Hogwarts Legacy review | PS520/2/2023 After 11 films, multiple theme parks and countless games, the wizarding world of Harry Potter needs no introduction, and the release of Hogwarts Legacy has, hardly surprisingly, been hotly anticipated by franchise fans worldwide. With great anticipation comes high expectations however, and to bring the world of magic alive in a way which feels immersive and brings players the sense of joy and wonder they’ve come to associate with the franchise as a whole is no mean feat. It’s exploration where the game puts its best food forward however, as you walk the perhaps familiar streets of Hogsmeade or step into The Great Hall and stare up at its enchanted ceiling for the first time, a wave of nostalgia pushes you to explore further. Even unfamiliar areas have little touches of environmental design which almost convince you they were put there just for you. Hogwarts feels as sprawling as the films and books before them have shown, but the level of decoration and fidelity in some of the textures and small details really shine... While the story doesn’t really delve into who your character is, other than they are special, the game starts dark and only gets darker, with the cancellation of Quidditch an early indication of the sinister events to come. Narratively, the goblin rebellion takes centre stage, and the game revels in delivering a wink and a nod along with its history, giving familiar characters’ surnames to the ancestors of our favourites, since the game is set in 1890 – long before both He Who Must Not Be Named and Grindlewald. Not having familiar faces around lets the game stand on its own though, and is a really good move on the part of developers Avalanche. Their version of Hogwarts feels as sprawling as the films and books before them have indicated, but the level of decoration and fidelity in some of the textures and small details really shine. It’s fair to say the titular school definitely got the lion’s (or hippogriff’s?) share of the effort however, as some of the countryside feels a little sparse and repetitive as, understandably, few locations are as memorable as Hogsmede or Hogwarts. The visit to Azkeban, exclusive to players who are sorted into Hufflepuff – which I hopefully don’t need to tell you is one of the school’s four houses – is a little underwhelming, but feels like a location that could be built out with story DLC which sees you called to help a mass breakout, Arkham Asylum style. Other areas where the game falls short are some of the quality of life options which you feel as though are expected these days. For example, the game’s gear system, which lets you equip a collection of different outfit pieces, to give you buffs to attack and defence, can’t be hidden in dialogue, which can undercut your character’s concern as they nod solemnly in a huge, fancy top hat the Mad Hatter would be envious of. Dialogue in general could be a little tighter. Professor Fig, the main quest-giver and your mentor at school, feels well fleshed-out, but other characters have voicelines which have a hamminess, only exaggerated further by their over-the-top or just stereotypical delivery, which can cause some characters to grate pretty quickly. Early on, you’re given the impression one or two students would often be accompanying you on your travels, and especially in the schools underground-but-everyone-knows-about-it dualling wands club, but after a quest with individuals their appearances are few and far-between, possibly to avoid comparisons to the original Potter trio. When you do interact, you’re given options of how to respond, usually straight or sassy, but the outcomes are inconsequential. Perhaps a full morality system and branching dialogue and experience trees might be a bit much to ask for from a game already stuffed to the brim with systems and sub-systems, but something to give your character’s actions more weight wouldn’t go amiss. In terms of technical performance, the PS5 handled the game’s dense environment well despite us pushing it with full HDR settings. Occasionally, your character isn’t very well-lit in dialogue, for example, and now and again you’ll get caught on some terrain or find yourself waiting for the room to load behind a giant castle door, but for an open world with flying incorporated the navigation ought to be a nightmare, so to find it is surprisingly good is a pleasant surprise. Speaking of flying, the pure fun of just zipping around the grounds, looking to the beautiful horizon as the light reflects off the lake can’t be overstated. Broom flight, and, later, beast flight, in general does seem underused, though at the same time if it was more integral it could derail less experienced players, as the controls certainly take some getting used to. As a great way to explore, and just a fun way to pass the time, just pick a floo flame – the game’s version of fast travel points – on the map and hop on the broom and head over to it to see what you can uncover. Occasionally you’ll find yourself exploring a ruin which ends up being used in a later quest, but usually it’s just interesting to see what potion ingredients, magical beasts or enemies you discover along the way. There’s an awful lot to consider, as we haven’t even talked about the Room of Requirement, which gives you a sandbox to conjure items and brew potions, or the puzzle minigames which unlock stashes of gear around the castle, but if you want to know what Hogwarts Legacy is like to play, then it gives you a little bit of everything you’ve ever wanted from a game set in the Wizarding World.
