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.

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.

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.

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.

The post Unknown 9: Awakening Review – 360, Party Girl appeared first on Press Start.

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.

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.

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’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.

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.

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.

RPGs, especially those hailing from Japan, are no strangers to tropes and tradition. Series like Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Pokemon and plenty more all have their own recurring ideas, or share ideas with the genre, and some of the most memorable entries do well to play with or even subvert what fans expect going into a new game. Visions of Mana strikes a wonderful balance between the identity it’s inherited from its predecessor and the sheer amount of time between entries that’s seen many shifts in genre sensibilities.

To recycle a little of what I said in my preview, Vision of Mana – like the franchise’s other entries – builds on a lot of familiar themes and motifs (a Mana Tree, a legendary sword and so on) but is its own self-contained story with a new cast of characters on an entirely new adventure. In this particular world, all communities have been built around the nature and geography of eight distinct elements, and all are kept safe and prosperous by the mythical Mana Tree. The upkeep of said tree is reliant on a pilgrimage carried out every four years by an appointed group of “Alms,” each of whom represent a particular element, and under the protection of a Soul Guard. That responsibility now rests on Val, along with a steadily-growing entourage in what is initially the very same pilgrimage but quickly becomes something more as a series of events steers the group toward uncomfortable truths.

Unfortunately, there’s not a whole lot more I’m willing to say about the specific beats of Visions of Mana’s story, because it’s all best experienced fresh. What I can say though, is the game does a markedly excellent job at leaning into its history and the stories that came before and inspired it while also posing deeper philosophical questions. Though it eventually veers back into tried-and-true swords and sorcery stuff, the game spends a good portion of its middle act exploring ideas of personal autonomy in the face of dogmatism and systems of faith, and does so in a way that feels completely contextual to the journey.

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Said journey is a globetrotting trip of about 30-35 hours for those just wanting to see the key story beats and “save the world,” but there’s plenty more to do besides and a lot more to discover about this curious world and those that live in it. I spent about 60 hours all up getting the absolute most out of the game, which impressively continues to expand all the way up to, and beyond, the credits. Occasionally-heavy narrative moments aside, there’s a degree of whimsy here that’s emblematic of the Mana series and makes existing in this world feel warm and inviting all the way through, and really encourages taking the time.

There’s definitely a huge tendency towards “fetch” style side quests, with most folks you meet seemingly having saved up all their worst errands to ask them of the one group in their entire world that is guaranteed to be doing something much more important. There are some enjoyable arcs off the beaten path though – like an ongoing quest series where you look for spots in the environment matching certain paintings. They’re not complex but they encourage you to really explore and find new angles and views, often taking me to places I wouldn’t have otherwise known were there. They also tend to highlight Visions of Mana’s most annoying adherence to a genre trope – ruining an otherwise very flexible fast travel system by forcing you to manually sail or fly between continents any time you want to leave the one you’re on.

The nuisances of travel aside, there’s an interesting rhythm to progression in this game, a lot of it coming down to the eight elements this world is built on. As you make your way across continents, meeting new Alms and acquiring each legendary “Elemental Vessel,” not only are you give new ways to traverse – like wind-powered platforms or bridges of light – but a wealth of new options to build out your party with Visions of Mana’s unique “class” system. Here, every character is capable of equipping any of the eight Elemental Vessels, essentially offering up eight entirely different classes per character, each with unique abilities, buffs, gear and overall look.

Admittedly, my first handful of hours with Visions of Mana had me concerned that combat was also going to be too repetitive, but as I got deeper in and gained access to all of the classes while also amassing a greater library of abilities it all started to click into place. See, in this game, how you perform in battle is just as much about how you compose your party as it is about the buttons you press in the moment. That might sound obvious for an RPG, but it’s truer here more than a lot of similar games I’ve played. Without the right combinations of characters, elemental vessels, ability seeds and gear it’s possible to be completely eclipsed by enemies even within or below your level range, and vice versa with the right stuff.

And rather than gently locking your party members into particular paths or archetypes, the game actively encourages you to constantly be switching classes around and experimenting with different combinations – on higher difficulties and in tricker fights it almost becomes a puzzle of studying the enemy’s affinities and move set and building the appropriate team around them. For those less inclined toward micromanaging various builds, there’s still plenty of room to “button mash,” especially on lower difficulties, but there’s so much satisfaction in gaming every system for the best possible outcome. Plus, your ultimate reward for mastering all of these classes is a huge amount of power and flexibility to create some truly cracked builds for your New Game+ run, really emphasising this game’s steady and incredibly satisfying power climb.

Simply running around each of the game’s distinct areas is rewarding in itself as well, not just in your efforts to acquire new gear and potential, or for the way it all factors into this economy of elements, but because they all look positively lovely. Visions of Mana has to be one of my favourite examples of art triumphing over technology in a game of this scope. The game doesn’t seem to be pushing a lot of fancy effects or middleware to achieve its lush, vibrant and dynamic environments – instead, it’s simply crafted with a huge amount of effort and care with a clear vision. At almost any point in the game you could stop, look out at your surroundings and see what looks like a gorgeous bit of concept art or something you’d see on the cover of a SNES RPG classic (I’ll let you imagine what that might entail).

It’s a great melding of the kinds of designs Mana fans will be familiar with and want to see in a new entry, with slightly more modern sensibilities and razor-sharp design. Going through all of the main party’s outfit variants for each class is especially delightful with some truly outlandish gear that’s as densely-embellished as the game’s environments. The unfortunate trade-off, at least in the PS5 version’s “Quality” setting, is that performance can suffer in busy scenes and battles. It still seems to be a 60FPS target, but there are moments where it’s far below that, making the “Performance” option worth the trade-off in fidelity.

But while the visual side of things is mostly splendid, the sound design in Visions of Mana is a little less of a success. Musically, it’s decent with some memorable themes and motifs scoring big moments of story, exploration and combat, balancing out a fair few otherwise-average pieces. The voice acting, too, is competent with plenty of well-matched and well-performed scripts, but suffers from a near-total lack of lip syncing to the English audio track. 

The biggest sin though, is the sheer amount of repeated lines when exploring or battling and the frequency in which they’re used. Val, for instance, has exactly two reactions to picking up a bit of Grizzly syrup – and he’ll utter either of them nearly every time you collect one, which is almost constantly. Switching your controlled party member every now and then somewhat mitigates it, but after 50-odd hours you’ll have heard some clips literally hundreds of times. I’m not kidding when I say I started hearing “Grrrizly!!” in my sleep. It’s not an uncommon criticism in these games, but it’s especially egregious here.

The post Visions Of Mana Review – A Dazzling Trip To The Mana Tree 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.

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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.

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.

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.

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.

The original Hellblade, titled Senua’s Sacrifice, saw the eponymous warrior venture deep into Helheim in an attempt to save the soul of her damned lover who’d perished during a Viking raid on their village. It was an odyssey spent largely in solitude save for the many voices in her head that guide, comfort and taunt her throughout. The team’s willingness and ability to depict psychosis and place mental health on a plinth at the forefront of their small, independent game was something I lauded then, and am unsurprised that, with Microsoft’s backing, they’ve doubled down on this long-awaited sequel which was announced alongside the Series console line all of those years ago. 

The first Hellblade wasn’t a perfect game, mind you. Players might have paid an emotional tax by helping shoulder Senua’s burden and the catharsis of battling her demons was worth the ticket price for most. However, as a game, its expectations of the player were bare bones. Plying Senua’s trade as a warrior felt modest, and forging a path through the world’s runic problems felt pedestrian at best. With Senua’s Sacrifice, I accepted the surface-level beauty before me, so the question became: could Senua’s Saga hope to offer more to players or would it plead for absolution through flashy audiovisual design, performance, and story all over again?

Those hoping for Senua’s Saga to be a grand evolution of ideas put forward in the original game, stemming from blow your hair back creativity, are bound to be a little disappointed. Hellblade II is what I’d consider to be a safe sequel. Thankfully, while clutching at safety through iteration they’ve made some important refinements to the original’s trouble areas. 

Despite being rebuilt from the ground up, Senua’s proficiency with a sword and shield feels largely unchanged from Sacrifice. Light and heavy attacks are combined with dodges and parries to put to bed the horrors of the night, which in this particular tale range from Viking marauders and draugr revenants that stalk Senua’s every step. It remains simple and uncomplicated in that there aren’t attributes to juggle, or even a heads-up display to distract from the action. Once a particular combat aid is recovered in-story its cooldown elements are all cleverly integrated into the item’s design. So often with Sacrifice, skirmishes that saw Senua outnumbered would be a breeding ground of enormous frustration as you’d constantly find yourself hit from behind and overwhelmed by a few meagre adds. Saga presents all of its battles in a way that flows very cinematically but that also never pits Senua against more than one enemy at a time. This sounds like one step forward and two steps back, but I found the scripted nature of Saga’s many filmic frays incredibly engrossing and far better served the story’s intentions than the original’s “tougher” fights. 

Unlike Sacrifice, where boss fights were the only reprieve from the general monotony of the minute-to-minute combat, Saga’s grandest moments are rooted even deeper in Norse myth than the original was. And again, the trading off of literal gods for giants might seem like a backward step in filling in the gaps on Senua’s resumé however it doesn’t feel like it in practice, so good is the emotional deliverance experienced throughout. 

Environmental problem-solving using perspective and runes was another part of Sacrifice I know people didn’t love, however, it hasn’t stopped Ninja Theory from repeating the process here—though they did mix it up by adding plinths and terrain that transforms before your eyes with, let’s say, the flick of a switch. Granted, there are no tasks as obtuse as Sacrifice’s “aligning the ravens,” the only expectation of players this time around is to hoof across large areas on foot to find the right angles. With that said, this sequel isn’t without proper, mechanics-driven puzzles as Senua uses torchlight to navigate an underground cavern by lighting braziers to stave off the darkness. This particular section, which gave me The Descent vibes, delivered some of the most effective, unexpected horror by ratcheting up the tension by several degrees in an already rife with claustrophobia. On the whole, I do believe the “gameplay” parts of Hellblade are markedly improved upon with this sequel, even if all that means is Ninja Theory refined combat to feel less cheap while appearing more movielike. 

There’s no doubt that letterboxing helps in selling the experience, but Senua’s Saga does unfold like a film. Everything, from Senua’s slave ship capsizing to spectacularly open the game to the sunsetting of this particular saga, feels so cautiously choreographed and sumptuously shot. The story itself is captivating and, once again, spotlights turmoils like grief and loss within a setting rich with atmosphere, tension, and symbolism. While Melina Juergens has proven once before that she’s capable of carrying a plot on her back, I do feel adding a small cast of characters to the metaphoric vessel she drags along adds so much. It increases the apparent stakes and cost of her choices, even if the game never pulls the trigger on the consequences it threatens throughout, and allows their stories—so analogous to Senua’s—to bubble away in the crock pot that is this narrative and feed into the messaging. Like Sacrifice, so much of what Saga puts out there is art in that it confronts and holds a mirror up to the taboo and forbidden and there’s definite bravery in that. 

It’s going to take some doing for a team to craft a better-looking game than Senua’s Saga this year. Although the console experience is locked at the dreaded 30fps, the game is staggeringly beautiful. All of its characters and their performances are rendered to such a jaw-dropping extent, taking care of even the most piffling detail, I believe it’s the new benchmark for both performance capture and model work. Juergens delivers yet another complex performance as Senua that’ll no doubt be discussed heavily during awards season, however, she’s in great company here. Chris O’Reilly, in particular, delivers a compelling turn as Thórgestr who begins this story as Senua’s slave master.  

Even more incredible is the world of Senua’s Saga. The way this version of Iceland is faithfully mapped, recreated through the magic of photogrammetry, and twisted to cater to the story’s need for fantasy is peerless and likely safe at the top of the mountain until the next Decima engine game is released. To say I gave this game’s photo mode a flogging is an absolute understatement. It’s just a shame so much of it falls into the ‘look, don’t touch’ as linearity rules over what appears to be a vast, boundless space. Exploring whatever space there is rarely serves Senua’s momentary goal, though uncovering well-hidden lorestones and the paths behind facelike rock formations can add to the tapestry of stories in Hellblade. 

A large part of the build to Saga’s release is every man and his dog bellowing from the belltower that the game is best experienced with headphones, and look that’s right. There’s an intangibility to Senua’s Furies, the name given to the voices that sow seeds of doubt into her mind, that plays so well through binaural audio. The panning from ear to ear sells the idea that Senua is surrounded, and to a degree imprisoned, by these thoughts. It heightens the panic, and it makes you question everything which is a powerful effect. Of course, being the second game, the application and design now far outweigh the novelty of hearing these disparaging whisper tones even if they work double-duty in place of a more traditional tutorial. The remainder of the game’s soundtrack is very much a baptism by Heilung, as many of the big set pieces are set to the rhythmic, almost ritualistic drums and guttural throat-singing they’re known for. It effectively connects the rawness of Senua’s story with the frenetic tempo the reformed, movielike combat manages. 

Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II is the only first-party Xbox game this generation that has screamed, with any confidence, “next-gen” to me. All at once it’s an audiovisual tour de force, a tremendous next chapter in Senua’s battle that strikes many disparate moods, and although it doesn’t take enormous swings to reinvent itself, its refinements make Saga a worthwhile successor to Senua’s Sacrifice. 

The post Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II Review – A New Hope 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.

There’s one way to have me instantly pay attention to your game, and that’s handing your starring role to a cat. And not just the likes of Blinx: The Time Sweeper (as memorable as that game is) but the ones that really understand the feline condition and attempt to communicate that to the player. Games like Stray, Catlateral Damage and the upcoming Copycat. Little Kitty, Big City is another of these, and perhaps the most successful so far at making me feel like a very small cat on a very important mission.

As the titular Little Kitty, you’ll find yourself in the unenviable position of having been accidentally ejected from your comfortable indoor life in a city apartment and landing (on your feet) on the city streets below. And so your core goal in the game becomes to find your way back up the towering complex and into your regular spot by the window. Unfortunately, your sheltered life means a lack of street smarts or stamina for clambering. Fortunately though, the city below is full of helpful critters to guide you on your way as well as tasty fish to get your strength up for the inevitable climb.

And that pretty much forms the basic gameplay loop in Little Kitty, Big City. Over the 2-3 hour adventure (add a couple on for achievement hunting) you’ll explore this city, talk to and help out the local fauna, gradually open up new paths and areas and grow your climbing ability until you’re ready to take on the challenge of scaling your high-rise apartment building to get home. It’s a fairly freeform little campaign, giving you a handful of mission-critical tasks to progress things along but otherwise leaving you to just scamper about the place, look for secrets, collect shiny things and, of course, strike fear into the hearts of the humans around you.

It’s all a little bit Untitled Goose Game in that way, giving you a suite of options for mischief that’s entirely appropriate of a feline-led video game, and working it into a series of entertaining little puzzles and platforming segments. One minute you’ll sneak into a konbini to pilfer a fresh fish, the next you’ll trip random pedestrians in the hopes of nabbing a dropped mobile phone to give to a social media-obsessed beetle. It’s immediately clear that this game has been developed by a team of passionate cat owners that are all-too-familiar with the kinds of shenanigans they get up to.

That extends to the game’s animations, which are bloody excellent. Your cat moves with a fluidity and elasticity that perfectly captures the animal, whether it’s walking or sprinting around (the spring button being dubbed “zoomies” is genius), crawling under gaps, getting underfoot of pedestrians, knocking over carefully-placed breakables or pouncing on local birds (non-lethal). Little Kitty, Big City has a simple overall look, but the care and attention placed on the little details really makes it shine. Of particular brilliance is the game’s jumping mechanic, where a simple tap of the button will execute a regular jump but holding it down will result in a more precise jump that you can aim across gaps or up onto ledges to execute an agile leap exemplary of our fleet-footed feline friends.

Little Kitty, Big City is a supremely charming thing. Aside from the aforementioned animation mastery, the folks at Double Dagger have come up with some of the most entertaining dialogue and writing in recent memory whether it’s the hilarious character interactions (a portal-obsessed tanuki that acts as your fast travel network being a particular highlight) or gloriously cringeworthy puns. You’ll also have the opportunity to don 40-plus adorable hats that can be collected around the city, earned or bought from a capsule machine-commanding crow in exchange for shiny junk.

Playing on Xbox Series X, the only thing to really put a damper on my otherwise positive experience of Little Kitty, Big City was a frequency of intrusive bugs. There were at least a handful of times over my five-ish hours playing the game that it would lock up completely (mostly when using the in-built photo mode), but thankfully I never lost any major progress. Collision detection and climbing/jumping can occasionally produce awkward results as well, but it’s only ever a minor annoyance.

The post Little Kitty, Big City Review – An Adorable Freeform Litter Box 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.]

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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.

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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.

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.

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.

The post Alone In The Dark Review – Good Ol’ Southern Hospitality appeared first on Press Start.

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.

The newest entry in a series with a spotty past, WayForward is once again taking the lead with the latest Contra game – Contra: Operation Galuga. A thorough re-imagining of the original NES and Arcade Contra game, Galuga keeps the core gameplay and setting of its namesake while modernising the presentation and gameplay systems, adding new characters and throwing in a storyline to tie it all together.

There are a few modes to play with in Galuga, but in all you’ll be running, jumping and shooting your way through eight levels, each with legions of bad dudes and boss encounters to deal with. Story Mode is pretty standard fare, allowing you to run through the game’s levels and continuing from checkpoints when you get a Game Over, eventually seeing through the whole story. Arcade mode is similar, but challenges you to complete as much of the game as possible without hitting a game over. You can still continue, however your score will be higher if you complete more levels without failing.

There’s also a challenge mode which sets you specific parameters to meet in levels as a fun way to eke some more gameplay from the core experience. The action is chaotic with shots from enemies and from your own weaponry routinely all over the screen. Being able to track your own position and move your character around the chaos is a skill you’ll absolutely need to develop for success here.

Thankfully as chaotic as things get, the game controls with fantastic responsiveness so once you have the hang of things you can mostly command your character precisely where you want them to be. You’ve got a fairly straightforward repertoire of jumps, double jumps and a character specific move like Bill’s dash, but keeping it relatively uncomplicated means controls rarely get overwhelming. Given how much else you need to keep track of, it’s good that controls are simple and reliable.

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There’s a small but focused supply of special weapons you can collect during missions, all classics from Contra heritage. There’s of course the well-loved Spread Shot which fires multiple projectiles in an arc in front of your character. There’s a flamethrower which has limited range but does high damage, a Homing weapon which launches volleys of missiles around the screen which all home in on whatever target is closest and a few others. Each weapon can be upgraded by picking up a second icon of the same kind, boosting firepower or changing its behaviour slightly. In this Contra you can pick up two special weapons at a time and switch between them at will, a welcome addition compared to the one-weapon-at-a-time limitation in the original game. It adds a welcome layer of strategy and choice without overcomplicating things.

One of the other gameplay additions in this new entry is the addition of special weapon overloads. At any point while you have a special weapon equipped, you can choose to destroy it in exchange for a special attack. The spread shot fills the screen with shots which are fantastic for clearing a busy area, the homing weapon creates a couple of little flying drones that help out with firing at enemies for a while, others give you temporary shields, and so on. The game reminds you regularly to use these, which is good because I often forgot they existed. When I did remember though they came in super handy. You never have to worry too much about losing a special weapon either as they’re generally in regular supply during stages and bosses.

Contra is well known as a series with a high level of challenge, however this new entry has made some changes so that more players might have a good time. You can choose to have multiple hit points per life rather than the old one hit kill, and if you do this you can purchase perks as you play which give you more hits per life. You can play with a boosted amount of lives, purchase other perks to selectively boost characters or weapons according to your preferences, and adjust the overall difficulty. There are also characters you can unlock as you play who will have their own unique moves and even adjusted weapon behaviour. There is still an immense challenge to be found here, but if you’d rather a more casual, fun experience you’ll find something to like here too.

I found I had mixed reactions when considering the game’s presentation. The characters read to me almost like moving action figures, which looks decent enough but I didn’t find them particularly inspired personally. I loved the level designs though. It was always exciting to get to a new level to see the fresh environments I’d be barreling through. Particular highlights for me were later stages, a full bio-mechanical H.R. Giger-style Alien homage full of off-brand face huggers, xenomorphs and other horrifying creatures that look right at home in an alien invasion.

The bosses too are a highlight. It’s awesome to see designs from various Contra classics re-imagined for this new visual style, and they were great fun to learn and overcome. Music to my ears takes a bit of a back seat, given my attention while playing was focused on the chaos of what was going on, but if you find a chance to listen you’ll find some fun renditions of classic tunes. The electric guitar menu intro for example sets the tone brilliantly.

Multiplayer is a massive pull in Contra games, and the same is true here. Up to two players can play the game locally and co-operatively in Story mode, while Arcade mode allows for up to four people to join the fray. Enemy layouts change depending on the amount of players, and it seemed like boss endurance scaled up as well to keep the challenge reasonable against increased firepower. If you’ve got a mate and an afternoon to spare, Operation Galuga would make for an awesome way to spend it.

The post Contra: Operation Galuga Review – Runnin’ And Gunnin’ 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 who’d harass my Civic Video clerk on a weekly basis for new wrestling tapes, I grew up entrenched in both the Attitude and Ruthless Aggression eras of professional wrestling. Similar to many others, my interest did wane somewhere in the mid-noughties, after the Invasion angle, and I’ve never really thought I’d look to recapture that formative part of my youth. Though somewhere between the Bloodline’s combustion and Cody’s near-miss in “finishing the story”, which has led to a captivating, year-long crusade to end Roman’s reigns over both his family tree and the WWE Universal Heavyweight Championship once and for all, I found plenty that pulled me back in.

During the lead-up to Wrestlemania 39 last year I did dabble with 2K23, which featured a showcase mode built around John Cena, whose near untouchable career is enjoying its twilight years. As with all sports franchises, this video game is iterative when measured against last year’s. However, with it celebrating forty years of Wrestlemania, which is considered to be the grandest stage of them all, and the countless moments it has given fans, this one does feel special.

Of the few modes in WWE 2K24, none deserve your time more than the Showcase mode that combs through four decades of showstopping bouts to put together a who’s who in a roster of immortals. Of course, due to licensing, the never-ending and seismic shifts in talent, and only having some twenty spaces to fill, there are a few curious omissions but there’s no question that every match showcased here is a banger, to borrow a Sheamus-ism. Each match gives a checklist of objectives to hit that recreate key moments within the bout, using its incredible Slingshot tech to seamlessly blend real footage with gameplay.

It’s an astounding trip down memory lane for people who’ve followed wrestling forever and a valuable history lesson for those who haven’t. The whole thing is presented by a relatively new kid on the commentary block, Corey Graves, and features a lot of behind the curtain stories from the legends themselves, including Hulk Hogan and “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, so it’s quite a compelling package for marks and fans alike.

Other modes that people will likely gravitate to are MyFACTION and MyRISE, which won’t feel out of place for people who play other 2K franchises. For those that don’t, they’re analogous to FIFA’s Ultimate Team and ‘The Journey’, which speaks to the breadth of experiences one can have in this game.

MyRISE is a two-pronged story mode where you take a created superstar through a couple of hypothetical futures in the company’s programming. The men’s path, for example, posits a timeline where “The Tribal Chief” Roman Reigns vacates his Universal strap and makes off for Hollywood to follow in the footsteps of his cousin. After being plucked from the Performance Center, you shock the world by overcoming a one-night tournament and being crowned the new champion after Reigns, once again, prolongs the last chapter of Cody’s so-called story. It’s then up to you to navigate locker room life, shield yourself from the barbs of social media, and emerge from Roman’s shadow as a fighting champion. It all sounds rather cool, and it can be, however, it’s scuppered in part by cheesy dialogue, second-rate performances, and eye-watering lip-syncing.

What I cannot get enough of is MyFACTION. So often I’d pass over these often predatory quasi-live-service modes, but this one gets plenty right. Although I am early doors, I get the sense that the game doesn’t actively wall players out and force them down the path of microtransactions. I received enough cards to supplement my faction, as well as plenty of currency, by merely exploring the weekly challenge towers and proving grounds. I expect that once I become a force in the Faction Wars, a more competitive online arm of the mode, my collection of cards will grow even stronger. If history is any indicator, there’ll be great support around premium live events, so it should give us all more than enough reason to log in regularly.

Another small touch that serves as a bridge between all of these modes is the fact some of the rewards you unlock, like the ones you get for finishing the Showcase for example, serve your goals in other modes, like MyFACTION. It makes the whole package feel like the greater whole, rather than something slapped together piecemeal. 

The spectacular implosion after the release of 2K20, which saw the series take a two-year hiatus before returning bigger and better, will surely go down as a stroke of good fortune because it’s arguable that these games have never felt better. As is ever the case, your vitality and momentum are represented by a few hard-to-miss bars at the bottom of the screen alongside a silhouette that signifies any limbic damage received. Finishing moves are earned over time and can be banked, while signature moves are intrinsically tied to the roll you’re on. With this basic concept being perhaps the one constant throughout the decades of wrestling games, it leaves a lot of room to focus on the wrestling itself. 

