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EVERSPACE - Stellar Edition | PS4 | Review

24/5/2018

 
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EVERSPACE finally made its way to PlayStation 4 this week, both standalone and bundled with a few extra goodies in the Stellar Edition; whichever version might take you fancy, picking up ROCKFISH Games’ space-faring roguelike is an easy recommendation.

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by Sam Sant

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@SlamShotSam


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Developer: ROCKFISH
Games
Publisher: ROCKFISH
Games
​Platforms: ​PS4, Xbox
One, PC

​Players: 1 
Falling closer to arcade than simulation, you’ll pilot a spacecraft as protagonist Adam Roslin, seeking to uncover his forgotten past. Accompanied by HIVE, the ship’s onboard AI, you’ll also learn about the intriguing EVERSPACE universe and its inhabitants, fleshing out a more developed narrative than we’ve experienced in any other roguelike. It’s still simple, and the meta twist is predictable, but the extra effort is very much appreciated.

More in keeping with roguelike etiquette is the brutal learning curve, which you mustn’t let dissuade you. Firstly, we’d strongly recommend playing in third over first-person to get a better view of your surroundings; navigating the game's truly 3D, 360° environments is much harder when confined to a cockpit. This makes flight second nature, leaving you free to focus on the tactical combat encounters coming your way.

With a range of primary and secondary weaponry at your disposal, as well as reusable devices and one-and-done consumables, there are multiple avenues of approach to consider whenever trouble comes your way. Loadouts are largely dependant on what you’ve scavenged during the current run, forcing you to mix things up on the fly and switch between weapons according to their inherent strengths and weaknesses - using a laser to deplete shields before switching to ballistics or explosives and dealing extra hull damage, for example.

Landing hits isn’t too hard, thanks to a HUD element that indicates how to lead shots, but that doesn’t mean you can be brazen - not in the slightest. Simple actions like boosting and shooting consume energy, necessitating conservative play if you don’t want to leave yourself almost completely defenceless during a dogfight. Managing energy consumption during a head-to-head is easy enough, but when outnumbered, as you often are, it becomes a real juggling act.
EVERSPACE has a more developed narrative than we’ve experienced in any other roguelike.
As such, it’s important to pick your battles by keeping a distance and utilising stealth where you can. Entering into a smart engagement - isolating enemies, prioritising targets, managing your shield and knowing when to retreat - can be the difference between life and death. It is possible to play too cautiously though, as you’ll need fuel to safely progress between areas and additional resources both to repair your ship and craft or upgrade items, all of which are dropped by defeated enemies.

Valuable resources can also be gathered from mining spots and containers, or purchased via ports and traders, though a looming threat ensures that you can’t spend too long scouring any one area for booty. Enemy fleets will spawn and hunt you down should you allow them to triangulate your position, meaning you’ll need to keep a considered pace at all times.

You’re sure to meet an early grave with so much working against you, which, as you may have already gleaned from our earlier mention of runs - you clever thing, you - will set you back to square one. Permadeath can be a scary concept, but EVERSPACE boasts extensive persistent progression that’ll help to make losing a time investment actually feel productive.

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Any credits you earn during a run can be siphoned into a vast range of useful perks and upgrades, or even additional ships, though you have to spend what you’ve gathered before redeploying. Not allowing players to save towards more expensive purchases might seem unnecessarily harsh, but this simple tweak ensures you’re always heading back out into the unknown vastness of space with an added in-game advantage and a little extra motivation to hit your desired figure this time around.
Permadeath can be a scary concept, but EVERSPACE boasts extensive persistent progression that’ll help to make losing a time investment actually feel productive.
If EVERSPACE is sounding too difficult for you, then opting for the easy difficulty setting is the way to go. It’ll tip the scales in your favour while docking 25% of your earnings, slowing the upgrade process in order to maintain balance. Similarly, the elite can opt for hard mode and boost their income by 25%, whilst the dangerous can ‘enjoy’ a separate Hardcore game type that eliminates persistent forms of progression whilst throwing you the odd bone.
Whatever way you play, procedural generation will keep things varied and interesting between runs, subtly randomising area layouts and spawns. More significant are the occasional prerequisite area objectives and visually stunning weather anomalies that impact play, while the Encounters expansion (included in the Stellar Edition) makes an even greater impact by introducing numerous random character encounters that blossom into persistent quest lines.

Not only that, but Encounters adds a powerful new ship with an arcing lightning cannon and disabling EMP blast, loads more gear to kit yourself out with, new enemies to test everything out on, and even more, all while seamlessly integrating into the base game experience. It’s a no-brainer at just £7.99, which means the same can be said of the Stellar Edition, which offers a couple of premium themes and a digital soundtrack at no additional cost to buying EVERSPACE and Encounters separately.

Its sharp assets and striking juxtaposition of colours make the game really quite beautiful, especially on Pro hardware, where players can enjoy checkerboard 4K as well as the standard HDR support. Really then, EVERSPACE - Stellar Edition is the full package: challenging, tactical, highly customisable, rewarding, almost endless, and pretty darn gorgeous.