It won’t be for everyone, and it doesn’t feel like a truly unique experience which redefines gaming – in fact you can see the influences showing through fairly overtly, from the Destiny aesthetic to menus, Dragon Age 2 in the combat and UI, Mass Effect or Skyrim with its approach to quests and dialogue and even BioShock in some of the minigames, but it’s the first time we’ve seen these elements brewed up in quite this way. Given how difficult it is to tie in a franchise with a game, especially one which is such a worldwide phenomenon, it’s hard to see how the team could have done a better job, fundamentally at least. This won’t be the last we hear from the Wizarding World, but it’s sure to be the yardstick used to measure all other Potter-relating gaming content against for many years to come. Pros
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9/10 A note on J.K. Rowling: While the creator of Harry Potter was reportedly not involved in the creation of the game, it didn’t seem right to put this piece out without acknowledging that by making the decision to purchase and cover this game, I made a choice which does, however indirectly, financially support her and, by association, her views. This hopefully goes without saying, but neither myself or anyone at Pass the Controller condones her outspoken views on gender, equality or feminism. Hopefully anyone part of or linked to the Trans community will appreciate that the decision to cover the game wasn’t taken lightly. We set sail with the Ship of Fools for a roguelite, 2D animated adventure where you'll need to have your wits about you to protect the seas. Join us as we take the game for a quickie. What is the gameplay like then?Your “run”, to use the official term (as I understand it) is a journey which involved plotting a course across a hexagonal game board, where the impending darkness moves towards you every few turns from the far side. In each tile you will encounter either a fight, a reward, both or sometimes nothing at all. There’s a random element, in that the board changes for each run, and when (not if) you are defeated you are washed back ashore to try again. The game is a “roguelite”, rather than roguelike, so it is a little more approachable, and less punishing that the likes of Hades or Dead Cells, and the art style helps to make it feel friendlier, without being nightmare fuel like The Binding of Isaac. Over time you will earn resources to upgrade your ship, improving the guns and hull integrity, gradually making better progress Sounds quite tough... As you might expect the co-op element helps considerably, if only because you aren’t the only person being targeted, but really it’s your ship you need to keep an eye on, since while you getting attacked will only slow you down, your ship getting beaten up will lead you to a watery end. Fortunately there are reprieves in the form of not only special soups which you can have cooked up for you before you begin your expedition, but also resources which are dropped by enemies which you can harpoon onto the ship to collect. You have to be quick though, as there’s always a lot going on at once. On top of that, you’ll find trinkets, artefacts and other items which give perks, like a chance to inflict flame damage, but be warned. You’ll lose these when your ship sinks, so enjoy them while you can. Was there anything you weren’t a fan of? I suppose in terms of the tone maybe from the name I was expecting more humour, or more out-and-out comedy? But really it doesn’t detract from the gameplay at all, and who knows what humorous delights lie in wait at journey’s end. So, what do you think of the game?I think Ship of Fools is extremely strong. The visual style is endearing immediately and its world is fun to explore. The controls are really approachable and easy to pick up and play, and the best way to do that is in co-op.
