Review

Dishonored Definitive Edition – Review

Posted on by Sean Cleaver

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I am one of those people. The ones who didn’t play Dishonored the first time around. I know I’m a terrible person but you’ve got to appreciate that whilst I was studying at one of those fancy rich educational establishments (a concrete block of a North London university) I was busy playing Halo 4, and practically nothing else. I had things to do, essays to write and some neon glowing digitising necromancer to completely obliterate. Although TheGameJar did review it and you can check out what we wrote about it three years ago here.

So when I get a remaster of Dishonored appear on my Xbox One dashboard, I couldn’t be happier. Not only did I now have the time and the excuse to correct my glaring lack of steampunk-stealth, but I could do it in an uprated resolution! Bonus. It actually surprises me that this has been released now, if I’m honest. It’s quite the busy time for games and this is one of those critically acclaimed games that, from when I’ve spoken to people anyway, seems to be the one most people missed. You’d have hoped with the second instalment having been announced but not dated, it would have been released at a time to give it the best exposure.

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Normally I don’t talk about business errors and such because I’m a games critic, not a financial aficionado. But I mention it because it is a game that is really deserving of the applause and plaudits it got and definitely needs to be enjoyed by everyone for two reasons.

Firstly, this game is a bloody visual treat. From the outset the mix of dystopia, that reeks of the Michael Radford 1984 movie, is a wonderfully dark world jarring against where you start, that palatial and almost Olympus-like godly seat of power in Dunwall. The divide between the ruling oligarchy and the plague ridden masses owes a lot to the industrial era feel and there are several nods to this in the items and throwable objects in the game, things like Whale Oil (which was the preferred combusting fuel before petroleum was found).

But you know this because you’ve probably seen it/played it already/have heard others wax lyrical about it. What we do have to say is that the updated resolution both champions this and also lets it down in a few places. The characters and the sights are wonderfully detailed in their slightly Gerald Scarfe-esque way. The areas are also deliciously detailed in that Victorian London way. But only in places. Whilst the game’s uprated textures are wonderful, you can see where the original design had to be scaled back to work on the last generation consoles and sadly some of them aren’t updated. It’s inevitable that some low res and copy-and-paste textures appear in games and one of the sad side effects of improving the game for this edition is that it’s highlighted it.

It highlights it in other ways too with occasional frame skips and screen tears. I’m not one to bang on about such things as you know, I’m pretty much in the “enjoy the fucking game you stupid bastards” camp. But I have to mention it because there are times where it is very noticeable. Again this isn’t laziness or anything like that, it’s just the usual sort of problems that occur when you force an old engine to do things quicker. Lots of remasters have fallen to this issue and Dishonored hasn’t escaped it but it is by far one of the best looking and stable of the bunch.

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Which again probably goes to show how good it was in the first place and that is something that’s reflected in the gameplay, the second reason to champion this game. The “play-how-you-want” dynamic is something that we’re probably quite used to now with the release of so many open-world games, but none of them really have the same dynamic choice as Dishonored, even now. Yes you can go super stealthy or super attacking but all interwoven with the steampunk is the magical fantasy that has the powers such as the Blink ability that can teleport you anywhere within close reach, regardless of height. It definitely adds a new dimension and can meet any player at and difficulty challenge that they wish.

So thankfully this is all still really good, although slightly overpowered. The plot of Corvo trying to reinstate the rightful heir with the help of separatists, whilst also avoiding the plague that is befalling Dunwall also still holds up rather well. And that soundtrack, well it is lovely. In fact, you can listen to it hear for free and I implore you to do so. This edition also brings you several DLC packs included in the game, which include two story add ons. So there’s more Corvo for your concern.

It is a great game, and I’ve enjoyed visiting it for the first time in this semi-updated guise. Although I do have to admit that I wish I hadn’t approached it from a critical eye because the faults I’ve found are all ones of age and engine capability rather than the game. It does make me annoyed that it’s taken me this long to get in to it. I’m not a lover particularly of stealth games, but the way that this game gives you various options to go about your tasks, regardless of if it ends up as a chaotic mess, still hasn’t been bettered in this type of game, at least not in one that I’ve played.