Unless you’re averse to taking to the skies, or refuse to succumb to your mortality at the hands of permadeath, you won’t regret climbing aboard the good (space)ship roguelike.

Pros

  • Tense, tactical air combat encounters
  • Excellent procedural generation significantly varies each run
  • Strong narrative, characters & worldbuilding for a roguelike
  • Makes permadeath rewarding
  • Beautiful outer space vistas

Cons

  • Rough learning curve will immediately put some off
  • Opting for a first-person perspective makes the game significantly harder

9/10
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Space Hulk: Deathwing - Enhanced Edition | PS4 | Review

22/5/2018

 
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Based upon Games Workshop’s popular tabletop franchise, Space Hulk: Deathwing attempts to do for 40K what Vermintide did for old school Warhammer. While Deathwing is a unique and often exciting FPS onslaught in the vein of Left 4 Dead, it doesn’t quite meet the high standards set by its inspirators.

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by Sam Sant

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@SlamShotSam


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Developer(s): Streum
On ​Studio, Cyanide

Publisher: Focus Home
Interactive

​Platforms: ​PS4, PC
​Players: 1 - 3
You play as a Deathwing, an elite member of the Dark Angels Space Marine Chapter, sent aboard Space Hulk Olethros, a gargantuan spaceship (with no relation to the big green guy), to clear a nasty infestation of Tyranids, a Xenomorph-like alien race, in service of the Emperor. If that clause-tastic sentence hasn’t already make it clear, Space Hulk: Deathwing is thick with years of Warhammer 40K lore that fans will eat up and newcomers will just about comprehend. Regardless, the narrative is mostly fluff that simply serves to frame the action.

Despite the bulky power armour your Deathwing sports, conflict comes thick and fast as varied swarms of lesser enemies mingle with more brutish individuals to create a genuinely challenging opposition. Utilising a powerful combination of cooldown-limited special attacks, melee weaponry, and heavy firearms conventionally reserved for vehicle mounts, you’ll attempt to cut a swath through the horde in order to keep moving towards your objective and avoid being overwhelmed - just don’t be too hasty, as sprinting ahead is a good way to get yourself flanked and killed.

A few tools at your disposal will help to keep that considered pace up, not least of all a pair of battle-brothers that can be issued commands via a simple radial menu. The AI is pretty competent left to its own devices, even if the stingy healer could be mistaken for your average human support player, but venturing online for a spot of co-op is definitely the way to play if you’re able. Here you’ll choose from six different classes, rather than having one dictated, as in single player, allowing you to better synergise and strategise whilst also gaining access to the game’s deeper customisation and levelling systems.


For the sake of balance, you’ll lose the ability to teleport to safety and kit yourself out on a whim when opting to play in co-op, but the trade-off is usually worthwhile for the smarter companionship capable of employing advanced strategies like locking doors to keep enemies at bay.
Deathwing is a unique and often exciting FPS onslaught in the vein of Left 4 Dead.
That tactic comes in particularly handy, as the game’s touch-and-go encounters can otherwise be overwhelming. Space Hulk: Deathwing bombards you with hostiles while requiring you to juggle priority targets between them, often as you’re confined to dark and claustrophobic spaces only sporadically lit by muzzle flashes. These moments invest you in the fight by making your squad of hulking marines - with infinite ammo to boot - feel small and vulnerable, but they could easily have been elevated further.

The game very sparingly utilises an ambient soundtrack, placing a focus instead on its (mostly) strong and encompassing diegetic sound. This isn’t inherently bad, but an adaptive soundtrack that ramped up alongside enemy spawns would’ve made for absolute magic in these situations.

Space Hulk: Deathwing also struggles when it comes to graphical presentation, largely looking fine in busy motion, but falling apart should you stop to smell the roses. Flat textures, strawberry jam blood effects, ropey animations and more stick out like sore thumbs as you traverse the darkly Gothic halls of the game’s labyrinthine spaceships.

On that note, environments are sprawling to their detriment at times, requiring you to frequent the map screen so as to not get lost in backtracking purgatory. Whilst a spattering of explosive barrels and flame-spewing pipes make areas lightly interactive, their similar aesthetics and objectives don’t offer up enough variety to maintain interest between missions or temp you off the beaten path in search of collectibles.


Unfortunately, this sews the seeds of tedium as you work through the campaign’s nine lengthy chapters, making the notion of revisiting areas to complete randomised special missions in a secondary mode an unattractive one, even if there are alternate routes to take.
Environments are sprawling to their detriment at times, requiring you to frequent the map screen so as to not get lost in backtracking purgatory.
Lacking replay value is easily Space Hulk: Deathwing’s biggest stumbling block, considering that’s generally the foundation for this breed of shooter and was no doubt intended to be here. Throw in technical issues like dropped frames and crashes and the experience definitely doesn’t feel “enhanced”, as the title suggests, though it’s worth noting that we were playing a pre-release version.