The core mechanics remain largely unchanged from last year’s outing, which is a choice worthy of the Wise Man himself considering the goodwill 2K23 earned its developer. Of course, being an iterative experience, there have been a few small features tacked on in an attempt to build out a more cinematic experience in-ring. Ending exhaustive bouts with a “super finisher” can lead to wild finishes, even if the visual flair is nauseating, while the trading blows mini-game doesn’t prove to be as frenetic as promised, often grinding the bout’s pace to a halt. And unlike the other timing-focused quicktime events, Trading Blows is a tad unreadable with its elements shaking and moving across the screen like they’re in a Ric Flair promo. With that said, while the iterative changes aren’t groundbreaking or even good a lot of the time, the mat work and wrestling in general feel terrific and it speaks volumes of the work that has gone into reinventing this franchise. 

In terms of letting loose your creative juice, 2K24 features just about the most robust creation suite I’ve ever seen in a wrestling video game. 

From superstars to signs, entrances to match types, championship belts to the moves themselves, this game lets a willing player deep dive through a seemingly endless stream of options to hand-craft just about every facet of their experience. I spent far too long poring over my star’s move set, and even longer knocking together a worthy entrance for the man who’d fast become a megastar. 

This kind of freedom of creativity extends into the game’s Universe mode, which serves as a sort of sandbox for people to book matches, spots, and rivalries at their leisure. As much as we hear about “finishing the story” it turns out that creating your own can be more fun. If there exists a story in your mind, you can practically bring it to life in this mode. It’s big, it’s overwhelming, and it feels kind of like playing God (of sports entertainment). Universe is an unshackled version of the game’s MyGM mode, which thrusts you into the thick of a ratings war against rival brands as you manage talent relations, programming, and a dastardly shoestring budget. As someone whose day job is operations-based, MyGM very much tickled the logistics centre of my brain. 

Post Malone is, unquestionably, a strange cat. If he were any more relaxed he’d be dead, and that shines through in his song choices for the soundtrack he had a hand in curating for this game. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a more eclectic assortment of tunes and, somehow, Colter Wall’s soulful country song “Motorcycle” which seems to wax lyrical about rural hardship feels in step with Turnstile’s hardcore-punk stylings. The original soundtrack is one part of the presentation I do love, even as the visual fidelity feels like a mixed bag. 

I feel like there’s never been a bigger night-and-day departure in graphics within a single game before. It’s almost as if all of the budget has been poured into entrances and ensuring the spectacle itself is lifelike, leaving the in-ring work to look somewhat lesser than. It isn’t a bad-looking game, but painted-on expressions, stiff hair, and some likenesses that don’t get close to the mark should, in this day and age, be a thing of the past.

Though I’m sure not everything on offer in WWE 2K24 is going to please everybody, I’d expect there’s at least something for everyone. As far as grand stages go Wrestlemania is the industry’s summit, and revisiting so many defining junctures felt momentous and I do think a certain level of reverence was achieved. And wrestling, so beautifully, casts such a wide net that it’s easy to offer a breadth of experience like this, even if the polish level ebbs and flows.

The post WWE 2K24 Review – Showcase Of The Immortals 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.

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.

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. 

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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.

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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.

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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. 

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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.

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.

The post Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2 Review – A Flawed But Fun Platform Fighter appeared first on Press Start.

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.

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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I’ve waited an excruciatingly long time to finally play the Frog Detective games. The first entry in Aussie studio Worm Club’s investigative amphibian trilogy launched back in 2018, but as someone that doesn’t often game on PC I’ve become accustomed to just waiting for console ports of everything – even things my decrepit rig could feasibly handle. Thankfully, that day has finally come with Frog Detective: The Entire Mystery packaging up all three games plus a fun little bonus for PlayStation, Xbox and Switch.

In case you’ve been living under a lily pad, Frog Detective is a series of short and sweet detective mysteries from the mind of Grace Bruxner that sees the titular Frog Detective take on a trio of gently-escalating mysteries from a “haunted” island, to the vandalism of a wizardly welcoming party and finally a mass hat theft in a Wild West town. Each game is loosely connected by Frog Detective’s desire to make a name for himself amongst the investigator community and his rival, Lobster Cop, but offers its own standalone adventure within a new location and with a fresh cast of oddball characters to interact with.

To get to the bottom of the mysteries in each game, players must navigate their respective locations and use the tried-and-true adventure game method of chatting with the folks around them, probing them for information and trading random junk they find for different random junk and so on. It’s all a very unabashed parody of the ridiculous leaps of logic you’d find in the DOS-based adventures of old, swapping the drab trappings of an old Agatha Christie game for a bold and cartoony world where it just makes total sense for a koala swimming in the ocean to need a magnet, or for a cow named Craig to be carrying around a pickaxe just in case they need to trade it for a photo of a ghost.

That is to say, Frog Detective is a silly game. It’s silly and goofy and just very un-serious. This comes across not just in the situations ol’ FD is put in but the consistently-endearing dialogue throughout that serves as a stark reminder that video games can be very funny when they’re made by people who are very funny. There’s a Wes Anderson-like charm to the writing as well as the camera work and soundtrack from Dan Golding and Bruxner lending her pipes for the astonishingly catchy Slippery Pond (more like Earworm Club, right?), so if that sounds like your vibe, you’re going to have a great time here.

Each entry in the trilogy should only take most folks around an hour or so to complete, which makes them great little one-and-done experiences to spread over a few days or a nice little lazy afternoon playthrough to binge the whole thing at once.

As a special treat for those who’ve waited for these console ports or are picking them up again though, there’s also a bonus scooter minigame that plays off of the scooter-riding mechanic introduced in Frog Detective 3: Corruption at Cowboy Country. It’s essentially a little Tony Hawk-esque map to scoot around on while performing tricks and collecting items to chase high scores. An incredibly unnecessary but somehow simultaneously essential addition to round off the experience.

This succinct and sweet little bundle of short-form adventures is just irresistibly charming and wholesome and pleasant in a way that few games are, making it a refreshing and terribly timely bit of reprieve from the onslaught of very good but very intense releases in 2023, and just this year’s whole deal in general. That each game is capped off by a dance party inclusive of everyone Frog Detective meets is an inspiring glimpse into the incredible communities we could be nourishing with just a few more folks as decent as he.

The post Frog Detective: The Entire Mystery Review – A Ribbiting Series Of Cases To Croak appeared first on Press Start.

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.

When Metal Gear Solid was released twenty-five years ago, it was obviously something special. It’s often referred to as one of the most significant video games ever made, popularizing both stealth mechanics and longer in-engine cinematics in games.

But for all that prestige and reverence, the entire series has been bizarrely hard to jump into if you weren’t around when it was first released. There’s no single platform to buy the series’ first four games, with the fourth being incredibly elusive. Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1 is the first step in remedying that. And while it’s a step in the right direction on paper, the execution is mixed.

The first volume of Master Collection brings together all of the games that essentially began the Metal Gear canon. Canon and non-canon games are included and, if you buy the Master Collection, with some extras. Many games are included – the original Metal Gear as it appeared on both the MSX and the NES. The official sequel, Metal Gear 2, is also included, but so is the non-canon Metal Gear 2: Snake’s Revenge. The main attractions here, however, are Metal Gear Solid 1 through 3. There are some additional extras, too, but I’ll touch on those later.

Arguably, the centrepiece of Volume 1 of the Master Collection is that it represents the first time that the original Metal Gear Solid has been available outside of the PlayStation ecosystem on other consoles. As such, this game has received the most attention in this collection. Besides the original PlayStation version, the VR Missions and Special Missions expansion packs are also included. The expanded version of the original game, Metal Gear Solid: Integral, is also included, marking the first time it’s been available outside of Japan. It’s an incredibly comprehensive package and easily exceeds the expectation of what would be included with a typical remaster.

That being said, these are essentially the PlayStation version of the game running in a fancy bespoke emulator with minimal improvements. Where the PC version, already available elsewhere, offers higher resolutions, smoother textures and framerates, this version has all the warts that the original PlayStation release had. Rough, wobbly textures and a framerate of 30fps that somehow still manages to drop. Yes, this is the most authentic version of the game that Konami could present, but not giving players the option to also try the PC version seems like a misstep here.

But the intention wasn’t even to include the games as they originally appeared, as the ports included in Master Collection of Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3 are the improved ports from Bluepoints 2011 remasters. These games run at a maximum of 1080p resolution and a buttery smooth 60 frames per second (half that on Switch). While it’s disappointing not to see many substantial changes made to these ports to restore missing content from the original releases, these are still great ways to experience the games. Similarly, while Master Collection includes multiple versions of Metal Gear Solid, only the HD Collection versions of 2 and 3 are included here.

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That’s not to say that the HD Collection ports were terrible. They were the best ways to play Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3 on modern platforms. But their inclusion in Master Collection Vol. 1 feels barebones compared to the treatment the original Metal Gear Solid has received. It’s mainly a bit of a letdown that these games haven’t been tweaked with a bump in resolution, given the power of the consoles we’re playing with now. As it stands, if these were the two games you were interested in within the Master Collection, but you already own HD Collection, this might not be worth the double dip for you.

Besides the games, each comes with a Master Book and Screenplay Book, which any keen Metal Gear Solid fan will appreciate. Each book spans over eighty pages; summarising events, detailing characters and providing tips and tricks that you might’ve read about in magazines if you were growing up when these games came out. They’re all great additions that do a great job of walking the player through each game narratively and showing how each one connects to the overarching mythos. The Master Books are comprehensive, but given their breadth, I can’t help but feel they’d better serve as a physical printed compendium rather than a digital add-on to pore over on a screen.

Despite some questionable remastering choices, it’s a massive boon to Konami that these games are still so strong, regardless of their treatment. While some areas of Metal Gear Solid can be a bit tougher to play today, Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3 are still an absolute joy to play. Metal Gear Solid 3 is, in particular, still one of the greatest stealth games ever. Metal Gear Solid 2 has a story that only gets better and more relevant to the zeitgeist as time progresses. They’re all fantastic games with remarkable polish and strong stories to tell. The original games that appeared on the MSX and NES are a little bit more of an acquired taste, but to be blunt, they’ve aged poorly compared to the trilogy of Metal Gear Solid games included here.

There are some other bonuses, too – namely, the digital graphic novels previously available for the PlayStation Portable and included with specific collections. These interactive novels were fun ways to experience the story of Metal Gear Solid and Metal Gear Solid 2, though they’re not included in the base package and must be downloaded separately to work. For those who love preservation, this isn’t the best way to go about things – even the instruction manuals link to websites that’ll inevitably disappear after decades have passed – but it’s, once again, still nice of Konami to bother to include these. Especially if you struggle to get through Metal Gear Solid as a newer player.

Of course, the question must be asked. Is this worth it? It really depends. When you boil it down to what’s included here, Master Collection is good value for money. If you did the bare minimum in all of the games included here, you’ve got more than forty hours of play to get through. And it’s a good forty hours plus, too. The additional materials, like the Master Books, are fantastic and comprehensive additions that the most hardcore fans will enjoy immersing themselves in. But these consoles that the collection is launching on are capable of so much more – and if you own any previous copies of Metal Gear Solid – it makes the lack of substantial improvements to the games themselves a key deciding factor on whether you’d need to purchase this again.

Still, having the first three games of one of gaming’s most prolific franchises is hardly bad. And given how good these games are, playing Master Collection is just a reminder of how vital preservation is and how many people need to play these games if they haven’t already. And that’s worth celebrating.

The post Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1 Review – Nowhere To Hide 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.

Between a pair of decent live-action movies, a fantastic celebration of the series in Sonic Mania, and the divisive reinvention that was Sonic Frontiers, the blue blur has had a strange couple of years. Despite this, Sonic has been able to prove that his staying power is immense. Swathes of free downloadable content for Frontiers, a Knuckles TV series, and a third movie in the works all but confirm SEGA’s spiny mascot will always be here to stay.

Where Sonic Mania came to us in a time of uncertainty for Sonic, Sonic Superstars feels like a more confident showing of what 2D Sonic was all about. A true sequel to the seminal original trilogy that had fans clamouring for more. If you can look past the rough edges and a questionable value proposition, Superstars’ core experience delivers on the promise that Sonic the Hedgehog 4 couldn’t, proving that 2D Sonic still has a place in modern gaming.

Much like the originals and Mania before it, Sonic Superstars is light on narrative, but what’s here is more than enough to set the scene and get things going. To absolutely no one’s surprise, Dr. Eggman is back at it again – this time looking to execute his plans of world domination from the Northstar Islands with the help of Fang the Hunter and series newcomer, Trip.

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It’s mostly told through short vignettes and animated cutscenes that bring Sonic’s sense of playful adventure to fruition. With a core cast of Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Amy, it truly feels like a continuation of those older games. It’s always a treat to see the gang bounce off of each other as they try to thwart Eggman’s plans and it’s neat seeing a character like Fang in a mainline title like this one.

The old school sensibilities of Sonic Superstars don’t stop there. As soon as you pick up the controller, it’s clear that much like Sonic Mania, Superstars is a modernised take on traditional 2D Sonic. Everything from the physics to platforming challenges and bursts of blistering speed is lovingly iterated upon in a stylish 2.5D perspective. Each Zone offers unique themes, level gimmicks, and pathways to discover in a bid to get the fastest time possible, making for an all-round well paced adventure.

Sonic’s repertoire has also seen a few new key additions that shake up the core gameplay loop. Aside from the brilliant Drop Dash returning from Mania, Sonic and friends have access to a suite of new Chaos Emerald Powers that substantially change how you approach each new obstacle. These slowly unlock over the course of the game’s story mode, with each of the seven emeralds being tucked away in hard-to-reach Special Stages.

Each one brings something entirely new to the table. The Blue Emerald, for example, allows you to use the Avatar power, flooding the screen with clones that’ll clear the screen of any Badniks while also dealing some good damage to bosses. The Green Emerald, on the other hand, sprouts ivy that allows for rapid vertical movement, meaning you can get to high areas with ease. Liberal use of these powers is encouraged as they refresh every time you hit a new checkpoint post, so you’ll often be able to use them two or three times per Act.

The Chaos Emerald Powers also add a ton of replay value in the same vein as Wisps from Sonic Colours. It’s rewarding to revisit previously cleared Acts to see how and where you can use the powers to improve times, find new routes, and uncover hidden collectibles or Bonus Stages. I have no doubt the community will come up with some diabolical tech for these that keeps time trials alive for some time to come.

It should also be mentioned that the aforementioned Special Stages that unlock the Emeralds are challenging, inventive and fun to play. You’ll swing from grapple points as you use momentum to carry yourself towards a fleeing Emerald, collecting Rings along the way to make sure you don’t time out. They’re relatively straightforward, but are always enjoyable, which simply can’t be said for Special Stages in prior games.

Sonic Superstars’ assortment of Zones are also excellent. While most explore motifs previously seen in the series, there are a few unique standouts like Speed Jungle Zone and Cyber Station Zone. The former sees Sonic and the gang slingshot off of fauna, grind on vines, and make ample use of harpoon launchers to get to higher paths. Cyber Station Zone is a personal favourite, with a digitised environment that transforms Sonic and co into voxel renditions of themselves while also taking on other cyber forms to progress.

Zones aren’t made completely equal, though. Some only have one Act, and others have a bonus character specific Act making for a total of three. These bonus Acts are a nice way to get to grips with a character’s kit and how they might play in a regular level. Where Sonic has his trusty Drop Dash, Knuckles can climb, Tails can fly, and Amy can wallop anything in her way through liberal use of her hammer. It means each Act feels fresh when tackled with a new character, especially in tandem with the Chaos Emerald Powers.

Each level also houses a plethora of Medals that can be traded in for cosmetics at Eggman’s shop, allowing you to create your very own metal competitor for Battle Mode. There’s some neat stuff here, like the ability to create a metal NiGHTS, but it’s disappointing that these creations are strictly limited to the Battle Mode. There’s also a collection of Bonus Stages in each Act that award even more medals, but I became apathetic towards collecting them as the game went on given their limited applications.

The bosses that punctuate each zone are also a bit of a mixed bag. Some are your typical 2D Sonic boss fights, while others are frustratingly difficult and occasionally obtuse in design. It doesn’t help that Superstars is plagued by some wonky hit detection and collision issues that rear their heads often enough to become an infrequent annoyance.

Outside of the core story mode, Sonic Superstars has offerings of mixed quality. The Mario Party-like Battle Mode feels like something of an afterthought, with simple minigame designs that finish before they can properly get going. The mode that unlocks after rolling credits fairs a little bit better with remixed stages, but doesn’t add as much as you might initially think. A sweet inclusion is the ability to play the story mode in four player local coop, which is a bit of chaotic fun despite some of the level design struggling to keep up with the speed of it all.

If these extra modes don’t do much for you on paper, then it’s hard to recommend Sonic Superstars at its current price tag. I’m all for a short and sweet experience, but the value proposition here isn’t great for those looking to do one or two playthroughs of the story mode while avoiding the extra stuff. Old-school fans will no doubt get a kick out of the classic feel that Superstars embraces, but the current asking price is steep given its fleeting four or five hour runtime.

The biggest departure from the original games is undoubtedly Sonic Superstars’ visual style, dropping the true 2D found in the glorious pixels of the originals for a 2.5D style that’s reminiscent of the Classic Sonic levels found in Sonic Generations. Despite this, the trademark visual style of the Genesis games still feels alive and well here. The combination of an eye-popping colour palette, incredibly expressive animations, and careful use of character quirks present Superstars as a truly modern adaptation of that original visual style.

There’s nothing quite like Sonic tapping his foot in anticipation as he idles or watching him transition into a Super Peel Out as he reaches top speed. Each character and Zone is brought to life by Superstars’ consistently vivid presentation, and it does wonders for the larger experience. It should hardly surprise anyone that the original soundtrack is another home run for Sonic with talent like the incredible Tee Lopes and Hidenori Shoji of Super Monkey Ball fame penning an energetic and upbeat score that continues the trend of consistently fantastic music in the franchise.

The post Sonic Superstars Review – A Gorgeous Return To Sonic’s Roots 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.

THE CHEAPEST PHYSICAL COPY: $85 AT MIGHTYAPE

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.

The post Forza Motorsport Review – A Successful Turn appeared first on Press Start.

EA Sports FC 24 doesn’t entirely reinvent the wheel in its first foray away from the official FIFA branding. That’s not a bad thing though – the array of gameplay tweaks and additions to key modes, combined with some well-needed refreshes to the game’s presentation and menus, has made my time with it more than enjoyable.

If you’ve been a dedicated player of EA Sports’ FIFA titles over the last few years, jumping into FC 24 isn’t going to exactly surprise you. All of what made the former titles so great (and stale at times) is still here, revamped with new branding and some nice new menus. While they are flashy and relatively nice to look at, the actual navigation of these menus is a little finicky – I’m still finding myself following old muscle memory movements to navigate around, but as time goes on that’ll fade away. 

As a Career Mode aficionado, I was anxious to spend my first few hours with the game checking out everything new on offer. Yet sadly, there’s not a whole lot of new at all. That said, there are some notable small additions that I’ve enjoyed playing around with.

The first of these is having your team adapt to your Tactical Vision. These are specific tactics that your team will work towards performing out on the pitch. They range from focusing on soaking up pressure and playing on the counter, to playing Barcelona-esque tiki-taka football. There are a decent amount of Tactical Visions to pick from, and I like how they give your team a particular identity while they’re out on the pitch.

In order to have your team successfully play your preferred tactic, you need to hire coaches in each main positional department that excel in that tactical style. They’ll then instruct your players in those positions on how to play that style, developing their game to suit your vision. It’s a relatively deep and welcome addition that genuinely does change the way players develop over the course of a season.

Each team’s associated with a certain Tactical Vision, and you can scope these out in the new pre-game preparation screen. This enables you to finally look at relevant stats as you come up against an opponent, like their last five results, what kind of tactics they play and key players to keep an eye on. As someone who loves their statistics while playing through a career, I absolutely adore this addition. And hey, you can now equip glasses when customising your coach! Finally.

When it comes time to actually lace up the boots and kick a ball, there’ve been quite a few changes made to the gameplay in FC 24 to get used to. First and foremost, the introduction of PlayStyles alters the way particular players ply their trade. Rather than just having traits that do little to affect the way a player actually performs, PlayStyles (and PlayStyles+) directly affect certain attributes and abilities. Players with the long-range finishing PlayStyle, for example, will get a better and faster connection on the ball when taking those particular shots. Continuing to dominate with a particular PlayStyle will see that player gain the plus version of the PlayStyle, which will make them even better when executing that move.

I was particularly impressed with the game’s graphical presentation and general production values, too. HyperMotion V makes player interactions look more believable than in previous entries, and players tend to look and feel a bit more like their real-world counterparts this year.

As well as this, I’m a big fan of the way statistics are used on the field during a game. Whether it’s showing shots on target over the last five minutes or stamina drain on each player – having these little statistical packages pop up every now and again enhanced the experience a lot for me. It’s unique in its own way and ultimately quite a neat addition to the presentation of the game.

My only major gripe with the game so far has been encountering some fairly annoying bugs. I’m hopeful these will be addressed relatively soon, but there’s been a few occasions where I’ve had to reset my game as it locked up within menus. The biggest culprit so far is when trying to fire a coach in Career Mode. The game completely locks up and you’re forced into resetting the game (thankfully, autosave usually comes to the rescue). This was on the Xbox Series version of the game, so perhaps be wary when dealing with tactical coaches until a patch comes along.

There have been a couple of significant updates to Football Ultimate Team (which feels incredibly weird to write) that make EA’s cash cow game mode better than it’s ever been. The most prominent of these is the introduction of female players. Even as someone who has a particular disdain for Ultimate Team’s microtransaction-heavy model, this change has made me want to dive back in more than I ever have in previous years.

There’s so much more versatility when it comes to creating teams this year, and I’ve had a blast crafting teams around professional national leagues rather than just focusing on the men’s leagues. It’s unfortunate the vocal minority of the community have taken an immediate distaste to this change, but for me it’s been the one key reason to return back to Ultimate Team every now and again – it’s a great move that changes the way you build out your squad.

As well as this, FUT also introduces Evolution Cards. These cards allow you to upgrade the attributes of a base card, making them better and more purpose-built for your needs. In order to upgrade Evolution Cards you have to meet certain challenge criteria, like playing a certain amount of games with them in your starting lineup or assisting a handful of goals. Fulfilling each challenge criteria will allow you to then level up the card, upgrading the overall level of the card and its attributes. It’s a neat change that allows you to finely tune players that fit within the evolution criteria, and I enjoyed having some extra objectives to work towards during my time in Ultimate Team. 

FC 24’s career modes have been my other main go-to throughout my time with the game. As I noted earlier, I’ve had a great time playing around with the new tactical visions in Manager Career and seeing them play out. It’s been a nice change to assess how each team I’ve come up against play, and how I’ve then had to adjust my thinking to be aware of their style of play.

Unfortunately, I didn’t find Player Career all that compelling this time around. Having your agent choose target clubs to work towards earning a contract with – and completing objectives to secure a contract – is arduous at best. I’m also confused as to why I couldn’t request to go out on loan or even submit a transfer request anymore. The new system can be fun enough, but taking core features away from the mode makes Player Career feel quite boring when compared with everything else on offer in FC 24.

After years of relative neglect, FC 24’s Clubs mode has finally been given a hit of life. Crossplay has been introduced, along with a new progression system that focuses on reputation. Every time you play a match, you’ll gain fans that ultimately contribute to your club’s overall reputation. Leveling up will give you more skilled AI teammates, along with new stadiums to make use of and FUT-styled vanity items to decorate your stadium with.

The Clubs League has also been reworked as well, taking away the punishment of being relegated in divisions and giving teams an unlimited number of matches to gather the points required to get into the Playoff phase. It’s a nice change that takes away some of the stagnation that can be often felt in this mode, and I’m particularly pleased to not have to go through the stress of dealing with relegation and working through a lower division all over again.

Unfortunately I can’t say too much has changed in FC 24’s street football mode, Volta Football, though. As has been the case for a few years now, the mode’s been rinsed and recycled with very little added. I’ll say it every year – there’s a serious missed opportunity here, as even after no major changes for years Volta is still a lot of fun as a getaway from the main 11v11 modes. Just don’t expect much in the way of change.

Even so, FC 24 does shine where it matters most and that’s in its gameplay. It feels better than it ever has, and I’ve enjoyed my time playing around with the new tactical options on offer. Speaking of, the newly-added ‘tactical’ camera is excellent, giving you a wider view of the pitch. This view allows switches of play and intricate movement to look and feel particularly good to pull off properly, and I’d definitely recommend giving it a go. 

