlight isn’t solely on Miquella, though. Many familiar and unfamiliar facets of the world are explored in Shadow of the Erdtree. The real star of the show is the Realm of Shadow itself. It emanates an encroaching loneliness in the way that the Lands Between don’t. The Realm of Shadow is scarred by the relentless crusade of Messmer the Impaler and his loyal subjects, leaving you to wander the wastes left in the wake of his destruction. It’s a reminder that even when separated from the Lands Between, the fallout from the Shattering is inescapable.

Despite this, surviving denizens of the Realm of Shadow can be found throughout, each expanding the new region, its place within the broader world, and the big players of the core narrative as it unfolds. FROMSOFTWARE also nails the side content again, offering many memorable characters and quest lines that often culminate in jaw-dropping boss fights that only FROMSOFTWARE would have the gall to make optional. Their willingness to accept that every player won’t experience everything continues to bolster the organic nature of exploration.

In fact, this rings true for many elements of Shadow of the Erdtree. The map itself is quite large, roughly the size of the first two areas of the base game if you put them together. If you only follow the golden path, though, you won’t get to see large chunks of it, most of which house smaller dungeons and boss fights that are worth unearthing. I’ve spent a little over 20 hours in the Realm of Shadow and have yet to explore two smaller areas of the map, and I’m eager to see what secrets they may hold.

While you can argue that Elden Ring is somewhat overbearing in the sheer number of things there are to do, Shadows of the Erdtree feels more approachable in its scale. It’s overall, a more digestible experience that’s still densely packed with worthwhile content and experiences. In fact, I think the smaller size leans more into FROMSOFTWARE’s ability to fine tune each area and what it offers. There’s far less repetition in the way of things like catacombs and caves, opting to instead focus on secret boss fights and areas.

Even though there’s a healthy amount of optional stuff in Shadow of the Erdtree, there’s still quite a bit jammed into the main progression. You’ll see a decent number of the new boss fights, and all three of the new Legacy Dungeons. The first of which is the Belurat Tower Settlement, a vertically inclined town densely packed with houses that’s become riddled with plague and disease over time. The Shadow Keep is the second Legacy Dungeon you’ll venture through, with more traditional FROMSOFTWARE level design that segues into a tower with a confrontation awaiting you at the top.

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While I won’t spoil the third and final Legacy Dungeon in Shadow of the Erdtree, it continues the trends set by the previous two in its own way, offering a distinct colour palette and aesthetic, all of which culminate in a thematically resonant boss fight that lore junkies will adore. Instead of resting on the laurels of the base game, Shadow of the Erdtree fills in the gaps left by the Lands Between, constantly finding new and striking visual motifs that we’ve yet to see in this world and combining it with FROMSOFTWARE’s impeccable level design.

This also extends to the broader open world, which, while much smaller than the Lands Between, still feels enormous and complex given Shadow of the Erdtree’s nature as an expansion. The Ancient Ruins of Rauh offer verdant fields and dense foliage that feels natural and untouched by Messmer’s wrath, where the Cerulean Coast juxtaposes the dream-like blue glow of its fauna against ominous colossal coffins that litter the landscape. A favourite of mine is the Abyssal Woods, where frenzy has a stranglehold over the area, sucking the life out of what would’ve been a dense forest and turning it into a maze of death and paranoia.

Your reasons for exploring these locations aren’t all intrinsic, either. Like the base game, Shadow of the Erdtree rewards you for exploring and uncovering its secrets. From the many new weapons, spells, Ashes of War, Spirit Ashes, and more, there’s always something to find around the corner. The new weapon types in particular are a bunch of fun to play around with (especially the unarmed weapon), and some of the new Ashes of War are way too cool not to use. Brand new to Shadow of the Erdtree are two new items that open up Shadow Realm Blessings – Scadutree Fragments, and Revered Spirit Ash.

The former are fragments dropped from the Scadutree, a withered and decrepit version of the Erdtree itself in the Realm of Shadow. Much like the golden monolith, the Scadutree can be seen from many parts of the map, draping the land in the veils that hide it from the Lands Between. These fragments can be used at Sites of Grace to permanently reduce the damage you take and deal in your journey. The latter are also used at Sites of Grace to bolster the strength of your Spirit Ashes, allowing them to scale into the expansion with you.

It’s important to note that the Shadow Realm Blessings are entirely optional. It’s a nice way to make some of Shadow of the Erdtree’s more challenging moments more approachable through exploration. Much like the base game, you can leave any area or fight you struggle with in search of these upgrades and other boss fights to come back stronger through these blessings and new character levels. It’s also a nice way to ensure you don’t need to grind levels before venturing into the Realm of Shadow.

Speaking of difficulty, FROMSOFTWARE don’t hold back when it comes to challenge. My character was a little over level 100 before heading into the Realm of Shadow, which I found to be a suitable level of difficulty in combination with the Shadow Realm Blessings. I still got stuck by a few bosses and had to change up my equipment and approach in order to best them, but it was always satisfying. Enemy design is similarly challenging, leaning more into the beast-like chimeras of Bloodborne that are a bit more on the crazy side than the base game.

There’s some real highlights here when it comes to bosses. Messmer the Impaler is one that’s been marketed quite a bit, but his frenetic and frenzied combination of fire magic and his mid-rage spear attacks make for a thrilling and fast-paced showdown. An early fight with Rennala’s younger sister, Rellana, is another highlight. Her dual swords become separately infused with moon magic and fire magic, echoing one of Dark Souls III’s best fights in Pontiff Sulyvahn.

My only real issue with some of the boss fights, is that half of the battle ends up being with the camera. It’s something that’s always been a problem in Souls games, but it feels especially egregious here as certain attacks can lead to death given the late-game nature of Shadow of the Erdtree. Some of these bosses move so quickly in their fights that it’s hard to keep track of when to lock on, and when not to so you can avoid getting lost in all the chaos. The reuse of main bosses in the overworld is also still a thing here, which can lessen the impact of those original encounters.

It should go without saying based on my previous comments that Shadow of the Erdtree has incredible visual direction. It explores so many settings and motifs not found in the base game, lending the Realm of Shadow an ethereal and otherworldly feeling of intangibility. Each area is punctuated by sweeping vistas, no matter how haunting they may be, most of which feature the withered Scadutree that towers above. It’s a true encapsulation of the environments found in Elden Ring, and then some, always offering up a feast for the eyes at every turn of the corner.

It’ll also come at no surprise when I say that the soundtrack here simply elevates everything Shadow of the Erdtree does. Whether it’s the calm and introspective overworld themes, or the heightened tension of boss tracks that get the blood pumping, this expansion always delivers on its big moments through the adept use of musical storytelling. The final boss track is simply phenomenal, and so many other encounters feature compositions that are hard to get out of your head until it’s supplanted by the next.

It’s going to shock no one that Shadow of the Erdtree is as high quality as it is. At this point, FROMSOFTWARE has a track record that goes unrivalled in the genre, and perhaps even the industry at large. Shadow of the Erdtree is more than a doubling down of what makes Elden Ring so special, it’s an exploration of what new elements can bolster that which makes it strong. It’s a worthy expansion to a beloved world and set of characters that seemed so impossible to follow-up, but FROMSOFTWARE have done it again. Just like they always do.

The post Elden Ring: Shadow Of The Erdtree Review – An Impeccable Final Course appeared first on Press Start.

Since Amnesia: The Dark Descent graced our screens back in 2010, horror games have had a renewed popularity amongst players. I’d even argue it’s paved the way for heavy hitters to come back in a bigger way than ever, like Resident Evil, but it’s also seen the rise of less involved horror games like Outlast, P.T. and Layers of Fear. Back then, Scottish developer The Chinese Room tried their hand at the Amnesia-like, crafting a sequel in A Machine For Pigs that was released to mixed results. I always saw the potential. But now, eleven years later, The Chinese Room are trying their hand at horror again. Still Wakes The Deep is a game pitched as “The Thing but on an oil rig.” It somewhat makes good on that premise, but it’s not without its faults.

Still Wakes The Deep takes place during Christmas in the 1970s aboard an oil rig in the North Sea. You play as an electrician stationed on the rig, Caz McLeary. The game opens on a typical day, with Caz heading from his room to grab some food from the cafeteria. It’s a stormy day outside, and the crew working on the rig at the time hit something with their drill. What follows is a sequence of events that will eventually see Caz trying his hardest to find safety and escape from the rig. The story is really why you’ll play Still Wakes The Deep, so I won’t delve too much into it, but you can probably see where this is going.

But despite there being a modicum of predictability to the story, Still Wakes The Deep does an admirable job at making you care for its colourful cast of characters. Unfortunately, despite this, I ironically found Caz to be the least interesting of the cast. His done-to-death storyline about his troubles at home did not resonate with me. But I instead found most of the supporting characters to be endearing, and surprisingly, I found myself really invested in getting them off the rig. It’s practical but straightforward writing, which is essential given how much of the experience of the game is carried by the game’s plot and characters.

That being said, Still Wakes The Deep’s design is a masterful gambit for any self-respecting horror creator. The unique setting works wonders in hitting many beats for anyone looking to be scared. When you’re glancing out onto the rough and heavy ocean, you can’t help but feel a sense of vertigo as the oil rig you’re on sways in the wind. When you’re in a room that’s inevitably flooded, there’s a genuine mix of both claustrophobia and thalassophobia as your play space slowly grows smaller. And, of course, a sense of tension and fear arises from the monsters Caz encounters. All macabre distortions of the human form, they’re suggestions of a human being rather than a human, and there’s something incredibly unnerving about that.

Despite this, I didn’t find many of the more in-your-face elements of Still Wakes The Deep to be that frightening. But I would be lying if I said I wasn’t tense playing through some key beats in this six-hour adventure. The horror is well realised with minimal and surprisingly restrained use of cheap jump scares. Instead, the parts where I found the game to be most tense were where nothing was really happening – the strong audio design contributes to an immense sense of atmosphere that does a lot of the heavy lifting in making it all frightening.

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But there is a game hidden behind all that atmosphere and tension. As a game, Still Wakes The Deep is similar to Layers of Fear or SOMA – you’ll walk from area to area, eventually having to evade monsters stealthily. There is no combat, but these encounters are straightforward with specific paths or solutions. They’re so simple that you’d be forgiven for thinking they were scripted. The game does provide you with hiding spaces, like lockers, but I didn’t need to use them once throughout the entirety of the game. It suggests that Still Wakes The Deep perhaps thinks it’s a deeper experience than it actually is.

The other side of the gameplay coin is the exploration and puzzle solving, though even that is similarly too linear or obvious to provide any meaningful friction to the player. I am reticent to even call them puzzles – most of the time, you’ll have to turn a valve to pass through a hot steam barrier before being on your merry way again. That’s really the extent of how complex these puzzles become. That is, not at all, and to even call them puzzles feels like a misnomer. It’s nice to have something to do, but it’s so simple and repetitious that it borders on tedious as time passes.

Which is unfortunate, because the simplicity and linearity of the entire experience really removes any sense of dread or foreboding. When something scary happens, the threats to the player feel minimal due to their simplistic nature. But when it’s not trying to scare you, it usually is owing to the strong ambience. It’s a bizarre situation. But while it’s not incredibly scary, it feels like the perfect recommendation to make to those who want to play more horror but might find heavier games too disturbing. On top of this, there is even an optional difficulty mode, which makes the stealth segments even easier, which is a nice touch.

That’s not to say Still Wakes The Deep isn’t an enjoyable experience. It is. It feels uneven. It’s just an experience that could’ve used more meat on the bones. There’s a heap of potential here, too – the setting is great, and the general flow of the game makes a lot of sense, even if it’s a little reminiscent of Dead Space’s “go fix this“ sense of progression. But it’s so unwilling to allow its players to wander off the beaten track that it feels too artificial to ever be genuinely terrifying.

But despite my issues, Still Wakes The Deep features some of the strongest artistic direction I think I’ve ever seen in a game. The organism that’s taken over the rig looks equal parts disgusting but beautiful, weaving its fleshy fin-like wings through the harsh artificial metals of the structure to create something that feels like living art. The lighting and weather effects add to the visuals, too, helping to bring the setting to life, making it feel both lived in and as much a character as the humans in the story. Many of the dead crew members you come across are rearranged in a way that they’re horrifying but almost artistic. It’s a phenomenal game that the art team should be really proud of.

Such pride should be found in the game’s original score as well. There’s a typical offering of tracks here from Jason Graves, known for his work on the Dead Space games, that really helps to up the tension. But the other things, the little things, really help make Still Wakes The Deep unnerving. Random sounds of metal hitting metal or laboured and inhuman breathing help to suggest to players that something might be in the room with them, even if they can’t see it. It’s masterfully put together and plays a massive role in building tension.

But we can’t talk about this narratively driven game without highlighting the performances from the cast. The team has gone the extra mile to keep things authentic, recruiting talent from the Isle of Sky, Dundee, Glasgow, and Aberdeen to really bring these characters to life. Such a dedication to authenticity is hard to ignore, as it contributes so much to building this believable world with strong performances that draw you into the game world.

But how much you enjoy Still Wakes The Deep really depends on how much you value the individual components that make up a game. It more than makes up for its gameplay shortcomings with some strong sound design and intensely good art direction. However, its simplicity and linearity can sometimes make it feel a bit too controlled to be truly terrifying.

The post Still Wakes The Deep Review – Beautiful But Grotesque Horror appeared first on Press Start.

I’m not sure how many more times one person could replay the Kingdom Hearts games, but if there’s a record I’m sure I’m coming into view of it by now. From the original PS2 versions of Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2, to Chain of Memories, Dream Drop Distance, Birth by Sleep and eventually Kingdom Hearts 3 I’ve experienced these stories multiple times across multiple systems and yet still I routinely have no bloody clue what’s going on in the overarching story. Did picking them up once again on PC via the freshly-minted Steam release help that? No. Is it still worth it? Absolutely.

In case you missed it, you can get the “Dark Seeker Saga” catalogue of Kingdom Hearts games on Steam now, some three years after they were released on PC via the Epic Games Store (with the rhythm spin-off Melody of Memories conspicuously missing). While it’s not a series of titles that’s technically new to PC, the arrival on a digital platform that’s far more widely-used and feature-rich is good news for PC players. There are also some minor new wrinkles, some of which will also apply to the EGS version in an update, but nothing that makes this a dramatically different release.

Still, it feels exciting somehow. Booting up Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5+2.5 ReMIX, the awkwardly-titled collection of the “Final Mix” versions of the first two mainline games and a bunch of spin-offs both cinematic and playable, something I’d yet to do at a PC, felt like being handed the keys to the absolute very best versions of games that I adored as a teen. And sure, once I was in there and playing it became more clear that the experience isn’t all that different from the PS4 version of the same collection, but it’s special nonetheless.

That’s not to say things are a lock for the older releases of Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5+2.5 ReMIX though, even the EGS one, because Square Enix has gone in and spruced up the joint a bit. There’ve been some environmental texture updates across the collection that, while not game-changing in any way, do give it a bit of a lift. It’s more a case of sharper, upscaled versions of the original texture work more than anything new or different, but given these early games used a lot of 2D art to make up for simple geometry, any uplift in clarity is pretty noticeable and beneficial. There are definitely still a heap of noticeably lower-res background elements, and I wish the UI had been given a similar treatment, but it’s something.

Thankfully, the texture updates are available for Epic players via an update, too.

Those new textures also apply to Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance HD, the port of the 3DS entry that’s included in the middle title in this three-piece PC feed, Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue (say that five times fast). This package also includes Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth by Sleep, which works as a more modern-looking and playing lead-in to the third game, so it’s an interesting bridge between the more “retro” titles and the most recent one.

Moving on to Kingdom Hearts III, here bundled with its ReMind DLC expansion, and the last of these three new titles is the most PC-centric, which is unsurprising given the game was originally a PS4 title and runs in Unreal Engine 4. Like the EGS version, this means you’ve got a lot more control over the visual experience, and there’s a lot more benefit to playing on a higher-end rig where you can absolutely get a nicer presentation than what PlayStation and Xbox players have access to. Performance-wise, even on my modest rig, it feels like a very decent PC port as well with little to complain about.

In fact, after hearing some mixed things about the PC versions of all of the Kingdom Hearts games I’ve been pretty pleased with how it’s gone so far in the Steam versions. I unfortunately never played the Epic equivalents to compare it to, and I’ve still got plenty of hours left to pump into the Steam games, but I’m yet to have any crashes or noticeable framerate/responsiveness issues. Some added boons include full Japanese voice audio across all of the main games, Steam achievements, cloud saves, and although I don’t have one to test – presumably at least workable Steam Deck support. That’s a big deal in itself, if it works.

If there are complaints to level at the whole thing, they’d mostly be around the monetary and storage costs involved in picking up the full suite. At full whack, these feel exorbitantly-priced, especially when the PlayStation versions are routinely around $60 for the entire collection. I get that these are technically new products, and Square Enix has taken the time to run some textures through an upscaling process and fine tune, while also prepping everything to work with the Steam ecosystem, but it’s hard not to feel turned off by the cost of entry – the entire collection is down to around $100 for the next couple of weeks on Steam though, which is a bit friendlier.

Similarly, having all of the games installed will eat up a good 150GB+ of storage, which may not be equal to just one modern Call of Duty title, but is still a lot for 1.2 Unreal Engine 4 games and a bunch of classics. It took me forever to download them all on my bang-average connection and so I would’ve loved the option to pick and choose which titles in each collection I actually wanted to install to save time and space.

At the end of the day though, the Kingdom Hearts games being on Steam is a big deal not because they’re very moderately updated or because it’s at all new to be able to play them on PC, but because it’s a huge portion of the PC audience that can finally play them via their distribution platform of choice. And, in the amount of time I’ve been playing the Steam versions prior to launch, everything looks great and works as intended, which is wonderful news.

The post Kingdom Hearts’ Steam Versions Are Simple And Clean Ports Worth Experiencing Again appeared first on Press Start.

When developer Evil Empire announced that it was moving the release date of its upcoming The Rogue Prince of Persia to get out of the way of Hades 2’s Early Access drop, I realised we’d hit another turn in the industry. It’s not the first time a dev has shifted a release to avoid a crowded date, it’s not even the first time this year (see Final Fantasy XIV Dawntrail’s strategic dodging of the forthcoming Elden Ring DLC) but this change is indicative of the shifting expectations around Early Access.

Supergiant Games effectively broke the mould with Hades, while Larian Studio’s Baldur’s Gate 3 shattered it into pieces that even smaller indie titles like Dread Delusion are now walking all over. It’s a killer change for the players, better games earlier and cheaper and with more input from consumers than ever before, but it does shift the goalposts even further afield when a massive publisher like Ubisoft decides to play ball.

The Rogue Prince of Persia, a collaborative IP experiment between Ubisoft and the Dead Cells folks, bears the markings of Evil Empire’s pedigree from the moment you jump in. Stylish and immediately parsable, the game streamlines the Prince of Persia blueprint into a roguelike format, discarding anything it needs to drop to become the nimblest version of itself possible. We still have a Prince of course, this time a roguish young man gone to war with the invading Hun after inadvertently provoking their violent ire. Equipped with a magical bola that allows him to cheat death by reverting back to a set point in time, the Prince is set on a path of looping death as the Hun push deeper into his kingdom.

It’s a neat little set-up, adding in just enough timey-whimey nonsense to feel at home in both the roguelike genre and wider Prince of Persia mythos, and the additional layer of the Prince’s hubris being the inciting incident is a welcome one. The current version of The Rogue Prince of Persia is light on story content though, largely patched over by its solid systems and aesthetics, the leaner narrative and small cast of characters doesn’t do much to incentivise investment in events beyond the mechanical. Depending on priorities and feedback this may or may not change with time, but the bones of a cool world are begging to be fleshed out here.

Due to genre and release style proximity, it’s not unlikely that comparisons between The Rogue Prince of Persia and the Hades series will be made. Where the latter cemented its place in the zeitgeist with expressive character and worldbuilding as well as systems, the former opts for a stripped-down approach that might let its combat and traversal shine but dims potential elsewhere.

This isn’t to say The Rogue Prince of Persia presents poorly, if anything its art direction and tone is an achievement in its own right. To lift directly from my own preview, the stylish melding of Cartoon Network vibrancy with the sharpened edges of a Tartakovsky series makes for a distinct visual experience. Its simplicity deployed beautifully, abstracting places and faces into minimal but evocative tableaus. Likewise, the game’s score is already shaping up to be one of the best of the year, with pulsing synths that push you forward and create momentum and aggressive play by simply knowing what sonic notes to hit to make you feel like a badass at all times.

The Prince turns on a hair trigger, dashing, jumping, and wall-running his way through the game’s currently six available levels. In a genius bit of level design that never loses its magic, the game incorporates backdrops and walls into the play space, despite its 2D structure, allowing the Prince to move along and up surfaces that in any other game would be set dressing. Combined with a humble but effective jump, this grants the player a wider playground in otherwise fairly contained levels, adding a nice amount of potential verticality and exploration before moving on to the next stage.

The Rogue Prince of Persia escalates its platforming challenges the deeper in you push against the Hun, sharp reflex time and situational awareness becoming essential tools to reach equally escalating rewards. Some of this is organically strewn throughout the level, short bursts of spike traps and saw blades to overcome, but the sweatiest stuff is tucked away in challenge rooms that will push your mettle. You’re allowed a small window of grace in shifting the camera to peer below nearby floors and walls, but that verticality mentioned earlier will see you needing to make breakneck choices as you invariably plunge into the unknown and risk health and time spent on a run for a chest spied just over yonder.    

The Prince’s fluidity makes combat just as tightly tuned and thrilling as the platforming. The Hun are a great gang of foes; using shamanic magic to bolster their units, they flood the levels with a variety of enemies you’d expect to find (brutes, archers, beasts oh my), and the game isn’t shy about deploying as many as it wants against you. Things can get hairy quickly, especially against the two boss foes whose health bars boggle the mind. The Prince is equipped with a baseline dodge and kick, neither of which can deal outright damage but are critical in avoiding attacks and breaking shielded enemies or sending them careening into pits. To draw blood though, you’ll make use of a variety of weapons with primary and secondary arsenals running the gamut of light, heavy, and ranged.

There’s a fun assortment of goodies here, again escalating nicely as you move from daggers to spears, bows to chakrams and so on. Each weapon can be found repeatedly in levels with increasing damage stats and is nicely bolstered by the game’s Medallions (run-specific power-ups), but for as keen as I was to find new tools, nothing overly revolutionised combat for me. Outside of hyper-specific items, the combat kept at a satisfying and tight loop without much in the way of highlights, competent if not all that thrilling. Likewise, certain weapons, like a throwable javelin, can’t be aimed in any way I could discern, so the novelty of having ranged options falls a little flat.

Medallions close this gap nicely though, allowing the Prince to equip up to four passive abilities that alter gameplay nicely in your favour. Broken down into subcategories like Fire, Poison, Healing, Throwing Knives and so on, the Medallions typically transform basic actions by adding offensive buffs. Vault over an enemy, drop a puddle of poison; break an enemy shield, set fire to those around you; kill a Hun using elemental damage, regain some health points. There are loads of these things in the game and it truly comes alive when you begin to combine Medallions.

Both weapons and medallions can be upgraded either during a run or outside using one of a few currencies. Sacks of gold litter the levels and are used at sporadic storefronts, but the real money is in Spirit Glimmers, a mystical substance dropped by fallen foes and used back at your Oasis basecamp for blacksmithing and so on. Glimmers are lost on death unless deposited in specific portals, which can be few and far between making the risk/reward feel especially tense given how pricey some of the Glimmer stuff can get. Still, it’s nice to have something to work toward, often I would go on runs with the only goal being to farm Glimmer and get the hell out of dodge.

It all coalesces into a solid roguelike experience, small pain points around health balancing and combat variety feeling inevitably bound for patching and refinement. On that note though, given how far out of its way Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown went to making itself as playable as possible to as many people as possible, The Rogue Prince of Persia’s distinct lack of difficulty modifiers or accessibility options beyond basic colour blind and text sizing feels deflating. Evil Empire has been clear that more options are to come in future updates but to launch with this little is a disappointment.

It’s not entirely representative of The Rogue Prince of Persia’s current form but it is emblematic. With the basic moment-to-moment movement nailed down, and combat beginning to shape up into something thrilling, the game is undeniably off to a great start. But it is light in other key ways, lacking diversity in its weapon feel and only clocking in around ten hours, a time that will likely compact rather quickly in the hands of genre fanatics.

Evil Empire is no slouch though, even within the review window a patch dropping that pushed quality of life changes like mid-run resuming if you need to close the game. With Ubisoft’s sizeable backing and open ears to player feedback, there’s nowhere to wall climb but up for The Rogue Prince of Persia.

The post The Rogue Prince Of Persia Early Access Review – Heavy Is The Crown appeared first on Press Start.

While Supergiant Games have released hit after hit in the time they’ve been making games, nothing took off like Hades did when its 1.0 version launched in 2020. It’s arguably the poster child not just for the potential of early access, but roguelike games in general, masterfully weaving storytelling with a genre that requires creative approaches to narrative.

It’s no surprise that the critical and commercial success of Hades spawned Supergiant’s first ever sequel in Hades II. Doubling down on the early access gambit with an all new protagonist, story setup, gameplay elements, and a breadth of content that surpasses the original game’s 1.0 launch. While the full launch of Hades II might not be in the foreseeable future, what’s already here is an utterly fantastic and dense offering that sets the stage for what will undoubtedly be an impeccable sequel.

Set some time after the events of the first game, Hades II shifts focus from the charming Zagreus to his ambitious sister – Melinoë. The underworld has been usurped by the Titan of Time, Chronos, who also holds Melinoë’s family captive. This setup feels like much more of an immediate threat in comparison to the familial melodrama of the first game, placing more focus on the politics of the Greek Gods and the task Melinoë is burdened with in the fight against her grandfather.

It’s instantly engaging and Melinoë is a markedly different protagonist from Zagreus. She feels partly responsible for the situation at hand and is constantly wrestling with her self-doubt and conceived shortcomings. She feels more flawed than Zagreus and is all the more interesting for it. The conflict with Chronos is also multifaceted in the way it involves the Greek pantheon as well as the denizens of the underworld. It’s clear that there’s a lot more to tell here, with run completions revealing new parts of the story to Melinoë and thus, the player, slowly unraveling the mystery of how Chronos managed to snatch away the underworld from Hades.

This all new setting and narrative setup is also a great excuse to bring new characters into the fold. With Zagreus and his compatriots imprisoned by Chronos, you spend more time with other figures from the mythology that Supergiant have yet to explore. Melinoë’s affinity for magick has led to tutelage under the expertise of Hecate to prepare for the conflict to come, and characters like Odysseus and Hypnos have all been displaced by the wrath of Chronos.

This cast of characters pulled from the parts of Greek mythology gather at The Crossroads, a refugee camp built to evade the scrying eye of Chronos. It also serves as Hades II’s hub area between runs, serving up new dialogue and developments as you inch closer towards dethroning Chronos. While it isn’t as revolutionary as the first game, it’s still an addictively–engaging loop. Even if you don’t beat your best run, you know that new narrative tidbits and character developments await you at The Crossroads.

Much like the original game, this hub area is also where you’ll setup your loadout for a run, but also serves a few new purposes that are unique to Hades II. Gone is the Mirror of Night in place of Arcana. Aside from being a more fitting system for Hades II’s theme and characters, Arcana allows you to activate cards for bonuses in any given run. Each has an energy cost called Grasp, with Melinoë having a limited amount to play around with. You can of course increase your total Grasp as you play, but it’s impossible to have all Arcana activated at once. Instead of putting points into permanent upgrades and forgetting about them, you need to consider how activated Arcana synergise with your Keepsake, chosen weapon, and goals for that run.

There’s also Incantations, which are more permanent upgrades that serve myriad purposes. Each one requires materials to craft, but feels impactful in the kind of options they unlock. These are incredibly varied. Some impact runs, allowing Melinoë to access rooms with healing fountains in each location or increasing collected resources. Others expand the range of systems you can interact with at The Crossroads, like being able to plant seeds to grow your own materials, or introducing a new vendor that brings some harder to find items and currencies. These are slowly doled out to you as you complete runs and encounter new locations, adding new wrinkles and layers to the gameplay loop and how you approach progression. My only real gripe with all this, is that there are so many currencies and materials to keep track of.

Once you’re geared up and ready to go, Hades II feels familiar, but adds just enough to keep things feeling unique when it comes to playing as Melinoë. On top of having a traditional health bar, Melinoë also has a Magick bar. Charging any of Melinoë’s three moves will consume some Magick for Omega attacks, which often deal more damage, have heavier crowd control effects, or sometimes both. Magick is automatically refilled when you move into a new encounter, so you’re encouraged to spend Magick heavily throughout runs.

Aside from that, the age-old mantra of if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, rings true here. You’ll move through larger locations comprised of encounters, each one rewarding you with minor or major pickups that’ll help you along your run to the underworld. From Godly Boons that bolster your general abilities to potions that increase your total Magick. There’s a load of new gods that weren’t present in the original game, like Hera and Hestia that offer fun new build crafting opportunities not found in the first game. There’s also new vendors to find on runs like Arachne, who can spin-up powerful armour for Melinoë that protect her from damage and yield additional effects.

It really is more of that same great loop from Hades, taken to the next level through fun new gameplay ideas that shake up how you approach Boons and the kind of Melinoë you want to build for any given run. While Hades felt like it had a few truly dominant Boon types, Hades II feels better balanced in its current state and runs feel better for it. There’s still clear winners here for sure, but I never once felt short-changed by the options presented to me when choosing my next reward. It also just feels damn good to play, and gets truly chaotic when you’re deep into a run.

The big changes in actual runs comes down to a lot of the level design that Supergiant employs in each location. While Erebus is very similar to what you’d find in the first game, the Fields of Mourning are much more non-linear in their progression. They offer wide open fields with major and minor upgrades to find, and it pays to explore these encounters to the fullest before you move on. Oceanus is similarly distinct in how it uses traps to create dynamic arenas. Each location’s boss fight is also fantastic, each one testing you in different ways and expanding the world and sense of place.

While you might think this applies to regular runs, Hades II switches things up a bit by having two distinct runs. One where you descend into the underworld to confront Chronos, and another where you head to the surface to halt his siege on Olympus. The former is far closer to completion than the latter in this early access build, but it’s clear that Supergiant wanted to flex their creative muscles a bit when it came to designing these two runs. They also vary in difficulty, so once you complete the underworld, you can continue challenging yourself above the surface.

To shake up these runs even further, this version of the game has a whopping five weapons to choose from, each with their own Aspects that shake up their combat loop. They also feel very distinct from what Zagreus could choose from. Melinoë’s magickal inclination has her wielding staffs, dual blades, projectile hurling wants, and even a giant axe. There’s so much variety here before you even start playing with the Aspects, and prospect of a sixth Nocturnal Arm on the way is an incredibly exciting one.

It’s also just astonishing how much attention to detail has been poured into Hades II. The dialogue of bosses and characters back at The Crossroads changes and evolves based on the weapons you use, what you accomplished in that run, and more. It’s incredible to see the game react to your achievements and failures alike, while also giving some deeper insight into how Melinoë feels about the current happenings.

While Hades II doesn’t reinvent the visual style of the original game, it takes it to the next level. The hybrid of 2D and 3D graphics is still mesmerising, but approached with a darker, more detailed touch than what was found in the first game. Hades II in general leans into darker colours, leaving behind the fire and brimstone of the first game for more ethereal greens, purples, and blues. It fits the narrative tone quite well, and Supergiant has proved once again that their 2D character designs are some of the best in the business.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the music. It’s something that Supergiant always deliver on, but the original Hades stood out in its uniqueness and approach to audio design. Hades II echoes the same qualities, and takes them to the next level. From the absolutely banging title theme to thrilling combat tracks, to a whole boss theme that evolves as you take out each member of a musical trio in Oceanus. It’s head bopping stuff and just when you think you’ve heard all Supergiant has to play for you, they pull out the next hit.

The most remarkable part of Hades II in its current form is that, it doesn’t at all feel like an early access title. Everything here is so polished, and feels content-rich in the way the first game was. The idea that there’s more coming over the next year or so is ridiculous given its current state. Supergiant Games are out to reinvent the genre once again and Hades II is a wholehearted step forward towards that goal.

The post Hades 2 Early Access Review – Magickal Beginnings appeared first on Press Start.

Influencing many games that came after it, including the now-legendary BioShock, it’s hard to argue against just how influential System Shock was. Despite this, I’ve always found it inaccessible. Not physically – there were always ways, both legal and not, to play the game. But even if I did, the game was riddled with game design choices that were only acceptable in the era it was first released. Now, Nightdive has above and beyond their usual remaster efforts with a full-blown remake. 

While the remake made its debut last year on PC, its console release has now been a year old, and while there are some improvements, it’s still an authentic-as-hell remake—for better or for worse.

The game’s story remains essentially the same. You play as a hacker whisked away to a space station called The Citadel. It’s a rich sci-fi tapestry that is the perfect backdrop for an adventure like this. While onboard, some story-related beats transpire, and you awaken on the space station six months later. But something has changed – the robotics are all reprogrammed to kill, and the remaining humans have been mutated by an unknown virus being researched at the station. To make matters worse, a megalomaniac AI called SHODAN has spearheaded the whole operation and will do everything in its power to stop you from escaping.

The story’s plot is tried and true, no doubt similar to something you’ve played, watched or read before. But how it’s presented feels unique and, at the time especially, was something you could only experience in a video game. The crux of the story is told through audio logs strewn throughout the station, as well as radio chatter from survivors, and some of it is optional and can be missed if you don’t explore enough. It makes exploration rewarding, finding another piece of the puzzle to slot into place, but it’s a less direct approach to storytelling that not all will appreciate.

In fact, that’s a resounding theme throughout System Shock today. It’s not quite a game that everyone will be able to appreciate, even if its influences are far and wide. The remake is similar to the original formula in that regard, happy with throwing you into The Citadel to solve most problems and let you uncover the mystery on your own. It’s a far cry from today’s waypoint-laden design style, but it also gives players great space to explore The Citadel at a pace that works for them.

For those who want a more modern experience, there are a slew of difficulty modifiers that will change up the experience to better suit your style. Waypoints can be optionally toggled on or off. The number of enemies and how much damage they do can be adjusted either way to your liking. There are even options to independently adjust the difficulty of puzzles if you so wish.

They’re small changes that will significantly impact how the game flows and will no doubt assist many players in experiencing everything that makes System Shock special without the friction of thirty-year-old game design getting in the way. If it means more people get into the series, I’m all for it. Of course, the original experience is still there if you choose the right combination of difficulty modifiers. It’s a win for all, really.

The console update brings with it a few changes, both minor and major. A minor but appreciated change is to switch up the gender of the hacker you play as. It’s a welcome addition, given how little their identity plays into the plot. The significant changes are broader reaching and ironically borrow one aspect BioShock games have always struggled with – the final boss and ending were incredibly anticlimactic. With the console update, that’s been fixed here in System Shock, though I’m not sure the final result will please everyone. But I personally found it to be a step in the right direction.

But if this is your first time playing this remake, this is the best way to do it, even if some of the issues persist. Coincidentally, many of my problems with the remake correspond directly with Brodie’s (always) scintillating and penetrative insights, so I recommend reading his review from last year. And while I adore System Shock for its influence on some of my favourite games, the age of the game is starting to show in some areas, especially the combat and the tedious death animations that play out for a little too long between lives.

I’ve mentioned previously that System Shock is less inclined to hold players’ hands, and that’s especially obvious with the progression. Progression isn’t tied to abilities like other Metroid-esque games but rather with items like keycards and activities you pull off in cyberspace. A psychedelic and deliciously cyberpunk-laden touch, breaking new ground in a physical representation of cyberspace is a joy. At least in the original game, these cyberspace sections were obtuse and unruly, so it’s appreciated that they’ve been touched up in the remake with a distinctly psychedelic and cyberpunk feel.

But of course, System Shock is a remake, so it goes without saying that the visual overhaul the game has received is nothing short of immaculate. It’s seriously impressive how much of a step up from the original game it is, but at the same time, it pays such a strong tribute to the style of the pixelated original. While more modern trimmings like atmospheric lighting and moody fog effects are used to bring The Citadel to life, the texture work here makes System Shock look unique. At a distance, the game looks modern, but up close, it is pixelated, almost like voxels, to create this new-but-old look. It’s a clever way to simultaneously make a game look old and new, and the extent to which it’s used here is unlike anything I’ve seen before.

On the same note, the music and voice work are top-notch. While the original music is painful to listen to, the new soundtrack is eerie, oppressive and ominous. It perfectly encapsulates what the System Shock experience should be. On a similar note, Terri Brosius, who has voiced SHODAN in all games so far, returned to record new lines for the menacing AI and is as sinister as ever. It’s easy to see why she’s so revered as an antagonist with such a powerhouse voice artist behind her.

And that’s the thing about System Shock. It’s everything a remake should be – true to the spirit of the original especially. But despite some earnest improvements in some areas, there’s no changing some of the unavoidable friction that comes with bringing a thirty-year-old game back.

The post System Shock (Console) Review – New Tricks, Old Habits appeared first on Press Start.

If you read the instruction book for Lorelei and the Laser Eyes – an in-game object that can be acquired very early on, but which you might also miss until much later – it advises you to play the game with a pen and paper nearby, in a dark room. I’ve played games before that have made similar suggestions, and often find that I make a few markings before eventually deciding that I don’t really need the book, and that the notes app on my phone will do.

This time, the game was right. If someone unfamiliar with this game got their hands on the fresh notebook I opened for this game, they might think it belonged to a serial killer. It’s page after page of arcane symbols, rough sketches, strange cyphers, repeating numbers and names and symbols in different permutations throughout. I am not sure that you could finish Lorelei and the Laser Eyes without a pen and paper.

The marketing around Lorelei and the Laser Eyes from developer Simogo (Sayonara Wild Hearts, Year Walk) and publisher Annapurna has been suitably mysterious, enough so that I went into the game not totally knowing what to expect. Truthfully, the concept is pretty straightforward – this is, essentially, a very weird single-player escape room. One big difference is that escape rooms usually take about an hour, whereas Lorelei will take most players over 20 hours to complete. It’s a big, challenging, scary, complicated and absolutely brilliant game.

Simogo is, for my money, one of the most exciting and vital game development teams in the world, a view that Lorelei and the Laser Eyes only further cements. Each game they’ve made has been distinctly different from every other game. While Lorelei and the Laser Eyes shares some similarities with their 2013 masterpiece Device 6, it’s a much larger, and in some ways more traditional, game. The spark of creativity and originality that makes Simogo’s games so special shines as brightly here – as do the eponymous laser eyes. You’ll see.

Your enigmatic protagonist – a woman in cool shades – has arrived at the Hotel Letztes Jahr, a mysterious, empty hotel in central Europe, at the invitation of a mysterious man. Armed with a photographic memory that allows her to keep a log of every item and document she finds, the woman sets out to learn more about why she’s there, and to solve the various mysteries housed within the hotel, which is full of locked doors and mysterious objects. Giving away much more than the bare bones of the plot would spoil the experience – and perhaps incorrectly suggest that I have everything straight in my own head – but the deeper you go into the hotel, the more the story reveals itself.

The hotel is chock-full of puzzles, and your goal, ultimately, is to solve all (or nearly all) of them. The game is arranged non-linearly, meaning that you will be pulling at multiple threads at once, flitting between different areas within the hotel to see if some new information you’ve gleaned, some new thread you’ve pulled at, some new item you acquired, will help you with any of the puzzles you have not solved yet. Sometimes you’ll put a pin in something and return many hours later with confidence; some mysteries may fade from your memory until a moment, much later, when you find the first key to their solution.

The only moments I found even slightly frustrating in a way that did not feel intentional were when I realised that I had missed an innocuous, easy-to-miss object in a room I’d been through dozens of times, because it wasn’t clear that something could be interacted with until I walked right up to it. But those moments are few and far between, and they gave me hope in the moments when I felt stuck, knowing that I might be able to stumble into another path forward by accident.

The puzzles range from the straightforward to the arcane. There are some light randomisation elements in the game to ensure that even if you’re using a guide to get through Lorelei, you’ll still need to understand the mechanics of how everything fits together – but using a guide would be robbing yourself of the “ah-ha” moments, and, perhaps more crucially, of getting a feeling for the patterns and vibes that guide so much of the experience. This is a game of immersion, where solutions start to present themselves not just when you find documents outlining certain information, but as you start to notice certain details about the plot come together, certain repetitions that begin to feel meaningful.

I’m being intentionally vague here, but this isn’t something that feels typical to me for this style of game, and I loved it. The whole game is played with movement controls on a single stick and just one button – a cool design flex considering how complicated the game is, but I never quite got out of the habit of trying to press “B” to exit out of menus.

This is also, by at least some definitions of the term, a horror game. The clearest video game inspiration for Lorelei is the Spencer Mansion from Resident Evil, another large building full of puzzles. And like that game, there are potential “game over” death screens in Lorelei, moments where you’re quizzed on your ability to take in details or your ability to comb through collected materials looking for information. It’s not a game of jump-scares, but I felt a constant unease as I explored. The hotel is presented through a glorious black, white and red visual aesthetic, a style that sits at multiple points on the retro/modern scale at once, and which feels extremely cool. Environments are rendered with images projected over them, giving everything a haunting, weird, and very distinctive feeling.

I played the game on Switch, and I dare say it’s one of the best-looking 3D games on the system – and one where the aesthetic feels so deliberate that an upscaled 4K version might have actually diminished it.

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes repeatedly wowed me, and there are moments and ideas that feel extremely audacious for a puzzle game. There are tributes to past Simogo games, and to the company’s own history, that give the game an interesting metatextual feeling. There are sequences that veer into homage in interesting ways. There were things that happened that I did not expect, that changed the way I played and understood the game. It’s exciting, and a little scary, feeling like just about anything might be around the next corner, what’s behind every locked door, what secrets are hidden behind the obtuse puzzle that has been bugging you for days.

The more I write about Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, the more I realise that I want to tell you nothing about it, aside from this one core thought: this is a brilliant game, and you should absolutely play it. It’s intimidating and overwhelming at first, but you need to give yourself over to it, let it wash over you. It will reward all of your patience and frustration.

