PC/Mac | Sean Cleaver

Lego Batman 3 Beyond Gotham – Interview

Posted on September 2, 2014 by Sean Cleaver

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While we were at Gamescom, we got to have a look at Lego Batman 3 Beyond Gotham. The next instalment in the DC universe from TT Games and Warner Bros does exactly what the name suggests, goes beyond Gotham City. You will be travelling in to space to save the Earth from Brainiac and visiting far flung planets along the way to add new and interesting environments to the normally dark gothic concrete palette of Gotham. I managed to have a chat with Philip Ring, an executive producer with TT Games and talk about the upcoming chapter in the DC Lego universe.

The universe is greatly expanding with the introduction of space flight missions, reminiscent of the Star Wars franchise, and a whole host of new characters, which is what Philip says they were trying to achieve.

“We really wanted to big on the DC content this time around, add a whole host of new characters, new locations, new gameplay styles even with the space combat and VR missions. Just really cram this game with as much content as we can.”

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The content is indeed huge with over 115 characters including Beast Boy, Plastic Man, Catwoman, Bat Cow accompanying the traditional set of our caped crusaders and, my personal favourite, a complete remaining of the 1960s television Batman with levels, characters and Adam West voicing the titular character! TO THE BATCAVE! I asked how good it’s been to have been given the freedom of so many great franchises.

“It’s been absolutely fantastic. We’ve been so privileged to work with the franchises that we have and to go back and really dig in to the DC world. We started off with the Batman story arc and DC have been fantastic that we’ve got that freedom to do things like the 1960s level and the bonus content that comes with that like the speech, Adam West giving a voice over for it, and the modern universe too.”

Of course this isn’t just the television universe or the movie universe in the game, this time it’s going deep in to the lore of the DC universe.

“We have massive DC fans in the office so as soon as the design team start looking at what to include, everyone comes out with “I love this character, I want to include this” and so we’ve got everyone chipping in with the kind of content we’d like to include. And we listen to what the fans like to see. So when Blue Beetle and Beast Boy gets the kind of reaction from what the people want to see, we want to include that in this big DC experience.”

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The release date is close but there’s no sign of the development of the game stopping until the very last minute. Not because it’s not ready, but because TT keep finding things they want to put in the game.

“We’re really still putting stuff in and we really want to make it the best experience it can possibly be. So the whole team is still working and people are still coming up with ideas which you think ‘That’s too cool not to include’ so we’re constantly revisiting and adapting to make it really special.”

So does that mean there will be DLC if they run out of time to get it all in to the main game?

“Who knows? We’re really focusing on making sure the game is the best it possible can be. If there was something we wish we could of included or that didn’t really fit in to the main game then maybe we will do it further down the line.”

Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham will be released on PS3, PS4, PSVita, Xbox 360, Xbox One, WiiU, 3DS, Mobile and PC on 14th November in the UK and three days earlier in the US.

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Tanki Online HD – Preview

Posted on September 2, 2014 by Sean Cleaver

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Russia had quite a big presence at this year’s Gamescom and you might be forgiven for not even hearing of Tanki Online in Western Europe. However over 40 million people are registered to it across the globe and have been smashing other people in their browsers since 2009. In 2015 though, the game is going HD.

The premise is one that we have become familiar with other the past few years of browser based warfare gaming, you battle in tanks against other players in an arena to gain XP and earn in game currency to improve and customise your tank. The familiarity of such a game may be obvious to those of you who know of Wargaming and other such companies. Tanki however does offer something slightly different.

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The casual nature of these games has been seized upon here and rather than attention to detail and the long deep research in to the history of a WW2 Panzerkamphwagen IV and its every nuance, Tanki provides a lot more of a pick up and play approach. There isn’t the historical or military enthusiast satiation here. Instead your selection is very simple and the weaponry more open to imaginative interpretation.

Catch up complete, the game is moving from its humble browser capacity now and taking its route on the path of Unity. The development version I played was still in a very early stage and is expected to roll out some time in 2015 but it does look good for a free-to-play game and is interesting to see how the Unity engine (of which I saw a lot of games beginning to use) can be adapted to multiplayer online gaming without demanding serious system power. The plans for Tanki Online with it are also quite ambitious, although that is made easier by the casual nature of the game.

The thing is with Tanki is it depends what kind of gamer you are as to whether you would play it. It is essentially a simple game and the Unity engine would help it to expand out of the browser to other platforms which is probably going to be more essential for its planned expansion to the UK and other new markets. Dedicated in game chat, friends lists, social networking are coming to the game as well as graphics and the Unity engine would allow very easy portability. The game modes would be the same across all versions such as your standard deathmatch, team deathmatch and capture points modes. There will also be the 50+ maps with environmental snow controls, paint jobs and absolutely no AI players are intended to make this game a different slice of pie to the already available options.

The social side of it is already well underway in Russia where the game is already integrated into Russia’s VK network and with a big effort of it being integrated in to Facebook as well. Which means that the game runs directly from the social network itself rather than linked to a site like Bigpoint and the like. The social side of it is important to developer AlternativePlatform due to how far reaching the games popularity is. There is quite the following in Brazil and in South America, as well as Eastern Europe.

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The thing with Tanki Online is that, speaking for what I know of the UK market, it will be a very hard nut to crack over here. Gamers in this country, whilst they like the casual nature of some games, might not take to this. Despite the graphical improvements, there are already a lot of options that are already established quite well like Wargaming’s various offerings, on multiple formats and the majority of gamers in this country are likely to spend more of their time on the industry dubbed AAA gaming options that will dominate the Autumn/Winter television adverts and website pop-ups.