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Well, this is exactly what it says it is really, a definitive edition of 2012’s Dishonored. The uprated graphics, rather than breath new life, do a great job of showcasing how good it was to begin with and make a great case for you to play it if you haven’t before. Sadly the graphical limitations appear thanks to the game engine’s age which can’t be helped. But enjoyable and great value with all the DLC included.

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  • Uprated textures highlight great character design
  • Still a great game with a very dynamic approach
  • Doesn’t feel like a remaster for the sake of a cash-in

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  • Some textures not improved in scenery
  • Occasional frame skip and screen tear
  • Probably not good for those who already brought the game

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Well, to be honest nothing has changed. That’s not to it’s detriment, but the improved graphics and frame rates are nice, the package is nice and the option to revisit or even start off an adventure in Dunwall is very welcome. But it is essentially exactly the same game, and so exactly the same score. Which is good really because the limitations involved make it hard to be better without changing the game dramatically and the porting across to the current generation hasn’t made it worse. So it’s quite the success really.

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Days Out – EGX (Eurogamer Expo)

Posted on by Sean Cleaver

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In a new, irregular series of features, TheGameJar goes and visits gaming events and lets you know whether or not they’re any good, how much of your wallet you’ll have left and if you’ll enjoy them.

It’s true that the forced move from the well known and relatively easy to get to Earls Court to Birmingham was a bit of a sticking point for Londoners (myself practically falling in to that catchment area). When I say easy to get to, that’s a geographical and logistical misnomer. Because Birmingham and the N.E.C. in particular is the most connected place in the country outside of London. In fact its location makes travel and attendance easier for everyone across the country.

What it doesn’t do however is help justify the cost of travel. I booked my ticket in advance on Monday for the Thursday (I could only afford to attend for the one day). This cost me £22 but it was a timed return, so I left my home town at 7:05 and had to get the 20:05 train back. Any other choice would have thrown me up to £75 for a single ticket and £158 for an open return. There are of course cheaper ways to do it with more advanced booking, group tickets, driving yourself and even using the 10% discount code EGX put on for Virgin Trains. But compared to my incredibly open £25 London travel card from last year which allowed me to go in to central London, see sights, eat slightly less overpriced food, and enjoy a beverage by the Thames, it is an extortionate cost. One that sadly is completely out of the control of the organisers and, it seems, anyone that doesn’t own a train company.

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It doesn’t help that there is practically nothing else to do. It’s like that Tom Hanks movie “The Airport” where the guy can’t leave. The N.E.C. is Birmingham only because it isn’t close to any other major city. It’s barely in Birmingham and there is literally nothing to do. I’ve added this paragraph after reading a Midnight Resistance piece on the same event which says that the loss of the community focused events, like podcast/website community meet ups, are the real casualty here as no one can meet anymore. There’s no where to have little meet-up events and the lack of those fun, semi-industry meet ups and drinks is a real shame. As someone who runs and owns a site in the same vein, I heartily agree, and there’s never going to be any convenience for sites like us to arrange a meet-up, and we’ll never have the finances to independently arrange it. Obviously you can’t blame Gamer Network for this, this is their event for their brands. But that’s another conversation for another time.

Before I go on to the more positive sides, I do have some very practical niggles about the venue itself. The N.E.C. is a veritable maze of oversized airport-esque craziness. That’s not a problem as long as you adequately signpost where the heck you are going from the station. There was one sign that said which halls it was in, about the size of an A3 poster once you’ve traversed the long concourse from the station. Then there were occasional people pointing you in the right direction. Other events were nicely signposted with cardboard cut outs of Police Officers for the emergency services show pointing you the right way. It was like the event was a dirty afterthought for the conference centre at times. So after getting my press pass, I went to the  Wetherspoons pub in the centre to get a coffee and some breakfast (much needed after a two hour train journey). There was a few people at 9:30a.m. on this Thursday already drinking. Now, I’m not an old fuddy duddy but any alcohol before 10am is only allowed socially if you’re in an airport before going on holiday. This was a family event for video games and if you’re that desperate to have a pint with your mates, then you’re probably not going to have a good time.