The post Lorelei And The Laser Eyes Review – Simogo Does It Again appeared first on Press Start.

The year is 2090 and over a span of decades the corporate machine, together with social media’s tireless march for the attention span of the masses, has birthed a new age of humanity – Homo Media. Driven by a constant need for entertainment, the people have devised a new type of game, one where “Moderators,” poor souls unable to live more than 10 seconds without a hit of dopamine, hunt robots for sport on livestream. As the titular Jack, your role in this vile era is that of a Moderator, and your mission is to rescue an aqua-haired ‘princess’ from the clutches of a robotic billionaire with a golden bullet for a head. Oh, and you’re rocking one hell of a mullet.

Just ten seconds idling on the title screen will tell you almost everything you need to know about Mullet Mad Jack. The early 90s anime sequence complete with VHS-style filter and saxophone-infused electronic beats makes for a pixel-precise vibe check. “You must be this tall to ride,” it says, only instead of any unit of measurement the scale is a collage of Evangelion video tapes, big box copies of DOOM and Robocop action figures. The only real way to describe what occurs in the hours following is with this:

While Mullet Mad Jack’s core gameplay inspirations pull from a similar slice of time as its aesthetics, it also bears a few hallmarks of modern gaming. Broadly, the best way I could describe it is a cocktail of boomer shooters, roguelites, Free Lives’ upcoming Anger Foot and Hotline Miami. But where that last example cast players as a glass cannon of sorts, Jack is more of a lead egg timer, practically invincible but always just seconds away from the end. Each floor you cross as you attempt to climb Nakamura Tower to your ultimate prize (a very hot pair of sneakers, of course) is a race against your 10-second body clock, where slaying ‘bots is the only way to delay death.

To put it in more plain terms, your health is your timer in Mullet Mad Jack and executing enemies keeps it topped up as you dash to the elevator on each floor. The tools you have to achieve this are the gun you walked in with, the environment around you and the bottom of your foot, turning each new room into an exercise in killer time management and reflexes as you decide whose head to blow off, who to kick into a nearby death trap and how best to do it while dodging obstacles in record time and with pinpoint accuracy. 

In motion it looks positively chaotic and frantically challenging, but behind the keyboard and mouse (or controller) it’s surprisingly easy to get into the rhythm – and absolutely intoxicating. As someone whose skill with fast-paced shooters can be summed up as “none,” the speed at which I found myself cracking multiple headshots as soon as I walked into each room, lining up environmental kills, using my limited close-range finishers as a big top-up to my time and fanging it across bottomless pits and through deadly lasers made me feel like I was transcending the limits of human capability. In reality, it’s all just extremely well-designed.

Each floor of the tower crams a full 90s FPS level’s worth of gameplay into less than a minute, and most of the game’s chapters take place across 10 floors with the caveat that dying resets you back to the start of a chapter. You’ll also earn a new upgrade for every floor crossed, with things as simple as boosted movement speed or damage, or as ridiculous as “nutshot” bonuses and added Duke Nukem-style vocal quips. These aren’t persistent, resetting either when you die or when you cross over to the next chapter, though finishing chapters does award a series of more permanent ones.

One thing that works hugely in the game’s favour is the way that the randomly-generated layouts on each floor always feel organically set up to make your progress through them feel like a rollercoaster of bad-ass-ery and fraught tension, where you’ll spend long portions fighting for precious seconds only to be rewarded with a string of room-clearing explosions as a reward.

The only downside to this whole setup is that, even with a campaign runtime of a mere couple of hours at most, the repetition does make itself feel known after a while. It’s almost a necessary sacrifice – things move at such a blisteringly-fast pace that having to re-learn visual cues or major mechanics part way through could be a nightmare – but it’s noticeable. The game does introduce a few new things to watch out for here or there over time, and some of the bosses that lie in wait at the ends of chapters make for huge departures and very entertaining surprises, but by the time I finished the game and decided to brave the added “Endless” mode a tiny bit of that initial wow factor had worn off. Though, that could also just be due to how gnarly the campaign’s finale is. Holy shit.

And honestly, it would take a whole lot more than a bit of repetition to dilute the impact of this game, given it bears one of the most striking presentations I’ve seen in a good while. Though you’re moving through 3D environments, so much of the game is made from animated 2D assets to make it look like you’re genuinely running and gunning through a classic anime, and everything from menus to loading screens and cutscenes are all made with the same constant slew of references to the most garish parts of 80s and 90s media and insane amounts of on-screen energy. Naturally, the game’s soundtrack is also bliss from beginning to end for anyone that’s attuned to the mix of dreamy synthwave and pulse-pounding beats that you’d expect from a project like this.

Even the optional tutorial menu is a mix of completely over-the-top and entirely appropriate, giving players an interactive unboxing experience of a classic “big box” PC game with all of its anachronistic flourishes like primitive DRM that involved spinning cardboard wheels to find codes.

It’s also worth mentioning that there’s a nice amount of attention afforded to accessibility in Mullet Mad Jack, with multiple difficulty levels that allow you to choose more or less maximum seconds for survival or even remove the time pressure entirely if you just want to smash shit and enjoy the story. There’s plenty of consideration for control options, display support, YouTube-friendly changes to gore and a number of ways to tone down things like screen shaking and flashing, which are all great things to have access to in a game like this.

The post Mullet Mad Jack Review – Blade Run ‘N Gunner appeared first on Press Start.

It’s been said that sticks and stones may break your bones but words could never, ever hurt you. 

It’s a slightly hopeful, naive anti-bullying slogan we all grew up with and a complete and utter lie if you’re playing Cryptmaster, a hilariously dark dungeon-crawling “edutainment” adjacent video game where words, not guns or swords, most definitely are weapons. 

Upon booting Cryptmaster up, memories of my youth flooded back to me. Growing up I adored both educational games like Word Rescue and mature-beyond-my-years board games like Nightmare—now Atmosfear for a younger audience. Much of this game feels like a beautiful collision of those two ideas in that you use a lexicon of discovered words to wage war against underworld fiends while a sardonic skeleton, who adorns himself with the title of Cryptmaster, rallies a four-soldier strong band of undead to rise up and pull his soulstone free from the depths below. There are plenty of typing attack games, so the concept is far from novel, though it’s its place within this creepy, monochromatic Abaddon of sorts with its conversational dungeon-master that left a lasting impression.

Although the gameplay of Cryptmaster is exceedingly simple in that you explore a grid, step-by-step like a classic game of this ilk, and effectively type enemies to death. With that said, it isn’t like other typing attack titles where predetermined words pop up on screen to put your one hundred-plus words a minute typing ass to the test, you instead pull from an ever-expanding pool of words that each of the four warriors will rediscover. The words can be offensive, defensive or purely there as support, though it’s the challenge of remembering a chain of them as a sand dwindles through an on-screen hourglass only to usher in the enemy’s attack. The manner in which you “remember” words is rather elegant and ties neatly into the game’s combat. At any given time, each warrior has a single word beneath their display to try and recall which adds it to their exhaustive list of attacks or memories, which serve to build out the heroes’ somewhat inessential lore.

Besting an enemy in combat rewards you with the letters of their name, which slot into the gaps of your words and make them lay-ups of a ‘no consonants left in this Wheel of Fortune’ variety. It might sound as though combat would be as easy as spamming high damage words ad nauseum until they fall over, but it cleverly safeguards against this by enforcing long and tense cooldowns after a word is sent as well as often arming the underworld’s guards with armour that’s impervious to all but a few key phrases and a shield that protects against certain letters. The tense scramble of realising half of your words are ruled out thanks to a single vowel made way to some of Cryptmaster’s more thrilling moments, which I think is quite a feat for a game about typing.

Every word does have a cost, too, and maintaining a healthy balance of souls within the soulstone is important if you’re aiming to serve as the Cryptmaster’s sword, so to speak. You gain these back by either eating bugs and beetles from the dungeon walls or solving riddles posited by the damned, represented by a stack of bones with a chattering skull on top. As a fan of lateral thinking, these were a joyful aside, as was Whatever, a fun little game you can play with just about everybody you speak with and doesn’t draw you from the main path.

I do respect how accessible the team endeavoured to make Cryptmaster, especially for a game that seems to be so objectively geared towards keyboard and mouse. Those familiar with my PC leanings would know I’m a portable man and, in keeping with that, I did play Cryptmaster primarily on a handheld. To my surprise, an enormous amount of effort has been poured in to make a gamepad a viable choice here. Knowing that not all typists are created equal, there’s an option to toggle between real-time and turn-based combat, and the latter is a god-send for those not sitting in front of a keyboard. Dragging a cursor around definitely isn’t the ideal way to experience the game, but it’s viable and that’s everything.

From the moment the Cryptmaster’s luminous eyes peer out from the pitch black, abyssal backdrop, I got the sense this game’s artists knew they had a winner. He’s creepy, scary and undeniably rascallish in his ability to harness your cadaver to do his bidding. While so much of this game is striking and so committed to its vision, the Cryptmaster’s design is so instantly iconic that I can’t wait until I can get him on a shirt. It’s also worth noting that Lee Williams, who also wrote and jointly-designed the game, turns in a suitably dry, mocking performance and I expect he’ll get a bit of love.

Fortunately, the strength in art design remains consistent throughout. Some of the dungeons can look a little copy-paste, I’d go so far as to suggest the game’s decision to be unwaveringly two-note robs it of any ability to deliver truly different biomes and maps. But there’s just no denying that tone, it’s impossible to resist. 

Cryptmaster really is an exceptional example for how a simple idea can grow legs and, ultimately, morph into something more than the sum of its parts. It might not spawn a generation of typists or scribes, but for right now it takes an inherently dorky skill in typing and makes it about as attractive as it’ll ever be again. 

The post Cryptmaster Review – Words Are Weapons appeared first on Press Start.

Like Tinseltown, trends in gaming are starting to emerge as somewhat cyclical. What’s old is new all over again, and recent years have produced a swathe of retro-inspired titles that capitalise on the nostalgia we all share for the classics from our youth. Signalis springs to mind, along with Dave Oshry’s burgeoning warehouse of boomer shooters. 

The latest to follow the curve is Crow Country, a conventional survival horror game that riffs on all of the tropes popularised by Resident Evil, Silent Hill, and their lesser-evangelised contemporaries. Made in large part by a couple of seemingly tormented souls, what’s evident is that Crow Country cares most about being a love letter to all of the things people love about the genre. That said, it doesn’t shirk its responsibility to deliver an experience that’s true and honest to its nostalgic roots, no matter how hasty it is or how eager the developer is to spell out and spoil his craftiness.

On the surface, the game’s story is a relatively basic premise. It’s 1990 and Crow Country, the once-heaving theme park after which the game is named, has been closed for two years after a sudden and unexpected shutdown. The biggest mystery at the heart of the game is the whereabouts of Edward Crow, the park’s elusive owner and it’s with the goal of finding him that leads Mara Forest to break into the abandoned park in hopes of finding answers. One thing I don’t mention is how the park is overrun with twisted, occasionally humanoid, aberrations that appear to wear their inners on their outer—and that’s not because it’s too spooky to call attention to, it’s because Crow Country can be played as either a traditional survival horror game where danger is an ever-present fact of life, or as an adventure game where solving the mystery is Mara’s one focus. 

While one could easily find value in opting for a more exploratory mode in Crow Country, I threw caution to the wind and approached the squirmy, writhing hell beasts head-on. Being a game clearly rooted in classic ideals, Crow Country does feature the dreaded tank controls—a scheme I have always disliked. Fortunately, in a show of forward thinking, the game also lets you control Mara with more modern controls. In fact, by choosing either the d-pad, which houses the tank controls, or the control stick, you can swap on the fly with great freedom. Unlike older games of this ilk which offer a fixed camera perspective, you maintain full control over the camera here which proves helpful within what is effectively a cramped monster closet. The same cannot be said for the game’s gunplay which can be similarly toggled between classic and modern styles, but is an option confined to the game’s settings. 

I wouldn’t say the differences in the aim styles are staggering, but it’s quite incredible how a simple rebind of keys, such as making the left trigger the gun’s sights, can create a more modern, familiar feel. Whichever the case, Crow Country’s combat rewards close proximity to your target, and that, combined with a stop and prop brand of aiming lead to some very tense close-quarters fights. 

Crow Country itself feels like the perfect little world to create nightmarish traumas. Even taking the monsters lurking around each corner out of the equation, I found it to be atmospheric and unsettling. The park itself is divided into attractions, including Haunted Hilltop with its gloomy crypt and ghostly manor, and Fairytale Town which comes complete with a motorised pond ride driven by decapitated, animatronic swans. What’s beautiful about its positively labyrinthian corridors is how interconnected all of the zones feel, especially once your keen-eyed exploration opens up new routes through the park. 

While it’s incredible that so much of Crow Country is the work of two people, I think that’s made relatively clear at certain points throughout the game. The game reminds me a lot of Ravenlok, which I believe did for action-adventure what Crow Country is aiming to do for survival horror in that its challenges skew on the simpler side in a likely attempt to capture more of an audience. Older gamers like me will adore the nostalgia, while the young adult crowd will revel in the game’s often simple, heavily signposted puzzles. While the memos left behind by the park’s staff do nudge and point you in the right direction a lot of the time, certain solutions are spelled out blatantly with almost fourth-wall-shattering brutality. 

I do wonder if play testing at one point indicated some of the problems were too obtuse and a lack of resources led to what’s in the game. I personally can’t imagine anyone considering these riddles to be Monkey Island-obscure, but there’s no denying that immersion was broken more than once here. 

What I do love about Crow Country is the clear reverence it has for the genre. Despite its modernised offerings, the fact it delivers such an authentic 90s experience is a credit to its team and their attention to detail. The singular moment that sealed it for me came literally after the credits when a clear screen appeared and went on to detail my rank and what I’d unlocked for my trouble. It’s not a new or even outdated idea in terms of survival horror, but it’s an integral part to the experience that felt like the cherry on top. Even how it handles being a 90s game is masterful, with so many subtle nods to the time and place but none more clever than the arcade’s trivia machine that relies on some outdated data, such as a time before Pluto’s status as a planet was revoked or when the planet had just five billion inhabitants, to succeed. 

From its title screen, Crow Country drips with retro chic and it has all of the low-resolution, ugly polygons you’d expect from the PlayStation era of video games. Almost as if it was pulled out of a time capsule, Crow Country exists in a time before the minute detail of characters could be portrayed. Outside of Mara’s purple-dyed hair and white dress, there’s not a lot that separates her from any of the other women who frequent the theme park. There’s a lot of character in the world and creature design, though, and everything is beautifully lit no matter if it’s the spot lighting of the moody, gloomy cardboard standee woods or the refracted light from the aquarium-inspired Seven Seas arm of the park. 

Crow Country’s sound design also takes plenty of inspiration from classic horror games from almost thirty years ago. It’ll come as no surprise that the muddy lo-fi gunfire and creature groans don’t “age” as well as the visuals might, but there’s a definite charm to the game’s score which makes the most of its theme park setting with a creepy, bell-driven suite of themes that resemble a music box. Whether they’re considered source or not isn’t clear, but to think of these tunes droning out over speakers in a long abandoned park gives me the willies. 

If there exists a soft spot in your heart for the early years of survival horror, and the equally-nostalgic Signalis is either too grave or serious, Crow Country is more than worth your time. It makes a special effort to cater to both purists and those with more modern tastes, however, the challenge presented by its puzzles is next to nothing. 

The post Crow Country Review – Fright Nights At Eddie’s appeared first on Press Start.

I feel like I’ve put more time into Top Spin than any other gaming franchise, and whilst I was over the moon to see a new one announced earlier this year, I was equally shocked as the response to tennis games has always been that there’s just not big enough of an audience there to make them profitable.

With 2K seemingly finding a winning formula that’s working across all of its titles, I was really eager to see what a Top Spin in 2024 would look like, and it definitely is a ‘2K’ game from top to bottom for better and for worse.

Starting off with the presentation, I don’t think there’s ever been a Top Spin game that has looked and moved this well. There’s over 50 courts that all have a bunch of detail, and majority of the players have clearly been re-created with a lot of love and care.

It’s worth mentioning though that even though the roster is on the smaller side, some of the players such as Roger Federer and Serena Williams look almost one to one to their real-life counterpart, and have clearly been mo-capped with their smallest mannerisms coming across to the game, but other players such as my personal favourite, Maria Sharapova, look almost nothing like their real-life counterpart which is a little jarring.

Whilst the music in the game is fantastic, I did find it a little odd that there was no commentary which makes for a quiet game during the bulk of it. It’s especially odd as John McEnroe lends his voice to the training session, and he’s a full-time commentator these days.

When it comes to the core gameplay, nobody has done it better than the Top Spin franchise which has successfully found a balance of simulation and arcade tennis gameplay, and this will feel extremely familiar to anyone that has picked up a game before. Your shots accuracy is determined by a meter that you need to time perfectly, whilst the power is determined by how early you get to a ball before holding down.

It still works extremely well, and when you move onto the harder difficulty levels, you get a good sense of risk vs reward which is what tennis is all about. Advanced shots return for serves in which you use the analogue stick, but risky shots that used to be performed using the triggers and required perfect timing don’t make a comeback, which I can live with although they did add a bit of excitement. The other thing that plays a big factor in how each point plays out is stamina, which depletes as the rallies go on, and will result in you being more likely to hit an error as it goes down.

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An addition to the game that I really liked is the new skills feature, which basically gives your player three different skills that range from being able to hit with more power as the rally goes on, to being a counter hitting specialist. It adds a bit of extra variation to each pro and really allows you to sculpt your own as well.

Outside of the general exhibition mode, the new MyCareer mode is where you’ll spend most of your time. It’s a decent attempt at a tennis mode that will keep you coming back, but it’s not without some issues. Like career modes of Top Spins of old, it basically has you going through seasons month by month which consist of taking on a training course, a special event as well as a tournament with each mode ramping up in difficulty as you level up.

At first, it was fun, but it quickly gets repetitive and does feel like a grind between major milestones in levelling up. For instance, the special events are all comprised of a match that only has you winning points on your own serve, and I’ve done about 10-15 of them so far without it ever varying from that. You also have to manage your stamina between tournaments or risk short-term or long-term injuries, which I did appreciate.

As you go through the mode, you try to get to new statuses which allows you to compete in higher and higher tournaments until you make it to a grand slam, with you levelling up between those rankings with your player getting sill points to spend on attributes. I really liked that the game gives you a handful of presets that you can select which will automatically distribute among the related attributes.

There’s also a coach feature which allows you to assign a coach which will require you to complete a handful of challenges before you can level up and eventually getting some extra skills that are attributed to that coach, but as soon as you change coaches, you lose them and have to start again, which feels a little cheap.

There’s not a heap in the way of story either, with podcasts filling in the blanks of what’s happening around you, but these are essentially glorified audio logs, which are nice to have, but don’t provide a heap of drama off the court. When it all comes down to it, there are things I’d have loved to see here, but it’s still a great first attempt, and it’ll definitely keep me coming back.

Outside of MyCareer, there’s a bunch of outfits and gear that you can purchase and unlock within the Centre Court Pass, and these won’t end when a new season begins, but if you’re not super into customising your character these won’t do a lot for you. There’s also a series of daily, weekly and monthly challenges for you to compete for extra currency.

My other main complaint with the how the game handles progress is that a lot of things need to be unlocked including a bunch of court variants (time of day etc), as well as the two higher difficulty modes, which I don’t have a huge issue with, but it’s more the requirements, for example to unlock the hardest difficulty, you need to play full 6 game sets in the one below it, which just feels a bit odd to me.

All-in-all, TopSpin 2K25 feels like a mostly complete package and I have no doubts that we’ll see 2K build on it over the years to come. I’m glad to have it, even if there’s a few things I’d loved to have seen done differently or added.

The post TopSpin 2K25 Review – Close To A Grand Slam appeared first on Press Start.

A house is often built of brick and beam, though that isn’t the case for Harold Halibut, whose home, the only one he’s ever known, is a ship made up of steel and supports. A home, however, is more than that. It’s hope, it’s purpose, it’s a feeling, and the pursuit of it serves as perhaps the most pivotal theme at the centre of Slow Bros’ hand-crafted adventure aboard an ark-like spaceship. 

The only home Harold has ever known is the Fedora I, a city in the stars serving as the last vestige for humankind after they fled a waning Earth to colonise the stars. It’s here he was born, and if the great minds aboard the Fedora can’t concoct a way to reignite the ship’s thrusters and continue their voyage out of the alien ocean they’re trapped in, it’s here that he’ll die. While that mission is a catalyst for Harold Halibut’s adventure, it’s his longing for purpose and a place to really call home that carry the emotional burden of the game’s heartfelt plot.

Harold, as a character, struck me as a fairly content and happy-go-lucky guy. He never seems intimidated by the fact his immediate circle aboard the ship are the community’s sharpest minds. He’s a bit of a fixer and follower who sleeps beneath a lab, and at times I got the sense there wasn’t a lot going on behind the eyes of Harold Halibut. Sure, he might log important life moments by drawing them in his diary with the proficiency of a preschooler, but he proves to have complexities in that he’s sensitive, innately caring, and longs for a grand purpose beyond the menial responsibilities he’s given. I think Harold’s journey, by the end, is one of satisfying growth and it was easy to root for him as an underdog. 

The other characters who take refuge within the Fedora are also a largely endearing bunch by the end, even if they seem to take the mickey out of Harold for a bulk of his time in their company. Though they each have baggage, there’s one lad aboard that seems wholly good and that’s the station’s postmaster, Buddy. By the end, he’s really the grounding for Harold to introspect and his is a beautifully crafted story start-to-finish.

The first thing that’ll ensnare you right off the rip is that Harold Halibut’s gorgeously cinematic stop-motion aesthetic, complete with handmade assets from the characters to the sets, is a throwback to a classic era. I cut my teeth on adventure games like The Neverhood growing up and for this claymation style to find a place in video games once again, and to such great effect, is heartwarming. The Fedora itself is expertly realised and feels like a living diorama as you work from set to set, however it’s the oh-so-subtle imperfections on the characters, such as the missed spots of paint on Harold’s hair, that help create an authentic, artful escape. 

In The Neverhood, and even films that use claymation, the illusion of the world is never broken because some poor artist adjusted each and every frame of the animation painstakingly by hand. With Harold Halibut, however, it’s clearer that what we’re dealing with is traditional, modern game animation where a model is scanned in, skinned onto a rig and, to be dangerously reductive, it’s job done. That’s not an issue, of course, work smarter, not harder. But as the team are beholden to the same technical niggles as everyone, the immersion fast shatters as we observe textures pop in, entire scenes render slowly, and the unnatural way that Harold ascends and descends staircases with a stride worthy of the Ministry of Funny Walks.

I suspect this is the downside of developing this game as a relatively freeing, exploratory experience while The Neverhood was more controlled with its point-and-click nature. That said, I never once found myself thinking this could have been done better, what the team has achieved with clay models remains a wonderfully bold feat of design that does separate Harold Halibut from its contemporaries.

Unfortunately, it’s that game that Harold Halibut is beneath its pretty exterior that ends up falling relatively flat. One might think that, with the setting being a multi-storey city under the sea, things might get a little claustrophobic after a time, however it was simply the banality of the tasks you’re given that causes boredom to creep in. Fetching samples, checking in on fellow Fedorans, and delivering mail can get old quickly, even if the latter letters deliver some of the story’s more tender, meaningful beats. It might tie into the game’s themes of purpose and frittered potential though it does not make for a joyful experience. 

So many times when Harold would go to seek help or rope someone in on a plan, they’d simply rebuff his offer and cause the story to pivot and go in an entirely different direction. In this sense, the design is a little odd and didn’t ever achieve a satisfying flow. You’re given a side task early on to find the Fedora captain’s pet bird and I’m convinced it’s not something you can actually seek out to do, rather it’s a scripted scene that simply happens to you. Briskly jogging through the Fedora’s halls from point A to B, off to C and back again, at no point feels rewarding as the novelty of the station’s set up, along with its mode of tubular transport, quickly wears thin.

When the story arrives at its most tender or reflective beats, Harold Halibut’s score is a beautiful arrangement that moves from a soft, lonely piano to a haunting theremin that undoubtedly meets the science-fiction brief. It perhaps isn’t present enough to carry the whole narrative, but the moments it punctuated were certainly memorable. 

From top to bottom, Harold Halibut has the disarming melancholy of a Wes Anderson film, it’s textbook indie, it’s textbook arthouse, too. It’s a wonderfully compact sci-fi tale about the call of home and purpose, however it takes place entirely within one of the most disappointingly sterile games I’ve played in some time. I wish the mechanics were up to standard with the absolutely gorgeous, homespun art that, on its own, justifies a decade of toil.

The post Harold Halibut Review – No Place Like Home appeared first on Press Start.

I’ve been dreading having to write this review.

Critiquing a creative work that talented people put their heart and soul into is never a pleasurable experience when you can’t speak positively about the end result.

I’ve had over two weeks with the Steam version of Broken Roads now and several days with the Xbox Series X version, and right up until a large patch landed 48 hours before the review embargo, I’d found both to be blatantly defective products unworthy of being charged money for.

To detail my exact experience, I created my initial character on PC and hit a bug after completing a core quest around a dozen hours in that would disable the user interface and controls every time I entered a new location from the overworld map. I loaded a save from hours earlier and worked my way back up to that same quest only to hit the same exact bug.

A large patch then dropped, which didn’t fix it, but I figured that maybe the saves from that character run were just too tainted. I created an entirely new character of a different class origin, made different choices through their journey, and then hit the same bug again at the exact same place once I’d gotten back there a second time. Another enormous patch then hit several days later which didn’t remedy the situation on either character.

I was then given a code for the Xbox version. I selected a different origin again from the four available, made entirely different choices throughout around six hours of gameplay, and then hit a bug where the controls stopped working entirely when I’d enter a new location shortly before that same core quest beat which triggered a similar bug the prior two times.

Then, in the evening two days out from when reviews were due to go live, another large patch showed up for the Steam version. I checked both of my characters and they still had the same game-breaking bug. By this point I’d become entirely exhausted by the whole review assignment, but thought it professionally responsible to give it one more crack.

I created another character, choosing the fourth and final origin class, rushed back through to the point where the game had broken the prior three times, and this time had no such bug.

I very nearly screamed.

I played several more hours with that one working character the next day, but of course with so little time left on the clock, I had no reasonable hope of completing it before the deadline. Frankly, what I had been experiencing with Broken Roads outside of the bugs did not leave me desiring to really spend more time with it regardless.

All of the catastrophic issues above aren’t even to speak of the countless, more ignorable bugs I encountered during all of these runs also, which do feel noteworthy given that the game was delayed several months for reasons of polish. It’s also not to speak of the fact that Broken Roads’ systems of interaction, puzzle solution, and consequence of choice are frequently so oblique that it can become truly difficult to determine when things are bugged or simply working to the designer’s strange intention.

I tried with Broken Roads, I really tried.

For those who haven’t been following, Broken Roads is an isometric role-playing game set in post-apocalypse Western Australia that’s heavily inspired by the pre-Bethesda Fallout games.

It’s a cool idea, and the realisation of shattered towns scattered across the outback is truly beautiful thanks to terrific visual design and a powerfully-effective score. I must admit that most everything else before the bugs hit, and on continued play afterward, left me fairly cold though.

Broadly speaking the writing is fine. You’ll find yourself in some cleverly crafted situations with no clean way out, and as an elder Australian millennial I was tickled by some of the very specific jokes and references to stuff from my childhood that get made in the margins. This is an RPG that puts significant focus upon the party members you acquire along the way though, and it feels like a cardinal sin that most of them fall so flat as characters that I routinely struggled to recall who was who when leaving a hub location and having to choose which four to take with me from the list of their names.

Broken Roads, at least from what I was able to play of it, seems to aim for its characters to stay firmly rooted in a quite grounded setting. The problem with this is that no-one stands out enough from the jump to get you terribly invested in them as a role-player, nor are any of them charming or memorable enough to get you excited at the prospect of spending time with them. The voice actors do a good job with what they’re given, but in a world populated largely with common people just trying to get by, most of the non-player characters you meet end up feeling just like that and little else.

Maybe in the finale it all explodes into some over-the-top Mad Max-ian silliness of heightened personalities and chaotic craziness, I unfortunately wasn’t able to find out. If an RPG fails to get you interested in its core cast within the first dozen hours that you spend with them though, that’s a bit of a fundamental problem.

On the flipside of the coin from all of the walking and talking is combat. 

There’s an achievement for getting through the entire game without killing anyone, but I’m not sure how this would be possible without an intense amount of luck and save-scumming. There were frequent instances where I’d discover a new location on the overworld and more or less instantly be attacked. You’ll get pulled into random enemy encounters while traversing the overworld also, but thankfully there’s no penalty for simply opting to flee when faced with them.

Combat itself is… fine. It’s not especially deep but it doesn’t really need to be. Its biggest problem is with how correctly highlighting your intended target can get extremely janky when multiple characters are right up close to one another. Given the fixed camera angle, this gets significantly worse if they’re standing in front of one another or if terrain is obscuring any part of them. As a turn-based system of engagement it’s serviceable, but it’s not very exciting or tactically satisfying on the whole.

The systems of equipping your character and their companions for combat are frustratingly old-fashioned. There’s no simple way to compare the stats of one weapon to another within your inventory, and getting your armaments upgraded is all done using the games dialogue system, meaning you’re just telling an NPC ‘please upgrade my hunting rifle’. Which hunting rifle though? I’m carrying nine of them.

Broken Roads does tout one key role-playing mechanic that I really like though, ‘the Moral Compass’.

This is basically an alignment dial with four quadrants which swings and broadens or narrows and focuses depending on the choices you make. Each quadrant has different perks within it granting passive effects or combat bonuses, and going hard down one particular path unlocks deeper options but narrows your overall philosophical view. It’s a wonderfully clever system and deserves praise for its design and implementation.

As I stated up front, I really dreaded having to write this review.

Broken Roads is a hugely ambitious work from a small indie team, and I give full marks to them for their attempt.

It’s entirely possible, however unlikely, that the back portion of the game is a different beast from what I was able to play. After four attempts and roughly 25 hours spent on an adventure that I really wasn’t particularly enjoying to begin with though, I frankly do not feel compelled to ever go back and find out in the future. 

Due to the utterly disastrous experience I had during the majority of my time with it, assigning Broken Roads any score higher than zero is asking that I give the game massive benefit of the doubt as it becomes publicly available. 

Another patch went live for the Steam version overnight, this one weighing in at a hefty 1.9GB, and so it feels somehow unfair to give the game a completely failing grade given the avalanche of couldn’t-be-more-last-minute bandaids and adjustments that have been applied. Of course the extreme lateness of which many of these fixes have arrived means that I cannot really test them either. 

Given how seismically the game’s stability has shifted every few days during the review period and how large the game is, the past few weeks of play time that critics have been privy to feel as if they’ve been rendered largely irrelevant to whatever the day one discourse ends up being anyway. 

Broken Roads attempts to put an Australian spin on the classic Fallout formula. Unfortunately it succeeds just as much at aping vibes from the modern iterations of those games, as just like each of them, it’s also releasing in a dramatically buggy state. At this stage, I can’t in good faith recommend a purchase of the game at launch.

[Editor’s Note: While we do usually score our game reviews, given the massive variation in the pre-launch experience and the unclear state of things at launch, we’ve made the call to not assign Broken Roads a final number.]

The post Broken Roads Review – Cactus appeared first on Press Start.

Children of the Sun, the new Devolver Digital score attack gauntlet concocted by Rene Rother, certainly approaches the “murder puzzle” sub-genre that Deathloop popularised through its marketing very differently, but I’d also argue more effectively. You approach each scene with a singular rifle round that’s expected to rip through, with calculated precision, a band of acolytes, all serving the cult leader who betrayed you and left you with hunger pangs for the coldest dish of all—revenge. 

During my earlier preview for the game, I described it as being this year’s answer to Neon White, a game which took the industry by storm a few years back. The similarities end at the games both being score attack gauntlets, however, as Neon White’s sun soaked, heavenly vistas are juxtaposed aggressively by the oppressive bleakness of Children of the Sun. And while Neon White played like an acrobat’s wet dream through an anime-afterlife of sorts, Children of the Sun is about sadism and voyeurism as you stalk from a scene’s perimeter to ultimately surmise and execute both your plan and prey alike under the cover of darkness.

Rather than nimbly parkouring through a level as in Neon White, Children of the Sun’s core loop interestingly propels you, as a singular rifle round, at gathered ritualists in an attempt to “clear the board” so to speak. The cool thing is that, as the round, you have a staggering scope for agency, being able to freely re-aim upon each successful impact, whether that be into a cultist or a nearby environmental hazard to create a chain of carnage like a murderous take on Burnout’s Party Crash mode. As you draw closer to vengeance, you unlock some neat abilities that really do escalate the challenge and strategic aspects of the later stages. 

Although you’re able to bend a bullet’s trajectory mid-flight pretty early on, by the end you’ll be able penetrate armoured enemies with an express bullet that bends space-time with an intoxicating, kaleidoscopic majesty that’s punctuated by a gorgeous orchestral clash. Not only that, but chaining together shots targeting weak spots, signified by a mirrored disco ball effect on the limb, lets you re-aim a round mid-flight without the need of a successful impact. These do well to ensure the game’s established formula remains fresh throughout, though it’s the careful layout of each level, specifically the enemy placement, that makes it an engrossing puzzle to piece together on the fly (pun intended).

Having played the entirety of the game on a handheld, it’s unlikely I’d ever get near the leaderboard leaders with my “controller” set up. Speed is essential to maintaining multipliers and, with such a focus on reconfiguring trajectory, quick-turning is likely to be much snappier using a mouse. There is certainly enormous replay value for anyone looking to study the lay of the land and find the narrow, optimal path through the carnage to challenge for said top spots. The completion of each stage culminates with an overhead angle of the path your bullet took through it, it might not account for verticality and presents as two-dimensional, but capturing these charts can be handy for reference if you’re downing tools for the night but have a good thing going. The only thing better might be a means to save video replays directly, but this is certainly elegant enough. 

The game’s story is doled out through animated storyboards that pop up and give context to most of the twenty-odd stages. It’s uncompromisingly violent and definitely ventures into dark, weird territory, but I think it ultimately paints The Girl with a sympathetic brush, framing her crusade as an archetypal war of good and bad even if she’s presented as an emotionless, detached killing machine who wouldn’t be out of place emerging from the waters of Crystal Lake. Although one could question how this game has its anti-hero process their trauma, I’d argue that the air of pure evil is so thick around her once-father figure that it almost excuses the grotesque revenge plot and justifies the body count that racks up along the way. 

In terms of presentation, Children of the Sun has a distinct and clear vision that’s communicated through what I’d call an economical graphics model. It isn’t the best looking game by a long chalk, but there’s an identity to it that’s irresistible, albeit a little tough to read given how dark things can be. There’s a visual language that emerges early on that’ll help with that however—the differently-coloured crosshairs to help distinguish targets, for example. And while I do feel The Girl’s model can look a little bad at times, the animation of her jogging the perimeter with an enormous fucking rifle on her hip never failed to make me chuckle—a rare moment of levity in what is ultimately a bleak title. And it’s a random thing to call out, but I adore Rother’s Old English font choice in this game because it lends so much to the tone struck which feels, at times, to riff on old-world barbarism. 

Children of the Sun’s audio design is visceral and in keeping with the unsettling vibe established by the rest of the game. The gunshots, of which you play an integral role as the bullet round, mightn’t be as frequent as your standard shooter but have a velocity to them that’s sold through the rifle’s bark, the way you cut through the air and, ultimately, the way you decimate your target. I do also love the swells that flourish and cymbals that crash dynamically with every head you pop. 

Children of the Sun is a phenomenal, moreish score attack gauntlet that is going to scratch the same itch that Neon White did in its time. It also serves as a home to a pretty uncomplicated tale of paternal vengeance that does enough to rationalise the ruthless violence at the black heart of Rene Rother’s indie hit.

Find it on Steam here.

The post Children Of The Sun Review – A Dish Best Served Cold appeared first on Press Start.

Puzzle games. Love ’em. Gardens and gorgeous flowers? Those too. So Botany Manor was destined to be 100% my jam from the very beginning. This succinct and succulent little first-person puzzler puts a botanical twist on the formula by tasking players with figuring out how to coax a bloom out of 12 different plants spread across a gradually-unfurling Somerset manor, piecing together findings about each in a Herbarium with the ultimate goal of getting it published.

As Lady Arabella Greene, having returned to the manor after a long research trip, you’ll quickly start to understand how vital a task this is. This is a 19th century woman who’s spent most of her 50+ years attempting to be taken seriously in the world of botanical science, one that – as with any academic field at the time – was completely dominated by men. While Botany Manor is very much a chill, low-stakes jaunt that isn’t trying to be cerebral or overly commentarial with its setting, every time I came across a rejection letter or note “politely” reminding Lady Greene that she was better suited to a hobby garden I became more determined to see this endeavour through.

Luckily, said endeavour is a thoroughly enjoyable one. As you wander the manor’s many halls, rooms and gardens, you’ll discover the seeds of exotic flowers that Arabella hopes to grow and bloom to then record in her herbarium. Doing so routinely involves more than just potting and watering though, with each of the (fictional) plants requiring increasingly-complex sets of conditions in order to blossom. It might be something as simple as the right temperature or wind conditions, or you might find yourself mixing photography chemicals to create a lightning-like flash or arranging very specific displays of light to unfurl each bud. There’s an air of the fantastical around Botany Manor, so the solutions aren’t bound by real-world physics or logic and are often quite playful.

They also aren’t spelled out for you, and so exploring the manor and looking for clues is vital. Notes, letters, scientific material, posters, catalogues, even paintings and fairy tale books, anything could be of use and any could contain that one nugget of info that creates a “eureka” moment. Despite none of them being overly difficult, all of these puzzles are incredibly satisfying to solve and reward being observant and able to pick up on context clues. If you get stuck, you can also assign clues you’ve found to a flower within the work-in-progress herbarium and the game will confirm that you’ve got all the information you need to come to a conclusion, though I managed to roll credits without using this at all.

The beauty of these puzzles isn’t in being obtuse or complex though, it’s in encouraging thorough exploration of this “historically accurate” homestead and proper study of the materials you find within it. It’s incredibly well-designed in this way to ensure that you’re simultaneously digesting the storytelling embedded in the environments, objects and texts you’re poring over, because to miss a detail could stop your plant-puzzle-progress. At less than three hours runtime, it’s just concise enough too that I knocked it over in one sitting and didn’t feel fatigued from traipsing around and pondering papers and diagrams.

It helps that it’s also a very handsome little game, with the natural beauty of gardens both manicured and overgrown surrounding a once-lively and lived-in riverside manor helped along by a wonderful, almost painterly visual style full of colour and life. With just the ambience of flora, fauna and your sauntering footsteps to pepper the soundscape, the backing of a wonderfully-calm score is also crucial to setting the relaxed mood. It’s truly the perfect game to chuck on for a lazy Sunday afternoon, and a great fit for Xbox Game Pass.

Playing on Xbox Series X, I did come across some small issues, though. There were minor visual bugs with bits of scenery flickering in and out of view as I moved around, though these were localised to specific areas and didn’t crop up much across my playtime. A little more annoying were a handful of Xbox Achievements that seem glitched currently, preventing me from nabbing that sweet 1000 Gamerscore. These are things that have little impact on the actual game though and are hopefully smoothed over in due course.

The post Botany Manor Review – Garden Up appeared first on Press Start.

The last few years have provided a veritable feast for tactical RPG fans. Between Fire Emblem Engage, Tactics Ogre Reborn, Triangle Strategy, Marvel’s Midnight Suns and more, there’s a smorgasbord of high quality options when it comes to this timeless genre. It’s in this landscape that acclaimed developer Vanillaware brings their own vision of what tactical RPGs can be in Unicorn Overlord.

Anyone familiar with Vanillaware’s catalogue knows that this is a far cry from the studio’s bread and butter, but that doesn’t change the fact that Unicorn Overlord is overflowing with Vanillaware flair. It’s wildly ambitious in its scope and core ideas, building upon genre tropes and expectations in engaging fashion. While all of these things showcase what’s possible in the genre, Vanillaware never loses site of what makes tactical RPGs so appealing to begin with.

Unicorn Overlord takes place in the land of Fevrith, years after a rebellion that led to the establishment of the Zenoiran Empire that now has a suffocating stranglehold over Fevrith’s lands. In the midst of this tyrannical rule is Alain, son of the former Queen Ilenia who was smuggled away from the Cornian Kingdom as his mother fell at the rebellion’s instigation. Raised by the late queen’s personal guard, Josef, Alain takes on the mantle of being leader of the Liberation Army, and sets out to bring an end to Zenoira’s subjugation.

It’s not like this is a setup we haven’t seen before – even with tactical RPGs, but it’s the way in which Unicorn Overlord explores the impact that Zenoira has on Fevrith and its citizens that makes it so captivating. Instead of focusing on the large scale impact of oppression and tyrannical rule, Unicorn Overlord takes a much more intimate approach that puts individual characters, towns, and settlements under the magnifying glass.

Zenoira’s impact on Fevrith is tangible, overbearing, and targeted. Each village, stronghold, and outpost under Zenoiran control is exploited in different ways. Between manufactured plagues and famines, to the blackmailing of former leadership figures and mind control, Zenoira’s depravity knows no bounds. Each new situation presented to the Liberation Army feels believable and urgent, and the way in which they’re explored and resolved through new characters adds an inherent investment into seeing things made better for the local population.

It all helps to make liberating different parts of Fevrith feel worthwhile outside of gameplay rewards and general progression. Many of these conflicts are entirely optional, presented to you on the golden path as you move through the overworld to your next big objective. Still, though, there’s an undeniable sense that these people need help, and after years of oppression, the Liberation Army are the only ones who can provide it. Perhaps most impressive is the way Unicorn Overlord juggles so many characters and arcs related to the core conflict. Not all characters are made equal in complexity, but there’s a surprising level of depth given the sheer number of them.