If you’re only going to play alone then it’s harder to recommend, but still worth trying out. Just know that it will feel even more frantic than when you have help. Ship of Fools is a quality indie which does what it says on the tin and as long as you know what you’re getting yourself in for then it’s a really good time. Verdict: Would recommend Pentiment review | Xbox Series X|S14/11/2022 The phrase “the pen is mightier than the sword” may never have been a more apt phrase than in the world of Pentiment. In this text, or rather written serif script-based adventure, you will be challenged to embody the mind of an artist through his life in the fictional German town of Tassing, as he takes it upon himself to help solve a mysterious murder. Fortunately, if you do find the old-fashioned text hard to read, there is an option to simplify it, though it would be a shame to miss out on the characterisations you can feel through the way the lettering is presented alone. It turns out finding a murder suspect isn’t so easy, and you can only really complete one investigative task at each point of the day before you’re moved on to a meal or off to bed. Sometimes a single dialogue choice can have major consequences later, sometimes years down the line as time marches on through the story. Pentiment is both approachable and engaging, very much a narrative adventure rather than a complex, sprawling one, but don’t let that fool you into thinking it’s simple... The biggest frustration we found was realising only in retrospect that we’d missed an opportunity when we are greeted with the text “this will be remembered” after making a, often quite difficult, choice. What it does mean though is that in almost every interaction you feel as though you have to keep your wits about you, even though generally you can see the spectrum of opinion on an issue or the variety in harshness of a response by a consistent use of dialogue presentation. Sometimes choices will be accompanied by a symbol, relating to an element of Andreas’ background or skills, which at times can prove to be a great way to take a conversation into a unique direction, at others it is a shortcut to aggravating other characters and even causing you to fail decision-based crucial moments, where you’ll see how your choices stack up on screen to have characters either help you or shut you out. Quickly you learn to be careful with the passage of time, to avoid missing opportunities to press people further, but you’re well into the game before you really feel like you’re really getting the hang of it. When you finally do reach the point where you’re making accusations, it’s hard to feel confident that you truly have all the facts, or that there aren’t still more suspects to be uncovered. Still, the challenge keeps you invested all the way through, and through dream sequences you even get to examine the psyche of your heroic artist by speaking to different elements of his subconscious, as well as vague memories of his home life, which he tends not to talk too much about.
Pentiment is both approachable and engaging, very much a narrative adventure rather than a complex, sprawling one, but don’t let that fool you into thinking it’s simple. The layers of stories here are tightly woven, and it will take a fair few playthroughs to convince you you’ve explored every avenue of the tale. There’s certainly not a game like it, and with it free on Game Pass from day one, it feels like an experience that every Xbox owner should at least give a try. Pros
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9/10 There’s something about turn-based battles which make you feel like you’re being tactical. Perhaps it goes back to our younger days of playing Civilization II, where, frequently outsmarted by the AI and ambushed from multiple sides at once, the methodical, considered attempt at strategy was, at least, reassuring.
There’s also a voice for our favourite floating Roomba, Beep-o, which is a little too eccentric for our taste, though the performance for the new spaceship’s AI (more on that in a moment), Jeanie, who acts as a tutorial for new players, is spot on. The gameplay itself is a series of turn-based battles with various enemies on a set board where you have a variety of objectives from simply defeating enemies to destroying large, creepy Darkmess eyes, formed by the space ray’s inky, gooey impact on the world. Movement is more free than it was before, as you can move anywhere in a set space at any point throughout your turn, which might let you dash attack an enemy and then throw them at another for additional damage. the developers have taken chances by changing things rather than just warming up a five-year-old game... One way this makes it a little harder than before is that your characters don’t snap to cover as strongly as they did before, so it can be difficult to know if you’re in the right place or not. Previously while the movement could feel