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Ok, the event itself was… Alright. I had a few appointments for interviews which basically gave me no chance of playing any game. The EA both is very typically busy at all times but as the event opened, the queue for Star Wars Battlefront was over an hour long. After I finished an interview, it was three hours long. This is the same for pretty much everything with a few exceptions for what is essentially ten minutes of gameplay. This is normal for events of this type but I found myself mostly watching games by looking over the shoulders of those playing. If I had a family and was paying for this, I’d need to meticulously plan this otherwise it would be utterly frustrating. I saw a tweet this morning where someone had listened to the VideoGamer podcast whilst waiting in the queues. It’s a bit silly really.

It’s mostly silly because we’d all hoped the move to a bigger venue would mean that the expo would be… Well, bigger. But most of it only felt bigger in the aisles and walkways. The idea, we all thought, was to allow for more gaming, more fun and ultimately more of an experience. But to be honest, it didn’t really feel like that was the case. Playstation had a rather large and cramped area with two loud presenter type people more obsessed with spinning a prize wheel and garnering attention away from the Xbox stand, who were also shouting rather loudly about their game footage and drawing a crowd in a slightly larger area under the promise of free things. And they weren’t alone with YouTube Gaming doing the same although their streams and content was actually quite good, including the Gamer Network owned teams, along with Cam and Sebby, showing off games with developers and watching footage of games like Total War: Warhammer and people playing Destiny.

The problem is with these events is that the games that are supposed to take centre stage get hidden behind personalities, available space and consumer demand limitations, and the apparently more beneficial longevity of the swag generation. Stick around for this whole presentation and at the end we’ll throw T-Shirts at you. In the case of the YouTube stand, people just appeared at the right time like a sixth sense. If you’ve ever been on a boat or in a harbour where you lean over the edge with some food and suddenly lots of tiny sprats appear like a swarm of locusts in a field… That’s what this is. Maybe I am sounding old here but it’s an atrocious sight to see human beings baying for branded garments for no other reason than them just being there.

The Indie area on the other hand is cramped, busy and interesting. Pretty much like it always is, and if you are more interested in this then EGX Rezzed at Tobacco Docks in London is probably better for you. But it’s fun as long as you can get around it and look at the interesting games there, although having been to many events this year, I’ve seen a lot of the same games over and over again by now. But there are good things to be seen here.

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Then there’s the awesome community around games that really love just going there to see friends and have a good time. Cosplay had a smaller stage this year but it was great to see so many people being involved and enjoying it. The Rock Band 4 stage, compared by our great friends at Xtreme Gaming, was a great interactive and fun experience to get involved with (even though the surrounding people were probably sick of hearing Tribute by Tenacious D so many times). The retro gaming area is always fun and incredibly easy to get on to the old consoles and have some fun as well.

The thing is with this event is that it’s a little too big for what they’re attempting to do. Sure you can go and and have a little shop around as there’s lots to buy, you can even go and get some food and a coffee at a price not too far removed from the previous venue. You can go there and have fun if you’re patient and organised. You can even play the games that aren’t out yet if you want to wait in queues for long enough, or go and discover a gem. But with the game release silly season coming up, the cost of getting and staying in Birmingham (if you are doing multiple days) may not be worth what you get from it. If we can get better deals on travel and accommodation, then this would be a much better proposition than it currently is.

Images taken from Eurogamer and Indigo Pearl’s Twitter Feeds

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Mad Max – Review

Posted on by Sean Cleaver

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So, in a spate of lyrical platitudes, I said a few months back that Mad Max would be the one game I wouldn’t be able to live without. A bit dramatic you may think but now, having played the whole game from start to finish, I’m going to try and keep that statement true whilst also being objective for this review. One thing I did do was look back at the movies, just to get a feel for the world.

