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Redeemer: Enhanced Edition | Xbox One | Review

30/7/2019

 
Redeemer: Enhanced Edition | Xbox One | Review - Pass the Controller

There's something quite satisfying about pulverising someone with a large axe. While Redeemer (the prettier Enhanced Edition, in this case) isn't the first game to offer that combat experience, it is an experience which defines it, or at least the broad strokes of its main character Vasily, who utilises elaborate melee strikes and environmental executions to deal devastating killing blows.

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​ by James
 Michael
​ Parry

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@James_Parry

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Developer: Sobaka
Studio
Publisher: Buka
Entertainment
Platforms: Xbox One,
PlayStation 4, Switch, PC
Players: 1
Vasily himself has a sense of tragedy about him, conveying echoes of a past with John Wick-like beats to it. He initially seems to have ditched his troubled life to see his time out with a quiet existence in the mountains, only to then be drawn back in when he's discovered by a shadowy corporation. We're only ever given short animated glimpses into his motivations, though, offering little reason to really connect with the character. In fact, on the face of it, Vasily comes across as a watered down version of Kratos from God of War in many ways.

You’ll guide watered-down Kratos through labyrinthine corridors, which come to feel repetitive quickly but are littered with neat little details, such as enemies getting up to mischief just outside of the gameplay area. Additionally, environments are littered with fuse boxes, spiked walls, statues and pillars which you can use to execute enemies, cutting even some of their harshest ranks down in one hit.

The animations thereof are satisfying and, provided you don't zoom the tight isometric camera in too closely, quite impressive. As things progress, enemy numbers are something which not only start to push the game technically - even on Xbox One X - but feel like a cheap way to ramp up the level of challenge, making it more satisfying (and closer to the intended feel, we’re sure) to knock the difficulty level down a peg in order to power onwards.

​​You’re given a range of scrolls, perks and upgrades to boost your moveset, but keeping track of what does what is tricky, and, other than perhaps move unlocks, the buffs don't jump out as particularly game-changing. As a result, gameplay fails to significantly develop as Redeemer plods along, further hindered by the fact that new enemies are introduced as standout mid-bosses before being tarnished when they’re subsequently thrown at you in their droves.
Melee weapons quickly degrade too, leading to a map littered with half-broken hatchets and electric batons which are largely interchangeable, but crucial to dismantling some of the larger enemies. There are guns on offer as well, but they’re often difficult to use at range due to the aforementioned camera perspective.

Overall, while Redeemer: Enhanced Edition might be a fun way to pass the time on your commute (should you opt for the Switch version), it's difficult to wholeheartedly recommend you devote your time to it at home.

Pros

  • Brutal, savage takedowns
  • Clearing a room with multi-kills is satisfying
  • Some endearing set dressing

Cons

  • Repetitive gameplay and environments
  • Characters and enemies show little personality
  • Largely redundant progression system

6/10
0 Comments

Tinymetal: Full Metal Rumble | Nintendo Switch | Review

26/7/2019

 
Tinymetal: Full Metal Rumble | Nintendo Switch | Review - Pass the Controller

​The world of strategy has been simmering away under the surface of the mainstream for a few years now. Long since the heyday of Westwood Studios, which ruled the real-time strategy genre with its Command & Conquer and Red Alert series, it’s been turn-based games which have been all the rage, thanks to the rise of Firaxis’ excellent XCOM revivals.

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​by James
Michael
​Parry

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@James_Parry

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Developer: Area 35
Publisher: Area 34
Platforms: Switch,
Steam
Players: 1 - 2
Between the two eras was nestled a little gem - Advanced Wars on Nintendo DS - and its from that franchise which Tiny Metal: Full Metal Rumble draws the most inspiration. Not just from the look and the two different viewpoints you’ll encounter (one for movement and one for battles), but even the units and its futuristic, Japanese parody of US military bravado.

There’s a lot to take in from the get go, especially for those who aren’t Advanced Wars acquainted, so initially games can feel slow to get going. After a couple of campaign missions - which attempt to trickle in elements at a slow pace, but seem to tutorialise them the mission after you really need them - things pick up as more diverse unit options are introduced to bolster your arsenal, but also the tactical range of your enemy.

Units themselves have some character, cheerily riling off their canned lines as they move and attack, with the most personality saved for the 16 hero units, who carry their progression between battles. The generals too each have their own colour scheme, but besides from a fairly straightforward superpower a piece, which might boost attack power and capture speed for a couple of turns, aren’t as exciting in their own right.