a little rigid, that structure made your movements feel very deliberate. The benefit is that your characters feel more flexible and it makes you think about moving them at different times to make the most of your various abilities. Speaking of which, hero abilities also make a welcome return, offering up special moves on a several turn cooldown, but here there’s also the Sparks themselves, which you can slot into each character to provide another limited-time active buff and a continuous passive buff. With 30 to discover in the game and recruit to your team, it offers a lot more variety when combining them with different team members. For example, one Spark called Aquanox gives your weapons water damage and a splash effect which knocks enemies back. This makes them particularly nasty for, you guessed it, fire-type foes, as well as making your team member immune from the splash effect themselves. Weapons have had a spruce up as well. Instead of damage increasing as you unlock new skins, which are now in their own menu, and the characters’ ability points deal with damage as well as all manner of other upgrades like movement and abilities. Each of your favourites have new weapons to get to grips with, which have a bit more variety and help give each character their own strengths and weaknesses. Luigi is still a long-range specialist, but has swapped his sniper rifle for a bow, while Rabbid Mario now has a pair of gauntlets rather than a basic shotgun. Enemies too have changed, leaning into the elemental variations offered by the Sparks and levels rather than feeling like just reskinned variants from other locations. Progressing through the game is still linear but with a series of hub world sections, similar to a traditional Mario title, which disrupts the environmental storytelling which was one of the highlights of exploring locations last time around. It’s still here, to an extent, but not knowing what order you’ll come to certain things means it doesn’t gel as much with the action you’re taking. You’ll also find random encounters, which can sometimes be avoided if you’re quick enough, but often need to be tackled to complete side objectives and collect planet coins, which then let you unlock not only a secret bonus area, but different cosmetic options specific to that world. To make the most of a game like this you need to feel like it’s operating at the right difficulty level. Fortunately here you can adjust the settings at the beginning of each encounter, whether that’s respec-ing your character or taking the enemy aggression down. This should prove to make the game as a whole more approachable and fun to play with youngsters, who will no doubt appreciate the effective use of a colourful, cartoony presentation. It might not quite be the Mario + Rabbids game we remember fondly, but there’s a good sprinkling of new ideas to be found here, and the teams at Ubisoft Milan and Ubisoft Paris have taken chances by changing things rather than just warming up a five-year-old game. There’s a lot of replayability, with a huge number of combinations of team members, weapons and Sparks to use, and, most importantly, the battles themselves are both fun and really satisfying to finish. Even the levels, despite falling into familiar tropes here and there, use verticality and environmental details to keep things interesting all the way through.
If you’ve been hankering for some silly fun and games, especially on the go with the portable power of the Switch, then look no further. Pros
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9/10 Gotham Knights review | PlayStation 524/10/2022 Let’s get this out of the way first. It’s difficult to avoid comparisons to Batman Arkham games at the best of times in a third-person superhero game, let alone one that not only features but starts its story with Batman, so how does it hold up? There are random events going on in the world, like armoured car heists or citizens being mugged, but rather than keeping track of them in your phone like you do in the Insomniac Spider-Man games, you’re instead forced to throw up the full map from the bat computer each time, breaking the immersion. There is a quick reference list you can use to check what investigations are ongoing, but the game seems to put a lot of onus on you finding these things, particularly individual hero challenges, for yourself, with the option to add a waypoint feeling like a bit of an afterthought, and you can only do one at a time. ...it feels like, on occasion, just running around aimlessly in the city, interrogating people almost at random is the only course of action... Following up leads and studying the evidence board feels well thought-out in the introduction, but once you are into proper missions it isn’t clear which pieces of evidence are active and actionable and which are just there to remind you of important details from earlier missions. While we would have found just being handed