Overall, Space Hulk: Deathwing - Enhanced Edition is a game at odds with itself, boasting some brilliantly implemented ideas alongside weak alternatives. Its gameplay foundation is (mostly) structurally sound, yet the surrounding accoutrement hold it back. Despite the issues, as ever, gameplay is king, so we’d say it’s still worth a look if you’re in the market for a co-op shooter to dip in and out of with friends, especially if you’re fans of the source material.

Pros

  • Frantic-yet-tactical combat encounters
  • Characters feel hefty & impactful
  • Varied slate of iconic 40K weaponry
  • Great use of lighting
  • Intriguing future Gothic aesthetic

Cons

  • Repetitive locales that can be difficult to navigate
  • Not nearly as replayable as its peers
  • Technical drawbacks
  • Lacking in the audiovisual departments
  • Solo players miss out on a lot of content

7/10
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The Council - Episode 2: Hide and Seek | Xbox One | Review

18/5/2018

 
The Council - Episode 2: Hide and Seek Xbox One review - Pass the Controller

Hide and Seek is a slightly disappointing second outing following The Council’s promising pilot, which kickstarted protagonist Louis de Richet’s adventure back in March. Continuing to search for his missing mother whilst hobnobbing with the social elite to keep up appearances, the game’s characters and tangled conspiracies continue to develop with intrigue, whilst a shift in focus away from the defining conversational confrontations towards solving puzzles is a very misguided one.

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by Sam Sant

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@SlamShotSam


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Developer: Big Bad Wolf
Publisher: Focus Home
Interactive

​Platforms: Xbox One,
​PS4, PC

​Players: 1
Opening with a recap to bring you back up to speed, which is always appreciated, things pick up where they left off. That’s to say you’ll find yourself in one of several possible situations depending on how things wrapped up, in our case, being detained as the lead suspect in a grisly murder case. In this instance the first chapter wrapped up pretty quickly - detracting from an already short episode at just three chapters in length, as opposed to five - though switching to our second save slot saw us cast as the lead investigator in that same homicide and proved much more fulfilling.

Should you find yourself playing detective, the episode sandwiches an engaging stretch of in-depth sleuthing between a majority share of the content you’d otherwise see on the other side of the law. Whilst divergent paths are welcome, encouraged in fact, the way in which they’re implemented here is not. Carving a large chunk out of the episode without substituting any opposing equivalent ensures a lopsided presentation that’s sure to sting the subset of players that miss out.

In terms of the altogether more fixed narrative throughline, elusive host Lord Mortimer finally shows his face and continues to prove an enigma even in person. Some snooping uncovers the depths of his global meddling, explaining away the reluctance to reveal his hand (and the seemingly bottomless pit in his office), though a meeting scheduled for the next episode should finally illuminate players as to why Louis and company find themselves on his private island.

Duke Manuel Godoy, Head of the Spanish Government, makes his debut and further contributes to the volatile political mixpot, whilst we also get some context on Louis’ painful visions this episode. The Council can be a little wordy in conveying its message, but the commitment to an authentic 18th century presentation (setting aside a bizarre conversation with a talking bird) means you’ll undoubtedly learn something interesting about real-world history in the process. Despite lacking subtlety, there’s no doubt that the cast continue to develop in exciting ways, as corpses, along with a list of murder suspects, begin to mount.
With that being said, things do fall a bit flat here by comparison to the first episode. Its meandering pace makes Hide and Seek a bit of a slog at times, often failing to either propel things forward or satisfyingly tie up loose ends, with the latter perhaps making the cliffhanger finish more cause for concern than suspense.

Few new areas to explore and a focus on slightly awkward puzzle solving are culprit to the episode’s pacing issues, placing bog-standard adventure fare over the thoughtful character interactions that made the pilot stand out. Acquiring a desired target can be cumbersome in the absence of a cursor, while spending Effort Points to utilise skills often leads to puzzle solutions being spelled out a little too plainly in blatant monologues. Conversely, not making use of Effort Points in select situations can leave you scratching your head until bordering on frustration.

What verbal confrontations remain generally prove more staunch brain teasers than the accompanying puzzles. Now that you’re an episode deep and should have the hang of them, some interactions no longer offer multiple chances and will instead have the brakes applied with one out-of-place utterance, which works in conjunction with the timer to ensure they’re more exciting than ever.

While not quite plummeting the series into the doldrums, Hide and Seek does disappoint at a stage where The Council should’ve been doubling down on its strengths to satisfy those making a return trip to Mortimer’s affluent estate. With the central narrative on a downturn it’s also harder to forgive the game its technical issues, making Hide and Seek an episode we wouldn’t recommend in itself, but would suggest you stick with as it’s not time to give up hope on The Council yet.