Yes, I am one of those morons who will have a TV or Laptop on the side with something on it whilst I play games. Usually it’s sports or one of many repeat viewings of a TV series. This time, I decided to rewatch the Mad Max movies. It’s worth pointing out how tonally different a few things are, especially if you’re a fan. Firstly, the wasteland being as arid and desert based as it is in the game, is a complete by-product of Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome and Fury Road. It is also worth pointing out that this Max is completely his own and mostly removed from any movie interpretations.

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So the one thing that this does is allow the characters, the franchise and the opportunity for a decent game to come to life in an incredibly large space. The wasteland is a huge empty opus in itself. A dystopian vision of a world reclaimed by sand and littered with the decay of humanity’s past and the cult fanaticism of petroleum-fuelled power, the very substance that caused the apocalypse in the first place. Yes it’s bombastic, ritualistic and occasionally garish in its interpretation of tribalism, but that’s one of the great things about it, the fantastical element that allows this crazy world to exist.

Max starts much in the same way as he does in Fury Road, by being beating up and having his car taken from him. But not before he manages to plant a baby chainsaw into the cranium of local warlord Scrotus. With the aid of an injured dog, you find your way on foot to a slightly crazy hunchback named Chumbucket who happens to be a wizard with cars and is currently building a new one, the Magnum Opus, which you have great need of after you see your beloved black Interceptor dismantled in one of the enemies camps.

What then ensues is a long mission, with Chumbucket as your passenger, to explore all of the wasteland, whilst doing the bidding of various underlords trying to rebuild themselves under the dictator-like poverty enforced by Scrotus. You spend your time clearing the landscape of snipers and totems (called scarecrows), dismantling enemy oil camps and engaging in big boss fights, taking out the big ‘top dog’ of the area. All the while, systematically lowering the level of threat in the area, and finding little camps where you can liberate scrap metal, historical relics (pictures from the past) and occasionally some construction parts to help build up your base.

How deep you want to go in to this side quest construction is up to you (if you’re one of these people that needs to 100% a game for instance) but you WILL have to get involved with it. Completing these missions and the side quests increases your level and also gains access to upgrades for Max and your car. It also allows you the opportunity to explore and get to grips with the enemies, the physical combat and the car combat.

To level yourself up is very easy. Doing missions, challenges, etc will earn you Griffa tokens. You take these to the crazy wandering shaman known as Griffa. This can help upgrade your strength, length of combo holds, fuel economy, etc. But it’s worth it just to engage in the introspective story of Max’s psyche, something that Griffa seems to have a direct line to. His pointing out of Max’s confused loyalties, his own torture and the secrets in his own mind that he’s trying to run from or conveniently buries are some of the best discourse in the game.

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Customisable Max doesn’t have a massive amount of customisation, but what there is compliments the increasing level and helps in the combat like wrist guards and knuckle dusters. Most things are quite easily unlocked in this regard, although I found myself basically playing the Hobo version of Max for most of the game out of laziness. Car upgrades are pretty cool such as ramming bars, engine upgrades, upgrades to your weapons (which Chumbucket conveniently fires for you) and hood ornaments collected from the destroyed convoys you encounter. Everything does become available quite easily, despite having to complete certain side-quests in some regards to earn the upgrade. One of the cool things are pre-designed car load outs called Archangels, one of which you will need in the story. But it’s a cool aside to help collect every available version of the Magnum Opus in the game.

Car combat is one of those things that can irk people. But I feel that Mad Max does it rather well. The obvious thing is to ram and grind everything in your path (be it a car, person or structure) but the options that you unlock can make this better than the constant dosey doe of close quarters vehicular violence. Yes the harpoon can be quite overpowered and is used a lot depending on what you’re doing, but that doesn’t make it less cool to use. There’s the thunderpoon (explosive on a stick), the shotgun and the side burners, the latter of which does a lot more damage than you think, if you want some variety.

But enemies usually come in threes which means that whilst you’re having to drive around finding another guy to hit, one is either coming at you or is primed to be t-boned. So there’s always someone to bash and never just an aimless creation of donuts. There is even a sneaky way to make things easier with the drivers getting out of the vehicles which allows them to be unceremoniously punched to death, quite convenient when your own car is on fire and about to explode.