​​While there’s a cost for producing new units in the game, all take just a single turn to appear, leaving you to decide which factory to spring a tank (known as a Metal) from for maximum tactical advantage. Learning which units can attack which takes time, making the difficulty curve not exactly steep but bumpy, and it takes a while for games to feel satisfying as you’re rapidly surrounded in the early game.
Soon, such is your efficiency at producing and preserving units, either by merging wounded squads or healing them at a player-owned city or facility, you’ll quickly find the map overrun and units begin to block each other from moving around effectively, leading to a major risk of bottlenecks if you aren’t too careful.

While the game works well in docked mode, this title has more of a handheld feel, and the turn-based nature lends itself to pulling it out for a few stops on the bus or morning train commute. Matches themselves, even early in the campaign, can easily last over half an hour a piece as games run across 15 or 20 in-game days (or turns) before one team’s HQ is ultimately vanquished.

Tinymetal’s music is fairly unmemorable and doesn’t get across the sort of drama and excitement you might hope for, especially compared to some of those iconic Red Alert or XCOM tunes. It should be noted that we haven’t unlocked the additional tracks with in-game currency, however. Visually, it’s fairly straightforward, but certainly more stylised, exciting and accessible than the somewhat similar Tiny Troopers Joint Ops XL.
Those looking to scratch a strategy itch won’t be disappointed here, with fun and games to be had for a budget-friendly asking price, but the repetition of the experience will start to grate for some before too long.

On top of the main campaign there’s Skirmish, where you battle AI using custom maps and settings, and also an online multiplayer component - but seemingly one too sparsely populated to find a game, even during peak hours.

In the end, Tinymetal: Full Metal Rumble on Switch is a fun little way to spend some portable gaming time, but doesn’t do too much to be exciting or bring a new twist to the genre or platform. There’s little to master, other than the patience for slow-moving and resource-limited units, but there’s still something endearing and easy to enjoy about the game.

Pros
​
  • Nice aesthetic brings the battlefield to life
  • ​Isometric blocks hiding the fog of war present challenging sightlines
  • A multitude of accents and quirks do enough to make units interesting

Cons

  • Hero units aren’t the silver bullet they’re made out to be
  • Repetition can set in quickly
  • Online multiplayer is barren

7/10
0 Comments

Etherborn | Xbox One | Review

18/7/2019

 
Etherborn | Xbox One | Review - Pass the Controller

Three months ago we previewed Etherborn and opined that the indie debut from Altered Matter - helped to fruition by FoxNext and investors on crowdfunding platform Fig - looked set to impress when the full game landed. Now it’s here; an excellent puzzle-platformer which ignores the laws of gravity, requiring you to throw out conventional logic in order to wrap your head (and featureless in-game avatar) around its brain-teasing levels.

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by Sam Sant

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@SlamShotSam


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Developer: Altered
Matter

Publisher: Altered
Matter

Platforms: Xbox
​One, PS4, Switch, PC
​(Steam)

Players: 1
The voiceless, translucent humanoid you control is born - ethereally so - into a visually immaculate, minimalist world where truly 3D stages are suspended against colourful backdrops of nothingness. As you come to appreciate the elegant visuals, inspired by 20-21st century art, the sultry tone of a disembodied female voice beckons you. Seeking its source is the only way to discover your purpose.

Since there aren’t any hints or HUD element to speak of, getting there is a learning experience, and that’s no bad thing - you’ll more firmly grasp Etherborn’s genius mechanics when you parse them for yourself. Through experimentation and some early deaths, players learn that the effects of gravity apply perpendicular to the surface they’re currently standing on, demolishing the concept of any ‘correct’ global orientation.

With this new perspective in mind, you learn to read environments differently in both obvious and subtle ways, like watching for smooth corner transitions to allow for switching gravity’s axis by walking across shear surfaces, or recognising that you’ll need to snake all the way around a level to reach a location right in front of you. Uniquely, stages must be approached as structures which you manipulate yourself over, under and around.

Etherborn isn’t a game where puzzles are a brief aside that mostly serve to control pacing, rather it is in itself one large-scale problem to solve. With so many modern games simply handing out answers, it can be frustrating when an outlier refuses to stroke your ego, but Altered Matter nip that potential problem in the bud by having every asset project serenity and almost hypnotise the player into a meditative state of calm.