I would always recommend giving the game a go because, whilst this is a preview for the Unity powered HD option, the game is very much up and running and can be played in its current browser form. When a game is free to play and has quite a large player base and a very easy learning curve without having to download masses of launcher data, then there is no reason not to try it. For what is already a successful game in its own regions, it will be a good barometer to see how the game succeeds in our ever changing games climate and what impact it might leave on other games trying similar social integration.

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Magicka 2 – Preview

Posted on August 30, 2014 by Sean Cleaver

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Magicka was a surprise hit written by eight university students from Sweden (what is it with that country and break out hits?). Magicka 2 not only promises more of the same but an inspired improvement on our multiplayer wizard blasting fun.

The wizards are gone, all but extinct thanks to the Wizard Wars. This has left co-operation between wizards rather tense and firey to say the least. Evil however is returning to Midgard as the folklore of the Nords is once again tapped to set a very atmospheric environment. You could imagine this kind of crazy situation being more suited to the table top antics of Acquisitions Incorporated (bonus points if you get that reference), but the ridiculous nature of your incredibly trigger happy wizards is more than suited to the top down view of the snow laden world.

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I think maybe a good way to describe the Magicka games, and this one in particular, is as an incredibly fun and easy co-op cast-and-slash (rather than hack). I don’t mean easy as in the difficulty. Oh no, the game is as tricky as it possibly can be when two or more crazed wizards are firing their deathly beams in every direction to beat the oncoming hoards of fantastical creatures. What I mean is the ease of how to play the game, the learning curve if you will. It completely adds to the fun whilst you are accidentally killing everything whilst you are learning and not accidentally killing everything once you have learned.

Friendly fire and casual friendly trolling has never been more fun than it is in Magicka 2. Yes you are kind of supposed to work together, because that’s the entire point of co-operative teamwork. But one snatch at a spell and the repercussive fall out is not only vicious but hilarious. This is a game meant to be played by people in the same room or over a voice chat and, having played it in the former capacity, it excels in creating that amusing, anecdotal gameplay. Especially when you start summoning demons. Having done that, it made for a very crazy 30 minutes of hilarity and constant death until we realised that teamwork actually works.

Speaking of the gameplay, it is very easy pick up and play. I played it using a PS4 controller which felt incredibly natural, something the development team was surprised by given their preference for mouse and keyboard controls. The gamepad support makes the spell selection and movement surprisingly fluid and easy to pick up and master. So now, if you’ve had previous experience of the game and want your friends to get involved, this will be a great way to get in to it. The spells themselves are fun. All based on the elemental system (fire, water, etc), the spells combine excellently with multiple people, especially with the healing and the speed at which everything unfolds, it causes a cacophony of light and a hectic firefight. It’s incredibly fulfilling when you cross the streams to combine these elemental powers, almost rewarding yourself for the several moment of derping around beforehand.

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The game itself has moved on from the previous incarnation with more customisation options for your wizard and many different spell techniques to get the hang of that really gives yourself a bit of a personal style. The newest thing however is the Artifact system. There are special artefacts to find during the game. The best relation I can give to this is Halo’s Skull system. There are things that add to the replay ability of the game like difficulty enhances (extra health for enemies, less for you, etc) and these can be combined. So whatever crazy hardcore self-masochistic difficulty you like to inflict upon yourself and others, it can always be worse. There are more comedic ones too like the sitcom artefact that adds audience laughter, boos, sighs and the like. Certainly makes for some more laughs.

Magicka 2 is coming to PC in 2015 and, as you might have guessed by the controller use, PlayStation 4. Given the strength of the console’s online play and given the amount of units sold AND the more to be sold with the oncoming release of games like Destiny, there could be a lot of demand and take up for this game on the PS4. It ticks the main three boxes I have with co-op based gameplay. 1) Online multiplayer. 2) Easy to pick up and fulfilling. 3) Absolutely hilarious gaming experiences. So there will be lots of interesting and engaging whooping of evil’s hoards by four dysfunctional and explosive wizards, controlled by you, riding from the ruins of Aldreheim in 2015.

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Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor – Preview

Posted on August 27, 2014 by Sean Cleaver

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So not a lot was really known to us about the new Lord of The Rings RPG, Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor. Thanks to GamesCom, we now know a lot more and does it look deep, stunning and exciting. Who knew that Sauron could be this cool?

Set before the famous book in three parts by J.J.R. Tolkein that we all know and love, but after the last stand of the evil Lord Sauron against the alliance of elves and men. You take the reins of Talion, a Ranger of Gondor who, despite being dead, seems pretty animated to find things out. He also shares his dead body with Celebrimbor, a wraith who is currently experiencing a bout of amnesia over who he is, what his past is and what role he had to play in a bigger plot.

The duo travel around Mordor from mount doom to the newer previously unknown places further south, to uncover the secrets of the wraith and the world around them. Especially when they come upon a strange creature who speaks simply and has recently lost possession of a shiny gold ring to an adventurous thieving Hobbit. Along the way you will find artefacts that trigger memories as well as give an ‘eye’ on Sauron and his descent into the darkness.