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Of course there’s even more of a bonus if you can get these people out of a car and take their vehicle back to your closest stronghold. Whilst you can only upgrade your own car, you can also use any of the cars in the game as long as you collect them, which can be very useful for races or specific tasks like ramming things or collecting scrap. Once you do get out on your own and start beating up on people, you’ll find the combat very amenable indeed.

Compared to its contemporaries, you have a much more rugged feel to fighting. That’s also to do with the opponents you’re facing being rather rugged themselves, as well as Max being, well, mad. Most of the fighting removes itself from the acrobatic martial arts of Bruce Wayne and the sword fighting skills of Talion. It’s a lot more raw and brutal with shiv and skull crushing, just adding to the unforgiving psyche that Max has. This is even more apparent as you level up and progress the fury skill, an extra powerful buff earned from multiple combos.

Whilst I have been enjoying this game, there are some problems. These problems really do become a lot more apparent in the later parts of the game and one of them is due to its contemporaries. Whilst all the media attention was sited on this game being delayed and then released at the same time as the huge giant killer of Metal Gear Solid V The Phantom Pain (which you can read our initial impressions of here), I’m more concerned with Batman: Arkham Knight and Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor.

On the face of it, these are three different games with three different franchises from three different development studios – Monolith, Rocksteady and Avalanche. However these games in a lot of areas are exactly the same. Free-flowing combat in an open-world with various base liberation and boss battles, all of which level you up. It’s a stretch but this game does feel, when you’re playing it at length anyway, incredibly similar to Mordor. Obviously it doesn’t have the Nemesis system but the feel of it is incredibly similar. The car combat is something arguably Batman should have had and Max’s story is nowhere near as good as Batman’s. But the point is there (and probably only relevant if you played a lot of the other two games, like I did) that in the space of a year three incredibly similar games have been released by the same publisher.

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That’s not a problem if you like these games. They’re very good and the technology is there to make them good. Although Mad Max suffers towards the end of the game with big frame rate issues, especially in the storms, some races and occasional battles around the top of the map where lots of things are. It’s not game breaking but it’s frustrating given how smooth the rest of the game is. The story of the game also does something rather frustrating at the end by making you completely feel like you’ve misjudged the whole thing. Not in a controversial-yet-ideological epiphany kind of way, but more of a sad and unnecessary kind of way. It does feel a bit rushed and the game also frustrates you by overusing the map at this point. You also don’t get enough of Gastown or the amazingly bleak and dead area of the Barren Wastes. There are a few missed opportunities more than anything, which is annoying given the depth the game goes to in other areas.

One of which is fuel. I never wanted for fuel at all in this game. Not because it was easily found (although it is quite easily found), but because my character levelling made me conserve fuel more and by the time I was at a point in the game where things get very fuel thirsty, I had the economy of a Nissan Leaf but with a V8 engine. Trust me, I’ve owned a old school V8 car and that petrol practically evaporates. It was also helped that I’d done a lot of searching for parts for the strongholds so every time I went back to the central one for most of the game, Jeet’s Stronghold, I maxed out all my health, ammo, fuel and water. Obviously that was my choice but it took a little bit of challenge out of the game. One of the other things I didn’t get was how the story wanted you to blow up the oil refineries and transfer tanks to help disrupt an already leaderless Scrotus clan. Surely, given his hold on the resource, blowing it up is actually not a good thing as you need it too.

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I’m honestly glad I played Mad Max and it’s one of those games, like Mordor that I would play again and again, so in a way, I won’t be able to game without it being a part of my lexicon. And the one big reason why it has completely captured me is how beautiful the game is. I’ve been taking many pictures in the game using the photo mode (again something that was excellent in Shadow of Mordor) and it is glorious. The beauty of decay and entropy is something that is wonderful to look at and, outside of Chernobyl anyway, you won’t see it in real life en masse. The world that Avalanche has created is dangerous, violent, raw and poetically empty. When a storm hits, it’s incredibly vicious, loud and pretty. Many times, I risked death to get the perfect shot for a lightening bolt.