Similarly, I’ve really enjoyed the new presentation packages that play out in each mode as well as the added commentary from Guy Mowbray and Sue Smith, which offer a nice change of pace from series veterans Derek Rae and Stewart Robson.

While it isn’t the reinvention some may have been hoping for, EA Sports FC 24 is a great footy sim that nails the fundamentals. The additions to Football Ultimate Team are good, Career Mode feels fresher than it has in a while and the general gameplay is better than it’s ever been. There’s still no better football game out there.

The post EA Sports FC 24 Review – Familiar Football Made Better appeared first on Press Start.

While I’m a massive fan of the concept of Separate Ways, subsequent revisits to the 2005 version in my later years have had me coming to terms with a simple fact. It just wasn’t that good. A hodgepodge of assets from RE4 stitched together to sell a second version of the game, it’s an interesting case study of what happens when you mix a game with stellar mechanics with lousy encounter design. Separate Ways has been given the remake treatment as downloadable content for Resident Evil 4. And with so much gained, it’s a massive surprise at just how much is on offer here for such a great price.

For the unaware, Separate Ways is a side story that tells Ada Wong’s side of the events of Resident Evil 4. You play Ada as she takes orders from her mysterious superior while colluding with Leon and Luis to find the amber she was after in the main game. It’s a comprehensive package that further rounds the already well-rounded Resident Evil 4. It fleshes out a lot more of Luis and Ada’s motivations and helps fill out the story and tie up any loose ends left hanging by Leon’s adventure.

As implied earlier, the original Separate Ways was made after the fact, with so many aspects of Ada’s side of the story lacking real cohesion with Leon’s. This version, however, feels much more thoughtfully considered. When Ada is crossing the roof of the church, she can hear Ashley crying while she waits to be rescued by Leon. Later, she can hear Leon fighting Salazar on the other side of the castle wall she climbs. They’re small touches, but replaying RE4 knowing that Ada is nearby is a nice recontextualization.

Where the original Separate Ways had you running through Resident Evil 4 backwards, the new Separate Ways is much more thoughtful in the paces it puts Ada through. Many areas are admittedly reused from the main game, but they’ve been twisted enough to resemble something new – not cynically or dully like in Shadows of Rose last year. There’s also more of an emphasis on espionage and reconnaissance in the opening chapters, which meshes well with Ada; things ramp up pretty quickly along its seven-chapter run.

An example of how Separate Ways twists what was presented in Resident Evil 4 is with the first boss battle. El Gigante is fought twice in the main story as Leon, but as Ada, you’ll fight one in the farm area from the beginning of the game. Ada’s grapple hook can be used to jump between rooftops of each barn and, of course, to swing by and deal damage to the beast’s weak point. It’s a fun remix of a battle I’ve personally done to death – and the rest of the encounters only get better. There are three other key boss encounters in Separate Ways, and they’re entirely new and slot nicely into the overall story.

Even more admirable, each aspect of Resident Evil 4 that was sorely missing from the remake has been reworked and incorporated into Ada’s side of the story. It’s a joy to see these key moments reimagined – the gondola ride, the laser room and even a missing boss I quickly noticed in my original review. It’s all included here in Separate Ways with the same sense of respect that the original remake had, and it all makes sense to “give” these encounters to Ada, given how she gets around. It’s remarkable how much it rounds out the already comprehensive package that Resident Evil 4 was.

We already knew Ada was a badass, but I can only appreciate her more as a character after seeing what she was up to after the events of RE4. Much like the remake, Separate Ways masterfully balances the core tenets that make Resident Evil compelling – it’s got a nice mix of puzzles, exhilarating action and some darker horror-tinged moments. While combat primarily flows the same, Ada is equipped with weapons not found in the main game. With enough spinels, she can even unlock the ability to rip away enemies’ shields with her grapple. It is an absolute game changer and ammo saver on higher difficulties.

As you play Separate Ways, you’ll be surprised at how many new and substantial encounters it throws at you. Priced at fifteen dollars, it will take most players between five to six hours to finish, even more if they explore every area and finish every request for the merchant. There’s even a set of challenges to complete with their own related unlockables – including classic costumes from the original Resident Evil 4 for the rest of the cast and the usual weird accessories for Ada herself.

While there was unwarranted controversy surrounding the recasting of Ada Wong with Lily Gao, she turns in an excellent performance here as we get to spend more time with Ada in Separate Ways. Lending an aloof tone with some quippy one-liners to rival the corniness of Leon, this is easily now my favourite interpretation of the character. There are even some great remixes of music from Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 4 – including Ada’s theme from the former and a very schmick remix of Infiltration from the latter.

As the credits rolled on Separate Ways, I couldn’t help but ruminate on how polished it was. It felt like the base game, just from a different perspective. The original Separate Ways had many scenes where characters would stand silent as Ada spoke to them. None of that is evident in the new Separate Ways; it feels just as big a budget as the game it complements. That being said, there was one scene where Ada interacted with another character just moments before the finale that was weird and stilted, but otherwise, the majority of Separate Ways feels well put together with excellent production values.

Separate Ways is now available as paid downloadable content on all platforms where Resident Evil 4 is available.

The post Resident Evil 4: Separate Ways Review – Ada Comes Out Swinging appeared first on Press Start.

PAYDAY 2 has grown exponentially in the 10 years since it launched. What started as a modest collection of six tailored heists has quickly grown into a total roster of 87 highly replayable experiences. All good things must come to an end, though, and some of PAYDAY 2’s more archaic design choices have prompted Starbreeze Studios to iterate on their classic heisting formula in PAYDAY 3. The end result is a game that feels like it takes steps forward as often as it does back. It’s a great experience when it all clicks, but it’s hard not to miss some of the quality-of-life inclusions from PAYDAY 2.

While PAYDAY isn’t primarily known for riveting narrative prospects, the original gang has garnered quite the following across games. Longtime series fans are in luck, because Dallas, Chains, Wolf, and Hoxton are back despite their early retirement after PAYDAY 2’s ending. Alongside returning heister, Joy, and a brand-new character in the form of Pearl, the crew finds themselves in dire straits after attempted assassination and emptied offshore accounts. At a loss for who has it out for the gang and why, it’s time to hit the streets of New York City to recoup funds and find answers in the process.

I mentioned in my preview that while sparse on details, it’s quite a novel setup that provides a suitable excuse to throw the original characters back into the fray. Cinematics set the mood pre and post-heist in atmospheric fashion and it ultimately does a good enough job of providing answers while leaving the door open for post-launch content. There’s also some neat callbacks and returning characters from the first two games, tying back to previous events that link to what’s happening in current time.

While PAYDAY 3 is largely iterative, there’re some excellent improvements to the core formula that really freshen up heists and how you can approach them. The most obvious is a vastly expanded casing phase, where you can spend more time scoping out the environment and formulating a plan of attack. Certain heists can still be completed without detection, and spending time understanding your objective and how the moving parts of each map feed into it is always rewarding.

The moment-to-moment gameplay is also greatly improved. Shooting feels markedly better than PAYDAY 2, and making decisions on the fly is constantly thrilling. Trading hostages for time and resources, working out how to deal with security cameras and patrolling guards, among many other things lurk in the back of your mind as you work towards your main objective. Overkill Weapons are also a welcome addition, allowing you to call in an excessively powerful firearm with limited ammunition once or twice per heist so you can compete with the increasing firepower of the police and militia you go up against.

The heists in question are all undeniably excellent. They’re absolutely dripping with atmosphere and achieve different heisting fantasies across an array of settings and objectives. Rock The Cradle is a particular stealth-only highlight where you infiltrate a bustling nightclub in hopes of nicking a crypto wallet. Under The Surphaze is the polar opposite – an elaborate art museum heist where you traipse around tightly guarded exhibits under the cover of night. It’s always thrilling to see how these heists can dynamically unfold based on your actions and whether you choose to go loud.

The variation in approaches and myriad difficulty modes with unique modifiers lay the foundation for the core appeal of any PAYDAY game, and PAYDAY 3 sports it in full-force. Tackling heists again and again is the name of the game, earning more cash, completing challenges, and upgrading skills all feed into an addicting loop that keeps you coming back for more much like previous games. While unlocks flow steadily in the early hours, things start to slow down a bit as a result of PAYDAY 3’s progression systems.

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Gaining Infamy in PAYDAY 3 requires you specifically to complete challenges for experience points. While there’s something to be said for how it forces you to play with new guns and adopt new playstyles, it’s hard not to feel like rewards are spread too thin for self-imposed challenge runs. It isn’t maintaining stealth or finding all loot in repeat heists that nets you infamy – it’s always only challenges. It means that if you want to chase PAYDAY’s core appeal, you’re forced to go after specific challenges instead of doing things as you see fit. It’s a weird choice that doesn’t gel with what high level PAYDAY play is all about.

To add insult to injury, these challenges can be extremely grindy. Hundreds of clears without detection, the same number when you go loud, excessive numbers of weapon kills. It feels tailor-made for hardcore players, but I doubt even they’d want to grind the same heist two hundred times over. If the resulting unlocks were mostly cosmetic, this wouldn’t be as much of an issue, but a vast majority of PAYDAY 3’s weapons are locked behind Infamy levels.

There’s also quite a few weird omissions in regards to quality-of-life inclusions and features that can be found in PAYDAY 2. The fantastic CRIME.NET matchmaking system has been changed out for a more traditional matchmaking format, reducing pre-heist planning to picking favours and hitting the ready button. The lack of in-game voice chat is also questionable given how important communication is in any given heist. Loadout naming, choosing to stay with your lobby, and many other small inclusions are nowhere to be found.

Despite all of this, there’s plenty of reason to keep playing PAYDAY 3 if you’re going for all the unlocks. Between countless weapons, apparel, masks, and skills, there’s so much to play around with as you craft new loadouts and try out different approaches. Perks also add some cool new passive abilities that increase damage, resistances, or speed when certain conditions are met. While they aren’t quite as powerful or expressive as they were in PAYDAY 2, they unlock at a steady rate and help to shape your playstyle for a heist.

PAYDAY 3’s presentation is bolstered tremendously by its setting. The setting of New York City has allowed Starbreeze Studios to expand into visually dynamic heist locations that separate themselves from the other settings in the franchise. From the pristine halls of the Surphaze art gallery to the packed dance floors of the Neon Cradle nightclub, each heist successfully builds its own atmosphere and ambience in effortless fashion that reinforces the core fantasy.

When things do get loud, Gustavo Coutinho’s thumping electronic soundtrack erupts in glorious fashion, further exacerbating the high-octane nature of shootouts. The game is also incredibly polished on PC, maintaining high framerates no matter how crazy the action gets. Bugs were also nowhere to be found in my time with the game, which is a refreshing change of pace for the often dysfunctional live service launches.

The post PAYDAY 3 Review – A Few Dollars Short appeared first on Press Start.

The hours I spent in Night City a few years ago, as well as the review-in-progress I’d penned as a placeholder were quickly lost to the noise and vitriol that surrounded the game at launch. The fact I never doubled back to finish it has been the source of tongue-in-cheek comments on our podcast, but it’s also a source of great disappointment for me. 

Although it over promised and under delivered at the time, and its performance on ageing hardware was nothing short of abysmal, there was still a faint outline of a phenomenal roleplaying game. Like a never-ending public relations tug of war, the team has wrestled back good will in the time since, with performance and optimisation coming a long way. 

Although this piece will largely be about the Phantom Liberty expansion, which sees V plunge knee-deep into a thrilling narrative full of high stake political gambits, the real shining star in a swathe of updates coming to Cyberpunk is its literal, and free, game-changing 2.0 rollout. It presents a more focused approach to build design, and its streamlined system of fewer but better perks feels more quality over quantity than it did beforehand.

So substantial is the shift, the team are offering all players a one-time reset of their attributes to re-roll throughout the improved trees. There has also been a body of work put into making punishment fit the crime in Night City, with an overhauled police response system making it both more dynamic and fun for those turning out like cyberpsychos in the streets.

The beautiful thing about all of these quality changes the team have made is that Phantom Liberty feels like a showcase event for all of them. It’s a spectacular expansion that displays, in full, the mountain of work done by the team to create a more dynamic, living playground for people to live in. 

I declared CD Projekt Red “world building luminaries” in my now outdated quasi-critique of what this game was prior to its launch, and Phantom Liberty further cements this as fact, expanding the play space of Night City to include Dogtown. This slum we’re dropped into as players is a now-walled off slice of Pacifica, annexed by Kurt Hansen, who rules with an iron fist, during the war. It’s very much the lawless, chaotic armpit of Night City, full of black market chrome and over eager militia.

It’s here a vast majority of Phantom Liberty’s narrative unfolds, and I was riveted from the second Songbird, an exceptionally talented netrunner, unseats Keanu Reeves’ Johnny Silverhand for control of your literal mindshare and promises to rescue you from the Relic turning your brain to soup in exchange for rescuing the President of the New United States. 

What unfolds is a genuinely rich tapestry of espionage and spycraft that wouldn’t be amiss in a John le Carré novel. I was delighted at how invigorated it felt for this game’s world despite being so baked into it, right down to every minor detail. A lot of the intrigue is shouldered by Idris Elba’s Solomon Reed, who is one cool motherfucker—which, as someone who’s endured Cats, isn’t a sentence I thought I could ever say again. He is an incredibly nuanced character whose motivations are shrouded in doubt up until the very end, and although his turn leans a little hard on the morose, self-pitying archetype, his cool demeanour and seamless assumption of the “spy role” here could easily serve as his Bond audition.

The campaign itself has the far-reaching consequences and explosive horsepower to match a particular military-shooter franchise, especially in its early chapters. That said, Phantom Liberty goes to some unexpected places and serves up its share of tense, contemplative, and surprisingly scary moments throughout.

What I like is how CD Projekt Red have managed to seamlessly slot V’s Dogtown escapades into what is effectively the middle of Cyberpunk’s enormous, branching story and have it work. I’d assumed it’d tack onto the backend of the already-existing campaign and serve as a footnote for the game at large, however it offers up its own questline that fits in after you’re first exposed, through Mama Brigitte, to cyberspace and the concept of the Blackwall. Like other so-called “main” questlines in the game that involve key players like Goro Takemura and Panam, Phantom Liberty’s culminates a new, but wholly satisfying, ending for the game. 

Similar to the skill reset provided to returning players, the effort to onboard first-timers faster is certainly commendable. Those new to the game can skip the entirety of the first act and receive a gift of twenty levels and a fistful of perks to roll into Dogtown with.

During the expansion’s explosive opening chapter, you breach the district’s walls by treating a refuse chute as a waterslide and landing gracelessly in a mountain of trash. This feels appropriately Dogtown. The town, like its oppressive overlord, has a big personality, placing the class gap at the forefront like no other district really has. Hansen’s decadent Black Sapphire serves as a retreat for the minted, while the safety and high-ground of the football stadium is reserved for his seedy operation. The slums, stacks, and streets are left to the indigent to pick at for scraps, and I’m impressed at how alive and realised it feels. Foot traffic and general street chatter feels more alive than I’d seen before, it’s dense and bustling.

One feature that Phantom Liberty attempts to spotlight within its campaign and gigs are the dynamic car chases and vehicular combat. Although I’m sure it’s a ride once machine turrets are mounted to your bonnet, firing from a moving car doesn’t feel great at a top level. I constantly found myself at war with the dualling mechanics of simply staying on the road and wrestling the camera to ping slugs off of their cars with what felt like a pea shooter at times. For me, it kind of sapped the thrill from any pursuit I got into.

Although I never encountered issues throughout the main questline, a couple of the gigs I got roped into had dodgy objective triggers that had me running around in circles thinking I’d missed something, only for the issue to shake loose with a simple reload. Despite these minor issues, Cyberpunk is in the best shape it’s ever been. 

All in all, I’ve absolutely loved my return trip to Night City. 

There’s no question that Phantom Liberty, hand-in-hand with the enormous 2.0 upgrade, delivers the Cyberpunk experience that was promised all along. Should this have been the game we got years ago? Perhaps, but the persistence of this team to course correct and transform what was once flatlining into something that’s a must play for role-playing fans deserves praise. 

The post Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty Review – The Spy Who Fragged Me appeared first on Press Start.

Few franchises can enjoy a thirty-year tenure like Mortal Kombat can. But it’s just a testament to how much the series is willing to reinvent itself, for better or worse. Mortal Kombat has been subject to many successes and failures throughout those three decades. The franchise even survived the bankruptcy of its original publisher. Now, Mortal Kombat 1 is reinventing everything yet again. In light of those successes and failures, it’s obvious that Mortal Kombat 1 is the former and another win for Netherrealm. Quite frankly, I’ve not played a fighting game like it.

The series has dabbled in rebooting and the mixing of timelines already, but none has been as dramatic as with Mortal Kombat 1. Following the events of the last game, Liu Kang is given the power of an elder god and can reset the timeline to a new era. He does this but obviously can’t control what happens in the new timeline, so naturally, there’s a new threat to battle once more. It’s a hammy but a much-needed refresh after the convoluted Mortal Kombat 11.

Being the start of a new era, everything has changed. Some characters play a more significant role in the story. Others might still be as treacherous as in previous games but for different, more noble reasons. It’s a cool shakeup, but I’d argue that where things end up, it’s not quite the dramatic reinvention we’d have thought. But, regardless, Mortal Kombat 1 does feel like a perfect point for a newcomer to jump in while still winking at those who know the already-established lore. Even better, despite being such unadulterated schlock, the production value holding it all up helps bring the engaging story to life.

But this is still a fighting game. You choose your character and arena before attacking each other with special moves and combos. The core concept is mainly unchanged, and combat flows much faster than Mortal Kombat 11 but still slower than Mortal Kombat X. The combo system has also been reworked, allowing you to take your kombos to the air. But no other change is as significant as the Kameo system, which is baked into the design of Mortal Kombat 1.

The Kameo system represents the biggest shakeup to the Mortal Kombat formula. After choosing your main character, you’ll also select a character to call upon to assist you. This is your Kameo character, and while you never control them directly, you can call them in with a button press. Each Kameo has multiple moves, and depending on how you hold the button or what direction you press it will influence which attack they’ll do. They’re tied to their separate meter underneath the health bar, so they’re not easily abusable. But they’re a different roster that pulls from every dark corner of Mortal Kombat’s three decades of history.

The Kameo system is particularly clever because it can compensate for any shortcomings your favourite character might have. Characters with fewer options, when their opponent is up close, could pick a Kameo with abilities that keep your opponent away, for example. Many of them can also be called in mid-combo, depending on the move, and allow you to extend your combo where you usually couldn’t. It’s a great addition that encourages player expression and flexibility built into a game where the roster is already very well-varied.

And as far as the roster goes, this is easily one of the series’ best. Where previous games focused on a mix of newcomers and mainly fighters from the first three games, Mortal Kombat 1 does things differently. Characters from over two decades ago return in a new light, and it’s especially a joy to see the entire series’ history represented here. There’s a good mix of characters from each of the distinct eras of the franchise, and while one or two fan favourites are missing, I’d argue that over ninety percent of everyone’s favourites are here.

While the roster has zero newcomers, there is a case to be made for just how many of these returning characters are genuine reinventions. So many are returning for so long, some even from games operating in entirely 3D space, that they’ve been reworked to play like new characters. Even series stalwarts like Scorpion, Johnny Cage and Kitana play dramatically differently from what came before, with new additions to their kits to change their flow. So, while there are no new characters, the context in which they appear more than makes up for it.

With the advent of the Kameo system, the variations system in the last two games is now gone. While I enjoyed having three different versions of each character, it would almost always be unbalanced. Some variations were better than others, and others would never get used. The removal of variations in Mortal Kombat 1 is welcomed – it means the team has to focus on a single set of moves for each character, and, honestly, the roster is stronger for it. Everyone is a joy to play.

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The game is still violent, though Mortal Kombat 1 often errs more on goofy than bleak or realistic. Fatalities and fatal blows are also tuned to be much quicker, getting you back into your game faster. I appreciate this change, though I think people wanting more complicated fatalities will be disappointed. It’s so ridiculous and over the top that it’s almost comical, perhaps indicative of why Mortal Kombat has such broad appeal despite being an outwardly violent game.

Besides the genre-best story mode, a new mode called Invasions is also included here. It’s essentially a tabletop RPG, assigning elemental affinities and stats to manage for your characters as they progress through board games of locations from the story. It’s an intelligent culmination of everything Netherrealm has done previously to appeal to solo players – the living towers are still here refreshing hourly, daily, weekly and monthly – and really is the new version of the Krypt. As such, you’ll do a lot of unlocking of skins and weapons here, with each node of the board allowing you to fight enemies with all kinds of modifiers or effects. You’ll even find items that will open up paths in previous boards, too, kind of like Metroid.

My initial reaction to Invasions is that it’s a pretty massive undertaking. There are at least six boards to explore, comprising hundreds of fights. Some nodes will have you taking on multiple enemies simultaneously; others have mini-towers to conquer. Some even have you just avoiding projectiles without fighting anybody. There’s a nice mix of activities on offer here, and it’s something I can see growing into something even better than what it already is as time goes by. I hope there’s a way in the future to speed up your character’s movement speed on the board, but it’s a minor nitpick, admittedly.

The idea is that each season will bring new boards with new storylines to explore and uncover. I love the idea; though the story is admittedly pretty minimalist, it’s cool to explore some “what-if” scenarios in the world of Mortal Kombat. The first season is already available and concerns the man who was the original Scorpion. If every season is as big as this one, there will be a lot of great solo content for players to get through in Mortal Kombat 1. Time will tell, but Netherrealm has proven before that they’re up to the challenge, so we can only hope that will continue here.

One issue with Mortal Kombat 1 is that it’s yet another fighting game with locked characters. While I recognise it harkens back to when these games first found popularity, it’d be a bit of a bummer to boot the game on a Saturday night with friends and see you can’t play as everyone. One character is tied to finishing the story. At the same time, five of the game’s fifteen Kameos can’t be used until you reach a certain level on your profile. It’s not as egregious as Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, mind you, but it is frustrating if you want to jump in and play with a group with everyone available.

Customisation was a big part of Mortal Kombat 11, but Mortal Kombat 1’s approach is bound to divide. The system has been simplified so that every character has one aspect of their design that can be customised. Examples of this are Scorpion’s Mask, Li Mei’s Gauntlets and Kitana’s Fans. There are still several skins to unlock, each with numerous palettes to change their colour, but the inability to change so much about each character is bound to divide. Once again, I never engaged with the customisation much in Mortal Kombat 11 beyond finding the skins I liked, but those who want to change the most particular aspect of their favourite characters design might be disappointed. And while it’s simplified, the skins on offer here are all good, which makes up for it.

More surprisingly, at the time of writing, the monetisation mechanics aren’t anywhere near as rapacious as you might expect. There are still three currencies, however. Plain coins are earned by playing mainly offline modes. Season coins are made through Invasions Mode and can be used to buy seasonal content. In three hours of play, I’d earn enough to buy five to seven skins I wanted, though you can still earn them in Invasion, too. Finally, there are Dragon Crystals. These are the “real money” currency in the game and can be used in a premium store that refreshes regularly.

While there are in-game purchases here, Mortal Kombat 1 gives out more than enough playing naturally without incessant grinding that I’d expected. It’s a refreshing change that is in stark opposition to how I felt about Mortal Kombat 11, which forced you to grind regularly against battles that were tuned to be way too difficult.

The online modes remain unchanged from Mortal Kombat 11. Public and private rooms can be setup, and there’s still a king of the hill option to emulate that classic arcade experience. Kombat League is also here from the get-go, serving as a ranked mode that rewards gear set around the league theme every few months. Of course, while the net code is strong as ever, it’s a huge disappointment to see that cross-play isn’t here, at least at launch. Especially since it was in Mortal Kombat 11 and worked so well. We have confirmation that it’s coming in the future, but given it’s such the standard now, it’s an odd omission for a game of this calibre.

From a presentation standpoint, Mortal Kombat 1 is the first time the team has moved to a new engine, and it shows. The game has never looked better. Even more encouraging, the levels are all beautifully rendered and wildly colourful. Ever since Injustice 2, it’s been obvious that Netherrealm’s facial animations were something else, and this is especially obvious in Mortal Kombat 1, especially during its lengthy story mode cutscenes. It’s the best-looking fighter available to players so far and it looks so incredibly fluid in motion.

Even more encouraging, the game’s music has been dramatically improved, too. Where music often faded to the background in the previous two games, the new music harkens back to the old eras while still feeling fresh and exciting. Voice work is pretty good. Sure, there is yet another celebrity casting choice that’s clearly out of place, but besides them, everyone else turns in some great performances to bring this epic story to life.

The post Mortal Kombat 1 Review – A Relentless Reinvention appeared first on Press Start.