The state of Fevrith under Zenoiran rule goes hand-in-hand with the kind of gameplay loop that Vanillaware envisions for Unicorn Overlord. Tactical RPGs have often struggled to establish strong pacing. Although attempts have been made with more modern titles like Fire Emblem Engage, the time spent between battles often feels laborious and unfocused. This is undoubtedly the area that Unicorn Overlord seeks to strengthen and cement as a core part of the experience.

Instead of having a home base of operations or a menu where you can configure your army between conflicts, Unicorn Overlord presents an overworld for the Liberation Army to explore and interact with. It allows you to uncover Fevrith with flexibility and independence, you pick and choose the paths that you tread and the people you liberate. The world is full of overworld puzzles, combat challenges, and hidden goodies to uncover that’ll give you the edge in future battles.

These rewards make for a steady flow of progression in Unicorn Overlord regardless of how you choose to spend your time. Nothing here feels superfluous or tacked on, it all contributes to the growth of your army and individual units. The beauty of it is that you can pick and choose what you interact with. There’s no doubt you’ll get more out of Unicorn Overlord the more you put into it, but it never feels excessively complex or incohesive in the totality of its systems.

The depth of this progression and the way elements of it are slowly introduced over its 40 hour runtime means that combat evolves in complexity alongside it. Unicorn Overlord’s real time skirmishes are deceptively simple at first. You’ll maneuver units made up of multiple characters through maps as you combat enemies in an attempt to reach a battle’s victory condition. The outcome of conflict between units is calculated via the Tactics systems, where you can assign skills to characters to be performed in combat. Active and Passive skills will be performed based on AP and PP respectively, limiting the amount of actions a character gets in any given skirmish.

The real complexities of combat are unearthed when you start playing with the conditions built into the Tactics system. The best point of comparison is the Gambit system from Final Fantasy XII. Setting these conditions changes the behaviour of these skills, allowing you to target certain enemy types to exploit weaknesses, set priority on which skills should be used first, if they should be skipped entirely with the absence of a certain unit type, and so much more. The combination of the Tactics system with how you gear your characters makes for immensely satisfying strategy and pseudo-puzzle solving.

You’re constantly configuring the tactics of characters and general units as you get new gear, face new threats, and recruit new members to the Liberation Army. The system itself is fluid and ever-growing, introducing added layers of strategy as characters gain access to new skills and higher AP and PP counts. This is all without even considering class synergy, expanding the total number of characters you can include in a unit, and how the composition of enemy units evolve as the difficulty ramps up.

The only real issue that this sheer amount of flexibility in strategy presents in the amount of organisation that comes with it. As you inevitably expand your collection of accessories, weapons, and the Liberation Army itself, the amount of time you spend in menus as you build out your units grows exponentially. While managing all of this is part of the appeal of a game like Unicorn Overlord, it does get quite excessive in the second half of the game, especially as the enemy units you face become more nuanced and demanding.

Even though the organizational aspects of Unicorn Overlord become unruly with time, battle itself remains a constant thrill. The real time manipulation of units on maps under a time limit means that every decision you make needs to be considered and thoughtful. Thankfully, you can pause the game at any moment to assess the situation, but the flow of time is always passing as units engage in combat and traverse the map. Each unit is also limited by Stamina, which means they can only engage in combat a certain number of times before needing to rest.

Even more layers of complexity are added via terrain, garrisons, outposts, weapons, and Valor Skills. Most of these aren’t foreign to the genre, but the way in which they intertwine with Unicorn Overlord’s unique mechanics are what makes them so interesting. Stationing a unit at a garrison not only provides bonuses in battle, but also prevents the depletion of stamina, for example. Valor Skills are another highlight that let you use skills outside of unit to unit combat. They’re powerful in their myriad applications, from healing and general damage to destroying structures. These all cost valuable SP, though, which is also the resource you use to deploy units to the field.

Winning battles almost always leads to the liberation of towns and forts. These towns have all fallen into disrepair under Zenoiran rule, and only through providing the necessary materials can they be fixed. Restoring a town to its former glory allows you to station a guard there, who will automatically harvest nearby resources to be used in future preparations. It also grants you access to new services in some instances, like town taverns to build up bonds between units as they share Vanillaware’s mouthwateringly-designed food.

All of this stuff also earns the Liberation Army renown, which steadily grows as you journey across Fevrith. Each new renown rank lends you access to meaningful jumps in the way you can customise your army. From expanding the total size of units, your total unit count, the ability to promote classes into advanced classes and more. These feel like real milestones in progression and mark a significant increase in the power of the Liberation Army as their presence grows in Fevrith.

While there are countless HD-2D titles on the market now, there’s still no studio that has a grasp on this style quite like Vanillaware does. Unicorn Overlord is categorically the best showcase of this art style thus far, combining intricate 2D character sprites and gorgeous backgrounds with 3D elements to create a lovingly realized and visually rich world. Everything here is a complete joy to witness in its entirety. Between the pixel art-like 2D overworld sprites to the flashy skill animations in battle, Unicorn Overlord never ceases to be a visual delight.

You can always count on Vanillaware to deliver, but Unicorn Overlord is truly something special. The way that its countless systems coalesce into a thematically cohesive and immensely satisfying strategic experience is endlessly rewarding. The seamless fashion in which it all fits together makes it seem as though Vanillaware are veterans of the genre establishing a new gold standard for tactical RPGs. It’s an absolute triumph in its totality, and one of the best games of the year thus far.

The post Unicorn Overlord Review – A Tactical Triumph appeared first on Press Start.

Road tripping plays a pivotal role in so many landmark works of popular culture. Some people’s minds might go to the journey of decadence in Jack Kerouac’s On The Road, mine races to one of the finest films ever put to celluloid, A Goofy Movie. Whatever the application, the open road is inherently conversational, providing the downtime for a deep and meaningful jaw session. Save for a few important pit stops, Open Roads is a back and forth between a mother and daughter with plenty to work out, least of all being the mystery that emerges as a convenient distraction in a moment of mourning and change for the pair.

As Tess Devine, portrayed with an unguarded, charming youthful exuberance by Kaitlyn Dever, you unearth decades-old correspondence from a man that isn’t your grandfather while packing up the remains of your grandma’s home after her recent passing. Along with her mother Opal, voiced by the venerable Keri Russell, you follow a breadcrumb trail through a series of your family’s abandoned, ruinous homes—each with its own buried memories—that eventually leads to Canada in hopes of figuring out the truth of this supposed affair.

In the end, the mystery and its resolution feel unremarkable yet wholly lifelike. I did expect an Edith Finchian twist toward the fantastical, however the story grounds itself right at the last beat and places focus back on its characters, on the circle of life, and how children can be doomed to inherit the misfortunes of their parents. Like a Richard Linklater film, it’s decades-spanning in its scope and serves up an emotional resonance that I didn’t expect at all. 

Russell and Dever’s chemistry throughout flourishes as more and more dirty laundry is aired, and while Russell shoulders more of the dramatic work, I do think they make for a believable mother and daughter duo that’s sold through both writing and performance alike. Hearing the weary Opal endure her sarcastic teenage daughter’s goading and ribbing serves as a surprisingly frequent comedic break in the drama.

Conversation is only half of the Open Roads experience, the other half is made up of areas to explore that feel as calm and contemplative as a Fullbright title. It manages to tick all of the regular “walking simulator” boxes within these beautifully lit, gorgeous slices of autumnal suburbia. There are plenty of items that contain their own miniature, self-contained narratives that build out the world at large and serve as kindling for the bigger picture. And there are even more items to simply inspect and turn over in Tess’ hands, all of them rendered with lovely detail.

It’s on top of these rendered vistas that your person-to-person chats will take place with Opal, with both characters presented as hand-drawn, seldom animated sprites. It’s a juxtaposition of detail and minimalism that shouldn’t work as well as it does, and I admire the choice having seen it in practice.

The story unfolds like a puzzle of several steps which are all, in-world, catalogued in Tess’ journal which is an elegant means of tracking the adventure. Oftentimes, it’s a mundane task like finding a use for the key found inside a long lost diary, or finding a safer path through the collapsing mobile home. There’s no duress in what Open Roads demands of you, it simply is what it is. Pretty much every break in play leading into dialogue comes from finding an item of interest and calling out to Opal, who invariably delivers a greater context. The game does little to veer from this gameplay loop before credits roll, though it doesn’t have a chance to grow tiresome with the game only being a couple of hours long. 

And with no branching dialogue options to revisit, there isn’t really a lot of reason to replay the game at all. Although certain dialogue choices do expose character flaws not before known so there may be some value to be found in fully understanding these women. 

While the few days in Open Roads pass in a couple of real-time hours, it’s absolutely a road trip worth taking. It showcases nostalgia and emotion in a way I didn’t exactly expect, its characters bare their souls as we pick apart and leave open the wounds of their lives. But it’s the many small details, like using the radio to drown out the deafeningly quiet fallout from an argument, that makes Open Roads an evocative impromptu jaunt.  

The post Open Roads Review – Family Matters appeared first on Press Start.

This is the last time I’ll rattle on about this, but it’s truly wild to think that the first Dragon’s Dogma game was released twelve years ago. The series has long been a cult classic amongst players, with many appreciating its unique take on a popular genre. Now, Dragon’s Dogma II is making an earnest effort to right all the wrongs of its predecessor. While it’s not as immense a step as expected, it does everything the first game promised before its budget was infamously slashed. Even better, it does more.

Dragon’s Dogma II takes place in a parallel world, far removed from the Sicily-inspired realm of Gransys from the original game. You play as an Arisen, somebody who has had their heart taken by a dragon and, in exchange, granted immortality. As lore dictates from the previous game, your immortality comes with a catch – you must slay the dragon who took your heart and subsequently claim the throne of your kingdom for yourself. To complicate matters, somebody has infiltrated the royal family of your kingdom, claiming to be the Arisen themselves, but we both know that’s not the case.

At a glance, the first Dragon’s Dogma had a relatively typical story you’d expect to find in any medieval adjacent, fantasy-tinged game like this. But as the story progressed, the game quickly pivoted to some unexpected places. Dragon’s Dogma II follows a similar story arc. However, I will always argue that the series has always been about the journey rather than the destination. The plot of Dragon’s Dogma II is still easily a step above the original game, but it’s not the reason I find this sequel so compelling.

That’s because the open world presented by Dragon’s Dogma II is rare. It’s not intent on bombarding you with checklists to complete, instead throwing you out into the world with minimal guidance. You’re free to explore and make your own discoveries. This is bound to be contentious, especially amongst less seasoned players, but it does give Dragon’s Dogma II a sense of discovery that we’ve previously seen in the original game, more recent Zeldas or even Elden Ring. There are options to seek guidance for those who need it, but other than that, you’re on your own.

Such a design choice dovetails wonderfully with the strength and conviction of Dragon’s Dogma II’s open-world design. The best open worlds are designed to be distracting in all the right ways, and Dragon’s Dogma II is no exception. While the roads between your objectives are long and winding, there was never a moment where I was genuinely bored while exploring. Every journey felt just like a journey, and seeing what I’d discover next was always exciting. It’s just as well that the open-world design is so strong because while there are fast travel options, they’re expensive and rare opportunities that betray the intention of this rich world.

The Pawn system is undoubtedly the most unique aspect surrounding Dragon’s Dogma II. The pawns return here, and they’re much better implemented. The process is the same. You still design your own pawn, who accompanies you throughout your adventure. You can then recruit two other guest pawns to round out your party of four. Guest pawns are interesting – they are other players’ pawns pulled from online, but they don’t level up as you and your main pawn do. Instead, you’re encouraged to switch them out as you see fit or to better suit your quest.

It’s an interesting system that has a clear benefit to the player in that it allows them to be creative in creating a party that’s to their preference, rather than being forced upon with party members they don’t like. But it feels like a misstep that there’s no cross platform functionality here – especially given that Capcom has their own Capcom ID system and has already implemented the functionality into games like Exoprimal previously.

Besides that, pawns are a stark improvement from what they were in the original game. You can teach them specialisations that alter their behaviour or give them perks they never had before. They can still travel to other players’ worlds to widen their knowledge and use that knowledge to provide tips on quests you’ve yet to complete. They fight better. They interact with players in a much more natural way. They’re an all-around improvement. Though there was an odd moment where the pawns would repeat the same lines to each other early on, the pawn system in Dragon’s Dogma II is a marked improvement from the original game

Of course, the question will be raised. Wouldn’t online co-op be better? Part of me says yes. I’d love to explore this world with my friends. But the pawn system is so unique and untapped that removing them completely would strip Dragon’s Dogma II of such an important and compelling part of its core identity.

The quality of the quests has seen an overall improvement, too. While some vague instructions are communicated to the player, there’s more choice in how you approach some of them. They’re not wide-reaching consequences, but they give a greater sense of weight to how you think about them. That being said, it’s a bit disappointing to see the world lack such reactive force, especially in the face of much more dated games like Bethesda’s output managing to do so, but on the upside to this you’ll rarely find yourself in a situation where you accidentally hit somebody in the face and then get locked out of a quest line because of it.

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When you’re not exploring or completing quests, you’ll be fighting with your vocation. Vocations are your class – they affect which weapons you use and which abilities you can learn. In the sequel, experience is awarded at a standard rate, but switching vocations adjusts your stats to complement whatever vocation you want. This is a significant change because it allows you to switch up your vocations regularly to find what works for you, without under-leveling others. Once again, this is a great design choice because the vocations are incredibly fun to play.

While some vocations are removed or completely changed from the original game, the newer additions make up for it. The Mystic Spearhand is a snappy melee class that sees your Arisen wielding a double-edged spear. Playing as them feels more like a Devil May Cry game than anything else. Trickster is an oddly passive vocation but offers a nice alternative to the tried-and-true Mage or Sorcerer vocations. Warfarer is the most interesting. It’s only available in the post-game and combines all the vocations, requiring more skill and finesse to handle but offering you all the weapon types. They’re all great fun to play around with, and while some are missing from the previous game, the new additions and changes to existing vocations more than make up for it.

The robust vocation system and improved pawns complement each other to offer a strong foundation for combat in Dragon’s Dogma II. It’s a combat system that’s easy to grasp but difficult to master. More importantly, the flexibility afforded by vocations coupled with the creativity allowed by the pawn system in building your party means that you’ll always be able to find an approach that works for you. There’s no better feeling than climbing the wings of a Griffon to bring it to the ground with a well-placed stab in the face so that your party can have at it. Or even hitting it out of the sky with a precise strike of lightning magick. The combat is fun to play, which is just as well because it forms so much of the experience.

Despite this, series veterans may be disappointed to hear that there isn’t much new regarding the bestiary in the world of Dragon’s Dogma II. While there are over twenty different types of enemies to conquer and variants of many of them, too, only a few here’ll surprise returning players. However, the number of enemies combined with the potential variants and even environmental opportunities in battle still keep things fresh. But those expecting massive surprises with the bestiary beyond what’s already been revealed will be disappointed.

That being said, Dragon’s Dogma II does its best to try and correct the errors of its predecessor in earnest. There’s not much I’m permitted to speak about in terms of post-game content, nor would I want to ruin the surprise, but take my word for it that the post-game content is much more interesting than the Everfall in the original game. Though, before you even get there, there’s much to do in Vermund, Battahl and the areas in between. My first run took around 40 hours, but I could have taken my time to do more and most definitely will in the new game plus mode that unlocks after completion. It’s a big game that’s incredibly inviting but never feels like an arduous chore to explore.

But of course, we have to address the elephant in the room – performance. Dragon’s Dogma II is the first RE Engine game to make the jump to a true open world, and with that comes many performance-related challenges. The game officially runs at an “unlocked” frame rate, but on consoles that commonly means anywhere between 20fps in cities and a more solid 30 fps when exploring the rest of the map. It’s a stark difference from Capcom’s other games and will no doubt put off some players, but the ambition and strong artistic direction more than make up for it.

In my previous preview, I addressed concerns about the voice work being flat, and in some instances, it is. But hearing all of these voices come together in a busy city often means the less interesting ones fade into the background. It’s definitely not the most compelling performance from a cast, but it’s still serviceable. The music, on the other hand, is phenomenal. The slower ambient pieces that play do great work in establishing this vast world, while the biblically-dramatic tracks that play as you hunt down monsters help make every encounter feel suitably epic.

Dragon’s Dogma II feels like what the original Dragon’s Dogma should have been. It’s a sprawling and inviting open world that’s just begging to be explored, peppered with dangerous creatures who owe themselves to delectable encounters. The combat is enjoyable, and the vocations are all great choices, no matter how you play. While there are bound to be some teething issues as you become accustomed to its harsh world, it’s more than worth the endurance to live the heady experience that Dragon’s Dogma II offers.

The post Dragon’s Dogma 2 Review – An Adventure That’ll Take Your Heart appeared first on Press Start.

I’ve only ever considered myself a casual enjoyer of the bullet hell and boomer shooter genres. Although I grew up on a stable diet of games like Doom, Serious Sam, Duke Nukem and Hexen, these days I usually wait for the crème of the crop to emerge before diving in. That said, I do appreciate the skill, patience and determination it takes to master these kinds of games, so titles like Doom: Eternal and Returnal rank fairly high on my favourite games list. With my credentials out of the way, let me tell you about the wacky debut title from Brisbane developer Broadside Games, Bears in Space.

Though it physically pains me to say it, the term ‘retro’ now applies to many of the games I played when I was younger, and shooters were quite different back then. If you’re also a 90s kid, you’ll hopefully understand what I mean when I say that Bears in Space is a retro-styled, single player first-person boomer shooter adventure. What this means is that there’s a tonne of shooting to be sure, but unlike most modern-day FPS titles, there are also sprawling platforming sections, large arenas, collectibles, set pieces and boss fights to be found. When you’re not narrowly dodging a wall of bullets while fighting hordes of robots with your extensive arsenal, you’ll be utilising all manner of gadgets to explore the massive levels and meet the cavalcade of kooky characters within them.

You’ll be playing as Maxwell Atoms, a geriatric space hero who unceremoniously merges bodies with a giant She-Bear, Beartana, after an accident on board your spaceship. Crash landing on a planet filled with (maybe) murderous robots is only the start of your adventure, as now you’ll have to fight your way through factories, dungeons, medieval villages and even a space carnival to find your way back to Earth. Thankfully, sharing DNA with a She-Bear grants you access to super-human abilities such as a double jump, a dash and even the opportunity to shift into giant bear form upon consuming a jar of honey.

If this sounds pretty goofy, that’s because it absolutely is. Bears in Space is proudly one of the most playful, silly and cartoony shooters out there. The folks at Broadside have drawn inspiration from all manner of games, TV shows and movies they enjoyed growing up, and much like our heroes, that absurdity is woven into the DNA of this game.

Don’t be fooled though, as at the heart of all this tomfoolery is an excellent and deceptively challenging shooter. One minute you’ll be fishing wax lips out of an acid river for a homeless, rap-rock loving robot and the next you’ll be dashing across an arena, riding jump pads into a crowd of bullet-spewing automatons before unloading your laser shotgun into their faces. The myriad armaments at your disposal are all seemingly taken from the Ratchet & Clank reject pile, with my personal favourites being the rubber band anvil launcher and the ‘SFG’ (yes, it’s exactly what you’re thinking).

With ammo paradoxically being both scarce and abundant, you’re forced to cycle through your weapons almost every fight, and it’s a good thing too because as you use them, they level up and change form, making them even deadlier. If you’re a fan of the retro boomer shooter genre, I can guarantee that you’ll enjoy the frenetic minute-to-minute gameplay of this weird little game, with gunplay that stands shoulder-to-shoulder with other fan favourites. The ability to replay levels and hunt down all of the challenges and secrets within, means that you’ll easily spend 15-20+ hours seeing everything the game has to offer.

I get the sense that your enjoyment of Bears in Space really is going to come down to the presentation and tone of the game. It looks, sounds and mostly plays like a title from several gaming generations ago, with all of the nostalgic appeal and foibles that come along with it. The graphics are chunky and colourful, though not boundary-pushing by any measure. The sound effects can be grating, but everything has a distinct audible identity. The humour can be genuinely funny and is at times puerile and broad, at other times incredibly niche or a little risqué. If I had to draw a comparison, I would say it feels like a very Australian and family-friendly Conker’s Bad Fur Day or a Saturday morning cartoon version of the TimeSplitters franchise. 

All of this is intentional of course, as Broadside are a small but dedicated and talented team who have poured their absolute heart and soul into this game over the last seven years. It’s clear they’ve crafted Bears in Space in the image of what they loved growing up, and their passion is clearly felt all throughout it. I will admit that I initially bounced off this presentation when I first started, but the more I played (and the fact that the gameplay is excellent) the more endearing it became, and I often found myself giggling and smiling at the absurdity on display.

The only real problems I ran into were that a few times upon starting the game, it would freeze after the developer splash screen, forcing me to close and reopen the game, which then worked afterwards. I also noticed some stuttering in some cutscenes, but because it wasn’t during gameplay and I’m a veteran gamer that’s been hardened on the jank of old, it didn’t really bother me and I’m sure these issues will likely be patched after release. 

The post Bears In Space Review – The Right To Bear Arms appeared first on Press Start.

It’s easy to forget that Alone In The Dark came before and inspired Resident Evil. Despite this, as a series, Alone In The Dark has always struggled to find the level of notoriety in the genre that Resident Evil and even Silent Hill have. It’s not for lack of trying, though – there have been five games, two questionable films and an even more questionable multiplayer spin-off. And yet, it still remains relatively obscure. But Alone In The Dark has always deserved a shot, so it makes sense to go back to where it all began and try to capture the now ravenous horror audience that we know exists. Thankfully, the 2024 remake of Alone In The Dark is perhaps the best the series has ever been, but not without some caveats.

Alone In The Dark follows an in-debt detective, Edward Carnby, played by David Harbour, as he investigates the disappearance of a man named Jeremy Hartwood. He’s been hired by Emily Hartwood, played by Jodie Comer, who happens to be Jeremy’s niece. The two travel to Decerto Manor, a home for the mentally fatigued, where they discover that not everything is as it seems and that a strange journey awaits them both.

Keen fans of the original Alone In The Dark will notice a change to the plot already – Jeremy is missing rather than having committed suicide. This is one of the many changes the Alone In The Dark remake makes in its narrative. At the surface level, it’s a rather typical Lovecraft-inspired story that was more unique in 1992 than now. But with this remake, directed and written by the mind that brought us SOMA, certain aspects have been twisted in an interesting way. I don’t think it’s anything mind-blowing, but it is still at odds with your expectations, especially if you’re intimately familiar with the original.

It’s well documented that the team behind this remake was inspired by the success of Capcom’s much-beloved remakes of Resident Evil 2, which especially shows here. That game is played from an identical viewpoint, inviting you to explore Derceto Manor to solve the mystery of Jeremy’s disappearance. That means finding items and clues to solve puzzles while occasionally fighting strange creatures. The inspiration is liberal, so if you know how a modern Resident Evil game plays, you know how Alone In The Dark plays, too.

A genre staple both then and now, Alone In The Dark allows you to choose Edward or Emily as the playable character at the beginning of your journey. Each character treads the same ground in the opening moments, with some slight divergence as the story ends. But it’s not two sides of one story, but rather just one side of the story flipped to suit whoever you play as. If you play as Edward, then Emily will become the more level-headed companion played against Edward’s more zany sense of investigation. If you play as Emily, the roles are reversed. It’s a weird choice that leaves me unsure which version of events is canon, given that both characters can inhabit either role in the plot.

From a gameplay perspective, Emily feels like the “easier” option between the two. Her pistol is automatic and reloads faster than Edward’s revolver. However, these differences are negligible given how inoffensive the combat can be—more on that later. The other key differences have to do with how the story plays out, but how much you’re invested in this story in the first place will really determine if you see value in playing through the game multiple times.

That’s because the order of events you experience as Edward and Emily are identical up until the final few hours or so. A personal subplot for each character is neatly slotted into the story, but beyond that singular level, everything else in terms of locales you’ll visit and paths you take through the game is identical. There are some interesting subtle differences – characters will treat Emily differently to Edward in conversation, given that Edward is an outsider. Still, these feel relatively superficial in the big scheme of things. However, Emily’s playthrough feels less cryptic (even if it’s still outlandish).

Your time in Decerto harkens back to the original Alone In The Dark. You’ll explore the mansion while solving puzzles, finding keys and piecing together clues. At its core, it’s a rather typical Survival Horror experience. However, exploring Decerto Manor does lack the tension of classic settings like the RPD or Spencer Mansion. On the one hand, I appreciated that Decerto felt like an old-school haunted house, threatening but never truly dangerous. On the other hand, it means that tension dissipates quickly when you realise you’re almost always safe in the manor while exploring.

As you progress, Edward or Emily can use a talisman to transport themselves somewhere outside of Decerto. Sometimes, that’ll be another area, another point in time or sometimes even into physical representations of other characters’ psyche. This is where most of the action happens, and they’re an excellent way to break up the slower-paced exploration when you’re in Decerto. But it’s also where most of the combat happens, and this is, unfortunately, where Alone In The Dark falters.

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While some interesting things happen on a narrative level with Alone In The Dark, the combat leaves much to be desired. The problem is that the enemies lack variety and, more crucially, don’t ever threaten the player much. There are around four enemy types that you’ll fight through the entirety of the campaign, too, with each looking like some kind of oily skeleton with a random appendage attached. There’s a flying enemy and two boss-like enemies, too, but overall, the enemy variety could be more inspired and much better.

This is incredibly disappointing because the combat feels weightless, too. This is owing to the shoddy audio, which is often out-of-sync with your weapons firing. There are “opportunity” weapons peppered throughout the environment as a single-use item, but throwing them lacks the weight and the heft you’d expect. There’s even a wide range of melee weapons to pick up, one at a time, which are also breakable. But hitting enemies feels like so much of a gamble, given how shoddy hit detection can be, that it’s rare to even bother trying.

I don’t know why horror games insist on implementing breakable melee weapons, especially given how many of the horror greats don’t do so, but it is still frustrating rather than what I can only assume developers think will be tension-creating. Even aiming feels off because even when lining up the perfect shot, they’ll sometimes just not hit an enemy for whatever reason. These aspects could be finetuned with some updates, but in its current state, the combat feels like the game’s weakest aspect. It’s a shame, too, because conceptually, there are plenty of options for the player, but none are well-honed.

With the choice of two playable characters and these differences in story and lore, there is a degree of replayability in Alone In The Dark, but it’s very dependent. My first thorough run, where I took my time and explored everything, took around seven to nine hours, give or take. But like any classic survival horror game, on my third run, I could quickly finish it in half of that. In addition, there are collectibles called Lagniappes that unlock other endings if found. Some Lagniappes can only be found as Edward, others as Emily, so if you want the full (and deliciously meta) story, it’s worth replaying to seek these out. But, once again, it depends on how much you value story first in games and whether this plot grabs you in the first place.

From a presentation standpoint, Louisiana is well-realised in Alone In The Dark. The incredible city and all its surroundings are immaculately captured, drawing from the Southern Gothic influences the team was clearly going for. Decerto Manor looks great, but the bayous you’ll trudge around in are incredibly atmospheric. Other urban locales, like shipping yards and even the streets of New Orleans, are also incredibly moody, with fog and dingey streetlights really setting the scenes for these moody locales. Unfortunately, there are some invisible walls that do take away from the immersion, but otherwise, the world of Alone In The Dark is incredible.

On a similar note, the original score is also fantastic. Many of the game’s key moments are supplemented with catchy, sombre jazz that really gives the game a unique feel and ties in directly with its unique setting. The result is admittedly something that’s not scary but still feels unsettling, similar to an episode of Twin Peaks.

The voice work, on the other hand, is less of a surefire hit. David Harbour sounds just like David Harbour, with no range whatsoever. It can be distracting to hear Hopper during some of the more seminal moments of the story. On the other hand, Jodie Comer’s performance can best be described as her sleepwalking through the script, which is a shame. I appreciate that celebrities might bring more attention to the game, but they feel so at odds with the rest of the atmosphere that I’m not sure it was worth it.

Despite its shortcomings, I still enjoyed Alone In The Dark when all is said and done. It’s compelling enough that I played it through three times, even if at no point did I ever feel any sense of fear or terror. It’s short enough to be replayable but significant enough that I didn’t feel shortchanged. However, with clear inspiration taken from Resident Evil 2 comes a clear invitation to compare, and in that regard, it ultimately comes up short. But still, if you’re a fan of horror and games like Resident Evil, or more specifically, psychologically themed horror like The Evil Within, you’ll no doubt find something to love in Alone In The Dark’s uniquely charming setting and atmosphere.

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Editor’s Note: While the bulk of this review speaks to the writer’s experience and enjoyment of the Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection’s offline content, and remains indicative of that experience, some readers might be interested in this collection for its online multiplayer component.

For that reason, it’s important to highlight that the game’s online multiplayer has been plagued with issues since launch and, while developer Aspyr is working hard to fix it, is yet to be at an acceptable state. We would advise holding off of a purchase until these issues are rectified if online multiplayer is of importance.

I can deny it all I like, but the fact remains that the original Star Wars: Battlefront was released 20 long years ago. Putting the existential dread aside, I’ve long proclaimed that the 2004 original and its far greater sequel are among the best shooters of all time, exceeding the pair of DICE-developed games that share the same name. It’s an easy claim to make when they’re stuck on old hardware, but the Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection has brought the two titles to the current generation in one tidy package, making it the perfect time to see if the force is still strong with my childhood favourites.

The main selling point for most remasters, collections, and ports is playing beloved older games on current consoles, avoiding that heartbreaking moment when you try to play something on your dusty PS2, only for it to look blown out and awful on your modern TV. The Battlefront Classic Collection does precisely that while also sneaking in a few extras to surprise returning players.

From a technical standpoint, Battlefront I and II look and feel exactly as they did in the mid-2000s. Textures, character models and animations are all largely what they once were and have held up surprisingly well in the two decades that have passed. Importantly, even amidst the most chaotic moments on the largest map, I didn’t encounter any dropped frames, with the action always remaining smooth. Unfortunately, the live-action scenes cut from the films and scattered throughout the campaigns didn’t fare quite as well, with the low-resolution footage stuttering whenever they appeared. Thankfully, they’re short, and you’ve likely seen them countless times by this point.

Both titles are content complete, featuring a full suite of single and multiplayer modes, with online, offline and split-screen options available for the latter. While the Battlefront I campaign is little more than a series of Conquest matches that act only as a fun time capsule, the excellent Rise of the Empire story content from II has aged exceptionally well. Following the Clone’s betrayal of the Jedi and subsequent transition into the Empire’s army, the missions feature varied objectives, different play styles and frequent opportunities to play as Heroes and Villains. Even when I took my rose-tinted training visor off, this campaign still comes close to today’s standards.

Introduced in the original and expanded upon in the sequel, Galactic Conquest is still, to this day, a mode that can’t be beaten. Two players, or one player and an AI opponent, strategise and maneuverer around a map, managing resources, claiming planets and engaging in ground and space battles (in BFII) to conquer the galaxy. Potentially spanning hours of real-time, these mammoth games can be saved and loaded as you wish, and I suspect many will do just that as there’s nothing quite like it on the modern market.

My fondest memories with these games come from the multiplayer, which has returned with the Classic Collection in grand fashion. 64-player online multiplayer is supported, doubling what was possible in the original release. Servers were understandably empty during pre-release, but I played multiple hours with one other player, with our teams filled in with bots. Online performance was strong, and I didn’t run into any technical errors or crashes, but this could change with another 62 players in the mix.

Whether I was capturing control points in Conquest, stealing from the enemy’s base in Capture the Flag, or causing carnage as the various force-wielders in Hero Assault, I was having a blast. With four armies (Clones, CIS, Rebels and Empire), each with an assortment of playable classes, an array of vehicles to pilot and a wealth of well-designed maps to fight across, there’s no shortage of content, with none of it being locked behind microtransactions or slow-moving profile progression.

Some old sensibilities are refreshing, and some are frustrating. Including dedicated online multiplayer is terrific, but navigating your way to a match is tedious. Quick play will get you into the action immediately, but if you’re looking to play with friends, you’ll need to create a private room, add your maps and match types, load in, and then have your mates manually search for the room name. It’s admirable to keep the experience as untouched as possible, but preservation doesn’t need to ignore innovation. The inclusion of a party system, or even an invite option, would be a vast improvement. It’s also worth noting that there’s no option for cross-play, so be sure you’re all on the same system before making a purchase.

In most ways, the Collection has left the two games untouched, for better and worse, but there’s a smattering of new content to be found. Five new maps have been added across the two games, including the claustrophobic Jabba’s Palace and wide-open Bespin: Cloud City. Kit Fisto has been added as a new Hero, with Asajj Ventress joining him as the new Villain. Both sport new abilities not found among the rest of the Hero/Villain roster and are very capable in the chaos that is Hero Assault.

Speaking of which, the mode previously locked to the Mos Eisley map has been set free to all other locations, making it possible to recreate the tear-jerking confrontation between Obi-Wan and Anakin on Mustafar… for those who would want to. While the new content isn’t overly vast, the small changes are positive ones and will be greatly appreciated by returning players.

The post Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection Review – Games For A More Civilised Age appeared first on Press Start.

While opinions are divided on them, I’ve always had great fun with the Outlast games. The way they managed to make the found-footage genre of film into a playable experience is to be commended, but I also have always enjoyed how they’ve never shied away from a gory and violent horror experience. Now, you can enjoy that experience with friends in The Outlast Trials. While it’s lacking in some areas, I have enjoyed playing it immensely.

The Outlast Trials is a prequel. You play as a nameless test subject kidnapped by the Murkoff Corporation to participate in mysterious experiments. You and up to three other subjects partake in “therapy”, a set of trials, to assist Murkoff in collecting data on said experiments. It’s a much more barebones plot than previous Outlast games, though there’s some juicy lore to delve into through files you can find if you wish.

Despite this change in direction, The Outlast Trials stays true to the spirit of the original games. Each trial has you exploring a run-down, dilapidated location while evading aggressive stalkers. And while you won’t be filming things with your night-vision equipped camera this time, each test subject has been graciously provided with a set of night-vision goggles for each trial.

The most significant new addition here is the sanity meter. Certain enemies and traps will decrease your sanity meter, eventually causing your character to hallucinate. Non-existent enemies might randomly appear and rush at you – and while they’re predictable at times, they’re always startling. Lose all of your sanity, and you’ll encounter Mr Skinner, a fast stalker who will drain your health if you stay still for too long. It’s a clever twist, requiring you to sprint to get away from him and, without a doubt, alert the real threats in the room or mess up a perfect run.

When you first boot the game, you’ll be in a communal area where you can see other players online. Each player has their own room, which can be decked out with cosmetic upgrades, but you can also upgrade your character here. It’s also here where you’ll decide which trial to go on together. The Outlast Trials has five maps to mess around in, each housing a main trial and two to three smaller challenges. Trials are lengthier, taking anywhere between an hour and an hour and a half to complete. Challenges are smaller, often remixing the map to the point where it feels new anyway, and usually takes between thirty minutes to an hour to finish. There’s a nice variety of objectives on offer here, too.

The main trials themselves are where I had the most fun. They have multiple phases, and they feel like an elongated sequence from films like SAW. In one of them, my group and I had to “bring judgement” upon a judge by infiltrating the courthouse, finding and disposing of evidence exonerating him, and chasing and executing witnesses due to testify against him. All while being chased by a maniacal police officer. It’s one of the many tense but intense moments in The Outlast Trials that I really enjoyed.

Challenges being shorter doesn’t make them an inferior experience, though. The objectives are often simple but twisted to fit the edgier Outlast aesthetic. In one, our group had to track down five bottles of bleach to pour into a soup to feed misbehaving children. In another, we had to feed loud children to a grinder, each child making noise whenever we picked it up, alerting potential stalkers. Mind you, they’re cardboard representations of children, but the twisted and macabre nature of the activities and what they represented still made things unsettling.

Most of the challenge comes from completing these objectives while evading a stalker. There’s a nice variety of other enemies in the game, too. Some will wait in a hiding spot, pouncing on you when you try to hide in the same spot as them. Others are more aggressive, listening for any sound you make and honing in on you when they discover you. You can use their sensitivity to noise to your advantage, distracting them by throwing objects, but doing so often means using an item you might be able to use to defend yourself later.

And while I loved the general gameplay of The Outlast Trials, I did feel there could have been a greater degree of variety in the more prominent psychopaths that headline each of the trials. Everyone who played the previous Outlast games will remember the psychotic groom who wanted to castrate you. The naked twins with the oddly shaped heads. Even Marta from the second game, if only because she looked like she wandered into Temples Gate straight from an Elder Scrolls game. The two significant psychopaths included in The Outlast Trials are great additions to the Outlast canon, but seeing them reused on later trials was a tad disappointing. I recognise these things take time to create, but it removes fear from a situation when your enemy is one you’re already familiar with.

Your performance is ranked at the end of each trial, and it’s incredibly satisfying to replay said trials and see yourself improve as you increase your therapy level and unlock new abilities for your test subject. These improvements come in the form of a rig, prescriptions for your character, tools, skills and medicine.

All of these upgrades assist you in approaching each of the trials. Rigs are a permanent, rechargeable item that might stun an enemy or allow you to see through walls. Prescriptions are perks that allow you to run faster, slide or even hold extra items. Tools are equippable items like slippers, which dampen your footsteps across broken glass. Skills are permanent perks that assist you in-game – such as recharging your stamina quickly while you hide. It’s a robust upgrade system that isn’t needlessly complicated and fun to coordinate with friends so that you have a team that complements each other’s abilities and weaknesses.

And yes, multiplayer is still surprisingly tense. You can team up with three other people to attempt the trials together, with the experience scaling up by increasing the number of objectives or enemies around the map. Multiplayer is easily the most fun to be had here. It can be so fun to explore together, but there are other little tricks that the games play on your team, too. In multiplayer, enemies dress up as your teammates and slowly approach you with a slightly misspelled gamertag above their heads, lulling you into a false sense of security before attacking you and running away. It’s a great little touch that encourages you to stay together and keeps tensions high even when sharing the experience with others.

When you’re done with the first round of trials and challenges, future ones are opened up that increase the difficulty while simultaneously upping the rewards. They’re remixed versions of the levels and encounters you’ve already played, but it can be fun to take your fully upgraded rigs into these and try to overcome them. It’s incredibly satisfying to see how much you’ve grown by even being able to overcome these more complex challenges, too.

In terms of presentation, you already know what to expect if you’ve played an Outlast game before. The environments are dimly lit and run-down, dripping with atmosphere and subtle lighting that helps set the mood. Of course, you can expect all kinds of gore to be peppered around each of the levels. Bodies, limbs, heads and even genitals often can be seen lying around the floor. It’s edgy, but I appreciate that the team held nothing back when designing some of these macabre maps.

The sound design is similarly solid, offering tracks that heighten the tension, especially when hiding from a potential stalker, but also not being afraid to just let the sound of errant footsteps build the tension. I’ve talked about how, in the past, other horror games haven’t been able to read the room when it comes to music, but The Outlast Trials gets it so right. The voices of some of the psychopaths, especially Mother Gooseberry’s abusive puppet, are mainly a standout.

The Outlast Trials is a fun little experiment that enhances the now-typical Outlast formula rather than evolves it. Multiplayer is a hoot, bringing a sense of tension that I was surprised to feel in a group setting. While this new focus inevitably means that solo players will feel shortchanged, The Outlast Trials still feels true to the spirit of the previous Outlast games without a compromise that a multiplayer focus would typically bring. It’s a fun time, and I can only hope it will continue to grow as time goes by.

The post The Outlast Trials Review – For Glory And Gore appeared first on Press Start.

As someone whose first ever video game console was a hand-me-down SEGA Master System with a copy of Sonic the Hedgehog, I pretty regularly find myself in search of the sweet nectar of nostalgia for those old-school experiences. Usually though, when I happen to sit down to some form of retro collection, classic port or even a loving homage like Sonic Mania, I’m pretty quickly humbled by the unforgiving nature of an early 90s platformer no many how many dimensions it’s in.

Penny’s Big Breakaway, a brand-new 3D platformer from the folks behind Mania (under the new banner of Evening Star), swings freely between modern design and concessions, and those same razor-thin margins for success that cause adult me to wonder how child me ever finished a video game. It’s a noble pursuit, and one that this game very nearly nails with some soaring highs, but it’s held back by frustrating lows.

A bit of context first, though. Penny’s Big Breakaway stars the titular Penny, a spinster yo-yo artist attempting to pull herself up from the busking life by auditioning for the Emperor himself. Before the show though, Penny’s yo-yo becomes powered-up by a “cosmic string” and given sentience, going on to make a mess of things and painting her a wanted fugitive by the Emperor and his army of penguins. This kicks off her adventure through 11 distinct worlds full of obstacles and angry penguins, armed with her toothy new toy.

It mightn’t come as a surprise, but said yo-yo forms the basis of this game’s unique core mechanics and design, giving Penny an acrobatic moveset and a sense of momentum that really manages to capture the feeling of those early 2D and 3D Sonic games, albeit at a more measured pace. Levels are designed specifically to keep Penny moving along, and the game’s somewhat-unorthodox controls exist to service that same goal, encouraging players to hit Tony Hawk-esque lines and keep a combo going as they navigate the 40-odd stages on offer. The penguins who’ll accost and capture you if you let too many of them get near are a neat way to add encouragement to hoof it as well as you can.

Technical mastery of the game is also supported by the tracking of both your time and your skills in each level, with a score at the end as proof of how fast, thorough and cool you were throughout. The team at Evening Star has done a pretty commendable job of making sure that levels still feel fun if you’re taking them at your own pace, but the desire to perform eventually takes hold and that’s when a lot of the design really comes into its own. There’s a heap of replayability that comes with it, as well, with better performance in levels leading to more tokens to spend on bite-sized bonus stages as well as a gallery of unlockable goodies.

Unfortunately there are factors holding back all of that fun. Some, like the consistent bugs where Penny will clip through environments and get stuck or fall to her death, or the player’s controls will lock up unexpectedly, are hopefully part of an update plan. Others, like often-unfair checkpointing and controls that aren’t always up to the task, are more inherent frustrations that definitely dull the experience.