Pros

  • Engaging verbal confrontations
  • Get to know the intriguing cast of characters a little better
  • Role-playing & item management systems add a tactical wrinkle
  • Almost certain to teach you something about 18th century culture
  • Divergent scenes based on past choices...

Cons

  • … Which can be poorly implemented
  • Nothing particularly exciting happens during the brief runtime
  • Places a misguided focus on puzzles
  • Script, VO & animation can be dodgy
  • Choppy performance despite largely pedestrian graphics

6/10
0 Comments

State of Decay 2 | Xbox One | Review

17/5/2018

 
State of Decay 2 review Xbox One - Pass the Controller

Valentina, Beta, Alexxis, Jay… they're dead. They're all dead. While we mourn their passing, their permadeaths serve as an example of one of the greatest strengths of State of Decay 2.

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​by James
Michael
​Parry

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@James_Parry

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Developer: Undead Labs
Publisher: Microsoft
Studios
Platforms: Xbox One, PC
Players: 1 - 4
A more capable player than myself could have avoided such sorrow (as I’m sure Sam, our resident SoD veteran, will attest when he shares his own experience with the sequel in the coming weeks), but as a newcomer to the series, it turns out that the complete breakdown of society can be pretty brutal.

The game begins 18 months after the military have failed to hold back a pathogen infection which spreads through the human population, leaving only a few survivors as the rest of mankind finds itself undead.

State of Decay 2 fully embraces its landscape of zombies, with blood-soaked plague "Zs" posing stronger opposition than the standard breed, while a number of specialist types are yet deadlier and can easily be traced back to the beacon of zombie-slaying that is Left 4 Dead.

Despite the enemy variety, combat isn't the main focus of the game, with survival instead occupying the largest chunk of your time. Following a standard orientation tutorial based around your choice of origin story, you choose one of three different topographical areas in which to establish a safe haven.

Opting for the valley area, we were presented with a fairly standard two-up two-down with surrounding concrete facade and optional barbed wire accessories. Here you have a few rooms set up for you and a few spaces to craft your own facilities, such as an infirmary to treat the inevitable wounds and infection your survivors pick up in combat, or a workshop to craft bullets, explosives and eventually weapons.
As a newcomer to the series, it turns out that the complete breakdown of society can be pretty brutal.
Later, when your community swells and you gain enough influence (the game’s de facto currency), you can claim locations ranging from small, resource gathering outposts, to electricity generating power stations and even makeshift forts constructed from shipping containers. Each new locale has its own advantages and how you manage your growing empire, customising locations further with mods and upgrades, is up to you.

That said, it’s advisable that you take council from your community as morale upkeep is a constant battle in such dire circumstances, as one might expect. Sacrificing a building slot to set up a garden or fashion a lounge (in which you can install an original Xbox) can work wonders in keeping everyone cheery.

As time goes on, your survivors will improve their skills based on what actions they perform. While the game wants you to feel you're developing fleshed out characters in a manner akin to the likes of Skyrim, the reality is that skills are fairly limited, and you'll just want to make sure most of your population go for a run once in a while to boost their stamina, or they'll quickly become overwhelmed in a bout of fisticuffs.

What is unique to SoD2, and arguably the main motivator in investing you in its characters, are a collection of 100+ more mundane traits such as “Car crash survivor”, “Cat lover” and “Flatulent”, all of which have passive effects. When each survivor gains enough standing in the community their individual skill is unlocked, such as “Yoga instructor”, offering an amusing look at their pre-apocalypse lives. While these abilities sadly don't unlock a suite of oddly juxtaposed mini-games, they do offer depth at fairly low effort.

There's another side to this of course, in that not everyone gets on, so they can start fights in your absence or generally become disgruntled. If it comes to it, you might have to take the difficult decision to exile them for the greater good, though generally they do go quietly.

The same is true of the different AI factions, known as enclaves, which can get cheesed off if you repeatedly ignore their requests for help or side with other enclaves over them in disputes, potentially leading them to become hostile and spoil for a fight.
All of these elements comes together in a very compelling simulation, with the downsides to the experience so far (much of which lacked the minor polish brought by the game's hefty 6GB day one patch) being technical.

​Zombies can drop in from about 20ft in the air as you approach, using vehicles places your life in the game’s hands as they can randomly flip out or explode, and the AI often behaves unpredictably, to the extent that more than once our fellow community members have perished in relatively mild peril.


Using vehicles was something we hardly dabbled in throughout the game's opening hours, assuming them to be too much of a zombie magnet, but in reality to reap the full rewards when scavenging around the map - in particular valuable resources like food or medicine - their boot/trunk space is quite essential. Casually opening a car door to obliterate a squishy zombie as you pass them at speed also never ceases to be messily fun...
Everything comes together in a compelling simulation, with the downsides to the experience so far being technical.
​Another significant drawback is the lack of direction on hand for new players; a handful of prompts keep recurring, but seemingly there's little to lead you into new experiences as you’re drawn deeper into the game. On top of this, plenty of basic options like trading items between you and a follower out in the field are far from a simple button press away, taking us back to pre-Resident Evil 5 levels of AI buddy management.