You need not argue the value of the medium of video games when you see a game like Lies Of P manifesting. Who would ever have thought to combine games like Bloodborne with the tale of Pinnochio, of all things. And who would ever have thought that it worked. Since their success, it’s been easy to write off anything imitating a FromSoftware game as a cynical cash grab, but Lies of P is anything but. It defies all odds. It’s a surprisingly compelling action RPG that builds itself on the shoulders of giants while deftly carving out its own niche.

As you’d expect, the game opens with you stepping into the shoes of Pinnochio. You’re at a train station in the city of Krat, which has recently descended into chaos and madness. Humanoid puppets, previously slaves to the upper class, have turned on their masters, ending the city’s illustrious era of prosperity. You begin on a quest to find your maker, Geppetto, before trying to wrestle back control of the city from those who took it. And, of course, trying to recover your humanity so you can be a real boy again.

While it’s a bizarre premise, Lies of P does a great job of adapting the story of Pinnochio to this melancholic, grimdark world that the developers have crafted. This isn’t Pinnochio as you know it – loosely basing much of its story on the fantasy novel by Italian author Carlo Collody and not so much off of the Disney animated film most will know and love. It’s a left-field choice, but it’s a surprisingly fitting story given how bleak the subject matter is and an exceptional way to experience the novel’s plot. It’s through a warped lens but still charming in its own right.

Anybody who played Lies of P earlier this year would’ve noticed key similarities to FromSoftware’s celebrated action RPG Bloodborne. As such, you know what to expect. A Gothic-tinged semi-open world to explore with an ambiguous narrative and challenging but rewarding combat to overcome. But while the world of Krat is slightly less inviting to explore than other games of this ilk, it’s a world dripping with a dense and heady atmosphere.

Combat is all about being aggressive and parrying wherever possible. Playing aggressively is the best way to get ahead here. When attacked or even after blocking an attack, you’ll lose health. But attacking your enemy shortly after allows you to regain that health. It’s devilishly simple – a risk-reward system boiled down to its purest – but also encourages players to be assertive in their approach. While this is a bit of a shameless imitation of Bloodborne, some little adjustments make Lies of P equal parts engaging and unique.

When you run out of healing items, landing hits on an enemy can eventually renew one (and only one) of them. It’s a slight adjustment that makes those seemingly unconquerable battles much more approachable without making things too easy or letting players play too defensively. Parrying is also incredibly important, though not necessary in Lies of P. For one, it obviously leaves your opponent open to attack. But it also allows you to destroy their weapons, severely limiting their reach or power. They’re minor but nice adjustments to an already potent combat system.

The combat system is supported by a flexible weapons system, too. Each weapon that Pinnochio finds comprises a blade and a handle, each with a unique special ability attached to it. Blade-based abilities tend to be more offensive, while handle-based ones can also offer buffs. Eventually, you can disassemble these weapons to create a combination of weaponry and skills that best suit your style. Even better, you can do this without penalty, so experimentation is possible if you want to try something out. The flexibility in this system offers a nice way for a struggling player to change their approach with little to no effort.

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On top of that, your build is further influenced by the P-Organ. While dubiously named, it’s just a skill tree with five different layers. It’s a linear path through the organ, though each node can be fitted with one of more than fifteen power-ups. This means that most players will have different paths through the organ, and there’s a lot of flexibility in building your Pinnochio as you get through the game. It offers great opportunities for players to complement the stat increases they’ve been buying normally.

Of course, it would be remiss not to speak about the bosses and Lies of P delivers in droves. There’s a nice mix here of bigger-sized beasts to fell and much more challenging enemies to duel. Every boss provides a nice capstone to some already tough battles. And, even better, every death I endured was absolutely my fault. So many of these games often have dodgy hitboxes or shitty dodge mechanics or both. Lies of P has neither. Its fluid and responsive combat meshes beautifully with its intense, fearsome boss battles.

Beyond that, there are some side quests, too, with many of them incorporating the “Lie” mechanic that you’d expect from a game based on Pinnochio. While it feeds into some of the endings you can achieve with your choices, it feels like a shallow system. The side quests are, similarly, trying to be vague in the same vein as Bloodborne, but they’re so basic that it’s rarely much of a headscratcher to work them out. I appreciate that optional content is even here, but overall, it’s a relatively subdued offering.

Thankfully, for some, Lies of P is one of the cruisier games that tries to imitate its FromSoftware brethren. While only marginally less challenging, the combat system having such a great sense of flow (and being so much more responsive) means you’ll have to think less about your strikes. For me, many of the bosses were beaten on their first try, too, so that might be encouraging for those looking to grab a game like this but not wanting to be completely decimated. It’s still disappointing that there are no difficulty options here for those who aren’t well-versed in action games, but given how modest Lies of P is in its challenge, I think it’s not as big of a sore spot.

And finally, from a small team, it’s phenomenal how good Lies of P looks. Not only is the game beautifully presented on a technical level, but also from a sense of artistic direction. The violent and dystopic world of Krat is very well realised. It’s somewhere I’d never want to live, but I’m keen to explore. There are multiple display options, too, but so many of them, even the high frame rate ones, were too unreliable for me. Perhaps these will be fixed with a patch, but I recommend playing on performance mode only for now. It’s a rock-solid sixty frames per second.

While Lies of P doesn’t put its best foot forward in terms of the variety of locales – especially with the environments in its opening hours – it only gets better with time. That’s really how I feel about Lies of P. It’s an excellent action game that takes a bit to get going. But once it does, it’s a joy to play. And I promise, my nose isn’t growing.

The post Lies of P Review – A Twisted Fairy Tale appeared first on Press Start.

There’s something inherently inspirational about space that allows a mind to wonder. It’s representative of limitless possibilities, all out there in an infinite void. Quite frankly, it’s horrifying to think about just how infinitesimally small we all are in the grand fabric of space-time, but it makes for one hell of a backdrop for science-fiction. For mankind to leave behind its cradle and venture into the stars for a new home is the bedrock for so many wonderful properties, it only made sense for Bethesda Game Studios to have their first brand new IP in two decades slip the surly bonds of Earth. 

As the first gargantuan cab off the rank following Microsoft and Bethesda’s groundbreaking merger, the expectations for this interstellar odyssey are even greater than they already would be for the team behind Fallout and The Elder Scrolls—especially given their last effort, Fallout 76, got off to a rather rocky start. And yet, despite these impossible odds, Bethesda Game Studios has achieved the unthinkable. Starfield isn’t just a tremendous role-playing game, it’s one giant leap for a studio that has graduated from creating worlds for players to explore to creating a whole cosmos. 

Starfield has all of the hallmark design of a Bethesda Game Studio game, to the point that if what you’re after is The Elder Scrolls or Fallout in outer space, this is it. Fallout depicts a world torn apart by an unending war, while Starfield presents a united mankind, who have ventured beyond what’s known to discover what’s out there and what’s next for its people. And it’s that spirit and sense of curiosity that’s prevalent throughout every moment of Starfield, through its near twenty-hour mainline quest, and the countless stories that await your intervention across a staggeringly big universe. I won’t spoil any of the fun ahead, but I will say the team have done a splendid job in crafting from scratch a new universe full of lore, engrossing ideologies and theologies, and, most importantly, likeable characters to frame and channel it all through. 

Although a sense of adventure and discovery is still at the core of the experience, it takes a different form in Starfield. Lost to the enormity of its cosmic background is the beacon-bait that, in their other games, often beckons you from the beaten path. Those moments still exist, but they feel thinly spread across hundreds of planets, both curated and not, as opposed to one, hand-crafted sandbox.

Fortunately, there’s so much variety in the moment-to-moment gameplay that this hardly matters. One minute you’ll be aboard a derelict space station, locked into a firefight with space pirates, to retrieve desperately needed resources, the next you’ll be in a bar on Mars, taking on contracts that’ll send you packing to the next system over. Then, while on your way to farm iron from the face of a moon rock to get a stranded traveller out of a jam, you’ll be set upon by a fleet of ships only to take them out in a low-orbit dogfight. And then there are the quiet moments, standing in solitude of a barren planet blanketed in ice, looking up at the starfield and being profoundly taken aback by the scale of everything. 

Starfield is an impressive feat, several magnitudes bigger and better than I expected it might be. It’s a game that, for me, really clicked and opened up after I completed the main quest, which I did brute force through with the aim of turning this piece in. As has been reported, Starfield features a new game plus mode and the way the team has incorporated it, and made it important to the story, is a stroke of genius. 

With so much to see and do, it’s a game that is absolutely bursting with systems to learn and handle.

RELATED: THE ANSWERS TO ALL OF YOUR BURNING STARFIELD QUESTIONS.

I’ve always been a sucker for the V.A.T.S. targeting system in Fallout which, I’ve long felt, existed to mask the imperfect jank woven into the fabric of that game. However, there’s something I enjoy a lot about Starfield’s gunplay. Even with the game’s modest frame rate on console, it felt pacy, sharp, and more reliable in its hit detection, melee excluded for the most part, in a way no Bethesda-developed title really has. It’s obviously no Call of Duty or Destiny, although I’d argue it’s been modelled with the latter in mind, but it makes getting into a scrap a viable option.

Every proficiency your character has, combat or otherwise, can be upgraded within Starfield’s perk chart. I hope what Pete Hines presumes about the endless level cap is true because to spec your character out to the ceiling of each stat will be quite an undertaking. I gravitated toward the tech and sciences trees, because I felt, for the purpose of seeing as much as I could before time was up, my shortcomings in vitality and fighting could be offset by simply lowering the game’s difficulty. Even after sinking days into Starfield, I feel as though I have barely scratched the surface of the perk system.

With hundreds of planets to explore, you’re going to spend more time on terra firma than you will steering your ship through the vacuum of space. Bethesda’s level and art design is regularly so good, it’s easy to tell apart the handcrafted locations from those that are not. New Atlantis, which serves very much as this game’s centrepiece locale, is a sci-fi mega hub that’s architectural dynamite. It’s modern, futuristic, yet has the expected ‘NASA-punk’ aesthetic. There are a handful of other standout cities, one of which is aptly named Neon due to it being a blinding cathode light show.

Of course, the elephant in the room surrounding Starfield’s monumental “1,000 planets” is that a majority of them are desolate, barely worth a visit unless you’re resource farming. I wouldn’t say I’m let down by this, there’s an absolute bounty of content in Starfield as it is, so expecting each and every celestial body to be teeming with activity is not only unreasonable, it’d be unrealistic in even this game’s “Settled Systems.”

One thing I despised about Fallout, in the end, was the developer’s insistence on making settlements a core part of the experience. I’d never vibed with management sims before, and erecting, staffing, and defending a home base I have no affinity for never felt like a fun use of my time. Starfield has similar creation suites for both outposts and starships, and they’re absolutely robust enough for those who enjoy that type of tinkering. Of course, setting up outposts on mineral-rich planets can create a materials production line of sorts that feeds into all forms of crafting in the game, so there’s certainly benefits to exploring it, even if it isn’t forced on players this time around. 

Even as they’ve placed an enormous play space beneath your nose, Bethesda don’t expect you to go it alone—although you can, the option is yours. Constellation, the space-exploring faction that takes you in after your encounter with a mysterious artefact in the game’s opening moments, account for more than a few of the companions in Starfield and, as is often the case, meeting and helping them, and subsequently learning their stories is half of the fun. They each serve their purpose in the field, whether it be escalating or defusing tenuous scenarios, so it’s definitely worth rotating the roster depending on the impression you’re fixing to leave on the galaxy. 

Unlike Elite Dangerous, a tremendous space pirate sim in its own right, which sells the enormity of its boundless universe by giving you free reign to travel at hyper speed, Starfield’s ships feel as slow as a wet week. They’re perfectly fine for the many low-orbit skirmishes you’ll engage in, but for setting out into the star chart like an extraterrestrial Magellan, they come up short. There’s a simplicity to space travel in Starfield that was a relief after hours of scooping fuel from stars in Elite, and everything just feels easy.

Whether it’s picking a landing spot on nearly any planet, choosing which system to hop to next, hailing a nearby vessel for a passing chat, it’s all no more than a couple of clicks away. What I did love was the power diversion system in every ship that lets you funnel the vessel’s limited power source into any mixture of its ballistics, power, or grav drive systems—it quickly evolved into a flight or fight-like response, depending on who’s bullying you for airspace. 

As one who encountered more than a few quest-breaking bugs in Skyrim, the level of polish in Starfield came as something of a relief to me. It’s far and away the most optimised console game I’ve seen from this team. It isn’t without bugs altogether, it is a Bethesda game after all. Every experience will be different and I expect there are glitches out there that’ll make my head spin—perhaps literally in-game—but the worst I’ve come up against have impacted only the visual experience. I have seen lengthy delays in texture rendering, geometry gobbling up enemy corpses, and character models glitching in and out of conversations they’re not in, though none of it has hampered my enjoyment one bit. 

Like any of us, Starfield’s character models don’t hold up against bad lighting. That said, under the right conditions they can look downright acceptable. Little has been done to overhaul the ‘dead eyes’ that have so often plagued Bethesda’s trademark person-to-person chats, but there’s no denying, at the end of the day, that it’s a pretty game given its scope. I already mentioned New Atlantis’ majesty, but it really does take stepping into some of these places to appreciate the care taken. Even jetpacking through the low gravity atmosphere of Neptune’s natural satellite presents one hell of a skybox to soak in, a blue, ringed giant against an inky black sheet of stars. There were so many moments I’d spend simply looking up at the heavens, taking in Inon Zur’s mournful composition, and being profoundly stirred. 

Sally Ride, the third woman to fly in space, famously said that the stars didn’t necessarily look any bigger in space, but that they did look brighter. Unlike the stars she observed decades ago in that eternal silence, Starfield is both bigger and more brilliant than any other Bethesda Game Studios game. It might take the collective efforts of a planet to explore a universe, but for the first time in a while, Bethesda has birthed a new one begging to be explored, calling to players from a far off star like the beckoning finger of God. 

The post Starfield Review – One Giant Leap appeared first on Press Start.

To think that the last Armored Core was almost a decade ago is nothing short of baffling. To think that FromSoftware has published no less than five action RPGs in that time is similarly astonishing. I wouldn’t have blamed them for never looking back, especially given that they’ve established an entire subset of the genre – the Soulslike. But now, FromSoftware is returning to what was arguably its biggest franchise prior; Armored Core. And while there was so much room for messing it up, Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon never loses sight of its predecessors while still feeling as modern as ever.

Like the previous games, Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon takes place in a world where civilisation has fallen. Humanity has found a cradle in the form of the planet of Rubicon, a new Earth of sorts. You play as a scientifically modified pilot named Raven, joined by their handler Walter and an AI named ALLMIND to help Raven while deployed on missions. Rubicon itself isn’t in a good place – burned by countless corporations pursuing a naturally occurring energy source called Coral. As a pilot and a mercenary, you’re stuck in the middle of the war between these corporations.

Even though several years have passed since the last Armored Core, admittedly, there’s not a whole lot different narratively here. Every game in the series has had some commentary on the effects of late-stage capitalism and both the horrors of war and the abuse of natural resources. Fires of Rubicon is no different. While this story is bound to appeal to some, especially with FromSoftware’s characteristic hands-off approach, it was humdrum for me. This is further exacerbated by the game’s minimalist presentation. Characters speak, but you never see them, and there’s not much visual stimuli. I recognise that’s how Armored Core was years ago, but today, Fires of Rubicon feels dry in this department because of it.

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It’s a great relief that everything else has been fantastically put together. Equally surprising and delightful, Fires of Rubicon plays just like Armored Core games have played in the past. Rather than try to shoe-horn modern open-world design sensibilities into the game, Fires of Rubicon presents itself as a list of missions to embark on. Some will take players minutes to complete, while others might take hours. But a good variety of missions here are always fun to work through. Of course, while Fires of Rubicon is a challenging experience, some modern tweaks are made to the formula to make it a whole lot better without betraying the spirit of its predecessors.

What took me aback initially was just how playable Fires of Rubicon is. It’s without a doubt one of the smoothest controlling games that I’ve played by the team at FromSoftware. It was initially a bit hard to get my head around controlling the four different weapon types and mobility options I had to juggle simultaneously. But once I did, I felt nothing short of godlike. Armored Core was previously known for how inaccessible and clunky it was, having players form a strange grip around their controller to play proficiently. But Fires of Rubicon is none of that – it’s just as deep and more playable without sacrificing depth of experience.

At the start of each mission, you’ll be able to customise your mech (or Core) for the battle ahead. Owing to series tradition, the customisation options are extensive, but your choices aren’t without consequence. Each part of your mech can be customised, and up to four weapons can be attached as long as they fit within the limit of the mech you’re working with. Making the wrong choice isn’t a big deal either – you can adjust the structure of your mech following death to change up your approach.

This is how Fires of Rubicon differentiates itself from the developer’s other games. For one, you’re never encouraged to stick with a single build. In fact, so many parts often have differing attributes that no individual part’ll ever fit every situation. Similarly, buying a part and selling it back has the same cost, so there’s no tangible penalty for experimenting. It’s a friendly system, and, honestly, its flexibility gives a great opportunity to overcome adversity with adjustments to your setup.

While Fires of Rubicon is difficult – perhaps even the most difficult FromSoftware game I’ve played – some nice adjustments to the game’s design make it a tad more forgiving. All missions incur an expense, and, as a mercenary, you’re expected to cover this expense by taking them out of your earnings. The better you do in each mission means that you’ll receive a better payout, meaning that you’ll be able to buy better grades of equipment in the future.

Where previous Armored Core games penalised you excessively, sometimes even sending you into debt, Fires of Rubicon feels a lot more forgiving in this area. For one, you don’t lose money or fail. Additionally, if you die at a checkpoint, you are brought back with all your heals  intact, which is a simple but forgiving design choice. It’s an especially welcome decision, given the intensity and breadth of the boss battles that you’ll encounter.

The marquee standout in Fires of Rubicon is easily its boss battles. There are a wide variety of enemies that you’ll have to deal with, but the boss encounters are some of the most adrenaline-fraught confrontations I’ve had in games. These bosses will test your mettle, and while I never found myself stuck on a boss for as long as I was with (pre-patch) Malenia, some of these encounters really had me questioning my life choices. But, as Fires of Rubicon encourages, the better life choice is to go back to your mech’s build and loadout and adjust to achieve your goals much more comfortably.

Besides the main missions, Fires of Rubicon also offers a separate Arena mode. In it, you’re pitted against other AI-controlled cores in intense battles. They’re fun diversions and enjoyable to engage with because they offer numerous rewards. Every battle completed unlocks that mech’s preset for you to build, allowing you to automatically do so if you have the parts on hand. You’ll also unlock upgrades for your mech’s operating system, granting damage boosts. It’s a great wealth of side content that offers a nice stopgap for those who don’t want to engage with customisation as much. It’s also great to fight a powerful foe, take them down, and then literally become them too.

Certain missions also present you with choices that can be made to alter the course the story takes. While I wasn’t quite resilient enough to play the game multiple times to do so, there are multiple endings. I alluded the relatively dry narrative earlier, so whether it’s worth replaying to see how things pan out differently will be a personal choice. But it’s still a neat touch that, once again, retains the spirit of the original games.

Irrespective of how I feel about the plot, Fires of Rubicon represents the most time I’ve spent with an Armored Core game. I can’t quite quantify whether it’s bigger than previous games in terms of sheer content, but a fresh run will easily take over twenty hours to finish. To top that off, there’s also an online-enabled PvP mode called NEST, though it’s hard to comment on how well that’s working given the pre-release nature of the game.

Of course, difficulty factors into how long I spent with Fires of Rubicon. Sometimes I spent hours on a single boss, knowing what I had to do but still somehow fumbling with my controller or getting too greedy with my hits. It feels like From’s other games in that way. But there’s no getting around it – Fires of Rubicon is brutal. There are no difficulty or accessibility options to assist you through it. As someone who is naturally proficient at these kinds of games, it wasn’t an issue for me, but it will absolutely be one for a specific subset of players.

In terms of presentation, Fires of Rubicon absolutely delivers. While the colour palette is probably one of the bleakest I’ve seen in games recently, it effectively illustrates the dilapidated and overused world of Rubicon. The game looks its best when you’re skating around an arena, shooting off a volley of lasers, missiles or both while simultaneously boosting out of enemy fire. Battles run incredibly fluid, with only some minor slowdown when there’s too much going on at once. I’d perhaps have liked some more colour in the art direction, but overall it’s still a nice-looking game that nails the staunch brutalist vibe the team is going for.

The post Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon Review – A Revitalising Revival appeared first on Press Start.

The EA Originals brand has done an excellent job so far – Wild Hearts was an unexpected favourite of mine earlier this year, and It Takes Two took home many accolades in its year of release. When EA Originals was first established, one of the key tenets underpinning it was the commitment to extraordinary worlds. Immortals of Aveum makes good on that promise. It’s a superbly crafted world bolstered by some clever gameplay with much more depth than I’d ever expected.

Immortals of Aveum takes place in the world of Aveum, a world shaped and influenced by many wars and conflicts over the control of magic. Aveum was originally five kingdoms, but the war has reduced this to two. You’re Jak, a mage who manifests his power later in life as he’s thrown into conflict to defend his home. It’s a simplistic story that’s elevated by a well-established setting.

The depth of detail in Immortal of Aveum’s worldbuilding is combined with a solid story to provide a surprisingly engaging experience. Perhaps my expectations were already low, but almost every twist and turn the narrative threw at me only encouraged me to keep playing. Admittedly, there was one incredibly predictable plot point – perhaps even knowingly, given Jak himself comments on it – but overall, it’s a new story in a new world that’s satisfying to get through. Getting so much right in this area is a real achievement for a new IP.

At first glance, Immortals of Aveum looks like a typical first-person shooter, albeit with spells and charms instead of traditional weaponry. But as you dive deeper into the world of Aveum, it’s obvious the game has a few tricks up its sleeve. It combines the cinematic and bombastic set pieces of Call of Duty with the fast and frenetic combat of games like the recent Doom sequels. It’s not a groundbreaking game when examining its singular parts, but it’s the way these systems come together that makes Immortals of Aveum unique.

The game splits its magic into three categories; Red, Blue and Green. Red magic is more erratic and destructive. Blue magic is more precise in nature. Green magic is still damaging but has typically inflicted buffs and debuffs. Some mages are given control over each of these types in the world of Aveum, but Jak can control all three. Each “weapon” Jak can equip is called a Sigil, an enchanted bracer that affects how Jak conjures each type of this magic. You’ll find spells typically analogous to weapons you’d find in a typical shooter – the Javelin serves as a long-range sniper rifle, for example.

The Sigil system replaces weapons as you’d expect, but the other charms and trinkets that Jak finds can serve a purpose in both battle and exploration. Lash is a magical chain powered by blue magic that allows Jak to reach new areas, similar to a grappling hook. But it can also close the distance between yourself and enemies in combat. Limpets, on the other hand, can slow down fast-moving enemies so that you can target their weak points easily. When exploring, though, they’ll slow down fast-moving objects to help Jak solve puzzles or traverse to new areas.

In terms of combat, while encounters are simple early on, they quickly ratchet up in intensity to force you to utilise all your different spell types. It’s a joy to play – and while it’s not as gratuitously violent as its contemporaries – it’s a battle system that’s immediately compelling. There’s nothing more sublime than blocking spells with your shield spell, cancelling an enemy’s cast with your disrupt spell, and launching homing magical missiles to home in on your enemy. It’s these moments where you combine your abilities where Immortals of Aveum is at its best, especially on the higher difficulty.

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The game allows players to decompress between these battles, though. To nobody’s surprise, I’m a huge Metroid fan, so I don’t say this lightly, but the exploration in Immortals of Aveum feels very reminiscent of Metroid Prime. Jak can revisit areas between story chapters to use newly found abilities to uncover upgrades and gear for himself. The exploration during the story chapters, especially the more “dungeon” like ones, also flows similarly to levels in a Metroid game, using your abilities to solve puzzles and progress through an environmental blockade.

Backtracking is sometimes a controversial game design choice, but you can engage with it as much as you want in Immortals of Aveum. It’s almost essential for greater difficulties, as it’ll allow you to regularly deal with the hordes of enemies the game throws at you.

Progression is thusly handled by a mix of gear management and skill trees. It’s nothing you haven’t seen in almost every action RPG before this one. Skill trees are powered by skill points earned by defeating enemies or solving puzzles in the overworld. Gear is awarded similarly but can be upgraded at forges peppered throughout the game’s open-level maps. And while Immortals of Aveum is not a games-as-a-service affair, my only complaint is that the loot system feels lifted straight out of one. I’d finish many missions with heaps of similar rings but with minor stat differences. It’s not as egregious as games built around this system, like The Division or Destiny, but it does feel like there’s too much needless gear in the game.