The relaxed mindset it encourages - further helped along by the fact that there are no distracting collectibles or secondary objectives to consider - allows you to ignore any inhibitions and try the sorts of unconventional solutions years of gaming have likely conditioned you to assume won't work - only, in this instance, they more often than not do.
Etherborn isn’t a game where puzzles are a brief aside that mostly serve to control pacing, rather it is in itself one large-scale problem to solve.
Based on our early look at Etherborn, which we now know featured quite a large portion of the game, we wondered aloud how it might evolve in terms of its structure. There are only two additional stages in the final product, both built around the same concept of using light orbs tucked away within them to transform the landscape and allow for your passage. Much the same then, but not disparagingly so, since aesthetic diversity partners with a greater focus on platforming elements and more sprawling real estate to keep things engaging right to the end.

So engaging as to warrant an immediate second playthrough, in fact. Game + mode takes place across the same suite of levels, but the light orbs within them are now deviously concealed from view. This is the first time you’ll really need to manipulate the camera, which closely tracks your movements on an initial playthrough in order to help guide you, whereas in Game + those viewpoints are utilised to mask solutions instead. Again, it’s hard to protest it being unfair that something is hidden off-screen when at the same time you’re serenaded by Etherborn’s gorgeous, equilibrium-maintaining soundtrack.
Our preview also left us with an impression of the game’s story we deemed “vague and introspect”, based essentially on its first half. Having now seen it through, the narrative is largely open to interpretation, but does a good job of getting its abstract concepts across. Our take? A sombre and gleeful exploration of the eternal struggles of the human mind. Fitting, as the game being an effective form of meditation means it also doubles as mental medication.

Etherborn is poignant and not precisely like any other game, perhaps feeling closest to Tetsuya Mizuguchi’s focused body of work (Rez, Child of Eden, Tetris Effect) in the flow state it so easily elicits. It’s a thoroughly lovely, meditative experience that’ll have you sink deep into your seat and slow your breathing while exploring the 3D environments in all of their dimensions. It’s outstandingly clever and effortlessly spellbinding, despite the work it no doubt took the talented team at Altered Matter to get there.

Pros

  • Ingenious level and integrated puzzle design
  • Gorgeously minimalistic art
  • Warm, soothing soundtrack and voice acting
  • Beneficial to mental health and acuity
  • Game + is a good means of extending longevity...

Cons

  • … Yet it’s still over all too quickly

9/10


For more on Etherborn, check out our interview with the game's Creative Director, Samuel Cohen.
0 Comments

Chippy | PC (Steam) | Review

4/7/2019

 
Chippy | PC (Steam) | Review - Pass the Controller

Mention the word “chippy” to someone in the UK and you’ll most likely induce mouth-watering thoughts of battered cod, mushy peas and chips drenched in salt ‘n’ vinegar. Having spent some time with Rust developer Facepunch Studios’ latest effort, however, the word now conjures up delicious memories of epic boss battles, as well as deep fried fish.

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by Liam
Andrews

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@liam_andrews5

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Developer: Facepunch Studios
Publisher: Facepunch Studios
Platform: PC (Steam)
Players: 1

Chippy is a twin-stick bullet-hell shooter in which you control a small ship that, apart from the big googly eye at its centre, looks like it could’ve leapt right out of an Asteroids arcade machine. With this endearing little fella, you take on a series of bosses (14 in total) in top-down encounters. 

​The first boss you fight serves as little more than a glorified tutorial, introducing players to Chippy’s basic gameplay mechanics and features. Here, you’ll learn how to de-limb the large, labyrinthine-like creatures by – and you’ll see what they did here – chipping away at pixelated weak points to expose protected cores, all the while avoiding both targeted and area of effect attacks. Like one of those adult colouring books it’s a simple premise, but surprisingly gratifying.

You’re also shown how to use power-ups to your advantage, earned through either destroying cores or via pick-ups that appear randomly. These perks are usually handed out in pairs, with the player only allowed to collect one or the other, and can often mean the difference between victory or defeat.

With it only taking a single hit to destroy your ship, shields, which allow you to absorb slightly more damage, were our perk of choice, though there are others, both passive and non, that are equally effective in certain situations. Learning what function each power-up serves takes a bit of trial and error, with some - like slo-mo, canon and double gun - being self-explanatory, while others - such as blink and fade - were less so, leading to some unfortunate early deaths.
You can ‘hijack’ replays, letting you take control and practice a specific phase of a fight. It’s a fantastic idea and a feature that should be the new standard in future boss rush games.
Occasionally, bosses will throw out power-ups surrounded by a red hue. Grabbing one of these glowing orbs grants the ability within, but also surrounds your ship with an encircling wall of death that’s very tricky to avoid, introducing a further risk-versus-reward element to collecting pick-ups.