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Same applies in co-op, where up to three guests can venture into the host’s world and loot their own unique supplies to take back home with them, but should you want to swap items amongst one another it’s a cumbersome case of using menus to drop them on the ground before rifling through piles of stuff and picking up the relevant drops. There’s also a limiting tether that stops players from straying too far apart, but if you’re committed to watching each other’s backs that shouldn’t be too big of an issue.

Setting a few more minor bugs aside, the overall experience is stable, no doubt aided by the graphical sacrifices that see SoD2 appear visually underwhelming even with the added oomph of the Xbox One X at its disposal.
Whether SoD2 is for you depends on how you attribute value based on look and feel versus raw gameplay. If you favour the former, it certainly doesn't have many “wow” moments to entice you, or make for a particularly good sizzle reel, but the gameplay over time is undeniably compelling.

This post-apocalyptic world effortlessly encourages you to leave the safety of your home and explore just one more area, run over just one more zombie or pick up just one more follower, without drowning you in endless map symbols. Nor does it penalise you too much if you decide to be really heartless and ignore individuals’ needs (*cough* Sam *cough*), resulting in an unparalleled sense of freedom that allows you to craft your own narrative without completely abandoning you to your own devices in the process.

In all, at its basic price point, the game is well worth picking it up, and if you nab it as part of a Game Pass subscription you'll likely find even better value for money. With different areas to settle, origin stories to experience, and enclaves and survivors to encounter, there's plenty to keep you busy until the previously outlined DLC expansions arrive, but, for the time being, if you'll excuse us, we have a wind power station to claim.

Pros

  • Addictively compelling mix of Left 4 Dead, The Sims & GTA Online
  • Characters sneak their way into your heart
  • Solid, but basic, combat & base-building mechanics make for fun gameplay

Cons

  • Technical issues cripple the experience at times
  • Co-op can feel limited
  • Not much of a looker

9/10
1 Comment

Hyper Sentinel | Nintendo Switch | Review

13/5/2018

 
Hyper Sentinel Nintendo Switch review - Pass the Controller

​Space gets a bad rap. For a locale which, in reality, is largely empty space; film, TV and particularly video games have taught us that the great unknown is filled only with baddies who want to fire laser weapons at us (pew pew!)

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by
James
Michael
​Parry

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@James_Parry

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Developer:Four5Six
Pixel/Huey Games
Publisher: Huey Games
Platforms: Xbox One,
​PlayStation 4, Switch, PC
Players: 1
And so we come to Hyper Sentinel. The horrors of space are on full display here, but in a friendly, retro-sci-fi sort of way. You must take on a series of alien dreadnaughts, taking out gun turrets, towers and enemy fighters in your best impression of Luke Skywalker when he first lets loose on the Death Star (before the trench run bit...you know? Oh never mind…)

Once the surface targets are down you’re presented with a boss encounter. For each level these big bads take various forms, but are generally all variations on what you’d expect to see as far as an enemy spaceship is concerned. Since you’re mostly moving left to right, boosting liberally as the smouldering husk of the dreadnaught lingers in the background, there’s limited space to manoeuvre, but a well timed switch of direction will see your ship tease the third dimension for a split-second, as it flips over, avoiding any enemy fire in the process.

The majority of encounters are, in a word, chaotic. Aside from the ground targets, which will shoot fairly liberally if you’re even remotely nearby, there’s also hunter ships to look out for, more determined enemies who will generally follow you if you make a dash off-screen. As well as that there’s often a squadron of more general purposes fighters patrolling left to right, but the difference here is that this group tends to chaperone a tidy prize - powerups.

​These bonuses might just boost your score modifier (up to a strangely attainable x32), or give you toys to play with, including a twin continuous laser cannon, three-chained, flailing mace or a satellite ship which sprays out fire behind you as you make your escape. Unfortunately, without a streaming readout of your alien destruction, the bonuses and points awarded feel quite intangible and scorechasing is easy to forget in-game.

A game steeped in the ever-present nostalgia factor with a few fresh ideas thrown in for good measure.
Such thrills are fairly short-lived on their own, but, if you keep an eye out, you can often string powerups together so your buffs keep the pressure on the enemy.

If it all sounds like a cheerful way to spend some times, particularly on the move with the portable powers of the Switch, then you’re in luck, as the game is fairly easy to pause at almost any point and jump in and out of. If you’re looking for something more however, you may wish there was a little more variety to its gameplay.

There are 12 levels on offer, split into five areas, but you’d be hard pressed to tell each of them apart at first glance, aside from a different vibe from the games authentically 8-bit soundtrack for each. Difficulty builds fairly gradually and increasingly you’ll find you’re taking hits from what you thought was just ship detail below but turned out to be a hull-mounted bomb or gun emplacement. The odd cheap shot here and there is understandable, with so much going on, but at times your health will take a huge hit in seconds when several dangers converge.