Penny’s controls are nicely set up to allow for some pretty novel traversal mechanics, like hopping aboard her yo-yo and riding it down slopes and across environment hazards or spinning it in mid-air as an anchor to swing from. The trouble starts though, when these interact or the player needs to go from one to another in quick succession. Even after completing the game in its entirety and coming close to nabbing its platinum trophy on PS5, I haven’t gotten the hang of throwing the yo-yo to smack a barrel or enemy without accidentally doing a dash move that sends me flying into the abyss, nor can I get my head around having to press the “ride” button to stop riding my yo-yo before I can use it for any other move.

Yes, some of that could be considered a skill issue and there’s definitely a particular rhythm to it that’s rewarding to master, but some minor tweaks would have made the whole thing flow the way it should with far more grace. Boss encounters, much like those of early-era 3D platformers, veer wildly between excellence and travesty, but that could certainly be written off as homage at a stretch.

Despite all that, there’s something so intoxicating about Penny’s Big Breakaway that keeps me coming back for more. Perhaps it’s the remarkable soundtrack that’s as bop-worthy as some of the 90s’ best, or the visuals which similarly evoke a time forgotten while offering the kind of rock-solid performance on consoles that its platforming requires – developed on the bespoke Star Engine, no less. Whatever it is, it’s nostalgia-fuelled heaven when it works, and only slightly infuriating when it doesn’t.

The post Penny’s Big Breakaway Review – It’s Got Ups And Downs appeared first on Press Start.

Before Josef Fares was a Game Awards-decorated lead on It Takes Two, and long before he ever voiced his displeasure of the Oscars over a hot microphone, he cut his teeth on a little game called Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, which was developed by the now-defunct Starbreeze Studios. Unlike Fares’ later works, including A Way Out and the aforementioned award-winning It Takes Two, which have all been built around cooperative play, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons tasked the player with controlling the siblings in tandem, using a novel twin-stick approach to create a sort of “single-player co-op” experience. 

Your objective is to navigate a solemn fairy-tale world controlling both brothers at once. The left stick and trigger controls the older, stronger brother who can utilise his braun, while the right side of the controls is for the younger, more world-weary brother who’s far nimbler and wily. Much of the game’s design is puzzle driven, with the tasks being regularly designed with a turn-based approach in mind as to not overwhelm the player with over-complicated scenarios, including luring and evading a snarling farm dog and trading off being an anchor point for the other brother as they swing on a hip-attached rope.

In its time, it achieved so much through how it handled interaction and drilling home every thoughtful meaning given to it. Despite being very much together throughout, the particularity of each brother’s own capacity managed to create a believable symbiotic reliance on the other that made the journey utterly engaging and wholly sold their brotherhood. 

Though it’s absolutely viable and, I’d argue, recommended to enjoy Brothers as a single-player experience, local co-op features as a rather special addition in this remake. It’s a lovely story to share with somebody, however once the charm of controlling both brothers at once is gone, A Tale of Two Sons becomes a rather humdrum two-player puzzler that offers little that feels new, especially in a world where Fares has gone on to expand upon Brothers’ foundations in his work with Hazelight. So while options are a fine thing, I do think co-op does rob the game of part of its impact because you no longer feel the kinship of Naia and Naiee through your dual-command. 

I do acknowledge there’ll be people who found, and maybe still find, Brothers’ rather atypical control scheme unplayable or unnecessarily challenging. Even my own lizard brain suffered from occasional misfires where I’d lose track of my thumbs, as silly as that sounds, if the brothers drifted to opposing sides of the screen. Obviously it’s already a test of motor skills and coordination, though there’s definitely an element of spatial awareness that’s tested constantly. And perhaps if all of that feels too much, therein lies the use case for local co-op though I’d encourage players to try and experience the game as originally released first and foremost. 

As a remake, A Tale of Two Sons really does feel like a beat for beat recreation, and if it veers from the established path it’s hidden well enough that it didn’t catch me off-guard as new. As is always the case, it’s a bit of a rose-tinted glasses situation because it feels like the same experience, however Avantgarden’s remake does seem more refined in terms of AI and other physics behaviours that have naturally improved over the last decade. Outside of bringing it up to standard, Brothers is a sterling recreation of an earnest, solemn fairy tale that still, a decade on, has several emotional highs worth exploring. 

An ailing father might serve as the impetus for the boys’ adventure in Brothers, but there are so many stories you’ll encounter along the road that really service the game’s many throughlines including, but not limited to mourning, grief and adversity. For a short game, Brothers makes its shots count and wrings feelings from every microcosmic story that’s pulled into the orbit of a rather simple tale of two boys trying to save their dad. What impresses me the most is how it manages to do all of this through the power of gesture and a handful of disposable lines read in a gibberish blend of dialects. 

Having sampled parts of the original again prior to reviewing the remake, it’s clear that there’s a day and night difference when it comes to the game’s presentation. Though improved, I wouldn’t call it a stellar looking game. The people you encounter throughout are so-so, the beasts of myth that darken your path look fierce and worthy of panic, while the world itself is the clearest improvement in terms of the game’s fidelity. Things like foliage and lighting create a striking backdrop for the journey. Of course, things are a little pared back when opting for performance mode but that’s likely to spare you the pop-in and juddering that can mar the experience in fidelity mode. 

When it comes to delivering on the story’s devastating moments, there’s a huge assist on the soundtrack’s score line. Reimagined and re-recorded by a full orchestra, the arrangement is more than serviceable when it comes to tugging on the heartstrings during the game’s many powerful moments. 

Although there’ll be people hesitant to double dip, there’s no question that this remake of Brothers is the absolute number one course of experiencing this quaint, heart rending fairy tale. As a faithful recreation of the decade-old original, the premise of Brothers still holds up today and, in a lot of ways, feels like a blueprint for Josef’s duology that reinvented what it can mean to be a co-op game. 

The post Brothers: A Tale Of Two Sons Remake Review – Sibling Revelry appeared first on Press Start.

When I was nine years old, the very irresponsible father of a friend took a group of us to see Starship Troopers. Since then, not only have I harboured a deep fear of the impending bug invasion, I’ve also been searching for a game that makes me truly feel like one of Rico’s Roughnecks. The first game to really scratch the Paul Verhoeven itch was the original Helldivers, a top-down twin stick shoot ‘em up with a strong focus on fast paced, tactical co-operative action and a super-sized serving of referential satire. Arrowhead Game Studios is back for another bite of the cherry with Helldivers 2, promising much more than just a shift in perspective as it aims to spread Managed Democracy across the galaxy.

Just in case you’ve missed the Helldivers 2 frenzy that’s currently sweeping the gaming community (and melting servers), you’ll be filling the boots of the exceptionally patriotic and highly expendable titular soldiers. Although the sequel has shifted from a top-down perspective to an over-the-shoulder third person shooter, it still retains much of the identity and narrative of the original. Humanity is locked in a galactic war with the insectoid alien Terminids and the nightmarish robotic Automatons. It’s up to you and your squad of three friends (or strangers) to gear up, strap into your Hellpod and drop down into the frontlines, where you’ll spread Super Earth’s ideals of managed democracy one bullet at a time. It’s a simple story, with very clear inspiration from other popular sci-fi IPs, but the uncomplicated narrative leaves more room for you and your friends to create some truly cinematic moments that you’ll be speaking about for years to come.

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Landing planet-side will see you race against the clock in a variety of missions, ranging from defending a location to hunting giant acid-spitting bugs and even liberating launch codes, which you’ll then use to launch a massive missile at the entrenched enemy position. That’s not all though as most maps also harbour hidden side missions, collectable resources used for upgrades and other optional pursuits. The new third person perspective and vastly improved graphical and audio fidelity creates a much more intimate and visceral atmosphere, where you’ll be revelling in the exploded bug entrails or feeling the suffocating clanking of the Automations surrounding you. As if the ticking clock at the top of your screen wasn’t bad enough, spending more time on the ground will see those enemies become more aggressive and overwhelming until you’ll barely have time to reload your weapons between bad guys.

Speaking of weapons, it’s time we talk about Strategems, another holdover from the original Helldivers. Although death is a very common occurrence, you’re not completely hopeless against the onslaught of alien threats. Alongside the huge arsenal of guns and grenades at your disposal, you’ll also be able to access powerful ordinance from your dropship above, calling it down onto the battlefield by inputting a series of specific button presses. These can range from heavy weapons and ammunition, automatic turrets to watch your back, teammate respawns and even devastating orbital strikes. Caution and a tactical mind are crucial when using these though as they do have significant cooldown times and can just as easily obliterate you and your fellow soldiers, potentially leading to some awkward yet hilarious moments.

Although almost everything in Helldivers 2 is flashy and over the top, it truly shines brightest when you are in the heart of battle with your squad mates. Whether I was surrounded by swarms of bugs in the fungal wastes or spilling the oil of a hundred Automatons, the game effortlessly centred me in some of the most intense video game mayhem I’ve ever played. I constantly felt like an absolute badass, even when I was being torn to shreds by the enemies (or my own turrets). You don’t have to take my word for it though, TikTok and Instagram reels are chock full of thousands of other Helldivers having similar incredible experiences.

Once you’ve completed your mission and valiantly exfiltrated the hot zone, it’s time to return to your orbiting starship. This is where you’ll tally up all the XP, resources and mission rewards you’ve earned. This is also where you’ll spend those resources to unlock things like better weapons with armour-piercing or incendiary rounds, cool looking armour with bonuses to health or equipment, and upgrades to your stratagem pool like bigger bombs or shorter cooldown times. It’s also where you’ll matchmake with other Helldivers and select a mission from the Galaxy Map. Just like the first game, the map itself tracks the war effort live and is constantly shifting as the community either pushes back or gives ground to the enemy forces.

That’s not the only “live” element to the game though as Helldivers 2 also includes some potentially controversial live service elements in the form of two battle pass-style progression systems and a premium currency shop. Although there are four different types of currency that can be used for things like upgrades and battle pass progression, they can all be earned fairly easily in game, including the premium currency (otherwise purchased with real money). The team at Arrowhead has loudly stressed that Helldivers 2 isn’t pay-to-win and so far that seems to be true, though I can definitely see why some people are frustrated by weapons and armour being restricted to a premium battle pass, even if you can earn the currency in-game.

With everything being new and exciting at the moment, I can definitely see myself playing Helldivers 2 well into the future, especially with cross-play between Steam and PlayStation, and the promise of new equipment, mission types and enemies. Arrowhead Game Studios are currently pulling a DJ Khaled and Suffering from Success, as much like my squad mates when I call in an errant air strike, Helldivers 2 has unexpectedly blown up.

This huge influx of players has caused massive problems for the servers and as a result, at the time of writing, matchmaking has been practically non-existent for myself and many, many others. Although the game can be played solo (and it’s still a damn good time), things like progression and balancing are all geared towards a multiplayer experience. Thankfully if you’ve got friends at the ready you can still squad up with them and get to blastin’. While I’m sure this problem will be rectified shortly, I would keep it in mind if you’re planning on playing over the next wee while.

The post Helldivers 2 Review – The Best Co-Op Shooter This Side Of The Galaxy appeared first on Press Start.

If you’ve ever owned a crappy car, I’m sure you know the feeling of constantly trying to keep it running with nothing but duct tape, WD40 and a prayer. Now imagine doing that while fighting for your life in the ever-changing, ever-threatening forests of the American Pacific Northwest and you’ll have a very rough idea of what to expect in Pacific Drive. Ironwood Studios’ debut title is an ambitious intersection of popular genres, but spending several hours behind the wheel of this spooky sci-fi station-wagon simulator has truly been a road trip to remember.

In a scene that is sure to unsettle even the most seasoned Uber employee, Pacific Drive opens with your character following some cryptic delivery instructions down a highway flanked by a dense pine forest and the imposing wall of the mysterious Olympic Exclusion Zone. The solemn beauty of the Pacific Northwest is swiftly interrupted as a massive portal inexplicably appears and unceremoniously sucks you out of your car, dumping you on the wrong side of the wall – the side filled with all manner of otherworldly hazards.

In a mad dash to escape the encroaching spread of radiation, you’ll discover the other hero of this game, a run-down jalopy that’s barely held together by rust and missing several important features, such as a wheel. Beggars can’t be choosers though and after following the instructions of a mysterious voice on the radio, you’ll collect random junk from around the car, fix ‘er up as best you can and narrowly escape to a nearby auto shop, a rare safe zone in the otherwise extremely hostile environment.

After you’ve caught your breath, your new radio friend tells you that the car you found is actually a blessing and a curse. As it happens, the humble looking station wagon is a strange and powerful ‘Remnant’, an object that has been twisted by the paranormal forces of the Olympic Exclusion Zone and one that will eventually drive you mad. On the plus side though, it will allow you to venture deeper into the warped landscape, uncover the mysteries of the zone and maybe even find an escape. So, once you’ve explored the auto shop and your new ride is ready to roll, it’s time to buckle up, set your course and embark on the first of many, many extraordinary expeditions.

The opening act not only establishes the tone and narrative of Pacific Drive, but it also serves as an introduction to the gameplay loop you can expect over the next 20+ hours. Though it’s described as a ‘first person driving survival game’, I’d definitely throw ‘roguelite’ and ‘crafting’ into the mix of tags. From the auto shop, you’ll use a giant map to plan a route to an objective given to you by one of the handful of NPCs coming in via the radio. You’ll then prepare by tinkering with your car, filling up the fuel tank, charging the battery and stocking up on various tools from a basic crowbar to the panel-chewing Scrapper.

Once you’re on the road you’ll pass through several Junctions, which are large, randomised environments with an entry point, an exit point and a whole bunch of hazardous anomalies between them. Things like electrified pylons that shoot lightning at you, pockets of intense radiation and giant buzz-saws that race menacingly across the road, ready to pulverize unwary drivers. Not to mention a whole bunch of pine trees and boulders, both of which are more than capable of ruining your day.

Given that your car is already a piece of crap, it’ll constantly fall to literal pieces under these conditions. Thankfully, you can use the aforementioned tools to exploit the several wrecked vehicles and abandoned buildings dotted around the map to collect resources, which you can then use to mend your wagon in a sort of post-apocalyptic take on roadside assistance. As you pass through the junctions you’ll also learn to be on the lookout for ‘stability anchors’, glowing orbs that are needed to power the teleporting technology in your passenger seat.

You see, a consequence of the shifting nature of the zone is an instability storm will be hot on your heels as you travel, meaning that there is no time to dilly-dally, and your trip is essentially one-way. After collecting enough power and achieving whatever objective you set out for, firing up the teleporter initiates a race to a pillar of light as the stormfront is pulled to your position, making for a final bit of tension as you speed toward your salvation after phoning in your own potential destruction.

Of course, each successful run (hopefully) comes with new resources to repair and upgrade your car, as well as upgrade your own equipment and the amenities of the shop. The amount of progression options on offer is surprisingly massive and varied. Some enhancements will allow you to travel further into the zone in the pursuit of story and resources, some will help you survive longer on your expeditions, and some will make maintaining and repairing your vehicle easier, all in service of your next run.

One of Pacific Drive’s strongest points is its atmosphere. Ironwood Studios has done a sensational job at making you really feel parts of this game. Embarking on expedition after expedition always stays exciting because the environments and anomalous hazards feel so oppressive and otherworldly. I was constantly torn between exploring my surroundings for precious resources and tantalising clues, or just getting the hell out of dodge because my ride is already missing a door and I can see an approaching swarm of sticky, acid-spitting orbs looking for real estate on my car bonnet.

I wouldn’t necessarily say that this is a horror game, but there were many moments that genuinely creeped me out or made me jump. I remember one trip where the howling wind ripped through the trees as I scrambled through the pitch black forest in search of a glowing stability anchor, when I finally had it I turned around and was faced with a horde of explosive but otherwise stationary mannequins that had inexplicably appeared directly behind me. The sound effects, lighting, atmosphere, and anomaly design all coalesced into a moment that honestly made my heart skip a beat, one of many similar experiences throughout the game. The vibes here could easily share a Venn diagram with haunted Pacific Northwest forests of Alan Wake 2 or the unsettling dangers of Control.

The overall narrative of Pacific Drive will play out through handful of characters you’ll ‘meet’ over the radio. The writing and voice acting of these characters is another strong point in the game and they constantly compelled me to head out on another expedition to uncover the mysteries of the exclusion zone and the people within it. The real hero though, is the station wagon.

I’ve never really been a car guy, but I quickly fell in love with my annoying yet endearing companion and I found myself actually feeling quite bad if I ever let it down. I also found myself getting increasingly exasperated when things went wrong with the car, becoming verbally upset when I’d get a puncture in a just-replaced tire or lose a headlight. When you’re fanging it to the pillar while staring down a deadly hurricane though, integrity indicators all flicking to red and doors flying off around you, the feeling of making it back to the shop thanks to my little wagon that could did nothing but solidify our symbiotic relationship more and more each time.

Though I mostly adored Pacific Drive, there are a few frustrating elements that may impact your experience. I think the biggest barrier for some people will be the UI, in particular the lack of clarity and consistency around certain mechanics. Although a recent pre-launch patch has gone a fair way at fixing some particularly confusing UI elements, I still find myself struggling to understand parts that I feel should be easy. For example, I spent a hefty amount of higher tier resources to unlock the ability to skip certain junctions, but it was never explained how to do it and I still haven’t worked it out.

There are also some inconsistencies across different menus, with something like the workshop offering the very handy feature of automatically crafting higher-tier parts for upgrades if you have the base materials on hand, while other screens force you to go and manually craft parts elsewhere before you can proceed.

A mechanic that sees you car develop random ‘quirks’ that can range from doors opening when you start the engine to serious issues like fuel draining much faster when the headlights are on is similarly novel, but let down by a frustrating guessing game where you have to try and match the cause with the issue from a list of hundreds of options, with no easy way of elimination or keeping track.

The most egregious complaint I have with Pacific Drive is how the route selection works, namely the lack of clarity around it and how it impacts your progress further into the game. Progression can sometimes feel overly incremental and needlessly gated by the way that you’re forced back to the shop after unlocking new junctions, rather than just letting you continue forward until you decide the risks outweigh the rewards and head back.

Some routes will also lead through several junctions, only to present you with no option other than to enter a dead end. These dead ends have no means of escape or progression and you simply have to abandon your run from the pause menu to return to the shop, completely destroying your car and forfeiting all of the resources you gathered along the way.

Annoyingly, there doesn’t seem to be a way of avoiding this when you initially set your route other than guess work and I lost several 50+ minute runs and hundreds of rare resources to dead ends. Coupled with the inconsistency and scarcity of resources needed for late-game upgrades, progression in the tail end of Pacific Drive can sometimes feel like a chore.

The post Pacific Drive Review – A Captivating Roadlite appeared first on Press Start.

On Skull and Bones’ title screen – something you may or may not have ever expected to actually see – there’s a small prompt that simply says, “Press any button to rule the seas.” It’s an innocuous game trigger, but something about its phrasing kept echoing through my head as I sunk hours into Ubisoft’s latest outing. This throwaway bit of UI guidance is an inadvertent portent for the experience of Skull and Bones, the promise that what you’re about to experience, no matter how grand in aesthetics or romanticised by a lengthy development cycle, will ultimately be as digestible and disposable as a decently constructed tourist trap.  

I’m ahead of myself here, sorry, it’s been a long week under a blaring sun on salt water-worn decks. Skull and Bones is ostensibly a lot of things. Sometime in the late 17th century, a naval war is being waged in the Indian Ocean between various factions, all of whom envision a different kind of freedom, or control, for or of the world around them. Into this maelstrom you arrive, a nameless little cully tossed against the rocks of fortune and fate as your shipwrecked arse lands in the office of John Scurlock, the pirate kingpin of Sainte-Anne, a stronghold of the craven. Scurlock offers you the keys to the envisioned new kingdom, setting you on a path of scum and villainy in service of riches and power.

Across the game’s opening hours, you’ll hear dozens of phrases and ideas. Talk of capitalism run amok, the overarching threat of the massive trading governmental powers, the plight of the nomadic sea people or the champions of the oppressed making plans in the north seas. It’s a healthy mix of genre cliches, quest hooks, and vague gestures toward socially progressive idealism that have found their way into Ubisoft’s lexicon. Delivered with unimpeachable politeness by a small cast of quest givers and plot figureheads, this pastiche forms the framework for much of what you’ll be asked to do in Skull and Bones, every single element of the game eventually bending back around to completing a small set of objectives in the name of some faction or another.

Before you can set out on the high seas for some swashbuckling though, you’ll need a ship to call your own. Skull and Bones’ customisable ships are a highlight of its main campaign, your pirate’s rise to power is directly reflected by the strength and grandeur of the vessels they can command. As you rise in Infamy, the game’s separate player level, you’ll unlock additional ships that require increasing levels of resources gathered in the open world and during quests. Ships are categorised into small, medium, and large, and while this is technically a variety of choice, the moment-to-moment of Skull and Bones all but requires a consistent push toward the next available model, never giving you much of a reason to revert to an older ship for the sake of speed or manoeuvrability, for example.

This odd bottlenecking of player choice is necessitated by the raw numbers game Skull and Bones needs to play with you. While you may prefer the handling and aesthetics of a medium ship, its baseline speed and defensive capabilities will always be outclassed by a larger ship, even with the somewhat flexible weapon and passive boost systems that raise the ships numerical class ranking. Endgame ships are further classified by standard multiplayer roles like DPS and healer, further fracturing player expression and choice across predetermined, group-dependent requirements. The accompanying visual flourishes that are more directly under your control fare better at least, with a healthy supply of vibrant adornments and customisable components meaning your ship will at least look the way you envisioned.

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Once on open water, Skull and Bones’ strengths, shortcomings, and potential bob to the surface. With a design backbone as strong as Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, it would have been surprising if the core sailing felt anything other than fantastic. And while Skull and Bones leans a little harder into arcade-control than the hefty realism its art direction implies, the sheer joy I felt when navigating a storm or cresting a wave is undeniable. The game’s first-person camera perspective, while utterly useless in combat, makes for a heightened and immersive experience as its emergent weather and lighting systems play out beautifully across the deck. The ship’s crew is reactive to the world around them, often pointing out local sights or incoming threats too, and my pet lemur’s skittery movements were always welcome company.

The heavily marketed naval combat meant to define the core of Skull and Bones ultimately treads water for much of the game, neither fully sinking or swimming. While bolstered with weather effects and impressive particle and destruction physics, blowouts between ships are only ever overwhelmingly fine, keeping on par with, and occasionally lagging behind, the game’s 2013 blueprint. The concise user-friendliness of Black Flag’s arching aiming has been replaced with contemporary crosshairs in a move seemingly meant to invoke deeper player involvement in things like gravity and momentum. Likewise, boarding has become an inert inventory screen, your pirate rooted to the spot as a short cutscene shows your crew having more fun than you. Neither change is disastrous, but nor are they additive and combined with the arcade-y movement and increasingly large enemy health pools, combat becomes a visually spectacular chore at a base level.

Traversing Skull and Bones’ huge ocean map is similarly peppered with immersive, thrilling moments and lengthy stretches of downtime. As both critic and player, I am categorically in favour of meditative silence while moving through an open world, and there are glimpses of this kind of melancholic peace found in Skull and Bones. Things will inevitably return to live-service adjacent shenanigans though, as infinitely spawning enemy ships and other players cut into your brief respites on open water. But with space comes raw distance and while the scope of this world is admirable, doing battle with headwinds that slow your pace and a fast-travel system that gouges into your quest profits, moving through the game loses its charm far quicker than I would have liked.

From here, Skull and Bones spends a lot of time trying to elevate or obfuscate this core deficiency with varying degrees of success. Endgame content gets closest, kicking things off with fantastical boss encounters like the ghost ship and sea monster, before The Helm begins its earnestly interesting efforts toward establishing an in-game economy. Through control of trade routes and running deliveries via daily quests, you can operate a nifty little side hustle in which you use labour camps to refine materials that are then illegally traded for profit. The majority of this is played out on charts and maps, the only other active engagement possible is more sailing and combat, making for a middling loop.

Elsewhere, you can initiate raids on settlements, a kind of risk/reward enclosed area that sees your ship sailing in circles for minutes at a time while enemy waves spawn and a loot bar fills up. Most of your quests will see you running errands back and forth across the ocean, occasionally hunting down rogue ships or stopping to use the game’s rudimentary harvesting quick-time event. Skull and Bones’ omission of any true on-foot gameplay wreaks havoc on its pacing here, as you are technically free to explore a few islands and locations, but interactivity is severely limited to throwaway dialogue choices with NPCs and clumsy treasure hunts. Sketched maps with big red Xs are a wonderful idea but the game’s lean into realism and dense fidelity means finding the designated spot is often tiring.

Skull and Bones almost always keeps you at arm’s length, its experiential comparison point being closer to the Disneyland flavour of Pirates of the Caribbean than the films. Everything is minutely curated and sanded down for minimal player friction – press any button, rule those seas, it’s not going to stop you. It’s a pervasive tonal and mechanical creep that makes this admittedly gorgeous world into a tourist attraction, animatronic NPCs spouting generic calls to action while lifting empty flagons to plastic mouths as unseen speakers pipe in region-accurate animal sounds. It’s overwhelmingly artificial, whatever efforts made to emulate biomes and ideologies of the time are unfortunately painted over by the kind of passive world live-service titles seemingly require.

And look, I like Disneyland fine. With a couple of good mates and a manageable day plan in mind, you can have a decent time there and much the same could be said of Skull and Bones. There’s a reason our previews were positive; the game’s opening hours are brimming with promise and potential, and perhaps in short bursts its lacklustre elements wouldn’t break the surface as quickly. But here is a game that wants to be played for far longer than it has the systems to properly sustain, its ambitious ideas lapping its raw capabilities. There’s a glimpse of a decent attraction here and there, but I can’t help but wonder if Ubisoft has mistaken the appeal of a day pass for the promise of a yearly membership.

The post Skull And Bones Review – Swashbuckling Under Pressure appeared first on Press Start.

Don’t Nod is in an exciting place, juggling projects that feel lower-key like Life Is Strange but still dabbling in the action genre with games like Vampyr and Remember Me. It’s been six years since Vampyr was released, and while I saw the good in the game, it didn’t resonate with me as much as I’d have liked. Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden feels like a natural continuation of what Don’t Nod was trying with Vampyr and is a delightful surprise in many ways.

Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden takes place in the late 1600s. You play as a pair of ghost hunters, or banishers, named Red and Antea. Antea is training Red as an apprentice, but they’re also wildly in love. During the game’s opening mission, Antea is blindsided protecting Red and fatally wounded by a ghost they’re hunting. Now, accompanying Red as a ghost herself, Antea must find a way to defeat the evil that murdered her. It’s more complicated, too, as there are questionable ways to bring Antea back, though not without consequence.

Choice permeates so much of Don’t Nod’s games, and Banishers is no exception. From the get go, Red must swear an oath to Antea over whether he’ll move her spirit on or sacrifice the living to bring her back. That sole underlying choice will represent a dilemma for most players – partly because Red and Antea’s relationship is so well-defined. They have typical but charming banter, significant character development between them, and a strong connection that endears them to the player.

That strength of relationship is why Banisher’s choices can be so hard to make. Every case you investigate gives you a choice on how to bring closure to those involved, giving options to move spirits on peacefully or violently. Other options allow you to sacrifice the living, bringing Antea one step closer to lying with you once more. It’s obviously never as clear-cut as you’d hope, though. While I was keen to uphold the oath I made with Antea, I genuinely felt awful about some of the questionable choices I made along the way.

These choices have obvious ramifications as the story comes to a close, but smaller consequences of them are felt throughout the world. Settlers might snidely remark about a choice you made in a previous quest or might even raise the price of their goods if you killed somebody they were friends with. It’s subtly consistent but not in the forced black-and-white manner that most games use.

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But while choice and story are important to the experience, it’s especially remarkable to discover just how well Banishers plays. If you’ve played Vampyr, it’s obvious this is a spiritual successor to that game in many ways. But Banishers feels bigger and grander in ambition than Vampyr ever was and is better in every way. An open-world adventure at heart, Banishers has you travelling through a haunted America, solving both minor and major hauntings as you journey between settlements. It feels, in many ways, like a road film of sorts. Except that the downtime between the major cases is just as compelling as the conflicts you’ll engage in during the main questlines.

This is because Banishers’ world is densely designed and a joy to explore. Distracting in all the right ways, there were many times when I’d inadvertently take the wrong path and loop around to a settlement I’d just left. Along the way, I’d find various activities to complete and open shortcuts that helped me get around the area quickly. Perhaps that’s one of the greatest compliments I can pay to Banishers – there are fast travel options, but the world is so satisfying to explore, and so inviting that I rarely feel the need to do so. It feels like a meaty, Ye Olde style Metroid, which is a combination of period and gameplay design that I never realised I’d needed until now.

When you’re not investigating, you’ll be fighting. Both Red and Antea can be switched between in combat to rack up massive damage through combos. Red can attack with his sword and rifle, while Antea can attack with supernatural punches and abilities. Combat essentially rewards proper synergy between Red and Antea – freezing someone with Antea and finishing them off with Red will reward you with massive damage, for example. But all the abilities and options contribute to a combat system that flows nicely.

Combat is thus supplemented by a skill tree, which offers a great degree of flexibility to your approach. Each ability or perk provides greater synergy between Red and Antea. Red might be able to recover more energy for Antea to use with his rifle, for example. But each point on the skill tree, once unlocked, can be alternated with another skill, allowing you to change up your build as you go. This flexibility doesn’t feel as cheap as a full respec, and once again features a good sense of choice, as opposed to skill trees in some other games that end up filled out anyway.

Optional content is split into activities and haunting cases. Activities are fairly typical open-world fare – you fight off a wave of enemies, find a spot of treasure to dig up or even find items to remove a curse from a treasure chest. But the haunting cases easily stand out here. They’re smaller stories that focus on the settlers at each settlement. They’re all well-written and nuanced tales that’ll once again have you making difficult choices at the end of each. They don’t feel like side quests either and are just as compelling as the main quests.

That being said, how much you engage with them is up to you. The main story path itself would take most players between twenty to thirty hours to finish, but you can easily double that if you take your time and explore everything that New Eden has to offer. It’s worth mentioning that this isn’t a case of quantity over quality either – the sheer variety of objectives and cases helps keep things fresh. This isn’t as vast as your typical Ubisoft open-world or games like Spider-Man or Horizon. Instead, this is a much smaller but denser world to explore.

Surprisingly, Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden is also a looker. The artistic direction is strong, but even the performance is rock solid. There’s a ton of detail in visual density and ambient sound work to help sell this bleak but real world of New Eden.

But nothing rises above as much as the dark ambient original score in Banishers. It employs ominous and gloomy notes to create a melancholic atmosphere. It’s the perfect soundscape for your adventure through a world that’s slowly succumbing to a haunting curse, but also for the depressing fact that Antea is dead, and you might not be bringing her back. The entire adventure is made better by great performances, too – Russ Bain and Amaka Okafor are worth calling out for their often cute and playful chemistry together as Red and Antea, respectively. They really do carry so much of the adventure.

The post Banishers: Ghosts Of New Eden Review – A Hauntingly Beautiful Adventure appeared first on Press Start.

Time is relentless and unyielding – it’s– crazy to think that twenty-eight years ago we first witnessed Lara Croft and her adventures in the Tomb Raider series. Nobody could have predicted the critical acclaim that would come afterward, nor the discourse around her status as a cultural icon and her appeal to certain audiences. Even further to that is the expansive and muddled legacy that it created – multiple sequels, several reboots, and film adaptations as well.

When Tomb Raider launched in 1996, it was the first time in a long time that gaming had a strong female protagonist, skyrocketing Lara Croft to the same heights as Mario and Sonic, and putting her head-to-head with Sony’s own Crash Bandicoot. While most people were hooked on the wise-cracking Duke Nukem or ultraviolence of Quake and Doom, Tomb Raider made 3D platforming exciting by blending puzzle solving and action with freedom of movement and exploration. With a slew of sequels and expansions, the Tomb Raider franchise quickly became stale – too much of a good thing led to a lack of innovation, and despite continuing to sell games, the series never really moved past its origins (at least before the modern and grittier trilogy).

Having said that, Tomb Raider I-III Remastered helps you slip on the rose-tinted glasses to enjoy exactly what made Lara the icon she was, and to recapture a bit of that atmosphere when the games were first released. These are games that don’t hold your hand or guide you through with hints and suggestions; you’re dropped into an environment and forced to figure things out on your own, with the tools at your disposal. This is both refreshing and jarring – you could be spending hours wandering a level to try and find your next objective, while simultaneously uncovering the level’s secrets to get a perfect score before moving on to the next.

The biggest thing I think this trilogy has going for it is that it is exactly as advertised, with a few quality-of-life improvements over the originals. You have all three Tomb Raider games in their upscaled glory, with an enhanced modern control scheme, and even a photo mode thrown in for good measure. The three games come with their PC-only expansions as well, available for the first time on consoles, so you truly are getting the full versions of each game with more modern graphics. On starting the game for the first time you’re also greeted with an opening card that states:

“The games in this collection contain offensive depictions of people and cultures rooted in racial and ethnic prejudices. These stereotypes are deeply harmful, inexcusable, and do not align with our values at Crystal Dynamics.

“Rather than removing this content, we have chosen to present it here in its original form, unaltered, in the hopes that we may acknowledge its harmful impact and learn from it.”

There’re going to be people who want to take that the wrong way, but personally I think it’s a great addition considering some of the story content of the games. There’s no overt censorship, no cut content, heck even the games’ cheat codes are active (but I couldn’t get them to work.)

One of the major changes here is the addition of “Modern Controls,” allowing you to play Lara in a more free-moving style as opposed to her classic “tank” controls. This comes with its own caveats – the levels were built around Lara’s strafing jumps, shimmying across ledges and shuffling to get a better angle on things, and more often than not she’d be hurtling into walls or off edges leading to a frustrating level restart.

To realise just how much time we spent with tank controls back in the day, perfecting a safety drop just to tap the wrong button and have Lara swan-dive into the ground below ending in a sickening neck snap is really jarring. To be able to do that in a lot less button presses with Modern controls is just annoying. I found myself constantly switching back and forward between Modern and Tank to get through levels, lest I hurl the controller through the screen. I even experimented with plugging in a DualShock for control, and found that Modern controls feel more comfortable with a controller, but Tank controls work better for keyboards.

Switching between control systems wasn’t the only thing to amaze me – the most impressive part of the Remastered trilogy is the work that’s been put into upscaling the graphics. At the press of a button you can instantly switch between classic graphics and modern graphics, and I’m not gonna lie – the modern graphics are identical to what I would have imagined the classic graphics being when I first played Tomb Raider years ago. Aspyr has made great strides in adding little quirks to the modern graphics, allowing proper light sources to shine in from above, or making certain consumables stand out just that little bit more from their classic counterparts, but sometimes this has flaws in itself as well.

The first level of Tomb Raider III is set in a jungle, which has a swamp you can drown in if you’re not careful. Switching between classic and modern graphics, I discovered that the classic graphics’ mud has waves like water, whereas the modern texture is solid and looks like the ground. Another level restart for me on that one after unsuccessfully trying to pull Lara out of the swamp. It’s small changes like this that make you err on the side of caution; whether this was a stylistic choice for Aspyr in developing the games or not remains to be seen. The game’s photo mode allows you to have a bit of fun while playing, and really puts you back in awe at the graphical changes between old and new, though I was a little uncomfortable with the ability to put Lara in a dressing gown in the middle of China.

The audio work goes largely unchanged from the originals, so Lara’s voice is the same as day one, grunts and all. The pre-rendered cutscenes are also unchanged but do get the benefit of upscaling – credit to Aspyr for not trying to reinvent the wheel with that one, The in-game cutscenes have additional facial animation to match the voices which was a nice touch. Nathan McCree’s iconic title theme brings a tear to my eye every time I boot up the Remastered trilogy, and the soundtrack for all three games with its classical influences is still some great atmospheric work.

The post Tomb Raider I-III Remastered Review – A Love Letter To Lara’s Origins appeared first on Press Start.

Right on the heels of the Persian Prince’s comeback tour, Ultros is undeniably another in a string of releases that are delivering the metroidvania genre back into the limelight. Although El Huervo’s distinct art is more than enough to capture a player’s attention, the game’s ability to hook them in with its creative, roguelike sensibilities is unparalleled. 

Adrift at the edge of a black hole and set aboard the Sarcophagus, a pulsing, living mess of organic matter, you carve out a path within the vessel, leaving behind a beautiful network of scandent stems that persist even as time resets with each loop. The ship itself serves as a space-uterus for an ancient being called Ultros, whose rebirth threatens the fabric of everything, but it’s shrouded inside a mystery that unfolds piecemeal as you meet the ship’s inhabitants, hostile and friendly, alike. 

What I enjoy most about Ultros’ narrative is how it obfuscates the truth of things, wrapping it up in layers of deep lore that you’ll need to peel back throughout the first fifteen hours in hopes of understanding your role in everything. It’s riveting sci-fi and even after rolling credits on the first ending, I find myself returning to rediscover more deep-planted secrets. 

Along with it being a metroidvania, which brings with it all of the things you’d expect, Ultros has an intimate close-quarters brand of combat that reminds me somewhat of Hollow Knight. While it feels disappointingly one-note for the first hour or two, the combat does begin to open up as you encounter more strategic enemies and explore more branches of your skill tree. It integrates systems that reward precision and offensive variety as the entrails of fallen fodder serve as fuel for both your upgrade tree and as compost for the world’s fertile soil.

And it’s in that fertile soil that you can also plant one of several seeds that can grow into trees, vines, bushes, and so forth. Although they’re not the only means of aiding traversal in Ultros, how these seedlings grow is a large part of the environmental puzzle craft, both in terms of opening up once-locked paths and connecting all things to the ship’s living network which builds towards the true endgame.

Some of the pathing you’re expected to take can be a tad obtuse if you assume that the game is going to hold your hand throughout. It does guide you at first, tutorialising the combat and Ultros’ basic tenets, but very much leaves you to explore its labyrinthian and winding corridors before too long. 

The main loop of Ultros revolves around locating and killing eight stasis-bound shamans who safeguard the continuum and keep the demonic threat bound to its humidicrib. And it’s with each kill that the loop occurs and takes you back to the beginning. Like all good roguelikes, some ideas and mechanics persist, such as gardening and ever-expanding tool sets like your Extractor, creating a great flow of discovery within the world. 

The Extractor is arguably the most important tool in aiding practically all of the game’s mechanics outside of roughhousing. Not only does it include a double-jump by default, it also services the serene gardening aspect of Ultros. Piece by piece, with each shaman slain, it’ll evolve to trim, uproot, and quite literally Frankenstein plants together to birth unique paths through the world. It makes the slow build from novice green thumb to Costa Georgiadis believable and less daunting.  

With upgrades being tied to dormant memories, your skill tree is something that, like everything else, resets with each loop. That is until you uncover special cortex locks that fix the memories in place so that they, too, persist across loops. It’s a cool system that, similar to Dead Cells’ semi-titular cells mechanic, doesn’t make defeat in battle too devastating to bounce back from, not to mention Ultros has a generous save system that lets players climb into orbic bunks to either safely mark progress, purchase skills or, much later in the game, travel to other bunks across the Sarcophagus which are connected to the living network.

It’s all elegantly executed and does make Ultros feel less daunting than other games of its ilk, giving players the freedom to explore its intoxicating, kaleidoscopic vistas and drink up the strangest of fiction. 

As someone who’s an enormous Hotline Miami enthusiast, it’s hard not to adore El Huervo’s beautiful art direction for this game. It’s distinct, it’s alien, and it’s staggeringly rich in terms of its colour use. The world exists in starburst technicolor and feels full to the brim of many-splendoured psychedelics, it does feel like art that’s worthy of its space on the wall. To capture the vibe of a writhing cosmos, Oscar Rydelius’ ethereal score walks hand-in-hand with the game’s artwork to create a vibe that is the centrepiece of a game with so many strings to its bow already. 

For a game of its scale, I was also impressed by the accessibility options Ultros presents. Some soften the backgrounds and dim some of the visual stimuli to make the game’s vibrant visuals more palatable for sensitive players, while you can also tinker with damage sliders to make combat easier if you’re finding it troublesome.

While it’ll ultimately prove fortuitous that the metroidvania has found itself back in the spotlight, Ultros demonstrates that even a few novel ideas can transform the most tried and true concepts into something clever, creatively fertile, and profoundly beautiful.

The post Ultros Review – Savage Gardener appeared first on Press Start.

It’s been nine years since Batman: Arkham Knight graced our screens and I’d been so eager to discover what Rocksteady were making next. They were seemingly unstoppable – sure, Arkham Knight was controversial for how it handled its titular character – but the Arkham games themselves have always been some of my favourites. Now, Rocksteady is flipping the script and pitting you against the Batman you’ve previously spent so much time with. As a merry band of four villains hunting the Justice League, Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League sounds like a good time on paper. But unfortunately, it’s just not that simple.

Five years after Arkham Knight’s events, Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League opens with Brainiac invading Metropolis. He’s brainwashed the inhabitants of Earth, including several key members of the Justice League, and plans to take over the planet in little to no time. Desperate, Amanda Waller brings together a task force of Arkham Asylum inmates, a Suicide Squad, to kill the Justice League and stop Brainiac before he takes over the planet. It sounds like your typical fare, and that’s because it is.

Purely from a story perspective, I enjoyed Suicide Squad more than I thought I would, but for the most part, the story eventually treads familiar steps towards multiverses that just feel so tiring at this point. What I do appreciate about Suicide Squad is that it really nails the tone and comedy that you’d expect from a story like this. The villains are bad guys; they’re not watered down to be anti-heroes; they do bad things to good people and only do good things for selfish reasons. Having the Justice League be the villains and seeing them kill people is an interesting way to portray characters you’d typically see as heroes, although some may find such a choice controversial.

The game is structured like any typical open-world game, borrowing more from the likes of Spider-Man and, of course, the previous Arkham games. There’s a slew of missions to undertake and progress the story with the eventual goal to kill the Justice League and stop Brainiac. You can select one of four characters at launch – Harley Quinn, King Shark, Captain Boomerang or Deadshot – but you can switch among them between mission as you see fit. Some missions offer better XP if you use a specific character, usually if said character has some tie to that mission narratively, but you’re free to play whoever you want from beginning to end.