a series of simple steps too elementary to feel like a true detective, here it just doesn’t feel like it comes together, and it feels like, on occasion, just running around aimlessly in the city, interrogating people almost at random is the only course of action. If we were given general areas to explore for clues and more detail, it may have felt more natural – or perhaps we were and it just all hasn’t come across clearly enough. Travelling around Gotham falls to the Batcycle, since traversal abilities for each character are unlocked, rather than available from the beginning like Batman’s glide, which really limits how easily you can get through the city across rooftops. Unfortunately the Batcycle itself isn’t great for traversing buildings in a single bound, so you’ll have to stick to the streets. Spawning the Batcycle is fairly instantaneous, providing you’re near what the game considers a main road, and then you’re off fairly quickly. There’s navigation to guide you to your waypoint, but sometimes when you call the bike in it seems to deliberately face the opposite way from where you need to go. You can’t really use the bike in combat either, even though flattening a load of thugs would be very entertaining, and the actual handling feels quite floaty, even compared to something arcadey like Grand Theft Auto V, which makes it feel like you aren't really in control. The characters are well-written though, with each of the fab four managing to feel distinct, and there are moments where the narrative hits home. For us, Barbara Gordon’s Batgirl felt like the most compelling character, but it’s clear that balancing all four when you are probably only spending time with one or two is a challenge. Of course, tackling the game in co-op gives the opportunity for a little more camaraderie. The supporting cast, unsurprisingly, calls on Batman’s extensive rogues gallery, with both Harley Quinn and The Penguin getting face time early on, and even though this is a different universe to the playground of Mark Hamill’s Joker, it’s hard not to feel that sort of charisma missing. There’s a lot to like about this latest foray into Gotham, but many of the positives feel like just a riff on Rocksteady’s earlier efforts – now over 10 years old – rather than a step forward into something new and exciting with these characters. If messing around in a beautiful open world and knocking around a few hooligans is the vibe you’re looking for, then this could be right up your dimly lit street. Each of the character does have different weapons to try out, and elements of their backstory to explore, and with some patience, you’ll start to fill out the map and feel like there’s reasons to dive into the various dark places Gotham has to offer.
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7/10 The Last Hero Of Nostalgaia review | PC21/10/2022 Riffing on an established game or franchise is a risky business. Do it wrong and you're constantly compared to your inspiration and lamented by players for not being up to scratch, but do it right and you can quickly capture the attention of a passionate audience and win goodwill from the get-go.
The enemies themselves have a variety of looks, depending on the area, and reflect different levels of graphical fidelity, depending on how much the memory of them has decayed. Some are in full 3D, but many are deliberately janky-looking 2D cut-outs, flailing their way towards you through the levels, with a similar vibe to the stained glass window knight in Young Sherlock Holmes. The tongue-in-cheek presentation is one of the reasons the game feels refreshing and fun from the very beginning... Don’t let the enemies’ simplistic look lull you into a false sense of security though, they hit hard and they hit fast. The bosses too have all the might and terror of your classic Dark Souls beast, with a sense of scale which takes encounters to a level beyond what you might expect from an indie game. Memory isn’t just a souls or runes-like levelling mechanic, but a theme which keeps coming up throughout the world. With weapons in particular, many have a special ability which can be unlocked by taking them to a specific area of the world and performing a specific action. This was one of the most interesting and unexpected mechanics, and encouraged us to explore the world in more depth, giving us an opportunity to pick up on more of the environmental storytelling. One early area shows the NPCs are actually self-aware, with a sort of locker room complete with motivational posters like “Remember to occasionally miss!” and even a city of their own, as if the game were a day job. The tongue-in-cheek of the presentation is one of the reasons the game feels refreshing and fun from the very beginning, and the team has managed to sustain it as you gradually discover more of the world of Nostalgaia. You can even coop with a friend and explore together for maximum destruction of bad memories.