The face of it, which is a good looking third person RPG is actually hiding beneath it a deep word that is continuously evolving and, by using Mordor, is completely open to creating new areas outside of the Middle-earth we are so used to playing in. It plays very easily, much like a good hack and slash in places but that would be insulting to its rich and intriguing enemy mechanics.

shadowofmordor2 Each enemy, from the Uruk grunt you hit to the to the commander of the troop, has a levelling system that remembers your battles. If you die, you are not reset to a point but placed further down the line in time so those individual soldiers gain more skill points and move up the pecking order of rank. They’ll also remember what you did that they didn’t like, especially if they have fears. Some are scared of fire and they will flee if that comes near them, or some might hate wild animals and do the same.
This chain of command structure, evolution and AI memory is indeed very clever and puts a nice spin into the gameplay of smashing as many orcs as you can. You feel you know these guys, that they have a place or character in the fiction of this world, without having any kind of impact on the games main plot. It’s this detail, despite how graphically impressive it is, that really immerses you in the the game. Each commander has a place in the world, whether they work the slaves, are the executioner or just have a reputation for death. Even down to each commanders bodyguard who will give you a quick pep talk before trying to kill you.

There’s quite a few cool things your duo can do. As a wraith you can possess people to stun them or make them fight for your side. Or explode their head. Your weapons can create an awesome combo barrage of slicing and dicing, especially the slow motion kill cams that appear. Firing arrows gives you the chance to slow down time so you can really hit six or seven Uruk in the face, Legolas style, before you need to start slashing away. The artefacts and weapons in game also contain vast amounts of lore so as with a lot of modern games, there’s good reason to go out and find all the things you can and learn more about the history of this time.

shadowofmordor3 You will level up and develop as well of course and your characters have traits, such as Talion’s ranger skills allowing him to climb up big walls and our wraith being able to control others. There is a puzzle element to it too, when presented with the wild landscape of Mordor and how animals and monsters can be manipulated to let you pass whilst avoiding costly combat.

The open world itself is very immersive, from the slave driven farms of Nurn to the ashen landscape of Mount Doom, Tolkein’s fantasy environment has been brought to live vividly and imaginatively. And being Mordor and not being limited to the canon of what is established, it is also quite big. You could probably make a small comparison to Dark Souls in the way that it looks but for once we can truly say that it certainly is its own game.

Not long for this one in the big wait. The game comes out on September 30th on every platform, including PC. Of course that means it has quite the release schedule to go up against but keep your eye on it as it will definitely be worth your time, Lord of the Rings fan or otherwise.

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MX vs ATV Supercross – Preview

Posted on July 28, 2014 by Sean Cleaver

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Normally when you hear the sound of trail bike engines, it’s due to some annoying 15 year old who’s just passed their CBT, ragging the poor restricted thing up and down your street at 1am. But this? This is where the sounds are meant to be heard.

It’s been a while since we’ve seen an MX vs ATV game. Mainly because the ownership of the studio has changed hands a few times, mostly due to the demise of THQ. So in fact it’s been a good three years since the last one ‘MX vs ATV Alive’ graced us. If you don’t know much about the franchise then the gameplay and the sensibility behind it comes from fans of the big X-Games style indoor arena dirt tracks. The ones those crazy Red Bull sponsored kids fly their bikes up and pull tricks like wild men celebrating the taming of a bucking bronco.

mx vs atv supercross preview 1 One thing you notice as soon as you pick up MX vs ATV Supercross is that it has had a lot of care put in to making it work. From the most fundamental level there has been constant referral to real life riders for their take on how the game plays and even physics professors coming in to make sure that Newton’s hand is enforced correctly. All this has lead to one thing: An incredibly easy to pick up and play game. Now personally I don’t find racing games too hard to master with the exception of motorbike based games. Moto GP for example I find far too tricky to handle.

MX vs ATV Supercross however appears to have nailed it with their new intuitive, almost symbiotic control set up. You control the direction of the bike with the left stick and you control the counterweight of your body with the right. Sounds difficult but it really isn’t. Think of the first five minutes you spent getting used to the controls in Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons and you’ll soon become accustomed. Include in that a clutch control with the left trigger and you’ll be tackling those raised dirt corners like a demon… I’ve lost you haven’t I? Well dropping the clutch gives you a great getaway when you hit the gas. Much like a normal bike the kick you’ll get from hitting that biting point will shoot you forward a good deal more than if you didn’t use it. It is also great for race starts. Finally a simple right stick flick for getting the jumps on a bumper to control a trick makes this sound a whole lot more difficult than it actually is.

Which is something great about this game. Once you’ve taken a few minutes to master it, it really rewards you and you feel a lot better knowing you can do it. Most racing games reward you for hitting the right line after the 75th attempt to get that gold medal in training. This game has those pure racing rewards too but just getting to grips with it feels like an awesome achievement, when really the illusion is that it’s quite simple. 1-0 to the game.

Racing so far is a bit more difficult because the difficulty levels haven’t been set up fully yet but that only pushed me to get a great result and the obvious gains you get from hitting the air at the right time, sliding through the corner and shifting your bodyweight before dropping that clutch and zooming off is a great feeling. It’s made even better by how good the tracks are. Challenging? Yes, at times, but it’s the constant evolution of the track that makes it fun. Like rubbering in a tarmac track, the dirt will carve out lines throughout the track from your bikes and they will stay, affecting the contours of the track and adding some more bumps. If you have a big ol’ wipeout crash and skid your prone torso up a bank face first (which I did a few times) then that is also saved. You can go back around a lap later seeing the Moses-eqsue parting of the dirt and feeling the bump in the track it has caused.