This freedom and flexibility are welcome, and even if you play solo, the other squad members will still accompany you on missions as bots. This works better than Gotham Knights because it means you’ll still get the banter between all four squad members rather than this disjointed feeling that results from sending one person out to missions at a time. It’s a clever design choice because it means the whole game is designed to have four characters at any given moment, so dropping in and out to play with mates is a breeze, kind of. But more on that later.

Each of the characters plays slightly differently, with unique abilities for both combat and traversal. Mostly, you’ll be travelling through the city from objective to objective. Everyone has their own way of getting around Metropolis, usually from a piece of technology stolen from members of the Justice League. Harley uses Batman’s grapple gun, while Boomerang uses a speed-modulated boomerang to teleport around the place. Each of these abilities is unique, but some are clearly better than others. King Shark’s is the best for covering long distances quickly, leading to him being my primary choice for the brunt of the campaign. Given how vital traversal is for getting around, it’s frustrating that there are clear winners and losers here with each player’s different movement options.

But while the characters are strong and the abilities are mostly well-considered, there is one integral aspect where Suicide Squad falls down, and that’s the flow of gameplay. I could generally come to terms with the fact that this is a game where the loot-heavy, games-as-a-service model has been shoehorned somewhere it doesn’t fit. But the truth is that Suicide Squad suffers from the same pitfalls many of these games have when they first launch – there’s just not enough content here to keep things interesting.

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The main storyline is filled with the same objectives, like defending a point, collecting things from one to move them to another or even surviving for a certain amount of time. I kept progressing through the main storyline, hoping it would throw something new at me. Unfortunately, those hopes were never met. This kind of repetitive gameplay loop can be alleviated by playing with friends, as the banter between you will no doubt fill in those slower moments, but at its core, Suicide Squad just feels repetitive. And that’s before considering the fact that the final boss battle is gated behind a grind for one of the game’s five separate resources. Not a great time.

Some moments, especially the boss battles against the titular Justice League, stand out amongst everything else. But these are too few and far between in the grand scheme of things. The monotonous repetition of the same objective types between them made me wonder if it was even worth it at the end of the day. Given the strength of the encounters and scenarios you’d uncover in the Arkham games, especially the first two, it’s an incredibly baffling outcome.

This is all exacerbated by the game’s pacing feeling off. After each mission, you’re shown a results screen displaying what equipment you’ve unlocked and how each player did compared to their friends. Then you’ve got to spend time sifting through different versions of the same weapon, working out which has better stats or suits your playstyle more. I appreciate the flexibility this system affords the player. But on the other hand, I spent more time watching gear unlock and choosing gear than I spent in each mission. And that’s a problem. You can’t even change gear mid-mission, which seems odd.

Thankfully, many of the server issues that players were reporting had been ironed out at the time of writing. I played two of my sessions online with two different friends, and that experience was seamless and worked pretty well. Crossplay works without a hitch, especially if you’ve previously played games from WB together. It’s pretty impressive that four people can free roam around this massive map without limitations, though it’s equally disappointing to discover that my friend’s progress wasn’t saved due to a glitch after a three-hour session. This may be fixed in the future, but that’s the state of the game right now.

One thing I can’t fault Suicide Squad for, however, is the artistic direction and technical achievement that the game represents. While the artistic style separates it squarely from the Arkham games it apparently takes place in the same world as, it’s a bright and vibrant aesthetic that I can’t fault. The character facial animations are especially impressive – sometimes, it’s hard to forget that these zany villains aren’t real people. Besides King Shark, of course. The game doesn’t offer display options, though it does play at 60 frames per second out of the box, which is a nice contrast to Gotham Knights. It’s a good-looking game with some extraordinary-looking characters, but Metropolis just doesn’t feel as vibrant or lived-in as Gotham.

It’s tricky to talk about Suicide Squad without sounding too negative. The truth is that it was engaging enough to hold my interest from beginning to end. But the motivation was the hope that the game would slowly show me something more, and it never does. That being said, it does a great job at bringing some lesser-known DC characters into the mix, and I’m sure that some diehard fans will be keen to see these different takes on characters they’ve come to know and love. Unfortunately, no amount of solid writing, subversive story beats or even sharp comedy can cover up the repetition of the core gameplay loop, which is a shame.

The post Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League Review – A Controversial Closer appeared first on Press Start.

While often overshadowed by its beloved sequels, Persona 3’s impact on modern RPGs is still tangible today. It laid the groundwork for a formula that elegantly blurs the line between gameplay and narrative, entangling seemingly disparate gameplay systems and elements into an elaborate web of enticing feedback loops that keep you coming back for just one more in-game day.

Despite this, to say that Persona 3 is hard to approach for fans of the modern games would be an understatement. Between numerous versions and countless content differences, there is no definitive way to play Persona 3 – until now, that is.

Persona 3 Reload aims to deliver the quintessential way to experience this all-important title. Rebuilt from the ground up with new assets, gameplay elements, expanded dialogue, and a presentation that even Persona 5 would be envious of. While it hasn’t fully escaped some of its archaic trappings, and some new elements don’t feel as carefully thought out as others, Reload is undoubtedly the best way to play this seminal RPG.

Persona 3 Reload stays incredibly faithful to the source material. After transferring into Gekkoukan High, our protagonist finds himself pulled into a mysterious 25th hour in the day known as the Dark Hour. Coffins fill the streets in place of people who can’t freely roam the Dark Hour, the night sky is tinged an eerie green, and Gekkoukan High is transformed into a colossal monument to death known as Tartarus. After being attacked by monstrous beings known as Shadows, the protagonist awakens to the power of their Persona, and the ability to fight back against the Dark Hour by extension.

After being recruited into the Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad – otherwise known as SEES – it falls to you and the other members of SEES to explore Tartarus, destroy Shadows, and uncover the grim truth behind the Dark Hour. It’s a simple premise bolstered by its cast of loveable characters and exploration of death, what it means to exist, and the human condition. Persona games have always dealt with heavy subject matter, and 3 can feel particularly weighty at points – but much of it is to its benefit.

Persona 3 Reload has a tangible atmosphere at times, particularly towards the end of the game. It comes through in every aspect of its design from its utterly sublime soundtrack, its contemplative and sombre user interface, and varied Social Links. Reload encompasses a wide gamut of emotional output across its 50-hour runtime.

In true Persona fashion, much of this comes through the game’s many optional Social Links, but that isn’t to say Persona 3 Reload’s main narrative is a snooze. The mystery at the heart of this story is an intriguing one, complete with twists and turns that keeps things fresh as you slowly uncover the truth. It’s all brought together by the way it entwines each member of SEES in a seamless manner, something that Reload really set out to improve in a lot of aspects.

While a lot of the early SEES members haven’t seen many changes in Reload thanks to their deft handling in prior versions of Persona 3, some of the later characters like Ken Amada, Shinjiro Aragaki, and resident best boy Koromaru have been vastly expanded in their backgrounds and motivations for joining SEES. I won’t get into it too much here, but the added character depth implored me to include these characters more often in my party setup, and deepened my appreciation for them to a point that previous iterations of Persona 3 were unable to.

A large part of this is thanks to excellent voice work across the board from a new slew of actors in Reload. Each one brings the same energy as their original iterations with their own twist, paying respect to the original voice actors while making it their own. A special shoutout should go to Aleks Le for his part as the protagonist, Pharos, and Ryoji, whose performance feels dynamic for each of his roles, shifting in subtlety and tone of delivery where needed to help each of these characters land. The original cast of Persona 3 also appear in minor roles peppered throughout the story, which is a nice nod for longtime fans.

It all comes together really nicely in the way that each character’s plight is inextricably linked to the themes Persona 3 Reload embraces so wholly. From Yukari’s determination to uncover the truth behind her father’s death to Aigis trying to work out what her purpose is in life outside of being an anti-Shadow weapon. Everyone’s arc feels purposeful here despite the size of the main cast, and while they aren’t all made equal, each has something unique to offer.

If there’s one part of this that I had to knock, it’s that the game still suffers from pacing issues at different points in the narrative. There’s often long stretches of time with little to no story progression, and the ability to knock out a block of Tartarus in a single night with smart use of resources can make for long stretches of dungeon crawling if you want to optimize how you spend your time. The worst offender is undoubtedly the month of December, where the whole game slams on the brakes right after some big story revelations.

The core gameplay loop of deciding how to spend your time during the day and dungeon crawling at night is here in full force. It’s the kind of “just one more day” decision making that keeps you locked in for hours on end. Picking and choosing who you want to spend time with, which stats you want to increase and how you can most effectively use your time when exploring Tartarus is forever engaging.

Persona 3’s Social Links also remain largely untouched in Reload, apart from the new wrinkle of all of the major ones being fully voiced, and the Aigis Social Link is also present despite its absence in the original game. While some Social Links are undoubtedly better than others, each feels worth experiencing in their totalities. There’s some real highlights here, like Akinari Kamiki who’s coming to terms with the fact that he doesn’t have much time to live due to a genetic disease. Or Maiko Oohashi who finds solace from her argumentative parents in the time she spends playing with you at the local playground.

Even if you’ve seen all that these Social Links have to offer in past iterations, being entirely voiced in Reload adds a lot of emotional depth to each level of each Social Link. It becomes all too easy to find yourself emotionally attached to these characters all over again, and brings a level of freshness to it all that makes it feel brand-new.

There are also new events to partake in with party members separate to their Social Links, where you can cook, garden, or watch movies to improve your stats and gain consumables to use in battle. Hanging out with party members like this also unlocks Characteristics, which are powerful passive abilities that bolster their kits. Things like reducing the SP cost of recovery skills for Yukari or increasing Junpei’s critical hit rate and damage which are always helpful.

You can otherwise choose to spend your time working for a bit of extra cash, eating in at restaurants for stat boosts, or simply studying. There’s also a communal dorm computer you can use to access websites to boost your stats and gain new skills across various facets of the game, from improving your attacks in combat to growing your yield when harvesting the vegetables you grow from gardening.

When you aren’t spending time with friends or improving your own skill sets, you’ll be exploring Tartarus. A monolithic, 200+ floor omen to death at the center of the Dark Hour’s existence. If you aren’t familiar with Tartarus, it’s essentially a mega dungeon split into blocks, with procedurally generated floors and boss encounters peppered throughout. It’s perhaps the most infamous part of Persona 3 due to its mundanity, and is where Reload gets the most liberal with its changes.

It’s still a collection of procedurally generated floors that you’ll ascend as you explore it, but there are countless new inclusions and quality of life changes that make it much more digestible. For starters you can now dash as you move through Tartarus, which sounds like a small thing, but does a lot to cut down on time spent moving through each floor. You’ll also gain access to an ambush attack similar to the one found in Persona 5, letting you get the jump on enemies to gain the upper hand at the start of battle.

Tartarus is also home to Monad Doors and Monad Passages, which offer extra challenging Shadow encounters in exchange for rare rewards. These offer some real difficult battles – especially the Passages – some of which err on the side of true challenge encounters that function more as a puzzle and encourage creative thinking to get past them. The rewards are always worthwhile, which leaves them as a welcome opportunity to test your battle skills and knowledge.

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There’s also the Twilight Fragment system, where you can spend Twilight Fragments you find in Tartarus on opening locked chests, or to recover your HP and SP. Greedy Shadows also inhabit Tartarus, which are essentially large-sized rare Shadows that drop a bucket load of experience, cash, and items if you manage to hunt them down. There’s even an experience catch-up mechanic which can help to keep your under-levelled party members up to snuff for battle when you need them most. It all comes together to make Tartarus a more varied experience overall, while also baking in more decision making for you to consider as you explore.

Outside of Tartarus, there’s the monthly Full Moon Operation to engage with where the gang takes on a major boss Shadow during that month’s full moon. These are challenging and visually refreshing encounters that often include unique mechanics that require you engage with combat a bit more cerebrally when you otherwise would. There are very few changes to these encounters in Reload, but offer a welcome break from Tartarus nonetheless.

Speaking of battle, the basis of hitting weaknesses to knock down enemies and gain extra turns is still the name of the game here. You’ll make use of physical and elemental attacks to exploit enemy affinities to gain the upper hand, but there’s some notable improvements to combat that bring it up to modern standards. The new Shift mechanic functions the same as Persona 5’s Baton Pass, letting you tag in another party member upon knocking an enemy down to further exploit weaknesses in the hopes of unleashing an all-out attack.

There’s also the all-new Theurgy skills, which are powerful abilities that need to be charged up before they can be used. Each party member has their own unique Theurgy skills, and the conditions for charging them depends on the party member. Where Yukari fills up her theurgy gauge by healing, the protagonist fills his up by swapping between different Persona in battle.

While these attacks are flashy, and there’s some strategy to using them at the right time when you first unlock them, they can quickly trivialise certain encounters once you understand how to efficiently charge your Theurgy Gauges. All of them ignore resistances, some inflict ailments, provide full healing for your entire party, or even have a decent chance at knocking down enemies. They’re fun to look at and add a new layer of strategy to combat, but feel a little too powerful overall.

Despite all of these improvements and changes to combat, you’ll still being doing a ton of it as you explore Tartarus, which is part of the reason the mega dungeon became such a drag in other iterations of Persona 3. Thankfully, combat has a new level of style and flash to it similar to what you’d see in Persona 5, which helps combat feel fresh, fluid, and responsive all throughout Reload’s runtime.

Gorgeous new UI elements ebb and flow on the screen as unleash Persona across the battlefield in an element haze. Character cut-ins are flashier then ever, shattering in the background as you knock down enemies. Attack animations are needlessly pretty, shifting to another party member has a kinetic energy to it that can only be described as infectious, and all-out attacks culminate in wildly expressive and unique character graphics that hammer home personalities and combat styles. It’s the same kind of next-level presentation that Persona 5 was praised for, but it feels even more elevated in Persona 3 Reload.

Shuffle Time is also slightly changed in Reload, feeling more embedded within your overall progress through Tartarus and the broader narrative. You still pick between a slew of rewards after battle, but you can grow the levels of these rewards by collecting Major Arcana cards in Shuffle Time whenever you visit Tartarus. As you clear Full Moon Operations, you’ll gain more Major Arcana cards, which means it takes more time to get a full deck to boost the level further. It adds another layer to the decision making of Shuffle Time and puts more control in the hands of the player when it comes to levelling up Shuffle Time cards and their rewards.

Shuffle Time is also where you gain new Persona to use in battle, and in Persona Fusion. Fusion is also mostly the same, but includes some nice quality of life features from Persona 5, such as search fusion where you can filter fusions by viewing results as opposed to flicking through each Persona in your stock. Multi-Persona Fusion is also condensed down into Special Fusion, which cuts out some of the in-game waiting for Fusions with four or even five Persona.

The area where Reload is most obviously improved is in its visuals. Everything here has been completely remade from the ground up with truly stunning results. From the numerous locales of Tatsumi Port Island and the harrowing halls of Tartarus, to the expressive character portraits, Persona 3 feels more well realized than ever within Reload. Tartarus in particular has seen quite the face lift, with each block not only emphasizing their unique visual designs, but also varying in architecture and floor layouts. All of this coupled with the aforementioned overhaul of the user interface, and brand new animated and CG cutscenes leave Persona 3 Reload feeling like a true modernization of Persona 3 that retains all of the charm and atmosphere of the original.

The soundtrack is another absolute win in a series that never misses when it comes to music. Atsushi Kitajoh has done a stellar job of composing new original pieces for Reload, while also rearranging iconic tracks from Shoji Meguro’s original score. Mass Destruction in particular feels more rooted in its jazz motifs, with an incredible second verse that cements this remix as something that stands along the original instead of replacing it. Other classics like Iwatodai Dorm and When The Moon’s Reaching Out Stars have also been rearranged for Reload with similar changes, keeping things thematically cohesive at all times.

While Mass Destruction makes a glorious return, I’ll be the first to admit that Reload’s new original battle theme, It’s Going Down Now, is a new favourite battle theme in the series for me personally. It’s infectiously energetic and perfectly suited to the turn-based battles and melancholic theming of Persona 3. Similar to Persona 5 Royal’s Take Over, there’s nothing quite like ambushing an enemy, swiftly knocking them down, and initiating an all-out attack as the chorus swells into an incredible crescendo.

Coming hot off the heels of finishing Persona 3 Portable, I didn’t expect Persona 3 Reload to enrapture me as much as it did. It’s clear that this isn’t just a project ATLUS needed to do, but something that they wanted to do. Every aspect of it feels carefully considered to create a modernised version of Persona 3 that doesn’t betray its core theming and messages. A must-play for any Persona fan, new or old, and absolutely worth checking out for series first-timers.

The post Persona 3 Reload Review – Firing On All Cylinders appeared first on Press Start.

I will continue saying it. Ace Attorney games are some of my favourites in Capcom’s repertoire. They take what is typically a mundane event from real life and turn the drama up to eleven to create something engaging that draws you in. They are some of the best games in the genre, with a degree of interactivity that adventure games typically eschew. However, three games have yet to receive the remaster treatment that the rest of the series has. That all changes now – and while these aren’t quite the most popular of the series, they’ve received the most care and attention in the jump to newer platforms.

Capcom has previously remastered many Ace Attorney games, including the original Ace Attorney trilogy and the pseudo-spin-off series The Great Ace Attorney. Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy brings the first Apollo Justice game, Dual Destinies and Spirit of Justice, to modern platforms. But don’t be fooled – while the first game in this collection is all about series newcomer Apollo Justice, the other games focus on Phoenix and his friends, too.

For the unassuming, the Ace Attorney games have followed the same format for a long time. The general gameplay loop in each game has you split between investigating crimes and fighting for your clients in court. The games are linear affairs, with the story playing out regardless of how well you fight the cases for your clients. I often wonder whether the games would be more compelling if they were more open-ended, but so much of the storytelling is so tight that I can’t fault it for being so linear.

When you’re investigating, you’ll move from area to area, speaking to people and collecting evidence to help build a case for your client. These are pretty typical adventure game fare – you’ll select locations to move between, pose questions to ask and present items to characters to see if you can pick up any leads. They’re essential to establishing the stakes in the stories and highlighting the main conflicts between the characters, often setting up a whodunit situation that’s a joy to follow with the characters, too. These moments are arguably the “slower” part of the experience, but that’s only because the courtroom sections are incredibly compelling.

When you’re in court, witnesses will be called to the stand to testify. Their testimony is broken into smaller chunks of dialogue. Each piece of dialogue can then be “pressed” for further clarification, or you can present evidence that seemingly contradicts what they’ve said. Doing so often unveils further details about the case, leading to an acquittal for your client. It sounds simple on paper, but it’s presented in such a garishly overdramatic way that it’s hard not to build yourself up with hype as you take down a dishonest witness.

The games each introduced a new gimmick that also made the courtroom more enjoyable. Apollo Justice featured a “Perceive” mechanic, which had Apollo study body language in people to pick up nervous tics and establish when someone was lying. Dual Destinies delves more into the psychological side of the witness testimonies, requiring you to pinpoint which emotions are being faked in the “Mood Matrix” mechanic. Finally, Spirit of Justice has you performing seances, showing the final moments of a victim before their death, and picking contradictions in the insights that come from them. It’s a mix of gameplay mechanics that are admittedly a bit gimmicky but add variety to the proceedings.

The question remains whether these games still stand the test of time, especially when compared to those created by the series creator Shu Takumi. These games are worth your time, even if others worked on them. They each have their issues, and there’s ostensibly a case that feels like filler in each of them, but the same can be said for the original games, too.

Each game has been brought over and scrubbed up to feel part of the same era. Visual improvements are apparent, though I’ll touch on those later. But fonts, menus and user interfaces have all been reworked to be consistent across every game. You can even jump straight into a case if it’s your favourite (and skip any that might not be).

Other accessibility options, both new and old, have been implemented too. Autoplay makes a return, allowing the action to play out automatically, pausing only when you have to make a choice or present some evidence. Those who speed read or are slower at reading can adjust how quickly Autoplay spits the text in each case.

The other significant new mode is Story Mode. You’ll automatically progress through the game without pressing anything when playing in this mode. All answers and evidence are automatically presented for you. I mentioned in my preview that I’m sure this will upset some series purists, but if it means more players can experience these clever and humorous stories, then it’s honestly a good thing. It is worth noting that achievements and trophies are disabled in this mode.

The collection also includes a whole bunch of extras that many series fans will appreciate. The Orchestra Hall is a menu containing over 150 tracks from all three games. The Art Library is a collection of artwork from all the games that were almost lost to time. Animation Studio is the most interesting addition here – allowing you to choose characters, their poses and animations to create custom scenes. It’s a great idea on paper, but the lack of flexibility and inability to export your creations feels limited.

This is the first trilogy where the games included were released across multiple generations. As such, the first game in this collection utilizes the sprite-based 2D artwork, as featured in the first three games, while the other two feature the 3D models as seen in The Great Ace Attorney. The difference will always be contentious amongst fans, but the jump to these newer platforms is incredibly crisp, especially for Apollo Justice. Dual Destinies and Spirit of Justice look great, too, but the lower-quality texture work on some characters feels at odds with the game’s otherwise crisp presentation. 

The post Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy Review – A Superbly Polished Finale appeared first on Press Start.

It takes a lot to get me interested in an exploration-focused platform game (or Metroidvania, if you prefer). I’ve grown weary of games billing themselves as Metroid-likes that just don’t really get what made the progenitors of the genre great. What a pleasant surprise it was then to have Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown come across my desk.

Not only does it have the considered world design and structure that a game of this genre needs to succeed, it adds fluid movement and combat, well-considered accessibility options and some genuine innovation to the mix, resulting in one of my favourite entries to the genre in a long time.

The Lost Crown has you play as Persian warrior Sargon. After a plot to disrupt the kingdom results in a kidnapping, Sargon follows the perpetrator to the mysterious Mount Qaf, a once-beautiful place that has been taken over by a curse. Alongside a squad of immortal warriors, you’re set on a quest to recover the kidnapped prince and ensure the betrayer comes to justice, with plenty of compelling twists and turns along the way.

Traversing the world in The Lost Crown feels fantastic. Returning to Prince’s side scrolling roots, The Lost Crown presents a fairly huge world to explore filled with some pretty devious puzzles and secret passages. Sargon is an effortless and agile character able to move his way around the world with ease and grace.

Your repertoire of traversal abilities grows gradually over the course of the game, but even early on just the act of running and jumping makes moving around the world as Sargon compelling. When you add in air dashes, double jumps and the like you feel like you can get just about anywhere with smart use of his abilities.

You’ll absolutely need to be smart with those abilities to get past some of the fiendish platforming challenges you’ll be presented with, as well. I was reminded of 2010’s Super Meat Boy at points – demanding platforming situations, lots of sliding, wall jumping and air manoeuvring, one hit deaths if you touch the wrong surface, and near-instant respawns if you biff it.

Between the design of the challenges and the sublime way Sargon moves about the environment, I loved pitting myself against these sections and getting a little closer to success each time. The most demanding of these challenges are for extra collectibles, though there are still some tricky segments along the main story path of the game that will test players.

While I found the challenges utterly rewarding, The Lost Crown has some features up its sleeve to make sure you won’t have to miss out if they’re not your cup of tea. One of the game’s suite of accessibility and difficulty options allows you to skip these sections entirely – turn on the relevant setting and portals will appear at the start and end of challenging platforming sections that are essential to progress in the story. Activate and enter one of these portals and you’ll be whisked straight to the end without penalty.

If you’re like me and enjoy the challenge for its own sake then these portals won’t get in your way, but they’re a fantastic option if you want to engage with everything else great about the game. I also found them super convenient while doing some post-game exploring.

Continuing in this theme, The Lost Crown has several other options to tailor the experience to your preference. There are normal and ‘Guided’ modes for the map screen. Normal just shows areas you’ve seen, while guided adds icons to indicate story-progression related pathways that you’ve come across and shows whether they are open or closed based on the abilities you have.

I started on Normal mode, but when I gave Guided mode a try I kept it on for the rest of the game. For the times you remember coming across an impassable section but can’t quite remember where it was it’s a lifesaver and in a way that I feel didn’t stop me feeling like I was exploring on my own terms.

There’s one exploration-related innovation in The Lost Crown that I immediately wish every other game of its type had – the Memory Shard feature. When you come across something in the world that seems curious but you can’t deal with yet, you can press down on the d-pad to instantly take a screenshot. The game then marks your location on your map and pins the image to it. This way when you come into new abilities later on you can scan your own map and the screenshots you’ve taken and know exactly where it was you saw that breakable wall or strange grapple point. It’s a simple but brilliant feature that I’ll miss in any game without it.

As someone who enjoys character action games with engaging combat, I was surprised to see The Lost Crown incorporate some elements of that genre into its own combat. While it’s no Devil May Cry, you’re encouraged to knock enemies off balance, to launch them into the air and follow up with a flurry of air attacks and to use all of your movement options to get the upper hand in battle.

This makes regular enemies enjoyable to fight, and really comes into its own with bosses. Bosses, at least on the standard difficulty mode I played on, were delightfully challenging. They demand split second reactions and a good understanding of your movement options to avoid damage and deal it back in return. Like a good boss in Metroid Dread they would take me a few attempts, but the challenge usually felt fair and engaging in a way that kept me coming back after each defeat.

Not everyone wants this kind of gameplay though, so The Lost Crown’s myriad difficulty options again let you tailor the game to your liking. There are several built in presets with good explanations of how they affect the game, as well as a fully custom difficulty option that lets you set sliders to precisely adjust aspects of the game.

Exploring Mount Qaf no matter what difficulty options you choose is compelling. As well as the aforementioned platforming challenges you’ll find plenty of puzzles that will test your grey matter and secret entrances you can uncover with subtle environmental cues.

I really missed having an on-screen map, though. It would have been so much easier to confirm I’d taken the right passage, or confirm I’m exploring a new area if I could see a little portion of the map somewhere on screen, Metroid style. As it is, I had to flip to the map screen often to make sure I hadn’t gone off course. It’s a minor annoyance, but one that did bother me somewhat through most of my play time.

The Lost Crown’s visual style has ups and downs. It has a kind of stylised, simple, not-quite-cartoon, not quite clay sort of look that didn’t particularly light my fire – though there are some awesome animations and visual flairs during boss battles that I loved. Performance on PS5 where I played was close to flawless, though. I don’t have the means to test but Ubisoft claims the game runs at 2160p and 120 frames per second, and as someone pretty sensitive to frame rate drops I noticed nothing but buttery smoothness.

The post Prince Of Persia: The Lost Crown Review – A Fantastic New Take On A Classic appeared first on Press Start.

Great videogame adaptations of films are few and far between. There are some obvious successes, but these games rarely stand aside or even rise above the films they’re based on. Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora tries to do things differently. While it still takes place in James Cameron’s immensely successful universe and film franchise, it’s released on its own schedule and takes place in its own little corner of Pandora. But while it’s completely separate from the film and undoubtedly a visual feast, the question remains whether the Na’vi experience translates well to a videogame. Even more so is the question of whether Ubisoft can do better than their 2009 prequel. The short answer to both questions is yes, but the long answer is slightly more complicated.

Frontiers of Pandora takes place about a year before the events of the second film. You play as a young Na’vi enrolled in a program to raise Na’vi in the human cultural sphere. The RDA, the human faction running the program, has ulterior motives, and as the relationship between the Na’vi and the RDA sours, the program is abandoned. You escape the twisted academy of sorts and are let loose onto the Western Frontier of Pandora, plunging yourself into a mission to reunite the clans and fight the RDA to prevent them from exploiting the planet’s natural resources.

Unfortunately, while the story is told in a similar ilk to the films, it lacks any significant surprises. I’d hoped that more would be done with the player character in the game, especially given the unique “origin” story that they had, but the way the story progresses in Frontiers of Pandora is pretty unremarkable. If you’ve not seen the films before, you might find the plot here a bit more novel, but it feels like a typical story about colonialism. Those who have seen the films will appreciate some of the nods to those events, though nothing significant ties into the movie, so the game is just as approachable without prior knowledge.

This thread continues with how Frontiers of Pandora plays, too. When first revealed, many understandably compared the game to others from Ubisoft, like Far Cry. While the uniqueness of Pandora’s setting cannot be underestimated, the core gameplay loop hidden within Frontiers of Pandora feels remarkably familiar. The general gist of the world is that it’s been polluted by RDA facilities, which you’ll infiltrate to shut down and restore colour to that area. Activities appear on the map, some optional, and you can complete them at your leisure.

Does this sound familiar? That’s because it is. It’s a quintessential Ubisoft open-world experience, and how much you still enjoy that formula will influence just how much you’ll enjoy Frontiers of Pandora. It’s by no means bad by any stretch, but if this is a formula you’re beginning to tire of, that will influence how much you’ll enjoy this.

Besides the outposts, bigger than a typical Far Cry game, another central point of difference with Frontiers of Pandora is how it handles its crafting systems. Tying in perfectly with the theme of conservation that runs deep within the world of Avatar, you’re encouraged to harvest items from Pandora responsibly. Grabbing roots from the ground is fine, but ripping them out correctly and in the right conditions will lead to a more potent yield. It’s a nice change that feels at home with the game thematically.

Similarly, hunting sees your Na’vi using their abilities to track down particular creatures in the environment. A comprehensive hunter’s guide can show you where each creature you’ve previously encountered is and what parts they yield when hunted. Hitting them only in their weak points and even killing them in one shot will produce better quality materials, too, as the creature didn’t suffer as it died. In a similar fashion to how harvesting works, killing too many animals senselessly will shut off your Na’vi senses, so it’s essential to only take what you need and not overharvest.

Much of the components you’ll find or harvest can be used to craft new gear and weapons, but most will be used in the cooking system. Much like the recent Zelda games, you can mix certain ingredients to create meals that impart special effects on your Na’vi. Being well-fed can give you better health regeneration and provide specific resistance to help you come out on top during more intense firefights. It’s nowhere near as intrusive of a hunger system as your typical survival game, which is a relief given how much typically I’m not too fond of these kinds of systems.

Cooking also plays a part in keeping your Ikran happy. Also called Banshees, you’ll find one to bond with, and it’ll be your main source of transport throughout Pandora. A flying dragon-like predator, the Ikran can cover great distances fast. Feeding the Ikran is important during more extended flights, so having lots of food on hand is essential. While there are other mounts that you’ll come across later in the game, the Ikram is easily the best and helps to make traversing the frontiers so much more fun than it has any right to be.

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In fact, one area that Frontiers of Pandora ostensibly nails is the traversal and movement systems in the game. This side of Pandora is dense, so getting through it and around quickly is nice. Owing to the Na’vi’s incredible athleticism, you can jump long and high to move great distances vertically and horizontally. You can mantle up on edges, too, and it’s so incredibly forgiving that there was rarely a time when I found an area I couldn’t climb. The platforming is similarly well done, especially given how this game is a first-person affair, though the option to switch to third-person would be much more appreciated for those who might struggle with the perspective offered.

Combat is similar to what you’d expect from a Far Cry game. Weapons are split into two types – the Na’vi types and the RDA types. Na’vi weapons are primarily primitive and much quieter but still pack a punch when used precisely. RDA weapons are pretty typical fare – assault rifles, shotguns and rocket launchers. Using them in hunting will lead to poorer yields, but they pack an incredible punch against the numerous RDA enemies you’ll find throughout the game. While there is an excellent selection and a reasonable degree of customization here, I still prefer the Na’vi weapons, which are more suited to a stealthier approach than anything else.

Other optional activities can be completed in exchange for clan favour, an invisible currency that can then be exchanged at specific points for equipment and gear. You can even donate your older gear to the communities, again, in exchange for clan favour. There’s not a lot of variety to the extra activities here – though the memory painting is a serene and meditative activity that really stood out for me here – otherwise, it’s the same kind of side quest design that we’ve come to expect from most games.

But without a doubt, Frontiers of Pandora is one of the most remarkable-looking games I’ve ever played. Playing on PC, I was taken aback by just how lush and dense the jungles of Pandora are. How thick the atmosphere is in the Clouded Forest. How serene and peaceful the world makes you feel while exploring the Upper Plains. It’s an incredible achievement, on a technical level, just how much the team at Massive have managed to create a digital copy of Pandora that feels like it’s literally living and breathing. I can’t stress this enough: it’s a beautiful game.

On consoles, the game looks almost as good. There’s some blurring in the distance, especially when playing in the performance favouring 60fps mode, but overall, the experience is similar to playing on a PC, which is a relief given how dense this game is visually. The music is particularly fantastic, too, creating some standout scenes where I felt nothing short of wonder as a soundtrack filled with an intoxicating mix of booming percussion and heavy chanting helped pull me into the world of Pandora.

There is so much going on in Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora from a presentation standpoint. It’s an incredibly lush world that washes over you every time you play it, even more so with the more time you spend in it. But something is missing. A spark. Perhaps it’s just that the formula has been done to death at this point, the story is predictable, or even the game takes a little bit to get going. It’s not a bad experience by any means, but it is just one that purely exists.

The post Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora Review – A Lush World With A Familiar Footprint appeared first on Press Start.

I’d say that, when you consider the eleven months of titles we’ve had so far this year, Knuckle Sandwich feels like a wonderfully strange nightcap to see things out. I mean, that is if you prefer your sack time sippers spiked with benzos that’ll steer you into a fifteen-hour fever dream only to see you come to on a makeshift cardboard bed behind a Woolies clutching to day-old news.

If that isn’t a dead giveaway, Knuckle Sandwich is a roleplaying game for weirdos, and I bloody love it. 

Cast as the new kid in town, you embark on an oddball journey full of mateship, chronic job hopping, and world-saving heroics. You tangle with gangs, cults, and obnoxious game show hosts while a far-reaching conspiracy grips Bright City as you, a regular burger-flipping kid, hold the hopes of the world on your gangly shoulders. It’s a surreal, fantastical journey that feels like a real throwback to titles like Earthbound, although it doesn’t overstay its welcome. The game absolutely leans hard into being an underachiever, bogan power fantasy that feels like it plucks a real Muriel Heslop-type operator and turns them into Bastian Bux. 

You’ll meet a wonderful cast of memorable, quirky characters throughout Knuckle Sandwich’s fifteen or so hours. Some stick around for the journey, others serve as the punchline for a single joke. As fun as Bright City’s great unwashed are, I don’t feel that your immediate circle is quite as unforgettable. Even so, it’s hard not to buy into the game’s ideas of mateship and each of these role-players brought a certain charm to the table. 

Inspired by classic turn-based games like Earthbound, Knuckle Sandwich rekindles a love for role-playing games I haven’t felt for ages. Just as Undertale forged an identity of its own through its bullet hell boss encounters, Knuckle Sandwich’s turn-based tussles incorporate hundreds of fleeting mini-games worthy of Wario himself. Coupled with its neat nods to our fair land with unmistakable iconography like Ventura’s high-vis bus stops and learner plates, you could consider it Andy Brophy’s very own Down Undertale.

I didn’t come across a mini-game I disliked, they’re all an entertaining test of reflexes and rhythm that add an undeniable flair to the game’s turn-based combat, which is already unique in how every attack has a timing bar coded in that determines whether or not the attack will be a success. For players that prefer a more standard role-playing game experience, stat-dependent auto-attacks can be toggled on, along with a heap of other accessibility options, to help people pick their challenge to a certain degree. 

By the end of the story mode, I was still seeing new enemies, and therefore new mini-games, at a respectable clip. As far as bad guys go, Knuckle Sandwich’s bench runs deep, and I applaud the variety it offers. Even in a game up to its neck in surrealism, once you’re smacking an ice cream cone named Big Drip for six with a cricket bat nothing will surprise you again.

Even the bigger, more grand boss encounters riff on and reinterpret classic genres and games, it really does feel like a game designer’s love letter to videogames. One was Brophy’s take on match-three puzzlers while another seemed to be crafted in the style of Knight Lore, which would be an especially deep cut if my eye doesn’t deceive me. 

The game is certainly conservative in what it offers as a role-playing game and it does well to keep you out of menus as much as possible. Movesets and abilities don’t run super deep, and besides bonus stat distribution you don’t have a lot of say over your stat makeup outside of item allocation where equipping poke knives and cricket bats up your attack while gloves or masks serve as accessories to buff other areas. Frustratingly, your pockets are rather shallow and I found myself regularly having to clear space for key items.

From start to finish, Knuckle Sandwich feels like a magnified acid trip. The game’s art direction hops liberally between what you’d expect from a standard 16-bit affair and its rendered, three-dimensional kingdom of goblins that’s got a striking polygonal style that looks as though it was plucked straight from the original PlayStation era.

The places and people of Bright City all drip with personality, and nice touches like the kid’s black eye and unkempt salmon button-up speak to a visual identity that’ll outlast so many other games simply because it’s disorienting and interesting. There’s also an undeniable charm I find in economic indie development, and some of the animation speaks to that. Some games take the time to animate retracting horse scrotums, while Brophy opts to not animate walking if it can get away with and I just adore that philosophy.  

Knuckle Sandwich boasts all of the features of a role-playing game while leaving the bloat behind, encasing it all in an irresistibly charming coating of Australiana as a tight-knit town of mates, armed with cricket bats and dry sarcasm, band together to save the world.

The post Knuckle Sandwich Review – Down Undertale appeared first on Press Start.

I love a good Call of Duty campaign, and always look forward to the yearly release to play through a blockbuster, action-heavy story that makes you feel invincible. Unfortunately, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III’s campaign misses the mark on almost every level. From an uninteresting story that completely downplays Makarov as the series’ big bad to the truly boring Open Combat missions that ruin any sense of momentum, Modern Warfare III’s campaign doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be.

Taking place after the events of Modern Warfare II, Modern Warfare III focuses on the Makarov-led Konni Ultranationalist terrorist group and their aim to cause cataclysmic damage to cities and countries around the world. Due to the nature of the threat, alongside briefly explored past tensions, Task Force 141 are brought into the fold to take down Makarov. 

The four-to-five hour story throws you right into the thick of things but very rarely makes Makarov and the litany of Konni troops feel particularly threatening. It feels like it’s missing several cinematic missions to pad out what’s supposedly a global emergency and Task Force 141’s toughest challenge (and adversary) yet. The writing is fairly lacklustre, alongside middling performances from some of the main cast. Consequently, I just never found myself particularly captivated by anything. 

Similarly, Makarov doesn’t get enough screen time to establish himself as the big bad everyone seems to refer to him as. The game relies too heavily on veteran players remembering the events of Modern Warfare II from 2009, rather than showing off what Makarov’s capable of in this story. It’s all a bit mediocre.

The lack of any weight behind the story is further exacerbated by Modern Warfare III’s Open Combat missions, which are entirely unnecessary. Put together by parts of Warzone and multiplayer modes, Open Combat missions have you running across small maps to accomplish a couple of monotonous objectives before moving on to the next set. You’re free to do your own thing to accomplish the objective, picking up weaponry and gadgets as you explore, but it feels like an entire juxtaposition to what makes Call of Duty campaigns great.

My favourite CoD campaigns have been linear, filled with blockbuster moments that are engaging and entertaining – these are the exact opposite of that. I’m all for experimentation and changing things up where possible, but I’m absolutely bewildered how we ended up with what we did.

The biggest failure of these missions come through the way they halt the story’s momentum, which is made worse by the ridiculous checkpoint system that can be extremely punishing on harder difficulty modes. Ultimately, I can’t help but feel these could have been condensed into a couple of linear missions to make the campaign feel more engaging and fun. 

Speaking of linear missions, there are a handful of really decent ones in the campaign. Sledgehammer Games has managed to conjure up a couple of great moments and set pieces, but they’re far too sporadic to save a campaign that will go down as one of my least favourite in series memory.

It’s clear that Modern Warfare III’s campaign needed a lot more time to cook. It feels underbaked in so many areas, and I’d struggle to ever recommend it to anyone – whether you’re a series veteran or a relative newcomer. Comprised of uninteresting missions, an open zone structure that completely derails any narrative flow and a generally boring story, Modern Warfare III’s campaign is as drab as they come. 

While unrevolutionary by all means, Modern Warfare III’s multiplayer offerings fare a heck of a lot better. 

I couldn’t help but smile at the sight of some of my favourite Call of Duty maps of all time making their return in Modern Warfare III. As someone who spent a ridiculous amount of time ranking up and experiencing the joys of 2009’s Modern Warfare 2, it’s been an absolute delight to go back through and re-experience fan favourites like Terminal and Favela in the new engine. The slight tweaks Sledgehammer’s made are also great, giving most maps a chance to maintain a balance of old meeting new.

These small tweaks go hand in hand with the game’s frenetic movement, which Sledgehammer’s nailed in Modern Warfare III. Much like last year’s entry, the game feels extremely fast paced and takes some getting used to, especially if you haven’t played in some time. That said, this pace works for most of the maps and ensures combat encounters occur frequently and you’re never out of the action too long. 

With that said, serious work needs to be done on the game’s spawn system. Some maps have been rightfully pulled from some playlist rotations due to being completely broken. And even after that, I’ve still fallen victim to a few bad spawn camping situations. This should be at the top of the priority list for Sledgehammer, as it completely ruins any fun. 

If you’re going into the game expecting a swathe of additions and enhancements to the gameplay, you’ll be disappointed. Tac-Stance, one of the big new additions to the game, does very little to change the way Modern Warfare III actually plays. While it’s designed to be the perfect middle ground between aiming down the sights and hip firing your weapon, I found it quite difficult to get used to.

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I also found the way armoury unlocks work to be unnecessarily grindy. Rather than unlocking all of your equipment, weapons, gear and killstreaks via levelling up in-game, you now have to select an item you’d like to unlock in the armoury and complete daily challenges to unlock them. Each item requires two daily challenges at the very least to be completed, whereas some require triple that. While I can understand the team wanting to try something different and have players unlock gear in a different way, it feels inherently grindy and an unnecessary way to force players into something they may not want to do. 

Daily challenges often require you to use a particular type of equipment or gear you mightn’t have unlocked yet, either. I’m aware you could use the default loadouts, which should have these items available for when you need them, but it takes away any of the fun in working on your custom loadouts and levelling up your preferred weaponry. Ultimately, it limits the way you play. 

Modern Warfare III’s suite of multiplayer modes don’t offer up anything revolutionary, but they do nail the fundamentals of a good multiplayer experience. I’ve loved going back through some of my favourite maps from the original Modern Warfare 2, and the promise of new maps to come alongside more returning classics is an exciting proposition. The time-to-kill ratio feels better than it’s been in a long time, and the pace of gameplay is as good as it’s been in years. 