​Boss fights are multi-staged encounters that have you duking it out with at least two versions of your opponent, with the difficulty, intensity and scale of enemies ramping up after every successive victory. And boy, do things get tough. Enemies eventually fill the small, square battlefield with a dizzying, hypnotic mass of projectiles in an attempt to stop you. Dying is something you’ll be doing a lot in Chippy, but respawning is instant, and each failure is more a learning opportunity than a frustrating setback.

If you do find yourself completely stuck – as we did during one particularly gruelling fight with a boss that could regrow its missing tentacles and cores – scrolling up through the leaderboards and watching the readily available replays of top players is a rather neat way of learning how to beat tougher enemies. By mirroring the fastest player’s technique, we went from utterly hopeless to 15th in the global leaderboards in less than an hour.
You can even ‘hijack’ a replay at any moment, letting you take control and practice a specific phase of a fight without having to put in the work beforehand. It’s a fantastic idea and a feature that we think should be the new standard in future boss rush games.

While most bosses share similar fundamentals – destroy or remove multiple secondary cores as quickly as possible whilst avoiding attacks to expose a larger, central core – there are occasional outliers, such as a fight that has you surviving waves of minions while automated lasers drill through their leader’s thick shields, which help to keep things fresh.

Facepunch have also done a decent job of imparting character and personality - there’s a very creepy maggot-like creature, for example - to what are essentially sentient mazes through just a few lines of text. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said of the arenas that house them, with the same plain black backdrop used for fights regardless of the type of environment bosses are supposed to inhabit.

​Even if, like this reviewer, you’re not that into bullet-hell or boss rush games (despite having also enjoyed Furi), we’d recommend you try Chippy. While we’d love to see the game reach additional platforms, it’s inexpensive and doesn’t require a top-tier gaming PC to run. It might be tough as nails in places, to an almost daunting extent, but it’s also exhaustingly moreish and incredibly satisfying. Like any good chippy, really.

Pros

  • Addictive, satisfying gameplay
  • Instant respawning avoids potential frustration
  • Superb audio on the whole
  • Leaderboard replays and the excellent hijack feature help to overcome tough fights

Cons

  • Arenas lack personality
  • Some deaths feel cheap
  • Initially confusing power-ups
  • Where’s the Switch version?!

8/10​
0 Comments

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night | Xbox One | Review

2/7/2019

 
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night | Xbox One | Review - Pass the Controller

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is a triumph. Crowdfunded to the tune of more than $5.5 million at the height of the Kickstarter craze, many of its peers released to lukewarm critical and commercial reception, but Koji Igarashi and company took the extra time to produce something truly special.

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by Sam Sant

Picture

@SlamShotSam


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Developer: ArtPlay
Publisher: 505 Games
Platforms: Xbox
​One, PS4, Switch, PC
​(Steam)

Players: 1
After Konami made it transparent they weren’t interested in reviving the legendary Castlevania franchise, series pioneer Igarashi took the proverbial ball and ran with it. Having secured his funding goal more than eleven times over, he assembled a team and began work on the Castlevania: Symphony of the Night spiritual successor that the people wanted and Konami refused to make. Seemingly very little changed in the transition, as Bloodstained is essentially a Castlevania game in all but name.

As you might expect, Ritual of the Night is a traditional metroidvania - also dubbed an ‘Igavania’ in honour of Igarashi - which builds on last year’s more linear retro prequel, Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon. You play as Miriam, one of that game’s optionally recruitable protagonists, now intricately realised in 3D as she sets out to rid the world of demons summoned by a dark ritual.

Miriam is a Shardbinder, one of the last two remaining humans capable of harnessing demonic power; these powers manifest in-game as a wide variety of active and passive abilities, now capable of being turned against the denizens of Hell. By building up an arsenal, you’ll be able to deeper infiltrate the gothic castle at the core of Bloodstained and ultimately defeat the other, vampiric Shardbinder that uses his powers for evil. Sounds kinda familiar, huh?