There are many licensed riders, sponsors, parts manufacturers involved and the upgrade system is simple and effective. The bikes themselves come in various degrees of powers like the 250cc to the fun pump and squirt of the 100cc. Basically nothing detracts from the racing experience at all. But there has been a lot of care to get involved in the bikes themselves. Customising them, getting zoomed in and seeing what you can add or subtract from the bike is enjoyable and the closest you’ll get without getting yourself caked in grease and oil. I already miss my racing green 250cc with the gold wheels. *sniffs*

The game itself was a lot of fun and when it’s complete it will certainly be a great alternative to the current crop of four wheel games which after a while get a bit asinine. The bad news? Well it is previous generation so it will be PS3 and Xbox 360. The good news? The price. Completely aware that this game is a last generation tech, it will be priced accordingly. That in itself is a refreshing change, but from the shadows of what could have been a completely doomed franchise out of the control of anyone involved is coming an enjoyable, easy to master and rewarding game from Nordic Games that should definitely be worth investing your time in later this year.

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How I Survived The Steam Summer Sale On A Mac

Posted on July 23, 2014 by Sean Cleaver

… I didn’t

So in case you didn’t know, I don’t have a PC. Well I have a PC I can use but I am an iMac user. In fact my decision to go to Apple computers was partly because I get too distracted by gaming on a PC to be productive. So how exactly did I manage to succumb to the wallet emptying frenzy of the Steam summer sale?

Well indie gaming played a big part of that. There are also some games that I have in preparation for them to come to Mac. But Steams support of the platform is growing very quickly. So here’s a quick list of what I managed to buy during the sale and a tiny bit before it too.

Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs
Amnesia: The Dark Descent
Counter-Strike (including source, GO, etc)
Endless Space
Goat Simulator
Kill Fun Yeah (gifted)
Noir Syndrome
Octodad: Dadliest Catch
Pixel Piracy
Super Meat Boy
Tomb Raider
The Walking Dead
The Walking Dead: Season Two
The Witcher: Enhanced Edition
The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Enhanced

For a platform that doesn’t have a lot of gaming, I think that’s a very good haul. Tomb Raider is the only disappointment because I need OSX Mavericks to run it and I really don’t want to upgrade yet. But it was £2? And it stopped me getting the enhanced PS4 edition so I’m ok with that.

But, there were a few PC stragglers that I got too, partly because I’m sure they will come on Mac at some point. Those were Alan Wake/Alan Wake’s American Nightmare and Banished.

So despite having a non-gaming machine I still managed to get eighteen games. EIGHTEEN! If I had a PC you can imagine that I would have gone hambone on the finances.

The steam summer sale every year is met with fear and trepidation for ones financial wellbeing. Let’s be honest as well, the next generation of gaming is unlikely to fully hit us for another three months, maybe longer? So it makes sense to buy a heap load of games that I don’t actually have time to play.

the walking dead season 2 4 The Black Friday-esque hysteria that gamers go through every time this happens is great. You can almost feel the shame dripping from the Facebook posts, Twitter updates and the like, of people who have realised they have a problem… I have a problem.

In all honesty I came in to the sale like a fully researched shopper. I wanted three of the games I actually purchased. Only three. Those were The Walking Dead games and Goat Simulator. Because the latter was finally Mac ready and the formers, well I don’t need an excuse to get those.

But I do find it interesting that I’m still buying games that I kind of had no intention of playing just because they looked okay and were at a decent price. A friend of mine text me saying he’d always wanted to play The Witcher because it looked interesting. I now own two of them. Endless Space was a nice looking game in the screenshots and the trailer, so I got it. Super Meat Boy was fun to watch and I imagine immensely frustrating to play. Pixel Piracy may have some sea legs behind it and Octodad has eight of those sea legs.

So looking back… I’ve mugged myself off quite successfully really and that is fantastic for gaming. I might have spent about £35-£45 all in all but I got a lot out of it, despite being a Mac gamer and arguably I got very good games out of it.

tomb raider 2 Which is why it is sad that my best and favorite sale purchase didn’t come from Steam but from Xbox Live over the same period. That was Sonic Generations. What an excellently fun game that is!

The thing is with gaming, I find myself looking at co-op games more and more now, especially as more of my friends are separated by distance and family commitments that remote gaming is far more important and we still want to share the joy of a game. I don’t mean the kill all the noobs sharing but the working together sharing. And the increase of games on the Mac and the Steam sale combined really does start to link my PC playing friends and me closer together.

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All I need now is for GOG to hurry up and make the Rollercoaster Tycoon and Heroes of Might and Magic series available for Mac and I’m sorted.

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GRID Autosport – Preview

Posted on June 23, 2014 by Sean Cleaver

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It’s time to don those fireproof overalls again, strap on your helmet and delve in to the wonderful world of club competition racing.

GRID Autosport sits in a very weird place as far as Codemasters previous games have been positioned. GRID Autosport is the culmination of about 12 months worth of community feedback over GRID 2 which, despite the reviews and depth, wasn’t exactly what the loyal and passionate fans were after. And so, the decision was made to appease these fans and create a new game for the existing generation to try and set the balance.