The most notable change in Modern Warfare III comes via Modern Warfare Zombies. It’s the first Zombies experience that completely does away with the round-based system and small map. Instead, it favours an open-world map with gameplay challenges littered throughout, for better and for worse. 

I adore the tried-and-true Zombies experience – taking on hordes of zombies in a cramped map filled with looping corridors and new secrets to find brings with it a sense of real urgency. MWZ alters that pacing drastically, never really making you feel that claustrophobia and worry that you would in the smaller, more intricate maps. 

The positive to this is the sheer freedom on offer. MWZ’s story is divided into three acts, and to get through each you need to complete an array of tasks. Each task is different, like completing a certain amount of contracts or getting a particular amount of kills with a special weapon. These offer up a new challenge each time you dive into the sprawling map, which is populated by other players, as well as countless zombies and living enemies. Like Zombies modes from years gone by, MWZ encourages co-operative play more than jumping in solo (though you can do that if you so wish), as the going gets tough fairly quickly. 

The mode’s map is spread out into three separate zones – low threat, medium threat and high threat. All types of enemies roam these zones, with each being a significant step up in difficulty. Levelling up your weapons with pack-a-punch bonuses, getting self-revive kits and armouring up will be your go-to when taking on the harder zones. 

Weapons are defined by rarity in MWZ, as well. Levelling up weapons will give them bonus damage, which becomes integral in the more difficult areas. This is where locating pack-a-punch bonuses and opening up mystery boxes come in handy. That said, exfiling with these weapons will reset them to the ‘common’ rarity, but you’ll keep all of the attachments equipped on the weapon. 

You’re free to explore any of the zones in MWZ as you please, and contracts can be completed whereever you see fit. There’s a lot to do and explore across the map, so it never really felt all that boring or onerous to jump straight back in after being wiped out by the undead masses.

Here’s the kicker, though – if you do meet your demise, weapons you’ve equipped that aren’t part of your set of acquisition items will be lost. The only way you can unlock and keep items you’ve found in the world is to successfully exfil with them. Like last year’s DMZ mode, you’ve got to make a strategic call when the time is right to exfil, and I enjoyed the frantic nature of holding out for a certain amount of time as your rescue chopper comes in to collect you and your squad. The pace can really pick up, and it quickly becomes every person for themselves when the waves of undead start swarming in. 

While it lacks the pace and urgency of Zombies modes from years gone by, I’ve enjoyed jumping into Modern Warfare Zombies regularly. Whether you’re a zombies fan or not, there’s a lot to explore and lots of lore to enjoy – especially if you’d like to complete the story and see what wild direction that might take you. 

Call of Duty Modern Warfare III is a mixed bag. The game’s campaign is one of the worst Call of Duty campaigns I’ve ever played, if not the worst. It’s insultingly boring and does nothing to further a plot that had so much potential. However, the game’s multiplayer is genuinely excellent, aside from a few questionable decisions around how the armoury unlock system works and general map balance for spawns.

Meanwhile, Modern Warfare Zombies offers up an entirely new experience for newcomers and veterans alike, and is a fairly solid swing at something different for the long-running mode, even if it loses a bit of its identity. It’s a package that lacks some quality where it matters most, but will satisfy players looking for a good multiplayer experience. 

The post Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Review – Friendly Fire appeared first on Press Start.

It should come as no surprise to anyone that the rampant success of Persona 5 has resulted in countless spin-offs. It didn’t feel that long ago that a bunch of Phantom Thieves-adjacent projects were leaked as fans wildly speculated as to what they could be. After the utterly sublime Persona 5 Royal, the catharsis of the Musou spin-off in Persona 5 Strikers, and an inevitable dancing game, Persona 5 Tactica is the next entry into the gilded halls of Persona 5.

Much like Strikers, Tactica marks a first for Persona. While Shin Megami Tensei has ventured into turn-based tactics before, we’ve yet to see the immensely popular spin-off series dip its toes into the same waters until now. The end result is an enjoyable Persona-flavoured tactics game that echoes the identity of Persona 5 despite a few stumbles and inconsistent pacing. Furthermore, it boasts another heartfelt story centered around new and returning characters that explores themes linked to those found in Persona 5 and its other spin-offs.

Instead of further muddying up the post-Persona 5 timeline, Tactica takes place during the events of the original game, where the Phantom Thieves are suddenly whisked away from Café LeBlanc into the Metaverse. Instead of finding themselves in a Palace, they quickly discover that they’re in a different Metaverse construct called a Kingdom. After making contact with a freedom fighter group called the Rebel Corps and its leader Erina, the Phantom Thieves promise to help her stage a coup and free the Kingdom from the authoritarian rule of an enemy faction called the Legionnaires and their leader, Marie.

[presto_player id=150280]

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The Phantom Thieves aren’t the only ones pulled into this alternate world, as young National Diet member Toshiro Kasukabe is found kidnapped and imprisoned within Marie’s castle. Toshiro, Erina, and the Kingdom everyone finds themselves in lie at the core of Tactica’s story. While the early hours struggle to get you to buy into the premise and stakes of what’s going on here, the narrative really picks up steam at about the one third mark. It eventuates in powerful emotional moments and strong character development that feels right in line with Persona 5’s core ideas without feeling like its retreading familiar ground.

Even though you could argue that god-slaying is ubiquitous in Persona, the need to tie Tactica’s broader narrative into a greater threat feels off in the context of the story. Without spoiling too much, Tactica’s strengths lie in the exploration of its characters and their mental states. What it means to rebel, stand up for what’s right, and the cost of fighting against the injustices that plague our world. These poignant and contemporary themes that Persona always has an understanding of feel a bit undermined by the ham-fisted inclusion of divine entities.

In terms of gameplay, Persona 5 Tactica mostly delivers on a turn-based tactics experience with a Persona-style framework. You’ll engage in battles with a party of three Phantom Thieves, each one bringing different strengths and weaknesses to the fight. While someone like Haru has short movement range in comparison to the rest of the party, she more than makes up for it with her area-of-effect grenade launcher and the ability to lure enemies in with her psychic skills. Ann on the other hand is capable of dealing big single-target damage while lacking the same oomph in her gun attacks.

The different applications of skills, map design, and enemy arrangement all encourage you to think about who you bring with you on any given mission. Party-wide progression always means that no one gets left behind, which is nice when you want to change up your strategy if something isn’t working for you.

There are a couple options afforded to you in combat that make for quite a degree of player choice and expression on the whole. Aside from standard melee and ranged attacks, you also have Skills, where you can spend a chunk of SP on an elemental or support skill to inflict ailments or buff your party. You can even choose not to use a combat action, causing your units to enter a charged state for the next turn, netting you worthwhile buffs that put you in a more advantageous position. All of your decisions are made in an effort to knock down enemies, which is right on-brand for Persona.

Knockdowns are what Persona 5 Tactica’s battle system is almost entirely structured around. When an enemy isn’t in cover, or is knocked out of it by a Skill, the next attack they take will knock them down. Knocking down is two-fold in Tactica, not only does it incapacitate the enemy for the rest of your turn, it also grants you a One More, allowing you to act with that character again. It’s through the smart use of the One More system and understanding how you can chain turns together that you’ll find success in Tactica’s battles.

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These knockdowns can also lead to All-Out Attacks, where you create a triangular area-of-effect based on the positioning of your units. If you get familiar with this system and its intricacies, Persona 5 Tactica can be made quite easy on its baseline difficulty level. Smart party positioning can lead to All-Out Attacks that almost wipe the map clean of enemies, and keeping your own units in cover mitigates much more damage than it probably should. Coupled with the powerful and practical unique skills each party member brings to the table, Tactica rarely challenged me outside of its last few missions.

A lot of the way Tactica keeps you engaged in its combat system is through its enemy types. Each one has something consider when making a move on them. Teleporter type enemies, for example, will swap places with any unit that attacks them while not knocked down, which can lead to potentially disadvantageous situations if you deal with them haphazardly. Revenger type enemies will counter the first attack made against them in a turn, encouraging you to make use of your ranged tools before moving in to down them with another character.

Boss fights on the other hand are a bit of a mixed bag. The first sets a high bar going forward that none of the subsequent ones ever live up to. None of them are particularly bad, but the later ones feel somewhat under-designed, especially given their narrative significance.

The variety and ideas presented here leave Tactica’s battles feeling more puzzle-based than anything else – which absolutely isn’t a bad thing. A vast majority of missions also include optional objectives, incentivising you to optimise the amount of turns you take to complete them while minimising loss of units in exchange for big experience gains. The battle system in its totality is best shown off in Tactica’s optional quests, which are bite-sized challenge missions that encourage you to think outside the box and make the most of the tools available to you.

Outside of battle, Persona 5 Tactica keeps things relatively slim but still meaningful in the things you engage with. Aside from levelling up as you gain experience, you’ll also gain GP that can be spent to upgrade skill trees. Each member has a couple of distinct trees to move down, each focusing on a different aspect of their kit. While there’s a good amount of room for experimentation, there’s some clear winners for each character to make them really efficient.

GP is gathered by general progression and character utilization, but you’ll also gain GP for participating in optional conversations at the hideout. These short character exchanges serve to flesh out the world, characters, and current happenings. Better yet, these conversations can be viewed at any point if you feel like you need catching up on particular details or narrative threads as you move through the roughly 20-hour story.

The other big component outside of battles is the Velvet Room. It simply wouldn’t be a Persona title without it, and the way it’s implemented in Tactica feels fitting. You’ll most often use it for Persona fusion, resulting in more powerful Persona that can then be equipped to your units to bolster their health and provide additional skills. You can also purchase new weapons, and even fuse Persona into weapons to imbue them with elements that add extra utility to your ranged attacks.

It all makes for a healthy degree of player customisation and expression between your units, and allows you to mix and match abilities and elements to further expand your options in combat. Persona can also be swapped between units at will, so you never feel locked-in when choosing where to use your most powerful fusion results. A limit of two abilities per Persona also means that you can’t create a busted build through strategic fusion, and serves as a great compromise between maintaining difficulty and giving you access to series mainstays.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t apprehensive about Persona 5 Tactica’s art style. While it maintains the slick and stylish UI of other Persona 5 projects (albeit on a smaller scale), I initially wasn’t onboard with the Chibi-esque nature of its character designs. I did come around relatively quickly, though, and found it charming and fitting for the type of game Tactica is trying to be. Its bold use of red runs deeper than just its links to Persona 5, tying into its deeper themes and aesthetic. The cutscenes and 2D visual novel-style exchanges are also presented in excellent fashion.

Its environments are also gorgeous, moody, and varied. Marie’s medieval-style Kingdom stands in stark contrast with later environments which explore other kinds of architecture. Perhaps more interesting is that these locations aren’t entirely new to what we’ve seen in the series before – even in Persona 5. Despite this, Tactica still manages to find new ways to bring these motifs to life in a fresh manner. While I can’t speak to other platforms, the Switch version runs remarkably well and serves as a fantastic way to play this kind of experience.

The post Persona 5 Tactica Review – A Tactical Return to the Metaverse appeared first on Press Start.

Revolving around wholesome mindfulness, as well as the core beliefs of karmic law, KarmaZoo is likely to end up this year’s most enlightening game. Within the context of a cooperative platform-puzzle game, it takes your every move and measures them against the Hindu notion that any action, particularly positive ones, creates a memory that sees that energy returned in kind. It’s not as though KarmaZoo is that deep though, it rewards the good without really punishing the bad, so its lessons seem only skin deep in the interest of a good time.

From the moment you’re born into its world as an amorphous yet active little blob, it preaches positivity and encourages kindness like no other game I’ve played. In a world where toxicity and griefing permeate just about every other multiplayer experience, it’s very refreshing that KarmaZoo reinforces and rewards the good in people. 

The whole idea of the game is to grow your karma tree with hearts. To earn these you’ll go through loops with as many as nine others, performing generous or sacrificial acts throughout to earn said hearts. They also serve as the game’s singular form of currency, letting you exchange them for an enormous number of character forms, ranging from animalia to flora, and even quirky inanimate objects brought to life.

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Although there are dozens of forms you can buy and assume, they do each slot into an archetype meaning the abilities they bring to the fold aren’t all unique. Some use their girth to power through walls, and others can perform more acrobatic acts such as gliding or triple-jumping, but it’s through the gradual drip feed of these characters and abilities that the game manages to remain fresh enough considering its lone cooperative mode, Loop, is the bulk of what you’ll be doing. 

KarmaZoo is a super accessible and easy-to-pick-up platformer that juxtaposes its basic controls with its, at times, perplexing raid-like level design that demands collective thought and consideration to push through. When the eureka moment strikes and your squad presses deeper into the level, towards the portal that closes each stage, it can feel pretty rewarding.

Another interesting hook of the game requires players to remain in close proximity to one another, and if a player drifts from the pack without returning to the safety of the group aura they’ll perish, becoming a cute, albeit inert, ghost for the remainder of the stage. And with doors constantly separated from their switches, this is the basis of many of the game’s tense, heart-pounding moments. Beyond that, players can sing out to activate lifts, break musical blocks, and so forth. With a few things to juggle, it’s another fun layer to proceedings that are made even better realising that it adds a layer of personality to each animal, whether it’s the pig’s harsh squeals or the koala’s gloriously melodic pipes. 

In fact, even though they’re a small mass of pixels, each of the creatures whose bodies you inhabit ooze personality through cute idle animations which regularly had me parked in complete disregard for the time pressure each level presents. Though it’s an economical pixel art style that the developer employs, its use of warm, vibrant colour throughout its many trippy levels speaks to a warranted level of flair, culture, and mysticism considering the game’s subject matter. 

Although most will mistake the game’s levels as procedurally generated, there are actually hundreds of curated, hand-crafted stages that are all a part of a pool that the game populates each loop from. It takes things like player numbers and abilities into account to ensure that it’s persistently challenging and evolving as you and your friends gain new critters.

Obviously, the game is going to be best in full groups, any less and the juice might not be worth the squeeze. I found the return on closed loops with smaller groups to be somewhat paltry, considering the hefty sum that’s asked for certain animals within the sanctuary. The game is accessible enough that if people do give it a chance I expect it could become a fixture in weeknight rotations. The handful of sessions I’ve been able to play have been a blast, but I did sense the dread of diminishing returns creep in as the slow grind of unlocking new animals met the monotony of seeing the same levels head-on.

Entirely antithetical to the game’s wholesome message of banding together, Totem is a competitive mode for players to blow off steam. It’s a fun enough distraction that openly defies the game’s peace and love message while giving the player no real reason to participate. The rest of the game hammers home the importance and value of hearts, and for Totem’s reward to be a podium finish over friends feels kind of empty and pointless in the face of the game’s otherwise hefty grind. I’m certainly not suggesting the games aren’t fun because there’s nothing more satisfying than limping in over the line against friends, it’s just hard to consider it a worthwhile aside. 

Although it’d do nothing to compliment the game’s core message, if I were able to wager hearts in friendly competition then I think that’d add a certain level of spice. 

So, at the end of the day, the success of KarmaZoo is going to come down to whether a community forms around it. If it’s impossible to find a loop within a fortnight of launch and your buds go on to the next thing, it’s over. Although I fully understand why it doesn’t exist due to vision and most likely coding, I do wish the game had some option for lone-wolf looping.

Players are not only going to have to band together to close their loops and reach a state of nirvana, but they’re also shouldering the task of keeping KarmaZoo alive and breathing. 

The post KarmaZoo Review – The Feel Good Drag appeared first on Press Start.

Although Teardown has existed on PC for some time, its arrival on consoles is bound to be a welcome one for those who value carefully-planned anarchy. With an exemplary physics engine, made even more stunning through the destruction of itty-bitty voxels, Teardown is both a heist campaign with a bedrock of demolition goodness and a wildly entertaining sandbox that lets players vent their frustrations using a deep tool chest. For all intents and purposes, it’s kind of like Minecraft for grown-ups.

The star of the show is, without doubt, the physics engine that sees players able to pick apart the world brick by brick. The game built around this system is entertaining enough, with a full campaign serving as a several-hour tutorial for what’s possible. There’s a story that tells of an opportunistic demolitionist playing all sides of a nasty feud between greedy, corrupt businessmen, benefitting from a chess battle while seemingly playing as both white and black. The scenarios themselves prove to be a bit more interesting than the narrative as Teardown hurls a huge variety of stages at you throughout a ten-hour campaign.

In this campaign you’ll demolish private property, steal priceless rarities and drive all manner of cars and construction vehicles, all in the name of getting ahead. Each level has a primary objective that, when commenced, will trigger an alarm and start a countdown timer, leaving you finite time to get done what you can and get out of dodge. Each objective completed translates to an increase in rank, and every ten unlocks a new tool. Of course, secondary objectives exist for those wanting to level up faster although completing those will require very careful planning. All in all, there’s a satisfying drip feed of insanely fun ways to break shit.

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All of the fun is funnelled through your email inbox, accessible from the computer in your base of operations. For a game with such a striking visual identity, the fact that its menus and UI are so drab is unfortunate. But whether it’s seeking out missions or upgrades, it’s at least readable and easy to find. The upgrades in question, which can be applied to buff things like the damage output or capacity of your tools, are pretty run of the mill. They’re on the dear side too, considering most valuables you’ll thieve to pad your bankroll with will net you an average of a pineapple. As a result, it kind of falls by the wayside as petty destruction and driving cherry pickers through buildings is unsurprisingly more fun than living in menus.

With ten sandboxes to muck around in, there is no shortage of fun to be had. Whether you’re wanting to raze a chemical plant, hoon around a rich arsehole’s private race track, blow apart a shopping mall, or just relax on an exotic beach, there’s something for whatever flavour of relaxation you want. Each of the areas even has its own trio of challenges that test the player’s cunning and evasive skills as well as their ability to completely flatten everything in sight. 

Beyond these basic challenges, Teardown has a pair of smaller expansions and a heap of curated community mods, ranging from whole levels to cool tools like a vacuum cleaner that regurgitates the voxels it hoovers up, that really do offer even more ways to play Teardown. I’ve had a lot of fun toying with the ‘Drive to Survive’ mod that turns the game into Keanu Reeves’ Speed, where if you can’t complete a circuit in time your car will spectacularly explode. I do hope that support continues and that, in time, more mods are added because that’s where Teardown’s staying power will come from, as cool as Creative Mode seems I don’t think the tools are quite as powerful as its contemporaries.

Teardown, on the heels of games like Cloudpunk, is another success story as far as the emergence of voxel art design goes. These worlds, made up entirely of voxel cubes, are incredibly lit, and have an unexplainable grounded quality despite their deliberate lack of lifelikeness. As I’ve stated, it’s the physics engine that does all of the heavy lifting with the spectacular ways that these worlds can be picked to pieces using some heavy armament. Rocket launchers and pipe bombs leave craters in the sides of buildings, while your trusty default sledgehammer can punch heartily through most things. It’s the small touches, like signage on buildings losing power as you shred through generators and power sources, that make it seem so real at times. But as wild as the engine is, when the destruction scales up to the point that a few of Teardown’s mods can offer, the frames halve and things begin to struggle.

I do adore when games appeal to a player’s creativity, and Teardown absolutely does with the problems it poses throughout its heist-happy campaign. It’s a cleverly designed, spectacular outlet for destructive expressionism and I’m intent on adding many more voxels to the millions I have already left in my wake. 

The post Teardown Review – Break Stuff appeared first on Press Start.

I have no doubt that for as long as we’ve had stories and characters, humanity has sat around and argued about which of their favourites would beat the others in a fight. Thankfully, we live in an age where such discussions can be put to the test, not only by pitting our beloved heroes against each other on the battlefield but by actually taking control of them to settle our personal pugilistic pursuits. The crossover fighting genre is nothing new, with Nintendo’s Super Smash Bros. franchise being a household name and more recently Warner Bros. MultiVersus garnering a solid cult following (despite the current hiatus).

Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2 is the animation giant’s latest bite at the cherry, promising new game modes, new game mechanics and, of course, a stacked roster of new and returning fighters, each with upgraded abilities, visuals and voice overs at launch.

Fans of the previous All-Star Brawl game (and indeed brawlers in general) will know what to expect, but for the uninitiated, here are the brass tacks. Up to four players pick their favourite characters and then battle each other, or CPU-controlled opponents on a variety of different, platform-based levels. The objective is to beat up your opponent to decrease their resistance and eventually kick, punch or throw them outside the bounds of the arena, depleting their ’stock’ (lives). 

Each fighter has a unique arsenal of quick light attacks, harder hitting but slower charged attacks and diverse special attacks to exchange with their foes, building up their vulnerability number. The higher the number, the easier they are to fling from the arena. While you duke it out, items can randomly spawn to assist you or your enemies, ranging from restorative bowls of noodles to light pistols that you can use to blast others from afar. Each level has different kinds of platforming layouts, so you’ll need to stay on your toes during the match, lest you fall down an unseen hole or stray too close to the edge, making for an easy knock-out.

That’s all pretty standard fare for this kind of game, but All-Star Brawl 2 isn’t just a shiny new coat of paint, with plenty of new additions to excite returning fans. The first big ticket item is the inclusion of a new single player campaign, which will challenge you to fight your way through the Nickelodeon multiverse in order to stop Danny Phantom villain Vlad Plasmius from conquering all. You’ll begin your quest with Spongebob Squarepants, but as you progress you’ll be freeing other classic heroes, anti-heroes and villains, allowing them to join the fight and save their realms from tyranny.

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As you fight your way through a series of branching nodes, each with its own challenges and rule sets, any damage you take persists, and running out of stock will send you back to the starting hub world to try again. Surprisingly, there’s something of a roguelite twist to the campaign, to make things a bit fairer when fighting an interdimensional despot. You’ll be able to collect resources and purchase upgrades that carry across each run, such as additional stock and the ability to heal between nodes. That’s not all though, as certain nodes will also grant you temporary power-ups for your current attempt, ranging from classic damage buffs to sacrificing resistance for your attacks to inflict poison damage on each hit. All of this makes for a simple, fun and replayable adventure for solo players.

That’s not all though, because if the campaign doesn’t sound like your kind of thing, the arcade mode gives you the same kind of experience without all the faffing about of unlocking and upgrading things, just straight up brawling against the CPU. If you feel like a break from the biffo, you can also try the mini-game mode where you can compete against the clock in the non-fighting challenges from the campaign. For the truly brave there is also a boss rush mode, where it’s just you versus the titans of All-Star Brawl 2.

From the get-go, there are 25 toons for you to tussle with, drawn from all across the Nickelodeon pantheon. Old favourites like Patrick Star and Nigel Thornberry are joined by newcomers like Jimmy Neutron and Azula (my favourite) from The Last Airbender, all of them with upgraded visuals, upgraded animations and fairly accurate voice acting. Whether you’re returning to All-Star Brawl from the first game or entering the ring as a fresh-faced fighter, there are some new mechanics that you’ll need to learn to reach your full potential, like a new dodge-roll or aerial dodge ability, which can even give you that last little boost to catch the edge of a stage before plummeting to your death. 

There’s also the new ‘Slime’ mechanic, which is a special meter that fills up during combat and allows you to power up attacks, cancel enemy attacks and even unleash a character-specific cinematic super attack.

This is of course a multiplayer game and All-Star Brawl 2, supporting up to four players in local and online play, including cross-platform. You’ll be able to quickly play free-for-all matches, 1v1 matches and 2v2 matches or search for specific lobbies. If you’re feeling extra competitive, there are also ranked matches available, where you can progress through various tiers. Sadly, the lobbies weren’t live during my review period, but having played other brawlers online, I can tell you that it will likely be a lot of fun. Spare me your judgement if you see me soon rise to the highest ranked Azula player, she’s just the best.

While All-Star Brawl 2 is quite a fun fighting game to sink some time into with friends, it’s not without its flaws. If I had to sum it up in a single word, I would say that it’s inconsistent. Some of the characters feel dynamic and quick, while others just feel needlessly slow and heavy, with no noticeable difference in damage output. Some attacks can take you a fair distance across the map, allowing for a fast-paced movement-based playstyle, but you can’t change the direction of a charged attack once the animation starts, you just need to stand there for crucial seconds while your opponent has a free shot at your back. 

Some stages are perfectly balanced in terms of layout and others just feel unfair or riddled with cheap pits. Speaking of the levels, they all look great with some genuinely exciting animation in the background, but the nodes screen during the campaign is a generic space scene with cards up the top to denote “Wilderness” or “Metropolis” with absolutely no other noticeable difference. 

Even the CPU difficulty seems all over the place, with some fights lasting mere seconds as the enemy walks itself off the stage and others having me fighting fruitlessly for my life, all on the same ‘medium’ difficulty. Although the new additions are likely a welcome sight for returning players, I do feel that many of the modes could have used a bit more time in the oven, the boss fights and bonus stages especially can get repetitive in the context of the roguelite approach. 

The load times when installed on an HDD are also pretty atrocious, hilariously leading to several instances where I’d wait over a minute for the next fight to start, only to have it completed in 15 seconds. I eventually re-installed it on my SSD and it cut load times down drastically, but it sticks in my craw that my SSD is now host only to Starfield and Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2.

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A lot has happened in the world of Like a Dragon since the release of Yakuza 6: The Song of Life. A complete pivot to a wildly different genre, a brand new ensemble of characters, and even a spin-off series in the form of Judgment. It’s a great time to be a fan of the franchise – especially if you’re invested in former series protagonist, Kazuma Kiryu. Despite shifting focus to the boisterous Ichiban Kasuga in the seventh mainline entry, the Dragon of Dojima refuses to bow out gracefully.

That brings us to Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name, a shorter and more condensed side story that follows Kiryu after the events of Yakuza 6 leading up to the upcoming eighth entry. No matter how you feel about Kiryu’s conclusion in Yakuza 6, there’s no denying that The Man Who Erased His Name is a risky undertaking given the legacy of the character. While it doesn’t quite reach the crime drama heights of other recent entries, Gaiden offers an intimate and emotionally resonant exploration of Kiryu that delivers where it counts the most.

After faking his own death and abandoning his name to protect his family, Kazuma Kiryu is now working for the enigmatic Daidoji Faction. Under the codename of Joryu, Kiryu is undertaking top-secret missions for the Daidoji as one of their own agents. After a mission goes awry, Joryu is locked in conflict with a mystery figure trying to drive him out of hiding.

While this is a great setup, especially given Kiryu’s situation, it’s hard to properly buy into the stakes of it all if you’ve already played Yakuza 7. A majority of the tension relating to the broad strokes of the narrative here rests on events and plans that we’ve already seen transpire. New characters do a bit to keep things feeling unpredictable for the main story’s 8-10 hour runtime, but there were scant few moments where revelations truly surprised me in comparison to prior titles.

Where The Man Who Erased His Name unequivocally succeeds, though, is in its exploration of Kiryu. A shorter narrative, smaller cast of characters, and restrained scope give way to deeper insight into Kiryu’s state of mind, his unwavering stance against killing no matter the situation and the lengths that he goes to so that he can keep those closest to him safe. It culminates in one of the franchise’s most emotionally powerful cutscenes that hammers home the series’ core themes of family and sacrifice.

The supporting characters here also bring quite a lot to the table. Kihei Hanawa serves as Joryu’s handler in the Daidoji, constantly straddling the line between partners and friends in his relationship with Joryu while also knowing his secret identity. The new captain and acting patriarch of the Watase Family, Yuki Tsuruno, is another hardboiled Yakuza member whose abrasive exterior occasionally gives way to glimpses of someone who values his fellow Yakuza members above all else. A brand new info broker in Sotenbori known as Akame is another particular highlight, her easygoing yet self-sufficient nature bounces off of Joryu’s stoicism in entertaining fashion.

While Yakuza 7: Like a Dragon has adopted a turn-based RPG framework for the mainline series, The Man Who Erased His Name proudly returns to the beat em’ up roots of the original series that has since been adopted by the Judgment games. Much like the Takayuki Yagami of the aforementioned duology, Kiryu has two unique fighting styles to employ in combat. The first is Agent Style, focusing on fast and frequent light blows in combination with gadgets to keep large groups of enemies at bay. The second is Kiryu’s signature Yakuza Style, the hard-hitting single target approach that he’s known for.

While Yakuza Style is exactly what you expect it to be, Agent Style brings some fun new ideas to the table that make it a blast to use against hordes of enemies. From using the Serpent Boots to rocket your way around an arena, to tossing an explosive Firefly cigarette into an unsuspecting group of goons, there’s a lot of wacky fun to be had with these tools in punch-outs. My favourite is the Spider gadget, which lets you unleash spools of wire to grab enemies and yank them across the battlefield in glorious fashion.

It’s when you combine these styles that combat is at its most satisfying. Pulling someone in for a juggle with the Spider gadget and swapping to Yakuza Style for a proper beatdown while they’re still airborne never gets old. The ways gadgets can be upgraded to improve their efficiency or functionality gives them widespread application in many situations past their initial uses, such as being able to toss out more explosive cigarettes or pull in environmental objects from a distance to be used as weapons.

The Man Who Erased His Name simply wouldn’t be a Like a Dragon game without the implementation of Heat. It’s here with all the trimmings, from expending Heat with visceral and high damaging attacks to entering the high octane Extreme Heat Mode so you can unleash all manner of carnage onto your adversaries. It’s as rewarding and gratifying as it always has been. A nice touch is the inclusion Lost Judgment’s Mortal Reversal in the form of Ultimate Counters, allowing you to make a last second dodge for big damage if timed properly.

The Man Who Erased His Name’s core setting of Sotenbori feels quite safe given its prominence in recent entries, but its downplayed scale lends to the story’s more condensed nature quite nicely. It’s also packed with stuff to do, with mainstays like karaoke and arcades making their return alongside some returning gems like Pocket Circuit from Yakuza 0, and the cabaret club complete with live-action hostesses this time around. There’s also an all-new Boutique where you can customize Kiryu’s outfit to your heart’s content.

The Castle is an entirely new area to the series, propositioned as a scandalous adult theme park on an ominous container ship lurking in Osaka Bay. While quite small in total area, you can partake in gambling and engage in numerous activities within the Coliseum. There’s a couple of different modes to play around with here, from one-on-one skirmishes to more large scale conflicts where teams go head-to-head for glory. Hell Team Rumble even lets you organise and train your very own team to bring into the arena, with members that serve as fun nods to prior characters.

The other large chunk of side content comes in the form of the Akame Network. The Akame Network is a support system that Akame has setup for Sotenbori locals. As you walk the streets, you’ll come across people in need of help. Completing these short and sweet requests nets you cash and Akame Points, further expanding the network and allowing you to unlock new skills. These points can also be spent on gear, items, and cosmetics at the Akame Shop, so it always feels worthwhile to engage with these small errands as you run into them.

The Akame Network also has requests to be completed, which effectively serve as this entry’s version of Substories. While I’ve only completed a handful of the many available, each one employs the absurd side of this franchise’s tonal dissonance in excellent fashion. Better yet, they often call back to events and characters in prior entries. It would be a shame to spoil them here, but one early example was a Substory revolving around some Ryuji Goda lookalikes causing problems throughout Sotenbori, who are revealed to be part of a larger plan to bring back the Go-Ryu Clan which is swiftly shutdown by Joryu.

If this all sounds like a pretty safe and by the numbers Like a Dragon offering, that’s because it absolutely is. The Man Who Erased His Name feels tailor made for series veterans – especially those who’ve seen Kiryu’s journey through to where it is today. It feels decidedly old-school in its restrained approach to open-world design, and while I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing, it would’ve been nice to see some more drastic changes for what is potentially Kiryu’s last solo outing.

The Dragon Engine continues to be a powerhouse in graphical fidelity and detail. The standard set in Yakuza 6 has been improved upon in every subsequent entry, and The Man Who Erased His Name is no stranger to that rule. The sheer detail in facial expressions are some of the best in the industry, and the virtual tourism brought about by such incredible attention to detail in recreating these locations is a constant joy. The Castle is also incredibly well-realised, brought to life by dazzling neon lights and excessively luxurious architecture.

The presentation is held together remarkably well by steady performance and a level of technical polish that every entry in this series exudes. That’s no small feat when you consider how crazy some of the fights get, especially in the Coliseum battles where things can get really out of hand. A special shoutout should also go to every member of the cast, who bring each character to life in a convincing manner. Takaya Kuroda in particular really delivers on an emotionally tormented Kiryu this time around, and does a lot of the heavy lifting in the game’s more poignant moments.

The post Like A Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name Review – Yakuza In Disguise appeared first on Press Start.

The Jackbox games have long been a consistent source of social fun since the very first home console versions of You Don’t Know Jack appeared and through the boom that came about with is recurring series of “Party Packs” featuring unique party games designed both for couch play and streaming. Now, in its tenth iteration, there’s no signs of the Jackbox Party Pack train slowing down as the team has delivered yet another excellent collection of games – probably one of its most consistent to date.

Like with every Jackbox release, Party Pack 10 definitely has clear winners and comparatively one-and-done curiosities among its five games, and the pride pick of the bunch this time around is Tee K.O. 2. While it’s a bit of a cop-out as a revisit of a game from The Jackbox Party Pack 3, it’s been long enough that it’ll likely be fresh to most players. The gist is simple with each player anonymously submitting a handful of drawings and slogans which are then randomly distributed to the other players, who must choose which ones to put together into a final design. The designs are then pitted against each other until a winner is declared.

Improvements in the Tee K.O. sequel come via much more robust drawing tools and a better voting system, which is now bracketed. The second round is always a lot of fun with the previously-unused designs redistributed along with the ability to submit fresh designs or edit other players’ drawings. The final round sees two designs face off in a fighting game-esque battle where players repeatedly tap on the shirt (or tank, or hoodie!) they want to see win. And, like before, if you’re particularly attached to your design you can order an actual, IRL print of it. It might not be the most innovative game in the bunch, but in the current climate of crappy AI art and “need this on a shirt” bot bait it’s nice to just sit around with friends and proudly churn out the worst clothing designs you’ve ever seen.

I was initially very apprehensive of Dodo Re Mi, a music game that plays like a “proper” video game with real-time prompts for players to follow along with, which is something that Jackbox has never really offered successfully and instead calls to mind those phone-based PlayLink games that PlayStation tried to push during the last console generation. Thankfully, this one’s actually a lot of fun and I can see it being a crowd favourite just for the Guitar Hero-esque vibes.

Dodo Re Mi is pretty much what you’d expect with players picking a song to collectively tap notes along to like most other rhythm games and competing for scores. The fun in this comes from the selection of wacky instruments on offer from traditional instruments to things like “Constant Screaming” or “Cannon” which makes playing alongside someone else IRL a potentially very distracting experience. You’ll also get to listen to the complete performance at the end of each track featuring everyone and their instruments, which is often profusely awful to listen to in the best way. The game does a good job of making sure everyone’s audio and inputs are syncing up nicely, which is great as a rhythm game in this format could have easily been a disaster.

FixyText is probably my personal favourite among the bunch, not least because it somewhat recalls my obsession with Mad Verse City in Party Pack 5. In this one, players are split into teams and asked to collaborate in responding to a text message provided by the game – only you’ve got a limited time, limited characters and no backspace capabilities when crafting your reply message. Once you’re done, the game will then read out your text message in a classically robotic text-to-speech voice, which is usually deeply hilarious in a very stupid way.

Players score points in FixyText by having the other team vote on their favourite words that appeared in the text reply, with points going to whoever wrote those words. You’re even recognised for the assist if multiple players contributed to a particular word (or garbled jumble of typos). If you’ve ever engaged in a bit of light-hearted buffoonery in a work document being collaborated on in real time, you’ll understand why this game offers up some incredible laughs. Although it’s threadbare in terms of actual “game,” the potential for chaos – especially playing in large, online groups – coupled with some genuinely excellent presentation, makes this one a stand-out in the group.

No Jackbox Party Pack would be complete without a trivia game of some kind, and this time around that’s Timejinx. This one’s all about guessing the year that various things took place, be it major historical events, movie premieres or world-changing innovations. The edge is taken off of proceedings slightly by asking contestants to get as close to the actual answer as possible rather than expecting everyone to be able to rattle off exact dates, and the rounds start off with only a 15-year possible range before increasing as the game goes on. The game then takes whatever the gap was in your guesses versus the actual answer, and adds them together to produce your score, meaning the lower your overall points are the better.

There are some neat wrinkles in Timejinx, with unique special rounds and some welcome ways for lagging players to catch up, but overall it’s really just regular trivia dressed up in a “time travel” theme that doesn’t really offer much to match that concept. The saving grace in this game is the way it offers plenty of opportunities to reduce their score from the main rounds which keeps things interesting right up to the end, but otherwise it’s probably the most forgettable game here.

The last inclusion, Hypnotorious, is a kind of social deduction/hidden identity game where players are assigned a character to play that they must keep secret from everyone else. Each players’ character fits into one of three categories, but nobody is told what the categories are and so must try and figure out, based on how everyone else is playing, which other players they share a category with. Meanwhile, one unlucky player will find themselves The Outlier, the only person assigned to their category, and points are scored by figuring out who The Outlier is as not even they’re told this.

If that all sounds confusing, it’s not just you (or my terrible explanation), as it took my group a few rounds to actually figure out how to play effectively. If anything, it all works best when you forget about trying to “play the game” and just do your best to embody your assigned character and then go with the flow. Once you figure that out, and provided the people you’re playing with aren’t afraid to do a bit of acting it’s actually a lot of fun and a good introduction to the kind of skill set needed to play games like Werewolf or Secret Hitler.

The post The Jackbox Party Pack 10 Review – Another Great Jackbox Offering appeared first on Press Start.

Despite it being well within my wheelhouse, I never got around to playing the original Talos Principle. The game did everything it could to entice me with a stellar critical reception, a captivating concept, and even a cat on the box art, but for one reason or another I never took the leap. Returning with greater depth and grander ambition, The Talos Principle II once again combines logic-based puzzles with existential dilemmas, like the one where I ask myself why I’ve waited this long to experience Croteam’s unique take on the genre.

At the original’s close, our android protagonist had ascended the simulation testing grounds and entered the real world, one devoid of humanity following a cataclysmic virus that devastated the global population. Heralded as a messiah, this first-born android, known as Athena, set about waking hundreds more of her kind from dreams of tetrominoes and disembodied philosophising. Building the city of New Jerusalem and instituting a semi-religious doctrine known as The Goal, this budding civilisation was to grow to exactly one thousand denizens.

Decades later, following a brief introduction in the simulation, you open your eyes as the one-thousandth android, very humanly nicknamed 1K. While the completion of The Goal is reason for celebration, the festivities are interrupted by a spectral entity who beckons you to a mysterious island away from the safety of your domed city. Accepting the call to adventure with a small band of androids with varying ideals and aspirations, you discover a pyramid-shaped megastructure, many mortal quandaries and a mountain of puzzles waiting to be solved.

In most other puzzlers, all of this would amount to impressive set dressing, a backdrop to compliment the gameplay focal point, but here, the mortality-challenging narrative walks side by side with the mechanical actions. Over the course of the nearly thirty-hour campaign, which will vary depending on your propensity to puzzles, I was met with philosophical questions that I didn’t specifically have answers for. Surprisingly extensive conversation options add weight to every interaction with your team, as well as the inhabitants of the island, resulting in confronting commentary on the cyclical nature of time, determinism, and personal autonomy to name but a few.

While pondering your own existence, you’ll also be asked to solve a series of increasingly brain-liquefying puzzles to further your expedition. Contained puzzle rooms are spread out across several open areas, allowing you to complete them in any order, giving you the freedom to take a step away from any frustration and loop back once you’ve had time to decompress. Better still, each puzzle room is numbered, named, and clearly signposted, ensuring that you won’t get lost in the beautiful environment, while also giving you an accessible way to search for a solution using a walkthrough if a particular challenge breaks you.

The puzzles themselves are exceptionally well designed, creating a satisfying loop that begins with head scratching, brow furrowing and exclamations of “this is impossible,” and ends with a moment of clarity and a feeling of foolishness that the obvious solution didn’t hit you sooner.

Your task is simply to reach a terminal that will add to the larger narrative tapestry, however, a series of forcefields, walls and other immoveable obstacles stand in your way. Luckily, you’re provided with a staggering number of tools to aid you in your efforts. Early puzzles will see you using laser-directing connectors to guide multi-coloured beams to corresponding receivers, boxes to activate pressure plates, and drills to open portals on solid objects. As you progress, the tools become more elaborate, such as teleportation pads and android shells you can project your consciousness into.

Each of these implements is introduced gradually, with their initial puzzle being fairly rudimentary, but it doesn’t take long for more complex scenarios to materialise. The true tests are found when these separate mechanics overlap, forcing you to think two, three or four steps ahead, all while considering which tools may work in tandem and which will clash. The pacing is largely perfect, with the recommended path giving you a gradual increase in difficulty in each area, although the penultimate location does come with a violent spike, only to plateau back out for the finale.

In the pursuit of uncovering the megastructure’s secrets, you and your bionic buddies will venture to four unique biomes, each containing three explorable areas. The scenery is consistently beautiful, as you begin in a lush, green archipelago filled with forests, before moving through snowy mountain tops and sweeping deserts. Each area contains eight mandatory puzzles, two optional, a handful of terminals, filled with lore-deepening logs and philosophical teachings, and various hidden collectables.

One such collectable is the Prometheus Spark, which can be used at the entry to any puzzle to instantaneously complete it without any harm done to your brain or schedule. You can revisit these sites at any time if your pride gets the better of you, but having the option to bypass troublesome challenges is a welcome one.

Completing each of the eight mandatory puzzles in an area will unlock a central tower, wherein you interact with one of the beings native to the island, philosophising with them and slowly unveiling the overarching narrative. To reach these towers, you first need to construct a bridge using tetrominoes, not unlike the puzzles found in the first game. The thought-provoking conversation at the other end of the chasm is a suitable prize, and the bridges make up a tiny percentage of the overall puzzles in the game, but I found them to be fiddly and uninspired.

Puzzle games are difficult by nature, it’s arguably the main reason someone would seek them out, but with challenge can come frustration, so it’s refreshing that The Talos Principle II respects your time and sands down a few nagging genre edges to make for a smooth experience. Placing tools on pressure pads is made easy as they snap into place, jumping over obstacles is simplified by highlighted footprints letting you know exactly where you’ll land and huge, flashing numbers at the entrance of every puzzle room guarantee you won’t get lost or turned around. Having such a player-focused design made sure that whenever I put the control down it was because my mind needed a break, not because the game was fighting against me.