Of course, the challenge is part of the appeal, and your squishy health bar remains visible at the bottom of the screen at all times, reminding you of the impending doom. In fact, when your health hits that critical final square there’s even a stylish slowdown effect to alert you to that fact without peppering the screen with ‘helpful’ voiceover from some unseen supervisor back on Earth or a teammate that won’t shut up (we’re looking at you Slippy.)
After the main game’s first run, there’s a few things to go back to. Each level has five optional objectives, some of which you’ll probably stumble across as you play, such as the perpetual “Kill all four alienoids”, but others will require more strategic action.

Then there’s also survive and boss modes for each level, which are exactly what they sound like, but neither really do much to remix and change up gameplay. Speaking of mixing, the game’s Xbox version has a particular tie-in with streaming service Mixer, which sees the audience capable of sabotaging the player by introducing enemies and generally making life difficult, but whether that would be something you’d like to subject yourself to/rise to the challenge of, is for you to decide.

The end result is a game steeped in the ever-present nostalgia factor with a few fresh ideas thrown in for good measure. To really blow us away it would have been nice to see the game break the mould a bit more, but for many a title which makes retro-style games accessible, and slightly more forgiving, to younger audiences and new players is no bad thing.

Pros


  • Colourful and chaotic visual presentation
  • Nails the technical execution
  • Controls don’t get much more straightforward than this

Cons

  • Gameplay feels its limited nature a little too soon
  • Scores and bonuses don’t feel tangible
  • A few too many deaths feel like you’ve been ganged up on

7/10
0 Comments

Killing Floor: Incursion | PS VR | Review

11/5/2018

 
Killing Floor: Incursion PS VR Zed decapitation - Pass the Controler

Having hit HTC VIVE and Oculus Rift late last year, Killing Floor: Incursion has finally made the transition to more budget-friendly hardware in the form of Sony’s PlayStation VR headset. Bringing the Killing Floor series’ gory brand of sci-fi horror to a new dimension, Incursion is a mix of old and new that achieves varying degrees of success.

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by Sam Sant

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@SlamShotSam


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Developer: Tripwire
Interactive

Publisher: Tripwire
Interactive

​Platforms: PS VR, HTC
VIVE, Oculus Rift 

​Players: 1 - 2
Franchises tend to condense themselves down to their core mechanics on a first foray into virtual reality, all too often taking the form of wave-based shooters in the process. Already having a couple of those under their belt and not content to rest on their laurels, the team at Tripwire Interactive chose the opposite approach and used Incursion as an opportunity to build the first Killing Floor story campaign around that foundation.

It’s meta narrative explains away all of the familiar quirks that currently accompany VR gameplay, while at the same time complementing the series’ goofy sense of humour. Guided by Node, a hovering robot companion, you’ll solve simple puzzles and dismember hordes of zombie-like Zeds across four missions, each set in their own unique locale.

Environments are reasonably interactive and traversed by utilising short-range teleportation by default, however an annoying cooldown feature disallows performing multiple warps in quick succession and wasted no time in convincing us that free movement was the only way to go. We’d definitely recommend making the switch, provided you can stomach VR locomotion, as it’ll also prove very useful in kiting bosses and crowds of lesser enemies when things start to get more difficult down the road.

In fact, using free movement to walk backwards whilst shooting forwards is an almost infallible strategy that can feel cheap. This is especially true of the boss encounters that conclude each mission, which are unfortunately robbed of any fear factor despite their undeniably horrific appearances. It’s pretty disappointing that the arrival of a Fleshpound elicits almost no emotion in VR, of all things, but is often met with bum-clenching terror when playing Killing Floor 2 on a 2D screen.
An annoying cooldown feature disallows teleporting multiple times in quick succession, wasting no time in convincing us that free movement was the only way to go.
Fortunately, the game fares better at instilling chills in other areas. In spite of some graphical pop-in and general fuzziness, the largely dark and moody settings make for tense and grimly detailed places to explore, aided every step of the way by incredibly effective use of 3D audio. The sound works best in confined spaces, which also happen to be locations where the aforementioned cheese strategy won’t do you any favours, making for a potent mix.

While the campaign is relatively brief at around four hours, bringing along a friend for co-op and/or graduating to the higher difficulty level are motivators for at least a second playthrough. That said, most of your time with Incursion will likely be spent engaging with Holdout mode, which is more the survival onslaught you’d expect going off Killing Floor’s past form.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, considering it centers on the series’ bread and butter, Holdout is the highlight regardless of relying on such a prevalent trope. Playable solo or two-player, just like the campaign, the mode introduces a range of power-ups and an over-the-top announcer that grows more and more excited as you build a score multiplier by chaining headshot kills.