I got to have a good go on the game’s last preview build and straight away saw marked differences. In fact I’d go so far as to say they’ve completely trimmed the fat to almost modernism when it comes to the presentation of the menus and XP breakdowns. You could argue that the game has seriously channeled GRID: Race Driver more than anything, but in honesty, it’s taken it a step further.

grid autosport preview 1 Gone are the team decisions and the choices of rewards and livery. You are a lone driver now and you sign season contracts from already existing teams. No longer are you building your own team dynasty. As such you don’t have to make calls on reward targets from sponsors or customise the livery to give the big money guys the bigger spaces on the car. No, this game is purely about the racing and as such takes away anything that could distract you from that.

The racing is split in to five different classes: Touring Car, Endurance, Open Wheel, Tuned and Street. Gone are the various different competition invites and more arcade style game modes from GRID 2. This is all about the team racing and getting your own XP level up enough to get better and bigger contracts. No money, just XP.

The racing itself hasn’t changed much, if at all, from GRID 2. It’s been tidied up for the lesser car/track options and therefore polished a bit further, but is essentially what you get from the previous two games. The EGO engine looks as lovely as ever and still manages to impress me, even with the last generation technology it’s performing on. The car models are great, the tracks and lighting are wonderful (I even got slightly blinded in the Formula C car as the hot track reflected the sun into my eyes), and the cockpit/in car view has returned.

Slight warning: this isn’t the full release version that I played although it is as close as possible to it. The cockpit view disappointed me greatly. Not the level or the view of the track. That was fantastic but there was a very low level of detail in the car. It was very blurred, with zero mirror accessibility and it looked incomplete. Moving the camera view left and right defaults to the side car views. I just hope that the issue was that it wasn’t complete otherwise I fear the people who campaigned for its reinstatement will be rather aggrieved at the results.

Bare minimum is kind of how the game feels at times, but in a very positive way. I mentioned that it’s trimmed the fat and what I mean is that it’s lost a couple of stylistic stone to become much simpler and open about what it is: A racing game. Which is why the AI annoyed me a bit. Medium is far too easy, as is normal for me on a Codemasters game. Hard is a bit more challenging but AI cars are still too slow in the corners, not able to control the torque their cars have and as such take racing lines that are better suited for finding an escape road than an apex. It’s a problem that really gets on your nerves a bit more when you’ve made an effort on Hard to properly set up the car.

grid autosport preview 3 I did one race meeting, which is the same track twice (think GP2), with different setups in the Formula C open wheel and using the overhead camera shot (interestingly, the cockpit graphics looked better from this view than the drivers view so here’s hoping it’s just not finished yet). The first race I set myself up to be oversteer heavy and in a car that wants to whip itself into a donutting frenzy as soon as you squeeze the juice, it was tricky but manageable. I finished 5th thanks to a last corner tank slapper. The second race I optimised my setup to combat such oversteer and torque and get better cornering grip/speed. I finished third, I had an occasional wobbly moment but the biggest problem in that was how noticeably bad the AI cars were at taking these corners in the cars.

Hopefully these are all things that have been finessed out by the time we get our hands on the game proper next week. Or that is easily curable with a quick patch. AI has always been a tricky thing in the Codemasters games (ask anyone who’s played the F1 series – we love it but damn does that brake testing frustrate us sometimes). One thing they have done is taken the game back to its core components that made it fun, shed the fluff and come out with a decent all-access racing game with technology that they are now super comfortable with.

For the next generation people out there, there’s no news on a PS4/Xbox One version of GRID Autosport but Codemasters have been very honest about only releasing a game on the new systems when they feel they are ready to produce something of outstanding quality. From the feel of it, GRID Autosport will certainly take up some time while we wait and won’t beat around the bush either.

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GRID Autosport is out Friday 27th June on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360. Check back on TheGameJar, Facebook or Twitter for further news and reviews.

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Tropico 5 – Review

Posted on June 17, 2014 by Sean Cleaver

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(Note: This review has been approved for general release by Penultimo, General Director of the Tropico Press Freedom Commission)

Welcome to Castro Sim 2014. Once again we set sail to the colonial era nondescript Caribbean Sea islands in an effort to find our inner despot and proclaim ultimate rule. This time however, some things have changed around the region of Tropico since our golden age of technology back in Tropico 4.

tropico 5 review 1 Once again we enter the world of political satire and city building in our attempt to subvert the status quo of modern democracy. We start quite literally under appointment from His Majesty, The King. The new campaign mode sees us seeking independence from the Crown and then being very careful in politically playing our way through the changing allegiances of the World Wars, whilst still building our own dynasty.

The comedy of the game, its wit and fairly tested satire, is really what always binds it together. The story of the game in fact delves in to those newer jokes, more pop-culture mockery and the constant hilarity of Penultimo who continues to administrate the islands along with your unflappable British ambassador and the anarchistic military heroine. But the political allegiances that are always in play actually mean a lot more than just appeasing local rebel insurgents. As you work your way through the instability of the World Wars and the Cold War, who you choose to keep on side will make you more or less money and better trade routes to keep your extended term as ruler.

It’s these game play elements that make the game a lot more fun to play than Tropico 4, or if not more fun then certainly a lot easier to play and therefore easier to concentrate on the enjoyment. The similar tropes are still there from before; task based acquisition of money and buildings to establish your island amidst the pirates and homeless that will plague it. Although the game hasn’t changed enough since Tropico 4 for those tasks not to get a bit old after a while.