The post The Talos Principle 2 Review – Mind In The Machine appeared first on Press Start.

As Dr Yasna, you awaken in an alien desert, your vision blurring from the headache piercing through your mind. With limited knowledge of how you arrived at your location, you recall that you’re on Regis III on a mission to investigate the planet, and that the Alliance has an interest in the resources there. With a damaged radio and only limited field notes, you set out to guide yourself back to base camp in the hopes that you can uncover what exactly happened, and where the rest of your crew are.

The opening moments of The Invincible, while very simplistic, give way to what is a cleverly-built science-fiction adventure game. With a story adapted from Polish writer Stanislaw Lem’s novel of the same name, developer Starward Industries has really lent into the hard sci-fi genre, creating an immersive adventure game that blends elements of atompunk and retro-futurism to bring Lem’s vision to life in a way that is reminiscent of 1950s imagining of the future.

Seeing the planet of Regis III through the eyes of Yasna, the xenobiologist of the Commonwealth’s exploration ship Dragonfly, you are drip-fed information about the mission as you explore further; slowly remembering what happened between the time your crew ventured to the planet and now. Yasna slowly pieces things together both figuratively and literally, eventually coming back into contact with Astrogator Novik (think space navigator, not some kind of alien crocodile) who guides her journey as she uncovers the crew’s whereabouts, and attempts to uncover what benefits the planet holds for the Commonwealth and why the rivalling faction in the Alliance are headed there too.

With an extremely reduced heads-up display and minimal visual clues throughout, the game relies heavily on exposition through exploration, limiting even the most basic equipment to help you find your way. Thankfully the game’s visuals function as a character in their own right – the vistas of Regis III are awe-inspiring and truly martian, with celestial bodies hanging on the horizon and brilliantly red deserts and blue land formations spreading out before you on your journey. I often found myself heavily distracted at looking around rather than focusing on the task at hand.

Of course the visuals don’t stop there, and I personally fell in love with the retro-futurism that the game leans heavily into. This is a completely interactive vision of the future as imagined in the 1950s – with small CRT TVs, knobs and dials, shades of orange, blue and green – something akin to the original Lost In Space if it met Fallout without the post-apocalyptic vibes. Yasna’s equipment such as her tracker and metal detector have retro cosmonaut vibes, and even the crew’s robot helpers feel as if they could have been pulled directly from a 1960s sci-fi show such as Doctor Who.

While it may come across as campy and almost over-the-top, the art direction could almost be seen as another character in itself, as without it the game may not be nearly as enjoyable. A quirk of the game that I thoroughly enjoyed is its comic mode – as you progress through the narrative you unlock comic panels that record what you have been through in the story; the game uses these art panels as its in-game slide records that the mechanical probes and robots record, which Yasna uncovers as she progresses through her mission.

In the same vein of games such as Firewatch and What Remains of Edith Finch, The Invincible is not a game for those who are seeking action-packed or fast-paced gameplay – it leans heavily into its walking simulator roots to explore not only the ideas of being stranded on an alien planet, but the philosophical implications of Lem’s work. It takes liberties with its source material by introducing characters and shifts the plot, but these work in the game’s favour by adding depth to the story. The gravity and isolation of Yasna’s situation allows moments of reflection in discussions with Novik as she works her way through Regis III’s landscape, uncovering more about the Dragonfly’s mission and the intelligence that the Commonwealth has over the Alliance.

While the voice acting is played out wonderfully and adds depth to the characters, the pacing in itself is all over the place. Constant build-ups for minimal payoffs tend to be consistent and don’t reach the same heights as the early mystery that the game presents. Though it initially builds tension, there’s a distinct lack of any threat or consequence to keep driving Yasna forward, and while the consistent build up is definitely a driving force to keep playing, it doesn’t quite feel rewarding in the end.

Starward Industries has made a fair effort to add variation and weight to the decisions you make in the game, through either conversation or the tasks you choose to perform, but in the long run these feel more like decisions that intend to unlock trophies or achievements. While my first play through gave me an ending that I had kind of hoped for, I chose to replay the game and make different decisions that would potentially give me outcomes that may change significantly. With around eight to ten hours of main gameplay, the overall narrative definitely wasn’t easy to put down or stop. Knowing what was coming next was a constant driving factor in playing on. At the end though, I felt more could have been done for closure, especially based around some of the decisions that were made on the journey.

The post The Invincible Review – Space For Improvement appeared first on Press Start.

Thirsty Suitors is interminably likeable. The pitch alone is enough to make you smile; a celebratory South Asian riff on Scott Pilgrim vs. the World that sees a millennial queer woman return to her hometown to make amends for a rather dramatic split from family, friends, and lovers back in her early twenties. In her absence, Jala (Farah Merani) has developed something of a complex, manifesting her older sister as her internal monologue, and the player’s third wall breaking guide, as well as a string of romantic insecurities and avoidance tactics. Typical burnout millennial shit, basically.

Only in Thirsty Suitors, everything is dialled up to eleven, every trauma point, conversation, and action translated through the game’s hyper-stylised energy. Practically speaking this means getting around town is handled by a skating mini-game, cooking with your mum by quick-time events, and confrontations with your cabal of exes as turn-based RPG clashes.

It’s ambitious, sharply drawn in both art direction and character, clumsy in execution, but always deeply, deeply likeable. You’re thrown into the game’s vibe immediately, Jala avoiding thinking about her collision course with home by completing a Dolly magazine-adjacent dating profile quiz. As you become accustomed to the skating, a fairly basic system that allows for some jumps and light trick work, you’ll be grilled by your mind sister about the kind of person you are inside a relationship, your choices here allocating points into one of the three “classes” Jala can play as. Thankfully Thirsty Suitors approach to this RPG staple is as fluid as its understanding of sexuality and gender, meaning you’re always free to change up how you play, distributing points between stats like health, focus points, and attack and defence.

This personality-driven class system spills over into Thirsty Suitors’ two primary forms of combat; emotionally charged conversations and literal turn-based battles, often at the same time. Turns out leaving a thoroughly burnt bridge on your way out of town makes coming home a rough river crossing, every corner of your once-comfortable quaint Americana home a possible battleground. The game presents you with a small map that allows you to warp between major locations, each one an explorable open environment that usually makes use of Jala’s skateboard and plays host to several potential conflicts. The plot features a handful of large-scale battles, complete with extravagant set dressing and specialised boss moves, while your lovingly meddling grandmother has dispatched an army of potential suitors who can also engage Jala in combat.

Both of Thirsty Suitors primary systems are thematically rich but equally lacking in some way. Turn-based combat is breezy to a fault, deploying several quality-of-life changes and always making impeccable use of the world (summoning your mum to smack someone giving you lip is a delight), but the baseline systems rarely register above fine. Jala can taunt opponents with emotion-specific options that in turn open up vulnerabilities, like running into a particularly needy ex and flirting to lower defences, but beyond this fights quickly become basic attack looping, punctuated by the game’s odd quick-time events. Likewise, skating feels strangely akin to The Simpsons: Hit & Run, or a similar PS2-era control experience, arcadey in the right ways but unwieldy in others.  

Nothing in Thirsty Suitor’s toolbox is ever overtly problematic to the experience holistically but a coalition of “fine” does begin to weigh down a game that otherwise soars. Jala’s active attempts to better herself and make amends for the damage she caused in her youth is genuinely one of the most compelling and entertaining video game narratives I’ve played all year. It’s a layered approach that blends fantastic character writing, overt representation of a typically unseen culture in games, proud queerness and just outright fun. I laughed out loud more times than I can count, the game’s understanding of internet humour and culturally specific but universally human emotional truths lending it a contemporary edge and an earnest heart.

Homebase for Jala’s conquest is, well, home. Crashing back in her childhood bedroom, Jala begins and ends each in-game day with her parents, two standout performances and characters who veer archetypal but connect all the same. Jala’s South Asian culture permeates the game, informing its social politics and aesthetics, best exemplified by spending time in the kitchen with her folks. Meals are a language unto themselves in Thirsty Suitors, cooked as favours for friends, bonding exercises with family, and of course, mechanical benefit during combat. These segments rely heavily on quick-time events that feel slightly off thanks to some input timing confusion, but are elevated by expressive animation work and sincere character moments. As an explosion of colourful, delicious meals I’ve quickly added to my recipe tab play out, Jala and her parents reconnect, the familial art of cooking finally repairing that bridge.

Likewise, combat is almost always a smokescreen (and largely successful metaphor) for the real meat of Thirsty Suitors – people finally talking to each other. Jala is a flawed person, someone who spent years inadvertently hurting those around her through a perfect storm of youthful ignorance, cultural pressures, and outright selfishness. In her wake is a town filled with pain, and while the Scott Pilgrim framing of exes is initially fun, it quickly gives way to a far better story about coming to terms with the pain you’ve caused others and the kinder tomorrow you might be able to reach together. I can’t overstate how much I adored this turn, several times I wished combat could just fall away and allow me to simply choose dialogue options and watch as this charming and diverse cast of characters came to terms with each other as adults.

There are a handful of other systems at play in Thirsty Suitors, ranging from cute (you can get cool new jackets and shoes to wear) to vaguely complimentary (defeating an ex will give you a phone keychain that offers combat bonuses) to superfluous (there’s a quest log of sorts). Like much of the core gameplay, these are all resoundingly fine but stop short of engaging, small pit stops along the way to the next emotionally resonate story beat or considered character exchange. There’s evident ambition in this medley and the thematic connection these systems have to the story is well-reasoned, but I don’t come away from Thirsty Suitors fondly recalling its moment-to-moment.

Instead, I’m completely smitten by Jala’s journey to adulthood, the joyful and studious expressions of culture, purpose, sexuality and gender, the hyper-stylised and saturated art direction. The list goes on, Thirsty Suitors has heart, it has soul and maturity that is sorely lacking in this space and is a stellar example of why diversity on and behind the screen matters so much to the forward momentum of the medium. All things considered, Outerloop Games is still relatively fresh-faced and with time, its mechanical leanings and goals will be better realised. But that gawky eagerness only serves to highlight that Thirsty Suitors best moments feel like finally growing up.

The post Thirsty Suitors Review – Grind Home appeared first on Press Start.

Regardless of whether or not you engage with Riot’s monolithic MOBA, League of Legends has proven to be fruitful soil for other videogame adaptations. Between the fantastic Ruined King, some isometric fun in Mageseeker, and the time-based shenanigans of CONVERGENCE, there’s a wide array of new experiences that explore different parts of the world of Runeterra. Each one comfortably planting itself into tried-and-true genres and diving into different characters and areas of the lore.

Song of Nunu: A League of Legends Story is the next entry into this collection of games, helmed by Tequila Works. A narrative-heavy experience following the titular Nunu and his bestfriend Willump sounds like a home-run, especially for fans of the setting of the Freljord and the characters that inhabit it. While it doesn’t put its best foot forward at first, Song of Nunu blossoms into an impeccably-paced adventure game that brings new ideas into the fold and bows out before overstaying its welcome.

Song of Nunu: A League of Legends Story takes place in the frosty reaches of the Freljord, where Nunu and Willump rely on each other for company and survival. For the unfamiliar, Nunu and Willump have common ground in that they’ve both lost their families. The concept of a young Notai boy looking for his mother and the only yeti left in the Freljord with the ability to wield the power of True Ice lays the groundwork for an endearing relationship that serves as the beating heart of this experience. It’s clear that the two have been friends for a while right from the get-go, circumventing any need for origin stories.

The pair sets out on an adventure across the Freljord in search of Nunu’s mother, with their only clue pointing them in the direction of a magical artifact called The Heart of the Blue. It’s a fairly safe and relatively predictable narrative (especially if you know League lore), but its strengths absolutely lie in its characters. Nunu and Willump are a joy to play, and their happy-go-lucky attitudes are infectious in the best way. The story also isn’t afraid to explore the trauma these two characters share and how they overcome it together.

The inclusions of other champions like Braum and Lissandra also add nuance and complexity to it all in engaging ways. Braum’s unwavering dedication to protecting others and the Freljord itself fits right in with Nunu and Willump’s dynamic. Lissandra, on the other hand, is explored through the sacrifices she makes for the greater good of Runeterra, standing in stark contrast with the optimism of the core cast. Tequila Works really understands what makes Lissandra tick here, and she’s made all the more complex in her motivations and morals as a result.

While most of it wraps quite nicely by the time credits roll, there’s a few key plot threads left dangling, which felt a bit off amongst the well-handled conclusions of other story elements. The resolution to the MacGuffin hunt a big chunk of the game is dedicated to feels hasty, and while it was cool to see some other champions that I won’t name here, it feels like they were meant to have relevance in later story beats that don’t quite eventuate here. It’s clear that this is setting up for a sequel of some sort, but it’s hard not to notice the disparity between the handling of certain narrative threads.

If you’ve played Tequila Works’ other adventure games, you’ll feel right at home in Song of Nunu. It does get off to a bit of a slow start, with straightforward puzzle solving and platforming that doesn’t do much to hook in you in the opening chapter. The overall pace really picks up by the time hour two rolls around, as Song of Nunu slings new ideas at you and builds on them in creative ways. It does a great job of keeping the solution to a puzzle or platforming segment in clear sight, while forcing you to think a little deeper about how to get there.

You’ll regularly swap between playing as Nunu and Willump. Nunu’s gameplay is generally more exploratory and puzzle-based as he lacks an affinity for combat like his partner does. Nunu’s most interesting tool comes in the form of his flute – Svellsongur. You can play different notes through key combinations to interact with the world and its inhabitants. While it initially seems confusing and overbearing to learn so many symbols, their intuitive visual designs had me catch onto it much quicker than I expected.

Solving these puzzles and traversing these environments is just a relaxing and wholesome time in the way a Nunu and Willump story should be. Always engaging enough to keep you playing, but not too complex as to bring your progression to a grinding halt. Even climbing can be made faster through Climb Boosting, which lets you pick up speed by hitting the jump button as you move to the next handhold. Each string of events almost always results in worthwhile payoff, like awakening a monolithic deer made of True Ice called the Kellurel.

When you aren’t jumping about or climbing up cliff faces, you’ll engage in combat as Willump, with Nunu nestled comfortably on the gentle giant’s head. It’s a very simple combat system with light, heavy, and ranged attacks with pretty limited enemy variety, but is sparingly employed to keep it from getting repetitive. Not once did I sigh at the thought of a combat encounter, and it’s always a blast to see the creative finisher animations when dispatching a foe. It certainly won’t knock your socks off, but it does a lot to break up the regular loop of traversal and puzzle solving.

While each chapter is quite linear, each one brings new ideas into the fold, such as a Nunu stealth section in the late-game. Each one also offers room and reason for exploration. Murals are scattered throughout the Freljord, inscribed with the rich history of its conflicts and prominent figures like Anivia and the Three Sisters. Notai stanzas are tucked away waiting to be uncovered and connected to form a lost song, and ever-adorable Poros wait for help to get them through their numerous plights. Each adds to the experience and keeps the Freljord feeling authentic to its identity in the lore.

Despite the Freljord being an icy region of tundra and snowy mountains, Tequila Works does a great job of keeping things varied. From cave systems that support the growth of unique flora and a forgotten city locked away from invaders, to a roaring forge and the ominous Howling Abyss, each chapter feels visually distinct from the rest. Snowball fights with Willump are also found throughout the game, offering a short and sweet distraction from the regular gameplay loop that entertains and endears on the few occasions you can engage with them.

One thing all of the A League of Legends Story titles have nailed are their visual presentation and production values. From the grungy underbelly of Ruined King’s Bilgewater to Mageseeker’s 2D take on the gilded land of Demacia, these games have brought iconic locations to life in brilliant fashion. Song of Nunu is no different, fully realizing the grandeur of the Freljord and its place in Runeterra. It has an ethereal and whimsical quality to it that’s exacerbated through the eyes of Nunu and Willump, which feels remarkably fitting for this kind of experience.

Particle effects are another highlight worth mentioning. League of Legends’ visual effects have evolved a lot over the years, influencing the way Riot has developed their other titles. Song of Nunu captures the very same 2D pastel effects in a way that really brings these characters and this world to life. Performance is also excellent on PC, and the whole experience oozes polish outside of the occasional geometry issue.

The post Song Of Nunu: A League Of Legends Story Review – A Boy And His Yeti appeared first on Press Start.

Star Ocean has always lived in the shadow of Final Fantasy. Perhaps you’d argue that’s because it’s a wildly inconsistent franchise. You wouldn’t be wrong. Of the six mainline titles, I’d argue only half of those are sure-fire hits with the RPG crowd. But no game has ever come close to Star Ocean: The Second Story. The first game on PlayStation and the one that arguably blew the franchise up for many people, it’s one of my favourite RPGs. I was hesitant that a remake could do the game justice, given the treatment by a previous remaster in 2009, but Star Ocean: The Second Story R is easily the best way to play.

Star Ocean: The Second Story R sees Claude Kenny transported to the foreign planet of Expel. There, through unfortunate circumstances, he meets Rena Langford, a young girl who grew up on the planet. During a battle, Rena sees Claude using his phaser and mistakes it for “The Sword of Light,” which a prophesied hero would wield. Elsewhere, a mysterious structure called the Sorcery Globe crash-lands on Expel, and people start behaving strangely. Claude doesn’t believe he’s the hero but agrees to help Rena investigate the globe, hoping it will lead to a way home for him.

When you begin the game, you can select whether to follow the story from Claude or Rena’s perspective. The character you choose will affect which side of certain events you’ll see and also affects which characters will join your party. The main path you travel is essentially the same, with slight divergence in the story. Regardless of who you pick, the plot is still much more intriguing than your typical RPG, especially the villains themselves. There’s some plodding through some very typical RPG schtick to get there, of course, but it’s still a great narrative to experience.

As mentioned before, The Second Story has been remastered twice before for both PSP and PS4. Neither of those treatments has come close to the experience that The Second Story R provides. Built from the ground up, the game has essentially been reworked with a modern design sensibility without sacrificing any of the spirit of the original. Many of the design choices are bound to be divisive with more purist fans, but it’s undoubtedly the best way to play Star Ocean 2.

As far as RPGs go, it’s fairly typical in its structure. You take your party around a vast and sprawling world, completing quests for people and progressing the story to uncover the mystery of the Sorcery Globe. The structure and quality of the game is typical for a game coming from the golden age of RPGs. But what Star Ocean does different is what separates it from it’s peers. It’s also the way that The Second Story R streamlines these mechanics that makes it such a more more intuitive and enjoyable experience.

One example of this streamlining is how Star Ocean handles its almost-proprietary Private Action system. Private Actions are essentially 1-on-1 interactions between your main character and the rest of the party. In the original game, you’d experience them by entering a town in Private Action Mode, splitting up your party and letting them all go do their own thing. You can then go and track them down in the city and participate in certain activities to build your relationships. Each of the relationships affects how the endings play out, and, with the remake, you can even see visual indications of how you’re standing with each of your party members.

With the improvements included in The Second Story R, you can switch to Private Action mode at any point with the press of a button. On top of this, all available Private Actions appear on your map and those which are available for a limited time are marked as such. The original game is notorious for having so much hidden from the player and so many interactions missable – a carryover of the design philosophy from this era – but having it visible makes it so much more manageable.

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This design philosophy around making the experience better for the player continues with how exploration flows. There’s still a world map to explore with many towns to visit. You can even veer off the main path to more dangerous areas to level up quickly. But with The Second Story R, you can now pull up a map at any time and fast-travel to locations you’ve previously visited. Even better, you can even travel to specific shops you’ve visited before. It sounds like a small addition, but it alleviates a great degree of tedium from travelling endlessly like you normally would in games like these.

But no other system has been as dramatically reinvented as the battle system. The original game featured a real-time combat system akin to the Tales games, but through random encounters ala old-school Final Fantasy. It was and continues to be a solid battle system, but I’d argue it’s aged a little. Casting spells would constantly pause the action to show them play out, and physically-minded characters rarely offered anything more than mashing a single button to attack. There just wasn’t a lot of depth or nuance there.

The Second Story R expands combat with a new “Break” system. Borrowing from many RPGs of this era, it hides an enemy’s health bar behind armour that needs to be broken with certain moves. Breaking an enemy stuns them, leaving them susceptible to big damage. All characters can also now dodge parry moves to recover MP and break enemies faster too. There are even some battles where an enemy might be designated a leader, and they buff their party but also break their party if you break them. The idea of breaking is done to death in modern RPGs these days, but that’s exactly the point. The Second Story R’s battle system now, arguably, feels a lot more modern and has a lot more depth to it than when it was originally presented.

One aspect of the new battle system that I loved was also the Assault Action system. Essentially, you can nominate an ability for each of your party members and then call in that party member to perform that ability as a one-off assist move. It’s a great way to involve party members you might not use all the time who have the skills you want.  As an even cooler touch, protagonists from previous Star Ocean games have been converted to sprite form and can also be summoned as assist-only party members too.

These are all major improvements that are bolstered by minor adjustments that help The Second Story R escape the typical pitfalls of RPGs from this era. Enemies now physically appear on the map and can be avoided if need be. Cutscenes can be sped up or even skipped if you’re familiar with the story and just want to get into things quickly. There’s even an autosave now, so if you accidently step into a battle that’s too tough, you can reload to an autosave or reload to just before the battle to adjust your party. They’re little adjustments that have a significantly positive effect on how the game flows.

But I can’t really talk about Star Ocean without mentioning the skills systems and crafting. Easily one of the things that Star Ocean does best, the skills system in Star Ocean allows you to better specialise your party into the roles you want them to play. Some skills can also give you specialties, which can be used to craft items that buff you in battle. Specific skills you improve affect how your character behaves in combat but can also feed into the proficiency of these specialties. A crude example would be that increasing your skills with knives will improve your melee damage, but also improve your cooking skills. It’s an incredibly robust and in-depth system that many RPGs still have not matched, though it’s always been a strong point for the Star Ocean series.

I’ve never really wanted to replay an RPG after finishing it, but Second Story R makes an excellent case for why you should, more so than any RPGs of that era. While a typical playthrough might take around forty hours through the content that was in the original, there’s some new content added, too. A brand-new fishing minigame has been included with rewards for catching all fish. Recruiting certain party members will prevent others from joining, giving you more reason to play it again and try every one. But a newly added New Game Plus mode makes those replays more enticing than it was. It makes the need to get more of the eighty possible endings more palatable (if you so wish).

But of course, the presentation is where a crux of the improvements have been made. The original game had pre-rendered backgrounds, similar to older Final Fantasy games. The Second Story R scraps those and rebuilds all environments in full 3D with modern lighting. The sprites from the original game have been kept, adding a bit of an HD-2D look similar to games like Octopath Traveler. This shift in presentation does a great job of improving so many pivotal moments. Where once a scene was just described through text, the dynamic camerawork and improved visuals help to sell the sense of drama and wonder that these scenes were meant to inspire. It’s a fantastic-looking game and one of the most unique implementations of the HD-2D style. Even better is that it runs at 60FPS on Switch, too.

The audio overhaul is less of a sure-fire improvement. It’s a remarkable effort to include options to select the voicework from the original game, the 2009 remaster, and a brand-new dub. But neither English dub matches their characters, so having the option to choose the Japanese audio is appreciated, given how big this game is. The soundtrack, however, is still as impressive as ever. The new re-arranged music has much more depth and richness than the original. However, both are selectable if you want to experience the game as it was from an audio perspective.

When all is said and done, the changes will no doubt upset some purists, but there’s no mistaking that all of the improvements that Star Ocean: The Second Story R makes to the original make it a better game. It’s incredibly modernised and is honestly the treatment that Star Ocean has been worthy of for so long.

The post Star Ocean: The Second Story R Review – A Sea Of Stars And More appeared first on Press Start.

It took me a minute to find my footing with Jusant. Ever since its reveal during the June Xbox Gaming Showcase, the lofty promise of “what if the climbing from Breath of the Wild but a whole game” has been swirling around in the back of my brain, idealised but never thoroughly considered. Never mind that it had emerged from French developer DON’T NOD, best known for its outstanding narrative work and hardly the first studio you’d call to mind to craft a relatively linear rock-climbing simulator. It’s in this dissonance though that Jusant has flourished, a collision of new ideas and studio-pedigree that results in a game with a rich, singular goal and an unmarked path toward it. Bumps and bruises fading as the view from the top comes around.

Jusant’s nameless protagonist is on a mission. Who they are, where they’ve come from, and why they’re so determined to reach their goal is almost immaterial to the game and is left in turn to be largely defined by whatever it is you, the player, decide to bring to this climb. Loosely you come to understand that the world of Jusant turns on an axis of absence; you emerge from an endless dry waste, once an ocean, and begin to ascend an impossibly tall and organically ornate pillar that reaches into the clouds and beyond. As you climb you learn more about the structure and the people that once built their lives around it, a people whose symbiosis with water produced majestic art and culture but, in its absence, have now fled into the wastes, leaving behind a vertical monument to their old ways and Jusant’s haunted relic of an obstacle course.

It is understood to the climber that atop this graveyard is a chance for new life, one they will be ferrying gently in their humble backpack. A kind of esoteric boy and his dog tale, Jusant has you caring for a strange creature whose body is composed of mystical, semi-formed liquid and whose small chirps have resonance with the world around you. Both emotionally charged lore ping and invaluable mechanical buddy, the two of you venture upward with Jusant’s simple, but refined, climbing systems, navigating a densely packed environment, and gently probing at the edges of the game’s aloof, but deeply affecting world. This is a game about taking your time, and while you could easily surmount the climb in around five hours, Jusant’s deliberate nature rewards an equally studious climber.

Which is something the game clearly communicates through its mountaineering with each handhold, footrest, and timely jump revolving around a limited stamina bar and dual trigger-controlled grips. The two shoulder triggers each align with the climber’s left and right hand, giving you freeform control over what each is holding onto at any given moment. The longer you hold or further you move, the more of a strain it places on your stamina meter, which can be partially restored by loosening your grip but never fully regained until you’re back on solid ground. As you progress further through the mountain, environmental stimuli will impact your manoeuvrability, like a hot sun draining your stamina faster or a strong wind giving your jumps, typically stamina heavy moves, a bit of extra distance.

The intensely singular nature of the climbing calls Death Stranding’s somewhat infamous walk balancing to mind. Jusant layers its climbing with some finesse and niceties but is ultimately only ever truly concerned with having you master a specific toolset and find your own flow with it. There’s no fail state, the climber protected by invisible walls on most perilous drops and each climb beginning with an anchor point and generous rope allowance with additional anchor points, player-placed and otherwise, dotting the way along lengthy climbs. Even if you do flub a jump or misjudge your stamina, you’ll plummet but lose nothing but time and some patience, spooling the rope back up as you begin again, a little wiser and maybe a little wearier.

At times Jusant can frustrate, its impeccable visual path delineation and rock-solid mechanical foundations wavering as you clumsily work through its more ill-advised tightly timed platforming puzzles, methodical rhythm interrupted by bouts of sporadic clambering. There are times this tension feels deliberate, but others lack the care you’ll come to expect from the game. Those aforementioned niceties go a long way to smooth over these moments at least; your blob creature can be called upon to perform a melodic chirp, bringing nearby fauna and creatures to life to assist in your platforming, while another prompt can guide you toward either the next progression point or one of Jusant’s many collectables. Littered throughout the mountain are dozens of nooks in which you can find traces of Jusant’s rich world, from extravagant art installations to hastily scribbled notes between people who once lived here.

The overarching aesthetic and tonal work of the game is often awe-inspired, those hard-earned rests between climbs made magic by the relics of the old world you can discover. Water, and more specifically its absence, is everything to Jusant, informing not only its broader plot but its thematic currents too; light and memory are refracted through liquid facsimiles housed in room-sized constructs, traces of sea creatures and living in balance with the ocean permeates every dwelling and abandoned business or home, the game’s chapter’s punctuated by towering monoliths activated by the sound of breath through shells. Your climb facilitates restoration of nature both mechanically and spiritually, but what water means to you will inform what you ultimately take away from Jusant’s tale.

This richly incentivising ambiguity is strained somewhat by the game’s more explicit plot work, those letters and correspondence found in the world often halting progress and imagination with walls of text. It’s not poorly written by any means; one instances saw my breath catch slightly as I poured over a diary entry lamenting the loss of a partner, “we’ll see each other again when the clouds decide” wrote someone long before I came to this place. It’s the kind of turn of phrase that tells me Jusant’s writing is always keenly aware of its all-encompassing thematic work, but the abundance of these text entries does puncture the otherwise ethereal tone. It’s not the first time Jusant made me think on Fumito Ueda’s works but where his worlds almost entirely trust the player to pulls its threads into a tapestry, Jusant feels hesitant to operate with the same confidence.

Still, Jusant is more than any individual stumble along its meditative ascension. Its closing moments, though bordering on reliance on the aesthetics of emotion more than the connective tissue itself, still managed to move me. An elegantly crafted landscape plays host to a culture both mystical and familiar as the game studiously teaches you the inherent value of a single act, done methodically and with care. Jusant’s plainly spoken world and restrained mechanics make for a timely and engaging experience but between the words, amid the climb, is where you’ll find Jusant’s true oasis.

The post Jusant Review – It’s The Climb appeared first on Press Start.

The thing about mysteries like Alan Wake is that they are built on a bedrock of chaos, where reason and order is never quite in arm’s reach. In principle, as in most stories about conflict, it’s the warring forces of light and dark wrestling for control, with agents on both sides tossing rocks back and forth in the name of bedlam. But when a hopeful ellipsis turns into a thirteen-year absence, as is the case with Alan Wake, things can’t exactly continue as they were. 

It’s hard to pick up the same old rocks and believe that’s worth the wait. So while we’re still picking at the same narrative threads and still brandishing the sturdiest flashlight of them all, the darkness in Alan Wake’s story has had time to fester and grow more extreme. This significant shift in tone has definitely informed a far darker story, and a far more sinister game in Alan Wake II.  

Saga Anderson, one of the game’s co-protagonists, arrives in Bright Falls after a string of connected, ritualistic murders plague the harbourside town. The evidence points towards a cult being behind these violent delights, though as pages for a manuscript begin to manifest once again, things take a stranger turn. Before long, the link to missing writer Alan Wake is made, and the nature of his disappearance thirteen years prior and Saga’s case collide in a spectacular duelling narrative. It has been suggested throughout the game’s promotional tour that it can be appreciated on its own merit, and I think that might be half right. 

The impact of Wake’s attempt at escape from The Dark Place on Saga’s life, both professional and personal, is profound and it’s perhaps the most accessible thread to follow for those who didn’t play Alan Wake. But the stories you find in this sequel tie back to Remedy’s connected universe in such clever ways, that not having a context for all of it would be a huge shame. So I do think that both Control and the original Alan Wake are required reading here. 

I won’t delve deeper into story beats because it deserves to unfold for players organically, though the radically different twin stories both converge and intertwine so wonderfully, it’s quite an achievement. It’s one part true crime thriller, one part mind-bending horrorscape, but it also has a sense of humour about itself. Whether it’s Sam Lake’s meta performance as the hard-boiled Alex Casey, the expert-level gaslighting from Rose of the Oh Deer Diner, or Peter Franzén’s turn as the Finnish-American Koskela brothers, they’re all specks of light within what is really a dark narrative. 

The tone struck in Alan Wake II, as I’ve already stated, is one of survival horror. As much as I loved the first game, I felt at points it was a bit of a monster closet. Not only is the sequel’s atmosphere and palpable tension earned, but it reminds me more of Control in a functional sense. Its maps are more open-plan, giving a greater sense of uncertainty and reward to exploration. And although the signature flashlight and revolver combo do go to work for both protagonists, the game doles out an arsenal of survival-horror greatest hits throughout including a pump-action shotgun and hunting rifle, which are locked behind intricate chores—an absolute time-honoured tradition for the genre. And, of course, inventory management is presented as more of a task here. It’s a juggling act of ammo, trauma pads, and precious flares. But with it being more like Resident Evil, where larger items such as shotguns eat heavily into your space, your pockets fill up quickly adding a level of anxiety over what not to keep. 

The game isn’t without moments where it funnels Taken at you en masse. However, on the whole, I feel that the way the shadowy forces are presented in Alan Wake II is far more menacing and more scary than before. Not only are there new varieties to combat, including some cool boss encounters, they exist more so as umbrous wraiths that tamely wander the street, gutturally calling out to Alan in passing. Not knowing which ones will violently lash out adds a level of unpredictability in simply wandering about. 

With more than a decade of craft under its belt since the first game, Remedy certainly hasn’t rested on either its laurels or preconceptions of what a survival horror game should be. Saga’s Mind Place is perhaps the most fascinating of the new gameplay hooks, it’s a mental construct she’s able to retreat into to deduce based on case clues, effectively ‘Jedi mind trick’ suspects using a heightened ability to profile, but it’s ultimately useful for keeping everything laid out and clear for people following the intricate narrative and its many subplots. Similarly, Wake himself can make the writing room he’s spent so long in something of a safe haven to refer to the plot board. The first Alan Wake really sold the concept of the writer’s dastardly manuscript coming to life, though this plot board lets players massage the story on the fly based on fragments of a larger, fictional Alex Casey detective tale unfolding within The Dark Place. The game presents Alan’s supernatural prison cell as a malleable, twisted vision of New York, the novelist’s once home. 

And just as picking a different story thread, like one surrounding a cult that ardently evangelises the written word, can open up new avenues for exploration within a scene, so too does Alan’s angel-winged lamp. Fans of the first game will recall the paranatural severed light switch and its magical properties, and this lamp is closely related to it. With it in hand, and while bathing in the safety of some light sources, Alan can morph the reality around him to put a twist on whatever part of the city he’s in. Despite at times leaving the way forward a little muddled and unclear, it’s a very cool, flashy mechanic that really shows off the virtually non-existent load times in the game. In fact, the only point I’d experience any kind of wait was when I’d hop from Alan’s story to Saga’s, or vice versa, but it didn’t exactly put a halt to the story’s momentum. 

At times, the first Alan Wake felt like an endless stream of hiking trails. The world of Bright Falls, as well as Cauldron Lake and Watery, are far more fleshed out in this sequel, serving more so as larger, fully-mapped hubs that players can explore the more the story unfolds. To wander Bright Falls and learn there’s a Main St behind its harbour-facing facade was really neat. And with the way Remedy have become the modern custodians of the blending of live-action and pre-rendered gameplay, they don’t hold back with Alan Wake II. Just as in Control, actors deliver monologues regularly on top of the gameplay and it’s done to great effect, I was constantly marvelling at what an immersive storytelling aid it is. It also helps that the game is downright gorgeous. From the first moment we set foot back in Cauldron Lake, it’s evident that the environment design is first-class. I’d go so far as to say it rivals and outclasses many of the first-party heavyweights who’ve long buttered their bread thanks to stunning worlds to retreat into. 

There were points that the live-action would transition back to regular play and I’d double-take because the fidelity is just so rich. Being able to capture acts so intimately has definitely allowed for some shining and standout performances from Villi, who returns as Wake with a little help from the venerable Matthew Poretta, as well as Lake and a couple of others I won’t note to protect readers from story spoilers.

You wouldn’t often catch me revelling in the fact that I had to wait just over a third of my lifetime, to date, for any video game. However, the fact is that an Alan Wake sequel made by any other Remedy than the one who, instead of dragging the dark waters of Cauldron Lake for an easy sequel, went on to create the universes of Quantum Break and Control while defining what it means to be a Remedy game, the end of Alan’s story might have sputtered out like a Stephen King ending. 

It’d be disingenuous for me to claim that Alan Wake II is the game I hoped it’d be because before Control I could never have predicted the pivots in tone and genre that the idea of Alan Wake has undergone. By leaning wholly into survival horror and connecting it to their bigger picture, universal plans, they’ve metaphorically put to press a bold, adventurous sequel that keeps the Lynchian sensibilities and zany humour of the original firmly intact. 

The code for Alan Wake II was provided to Press Start Australia for the purpose of review by Epic Games and Remedy Entertainment.

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The first thing that springs to mind when I consider my time with Ghostrunner II is “careful what you wish for”. I closed my critique of the first game’s expansion Project Hel with the conclusive hope that One More Level might explore the world outside of the Dharma Tower, to broaden the horizon and blood new players in this wild, cyberpunk future. In an attempt to go big, I feel as though Ghostrunner’s sequel loses the focus and soul of what made the original such a spectacle. 

Jack’s humanity has long been the lynchpin for the stories told within the series, whether directly or when juxtaposed against Hel’s cold, inhuman form, and he once again finds himself fighting for the greater good in Ghostrunner II. However, without The Architect pulling the strings and jostling for control within the Tower, the power vacuum falls to an unrelenting gang of Asura, the original Ghostrunners. With the resources and manpower of hopeful revolutionaries The Interface Council at his heels, it feels as though there have never been more players to keep tabs on. The resultant incoherence still has a few terrific reveals that build out the world’s lore, but it ultimately feels a bit messier than the original. 

Similarly, the main campaign feels disjointed and poorly paced. The first game, which benefited in retrospect from being set within one location, felt more focused and linear, and it dished up maps that played to the game’s strengths. Parkour felt fast and fluid, and combat was tense and up close like getting into a punch-on in a closet. Several of the choices made in this sequel do nothing to serve those same strengths, it’s actually full of questionable oddities that kill the flow and whatever momentum you manage to build. Not only does sliding down sloped platforms not yield the same boost it once did, but the introduction of blocking and enemy variants that require a ‘stop, prop and parry’ approach also does little to favour ceaseless movement within the game’s arenas. For a game that values marrying movement and violence, these feel like flaws of design and they’re only further compounded by an entirely new mechanic, which I won’t spoil, that is introduced solely for the last level which, to me, never speaks to a singular, clear vision.

The first game felt so assured and confident in its design principles, it’s almost as if another team entirely were asked to run with the franchise and try to make it work. That’s how unpolished and lacking finesse it can be, especially once it devolves into a game that is profoundly not Ghostrunner. 

Bogging down the action by debriefing at The Interface Council’s headquarters after every other mission, along with many of the things I’ve already mentioned, simply feels antithetical to the original game’s ethos. It serves little functional purpose as all of the actionable tasks, like equipping skills, can be done mid-mission, and the exposition could be delivered over comms. Of the new features, RogueRunner.exe feels most at home within the context of Ghostrunner. It’s accessible through the main menu and serves as a gauntlet that tests players’ combat and parkour proficiencies and rewards participants with cosmetic prizes. This time around there are optional terminals throughout Dharma that similarly throw down time trials that feel conducive to the game’s spirit. 

All of Jack’s returning skills, as well as a couple of brand-new ones, and abilities breed some familiarity, and when you do get to play this game like the original it still rips. Pulsating action and punishing parkour set to an absolute jam of a soundtrack is when this game is firing on all cylinders. As I alluded to earlier, it’s when the team explores the world outside of Dharma that things fall apart.

It delivers on a narrative level, however, it fails purely on function. Jack’s almost anachronistic motorcycle which is used purely to traverse the big, empty wasteland floats like a boat and handles much the same, in fact, it felt like all there was outside was geometry to get wedged in. I didn’t know what I hoped for when I wished for a glimpse beyond the Tower’s “safety” but it wasn’t this. To go from running through the undeniably cool as fuck Cybervoid to exploring this regular void for a better portion of the game’s second half felt like a waste. That said, the single coolest thing you can do in this sequel is abort the bike through a laser barricade only to reel it back using your gap jammer, it’s like a futuristic no-hander to seat grab.

Jack’s capacity for power-ups is tied directly to his memory, which can be increased by collecting the numerous pick-ups throughout Dharma and beyond. Collecting enough will increase his memory level, meaning you’re able to equip more powers. This marks yet another change to how it’s presented to players after Project Hel already changed things up. I’m not sure that I prefer the sequel’s layout more than either of the others, but it’s perhaps a little clearer and less involved than it was before. As well as memory chips, artefacts and items are waiting in all corners of the game’s labyrinthian map and so Jack is well rewarded for searching for secret caches. I have always loved the customisation options and how Jack’s katana and arm can be personalised to a degree to make him yours.

Performance is something of a mixed bag throughout the game. Funnily enough, I noticed more lag spikes in display modes favouring frame rate than in those that favour fidelity, with the Cybervoid being a hotbed of jutting frames. With it lacking that little bit of polish around the edges, it’s hard not to wonder whether Ghostrunner II got all of the time it needed. Even the animated prologue that recaps the first game is compressed beyond belief, which was a concerning opening, to say the least. With the excursion to the outside world, there’s also less of the neon and flair found in the Dharma cityscape. Outside of the Cybervoid and any scaled-up boss fight against the Asura, it’s mostly industrial browns and greys that don’t pop on-screen at all. 

Project Hel didn’t feel like a worthy off-shoot for how great a game Ghostrunner was. Similarly, I feel as though this sequel only manages to half honour the things that made the first game special. The ‘fresh’ gimmicks here, being Jack’s bike and the wider world it so clunkily rolls on through, are bound to be the lead balloon that ultimately weighs down what could have been one of the year’s coolest sequels.  

The post Ghostrunner 2 Review – Jack Of Few Trades appeared first on Press Start.

With the benefit of a few years of early access behind it, and being an entry-level reader of horror manga myself, World of Horror is undoubtedly the year’s most fascinating prospect. It takes the sharp, blood-curdling prose and art of someone like Junji Ito and throws it into a roguelike crockpot full of supernatural mysteries with a surprisingly deep mash-up of adventure and role-playing mechanics.

A looming apocalypse threatens the quaint Japanese coastal town of Shiokawa, while a cast of Old Gods of Eldritch lore wreaks havoc about the place. Your task is to scour different parts of the town in an attempt to find clues and unravel a series of horrific, macabre mysteries while fending off otherworldly horrors that lurk around every turn. To say it’s unsettling would be an understatement, World of Horror leans its whole damn self into the body horror, folklore, and urban legend that has made Japanese horror so prolific throughout the years. 