In all, the experience is everything you would expect from a pastiche of the FromSoftware formula, but also some unexpected fun and games thrown in for good measure. Ready your sword and get ready to take on both nostalgia and Nostalgaia with a well-placed heavy attack. Pros
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9/10 LEGO Bricktales review | PS518/10/2022 LEGO can be quite personal. You might have childhood memories of putting together a new set at Christmas or fighting over different bricks with your siblings, but previous titles based around those little plastic blocks haven’t really challenged your imagination as far as creating things with LEGO goes. It's surprising that the building sections have their issues, given ClockStone's history with both Portal and The Walking Dead Bridge Simulators, but clearly LEGO is a more intricate beast. This leads us onto one of the most obtrusive issues, the controls. While the game has been released for consoles as well as PC, it seems clear the development had a PC-first mindset, as a glance at the controls menu and even some of the interface still has keyboard prompts rather than buttons. Of course, this could be a fairly easy fix in a future update. ...it still feels like there's something missing here. Perhaps an over-the-top protagonist like Chase McCain was in LEGO City Undercover... The result is that actually building the LEGO models is time-consuming and often wrought with imprecise movements as you struggle to line up bricks. This ups the difficulty without meaning to, potentially putting the game out of reach for some younger players, at least those without mum, dad, or an unusually cooperative sibling with them to pitch in now and again. Other than that the experience is quite relaxed. The music can get a little repetitive at times, but has themes tied to each area which match the happy-go-lucky vibe. From a visual design point of view, the digitised bricks are familiar, with a little more true-to-life aesthetic than you might be used to from the Travellers Tales LEGO series, or even LEGO Worlds, and the character animation has inspiration from the stop-motion effect in The LEGO Movie. There are only a few things to point to which really stand out as not quite right, it still feels like there's something missing here. Perhaps an over-the-top character like Chase McCain was in LEGO City Undercover, or more depth to the narrative. Mostly, it feels like a game which isn't quite sure if it's for kids or big kids, and while the construction system it's based on has had over 70 years to perfect the balance between its various audiences – and famously spent a fair amount of time getting it wrong at various points – it's no surprise it's a challenge.
Overall, there's a lot of fun stuff in here, and the package is more than the sum of its tiny plastic brick-shaped parts, but if you come looking for a serious cerebral challenge, you might find yourself wanting more often than not, until you're faced with the prospect of building something more intricate like a fire escape. If you embrace the quirky humour and complete the build challenges in the spirit they are intended, you're in for a fun time. Pros
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8/10 Isonzo review | Xbox Series X14/9/2022 Isonzo is the latest effort from M2H and Blackmill Games, the developers behind the WW1 Game Series. After covering the Western and Eastern fronts in previous titles Verdun and Tannenberg respectively, Isonzo sees the multiplayer action heading to the Italian Front and a more Alpine setting.
As matches progress, the backdrop for each map can change quite dramatically. On Fior, for example, all the action initially takes places in an alpine forest, but by the final two capture points teams are battling it out amongst the large boulders, steep slopes, and open fields of a mountain top, while the Sabotino map shifts from a ridgeline skirmish in trenches to close quarter combat in a ruined town. Dolomito probably had the most memorable finale, with the defending team holed up on a mountain peak while the attacking side tries to storm its steep faces. Officers can call in air and artillery strikes, which can not only make or break an assault but often come with an impressive salvo of explosions Players have access to several class types they can utilise in order to shift battles in their favour. Oddly, we found the newly introduced Mountaineer class and its extra sprint bonus the least useful of the available roster, which feels like a bit of a missed trick, given the game’s setting. Instead, it was the Engineer and Officer classes that we spent the most time with. The former allows players to build machine gun posts and mortar stations, especially useful if you’re on the defending team, while the latter can call in air and artillery strikes, which can not only make or break an assault but often come with an impressive salvo of explosions. As you progress each class, new items can be unlocked. Unlike the previous titles where new kit was often buried in sub-menus, progress is a lot clearer in Isonzo, with your available weapons, kit, and class specialties organised in a menu system that’s similar in style and functionality to the ones found in Battlefield V and Battlefield 1. Class challenges, which unlock new kit, perks, or secondary weapons, are also easily trackable, and can be quite fun to complete. They often help encourage players to try alternative play styles, such as building and then using machine gun nests, or getting a specific number of melee or close quarter kills. It's also easier to customise your appearance in Isonzo, with a surprisingly large array of cosmetic items to unlock. These include uniforms, as you’d expect, but also an impressive number of moustaches and other unique items, such as cigarettes, wireframe glasses, and smoking pipes. We weren’t expecting to be able to personalise our avatars’ appearance quite so much, and the developers have clearly had fun with the cosmetics while still retaining historical accuracy. A bit of flare is also useful at helping you tell apart real players and bots. You’ll likely come across these AI soldiers at some point, as they are used to make up the numbers when there’s a lack of human players. While bots will never replace the challenge of a real human, they provide capable backup in the meantime. We’d often see bots destroying enemy spawn points or constructing our own, healing allies, manning machine guns, and generally contributing to the war effort. They’re also pretty good at contesting objectives. Although Hell Let Loose has shown that there is a market for tactical shooters on console, much like Verdun and Tannenberg, Isonzo is likely to have a niche following and therefore in need of decent AI allies.