In fact, that is possibly the only hangover that the game has from its predecssor. The city building is a lot easier than in previous versions with an incredibly simplified build menu, a new load of building designs that change through the historical eras, and all of them are incredibly easy and adaptable to place. The Almanac and the island’s layers information is not only easier to navigate but also far more readable and understandable. One thing Tropico does do, once you get into this more strategic st,yle of playing the game is make you assess your space a lot more effectively and the improvements in the game have made that a much easier and enjoyable prospect. Which for a time offsets the overused “Export me 5,000 of this because the consequences are dire if you don’t” repetitive tasks. Although as soon as you’ve established a good bit of exporting through high value crops and get mining, you can financially ignore those which aren’t mission specific.

tropico 5 review 2 Which is good because creating your own paradise is very aesthetically pleasing. The games engine runs very smoothly on a system that can cope with the high graphics or just under top performance. The water crashing into the beaches, the wind blowing through the trees along with a much more inviting map fog for exploration, make the environment very nice, along with some excellent detail in the buildings, people and animations. One of the things I loved about previous Tropico games, especially compared to Sim City, is that there is a lot of detail in to creating the lives and attractive buildings in the game. This makes you more aesthetically invested in the design of your island paradise and interested in zooming in and just watching things happen. Much like Banished can do, except with a lot more Pina Coladas.

There are some things that do notch against it, admittedly. The game is moving on with the technology so make sure you can effectively run it (I had a very weird experience where the game performed fine but the menu screens were incredibly laggy on one of my test systems). The fact that the map controls are natively the arrow keys was annoying as I was so used to a WASD set up, so some ergonomic reshuffling is required. The previously mentioned repetitive task mechanic can have the effect of bogging you down in things against what your mission objectives are and it does feel a bit like a continuation directly from Tropico 4. Other strange things are the Dynasty and Swiss Bank Account mechanics. They are certainly fun distractions, and the Swiss Bank Account has more a place in this game than previous titles, but they ultimately feel positioned there to add a bit more colour to the humour more than a gaming mechanic and sometimes, I want something to pep up the game, not top up the satire.

But Tropico 5 is a very good game. Given the market options at the moment (Sim City, Banished, CitiesXL, et. al.) Tropico certainly does raise a bar in accessible strategy city building with enough humour to keep you honest about the fact that it’s a game. And if it wasn’t for those loading screens, I’d have had no idea that officially, Kim Jong-il was born on a mountain under a double rainbow and a newly recorded star, as foretold to the North Korean people by a swallow. So you learn something new and knowledge is power!

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[tab title=”Summary”]Tropico 5 might be a few steps away from its independence in the strategy category, but it certainly is up there with the most playable of city-building despots at the moment. A lot of fun and exactly the right level of challenge/design/world event difficulty.[/tab]
[tab title=”Good Points”]- Looks lovely, like a portrait of El Presidente.

– Very funny, like El Presidente’s bumper book of pub jokes.

– Gameplay simplified and optimised, just like El Presidente’s Consititution.[/tab]
[tab title=”Bad Points”]- Random task system a bit repetitive.

– Can feel too close to Tropico 4.

– There are no cons and Penultimo is not holding a gun to my head to say this, Viva El Presidente.[/tab]
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Trailer

Screenshots

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Watch Dogs – Review

Posted on June 6, 2014 by Sean Cleaver

watch dogs review feat

So the thing you might be thinking, especially if you’ve read other reviews of Watch Dogs or if you’re hearing stories whilst waiting to buy it, is that Watch Dogs is disappointing to the hype it created. Of course there was a huge amount of hype, it was a delayed next generation launch title! But ultimately it’s created a large amount of expectation that you think it won’t deliver, given what everyone else has already reported.

That was something I agreed with for the first couple of hours of playing. To start with the game drops you right in to the action. Actually, narratively, it’s a bit too deep in to the action. So let’s address the issue of the story, as I’m sure you’ve heard a lot about it.

The story of the game is that you’re a lone technologically advanced ex-hacker who has become a vigilante in the Windy City, otherwise known as Chicago. However this occurs because your character, Aiden Pearce, carries the weight of guilt in being indirectly responsible for the death of a family member. His actions and setup make him a man on a course for redemption and satiation of said guilt, which leads you on the path of destruction and death in the name of justice.

watch dogs review 3 Now the criticism of Pearce, the vigilante apparently known as ‘The Fox’ but that’s hardly ever mentioned, is that his character is unlikeable and the empathy for him is hard to come by. Which is partially correct, but there are reasons for that. Firstly we don’t know enough about what Aiden has done after his trauma and secondly, the open world nature of the game doesn’t direct us in the vigilante path unless we wish to.

This means that a very important part of this character is essentially redundant, depending how you play it. As reviewers we spend as much time as we can working to complete the game as fully as possible which means we’ve all kind of ignored the crime fighting sub-plot element of Pearce in favor of gunning down many bad guys on our lone ranger redemption fest. It’s also very weird how even with this crime fighting persona, you’re still a criminal actively stealing vast sums of money from unassuming innocent people, which further reduces the belief in Pearce’s confused psyche.

But as you go on further in the game, Pearce does become a tad more emotionally accessible and, by the end of it, you are invested in his story. The entire situation he is in is a mess and unless you appreciate the finer points of the past decade of television drama, it may completely gloss over you.

In fact the past decade of television drama has an awful lot of sway in the story of this game. I recall a preview video somewhere that said one of the villains of the piece, Iraq, is someone the voiceover referred to as Iraq Barksdale. The reference to The Wire is not amiss either as a fair portion of the game owes a lot to the gritty projects portrayed by that show.