The systems at play in World of Horror are surprisingly in-depth, putting a scary, tactical spin on turn-based bludgeoning. Making each second count in conflict is the key to success and you can queue up a combination of offensive, defensive, or support actions on a timeline on a per-turn basis. There’s a frantic energy to combat in World of Horror, whether you’re scrambling for a weapon or having an ally run a distraction play, it all culminates in an increasingly tense play-by-play. This is once it all clicks into place, I will say that World of Horror can feel a bit overwhelming from the jump, given the sheer amount of information the game displays across its many screens. 

All of the traditional role-playing concepts like inventory, status effects, and even the ways in which your run’s Old God is plaguing the town are given their own tab to check in on. With so much to track, I’d argue that onboarding isn’t what it should be. There is a tutorial case about a scissor-wielding mad woman that helps get the basic premise across before plunging into the larger mystery, but it doesn’t cover everything. Some cases unfold entirely in one place, while others require exploration of the town to gather clues.

Both failure and death will darken your door repeatedly in World of Horror, whether your character is exhausted of their stamina and reason or whether your actions draw the ultimate ire of the Old God and serve as a catalyst for the end of days. Fortunately, the brevity of a run means there’s little risk in playing fast and loose, however haphazard play doesn’t come at the expense of the game’s rising tension and atmosphere. 

Tailored for short burst play, each “run” of World of Horror is meant to last, at most, an hour. Mileage will vary depending on how quickly the player meets their ultimate demise, though I was averaging runs of thirty minutes once I found my groove. Though you can dabble with the game’s prepopulated runs, there are plenty of means to customise a play through right down to difficulty, the Old God tormenting the town, and a starting character from a cast with varying starting stats, curses, and items. It’s this roguelike foundation that has made World of Horror a constant source of riveting, dreadful entertainment. 

With multiple endings available for each case, you’ll spend a lot of time sifting through for threads to tug on in hopes they’ll lead you to an alternate end. The same goes for the random events, and enemies, that you might happen upon. Filling out each codex and collecting everything fast becomes the chase as you continue to put to rest and close each absorbing case file. 

Similar to the cursed tape from Ringu, World of Horror feels like a forbidden relic of paranormal power. It feels evident from the classic boot-up screen that the game exists in a place out of time, preparing to prey on unsuspecting players. And it does. It’ll disturb you when you are playing and eat at you when you aren’t. It combines its grotesque one-bit art, which was dreamt up and brought to life using Microsoft Paint of all things, with a seriously unnerving soundscape. It’s eerie, and strange, and manifests an unease in the pit of your belly. 

World of Horror is a captivating choose-your-own adventure-like that time and time again disarms through sharp writing and hair-curling imagery that stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the works of Junji Ito. It’s a never-ending source of entertainment and its truncated cases, with their boundless replayability, are interactive short stories torn from the manga pages that clearly inspired them. 

The post World Of Horror Review – A Descent Into Madness appeared first on Press Start.

Some of my most treasured multiplayer gaming moments have come from games about racing little cars around ridiculous tracks with friends. From Micro Machines to Mashed, the miniaturised car racing category is always reliable for a quick burst of fun. Hot Wheels Unleashed 2: Turbocharged from Milestone continues this tradition of scale-model mayhem by building on the features of it–s predecessor with new modes, driving abilities and a story-led campaign, but doesn’t quite hold up when played outside those quick bursts.

What caught my eye immediately upon jumping into a race in Unleashed 2 was the sheer attention to detail in the cars themselves. Tiny details like the moulding lines from their manufacturing process and realistic-looking materials for painted plastic and metallic surfaces make it look Milestone just ripped a toy car from its packaging and threw it onto my screen.

They even damage realistically – cars at the end of a race have little chips and paint wear that looks exactly like most of my little toy cars did when I was a kid, after they’d been smashed together a bunch. There’s a great variety of vehicles on offer too from iconic original Hot Wheels designs to models of real life cars, including everything from sedans to tanks.

The environments and track on offer are also worthy of note. Tracks can be set in one of five environments and each lends a particular personality to the race. Racing out in the backyard might be the most nostalgic setting for me, as someone who whiled away countless hours flinging little die cast cars along the patio. Other settings like a dinosaur museum and 80s style pizzeria/arcade are great fun too. Full of appropriate hazards and landmarks, the racing environments in Unleashed 2 are a treat.

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Unfortunately, the positive presentation party ends when it comes to what’s being pumped from your speakers. While engines sound wonderful, varied and appropriate to the car being driven, I found the choice of music for the game pretty grating. Uninspired and repetitive, the music in Unleashed 2 had me reaching for the Spotify app on my PlayStation. Using the turbo boost while driving emits a high pitched whine that is unpleasant too, unfortunate given how essential boosting is to victory here.

Boosting is just one of the useful abilities you’ll have at your disposal to deal with the competition in Unleashed 2. New to this game are the jump and strafe abilities which can be used to reach new paths in races as well as to smash your opponents around a bit. The strafe can be especially fun – similar to the side swipe attack in F-Zero, your car suddenly shunts to the left or right and knocks anyone next to you aside. It can be particularly fun to use a larger, heavier vehicle to absolutely slam a small bike into the oblivion of the backyard garden. Each of these abilities uses your boost meter, which can be built up by drifting around corners, slipstreaming behind other cars and doing general Cool Stuff.

These abilities combined with the design of the tracks available give some great freedom in how you approach a race. As long as you pass through certain checkpoints in order, it doesn’t matter the precise path you take between them – and Unleashed 2 gives you plenty of opportunities to leave the beaten track. Whether you enjoy this will be down to personal preference, but I found this level of freedom mostly frustrating rather than rewarding. Not noticing a gap in the track ahead and falling off rather than jumping to the next section is annoying, even if respawning is reasonably quick. For a game designed with kids in mind, it gives a lot of opportunity to irreparably ruin your place in a race by missing a jump or drifting off-course.

Your solo experience of these races will likely begin in the campaign mode. Here, you traverse a top-down map view to select from available events. Each has a minimum requirement to pass, and an extra requirement for further rewards. There’s also a story happening throughout, though outside of the motion-comic style character scenes you’d be hard pressed to notice. Aside from boss levels, events have very little relation to the animated storyline. Boss battles were my least favourite events in the campaign, simply involving racing around a track solo trying to hit a series of targets. Miss one, and you basically have to start again.

Despite the story being barely relevant, the campaign is at least a decent way to explore the different race types available and earn currency to buy and customise your cars. A store is available with a constantly rotating selection of cars to purchase – with rarer ones appearing for sale less regularly. It’s definitely a friendlier way to build up a collection than the loot boxes of the previous game, but it’s a bit boring. I’d much prefer a more classic style of unlocking vehicles with challenges or milestones rather than just checking a store every 40 minutes to see if a rare car is available. Thankfully none of the currencies in the game require real money. Everything can be unlocked simply by playing the game a whole lot.

Multiplayer is the other major portion of Turbocharged, and there’s plenty to play with here. Heaps of quick race modes give plenty of different ways to play with friends as well as work your way through the global leaderboard ranks. Cross-platform play should make finding a match way easier, though it’s an (understandable) shame that Switch is left out of the cross-platform party here. I struggled to find many matches during my review time with the game, though given not many people have the game yet that’s probably to be expected. Local play is limited to two player split screen which is a bit of a shame given how much fun racers like this can be with a group.

I’d be remiss not to mention the in-depth track and livery editors. I found both tools a bit intimidating at first, but the sheer variety of pieces and customisations available is impressive. You’ll even unlock more as you play the game. Liveries and tracks can be shared with the online community too. It’ll be very cool to see some no doubt impressive user-created stuff emerge in the coming months.

The post Hot Wheels Unleashed 2: Turbocharged Review – Die Cast Thrills appeared first on Press Start.

While Souls-like games are becoming more frequent in release cadence and are seeing sharp rises in quality, it’s been quite the rocky path to get to where we’re at today. Many titles manage to nail one or two aspects key to the subgenre, but fail to fully capitalise on everything it can achieve in the way FromSoftware does. One of the most high profile first steps into this new frontier, was in Deck13’s Lords of the Fallen.

While its core direction and setting were sound, Lords of the Fallen was weighed down by numerous flaws. The clunky controls, uneven difficulty curve, and hit-or-miss boss fights made for a middling experience that had clear potential to be more. It’s these circumstances that bring us a sequel/reboot under the very same name that bucks much of the baggage that came with the original. While this is an earnest attempt to create something new, this iteration of Lords of the Fallen stumbles in ways different from its predecessor.

While not directly tied into the narrative of the 2014 original, Lords of the Fallen takes place a millennia after the defeat of the Demon God Adyr in the first game. As with all bad things, though, Adyr is gearing up to make a return to the lands of Mournstead. As a newly risen Dark Crusader (badass, I know), you must traverse the worlds of the living and dead to put a stop to Adyr’s terror for good.

It’s a very Souls-y premise, calling back to the cyclical nature of Dark Souls lore. This is one thing this iteration of Lords of the Fallen absolutely nails. Mournstead is a haunting and atmospheric land drenched in gothic imagery and attention to detail that breathes life into its myriad locales. The impact that Adyr has on these lands is clear, creating a convincing end of the world style setting that sells the stakes.

Much like Dark Souls, it’s the environmental storytelling and subdued characters that serve up Lords of the Fallen’s narrative appeal. Each location has a story to tell, and the quiet mindfulness of each wanderer you meet along the path echoes an ethereal and dream-like mysticism that’s hard to effectively nail down.

While Mournstead is relatively linear in design, it’s elevated by Lords of the Fallen’s two-world premise. Mournstead is split into two realms; Axiom, which is the world of the living, and Umbral, which is the world of the dead. Through use of the Umbral Lantern, you can peer through and shift between these realms to navigate obstacles and find the path forward.

A door blocked in Axiom might be due to untamed overgrowth of grotesque organic materials in Umbral, requiring you to enter the land of the dead to clear the way forward. Moving between these realms and solving navigational puzzles to progress forward is always rewarding and engaging. It’s a constant treat to see how Hexworks puts this brilliant system into play, and adds depth to areas that would otherwise feel pretty one-note. Better yet, you can’t just exit Umbral whenever you see fit. Effigies must be found to return to Axiom, and the longer you spend amongst the dead, the more dangerous it becomes.

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Entering Umbral and making use of the Umbral Lantern will start to Wither your health bar, which effectively works as a grey health system. Withered health will completely disappear upon taking a hit, and can be replenished by dealing damage to enemies. It forces you to play in a more considered and careful manner every time you venture into Umbral, and keeps you conscious of the time you spend there.

The dual realms and Umbral Lantern also have some interesting impacts on combat and related systems. For starters, death in Lords of the Fallen isn’t truly final until you kick the bucket in Umbral after falling in Axiom. It smooths down some of the abrasiveness that comes with learning enemy and boss patterns while maintaining the difficulty this sub-genre is known for. You can also Soulflay enemies, splitting their soul and physical body apart, opening up an opportunity for big damage. It’s truly original stuff that’s unlike anything else on the market today, taking advantage of high speeds afforded by current-gen hardware.

One of the original game’s biggest issues was how clunky and slow it was to control Harkyn both inside and outside of combat. While 2023’s Lords of the Fallen fixes this issue, it does so by veering too far in the other direction. Combat feels floaty, suffers from inconsistent hit detection, and generally lacks the impact and game feel needed to keep it engaging for the title’s lengthy runtime. Its numerous combat mechanics, consumable items, and varied enemy designs help to provide some flexibility and dynamism to encounters, but don’t ease the monotony that sets in during the later hours.

Because of this, boss fights rarely serve as effective points of punctuation throughout your playthrough. They sport some incredibly creative visual designs and spectacle that are a treat to look at, but ultimately fall victim to the game’s mediocre combat. A vast majority of them are also disappointingly easy, with most of the difficulty coming from wrestling with the camera.

While general progression is incredibly safe, the sheer number of weapons and potential for build variety is quite impressive. Ranged, magical, light melee, heavy melee, a mix between everything – Lords of the Fallen makes experimentation feel worthwhile and encouraged. Coming back to the Skyrest Bridge hub area for healing upgrades, weapon crafting, or even just to touch base with its inhabitants is also always worthwhile.

Another thing to appreciate is how flexible Lords of the Fallen’s co-op system is. While multiplayer is very commonplace in Souls-like games these days, you can explore the entirety of Axiom alongside a friend with ease. It’s a painless and seamless experience that has me yearning for more straightforward implementation in other games of this ilk. It definitely doesn’t do the overall difficulty any favours, but who’d turn down some realm-shifting antics with a mate?

There’s a lot riding on Lords of the Fallen as one of the first big Unreal Engine 5 games for this generation, and I’m glad to say it lives up to the hype in this regard. It’s one of those games that has to be seen in-motion to be believed. Its sheer visual fidelity is eye-popping a lot of the time, and serves to bolster the sublime art direction of Mournstead. Whether it’s the decrepit and abandoned areas of Axiom, or Umbral’s festering undergrowth, Lords of the Fallen just oozes with details that bring the macabre horror of this world to life in excellent fashion.

While my PC playthrough was relative issue free, I did have one hard crash and a few intermittent bugs. Nothing definitively game breaking, but they were enough to interrupt my experience more frequently than I’d like. I can’t speak to the quality of the console versions, but if the Xbox is your platform of choice be sure to get it patched up with the update that just dropped as it fixes a number of performance issues.

The post Lords of the Fallen Review – Stuck Between Two Worlds appeared first on Press Start.

The limitless potential of the science fantasy genre offers unparalleled freedom to creators, making it the perfect setting for countless of our favourite movies, books and of course, video games. It should come as no surprise then that the folks at Amplitude Studios have pivoted away from the (relatively) more grounded approach of their previous title Humankind and have instead turned back towards their beloved and award-winning ENDLESS Universe for their latest sensational release, ENDLESS Dungeon.

The tags for ENDLESS Dungeon read a bit like a grab-bag of popular gaming buzzwords; rogue-lite, tactical, procedurally generated, tower defence and twin-stick shooter all paint an ambitious and potentially messy picture of what the game is trying to be. Miraculously though, Amplitude has managed to pull it off and delivered a fresh and frenetic foray that will tax your mind as often as your thumbs. While all of that might raise some red flags for fans of the 4X strategy space operas in the ENDLESS Space series, I can assure you that there is plenty for you to love here too, with exceptional narrative writing for the characters, setting and lore of the universe.

ENDLESS Dungeon opens with the classic sci-fi premise of your ship crash landing on an unknown space station. After a (very) brief moment to mourn the rest of your crew, you are introduced to Zed, a gun-toting rockstar who tasks you with defending a cute little Crystal Bot from the hordes of ravenous enemies that fill the halls of the derelict station and find a path forward. This is obviously no easy task and every door you open has the potential to lead to salvation, or salivating masses hell-bent on chomping the Crystal Bot and anyone who stands in their way. It’s not as simple as straight exploration and extermination though, as progression also increases your risk triggering a ‘wave’ of enemies, who will spawn from set locations on the map and make a beeline for your bot.

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Fortunately, you need not only rely on your shooting skills, or that of your companions, as each room in the station hosts nodes that allow you to build various turrets to bolster your expedition and thin the herd. Once you’ve located the ‘exit’ it’s time to uproot the Crystal Bot from its cosy recess and escort it while it ambles towards the door, as it’s the only way to unlock the different districts and floors you’ll need to conquer. Should your team of adventurers fall at any time, or if you allow the adorable Crystal Bot to perish, your run is over. Like all good rogue-lite games though, death is not the end and you’ll quickly find yourself respawning in “The Saloon.”

The Saloon acts as ENDLESS Dungeon’s hub space, a place where you’ll be able to take a breather, explore the narrative elements of the game and engage with the meta-progression system of using unique resources you find to gradually increase your odds of survival. More importantly, you’ll also be introduced to the cavalcade of kooky characters who have found themselves in the same situation as you, to learn their stories and perhaps even invite them to join you on your next dungeon delve. Although you’ll start with only having access to three characters to fill two available extra slots on your team, exploring the station and unlocking boons at the Saloon will eventually grant you the ability to select from the full roster of eight, each with their own unique passive, active and ultimate skills.

Characters like Comrade can drop extra turrets to reinforce defences, Blaze can unleash homing missiles to decimate a wave and Shroom can heal companions, helping to extend your adventure. The weapons that your chosen team start with, and indeed the ones they find along the way, can also be granted bonuses by unlocking upgrades at The Saloon’s kiosk. Once you’ve regained your strength and composure, it’s time to once again descend into the station and work towards finding an escape for all of your newfound family.

Once you’re back into the action, each door you open as you progress deeper and deeper will grant you a handful of three resources, Science, Industry and Food. Industry will likely be the resource you use most as it allows you to build turrets at various points in the rooms, creating choke points or kill boxes for the bad guys who’ll be aiming to kill you and the Crystal Bot. You can also use Industry to build resource generators in certain rooms (also targets for the monsters), which will grant you more of the chosen resource every time you open a door. Science points can be used to research new kinds of turrets, some with specific elemental damage types, and upgrade the ones you already have unlocked. Food is used to purchase much-needed med kits and temporary upgrades for your heroes.

Resources persist between districts and floors (levels) so it’s important to find a balance between building the turrets you need to survive and planning for the future, as arriving at a district with empty pockets is a quick path to a hard time. Random enemy wave events and boss battles won’t be the only dangers you’ll have to contend with in ENDLESS Dungeon, but I’ll leave that for you to discover on your own. ENDLESS Dungeon is punishing in all the right ways but thankfully it also offers lower difficulty levels for players who may be new to the kind of gameplay on hand, or indeed those of us who just want to experience the narrative elements without getting stomped constantly.

If any of this sounds familiar, it might be because, like me, you played Amplitude’s Dungeon of the ENDLESS way back in 2014. Although it is indeed a precursor to this game, ENDLESS Dungeon is far more of an evolution of the critically acclaimed experience as opposed to a sequel. For starters, the game is played in a somewhat isometric 3D space with gorgeously-rendered visuals for the characters, enemies, locations, and guns. Everything from the moody lighting in the hallways to the blazing bullets flying from your turrets looks awesome and is backed up by some stellar sound design. I love hearing my characters nervously chatting as we moved through dark rooms just as much as I love hearing the squelch of the last alien exploding centimetres from my beleaguered Crystal Bot.

The game’s soundtrack is also incredible, with blood-pumping tunes to accompany your alien slaughter, but also some that have clearly been inspired by favourites like Bastion or Transistor. The cinematics are also beautifully illustrated and narrated to make the story of the game and the expansive lore of the ENDLESS Universe a bit more accessible for newcomers, but reading nerds like me will find plenty to dive into between runs. Even the interaction between characters in the Saloon takes its cues from titles like Hades, giving so much personality to their charming hand-drawn portraits. This is a long way of saying that the presentation on offer from ENDLESS Dungeon is pretty well flawless.

Given this is a twin-stick shooter, I played using my Xbox One controller and I found the controls to be as snappy and responsive as you’d want in a high-octane game such as this. I tried using a mouse and keyboard for a little bit, and it was perfectly serviceable, but I highly recommend playing with a controller if you can. I also encountered only a few bugs while I was playing, most of which the developers are aware of and have stressed will be fixed for launch. There was one strange instance where the boss of a level spawned in but was invisible, leading to me being able to damage him but not see the secondary mechanic needed to put him down for good. Although this led to me dying and my 40-minute run ending unceremoniously, I was only mildly frustrated and the next time I encountered the boss it was fine.

ENDLESS Dungeon also offers online multiplayer for up to 3 people, though I wasn’t able to get a proper feel for this during my initial review period. I’ll definitely be checking it out after launch so if that is important to you, be sure to check back once I’ve had the chance to play it. Thankfully the in-game AI is perfectly capable for solo players, though I imagine that replacing them with some friends or random internet strangers will be an absolute blast. There also looks to be an ability to purchase some different skins for the selectable characters, however I also didn’t engage with that during my review period.

The post ENDLESS Dungeon Review – An Absolute Blast That You Won’t Want To End appeared first on Press Start.

No strangers to the world of cricket games, Melbourne’s own Big Ant Studios once again step up to the crease with Cricket 24. Timing the launch with the ICC 2023 Cricket World Cup and boasting increased licensed content such as the Indian Premier League, Big Bash League and more, the game looks toward boosting video game cricket to the same heights as the EA Sports FC or NBA 2K franchises, but definitely needs more polish to match the competition.

Seeking a bigger international stage, Cricket 24’s licensed content is a very mixed bag. The acquisition of licenses for international men’s and women’s leagues such as New Zealand’s Dream 11 Super Smash League, the Indian Premier League, the Caribbean Premier League, The Hundred as well as the Pakistan Super League gives players a wide variety of choice. However not all teams have been licensed; the Indian Premier League lacks two of its franchise teams, and the fact that the game itself is usually anchored around a now-ended Ashes series sets it back a little. Even though the launch coincides with the 2023 ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup, there’s a big missed opportunity to utilise the format – while they have secured licensing for a wide array of national teams, the only way to enact the World Cup is to create the tournament yourself.

If you’ve played a cricket game in the past five or so years, you’d be no stranger to knowing that cricket is Big Ant Studios’ bread and butter (starting with Don Bradman Cricket) but it comes as a surprise to find a game that starts off… very basic. Generic rock tracks, bland and uninspiring menus – don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of the “keep it simple” principle, but when every menu option looks the same it gets a tad boring, even before you’ve gotten yourself into a match. It doesn’t bode well when I boot up a PS5 game and feel like I’m looking at PS3-era titles and menus.

Career mode is a tad light-on when it comes to substance; managing your character involves watching them sit in their room or the change rooms between matches, with occasional trips to the sauna to aid in fatigue reduction. The upside is the customisation in the character creator gives you the ability to mould your character the way you want. I thought it was pretty funny having a character that permanently wears zinc all the time regardless of where he is. I also got a small pang of pride when I could choose a local club in Victoria as my character’s starting point to his career. The mode also gives you the option of playing solely as your character, or controlling the whole team, which is a nice touch.

Getting into gameplay and we bear witness to some of the most polarising aspects of the game. Graphically, its all over the place. It’s clear the most work has gone into the players, thanks to Big Ant’s dedication at scanning in over 300 players for some great attention to detail. I don’t live and breathe the sport, but I could definitely tell that I was seeing David Warner or Steve Smith even before their names appeared on screen. This level of detail also includes the licensed uniforms and bats as well. We lose a little detail when it comes to the different stadiums in the game, though.

Despite boasting many famous cricket grounds, each one feels as if its missing an essence of soul, whether it’s due to lack of crowd noise, or low-quality textures for the grounds and their stands. One local suburban match that I played, for some reason, decided to have pyrotechnics as pre-match entertainment, and another stadium in the Pakistan Super League decided to have the same pyrotechnics, but seemingly placed underneath the crowd. In fact, in that same match, the branding that appears on the boundary banners decided to hover in the sky instead, leaving blank purple banners around the ground.

Once you get past the uncanny valley of the visuals however, there is actually a great, responsive game underneath. Batting is definitely the most fun – understanding your shot selection, positioning and angles gives you a range of styles to play with. Bowling can be frustrating, as there is so much to tweak when it comes to power and delivery, however once you manage to get the right shots in you’ll find yourself taking plenty of wickets. The biggest positive that comes from the gameplay is the ability to play to your skill level. You can select an arcade style which allows you to play with ease, or if you want to get more technical you can switch up the control style to really finesse your game. The ability for new players, even those who have never played a cricket game previously, to jump in and learn with ease is definitely a credit, and experienced players still have the ability to finesse their skills.

That being said, fielding is probably the worst aspect. If you’re manually fielding or playing as an individual, the game rewards you, but if the AI is running your fielders they’re often slow to respond, or make the worst decisions. I can’t tell you how many times I had them looking down the barrel of the camera, only to throw the ball behind them with pinpoint accuracy. Similarly, the commentary team also didn’t seem to know what they were doing half the time – even the inclusion of Adam Gilchrist didn’t help. With the commentary team seemingly switching during the middle of the match and new commentators taking over, terrible shots were applauded and good shots were chastised, leading me to be truly confused as to whether we were watching the same game.

The post Cricket 24 Review – Won’t Bowl You Over appeared first on Press Start.

God, I love video games.

Looking back on all of the notes I took while playing through Die Gute Fabrik’s latest joint, it was a running theme and a recurring notion throughout. God I love video games. This medium, a beautiful merging of an entire history of human art, can do so much to elevate itself beyond strictly the image, the sound or the word when it comes to telling stories. Stories that are exciting and grandiose, or quiet and haunting, warm or romantic. Saltsea Chronicles is all of these things and more, another fantastic example of how storytelling has so much to gain from video games, and vice versa.

It all starts with a ship, and a crew, at the end of the world. Or in a world after the end, after a Flood of biblical proportions has all but hit a reset on humanity, and especially the relentless march of progress, leaving a new world to flourish with brand-new ideas and a collective trauma turned quasi-religious aversion to “old world’ technology. In a unique idea among relentlessly unique ideas, you play not just as one member of the crew of the De Kelpie but as the entire group, steering the course of their journey through conversation and action as they navigate the disparate islands of the Saltsea archipelago in search of their missing captain and a steadily-unravelling conspiracy.

While there are plenty of other examples of games that let players shape the course of a story through interaction and choice-making, I’ve seen very few that come close to being as malleable and intricately-networked as in Saltsea Chronicles. Across a single playthrough of its 12 chapters, you’ll frequently have the opportunity to not only choose your next destination – often at the expense of never setting foot on the alternate – but also which members of the crew of the De Kelpie to take ashore. This means that not only are there multiple possible ways to experience the major narrative beats, but everything from where you go, to what you do, and who is present at the time can have long-running ramifications and significantly alter how you experience each moment.

Saltsea manages to make its island-hopping adventure starring a playable party of up to eight incredibly diverse folks work by emphasising dialogue and narration over “gameplay,” trading out direct player control with a simple map-like interface of landscapes and interior cross-sections where each possible action is denoted by an appropriately-located icon. The beauty of deciding what to do next is that each of these icons very clearly signals what effect it’ll have on progress – be it a quick observation, a critical conversation or an action set to move the story forward.

With so many potential narrative threads weaving in and out of each other, the game’s Issues mechanic proves to be a particular masterstroke. As things progress you’ll occasionally see critical character conflicts recorded as Issues, which instead of implicit “gameplay” challenges are more guiding stars to cut through the murk of evolving relationships. It might be that your crew is struggling to trust a new shipmate, or that two have unresolved feelings for one another, but how or even if you decide to address these is up to you. Issues can be resolved with enough work, left open and active, or entirely scuppered, and the answers – as with real world issues – are never as obvious as facing things head on. They also work as a neat added device in communicating the state of each crew member coming out of major conflicts or triumphs, and of course they work to affect the many outcomes of the tale being told.

I’m profoundly fond of Die Gute Fabrik’s approach to the world its created in Saltsea Chronicles. There’s an innate and immediately obvious understanding of the human condition on show that’s informed the way in which the Archipelago’s history, cultures, people and potential have developed and it manifests in some very real-feeling social situations. Where it would traditionally be easy and obvious to take the high ground in games where branching dialogue allows and rewards it, it’s rarely the case in our own lives, and in Saltsea you’ll reach a deep enough level of empathy with these wonderfully-written characters that you’ll learn the real right things to say in the moment to get where you need to be.

All this is to say that while Saltsea is laid out in a gorgeous, printerly aesthetic that echoes the charm of the studio’s previous masterpiece, Mutazione, there’s a lot of reading here. If that doesn’t sound like your bag, this probably won’t be. Initially I was intimidated by the sheer volume of text in Saltsea Chronicles, but that apprehension faded fast when I realised how magnificently laid-out everything is. Dynamic formatting and generous use of negative space makes it a friendly read with an approachable tempo that shows the studio had everyone in mind when deciding how folks would read their game. It’s a constant reminder that the diversity in the game’s characters, relationships and ideas isn’t a fluke – its a product of a forward-thinking collective.

Putting aside the wanky critique for a moment, I almost didn’t get this review of Saltsea Chronicles written up in time for the arbitrary embargo deadline that us all video game critics feverishly crunch to adhere to. Not because there wasn’t enough time to get it done, or for lack of enthusiasm for writing it. Rather, it was wholly and entirely because of Spoils.

Not since Final Fantasy VIII’s Triple Triad has a game-within-a-game so entirely captured me, to the point that what should have been a roughly 10-hour experience could easily have ballooned out to double in just my first playthrough. Die Gute Fabrik has crafted an original and stupidly compelling card 2v2 game that, like Triple Triad, has evolved geographically to keep things interesting as you travel and continue to play. The studio supposedly used machine learning to teach CPU-controlled characters how to play effectively and it shows in how to-the-wire most of my wins have been. It’s intoxicating.

If I can eventually pull myself away from Spoils (conveniently playable at any time from the main menu), I’m going to continue to poke and prod at the seemingly-limitless possibilities in its story. Thankfully, I’m able to jump straight back into the beginning or end of any chapter and split it off into a new save to see where and how it branches based on where I steer my ship – or even who I take on board. Hopefully before I’m entirely done, Die Gute Fabrik will have tackled the fairly nasty screen tearing on PS5 along with some awkward UI bits and the occasional typo. Small issues in the face of what is a superb achievement but a noticeable mark on the experience nonetheless.

Coming from Mutazione, which has a soundtrack that I still listen to regularly, it’s also quite noticeable how much less ambitious the sound design is this time with little in the way of ambient soundscapes and an inoffensive but not overly memorable soundtack.

There are genuinely thousands more words I could write about what makes Saltsea Chronicles great though, perhaps even eclipsing Mutazione as an all-time favourite. The crew themselves, from the motherly Stew to the delightfully-awkward Kittick, are folks I’ll be sad to eventually leave behind. The jazzy little intro to each new chapter that spins the whole thing as an episodic drama gets under my skin every time. There’s a whole bloody island of cats. It’s all so brilliant and unapologetically different from anything else.

The post Saltsea Chronicles Review – Cruise Your Own Adventure appeared first on Press Start.

Assassin’s Creed Mirage takes place twenty years before Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and around nine hundred years after the events of Assassin’s Creed Origins. We play Basim as he begins his journey with the Hidden Ones, the group that would eventually call themselves Assassins. He, as expected, becomes embroiled in a silent war with The Order of the Ancients, a clandestine group that would ultimately become the Templars. Of course, people who played Valhalla will know that Basim is not all he seems. That aspect of his existence is explored in Mirage, albeit very lightly.

While I was intrigued as to how the plot of Mirage would play out as it started to get going, it does lose some steam about halfway through. Admittedly, we’ve had thirteen Assassin’s Creed games now with the same conflict playing out in each, and, as a result, Mirage does little to surprise. The plot is mainly engaging, but the series is reusing so many plot devices at this point that I feel it needs a refresh. It also does nothing to move the overarching story forward or tease what’s to come, which, after Valhalla’s ending, feels like a bit of a missed opportunity.

The big selling point of Mirage is, ironically, how much smaller it is than its predecessors. It sounds like a bizarre concept, but it’s a welcome honing of the formula. Initially conceived as DLC for Valhalla, Mirage was eventually expanded to offer an experience akin to games like Brotherhood and Revelations. It provides a single map to explore with manageable and approachable tasks to complete and no deep RPG mechanics or stat management.

That’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy Origins, Valhalla or even Odyssey, the latter of which dived headfirst into RPG territory. I enjoyed all those games. I love that Assassin’s Creed can adapt itself to be something slightly different in every game. But there’s a distinct beauty to Assassin’s Creed Mirage’s simplicity after the intensity and complexity of Valhalla’s experience. It feels fitting it’s releasing around the franchise’s fifteenth anniversary because it harkens back to the games that made the series so famous in the first place.

I say simplicity because Mirage doesn’t have power level requirements or even levelling or stats to pore over to make Basim stronger. Points are awarded for completing critical missions at specific points, and the skill tree has twenty-three skill nodes as opposed to Valhalla’s four hundred. All you have to worry about (and even then, you can quickly get through the game without doing so) is upgrading your gear and tools to better play the role of assassin.

Tools are the bread and butter of your experience as Basim, and they are incredibly helpful. Basim eventually gets a throwing knife, a noisemaker, a smoke bomb, a blowpipe and a trap. Each item can be upgraded up to three times, with each tier of tool upgrade giving you options to customize how that tool behaves. You can make your smoke bombs flammable or make your enemies forget they saw you when they breathe the smoke in, for example. They’re always able to be respecced and can be customized to suit your play style.

Mirage’s plot essentially co-opts the cult investigation structure of the previous games and adapts it to run across the entirety of its runtime. This means that you can investigate certain aspects at your leisure while the story progresses linearly before eventually converging to a finale. In each of the investigations, you’ll do essential recon work before confronting a member of the Order in a more extensive and more open-ended mission.

These missions are the cornerstone of Mirage and easily where the game is at its best. First established in Unity, these missions offer up large area to investigate, with many opportunities to uncover that’ll get you closer to your target. You might be able to bribe someone to find a way in or win an auction to get the attention of your target and gain an audience with them. You might find a note about a secret passage underneath the heavily fortified prison walls you need to infiltrate. There are around five to seven different ways to approach each mission.

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This approach to design for the key assassinations feels like a great way to mimic the style and structure of older Assassin’s Creed games but with the breadth and scope that newer technology and experience have afforded the developers. It’s not quite as open to the point where anything you can think is possible – like Tears of the Kingdom or even Hitman – but it does feel like there are options here for those who like to take an action-orientated approach, a stealth-orientated approach or both.

Stealth is the better option. Combat has less weight and complexity than Valhalla, but at the same time feels more dangerous. Enemies can swarm you quickly if you’re spotted, and most won’t wait their turn to attack you like in previous games. Basim can parry and follow up with a fatal attack, which feels better and more engaging than the countering system seen in the older games. But combat ramps up in intensity so quickly that it’s often better to stay hidden than create a commotion during your infiltrations.

But all this flexibility and openness in design can’t save Mirage from a major flaw that the series, for some reason, refuses to jettison. Tailing missions are back, and they’re just as tedious and as frustrating as in previous games. I challenge Ubisoft to find a way to make them exciting or remove them altogether. They’re exactly the same as when they first reared their ugly head in Assassin’s Creed II and haven’t evolved since – they’re awful and bring down an otherwise great main quest.

There are other activities when you’re not spending time on the main quest. However, most are collecting objects and handing them to NPCs for crafting components or rewards. Like world events in Valhalla, Tales of Baghdad are tiny side quests offering interesting stories that barely last more than five minutes. The problem is that, while it’s a great system to nab from Valhalla, there’s not enough of them in Mirage.

This is the main area where Mirage’s simplified scope becomes a bit of a double edged sword. The side content is numerous, but it’s less engaging than the previous games. I recognize the entire point of Mirage was to simplify things and harken back to the original three games, but the irony here is that in doing so, the same problems that plagued those games have reemerged. Given the sheer variety of experiences Ubisoft has to pull from, it’s a shame to see so little of that potential capitalized on.

From a presentation standpoint, Mirage has the same strengths and opportunities as Valhalla. Baghdad has been brought to life admirably, though despite promises that crowds would be as dense as Unity, Mirage never quite reaches those lofty heights. While I admit that I miss climbing the towers, cathedrals and even colossal statues of previous games, there is, once again, something beautiful in the simplicity of the world that Mirage presents. Lip-syncing is still distractingly off enough to take you out of certain scenes. However, it’s not catastrophic enough to ruin the experience.

The post Assassin’s Creed Mirage Review – Back To Basics In Baghdad appeared first on Press Start.

It’s been roughly six years since Xbox’s leading racing franchise, Forza Motorsport, last graced our screens. The series has taken a backseat ride re-discovering and reworking itself and, after a long hiatus, Forza Motorsport is finally back with Turn 10 Studios is promising a new direction for the series. 

Forza Motorsport has always pushed boundaries as a console showcase delivering breathtaking visuals on all fronts with each release. Turn 10 has taken a long gap here, bringing the series back into the factory to rebuild it “from the ground up” as a new-generation racing title, and it does on most fronts. From the get-go, Motorsport puts you straight into the hot seat – something we’ve been accustomed to with most Forza titles including Horizon. The team is clearly keen to flex their brand-new machine to players and you’ll be wowed from the jump with insanely-detailed cars and beautiful tracks.

Forza Motorsport’s tracks feel more alive than ever and sport an incredible ambience compared to most racers, with fog on-track, dust kicking up and details in the world around the racing itself adding to the effect. There are visual flourishes here that would be a an afterthought in most racing games but are absolutely nailed in Forza Motorsport. The dynamic weather in particular looks gorgeous on the Xbox Series X running in its 4K/ray tracing mode and it’s often hard to believe that this is a game running smoothly on a console – again, those first moments in the game’s introduction are a stunning showcase of what’s to come.

Once the game opens up, you’re free to run through the new Builder’s Cup campaign or dive into any of the single player or multiplayer modes on offer, but the Builder’s Cup is the main meat-and-bones of the single player experience. After the intro, you’ll kick off your career with Builder’s Cup as it features different classes and themes. Each Cup has its own unique flavour, offering up standard street hatches through to super sedans at the beginning before jumping straight into the higher-tier classes. Each cup has roughly about five or six races as you buy and choose your car to take it through the series, and there’ll also a rotation of Builder’s Cup events kicking off from launch so players will continue to have a fresh batch of races to compete in over time.

Forza Motorsport introduces a new car levelling system which has been something of a talking point within the community since it was revealed. Like an RPG (or car-PG?), each car has its own levels and you can only start modding and tinkering with your car once you unlock certain levels, regardless of how much money you have. Want to engine swap your new R34 GTR? You’ll have to spend more time with it before earning the privilege.

Thankfully, you can level your car in just about every mode including multiplayer and private test drives. If you have a favourite car, you can easily spin up your single player session and level it through that. Up front, the new levelling system might be a bit of a rub for fans or casuals who just want to grab their car and start modding. I was definitely unsure as to how this would all pan out when it was first announced, with Turn 10’s justification being an emphasis of the connection between the driver and their car/s.

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Testing this upfront, I picked up the Nissan Skyline GT-R 34 in a bayside blue and ran with it for a few quick races to see how fast the levelling system is. The downside is, yes, there’s another layer of progression you have to go through and, yes, it can be annoying to have to put in extra work, but the upside is that it all happens relatively fast. Each race had my car gaining two-to-four levels at a time and, after just a few track sessions, some of my cars were quickly reaching up to level 10. While every Forza game has an extensive list of cars available, it’d be unexpected for most players to run 20-plus different cars at any given time. There’s a focus here on feeling connected to a handful of cars and it works.

Motorsport features a beefy lineup of 500+ cars at launch. Most of the popular manufacturers are here and there’s enough of a wide range to please the majority of fans. However, some manufacturers don’t get enough love, such as Toyota and Hyundai, which feel strangely lacking when their hot hatches are some of the most popular cars in real life. Australian fans can rejoice once again as both Ford and Holden have a few cars to play with at launch, so we still get a bit of love despite the game missing the iconic Mount Panorama track. Forza Motorsport is primarily focused on track racing – at least at launch – so you won’t find vehicles for drifting, off-road or street racing here.

On release the game features 20 tracks with the promise of Nordschleife “North loop” track coming in 2024. There are plenty of iconic tracks here at launch that many racing fans will appreciate such as Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, Silverstone, Laguna Seca and more. A few fantasy tracks have also been added to the game which returning Forza players will recognise, such as Maple Valley. Each track is beautifully created, again boasting the ability to showcase Motorsport’s dynamic weather system.

The biggest changes to Forza Motorsport come with its gameplay. I’ve been playing this title for a bit from early previews through to the final build and have to say, the on-track feel is a standout result of the new direction and the added realism in racing is more than welcome. The entire physics system has been overhauled and feels excellent. This is the most grounded Forza Motorsport title I’ve played, and as a result cars just respond better overall, feeling far less floaty than in previous entries. It leans towards full-on simulation territory, but only by a bit. If I had to compare it to anything else, I would say it sits quite close to Project CARS or the Need for Speed Shift series, which each provided a semi-simulation experience without going too hardcore.

In saying that, the experience with Forza Motorsport is also very accessible to newcomers or casual fans. Players coming from the more “arcade” Forza Horizon series may find the shift a little daunting initially, but the level of customisation when it comes to overall difficulty and in-game assists is quite deep. You can make a complete Sunday drive out of things, if all you want to do out of the box is drive pretty cars around pretty tracks, with the freedom to progressively turn the heat up and make it a more challenging experience. Fuel and tyre wear are welcome additions for sim fans, adding another level of strategy to the racing if you want it.

If you’re keen to take your skills online, Forza Motorsport features online public and private multiplayer mode. Before jumping into the big races, Featured Multiplayer will have you going through three qualification events to determine your Skill and Safety rating. These ratings are calculated and help the game determine your matchmaking. Are you a clean and fast driver? You’ll be put with the best. Drive dirty? I mean, you see where this is going. Your ratings will also update as you play online so you’ll have to keep those lines clean. My hands-on time with multiplayer was limited pre-launch as there were only a few sessions going, but barring any drastic changes on release the experience has been solid.

There’s a lot to like about the new Forza Motorsport, then, but there are a few things that hold this title from back being truly excellent. While significant improvements have been made to the experience of racing when it comes to visuals, physics and audio – the AI drivers are a different story. Almost entirely unpredictable at times, the AI will consistently disrespect the racing line, side-slam your car and even brake check you during races. I’d expected some tight corners and some shunts here and there, but in nearly every race I was avoiding the AI racers with a ten-foot pole. In one instance, an opponent’s car had lost control and spun out off the track only for the game to fully send it back onto the track and T-bone me into retirement. As it stands now, it’s fairly immersion-breaking and something I hope is on top of the list of fixes for launch and beyond.

During my time with the game I’ve been switching between the Xbox Series X and PC to check out Motorsport’s racing wheel support (my sim rig is PC-based), given Forza’s underwhelming wheel support is something I’ve been fairly disappointed with in the past. After running a few cups on PC with my Logitech G29 though, I’m quite impressed at the out-of-the-box support for the wheel, so that’s a great sign.

Forza Motorsport’s new direction won’t revolutionise the racing genre, but it does provide a fresh start for the series itself. The new physics, gameplay and focus on circuit racing are a good baseline to build this series into something bigger in the future, whether through consistent updates, larger add-ons or even future releases. Turn 10 clearly wants to differentiate itself and the Motorsport series from Playground Games’ over-the-top Horizon franchise by putting the focus on the love of the machinery and the experience of track racing, and holding that line.

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