Immortals of Aveum is also one of the first games to release powered by Unreal Engine 5.1. However, the result is slightly mixed on consoles. Targeting a solid sixty frames per second, the game does achieve this, but the density of effects means that the resolution falters. I’ve never been a pixel counter, but while the world is detail-rich and the lighting is as mesmerising as ever, Aveum has a softer visual look to achieve its solid framerate. For me, it’s targeting a sweet spot as the art direction is so strong and performance so stable, but if you’re sensitive to this kind of thing, it bears mentioning.

But coming out of left field, the original score is genuinely fantastic and one of my favourite aspects of the game’s presentation. Composed by a pair of relative newcomers, the score is a bizarrely unique collection of music that complements the chaotic battles and gives a great ambience to the open environments you’ll be exploring. It’s an eclectic mix of lo-fi electro-trap, and it bizarrely meshed well with the medieval-tinged sci-fi world of Aveum. I rarely speak at length about a game’s score this much, but Immortals of Aveum’s is one of the best and most unique I’ve heard in a game for a while.

Involving film performers in games is always a question mark over a project, and Immortals of Aveum is no different. Darren Barnet lends himself well to Jak, landing most of the game’s comedic moments, although some do cross the line into cringe. The rest of the cast turns in pretty decent performances, though I’ll always love Gina Torres in anything she appears in. She was excellent in Serenity and Suits, and she’s great here with some real presence.

But what really strikes me overall about Immortals of Aveum is just its passion and charm. You can tell that the team has painstakingly gone to so much effort to create a world that’s a joy to exist in and a game that feels complete and fulfilling. So much could’ve gone wrong here, especially from a debut studio, like lack of enemy variety, tedious battle system, or an unfulfilling short journey. But Immortals of Aveum isn’t any of that. It’s a substantial journey from beginning to end that feels just as big a budget as its AAA contemporaries but without the chaff that commonly weighs them down.

The post Immortals Of Aveum Review – A Spellbinding Surprise appeared first on Press Start.

You’d be forgiven for letting Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew fly under your radar. An isometric real-time tactical stealth game developed by Mimimi Games, the folks behind Desperados III and Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun, it’s certainly not commanded the most attention since its release last week but it’s one that’s absolutely worth a look-in.

Shadow Gambit takes place in a supernatural version of the Golden Age of Piracy, across a mysterious chain of tropical islands known as the Lost Carribean. Aboard the Red Marley, a sentient ghost-ship that talks, you play as Afia Manicato, an undead pirate tasked with reviving the lost souls of your crew using the magic of the legendary Black Pearls.

Led by the disembodied soul of the ship’s spectral skipper, Captain Mordecai, you hop from island to island in search of lost treasure. In pursuit of the Captain’s fortune, you’ll have to face the Inquisition of the Burning Maiden, who have taken over the region with deadly force. Using your arsenal of unique magical abilities and combat skills to infiltrate enemy fortresses and outsmart armies, you progress through the game by recovering ancient relics, reviving crew members and uncovering clues to lead you ever closer to Mordecai’s stash. 

The overarching narrative provides context for your main missions though there is a range of side quests, challenges, and character-related stories to follow in between. After selecting a mission at the map table, it’s time to choose your crew members. New crew members unlock as you progress, and each of them has a set of distinct abilities you can use to reach your goals. Next is picking a spot to dock your ship. This is a crucial decision because each mission takes place on an open region map with multiple ways to approach and plot your path to the exit.

Once you have anchored the Red Marley, the adventure begins. From the dock, you can choose any number of paths, interact with the environment, use your character’s skillset and loadout and take advantage of specific enemy weaknesses to overcome the Inquisition’s settlement. Missions primarily focused on stealth and strategy, but the sheer number of options available means that each island is a playground open for the player to experiment with.

A core aspect of experimenting in Shadow Gambit is the game’s “memory” mechanic. With a quick button click, Captain Mordecai takes a spectral snap-shot of your current state and saves it as a memory. If your plan of attack goes to shit, if you’re suddenly spotted or if you make another fatal error, you can quickly reload a memory and try again. As somebody who does not have a lot of experience with the stealth genre, I really appreciated this feature. It meant that I could test out interesting but risky strategies without tanking the progress I had already made.

Despite my lack of experience with “stealth strategy,” I still found the Shadow Gambit’s core gameplay easy enough to grasp. The control scheme seemed somewhat clumsy at first, but after conquering my first mission, I found that switching between characters, skills and making sure to capture memories at just the right time came naturally to me. If you don’t take to new mechanics and control schemes easily, a rich tutorial system is in place to help you master the basics and learn more advanced techniques. Captain Mordecai will conjure an optional tutorial level and challenge room for new character abilities and universal mechanics. Here, you can learn the ropes, refine your skills against simple enemies and put them to the test with frequent tips from the Captain along the way.

Successful completion of missions is a very rewarding experience. Though I think the game could benefit from some additional loot, I still felt notably satisfied each time I ticked a goal off of my to-do list. Depending on your difficult settings and your familiarity with the stealth genre Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew will provide you with at least 30+ hours of gameplay with plenty of replayability so that you can test out new paths and new tactics for each mission.

I don’t think I would have felt quite as invested in my performance at the end of each mission if I hadn’t been so enamoured by the game world of Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew, however. While not groundbreaking nor breathtaking by any stretch of the imagination, Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew is a stunning game with a very charming art style that generates a rich and encompassing fantasy world that feels spooky and magical but oddly grounded at the same time.

Despite characters such as Suleidy, the half-plant ship doctor, or Quentin, the headless treasure hunter being so boldly bizarre, the characters’ exceptional voice acting, in-depth backstories, and quirky personalities made them feel authentic and compelling. However, I would have liked to have seen more diversity and detail in the Inquisition. The game hints at some interesting lore but never quite provides enough detail. Ultimately, the Inquisition felt fairly lifeless and repetitive. There are several different enemy models with different attributes, titles and roles, but the majority of enemies are visually similar and lack personality. The contrast, I found, was particularly obvious because of the level of effort put into the dialogue and lore attributed to the crew of the Marley Red.

Overall I had a great time with Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew and will definitely be more inclined to pick up other stealth-strategy titles in the future. I had no performance issues with the game during my playthrough on the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S, either. Each mission is decently replayable, particularly if you want to achieve a better result or lower completion time. Still, I don’t think I’m in a hurry replay the entire game – at least not for a while.

If you are, like me, pretty green when it comes to stealth strategy games, Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew is an excellent introduction to the genre that may even convince you to dive into some of Mimimi Games’ other titles. If you’re a seasoned stealth master, the generous number of difficulty options are sure to offer you an appropriate level of challenge in the somewhat spooky but seriously fun, colourful and often comedic world of the Lost Carribean.

Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew is available now on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S and PC. You can also download a free demo of the game for PC right here.

The post Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew Review – A Breath of Fresh Arrrgh! appeared first on Press Start.

The original Moving Out was not only one of the more successful and charming runs at the “chaotic co-op sim” crown worn at the time by the likes of Overcooked, but it was a neat little Aussie success story with the folks at SMG Studio behind the wheel of the world’s hardest-working removalist truck. Fast forward three years and the team is back with a full-on sequel, revisiting the concept with an itemised list of new ideas and an already-solid foundation to build on and around.

As someone who’s just done the end-of-lease moving dance, a journey I had the distinct privilege of paying what might have been the world’s worst professional movers to accompany me on, I was excited to jump back into Moving Out to prove that I could have done an infinitely better job at it myself. Forgetting, of course, that the poor folks at Smooth Moves Inc. have a lot more to deal with than millennials with too many overpriced gaming collectibles to fret over.

Moving Out 2 opens with an excellent animated intro that perfectly captures the vibe of its 80s setting, before launching into its sizeable campaign. The team at Smooth Moves has run into a spot of bother after their boss, a sentient cardboard-box-person, accidentally rips open the fabric of time and space during an attempt to boost company efficiency by 90% with 90% less employees – a classic workplace caper. With the town of Packmore sporting some fresh new gaping portals into alternate universes, it’s up to you and the Smooth Moves crew to put everything back in its rightful place and restore order to the moververse, one truckload at a time.

The game’s campaign follows a pretty similar structure to before with a handful of “worlds” containing multiple levels (over 50 in total this time around) to play through, gradually unlocked as you complete objectives and raise your F.A.R.T. (Furniture Arrangement and Relocation Technician) ranking.

Each level presents its own spin on the task of loading up your truck with the correct bits of furniture, appliance and decor within a time limit. Like last time, what starts out as a mad dash to get everything in the truck as fast as possible while fighting intentionally-wobbly physics and physical conundrums in early stages quickly becomes so much more with out-of-this-world levels adding new opportunities and challenges outside of the realm of good customer service.

One level might see you and your team attempt to sort magical baubles onto their corresponding freight trains, or use drones to carve out new paths or cross chasms, there are even levels designed around moving in which challenge players to put items from the truck into their correct places within a building. Without spoiling too much, the situations in Moving Out 2 get a lot more wacky a lot faster than in the original, almost to a fault. There were times when I’d be flinging giant candies into basketball hoops with a slingshot or jumping through magical portals and wished I was just hilariously trying to drag an L-shaped couch through a narrow hallway or flex my Tetris skills to fix the horrendous packing job my partner had done on the truck.

It’s ultimately a good problem to have though, as the majority of Moving Out 2’s gimmicks make for a perfect blend of problem solving, teamwork and laugh-out-loud catastrophe when playing with others – which remains the undisputed best way to play this game. Whether you’re playing in couch co-op or (for the first time in this sequel) cross-platform online with up to three others, the game does a great job of scaling the challenge of its frankly loopy concepts for all team sizes and skills. I did find that a few levels veer wildly into overly punishing or absurdly easy territory seemingly at random, but with so many on offer a couple of duds doesn’t hurt too much.

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There are also some great assist options on-hand to help smooth things out if the team isn’t gelling or on even ground in terms of capabilities, like extended time limits, lighter items or even the ability to have objects disappear into the ether once they’re on the truck to make packing easier. I can’t speak so much to the actual accessibility of the experience but the settings there are fairly basic. With increased gameplay and visual complexity in the sequel it might still present some insurmountable hurdles, but the assists are definitely a welcome feature. The game manages to get a pass on some frustratingly inconsistent control and collision stuff as well, purely by virtue of frustrating inconsistency being its whole schtick, but it does wear a bit for anyone genuinely trying to achieve those Pro times and extra challenges.

SMG has absolutely nailed the presentation though, building on the visual blueprint set out by its predecessor and polishing it up to a sheen to be much more lush, vibrant and dynamic. It feels much stronger in its identity too, coming across as an overall more high-quality production. It looks nicer, but also more cohesive, and far richer. There’s plenty to unlock again as a reward for completing a litany of optional objectives in levels as well as discovering hidden secrets, including challenging new Arcade levels and over 30 characters to play as once you’ve unlocked them all.

Massive props has to go to Moving Out 2’s writers, who’ve really out-punned themselves in this effort. In fact, I reckon this game probably has the highest per-page saturation of puns in a video game to date, and the dialogue as a whole is thoroughly entertaining at every step of the way.

The post Moving Out 2 Review – Boxed Office Smash appeared first on Press Start.

There’s a lot of friction in Atlas Fallen. Some of this is intentional; grinding across sand dunes and slamming overpowered attacks into fantastical creatures that are hungry for your blood to stain the earth below. Some of it isn’t; those same overpowered attacks in a constant wrestling match with the game’s camera while its overarching plot and writing catch like sand between gears. A slow but undeniable churn of grit in the machine that undercuts the game’s best ideas and brings an otherwise cool set of mechanics low.

I can always see the vision in a Deck13 game. The German developers have spent the better part of a decade emulating the FromSoftware house style, transplanting challenging action combat systems into fresh settings on a much leaner budget. The Surge games, both of which adhere much closer to the team’s inspiration points in terms of structure and theme, also embodied some of its best work. Tightly crafted experiences that introduced unique layers to the formula and successfully lifted it all into a gritty sci-fi world. Atlas Fallen pivots in almost every way; deliberate play spaces traded for open-zones, discreet encounters for bombastic rumbles, sharpened storytelling for genre pastiche. It goes on, but for the pockets of fun I had in Atlas Fallen, I struggled to see the vision.

Atlas, the titular world, has fallen. A harsh and arid land of rocky mountains, sandy dunes and dying pockets of forest, this primordial plateau has been the stage of a centuries long holy war. In the process, the land has been systematically strip mined of its Essence, a glittery sand-like substance that fuels the magic of the realm and is now solely meant for Atlas’ looming god, Thelos. Having taken the form of a massive stone idol that floats above the land, tracking its denizens like a fucked up Mona Lisa, Thelos has weaponised humanity’s belief systems and forged a religious army to do his bidding. You play as a Nameless, an underclass of people who form the worker backbone of the continent with very little in the way of compensation or basic respect.

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Once you’ve customised your hero from a decent enough selection of hairstyles, you’ll be quickly introduced to the game’s central idea – the Gauntlet. Found during a disastrous trip across the country and quickly wielded to set herself free from servitude, the Gauntlet is 2023’s third sentient, magical handheld that cracks wise at the player while offering them access to escalating powers to use in combat. Atlas Fallen’s Gauntlet houses Nyall, a Na’vi-looking blue man with a vendetta against Thelos and a tremendous arse to boot. Nyall will be with you across your whole journey, granting access to a plethora of RPG systems, traversal tools, plotty dialogue and game hints, the latter of which can be thankfully toned down in the game’s settings.  

From here, Atlas Fallen is a pretty straightforward action RPG affair. You’ll be sent out across Atlas to collect pieces of the Gauntlet to power it up enough to progress to the next story beat, each portion of the map a discreet but interconnected series of open zones that house side quests and challenges to complete. The Gauntlet allows the Nameless to shift the sands of Atlas, raising platforms, activating timed magical puzzles, and best of all, propelling themselves across the sand like an ice skater. Deck13 use this to great effect, turning any open space into a slip and slide for the Nameless, and solving the open-world traversal slowdown effortlessly, if not seamlessly. You can only glide if the game registers sand beneath your feet, making some areas a clumsy stop/start experience as a small rock abruptly stops your flow in frustrating ways.

These flow issues are writ large in the game’s combat, an uneven and sporadically fun collision of systems. Atlas Fallen gives players an impressive arsenal of tools to play with, layering basic weapons like axes and whips with several types of modifiers and an underlying risk/reward micromanagement in Momentum. Landing consecutive blows against enemies raises the Momentum meter, unlocking evolved versions of your base weapon along with tiered special abilities, but also making you much more vulnerable to damage. Momentum can be expelled through critical strikes that deal massive damage and lower the bar again, making for a constant and engaging push and pull between power and limitations. It’s also consistently undercut by an unstable camera that pulls focus in frustrating ways during group encounters, endlessly fighting with the lock-on function to make for a disorientating experience.

Doubly so when camera control is essential to fully engaging with Atlas Fallen’s enemy designs, most of which require targeting specific body parts to deal meaningful damage. In concept it rules, harkening back to The Surge and allowing you to incapacitate certain attacks or cleave off new weapons by focusing on armoured limbs and the like. In practice, it wears thin, as to actually defeat a foe you’ll need to focus damage but the camera makes this an exercise in frustration. Atlas Fallen’s menagerie is detailed but limited, a rotating door of Wraiths who escalate over the course of the game but never vary all that much. It’s a combination of issues that take a baseline solid combat system and dulls its shine like sand slowly but surely burying a treasure.

Elsewhere there is a loose set of RPG systems churning away, most of which can be ignored to no real peril. There are a few currencies to collect to spend on vendors, leveling and perk slots; a crafting system that requires you to collect plants and ores from the world; a bunch of side quests and NPCs; armour customisation; the list goes on. The bulk of essentials will be given to the player via the main questline, but what really makes these systems forgettable is the overarching world of Atlas Fallen. It’s not bad, as such, but it’s shockingly dry. Voice acting and dialogue is about as unenthused by it all as I am writing this, and the repetition of the game’s missions and puzzle challenges quickly dispels any real sense of adventure.

Which is a shame because Atlas Fallen is partway to being exactly the kind of elevated action experience the genre deserves right now. A comforting throwback to design ethos of old, happy to let the player just wail on some monsters in a cool looking world. And there are elements of that kind of fun buried in here. Atlas feels grand, a massive playground to whip across the sands on and marvel at the imposing natural beauty of it all. Claiming it back from an evil god with these particular tools should be a great time. Instead, for the moments of fun I had at this beach, I just feel sunburnt and ready to wash the sand off.

The post Atlas Fallen Review – Sinking Sand appeared first on Press Start.

Once known as Chorus, Stray Gods is the ambitious debut title from Summerfall Studios, a new independent studio spearheaded by David Gaider, who cut his teeth in the industry taking the lead writing a number of BioWare games. The fashion in which it tells a fantastical story within a regular, urban setting reminded me a bit of Fables—the graphic novel on which The Wolf Among Us is based. However, it remains a novel experience by delivering much of its story through song. 

We’ve seen television veer into musical theatre from time to time, as shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Scrubs have produced big, lavish episodes brimming with catchy songs and dance numbers. The results often speak for themselves, but they’re a creative, light-hearted departure from the main story arcs. I’ve not played every game ever so I won’t confidently declare Stray Gods to be a trailblazing first. However, given the team at the helm, it’s undoubtedly the highest-profile title to make the jump from game to musical. 

After the idol Calliope is unceremoniously killed under mysterious circumstances, her eidolon, the essence of an idol’s godlike powers, passes to Grace following a chance encounter the pair share during the latter’s band auditions. Calliope’s death becomes the subject of Grace’s trial at the hands of Athena and you’re tasked with proving your innocence before your trial and likely execution. I think the story is clever, especially the way it presents these gods within the context of a mortal world, and how the fatigue of their constant transmigration weighs heavily on them. 

Though it’s a big cast, with the likes of Laura Bailey and Troy Baker in the lead roles of Grace and Apollo respectively, you’d be forgiven for thinking Stray Gods is top-heavy in terms of talent. I’d argue that the game has a deep bench in terms of voice talent, even if they’re not as capable on the microphone as the leads—Rahul Kohli, who plays a bashful and bumbling Minotaur, remains a baffling choice as his singing chops are non-existent, leaving his comedic timing as his singular attribute in this particular performance. Similar deficiencies can be heard during harmonies, or in any of the many call-and-response phrasings involving more than one singer. There’s a lack of confidence that is audible from certain performers, whether it’s the material itself or their own hesitance; it does stick out like a sore thumb.

It’s evident that representation was a focus when pulling the ensemble together, the team even went as far as to reflect their actor in their god, where appropriate. For example, voiced by Erika Ishii, Hermes is presented as a gentle, genderfluid emissary, while Apollo is a shirtless surfer bro—so perhaps they’re not all one-for-one. It feels like an ensemble of angsty millennials, except the dialogue isn’t remotely as exhausting as that makes it sound. 

Though it is billed as a roleplaying musical, Stray Gods delivers more on the latter than the former. While you shouldn’t expect skill trees and stat distribution, your choices, and how you attempt to curry favour with the gods, can branch the narrative off in some significant ways which should come as no surprise for anyone familiar with Gaider’s work on Dragon Age and Knights of the Old Republic. Rather than accruing stats or having your choices ultimately unlock dialogue options, you’ll choose from a few proficiencies to carry with you throughout. I opted for charm and, later on when the option presented itself, I went for a more abrasive, ‘kick ass’ attitude adjustment. Like a lot of other narrative-driven, choose-your-own adventure-likes, these choices will open up dialogue options that, without providing much story craft, fill out the narrative’s flavour.

Stray Gods is also a very horny game. In fact, my biggest takeaway was that these idols have likely spent their era-spanning existence on the mount and the invitation is definitely extended in bulk, and accepted by, in my instance, Grace throughout her investigation. That said, pursuing these romantic interests didn’t really feel earned during my play through and felt like something of an afterthought and a means to fog the windows up a bit.

Another area where choices can create a bit of flavour is within the songs themselves. During a bunch of the numbers, Grace is able to interject or steer the arrangement in a particular direction, whether that’s an aggressive or passive path is up to the player. Not only does this provide a replay value, but it’s also a neat feature to offer a bit of agency over how a song pans out. I can’t help but feel that the songwriters might have been spread a bit thin considering every permutation, however. Except for a select few, the songs in Stray Gods don’t get their hooks in and are fast forgotten as you advance the plot. I do think the songs they choose to reprise and use as motifs throughout are well-picked, particularly Grace’s first solo which features prominently throughout. 

The game’s story unfolds similarly to a visual novel, serving the player with beautiful, hand-drawn frames that have small flourishes of expression to help make the cast feel alive. Excluding the few that don’t reside among mortals, the design of these idols remains pretty grounded throughout, though I would say their appearance reflects their personalities. One touch I loved was how the aspect ratio shifts to letterboxed for any of the musical numbers, it gives it a cinematic quality that flouts its low-cost presentation.

I also feel like Stray Gods aimed to present itself as a non-linear game all about choice but fails to deliver a compelling way to get from place to place. Picking whether to visit Apollo or Persephone from an over world map, for example, isn’t exactly an exciting transition. In fact, this game’s strengths from a visual design perspective definitely do not extend to the UI and UX, which is rather drab and had me wishing the team managed to implement a more appealing means to present the player with choice. 

The most damning thing I can say about Stray Gods is that it’s a musical with very few memorable tracks. Otherwise, it’s well-written and offers up a novel way to experience the gods among us trope. 

The post Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical Review – A Pitchy Performance appeared first on Press Start.

Exoprimal feels like it’s from another era. It harkens back to a time when Capcom was slightly more experimental in its approach to making games. A time when they weren’t relying on remakes of tried-and-true classics but instead were creating new and engaging IPs. It’s a gamble, then, that Capcom would create a new IP and a new multiplayer IP in Exoprimal after their numerous successes with their flagship franchises. But Exoprimal is much better than I expected and does more for the hero shooter genre than I ever thought possible. The gamble paid off.

And there is a story to it all too. It’s 2043, three years since dinosaurs were unleashed worldwide from portals and tears in space and time. You play as a pilot who has crashed and landed on Bikitoa Island following the opening of another portal during a routine flight. Here, on the island, you’re greeted by an AI named Leviathan, who forces you and others into simulations of wargames while wearing powered exosuits against hordes of dinosaurs. It’s ridiculous, but it’s the right kind of ridiculous that lends itself well to the concept.

The fact that there’s even a story to follow in Exoprimal is also a bit of a miracle. Story progression is tied to how many battles you complete – you don’t even have to win – and they’re mapped out in a separate menu to look at in your own time. Some cutscenes are played after specific matches, further detailing the goings-on of your squad, but for the most part, you can engage with Exoprimal’s surprisingly robust story as you see fit. It’s certainly a nice inclusion and hopefully, the beginning of yet another universe for Capcom to pull from.

But it’s easily how Exoprimal carries itself in battle that makes it stand out. There’s technically only one mode called Dino Survival, but within that mode, a lot is going on. More than the game itself tells you. Each match pits two teams of five against each other in two phases. The first phase has the teams fighting to complete objectives faster than the other team in PvE situations. The second phase then moves both teams onto the same map into a PvPvE situation in a battle for the win.

For example, the first phase might have your team fighting waves of dinosaurs, defending a point on the map and then escorting to a certain point. The second phase might have your team protecting a payload (think Overwatch) while dinosaurs and other enemy players attack it. The assortment of objectives and activities you’re given is random, to a point, but there’s a lot here to keep the whole experience both engaging and enjoyable.

Exosuits are essentially heroes as they appear in other shooters of this ilk. There are ten suits to choose from in three categories – Assault (DPS), Tank and Support. Each suit has its own abilities and can be outfitted with unique modules to improve their performance and, more importantly, feel balanced. The exosuits are fun to learn and use and have wildly different ways to approach battle baked into their design. Even support, a category you rarely see to be so popular in games like this, gets a fair shake of the stick when players are building their teams.

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Even better, you can switch at any point in the match. With a button, your pilot can eject themselves from their exosuit and change to something else. I regularly switched up my suit depending on which objective was in play, which encourages experimentation with the numerous suits and their abilities.

But it’s not just about the players either. There are over fifteen different types of dinosaurs that the game will throw at you, big and small, that ensure that the action in Exoprimal never gets old. From the most basic form in the raptors and the Pteranodons to the history-bending neosaurs that mix dinosaurs we’ve come to know with outlandish mutations to make them more dangerous than ever. The game does a great job at mixing up the combinations of dinosaurs that it throws at you, and some of the heavier ones especially are difficult enough that they encourage you to work as a team to feel them faster than your opponents.

From time to time, the Leviathan AI will get testy and throw a random mission at you that becomes really intense. These are the moments where Leviathan will open a portal and pour out thousands of dinosaurs that attack you. Sometimes he’ll even cut a match short and transport you to an alternate dimension to fight a boss, turning respawns off and bringing together two competing teams of five to throw a ten-player co-op mission at you instead. It’s an incredibly dynamic system, and these set pieces seemingly bridge the gap between what you’d expect to see in a single-player campaign and the multiplayer game that Exoprimal is.