In fact, if I was to sum up this story I would class it as this: Robocop’s OCP meets 1995 movie Hackers, interspersed with Wire-esque gang warfare and a hero based on The Punisher that, all in all, tries a bit too hard to deliver a serious message. And it does try very hard to deliver an Orwellian style nightmare of a surveillance state, ala Blair CCTV, and the dangers of integrated networked automation.

Sadly though this is let down by the fiction of the world being very repetitive and poorly constructed and acted. The random stories you find along the way hacking into other people’s conversations and phones (a device intended to humanise the world round you) very quickly become repetitive and tiresome, and the random jobs/salary and recent activity information can get a bit silly at times. The tertiary elements such as radio news pops and television broadcasts as well as the occasional DedSec interruption are incredibly wooden and far inferior to the rest of the game’s acting. Which is strange as they’re actually crucial for plot exposition but feel casual and almost throwaway.

But we’re gamers, right? We don’t give a shit about story and my dramatic criticism of the narrative construct. You want to know how it plays and want me to stop twatting around like this is an literature essay. Well, alright then.

watch dogs review 2 As I have touched up on the fiction of the world, let’s discuss the world itself. It is, quite frankly, magnificent. The open world Chicago is designed very much like the original Grand Theft Auto San Andreas. There are the ropey areas, the slightly middle class areas, the big city, a more desolate backwater area and several ways to get around. The inner city is sadly a bit dull though. Apart from the enjoyment of checking in to a place on your phone and finding out some history regarding the area, the city itself is not very interactive except where the game has its set pieces. The metropolis is effectively a built up road maze with many obstacles and tools for you to escape the police, or the prying eye of the ctOS.

However, Pawnee, an area you grow very accustomed to in Act III is one of the most beautifully realised places I’ve seen in gaming. As a rural gaming environment, I’d put it up there are one of my favourites next to Bright Falls from Alan Wake. The colours are rich and deep and, regardless of the resolution blah de blah (I was playing it on a PS4), it is a lovely place to just walk around and it arguably has more interesting things to check out than Chicago itself. Even the old wooden bridges, appear in excellent detail and add to the atmosphere.

Pawnee is also one of two places that you can see the beautiful sight that is Chicago from afar. When it hits night, you can look over the largest expanse of river and see those skyscrapers lit up. The only other place is on a boat out in the water expanse on the east side of the map (presumably Lake Michigan). Whilst the game doesn’t compare at all to Grand Theft Auto V in its fiction or depth, it does portray the metropolis from a distance that GTA wasn’t able to do effectively, in my opinion.

Now, the hacking… I’ll be honest; the game revolves around this apparently jailbroken iPhone being the Excalibur of hacking and it does get a bit old quite quick. There is almost an over reliance on it. It’s far too easy to do things and, especially when earning (stealing) money, it makes the economic part of the game entirely redundant. I never once, apart from the mission where I had to, purchased anything from a shop. I brought one gun as part of that mission. The rest, the ammo, the component parts for grenades and distractions, were all found in game. I’d amassed over $200,000 and spent none of it except for a gratuitous coffee or beer. Even the clothes are just different colours of the same clothes and I think Watch_Dogs missed out on a great customisation opportunity here.

The weapons are not as comically violent as others in the genre and are very functional. Mostly sub-sets of themselves but they are all easily handled and the weapon wheel is easily used. You get by without really getting annoyed or frustrated at weapons or their selection which I am guessing is the plan for it. Driving is relatively simple but very sluggish in the early stages of the game and as soon as you can get a motorcycle and your hacking skill tree is good enough to manipulate any potential chases/ramming sequences, then it’s again far too easy. The motorcycle is in fact incredibly overpowered. It is, unless you make the mistake of going head first into something, practically accident free.

The online part of the game is relatively fun although I found it quite a distraction from playing the storyline of the game or a side mission. The game occasionally prompts you into going online, thinking that someone is actually already trying to get you. Which is fine, except that it takes you very off course of where you were initially heading. I wouldn’t say that the online is an successful expansion for the end game or between missions necessarily, but it does mix it up a bit. Although there are rewards for winning such battles of hacking prowess, there isn’t really any punishment to drive you to defend yourself.

watch dogs review 4

If I was to describe the gameplay like I did the story then it would be thus: Metal Gear Solid stealth meets logic puzzles in engineering kills/data retrieval, combined with an overused Driver-esque-ram-someone-off-the-road mechanic, and if you want you can just shoot the crap out of everything anyway. Apart from frustrating take down missions where you have to get close up to a guy and knock him out. Which is quite annoying, as you’ve previously murdered 90% of the people before him so why do you need to keep him alive? No one knows.