It boils down very simply, but there’s a surprising level of focus placed on the narrative here, which is fleshed out with plenty of cutscenes and hammy dialogue exchanges (in your choice of English or Japanese) between the main cast. Throw in some text-based lore and the story manages to reach the realms of mild intrigue, which is actually somewhat of a compliment, considering the genre.
Igavania? More like egovania, amirite? ... Seriously though, Igarashi (above) is one of the greats!
​Gameplay has always been the bread and butter of metroidvania games, and Ritual of the Night certainly doesn’t disappoint on that front. Largely it’s very familiar in that you travel an enormous, satisfyingly interconnected map collecting new abilities - such as the power to fire yourself through narrow gaps like a ricocheting bullet - which in turn grant access to new areas. The well-established gameplay loop is incredibly moreish when executed in exacting fashion, as it is here, almost defying you to leave any small segment of the map unexplored.

From torchlit castle halls to moonlit cathedral towers, to dank sewers and myriad exotic locales beyond, a wide range of seemingly disparate areas are convincingly tied together by a unified aesthetic and intelligent, looping shortcuts. You’ll get to know the world of Bloodstained quite intimately as you backtrack to solve puzzles you’ve since discovered the answers to, or to reach designated save and fast travel rooms, which never becomes a chore.

That’s thanks not just to the exquisite 2.5D level design, but the tight platforming and deep combat systems you’ll engage with along the way. Miriam can acquire and equip outfits and weapons throughout her journey, the former of which offer various stat boosts and aesthetic changes when items are worn on the head, while the latter can completely change how the game plays.

Depending on preference you might opt for the greater range of a whip or a spear, the close-quarters finesse of a dagger, the balance of a one-handed sword, or the brute force of a laboured greataxe swing. That’s not to mention firearms and their different ammo types. Every harebrained enemy - be it a frog, a dragon, or a scissor-handed marionette straight outta Devil May Cry - has their share of quantifiable strengths and weaknesses, so it makes sense to switch things up on the regular. If you can master enemy attack patterns and Miriam’s graceful backstep dodge, as well as the necessary timing and spacing for your favourite weapons, hostile encounters become akin to dance.
An undisputed retro classic made modern, without sacrificing an ounce of appeal or introducing current industry ailments.
Combat has incredible nuance for those who seek to discover it, be that in hidden techniques for specific weapons, attack hit boxes that extend behind and/or directly above your person dependant on the animation, or the realisation that a weapon might be doubly efficient when used while crouched. A small complaint would be that once you do grow proficient, due to normal difficulty being the only option available on an initial playthrough, bosses especially go from an engaging challenge to a complete cakewalk. That and the game's technical performance can take a big hit when your screen-filling, death-dealing prowess matches theirs.

​
If you’re all about preserving the challenge, limiting your selection of Shards would be a good start. These crystallised forms of demon power randomly drop from enemies and tend to either grant access to one of their abilities or allow you to summon the relevant beast to fight alongside you temporarily. You can equip quite a few at once and they’re more often than not very potent, theoretically balanced out by limiting their use with a mana resource, but, unlike health, mana automatically regenerates over time so there’s little reason not to make liberal use of them. 

​Familiars are ever-present AI helpers that don’t consume mana, even auto-levelling alongside the leading lady, whilst elsewhere upgrades are carried out via a vendor at a peaceful hub location. Here you can buy/sell and cook/craft using materials most often discovered in chests, dropped by defeated enemies, or gifted as rewards for completing optional side quests.
With Hideo Kojima's Death Stranding also releasing in 2019, we wonder if Konami are feeling ashamed of their words and deeds...
Somewhat uncharacteristically, we’ve been loving the grind to gather ingredients, cook and consume all of the game’s recipes in order to claim their permanent stat increases, perhaps because it’s a simple pleasure to spend time in the Bloodstained universe. Another uncharacteristic find, at least for me personally, is the appreciation of quite an anime visual style; I’m coming around to the character models, but the colourful backdrops evoking the game’s stained glass motif I universally adore! More predictable is our love of the orchestral soundtrack, looping and grandiose in its modern interpretation of catchy retro classics.

In fact, that sums Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night up pretty well - an undisputed retro classic made modern, without sacrificing an ounce of appeal or introducing current industry ailments in the process. There’s a lot of game here, and it’s so compelling in its mechanics and audiovisuals that you’ll want to drain every last drop from the experience like a vampire affixed to its succulent neck.

Pros

  • Castlevania is (basically) back
  • Lavishly interconnected environments to discover and explore
  • Vast array of tools and enemies imbue combat with a similar sense of discovery
  • Beautiful overall presentation
  • Crowdfunded project that took the time to give backers exactly what they pledged towards 

Cons

  • Frame drops during busier moments, even on Xbox One X
  • First playthrough is limited to normal difficulty
  • Characters and story are just half decent for the screen time they’re given

9/10
0 Comments


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