We’d definitely encourage people to give Isonzo a go, especially if you’re into historical shooters or just multiplayer shooters in general. If the game can establish a decent following, Isonzo, with its punchy sounds, improved visuals, and overhauled UI and progression system, would definitely feel like a more premium product than its predecessors. Veterans of Verdun and Tannenberg will find more of the authentic, tactical gameplay they enjoy, while newcomers will be getting the most robust experience yet. Pros
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8/10 Saints Row review | PS522/8/2022 Since the original Saints Row came out back in 2006, it’s no surprise expectations have changed, but can this now teenaged franchise call us back to the streets with a fresh paint job? Once The Saints find their HQ, and pick their name, the map really fills out to almost overwhelming levels. Beforehand, there's already a few activities scattered about the map like dumpster diving, photographing signs and, inexplicably, being a "wingsuit saboteur". Yes, you can wingsuit about the city. After that, you can start to build business ventures, beginning at the frankly bafflingly cheap price of $30,000, which then generates income constantly, though in small amounts at first. Each venture adds its own activity, like collecting trucks full of toxic waste barrels or making food deliveries. Fortunately, there’s a handy “GPS to next venture objective” option, which is a godsend for actually being able to find these across the vast map’s nine districts. Your enemies in the game are either one of the rival gangs, The Idols and Los Panteros, the aforementioned Marshall or the cops. The police are the most overzealous, which is not a new experience to anyone who’s spent time playing Grand Theft Auto V, but here the ease at which you can set them off seems borderline unfair. At one point, to complete a venture mission, I had to steal a particular type of car and take it to a garage. After fending off the cops, who seemed to instantly spawn all around you, I got back in the car to finish delivery and…the process started all over again. if you aren’t put off by the character’s brash attitude and enjoy messing around in a sprawling city then there’s definitely something here you’ll enjoy... In fact it makes the experience feel rigid, with the game telling you to be chaotic and then warning you not to leave an area or you’ll immediately fail. Plus, there seems to be no way to self-right a car that’s flipped over, so if you have a bad crash – you’ve had it. All this leads to a contradiction in tone, where you take on large groups of colourful enemies, but leaves you with relatively limited weapons and abilities to take them on. Your skills, unlocked by completing challenges, seem unreliable, causing you to occasionally jump or roll around instead of using them in combat. For a time, we found ourselves with only a machine gun in our inventory, as the few other weapons we’d unlocked remained stashed in a gun case at HQ, forgotten. You can also collect, customise and upgrade vehicles, but you’ll need to fetch them from a specific garage rather than just getting it brought to you. The soundtrack is strangely sparse, far from the high bar set by older GTAs for licensed music, with arguably no well-known tracks and relatively few overall. Though you can make a mix and match personal playlist from all stations through the app on your phone. Phone apps let you tap into all aspects of the criminal underworld, except certain things you need to go back to HQ for. One particularly nice detail is the ability to adjust your style and even your character’s appearance on-the-fly, without paying an arbitrary in-game fee. Game performance is worth mentioning, with generally just a bit more pop-in than we’d like, but there were a few times where we got stuck not being able to press a button. There was even one horrible moment when we were in combat and could suddenly only melee, as all other offensive controls just stopped working. There was also one hard crash, but that’s not unheard of ahead of the day one patch. So it’s a really mixed bag for Saints Row. The bottom line is that if you aren’t put off by the character’s brash attitude and enjoy messing around in a sprawling city then there’s definitely something here you’ll enjoy, but as soon as you dig deeper there’s not a huge amount of substance, especially by comparison. The driving is actually pretty good, but nowhere close to Forza Horizon 5, which the setting in particular