Here any semblance of ambiance is dumped in favour of piping in Killing Floor’s signature heavy metal soundtrack, its breakneck tempo mirroring the frantic pace at which you’ll need to physically swing melee weapons or dual-wield firearms in order to survive the intensity. Two Move motion controllers are required to play, which you can do either seated or standing, and they mostly do a sterling job of keeping up with the frantic flailing as you make use of the game’s narrow selection of murder implements.

The overwhelming nature of Holdout’s pulse-racing encounters can easily get you flustered, causing you to fumble the somewhat button-heavy controls as your brain struggles to process inputs on top of inputs, inevitably seeing you mobbed and mauled by the ugly enemy troop with no concern for personal space. It’s here a few desperate weapon whips, punches or pushes come in handy, but not nearly as much as having a co-op partner capable of a well-timed rescue.
Holdout mode dumps any semblance of ambiance in favour of piping in heavy metal, its breakneck tempo mirroring the frantic pace at which you’ll need to act in order to survive the intensity.
Combat is satisfyingly visceral as standard, though there’s something supremely pleasing about cutting the arms off an enemy that’s reaching out to grab at your teammate; it’s also hilarious when said teammate then picks those severed limbs up and wiggles them around like wet noodles… Puppeteering the sagging jaw of a decapitated head for one another was a similarly macabre hoot, though more human interactions like simply reciprocating a wave to an online stranger or swapping weapons with one another is pleasing in itself.

Unfortunately, our time online has been hampered by spotty connections, which, coupled with a sparse selection of just five small maps (one of which is a timed PS VR exclusive), calls longevity into question for all but the most ardent highscore chasers.

When a simple horror shooter in the vein of The Brookhaven Experiment would’ve fallen so easily into place with the Killing Floor property, it’s a pleasant surprise to see Incursion go the extra mile and prove an adventurous experience more akin to Arizona Sunshine. Despite the comparisons, Incursion carves out it’s own niche by translating the Killing Floor series’ dark humour, heavy metal stylings, and sparing use of slow motion to highlight its most gloriously gory moments to a new format. On the whole, it’s an enjoyable VR shooter that unfortunately finds itself in the middle of a very crowded market.


Pros

  • Introduces the first Killing Floor story campaign
  • Holdout mode is bonkers fun
  • Gorily rewarding combat
  • Varied, detailed & iconic environments
  • Online co-op across both modes...

Cons

  • … Hampered by spotty connections
  • Clearly balanced around using teleportation, rather than free movement
  • Teleportation is needlessly limited & unattractive as a result
  • Disappointingly limited selection of weaponry compared to mainline games

7/10
1 Comment

Skies of Fury DX | Nintendo Switch | Review

9/5/2018

 
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Having started life as a free-to-play mobile title under the guise of Ace Academy: Skies of Fury, Illumination Games and Seed Interactive’s WW1 air combat game recently made its console debut on the Nintendo Switch.

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​by Liam
​Andrews

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​@liam_andrews5

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​Developer: ​Seed Interactive
Publisher: Illumination Games
Platforms: Switch
​Players: ​1-4

Now sporting a price tag and a new name - Skies of Fury DX – the game is loosely based on the Battle of Arras, in which British and German aircraft duked it out in what became known as Bloody April.

​Despite the historical influence, the game’s action is very much arcade focused, with players able to dodge enemy attacks with the press of a button and upgrade their aircraft through perks (more on them in a bit).

Skies of Fury features the same comic book-style as its mobile sibling, coupling chunky black outlines with a vibrant colour scheme. The bold visuals help give the game plenty of character as you dogfight over the patchwork fields below and fly through giant, marshmallow clouds so thick you could seemingly hop out and walk on them.

The simplistic graphics look relatively sharp in both handheld and docked mode, though in terms of performance the latter option is perhaps where the game is best enjoyed thanks to the greater level of control afforded when using a more traditional gamepad setup.

Acceleration and yaw are assigned to the left stick, while the right handles pitch/roll. The controls take some getting used to, particularly as the Joy-Cons’ relatively small sticks don’t lend themselves well to the tight turns that frequent dogfights. While a Pro Controller’s larger sticks help to alleviate this issue, the general lack of customisation options is disappointing.

​As a lefty, I found using the right stick for manoeuvring unnatural and difficult, but with no alternative control scheme available (the only customisation options are to invert Y axis and turn the rumble off) I was forced to make do. That said, due to the relatively easy nature of the campaign, adjusting wasn’t too much hassle.
​
The bold visuals help give the game plenty of character as you dogfight over the patchwork fields below and fly through giant, marshmallow clouds so thick you could seemingly hop out and walk on them.
There are optional challenges similar to the Halo series’ skulls that can be applied pre-mission to help add some level of difficulty to proceedings, without proving insurmountable, whilst the only significant downside is that you’re less likely to earn loot boxes that contain new plane skins and alternate reticule designs as you won’t be earning EXP as quickly.