Of course, there is a big dark cloud looming over Exoprimal, and that’s the way that progression is handled. After competing in a certain number of matches, your party will eventually be interrupted by a “story” like mission that’ll pit you against a unique threat. Around six of these encounters’ll happen across sixty or so matches. They’re incredibly fun. But it’s what happens next that might be annoying or just too vague for some players.

Completing these missions then “opens up” more of Leviathan’s simulation for you. So future games you’ll play will have more objectives, maps, and dinosaurs thrown at you. Exoprimal isn’t forthcoming with how this content is dished out nor how you gain access to more of it. Playing with friends who are lower level than you will essentially “lock” you into the lower-level missions, creating an illusion that there’s only one map and a handful of dinosaurs. This is especially obvious in the opening weekend, where your average party level will be lower due to many factors, including the ease of access with the game’s inclusion on Game Pass and the like.

I’m trying to say that as time passes and the overall player population increases in level, the content on offer in Exoprimal will be more obvious to the broader player base. But the other side of this argument is that many players would not necessarily be bothered to get to this point but that they’ll assume Exoprimal is so much less than what it is. 

Exoprimal currently has five PvE objectives and five PvP objectives that can be played out across six unique maps. But most players will easily only see almost half of these if they are playing for several hours. Capcom is promising multiple free updates – including exosuit variants with new weapons, new objectives to complete, new maps and even new dinosaurs. If they keep the content coming, Exoprimal will be something special. It already is, but it needs to put its best foot forward now to convince players that there’s more to it than their lower-level parties might be showing them.

Regardless, at the end of the day, Exoprimal does what I previously thought was unthinkable. It makes a competitive multiplayer game fun, even when losing a battle. There’s a good breadth of balanced exosuits to play with and many activities and dinosaurs to mess around with. Mix this with a unique approach to storytelling and some pretty fantastic setpieces, and it seems Capcom may be on to a winner with some tweaks here and there.

The post Exoprimal Review – Don’t Call It A Dino Crisis appeared first on Press Start.

As someone who primarily watches the McMahon-Helmsley federation, because who could resist that Bloodline story arc, my familiarity with All Elite Wrestling is limited to an all-too arrogant-champion whose dedication to kayfabe knows no bounds, buckets of blood, and a little bit of the bubbly. When I heard that the upstart wanted to create a video game to recapture the feel of Nintendo 64-era games like WWF No Mercy, rather than compete with their 2K contemporaries, my ears pricked up. And then when I heard they managed to jag Hideyuki Iwashita to direct, I began to believe.

Almost immediately, AEW: Fight Forever captures the spirit of those AKI games I used to adore. It features the same arcade framework, and feels like No Mercy’s classic engine made new again. However, emulating a quarter-century old game can tend to expose a few gaps in budget and feature-suite, no matter how good the game’s feel is.

The wrestling itself feels very much like No Mercy or Wrestlemania 2000, mixing both regular or strong strikes and grapples to wear your opponent down. In a system that mirrors even modern wrestling games, the aim is to wear opponents down, causing limbic damage, while building enough momentum to perform your signature and finisher moves. In an effort to modernise its aged systems, action and passive skills can be assigned similarly to stat points, giving a variety of buffs that can help turn the tide of a match—desperation kick outs, kip ups, and first-strike buffs all add a strategic layer to the classic No Mercy formula. 

I also feel as though the way momentum is handled can lead to unbalanced experiences, from time to time. Unlike finishers, signature moves don’t seem to drain momentum which led to me giving out Stunners as though they were charitable donations. Similarly, I feel like frustration when playing is set to stem less from the difficulty itself and more from all-too-common cheap losses in the game’s bigger four-way matches. 

Although there are a good amount of match types, Road to Elite will be the main draw for people wanting some form of structure and story, a term I use loosely. It’s digestible and crafted with replay value in mind, and I’d sooner liken it to Mortal Kombat’s Tower than its story mode. With either a created or rostered superstar, you’ll progress through one year of AEW programming broken up into four blocks full of weekly shows leading up to the brand’s quarterly marquee events.

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Even if it’s largely forgettable to play, it’s the moments of history peppered throughout Road to Elite that make it feel special. It’s not exactly their rival’s seventy-some years of history they’re drawing from, but it’s nice to see all of the company’s defining moments across four years touched on, from the brand’s formation, to Jericho’s inaugural reign as champion, to CM Punk’s debut. It’s all framed within this weird, jet-setting adventure that highlights all of the lesser-thought of parts of the business—meet and greets, enjoying local cuisines, and even lifting weights. It all ties into the mode’s management busy work which lurks on the periphery of the fun stuff.

Though there are other superstars on the way courtesy of a season pass, Fight Forever’s roster of around fifty is pretty comprehensive. There’s one or two omissions I am a tad curious about, but it’s hard to fault the selection. It’s definitely big of those making the call to keep Cody Rhodes in the game in spite of his defection back to WWE to “finish the story”. His place in the startup’s history is assured, so it was nice to see. Similarly, the match types that are on offer cover off on everything the brand is known for, the most extreme being the Exploding Barbed Wire Deathmatch which is as nuts as it sounds—I can’t believe it’s a real match type. 

In one of the more unexpected twists, Fight Forever has a small selection of Pokémon Stadium-like mini-games to really hammer home that absurd, arcade feel the game has. Although the list of challenges alludes to more being added post-launch, the three we’ve got so far are a bit of fun. As a sucker for trivia, my favourite of the bunch is certainly the pop quiz full of deep cuts only fans could appreciate.

In addition to its season pass, Fight Forever has some other “live service” features like challenges, including both dailies and weeklies, that’ll line your pockets with credits to buy things like superstars, arena decor, and taunts from the shop. Some moves and taunts walk the line of trademark infringement, with Brock Lesnar’s devastating F5 featuring under the tongue-in-cheek name “Diverticulitis” while Roman Reigns’ lock and load taunt serves as acknowledgement of The Tribal Chief. As I’ve already unlocked a decent portion of what’s available, I look forward to seeing how often the shop’s stock is refreshed, if at all.

Because it’s a first effort, I didn’t want to be too critical of the game’s creation suites. I mean, you’re not going to see big communities emerge for created superstars in Fight Forever, and stitching together entrances using other star’s music and moves feels appropriately dated, given it’s something I recall doing back in No Mercy. Though I couldn’t manage to find anyone else playing pre-launch, I expect the game’s classic and largely accessible systems will breed a pretty fun and competitive space for people to enjoy wrestling without all of the deck-building nonsense its contemporaries have forced into the mainstream.

Through cartoonish, chonky character models, Fight Forever carves out a fun niche right beside the realistic presentation of the WWE titles. Chris Jericho’s keg-chest and CM Punk’s “most punchable face in wrestling” are both realised with comical accuracy, with all the roster looking the part aside from a couple of so-so renders. I wish I could say the presentation was spectacular throughout, though when you’re chasing the past’s glory as Fight Forever does, graphics ends up being an area where corners can be cut. Long, flashy entrances make way for truncated strolls, and blood spatter—as cool as it is to have a serial-bleeder like Moxley leaking claret like he was born to do—looks like a stamp that appears on the canvas, without any semblance of dynamic at all.

There are a lot of known graphical hitches that I’m sure will be ironed out by launch, including a lot of clipping and render issues. Though, that same cheapness extends to the voiceover efforts which are basically reserved for owner Tony Khan. Beyond that, the written word does the heavy lifting of the oddball drivel that comes out of other superstar’s mouths. A few gimmicks land within the scope of Road to Elite’s script, though it’s a bit of a mess considering I saw Kenny Omega referring to others as Kenny when cutting promos. 

It’s that kind of oddity that sums up the Fight Forever experience. For every bloody perfect thing it delivers from the vintage No Mercy experience, it serves up something you wish was left in the 64-bit age.

The post AEW: Fight Forever Review – Old, Elite Wrestling appeared first on Press Start.

Although it wasn’t overly surprising (but very welcome) to see Activision release the Crash Bandicoot N.Sane Trilogy back in 2017 to properly capitalise on nostalgia for the IP that it acquired in 2008, I’ll admit I’ve been pleasantly surprised to see the manic marsupial continue to star in his own titles in the years since. We had another re-do in the form of Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled, followed by a wholly original (and shockingly punishing) platforming sequel with Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time, and now yet another new and original Crash game has arrived – Crash Team Rumble.

Despite its initial reveal summoning my deepest desires for a return to the Crash Bash/Crash Boom Bang! party game school of mayhem, Crash Team Rumble is instead a competitive, multiplayer online battle arena-style effort where players compete to collect and deposit Wumpa fruit for the team across a variety of maps. As someone that’s largely steered away from even the most basic of MOBA-esque games, it’s certainly not something I would’ve considered dipping my toe into were it not for a lingering penchant for its mascot. That said, after spending a solid amount of time with Crash Team Rumble I can genuinely say I’ve been having a fair amount of fun with it – though glaring, foundational issues with its content offering and structure make it sadly difficult to recommend.

Let’s start with what works though, because my initial experience with Crash Team Rumble has been surprisingly positive. The basic premise is fairly easy for players of all ages to grasp (if I can do it, so can your kids), pitting two teams of four against each other to run around the selection of nine unique maps and collect Wumpa before bringing it back to their team’s scoring area and depositing it as quickly and completely as possible.

Nuance, and opposition, comes from the opposing team’s ability to interfere with that process. Players can attack each other, causing their opponent to drop Wumpa, activate score-boosting gems around each map, use unique character-based abilities and special items, and spend collected relics on game-changing powerups unique to each map in order to get a competitive edge and reach a total of 2000 points before the other team.

Like any good game of this ilk, it’s all about each player in a team working in tandem to manage these various mechanics and become a well-oiled machine of mayhem and Wumpa-hoarding. The included roster of eight recognisable Crash Bandicoot characters is divided into three categories – the Scorers whose characteristics and abilities make them the best fit for zipping around the map to pick up and deposit Wumpa, the Blockers who are more capable of attacking players and obstructing their goal zone to prevent scoring, and the Boosters who want to be activating boost gems around the map and otherwise acting as a support.

The synergy between these classes, even when a team is stacked in one direction or missing one of the three entirely, is pretty remarkable most of the time. In my many, many matches so far I’ve rarely seen anything get too one-sided with the majority of my bouts turning out to be thrilling nail-biters right up the finishing score. The game seems to do a pretty good job of matching and sorting players into appropriate teams before each round, which is great. All of the maps, though on the smaller size, feel unique in their layouts and the various power-ups they offer and are well-designed overall. Coupled with the fact that special abilities are charged by performing the actions your chosen class is intended for, it makes it easy to jump in with randoms and feel assured that everyone’s going to play their part.

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I’m embarrassed to admit that on more than one occasion I’ve found myself yelling at teammates and opponents alike through my TV screen (not into any actual comms, of course) as things got particularly heated. I haven’t managed to convince any of my mates to get into a game with me for some genuinely strategic play but my experience playing with silent strangers so far has been excellent. I have run into the occasional instances of particularly nasty Neo Cortex duos from players clued into the meta but those are few and far between and rarely soured my enjoyment.

So it’s a success on the gameplay front then, but the issues with Crash Team Rumble exist in just about everything outside of the matches themselves. For starters, there’s just that one game type to play. With nine maps and eight characters, repetition can set in pretty quickly. I’ve been playing a maximum of a couple hours a day since just before the game officially launched and I’m already feeling bored with the content on offer. The only thing keeping me going currently is the game’s Battle Pass-style progression, which in a game that’s boxed up and priced on shelves is also a disappointing choice. Between an anemic content offering and the slog of grinding out character levels on top of a timed, seasonal pass, Crash Team Rumble feels like it should’ve been a free-to-play game and not something that you’d pay up to $69.95 for.

At present, there isn’t any way to spend real money on anything, which is nice. But I also don’t know how that’s all going to shake out as far as future content goes, as much as I’ve enjoyed unlocking a heap of character skins and even iconic music from across the franchise that plays when I put the opposing team in the ground. It feels wrong to suggest, but I honestly might have been more optimistic about Crash Team Rumble’s future had Activision decided to make it a freemium release with a paid battle pass. It could have meant more people willing to give the game a go with friends, and as a paid product in the state it’s in right now I just don’t see it garnering the kind of audience to justify a continued investment in Toys For Bob putting out regular content updates.

At least it’s already seen some hefty discounts retail.

The post Crash Team Rumble Review – A Crateful Of Fun While It Lasts appeared first on Press Start.

When you think about Bloober Team, you think about horror. But while they had shipped ten games in other genres before Layer of Fear, you’d be remiss for assuming it was their debut. Layers of Fear really put Bloober Team on the map. It balanced an intriguing story with a sense of atmospheric immersion unlike anything before. However, its lack of interactivity hurt it in places. Now, seven years later, Bloober has revisited the game that made it all happen for them. It’s called Layers of Fear once more, but it’s an all-encompassing package that is the best way to experience Layers of Fear, even with all its faults.

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While it shares a name with the first game, Layers of Fear is a compilation of everything released in the series. It includes Layers of Fear, its Inheritance expansion and Layers of Fear 2. These three components, previously only available on older consoles and built on Unity, have now been entirely remade and updated to run on Unreal Engine 5. The remarkable result is such a stark visual upgrade that it’s easily the best and most definitive way to jump into the Layers of Fear series.

But there’s a little bit more included here for returning fans too. On top of a rather generous upgrade pricing option, some brand-new content further fleshes out the game’s story. It will honestly be up for debate just how much these new additions add to the experience. It’s still a nice inclusion for those who’ve already played the previous games to death.

The first new inclusion is a brand-new chapter within the first game’s world. It’s called The Last Note, and it sees you playing as the wife of The Painter from the first game. It’s a very brief, albeit enlightening, chapter that tells her side of the story in an attempt to recontextualise events of the first game. With so much detail already put into Layers of Fear and Inheritance, I can’t help but feel this wasn’t needed though it comes with two endings.

I say this because while the second game is much less revered amongst the fans, it’s also had no attention paid to it beyond its original release. This would’ve been a great opportunity to better flesh out the characters’ stories in that game, so it feels a little misfire to not include anything in this otherwise robust package.

The other new inclusion is the story of a character known only as “The Writer”. Her story is presented as a framing narrative – you’ll play one of her (shorter) chapters between the chapters in Layers of Fear and Layers of Fear 2. They’re good at breaking up the monotony of these other chapters, but the transition to them is a bit jarring and not really justified narratively. Still, the writer’s story is a good attempt to tie all the stories together.

Once again, whether that’s done elegantly or in a totally satisfying matter is up for debate. I’m not going to spoil anything here – but it feels like The Writer’s story is doubling down on an aspect introduced in the second game that I wasn’t a fan of. I’m sure some fans will appreciate the direction it takes the story, but for me, it felt like a bit of a cop-out.

But credit must be given to Bloober Team and Anshar Studios. Most developers would be happy to port their old games to a new engine and leave it at that. Including new content in Layers of Fear is appreciated, even if that content doesn’t quite resonate with me. But it’s important to highlight that these aren’t straight remakes either. Both Layers of Fear games have had changes made to address criticisms aimed at them all those years ago.

Many encounters, especially in the first game, have been reworked to take advantage of both newer technology and the presumably evolving talents of the developers. Both games are still largely passive experiences, but some of these remixed and redesigned set pieces do good work in alleviating some of the repetition of the original games, where you’d walk through corridors and impossible spaces while scary voices whispered at you or objects fell to the ground and made loud noises.

This is done in both games in different ways. The first Layers of Fear gives The Painter a lantern to wield, which can “cleanse” objects or areas to reveal new paths in the world. It also allows him to fight off an enemy who stalks him in certain situations. During these moments, you’ll often evade an enemy while moving through a more open area to find a key and escape. This is a good attempt at cleansing Layers of Fear of its often derogatorily used term “walking simulator”, but it’s not quite as engaging as I’d hoped. It feels like Outlast, and given that I wasn’t a massive fan of this design choice almost ten years ago, it still doesn’t play well here.

The second Layers of Fear already had some moments where a monster stalks you, but the changes implemented here feel a bit more carefully considered. Here, you’re given a flashlight. It can stun the monster that stalks you through the ship, alleviating a key criticism of the original release. But It also can be used to solve puzzles – shining the light on specific mannequins will animate them to move something out of the way or hand you an item. It’s a lighter change, but its inclusion makes Layers of Fear 2 feel more like a “game”. It’s also used to up the ante during the game’s numerous chase sequences.

But at the end of the day, while these changes are numerous and nice, I’m reticent about declaring that you’ll suddenly like Layers of Fear if you never did initially. The style of scares is still the same – which will always be subjective at the end of the day. The experience is still essentially linear and, to a certain extent, predictable, despite implementing these more marginally open areas. I’m not implying that linear is always bad, but sometimes Layers of Fear feels so directed that the tension can evaporate once you realise you’re playing a game that wants you to take a particular path.

Of course, it goes without saying that Layers of Fear does a great job of looking the part. The jump to Unreal Engine 5 is nothing short of remarkable. Every location you trudge through looks phenomenal, rebuilt from the ground up to deliver a better sense of place than the original games. Horror games immensely benefit from a well-realised atmosphere, and Layers of Fear provides that in droves. Combining stellar sound design and some awe-inspiring ambient lighting really elevates the presentation of the games beyond what was presented all those years ago.

The post Layers of Fear Review – Adding The Final Strokes appeared first on Press Start.

Between Diablo III’s disastrous launch and the egregious monetization of Diablo Immortal, one of Blizzard’s most defining IP hasn’t been in a great spot as of late. It’s in these circumstances that Blizzard have decided to pivot back to what made Diablo special to begin with in Diablo IV. Moving back to a more grounded setting, honing focus on characters as opposed to spectacle, and polishing a beloved formula up to snuff for 2023 standards are just a few of the things this game has set out to achieve.

Diablo IV harkens back to Blizzard’s glory days, a time where the developer’s titles stood out on store shelves thanks to chunky boxes synonymous with quality and polish. It remains to be seen how its live service offerings will pan out over the coming months and years, but the day one package feels undeniably feature-complete, rich with content, and brandishes impeccable presentation informed by an unwavering commitment to the vision of a redefined Sanctuary. It might not break much new ground, but Diablo IV is a hell of a good time.

Some 30 years after the events of Diablo III, the war between angels and demons has taken its toll on both sides, and on Sanctuary itself. It’s in these moment of vulnerability that cultists have summoned Lilith, daughter of Mephisto and mother to Sanctuary. Her awakening brings only chaos, as demons and humans alike are overtaken by their sinful desires when graced by her presence.

In the absence of Tyrael, Lilith has claimed herself as the new protector of Sanctuary. The flipside of this coin is Inarius; co-creator of Sanctuary and founder of the Cathedral of Light. A fallen angel seeking redemption through ending Lilith’s newfound control, so that he can return to his rightful place in heaven. It’s in the midst of this conflict that the wanderer and the Horadrim set out to thwart Lilith’s plans and defend Sanctuary from the inevitable fallout of a foretold prophecy.

The conflict between Lilith and Inarius is grey and ambiguous in nature. Inarius’ goal is to the benefit of humanity, but his actions are driven by a prideful ignorance and want for acknowledgement from the high heavens. Lilith’s plans are portrayed in a similar light, but there’s always an undertone of uncertainty and manipulation whenever she’s stealing the scene on-screen. It’s a more nuanced and intricate take on the never-ending war between heaven and hell that prompts you to read between the lines as opposed to just taking a side.

Character development is similarly engaging when it comes to the Horadrim. Lorath and Donan represent everything wrong with the Horadrim as they tackle personal demons, where newcomer Neyrelle embodies everything the Horadrim are meant to be. Her naivety is sharpened into cautious optimism by the time credits roll, but the dynamic between these three always delivers, even if they don’t come together all too often.

Where the character stuff is mostly great, the pacing of the narrative itself is a bit of a mixed bag. The opening chapters work to lure you into a more grounded version of Sanctuary, with a seemingly innocuous string of events that take a hard left turn into the despair and corruption brought by Lilith’s summoning. Things do slow down quite a bit from there though, with Acts IV and V feeling particularly side-tracked by a game of cat and mouse. These sluggish middle chapters eventually give way to an Act VI that careens towards the finish line, punctuated by one of Blizzard’s hallmark CG cutscenes that really earns its scope and grandeur through subtle tension building.

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Perhaps the most interesting detail in regards to narrative structure is its non-linear progression. Acts II and III, alongside certain quest chains in other acts, can be completed in any order you see fit. If there’s a particular character you want to see more of, or a zone you want to explore, you can do so without hindering progression. Most zones scale to your level, so there’s never any worry of being over/under levelled for a particular area. This also lends tremendously to replay value and character progression, as you can tackle certain dungeons for class specific rewards whenever you feel like it.

I came to appreciate it even further as I explored Sanctuary. This is an open-world packed with stuff to do, from single-room Cellars and multi-floored Dungeons to world events and hidden Altars of Lilith that provide permanent stat bumps to all characters you make on that Realm. Despite some of the content feeling recycled, there’s something around every corner, and not being railroaded into a single zone at a time makes for a refreshing sense of freedom in a genre that typically herds you down its golden path.

While some of the content on offer here can get repetitive after hours of play, there’s always a worthwhile reward to come by the end of it. Everything you do is also earning you reputation for whatever zone that activity is in, with each reward tier offering useful character upgrades, most of which are account-wide. Whether it be loot or playstyle-altering Aspects that can be previewed before you commit to running a dungeon, Diablo IV’s grind respects your time without ever taking away from its inherent satisfaction.

The biggest choice you make when starting a new Diablo game is almost always which class you’re going to descend into hell with first. I spent the majority of my time with Diablo IV’s Rogue. After some experimentation through the ability to respec at any time, I eventually landed on a glass cannon build that incentivized teetering on a knife’s edge, imbuing weapons with shadow damage and hitting enemies with hard and fast barrages of arrows and blades while making ample use of traps.

While I stuck with this core build once I landed on it, it’s remarkable how quickly you can flip a build onto its head and change the entire dynamic of a class. Rogues can go down many different routes, from melee or ranged only, to a hybrid class that makes use of stealth to reposition. Other classes offer a similar level of flexibility, but there are some clear balance issues at the moment that position certain classes as better than others.

Instead of redefining character progression, Diablo IV opts to add new layers of power onto your builds and gear through a few systems. Aside from being inundated with new equipment and gaining skill points each level, Aspects can also be unlocked through various means. Most of these are class specific, but there are a few that are universal. Earned Aspects can be imprinted onto gear to give bonuses that alter or compliment your playstyle. It adds a new layer to gear progression that isn’t as passive as simple stat bonuses, and instead incentivizes you to play around with new skills or build for ones you’ve taken a liking to.

The core gameplay loop will be instantly familiar to anyone who’s played Diablo before. It falls more in line with recent entries as opposed to the more deliberate nature of Diablo II, but that isn’t a detriment. Combat has a visceral flow to it that fits with the overall world and atmosphere Blizzard are looking to establish here in Diablo IV, where bodies ragdoll and rip apart due to the sheer force of your blows. Fallen enemies result in countless loot drops to bolster your character’s power, and the ever satisfying ding of a legendary drop still taps into a primal part of the brain. Aside from being Diablo IV’s highest rarity tier, legendary gear brings playstyle-altering passives and even bonus skill ranks for all manners of play.

A special mention should go to Diablo IV’s boss fights, which are almost always excellently designed, and represent the best of what ARPGs can achieve. I played all of my campaign on World Tier II, which offered challenging boss encounters that forced me to play in a more considered manner as opposed to hammering on my abilities and basic attacks. Dodging projectiles, reading tells, and making smart use of potions all coalesces into exhilarating encounters that kept me on the edge of my seat. Completion of the campaign also allows you to work up to higher World Tiers, further bolstering difficulty with the incentive of increased reward.

The other notable end game content comes in the form of Whispers of the Dead, and Helltides. The former sees you completing favors for The Tree of Whispers in specific zones as you build up to a point cap. These favors are often things you’ll already be doing, like Cellars, Dungeons, and world events. Once you’ve completed enough favors, you can turn in your Whispers for a cache of loot, containing a bunch of armour or weapons, gems, gold, and experience points.

Helltides are only unlocked and present on World Tier III and higher, where empowered demons spawn in a specific region. These demons drop Cinders, which can be spent to open Helltide chests scattered in the area, creating potential for top tier rewards if you’re willing to take the risk. These empowered demons are no walk in the park, but my experience with Helltides prop it up as some of the best content to engage with for high quality gear in the post-game.

Similarly interesting is the Plains of Hatred, which functions as a PvPvE zone. Defeating other players and demons in the Plains of Hatred will net you Seeds of Hatred, which need to be purified into Red Dust to be used as currency. The catch, is that players are free to attack you while you’re purifying, adding an inherent risk/reward factor in the process. You can of course opt to only engage in PvE, but you’ll need to purify at some point, so the Plains of Hatred are best ventured with friends. Earned Red Dust can later be spent on ornamental rewards like cosmetics and mounts.