The other game modes are quite interesting too and there are plenty of mini-games around even though exploration is a mini game in itself. Finding cars, intercepting convoys, doing take-down hits are all fun little distractions. The two stand out games though are the Digital Trips and The Cash Run game. The Digital Trips are kind of psychedelic digitised acid trips that are games in themselves. Madness is basically Carmageddon, Alone is almost a game version of the Edgar Wright/Simon Pegg movie ‘The World’s End’, Psychadellic is a trippy free falling trampoline bouncing game involving flowers and points rings and Spider Tank is a tank designed like a Spider destroying the city for points… Enough said. Cash Run however is my favourite. This turns the game in to an augmented reality, free running 3D platformer to collect coins and is great fun.

watch dogs review 1 One thing I must mention is the portrayal of women in the game. Now I’m not defending GTA at all in this, but GTA is intended as a satirical look at society and its problems. Watch_Dogs is not. There are points where the portrayal of women is absolutely misogynist to the point of screaming at the game and thumping my Caitlin Moran books in its general direction. Our companion in the story, Clara Lille (with her wobbly accent), has a massive chest tattoo that highlights the fact she’s wearing a top that is unnecessarily revealing. It’s almost comical how low cut her top needlessly is. She is completely over-sexualized, especially compared to our hero Aiden who is wearing more layers than a space-walking astronaut.

Also there is an entirely random storyline involving human trafficking (The Wire season 2 anyone) and the sex slave trade. Now I get that it’s trying to be edgy, but it just felt like gratuitous exploitation and left a sour taste for me. Even the girls in the drug labs were wearing bikinis and as you first hack your way around the projects, sexual assault and sexual acts are rampant and completely pointless. It doesn’t need to be there. The entire sex trade thing didn’t even leave a message; it just felt like it was there to spice things up. If the entire sequence were a drug-based enterprise, I’d have been fully accepting. But this just feels vacuous and needlessly objectifying in an already testosterone filled game.

The thing is I actually started to enjoy Watch_Dogs a lot more towards the end. To start with I had to plough on and, much like everyone else, remind myself that this wasn’t trying to be a usurper to the Rockstar crown. And whilst I had my reservations and criticisms, I also enjoyed the game and some of its stand out moments. But this should have been a launch title and at times, it feels like it should have been. That’s not to be derogatory to it, I’ve had fun playing it and I’d rather a game be delayed so that it is ultimately ready when we get it. Watch_Dogs delivers a good impression on what a next gen console can be capable of whilst not really getting the basics right.

Summary

Watch Dogs has a lot of strong moments and is an interesting take on the open-world genre, but ultimately lacks the punch and direction to make it great.

Good Points

– Chicago looks excellent, especially at night.

– Weapons are easy and powerful

– Hacking is easy

Bad Points

– Hacking is too easy

– Story line isn’t very well set up to start (poor exposition)

– Doesn’t further the genre into the next gen like we’d hope.

Why a 7?

Well, going by the idea that other recent examples in this genre are an 9 or 10 score, this has got a lot of work to do to get that far. But it is still ultimately an enjoyable game for a time and is visually great.

Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_q-s3QdmU8?rel=0

The Evil Within – Preview

Posted on May 27, 2014 by Sean Cleaver

The weight of expectation on The Evil Within is certainly on some broad shoulders. Resident Evil director Shinji Mikami happens to own those shoulders.

Annouced two years ago and almost finally upon us, the game follows a modern day Police Detective, Sebastian Castellanos into a deeply disturbing psychotic environment filled with zombie like creatures, shifting environments, evil monsters and the pairing of a mysterious boy and his doctor.

the evil within preview 1 Playing through the two demo levels I got the chance to experience, the atmosphere is certainly one reminiscint of the iconic survival horror of the PS1 era. Even at this early stage the classic over-the-shoulder view, dark colours and foggy outlines are effectively imposed here. As you walk in to the first level, you are almost paranoid of everything and desperate for supplies, smashing all the boxes you can and getting as little ammunition as is available. There are several other options you can use including a multi faceted crossbow.

In fact, that’s one thing that I was surprised by, the weapons. So far they are incredibly effective, almost too effective. The only thing that really stops you from going quite run-and-gun at this stage is the amount of ammo. Something that will change as the difficulty increases especially. Quite an interesting dynamic is the way that you can‘t fight off multiple enemies forever, or just simply mow them down in a haze of bullets.

Eventually you will get swamped and overrun. You can slow them down but until you take a flame to them, they’ll keep coming. You have to be precise with your shots to put the down in the first place and you have to be conservative. Your gun won’t always be on target, so no panic shooting. Melee will only buy you a bit more time. But the game employs some clever, and tense, devices to help you with dealing with the mobs. Plenty of objects are around that are easy to use as explosives, traps to set, corners and corridors to funnel them in to, but the best has to be the weapon wheel.

the evil within preview feat 3

The weapon selection wheel (think any Rockstar title of recent times) has quite nicely been implemented but unlike most games where it either pauses the game or continues it, it slows the action down, quite conveniently buying you some time to think, plan and execute you next moves.

The visuals of the monsters (known as The Haunted) are, to be honest, as you’d expect for a zombie monster horror. Everything is as gory as you’d also expect with blood, guts, flesh, and Shining-esque set pieces. However the star of the show already, by far is the audio.

From the first moment that you hear the opening bars of Clair De Lune echoing from the save points, you already know that you’re in for a scary ride. One of the things you notice when playing with headphones is how much the audio design is completely surround sound biased. The little sounds and the use of echoes and reverbs resonate in your ears and creep you out.

If one think has come along the furthest in the days of the PS1 survival era, it is sound options available to game developers and this game takes full advantage of that. At the games developmental stage, the audio is the biggest winner and the thing that needs improving the least.

the evil within preview feat 2

I must stress that this is an early stage, so there is definitely no criticism. This will be an incredibly atmospheric horror with many interesting subplots and twists along the way. But there will be some work needed along the way to make the visual and the weapon balancing just right, then it will certainly be a game to play with the lights off.

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