Skies of Fury’s campaign is broken up into five chapters, with missions split between German and British forces. Completing all of the missions in a chapter sees you rewarded with a fresh set of comic strips that convey the game’s narrative.

​As you progress, you’re also given skill points to pick out new passive abilities to mitigate/increase incoming/outgoing damage such as faster health regeneration, larger magazines and a deadlier special attack. Another cool feature is the ability to snap up your AI allies as wingmen, adding their firepower to yours for greater damage whilst simultaneously acting as shields against incoming attacks.

​Despite the sheer number of missions available, it becomes obvious very early on that there’s a distinct lack of variety between them, with the game recycling the same dogfight, escort missions and bizarre time trials that require you to fly through a series of hoops over and over again. In addition to the lack of objective variety, no voice acting means there’s no real difference when playing as either a German or British pilot, save for the names and livery of the planes.
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Given the nature of its setting, it would have been nice to see some sort of trench-based reconnaissance or attack missions included, which the narrative suggests played an important role in the build up to the Battle of Arras. It feels like a missed opportunity considering this is supposed to be a more substantial offering than the mobile original.

Yes, there’s local multiplayer and a new survival mode which can be played cooperatively (also only locally), but the overall lack of extra polish when it comes to the game’s focal point - the campaign - drags Skies of Fury DX’s otherwise fairly enjoyable arcade action back down to Earth.

​Pros
  • Simple, pretty visuals
  • Comic strips are a nicely implemented idea
  • Add wingmen on the fly

Cons
  • Recycled mission objectives
  • Campaign is too easy
  • Lack of control customisation options

5/10​
0 Comments

Jotun: Valhalla Edition | Switch | Review

8/5/2018

 
A recently deceased viking warrior journeys across the nine realms in an attempt to impress the gods and enter Valhalla. Read on to find out what James thinks of Thunder Lotus games' Jotun: Valhalla Edition

Everyone loves a bit of Norse Mythology, right? Whether you’re enjoying the new God of War or cheering on your chisel-jawed hero Thor in Avengers: Infinity War, there's something particularly epic about that pantheon of gods.

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by James
Michael
Parry

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@James_Parry

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Developer: Thunder
Lotus Games
Publisher: Thunder
Lotus Games
Platforms: Switch, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC
​Players: 1
The Nine Realms, which you might be familiar with from the slightly unhinged work of Doctor Selvig, serve as the setting for Jotun: Valhalla Edition, the portable port of Thunder Lotus Games’ (Sundered) debut title.

Though they do traditionally come in nines, the realms on offer here are a mere five levels and a big bad final boss encounter. The end-of-level bosses take the form of the titular Jotun, destructive colossi which often draw their strength from the elements, be that ice, wind or fire.

Unlike the other titan-toppler we played this week, Extinction, there's plenty of variety on offer here. From the range of environments, driven by exploration and puzzle-solving rather than combat, for the most part, to the Jotun themselves, each requiring different tactics and cunning employment of the powers of the gods to finally take down.

That's right, the gods are on your side as you try to rid the world of these lumbering embodiments of evil. You might have the simple (and crucial) ability to get back some health or imbue your weapon with the power of Thor's lightning to deal more damage, and all such skills are invaluable as challenging Jotun battles push you to the limit.

​Loki, the coolest god in my humble opinion, gets the handiest power - dropping a decoy for foolish baddies to toil against for a few seconds before it engulfs them in an explosion. Always satisfying.

Taking out Jotun can be less than satisfying on occasion however, as the game doesn't do a great job of establishing the rules of an encounter through their behaviour. All of them have a suite of attacks that after a few tries you learn the timings of, but the significance of the stages themselves, whether that's lightning rods or arena-supporting pillars, aren't explained at all, leaving you to fend for yourself.
Unlike the other titan-toppler we played this week, Extinction, there's plenty of variety on offer here. 
While keeping the challenge level high might goade some players on, this combined with the limited dodge range of your character (in fact the dodge itself is almost as slow as normal movement) can start to see frustration build.

Other times, the beautiful hand-drawn art style and animations can prove to be a hazard, as enemies fall and catch you in their wake when you feel as though you should be free and clear.

The final twist of the knife is the camera, which often zooms far far out, to Below-esque levels of distant appreciation, to show you the points of interest in the scene, but, again, often at the expense of your character's wellbeing.

All in all then, the intrigue of Jotun will keep pulling you through, and, being a portable game on this particular platform, finds itself well suited for quick bursts while trundling along on a train. There's little to bring you back once your quest is done, with only the extra hard Valhalla mode left to tax the most dedicated players. At journey’s end your character might not have much of an emotional arc, but there's variety here to keep you occupied without outstaying its welcome.

Pros


  • Well-presented art style looks right at home on the Switch
  • Great satisfaction in besting a beasty
  • ​Environmental puzzles are simple, but effective

Cons

  • Bosses frustrate rather than teach with failure
  • Camera and perspective can sabotage you
  • Little replay value or reward for exploring

7/10
0 Comments


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