This is all without discussing Strongholds, Capstone and Nightmare Dungeons, levelling other classes, the myriad of side quests available to you, and so much more. There’s a wealth of content to engage with across all skill levels in Diablo IV at launch, and it’s only going to get bigger with incoming seasonal offerings.

The biggest question mark at the moment lies in Diablo IV’s monetization. Blizzard have been clear that there’s no pay-for-power in Diablo IV, but it remains to be seen how egregious pricing is for the cosmetics and mounts on offer. The press build didn’t have a functioning store to peruse, but the easily accessible and simple transmog system allowed me to tailor the way my characters looked without spending a dime. It’s also worth mentioning that there’s going to be premium battle passes for post-launch seasons, but specific details on this were also absent in the review build.

Diablo IV’s impeccable presentation is the glue that holds this experience together. A more muted color palette stands in stark contrast with Diablo III and Immortal, falling much more in line with the first two games. Catacombs and dungeons are decorated with viscera and gory remnants of battles long past, bodies are posted up in the arid wastes of Khejistan as a grisly warning to adventurers and would-be heroes, and Scosglen’s countless ruins mark the history of its former inhabitants. It goes a long way to building a moody atmosphere and tone in this gothic wasteland.

That isn’t to say that Sanctuary is a landscape of dull greys and limestone yellows – quite the opposite, in fact. Each region offers something visually distinct from the last. Where the frozen Fractured Peaks is a frigid wasteland of cold death, Haweza is festering and humid bog filled with all manner of abominations. Each zone seamlessly blends into the next, all while offering their own interpretations of hell and how it spills over into the land. This is further bolstered by a diverse array of grotesque enemy designs that mix the familiarity of Diablo’s demonic trappings with eldritch horror.

Polish is also unsurprisingly up to snuff for Blizzard standards on the PC side of things. Performance was silky smooth across 30 or so hours of play, with the only real issues I encountered being some rubber banding when moving too fast on a mount. I’m unsure how things are on the console side, but I suspect that a similar standard is upheld.

Diablo IV doesn’t just feel like a return to form for the franchise, but also for Blizzard as a developer. There’s a keen awareness for what makes Diablo special present in Diablo IV. It’s as contemporary as it is traditional, understanding that ARPGs have evolved past the days of button mashing, but also paying homage to its forebears and legacy. It’s not without issues, but Diablo IV delivers where it counts.

The post Diablo IV Review – A Superb Return To Form appeared first on Press Start.

Street Fighter 6 needed to do everything it could to right the wrongs of its predecessor. With fighting games enjoying a strong resurgence in recent years, it’s simply not enough to cater solely to the hardcore audience and Street Fighter 6 knows that. Where Street Fighter 5 would eventually fumble to the finish line as a competent product, Street Fighter 6 starts off stronger than ever with an appeal to all audiences. And while the roster isn’t as numerous as most of its contemporaries, it’s laid a foundation riddled with a vigour that can only auspiciously grow into Capcom’s greatest fighter yet.

Street Fighter 6 doesn’t mess with the genre too much. You pick a character and battle it out with an opponent until one of you wins. It’s a system that works. Street Fighters’ main schtick has always been the solid systems underpinning the flow of its combat, making up for its lack of melodrama or violence with good old-fashioned gameplay. Street Fighter 6 is no different. It leverages a solid battle system to appeal to experienced players but incorporates some much-needed changes to welcome new and inexperienced players to the fold too.

The most obvious change here is the three control options it offers up. Typical fighting games require inputting commands and buttons to pull off special moves or combos. This is still in Street Fighter 6, as the “Classic” control mode. But two other control modes simplify things for newcomers. “Modern” lets players pull off special moves and combos with simplified and less intimidating inputs. “Dynamic” is even simpler – allowing flashier combos and move strings with the mashing of certain buttons – it acts as a de-facto “party” mode of sorts for a super casual player.

I’ve experienced first-hand how newer players to the genre might find these games overwhelming, especially when playing against somebody experienced. These control schemes don’t feel like afterthoughts. They’re an earnest step in the right direction to break down barriers that might stop people from picking up the controller. Some aspects of the Modern mode, such as lower damage output, might seem controversial. But it only seeks to illustrate the strength of it – you can throw out moves and combos faster than the average player, so a damage compromise seems fair.

Another less obvious way that Street Fighter 6 feels more approachable is the Drive system. It feels significantly streamlined by incorporating parrying, blocking, cancelling, and all other kinds of gimmicks from previous games into one system. You can use your drive meter to absorb attacks, counter them, or even block or cancel out a string of attacks. Like in previous games, it can even be used to enhance special moves. Giving players so many options at the beginning of a match leads to a flow of battle that’s much faster and, more importantly, more flexible for players.

The Drive system really is ingenious. It manages to roll the cooler gimmicks seen in previous Street Fighter games into one, but it also provides a consistent set of skills that every character can access from the beginning. If you can successfully grasp the concept of the Drive system as a whole, you have a substantial collection of abilities to fight with no matter who you choose. It’s a much more intelligent and elegant system than in Street Fighter 5 – where every V-Skill and V-Trigger had to be remembered and chosen at the beginning of each match. Even then, they were all wildly inconsistent and unbalanced. The Drive system is a more straightforward approach with much more potential.

Appealing to a wider audience, there’s a nice amount of content here to experience as a solo player. The newest, World Tour, has been done in some fighting games in the past, though not to the extent seen here. The mode puts your avatar character into the world of Street Fighter in an action RPG-like mode, where you’ll travel the world to learn moves from your favourite characters and throw down with people on the streets. The transition between fighting and exploration is seamless and fun from a gameplay perspective.

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World Tour is, for the most part, enjoyable. It was fun to see all my favourite characters behave outside of a match and learn abilities from them to build my perfect characters. It’s not perfect, however. The plot is certainly engaging, but the world just isn’t as interesting or as lore-rich as Mortal Kombat would be in adapting this formula. There was even potential to have satisfying exploration with Metroid-esque gates that only certain abilities could open, but there isn’t anything of that sort here. Most quests are also “move to this area and speak to this person”, so while World Tour does a great job of teaching you the basics of Street Fighter 6, it’s not something I could play for long bouts at a time.

You can take your avatar or any other character straight into Battle Hub, a more complex lobby system for the game online. The hub is like a giant meeting place, allowing you to organize matches with other players or buy gear for your character at numerous stalls. There’s even a massive screen up front that celebrates high-performing players in each room. It’s a great idea that feels like the most well-realised execution of “community” in a fighting game. However, only time will tell whether this concept will stick. I play most of my fighters privately with the same people, but for those who are more sociable, this is an effortlessly seamless way to play with others.

I was fortunate enough to do this with both the betas and the pre-release period for the game. Thankfully, online performance is solid. I had better matches with the random Australian that I ran into (thank you, whoever you are), but even against higher latency opponents, the rollback-based net code performed admirably. Online, as a whole, is masterfully executed in Street Fighter 6. Performance is great. Rematches are quick and snappy. Rankings can be maintained on a per-character basis. The online offerings for Street Fighter 6 are nothing short of the industry’s best and are what other fighters should aspire to be.

Fighting Ground is the other third of the game, and it’s really just a one-stop shop for all the modes the game has to offer. You can fight each other locally, fight other players with crazier rulesets, learn character-specific combos or even just about how to play your favourite character and engage with character-specific stories in the Arcade mode. Back in the day, everything included in Fighting Ground would’ve been enough for a fighting game, but to see this and much more included in Street Fighter 6 is encouraging. For the old-school fan who isn’t a fan of the flashier lobbies that Battle Hub provides, you can also set up private rooms here to invite your friends.

And while Street Fighter 6 looks to be doing so much so well, there was one big glaring omission that I can’t ignore – and that’s costumes. I’d argue they’re a series or even a genre staple, but nothing was included in the pre-release build. Hopefully, these will be included with the addition of a day one patch, for sure, but if absolutely all extra costumes are relegated to paid microtransactions, then this arguably feels like a step back from the Fight Money system that Street Fighter 5 used.

Of course, stylistically, Street Fighter 6 is on point. Powered by the same engine that has powered Resident Evil and Devil May Cry, RE Engine sees each character taking a more realistic approach as a base. But then, building on that base, the game has been heavily stylized to offer up this strange yet distinct visual style that looks better than most fighters on the market today. The animations are fluid, and the flourishes of paint that flick off special moves are bright and striking. This is easily the best that Street Fighter has ever looked.

All of this comes together to offer up a package that tries to right the wrongs of its predecessor and succeeds. It’s truly exciting to see what Street Fighter 6 will look like in the coming years, though if the team can save Street Fighter 5, think about what they could do with this.

The post Street Fighter 6 Review – Hits In All The Right Places appeared first on Press Start.

When The Lord Of The Rings: Gollum was revealed, it had more than a few people questioning who had asked for a game starring Gollum. It’s me. I’m that person who finds the idea of a game following the little weirdo quite appealing. He’s a strange little guy, sure, but his life has been utterly consumed by the Ring and the power it represents, and he’s instrumental in the overall narrative arc that is The Lord of the Rings.

I went in hoping that Gollum could be a window into this character that hadn’t been shown by film or game before. Disappointingly, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum really wasn’t that. It’s a game that feels precariously held together, lacks polish, feels horrible to play and is both technically and aesthetically dated.

The moment you gain control of Gollum you’ll probably notice his movements and actions feel strange. His repertoire consists of running around, sneaking, jumping and climbing using clearly marked handholds. I imagine the developers wanted him to play quite differently to the average athletic video game protagonist but rather than sneaky and agile, controlling Gollum feels clumsy and haphazard.

A majority of the game involves climbing to reach an objective. Sometimes you’ll latch to handholds like they’re magnetic, sometimes Gollum will fling himself with such ferocity that you overshoot the platform you wanted to land on and fall to the abyss below. I was fighting against the controls rather than using them to overcome a challenge, and as a result never felt accomplished once I got to where I wanted to go. Everything about moving through Gollum’s world is a slog.

So much of what the game asks you to do is utterly uninspired. I don’t know quite what I expected gameplay-wise from a Gollum title. A lot of sneaking, maybe some exploring. I certainly didn’t expect a game full of tailing missions and fetch quests – but that’s a lot of what I got. Seriously, the opening chapters are full of annoyingly-long fetch quests tasking Gollum to go and collect tags from corpses in a mine or herd a bunch of aggressive Mordor-cattle into cages.

Things don’t improve as the game goes on. There’s a little more variety, but lengthy insta-fail stealth sections that consist of mostly hiding in grass and waiting for enemies to turn around don’t exactly lift Gollum from gameplay tedium. It’s full of gameplay tropes that we’ve moved past for a good reason. It might be okay if somehow Gollum was a particularly great example of these tired game styles, but it’s definitively not.

A world that is exciting to explore and enjoyable to look at can elevate even the most mediocre of games. And yet, with all of Middle-Earth available as a possible environment, half of Gollum’s chapters are spent in a dull brown mine in Mordor doing prisoner work – every bit the dull brown trend that was tiresome in the Xbox 360 era. It makes the drudgeries you’re tasked with all the more mind-numbing.

Things do improve markedly in the latter half of the game, going from dull brown to a lush green palette. These later environments created occasional moments that had me stop to admire the view and made the still rather uninspired gameplay tasks a little more tolerable, but not by much.

The overall presentation here has more lows than highs. I do appreciate the voice work behind Gollum. The studio has managed to give him his own sound that does some justice to his warring personalities while avoiding sounding like an impression of Andy Serkis’ work in the franchise films. Gollum’s character design too is a high point, with his face being hugely expressive. There are also occasional musical moments that help to elevate the experience.

The same can’t be said for the game’s overall visuals which are hugely lacking in polish. Character models wouldn’t look out of place in a game from 2007, animations are very strange, and things like faces reverting to a default state in an instant after a character stops talking are minor in the grand scheme but make a rough looking game look even rougher. Gollum has a suite of graphics options on PS5 – performance, quality, quality with ray tracing, and the most interestingly-named option I’ve seen in a while, “Gollum Hair Simulation.”

The ray tracing option makes puddles and such ultra reflective, but strangely didn’t apply to an actual mirror I found in the game. Performance mode is where I spent most of my time and somehow despite looking like an early-generation PS4 game it still had plenty of hitches and performance hiccups while running on a PS5.

The one possible saving grace for a franchise like this could have been the story. Gollum is a hugely important character in The Lord of the Rings and his role outside of accompanying other characters has been rarely explored in film and games. Disappointingly, the story here is pretty threadbare. Nothing of great consequence happens across the game’s overall story arc and things finish with Gollum in a position to take his role in the established story. Gollum’s story could have made for something compelling, but what we get instead is a narrative justifying a smattering of video game tasks that does nothing for his character or the world he inhabits.

Early previews didn’t show it in the best light, but I still had some hope for this game to deliver some good moments for fans. Gollum is a compelling character and the world of Middle-Earth has so many interesting possible places to explore, but instead we spend most of our time enclosed in mines and woodland cities. Environments are devoid of life and full of unpolished, sharp edges. It looks like an average game from another era, and learns none of the gameplay lessons from then either.

The post The Lord Of The Rings: Gollum Review – Uninspired Drudgery appeared first on Press Start.

Before you even get a chance to wistfully marvel Kerriganly at the serenity, invasion—and one a long time coming—touches down, disturbing the peaceful human nature that Lana and her native kin have long enjoyed. Though what you embark upon is a rescue mission to free the people you care for, much of Planet of Lana is about the world itself. Not yet ravaged by the war on its doorstep, it’s an idyllic, harmonious place and I appreciated the unexpected, lingering moments afforded to really drink it all in and focus on the things worth fighting for, rather than the fight itself. 

As a “cinematic platformer,” Planet of Lana has certainly been shaped by the works of Playdead. It shares the wonderful, and sometimes arduous, sense of discovery that both Limbo and Inside offered while blanketing the adventure in an engrossing atmosphere. 

As Lana, a brave young native, and small pawn in a much larger conflict, you’ll adventure across a violent, sci-fi paradise playing peacekeeper against a cold, inhuman legion of mostly featureless machines. Lana is armed with just her wit, stealthy cunning, and an unwavering sense of bravery in the face of her own crepe-paper fragility, which makes the perilous journey that much more foreboding. 

I can’t fault Planet of Lana from a mechanical standpoint. The platforming is rather sound, effectively signposting what is and isn’t in reach of Lana at any given point. It can be tough to gauge which drops will send Lana to her death but the checkpointing is consistently good enough that there’s little risk in trying.  If I were to pick on anything at all, the ragdoll animation that comes with dying can bug out on occasion. It’s funnier than it is frustrating, but it’s also the only fly in the ointment of an otherwise immaculate presentation. 

One way Planet of Lana sets itself apart from Playdead’s works is in its adorable little companion. A small critter called Mui, not yet corrupted by the rigours of its wild life, takes to Lana and the pair become inseparable. Mui isn’t there just for its cute factor either, it turns out to be a pretty integral part of Planet of Lana’s gameplay loop. It’s almost equal parts exploration and problem-solving, though none of the puzzles offer up anything quite as mind-bending as Limbo’s gravity field, they’re still enough to get the brain ticking over. I always felt a jolt of gratification whenever things would fall into place. And despite being a wildling, Mui can take instruction. It has a surprisingly deep trick bag too—it can sit, follow, and possesses the dexterity to flip switches among other things. 

Similar to Limbo, the game is structured like a linear series of puzzle rooms, often dressed up as lush portions of the still-beautiful planet. As you work your way through, there’ll be occasions when Mui is off-screen—often by design. I did appreciate the team’s forethought to include a visible indicator to show Mui’s stance, which helps to smooth over some of the longer, more complicated sections that often involve going back for Mui, who might be grounded for one reason or another.

New mechanics and puzzle elements are introduced with each biome, which definitely helps to keep the formula fresh throughout what is an admittedly brief runtime of about four or five hours, depending on how efficient your problem-solving is. Being a featured Game Pass title, I don’t expect the length to be a huge setback. You’ll drain and fill riverbeds to manipulate water levels, you’ll get Mui to sever electrical cables to create rope swings, and you’ll even hijack a surveillance drone to utilise against its own kind. It’s hard not to admire the imagination poured into every facet of the game. 

The same applies to Planet of Lana’s art design, which I absolutely love. Especially the juxtaposition of technology and nature, and how the invading machines feel like the perfect thematic antithesis for the almost primitive residents of a peaceful fishing village. The overworld is rich with lively forests, and the iconic, hand-painted crescent moon backdrop seen in all of the key art peeks through the canopy to great effect, whereas the caverns beneath are spattered with historic, and mysterious, carvings and spider eggs—an effective signal for the danger that lies ahead. 

There are a handful of incredibly memorable set pieces that go above and beyond anything most games of this ilk would ever deliver. Although I am not necessarily a believer in the notion that everything has to be playable, contending with a few quick-time events during Planet of Lana’s bigger, cinematic narrative beats isn’t the end of the world.

The design of the machine army itself feels classically sci-fi—smooth, clean, characterless orbs on spider-like legs inject fear through presence alone. There are clear patterns in their patrols, yet they seem hard to predict. They communicate only through their singsong chime, visualised by a kaleidoscopic rainbow of colours within their single “eye”. It’s a small diegetic slice of a beautifully melancholic score from Takeshi Furukawa, who doesn’t put a note wrong in his first game since The Last Guardian. 

In a year that’s already given us Dredge, another phenomenal studio debut, I must declare Planet of Lana to be a pretty special game in its own right. More so than Dredge, I feel Planet of Lana could evolve easily as an IP—whether it be a sequel, a graphic novel, or an animated film, there are the makings of a saga here. As solid as the game is, I’ll have a hard time forgetting the beautiful contemplative moments that make up the moments in between. It’s mournful, hopeful, and bullishly effective at plucking at the heartstrings. 

The post Planet Of Lana Review – Irresistibly Gorgeous appeared first on Press Start.

I’m a sucker for a good arcade racer, and even more of a sucker for anything LEGO, so when LEGO 2K Drive was announced I knew I was all in from the get-go, even if I’ve never been a huge fan of developer Visual Concepts usual output – largely the NBA 2K and WWE 2K franchises. Still, I was pinning a lot of my hopes for a worthy successor to the classic LEGO Racers games, and thankfully this has delivered in ways I hadn’t even expected.

Accompanied by the legendary Clutch Racington and his robotic assistant, S.T.U.D., you play LEGO 2K Drive as a voiceless driver of your choosing, on a path to winning the coveted Sky Cup Grand Prix Trophy. The core of the game’s single-player offering is a hefty adventure through four distinct, open zones in pursuit entry into this ultimate race where you’ll find yourself completing quests, earning experience and taking on a series of entertainingly unique rivals across 24 main races – each with their own quirks to contend with on the track. It’s a bold mix of ideas plucked from open-world racers and LEGO platformers where your avatar is less the minifigure behind the wheel and more the brick-built vehicle surrounding it.

Whether it’s burning miniature rubber on the two dozen well-designed tracks or roaming free across the four maps that they exist within, the simple act of driving in LEGO 2K Drive is an absolute joy at all times. No other open-world driving game can boast the kind of freedom that exists here thanks to the combination of transforming vehicles and highly-destructible environments. The roads here are barely more than suggestions, with every point-of-interest a completely straight shot away if you’re creative enough. When you’re not screaming across the map you can just as easily move with the precision of a platformer using the dedicated jump and quick turn buttons, making navigation feel super approachable even for those less familiar with driving games.

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The real feat is that, despite possessing the traversal chops of an open-world action game when the situation calls, the actual act of racing feels as tight and skilled as the best arcade racers out there. Vehicles handle superbly no matter what form they take, with the nuances coming from a combination of how they’re built, the stats they possess and any added perks. Even before factoring in the ability to build new rides from scratch using hundreds of different LEGO pieces, there’s a heap of variety on offer to unlock and custom loadouts let you preset different trios of street, off-road and water vehicles for different situations.

You’ll race across these three different surface types in LEGO 2K Drive, with the game automatically switching you between your three preset vehicles for each situation. It took a hot minute to get used to seeing my ride rebuild itself into another form each time the ground beneath me changed, but it’s genuinely impressive to witness and makes the racing and action feel impressively dynamic. It’s not an understatement to say that the folks at Visual Concepts have nailed how this game feels to play in just about every moment. Even when you’re driving around in a giant hamburger, or some ridiculous creation of your own design that you spent hours building brick-by-brick to look utterly hilarious, it always works and always feels fantastic.

If you want to, you can really hone in on the brick-building aspect as well and carefully craft an arsenal of different builds for every need. Whether it’s gearing your vehicles to be more offensive or defensive in races, or specifically suited to certain types of open-world challenges, LEGO 2K Drive throws up a huge amount of different gameplay scenarios and you can tackle them with as much or as little engineering as you’d like. It’s a perfect match to the fun of LEGO itself, especially so when combined with the fact that your vehicles fall to their individual pieces with damage – and driving through all of the destructible LEGO bits throughout the world adds pieces back on.

It quickly becomes something more akin to an open-world adventure/RPG than a pure driving game, throwing new and more challenging obstacles your way through its series of quests that can be overcome with pure skill or navigated with thoughtful vehicle building. The world itself can even change in ways that affect races, like being rewarded a lawn mower in an optional side quest that can clear out patches of weeds across each map so they’re not in the way during races. There are a handful of “minigame” type main quests that are nowhere near as fun as the regular races and so feel a bit overused by the third time you’ve been forced to do each, but it’s a minor mark on an otherwise excellent 8-10-hour main run of missions.

Completing just the primary stuff still leaves about 80% of the game incomplete though, with LEGO 2K Drive stuffed to the gills with challenges, optional missions and a plethora of collectibles all offering up experience and cash to get even more out of the customisability of your LEGO rides. The primary way to get new drivers, LEGO pieces and vehicle perks is to complete more of the game, but there’s also the ever-present “Unkie’s Emporium” premium store beckoning at every garage stop. Being a 2K title it’s perhaps not surprising, but 2K Drive features an enormous catalogue of drivers, vehicles, LEGO pieces and decorations that can only be purchased using an in-game currency that’s drip-fed for free but buyable in bulk with real cash.

So far, so expected for just about any modern game, and it’s ultimately not all that intrusive on the fun of the game as a whole. This is a full-priced title though, one that’s already being supported by a paid season pass model, and yet a huge chunk of the coolest stuff is locked behind in-game purchases. By the time I’d completed every main and side quest in the game I’d earned enough currency to buy maybe three or four of the roughly 200 items on offer. Some younger players with enough time and patience might be able to grind out the bucks they need to get a good portion of it, but the rest are very likely to succumb to Unkie Monkey’s in-your-face salesmanship, which feels grubby.

[Note: The 2K team has reached out to inform us since this review was published to say that they’ve made some adjustments post-release, significantly increasing the payout of in-game currency from story progression and races. I’d already completed the vast majority of everything in the game by the time these came into effect so it’s difficult to test out how impactful this change is, but it’s worth highlighting that a change has been made.]

Putting the 2K-ness of it all aside, this is still a game built for pure joy, and that never lets up. It’s all superbly put together as well, with a well-realised aesthetic combining the plastic and organic worlds to great effect alongside flawless and fluid performance – at least as far as the PS5 version that I played. It’s easily the best-looking LEGO game that I’ve encountered, and by far one of the best-looking arcade racers around, with huge and detailed environments and massive amounts of LEGO-based destruction. Particularly impressive are the real-time cutscenes that use the same stop-motion style character animations as the excellent LEGO Movie, making me wish that TT Games had adopted something similar for its recent entries.

Oddly, the audio side of things in LEGO 2K Drive is a bit of a mess. I don’t know enough to know if it’s a low bitrate thing – the game’s paltry 8GB download on PS5 might suggest it is – but all of the voice work in the game sounds tinny and awful. It’s not just the sound quality either but the mix itself with volume issues in abundance that ruin the otherwise-great sound effects and mostly-good music. The trademark LEGO humour still manages to shine through though, with gloriously bad puns, visual gags and slapstick comedy in a relentless abundance that kept a stupid grin on my face the entire time.

So there’s a whole lot to love in LEGO 2K Drive, and I’ve not even touched on all of the multiplayer potential with the entire campaign playable in online co-op and all 24 superb races available to play locally or online in single race and cup configurations. It’s a fully-fledged adventure game and a top-notch multiplayer kart racer combined that easily trumps the likes of Mario Kart a run for its money as far as its content offering and variety goes, while also being shockingly competitive when it comes to the quality of the racing itself. This could’ve been a half-bricked grab at the LEGO crowd and still somewhat landed, but instead it’s thoroughly impressed me in just about every way.

The post LEGO 2K Drive Review – A Brickin’ Great Car-PG appeared first on Press Start.