invites comparison to. The variety of the missions isn’t as wide as GTAV, an almost 10-year-old game, and arguably it doesn’t look as good either. There is coop but it’s limited to two players. Finally, in terms of gunplay, you might think of third-person action like The Division 2 or the similarly chaotic Sunset Overdrive, but the action is just not as tight. Weapons feel too light and bullet spread is high, you never have enough ammo and it takes a long time to get access to more weapons, and when you do, they are such wacky armaments as…an RPG. It’s frustrating, because we went into this wanting to hear this story we’d heard of, but never got into, and, unfortunately, the game doesn’t do itself justice in terms of telling it. If you only played the first couple of hours you might not even get to the point where you start building an empire, and given people’s limited attention spans, that could be a serious problem. Pros
Cons
6/10 Two Point Campus review | PC9/8/2022 Summer holidays or not, it’s time to head back to school at the illustrious Two Point Campus for a university spin on the Two Point Hospital formula. Students adhere to a list of archetypes, including swot, clown and goth, and each have their own wants and needs in terms of the environment and how they learn. For example, there are various items which are relationship-building between students, such as a heart-shaped love seat, and some students will call for different new items which match their archetype, such as a spooky Goth chair or a rose garden, which one pair of students will not stop bothering me about every month. Herein lies the most frustrating part of the game so far. Some of us will have put hundreds of hours into Two Point Hospital, unlocking a wide range of items and decorations, and the process for unlocking new things is the same – kudosh. Unfortunately, the amount you get is tied to in-game challenges and rewards is quite low, so you find yourself being asked to unlock three or four items at a time, and are frustratingly limited. Another lack of flexibility, which is particularly apparent in the early stages, and no doubt by design in the vein of simplicity, is the inflexibility of teaching options. Any changes you want to make won't come into effect until the following year, and moving teachers around can be fiddly, leaving you being asked to recruit extra staff and having nothing for them to do. Sometimes you want to be able to dig into the detail right away, and the game holds you back, which can lead to you feeling impatient. The fun and games come from the ingenuity and fun which stems from the equipment needed to deliver the various classes, from Knight School to Wizardry to Gastronomy... Humour has been a big part of these sorts of games, and the tannoy quips, and resident DJ, are back this time to keep you chuckling here and there. The world map offers a range of campuses you slowly take over, and you can either max them out up to three stars, or push on to the next adventure. There is something a little repetitive about starting from scratch each time as well, not to mention you feel like missing out on the vast wealth or even pro teachers from your previous, a little unfair, but at least the items you've unlocked are unlocked everywhere. The fun and games come from the ingenuity and fun which stems from the equipment needed to deliver the various classes, from Knight School to Wizardry to Gastronomy. There's a joy in seeing a little character animation, or a cheeky pun or reference which you know the game is jam packed full of. You almost feel like they've been hidden in there just for you. The built-in downtime of the summer break can mean you're less tempted to constantly stop time to make changes during the year, which certainly has been an issue for us for our hospitals in the past, but the chaos seems to ebb and flow rather than gradually building to a nightmarish panic of queue lines everywhere. The madness itself can be endearing, but at the same time in some areas there's not enough depth. In others there seems to be too much, but once you get your head around it all there's a really good time to be had here. No doubt there's nooks and crannies, such as student clubs, we didn't explore as much as we wanted to either.
Overall, the gamble of remixing the formula and throwing in a dash of new ideas largely works, giving us that hit of fun and frantic management we have been craving but still managing to surprise us. Pros
Cons
7/10 |
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