Allan Jeans once famously compared a drawn footy game to “dancing with your sister”. You can put on your best shirt, cut up shapes on the dance floor, but at the end of the night, there’ll be no result. It’s a quote that feels analogous for the latest iteration in the rather niche AFL video game series, which Big Ant Studios returns to after a decade-long absence. It’s flashier than before, it pulls a few more tricks out of the bag, but ultimately feels as hollow as gazing up at a tied-up scoreboard after a two-hour slogfest. 

There’s no denying that AFL, as a sport, is extremely complex. The real players and officials can barely keep up with the ever-expanding laundry list of rule changes year-to-year, so to expect a game developer—on a wafer-thin budget—to realise it 1:1 is pie in the sky stuff. Big Ant Studios developed the first modern AFL game, AFL Live, about a decade ago only for Wicked Witch to take over as custodians from then on.

Although they’ve cut their teeth developing other sporting titles, Big Ant’s return to AFL felt like a coming home story bigger to rival Jason Horne-Francis. Unfortunately, several of the persistent issues to plague these footy games remain, leaving us with yet another product befitting the sport’s niche status.

As Big Ant are still aggressively patching the game to mend its launch issues, I expect that in time many of my gripes will be fixed. Things like errant handballing, missed tackles, and frequent failure to actually deliver on the rules of the sport can all be tweaked and improved as time goes on. I do think there are some fundamental issues with momentum in the game when you turn the ball over against even the weakest of sides, as they seamlessly move the ball coast-to-coast like an unstoppable wave. The skill ceiling and learning curve for AFL 23 are both astronomical for a sports game, but when I look at the opposition move the ball in a way that would otherwise be impossible for the player, it becomes frustrating. 

It also doesn’t appear as though you’re able to implement much strategy to curtail ball movement like this. You can’t control eighteen players at once and there’s no meaningful way to tighten up formations, or instruct players to man-up in dying stages. It’s small omissions like this that makes this game in particular feel a little feature incomplete.

When it’s on your terms, however, the game can feel very satisfying. I think shorter field kicking is the best it has ever been and A.I. teammates always lead into space to make each kick look like a million bucks. Similarly, goalkicking takes on its best form and it’s the one facet of this game that players should immediately be able to pick up and play. The pendulum-style power and accuracy meter is instantly readable in a way many of the sport’s other systems are not, and it’s not like the game has a great tutorial to begin with. 

The entire suite of modes in AFL 23 is rather limited, in all honesty. There’s the bog standard season mode that sees you make your way through the fixture in pursuit of the Holy Grail. The game’s attempt at a management sim is much the same, except you’re charged with list, contract, and recruit management. For those that really like things like SuperCoach and other fantasy leagues, it might scratch an itch, but it’s largely bare bones. While the big leagues are certainly involved, it would appear that state and grassroots teams have been left on the bench this time around, which feels like a sad back step.

In the past, the online modes in AFL games have at least had some form of ladder or ranking system to tie it all together. Not only is that absent here, leaving the multiplayer side of things feeling rather pointless, with only a quick match option on offer, it’s impossible to find a match against.

This is a huge shame as, of the games I’ve played against randoms online, the game feels far more tense and balanced. It might expose shortcomings in the way ruck contests are handled because Max Gawn is effectively cheat codes, but I’ll admit happily I had the most fun with the game when not getting exposed and split open by improbable A.I. Despite its hang-ups elsewhere, latency surprisingly wasn’t a huge drama when it came to online play. 

In terms of presentation, it’s the best a footy game has looked. Of course, the bar has never been that high, but perusing the academy within the game’s menu and admiring the player’s models shows that a level of care has been put in here. A lot of effort has been put in to emulate the broadcast aspects of the game, from pre-game warm ups, the coin toss and the celebratory team song in the rooms after the final siren—they pulled real-life audio to make these as authentic as possible. It’s a shame there’s just no way around the same old stilted, robotic commentary we’ve always been treated to.

I wish more effort was put into bringing the crowd to life, nothing about it feels real. The polygonal cost might exceed a few hundred while the chants and cheers are piped in. To see the top deck of the Melbourne Cricket Ground vacant during the pointy end of September is baffling. 

There also seems to be less avenues for the sharing of user-generated content, most of which would already be the pits. It’s an area that Wicked Witch excelled at nearer the end of their tenure, but it has clearly not been a focus of Big Ant’s. Within the academy you’re able to knock up players, entire clubs, logos and stadiums, but the systems to do so are undercooked and the communal search functions to find something you actually like aren’t great. It might have been a glitch, but there’s no function to preview a piece of content before downloading it—a bare minimum in what is effectively a hub free of quality control. 

It’s probably never a promising sign when the minor, somewhat forgivable bugs become almost an unintended marketing beat for the game at launch. Things like the model for the head coach appearing as the goal umpire and the physics-defying “90m handball” have been everywhere, and it just speaks to a product that needed a little more time. Of course, releasing a game like this is never easy, especially in conjunction with the actual ongoing footy season, but you’d hope future patches to not only sharpen up this particular title but firm up the foundation for next year’s—if it happens.

With things like the Legends roster and Pro Teams to come, time is fortunately on Big Ant’s side to keep refining the experience for players. What’s there is good, but it’s light on many features that make it a fuller product. It’s a long season though and premierships aren’t won in May.

The post AFL 23 Review – Like Dancing With Your Sister appeared first on Press Start.

If Echo Generation was Cococucumber’s attempt at an eighties-infused Stranger Things send-up, then Ravenlok is their attempt at a faraway fantasy. So far as how it’s presented, Ravenlok is as charming as they come. It falls down a rabbit hole into a wonderland of wonderfully strange, and it finds inspiration in coming-of-age, fish out of water fairy tales like Spirited Away and Alice in Wonderland.

Ravenlok appears to hit on the well worn tropes of escapist fiction, as the game’s heroine retreats into fantasy to deal with her family’s countryside relocation.

I’d argue the game is intended for adolescents and younger and, as such, doesn’t really capitalise on the emotional weight that comes with such life-changing events. As wildly imaginative as the setting and lore seems to be, Ravenlok is handled simply when it comes to its rich-in-cliche narrative and dialogue, which won’t challenge even the most unaccomplished readers. Cliches set firmly aside, toppling the Caterpillar Queen’s harsh reign is a fantastical time and really does have the magical flair you’d want from a game like this. 

After you’re dubbed Ravenlok, prophesied saviour of the troubled realms, you’re given a crash course in defending yourself against all the nasties that wait ahead. The sword and shield you find at the game’s beginning will be the same one you deal your final blow with, and in a sense that simplicity will better suit a younger audience but it also places a lot of pressure on the game’s combat to be fun and dynamic in spite of this. Unfortunately it really isn’t to be, the game does trickle feed four special powers you can use in battle for added control, but it still remains fairly one-note from go to whoa. Ravenlok also resists the urge to implement any kind of skill tree, instead opting for a simple two-currency system of gold and feathers which are spent on potions, bombs, and stat buffs respectively. 

Even if the combat isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, there’s an undeniable joy in the adventure itself. It doesn’t waste a second of its eight-or-so-hour journey with each quest’s ultimate objective seeming to feed into the goal of the next. It was this briskness that helped the game feel moreish despite its shortcomings in other areas.

Ravenlok’s camera is without doubt the game’s biggest frustration. For a modern action-adventure game to not have a completely free camera feels like a sin. With a fixed and rather limited viewpoint in any given area, both exploration and combat can feel cumbersome and clunky.

While there’s an undeniable variety in terms of their designs, pretty much most of the kingdom’s defenders are as threatening as a wet lettuce leaf. Either there’s a glitch that causes stun locking, rendering them relatively inert, or the A.I. is just poor enough that the notion to fight back doesn’t register in their minds until it’s all too late. Judging by some of the oddly handled stealth sections the game has, which literally let me waltz by the guards in plain view, I suspect it’s the latter. 

With only a handful of realms, I did often manage to complete objectives out of sequence—I’d fairly often complete a fetch quest before I’d even been assigned it. It never broke the game, though I did suck the wind out of my sails time and again to have my immersion within this world dented. Inconsistent sequencing was the least of Ravenlok’s concerns as far as its design goes, and all it takes is one glance at the game’s regular, wave-defense ambushes you must survive. Some games will have enemies descend from the sky, or break through the earth’s soil to spring an attack, but Ravenlok simply has them materialise out of thin air.

I can’t overstate how pleasant Ravenlok’s world is, and how many allusions it makes to the fairy tales and fantasies we’ve grown up with. There’s a mirror-laden hedge maze labyrinth to explore, as well as an insanely scaled tea party where toppled tea pots and mouthwatering sweets are the scenery. Whoever was charged with Ravenlok’s art direction certainly read the book on fantasy and has done a fine job recrafting, in a lot of ways, the childlike wonder of these familiar scenes through the developer’s oft-used voxel art style. There are more than a few stunning vistas to take in, I especially loved the giant, cuddly looking Totoro-cat’s cliff side view of the labyrinth. Having enjoyed it in games like Cloudpunk, I feel the choice absolutely serves Ravenlok’s world and even the overuse of bloom throughout can’t stop this from being one of the better looking fantasy titles of the year, even if it doesn’t push the technical envelope.

The game’s score also gets a big tick, rounding out what is a pretty faultless fantasy presentation. As the story can be a tonal seesaw, Ravenlok’s orchestral follows. Elfman-like staccatos punch through the game’s more eerie beats, while I feel like the composer definitely attempts to invoke Hisaishi’s contemplative piano movements to underpin some of the more touching, heartful moments. 

If you’re after an action-adventure game that’ll challenge you with tasks requiring both physical and mental determination, Ravenlok probably isn’t that game—it’s too basic to stand shoulder to shoulder with contemporary fantasy titles that tend to be fuller packages. 

If you’re looking to be flown to a gorgeous, strange world for an afternoon and crudely hack your way through what feels like a greatest hits from the fairy tale annals, then you could definitely do worse.

The post Ravenlok Review – Reverie And Spirit appeared first on Press Start.

Last month, I wrote about Redfall’s bad press and how the game might face an uphill battle to win fans over come launch. As it turns out, host-only progression, inconvenient as it might be, isn’t even close to one of the game’s worst sins. It feels as though Redfall began life as a smaller project, almost like a stop-gap in development in between Dishonored games—like Deathloop’s apparent beginnings. Only with Redfall, it feels like they were told a year out from launch and decided to pad the experience out with anything but a checklist of things to do in the titular town.

Like a lot of Arkane’s stuff, there is actually a pretty wild story on offer with Redfall, if you’re happy to look for it. With the island under the authoritative rule of the vampire gods, the game does a pretty good job of unspooling their histories throughout the game’s rather cheap ‘live storyboard’ cutscenes that bookend most of the main missions.

Admittedly, there’s more of Arkane’s patented world-building present than I had given the game credit for during my hands-on. If anything, it’s the hero characters that don’t really lap up much focus. Though I didn’t play through all of them, Orlando Bloom, I mean Jacob, is loosely tied to Miss Whisper, the god responsible for “gifting” him his magical milky eye. So, I’d expect all of them to have their own forgettable vendettas.

I had originally pegged Redfall as Arkane’s attempt at a Far Cry game. After spending considerable time in it, I think a lot of its nuts and bolts are modelled after Destiny. For the most part it’s roaming an open sandbox and shooting shit up before returning to home base to top up ammo, spin a yarn with the non-playables, and receive the next thing to do. And like Bungie’s live-service marvel, this vampire-slaying shooter has a similarly quick and snappy brand of gunplay that’s very satisfying. All of the heroes have special powers at their disposal however, unlike Destiny where team composition is an enormous focus, there isn’t any meaningful synergy between them. At certain points it feels like the game’s co-op implementation was an afterthought and not part of the planning, to the point where I enjoyed Redfall as a single-player game much more.

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For a game that lazily guns for Destiny’s mantle with the game’s build, the loot system is pretty uninspiring. It’s not that I don’t enjoy the weapons we’re given, they’re hefty and feel tremendous in-hand, I just felt I was constantly having to leave behind my preferred, tricked out guns to keep up with the power grind. I do wish the game had some form of transmog so that I could imbue my barnacle-covered shotty, plucked from hell’s deep, with another’s power. 

The game has three mission types in total: main, side, and safe house, which are obviously collected from the various hole-ups about town. Although you could conceivably juggle several at once as there are several points where multiple are available, the game restricts you to holding just one of each at any given time. The sheer amount of backtracking in Redfall that results from this is a pain in the neck, and I think it’s all a mask for what is ultimately a game that’s light on content. Even small design choices like carpeting parts of the map in an evil red smoke that forces diversion en route to an objective feels like a means to keep the player busy and doing anything other than checking the next objective box. 

As if a player’s time wasn’t valuable enough, Redfall feels like a ten-hour game masquerading as a twenty-hour one.

I could take or leave the uninspired mission design throughout most of Redfall’s main story arc, which obviously takes place topside in a seemingly lived-in, yet mostly deserted town. I became considerably more intrigued once I explored the game’s admittedly meagre side content, including the vampire nests. These serve as brief dungeons that explore the “psychic realm” and offer up a twisted Frankenstein’s monster full of the island’s seaside aspects which really let the art team flex their collective muscle. 

It’s not hard to tell from first impressions that this game is an Arkane special. The art design, despite being failed in part by the game’s performance, is absolutely incredible. There is so much imagery in Redfall that feels iconic, from the enormous waves, suspended by dark magic, acting as a coastal perimeter for the town, to the blotted out sun—a clear call back to the devious works of Monty Burns. Like their past worlds, Dunwall and Blackreef, Redfall is believable as a town that’s been lived in and left in a hurry as a lot of the residential houses, upended by panic and turmoil, can be picked clean. I love everything about the vampires in Redfall, from their mad science origins to their distinct look, I particularly think whoever designed the gods themselves deserves a pat on the back. 

Contrary to my original belief that the game’s four gods might occupy the four corners of Redfall, the game is actually split into two maps. The one you start in is Redfall Commons, and you’ll move into Burial Point after dealing with the first of four gods. They treat this mid-game shift as a ‘point of no return’ moment, however, meaning all of the side content within the Commons cannot be returned to once you move on. It’s an odd decision to gate out half of the game’s content when a transitory load, like an island-to-island ferry or cable car, for example, could take you back and forth.

It’s well documented that, at launch, Redfall would be limited to 30fps. That, however, isn’t the worst of it. 

While scouring the island for things to do, I was subject to admittedly infrequent hard crashes, plentiful graphical glitches, and horrible plunges in frame rate during fights with particular vampire specials like Shroud, which blankets the world in a dark veil. Pop-in, which wasn’t limited to simple textures, marred part of the experience, too. I lost count of the times a squad of gun-toting adds would simply appear out of thin air and destroy me in seconds, setting me back to the last safehouse I passed so I could walk through minutes of relatively empty map once more. Put simply, Redfall is a frustratingly unoptimised game. 

It’s hard to criticise how Redfall runs when hosting a four-stack of slayers. Granted, the map is small, sparsely populated, and the game doesn’t deliver the hottest textures I’ve seen lately, but a solid netcode is something worth crediting. Of course, things like host-only progression, a seeming lack of level scaling, and persistent frustrating ready-up delays do make teaming up a far less appealing prospect. I think Arkane’s inexperience in developing a co-operative experience definitely cuts through with Redfall.

The post Redfall Review – Just A Biteful Of Fun appeared first on Press Start.

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is Respawn Entertainment’s dark middle chapter. What Jedi: Survivor isn’t, is Respawn’s Empire Strikes Back. That would be too easy; instead, the team has crafted an unruly, introspective tale that pulls from the best of Star Wars storytelling while striking out on its own. It echoes Attack of the Clones and The Last Jedi, pivoting focus and intent seemingly on a whim to forefront its characters and massively expand its gameplay languages, resulting in a game that plays like an action movie but flows like a drama – a dissonance that requires Jedi-like trust in the process to eventually see the light.

Jedi: Fallen Order left Cal and the Mantis crew in a bit of no man’s land. Having conclusively destroyed the list of potential Jedi survivors, the little band of unlikely mates were set adrift into a galaxy that has already had its storytelling potentially largely tapped. These are the dark times, the height of Empire with only a budding sense of Rebellion to push back, and having run the gambit of iconic locations and faces in the first game, exactly where Respawn would take Cal next was something of an enigma. It’s here, in this freedom, Jedi: Survivor thrives.

Many years of fighting the Empire has fractured the crew, each of them peeling off one by one to pursue a different path after the inevitability of the imperial creep – except for Cal. Knighted in battle and unable to let go of the fight, we pick up with this version of the now seasoned Jedi in the midst of a Rebellion heist. Like the entire cast of the game, he’s changed. Jedi: Survivor’s Cal is stronger, faster and angrier. The game’s opening sequence is an all-timer in intention statements, a colourful and violent descent through Coruscant’s underworld culminating in a definitive blow dealt by Cal that lets the player know, right away, this is not going to go the way you think.

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Fleeing the scene and seeking to lay low for a while, Cal and BD-1 find themselves on Koboh, a sprawling, original planet that serves as the game’s hub world and primary location. That last point there is undoubtedly going to raise some eyebrows; the first game prided itself on being a galaxy-trotting adventure and Jedi: Survivor sprints in the opposite direction, instead opting for a more narrow scope but becoming deeper for it. Koboh is a towering achievement of Star Wars world design complete with a charming cantina, unique wildlife, half a dozen biomes and some deep cut lore that set my heart aflutter. Your adventure will send you to a handful of other locations but these are often much smaller instances, no less intricately crafted but all roads lead back to Koboh in the end.

Initially, this tighter loop made my brain short-circuit – for all my bluster about wanting entirely original Star Wars stories, I still found myself somewhat wanting for more recognisable planets and locations to visit. But the longer I sit with the game the more I’ve come to appreciate the intentionality behind it. Jedi: Survivor is rarely the game you’re expecting it to be and once you embrace that freefall, you can begin to appreciate the ride.

Jedi: Survivor’s core gameplay systems have been effectively perfected, a remarkable spit and shine of Fallen Order’s ambition to offer both meaningful combat and exploration. There are five different Lightsaber stances to choose from – single blade, dual blade, double blade, blaster and cross-guard, each offering players unique engagement methods that favour balance, speed, defense and power. You’re able to have two of each style equipped at any given time, flipping between them with a simple button press. These stances all sport their own skill trees that unlock progressively cooler moves, most of which drain your Force meter, which is then refilled by hitting foes with standard attacks.

Speaking of the Force, it has well and truly awakened in Jedi: Survivor. Cal begins the game with a basic assortment of abilities (Push, Pull, Mind Trick) that can all be upgraded through another set of skill trees. But the true joy of the game’s combat snaps into focus through the middle stretch, during which Cal will unlock additional Force powers that bolster his existing ones, allowing for markedly improved crowd control and offensive capabilities. There’s no wrong combination of stance and Force here, a delightful bit of player expression that allows you to build Cal out in the exact way you prefer to play. For instance, I sat on my skill points for hours waiting for the cross-guard stance to unlock, eventually dumping them all into the tree and wielding a Lightsaber claymore for the rest of the game.

Once you’ve found the stance you’re most comfortable with, the fluidity of Jedi: Survivor’s combat becomes undeniable. Cal has a bounty of animations to pull from, giving attacks contextually interesting outcomes that you’ve earned through a series of tight parries, dodges and deliberate blows. Stronger foes will deploy these same tactics against you in turn too, often requiring your patience to wear down stamina meters before you can break through and land a blow. Exchanges, largely, feel like a dance – weighty, pointed strikes spinning out into micro-breaks in flow that allow you to catch your breath before throwing yourself back into the fray.

Cal is every bit the Jedi Knight Cere expected him to become, and in turn, the player is allowed to experience a power fantasy that lifts the best elements from previous titles like the Jedi: Knight and Force Unleashed series. Jedi: Survivor does this without sacrificing its original intentions, rewarding conscious player choices with bombastic, cinematic thrills, capitalising on the contrast for great effect. Boss battles are the crown jewel of this balance, often extensive and incredibly trying exchanges that require your best play and in turn deliver some genuinely stunning set pieces that had my jaw cratered on the floor.    

Likewise, exploration has been vastly improved over the first game, with quality of life choices and a sharper eye for level design both elevating Jedi: Survivor. Cal moves much faster now, scampering along derelict ships and cliff faces with a fluidity that removes unnecessary player friction and allows you to feel more equipped to manoeuvre the game’s immaculate platforming playgrounds. Again, in pulling focus onto just a small selection of locations, Respawn has crafted far more engaging play spaces that utilise an array of traversal mechanics, including a contextual hook shot, improved Force jumping, ground and air mounts, and some Arkham-lite tools BD-1 picks up along the way. Traditional puzzles have been dialled back from the first game too; the ones that are here are enjoyable enough but largely Cal’s only barrier to progression will be your skill with his new movement abilities.

Conversely, Jedi: Survivor features a handful of systems that can be largely ignored by the player. There is a whole Perk system that requires slot management for passive boosts to your skills but to be frank, I had entirely forgotten about it for long stretches of play. That charming cantina on Koboh also has an adorable rooftop garden you can maintain with BD-1 but for the life of me I never found much of a mechanical imperative to return to it. There’s also the excellent cosmetic customisation suite that allows players to fully build their own saber, deck out BD-1 and the blaster in custom parts, and even change the colour shading on the dozens of outfit combinations. And yeah you can give Cal a mullet. The game never forces your hand on these systems, content to let you engage at your leisure, but this system passivity is at odds with, to my mind, the game’s most interesting player demand – that you care for the sake of caring.

Jedi: Survivor has a confidence in its storytelling and a faith in its audience, I find utterly fascinating. The game is effectively a four-act narrative, picking up and discarding threads with ferocious speed as it whips through tones and plots that run the gambit of earnest human drama to old Extended Universe novel pulp. The Empire takes a backseat for the majority of the game, instead Cal and friends are embroiled in the centuries old plot of High Republic era Jedi Dagan Gera as he races to claim an oasis planet hidden beyond an impenetrable abyss. Cal sees the planet as a potential Rebellion training ground, pitting him against Dagan as the two Jedi survivors duke it out to claim a new home. It’s smaller stakes than expected and gives the game room to explore what exactly it means to be a survivor in a galaxy this far gone.

This conflict draws in several familiar faces, as well as some compelling new ones, and forms a tremendous thematic backbone for the game. Dagan is a treat, absolutely devouring scenery as he paces in his ornate golden robes and taunts Cal for letting the galaxy fall after the High Republic. The game does a cursory job at educating players on the relatively recent Star Wars era, and while some aesthetic touchstones are present, the majority of the High Republic connections are found in data files and inference alone. You should still read those books though. Much like the planets, I was initially caught on this choice but Jedi: Survivor has so much more cooking than anticipated, and while its ambitions can result in some pacing hitches and speedy conclusions, its achievements are worth the scramble.

Much like Jedi: Fallen Order, moment-to-moment dialogue can still occasionally slip into broad strokes, or some exposition heavy exchanges, but Jedi: Survivor navigates these characters into far more interesting waters. Cal’s Jedi journey is perhaps most surprising, a brilliant echo of the High Republic teachings and a definitive answer to what exactly you do with this character. Elsewhere, Merin returns in a pivotal role that balances Cal’s changes and locks the two of them into exciting narrative potentials. Dagan is drawn a little lighter but remains fun throughout, and the new supporting cast are thoroughly likeable and will break your heart if you let them. It helps too that the game lets you spend more organic time with its characters as Cal is sometimes joined on missions by companions, giving them a chance to banter in mostly organic and charming ways.

The race to find a hidden planet is a wonderfully fun set up, all the more for giving Cal a plot that doesn’t necessitate known factors and instead allows Respawn to craft their very own corner of the galaxy. Jedi: Survivor overflows with colourful and expressive art that draws Star Wars in tones and shapes that feel fresh and exciting. From Koboh’s Old West-inspired ranch towns to Jedah’s ornate Jedi temples and even the phenomenal score and sound work, the game is dense with little flourishes that make it feel both a part of the larger galaxy but also distinctly its own beast. The only real issue is performance; playing on PlayStation I was hit with a fair few issues, from texture pop in to slowdown and clipping. Which is a shame because the game is otherwise a technical marvel, that gorgeous art direction rendered beautifully on screen, when it works.

Jedi: Survivor feels like it has something to prove. Maybe to the team behind it, whose ambitions for Cal have clearly grown exponentially in the interim years, and maybe to its audience, who the game places explicit trust in. It’s a game that dances, gleefully, in the tonal dissonance of its Star Wars building blocks. Colliding power fantasy mechanics, high-concept sci-fi and nuanced, character-driven writing, the end result occasionally stumbles trying to hold it all together but ultimately emerges a roaring success of genre melding. Jedi: Survivor is a monument to the best of Star Wars.

The post Star Wars Jedi: Survivor Review – An Audacious Middle Chapter appeared first on Press Start.