Normally for reviews, we use picture assets sent to us by the publisher but for this, we’ve used my own personal shots from the game. All of the pictures seen here are taken by me using the game’s own photo mode and shared via my PS4. It’s a testament that I trust how good these pictures look that I want to use them like this and it really shows off the vast visual beauty this game possesses. Combined with great game mechanics, excellent driving and combat, and an entertaining story that rewards the side quest grind for upgrades, Mad Max is definitely a game I’m reticent to put down. But I must for the plains of silence await me… If by plains of silence you mean doing some work.

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Mad Max is an excellent game which perfectly captures the sense of craziness and social human decay that George Miller’s movies evoke. The mechanics are sound, the game is huge and the landscape is beautiful. It’s slightly let down by its story and how close it is in gameplay to other games you’ve probably sunk time in to this year. But it’s definitely a game that will stay with you.

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  • Beautiful post-apocalyptic landscape.
  • Great fighting and car combat mechanics
  • Large open-world map that never feels the same.

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  • Story isn’t the best towards the end.
  • Quite close to other games in their gameplay.
  • Some bugs towards the end makes it feel a bit rushed.

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Whilst the game is excellent, the frame rate glitches towards the end let it down, as does the conclusion of the story. Plus there really isn’t enough to do outside of the quests and landscape liberation to take it to the next level. But the game is a great experience and one that truly deserves the plaudits if not for its beauty alone.

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This review is based on the PS4 version provided by the publisher.

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Rory McIlroy PGA Tour – Review

Posted on by Sean Cleaver

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Golf is deceptively simple and endlessly complicated; it satisfies the soul and frustrates the intellect. It is at the same time rewarding and maddening – and it is without a doubt the greatest game mankind has ever invented.

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Arnold Palmer said that. It must be said that this quote came from a world before Rory McIlroy PGA Tour Golf came to us armchair 19th hole patrons. There’s been a lot of changes to the franchise over the past four years, some of them enforced by the changing dynamic at the top of the PGA rankings, and some of them enforced by the development cycle of the current generation of consoles. So let’s first address these changes.

Firstly, Tiger Woods is gone. The name, the player, the licensing, everything that was Tiger Woods is no longer here. Yes Rory McIlroy is the new cover star but it goes a bit deeper than that. I’ve constantly found myself referring back to the name out of habit and quite possibly expecting a similar level of depth, gameplay and customisation that a nearly eighteen year franchise should bring. This game is a very different game in some respects compared to what we are used to but the kind of reliable soul that the previous games have, that kind of feeling where you know what you’re getting and you know you’ll be pleased, is gone. It’s always a risk making this kind of change because you could completely break what has made the formula successful. They haven’t broken it entirely but something isn’t right.

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Tiger Woods isn’t the only thing missing. In fact you could call the game anaemic compared to previous titles and even other EA Sports games. The game boasts eight courses and four fantasy courses, so twelve in total compared to the last game which had (including variations) thirty six. So we have a third of the courses of the previous game. We have just as much cut from the roster. Gone are the ladies tours and the amount of golfers that you can select. Gone are some of the licensed clothes, clubs and courses (The Masters deal having expired) and gone are a lot of the different faces and body looks that you can choose for your golfer. In fact, this is probably the worst cut of them all as, when embarking on a career, you lose any of the personalisation, the feel that you are a part of this career role playing and mostly just level up your character so he can hit things better. Yes, this is what you do anyway but it does show a lot more thanks to the lack of anything else.

The game engine has changed with the EA Sports signature Ignite engine giving way to the EA Games signature Frostbite 3 engine. Honestly, this hasn’t really made a lot of difference, the game still looks quite good although there are some odd moments where you have things like bushes and fences pop in and out, and the crowd very rarely moves in any fashion other than in unison. The faces in the game itself aren’t particularly great either with Rory McIlroy himself looking more like Formula One’s Pastor Maldonado. Strangely, with the menu system and everything else going on around it, it does feel quite… Battlefield-y. Like a mod of a Battlefield game almost. Not surprising given how much Battlefield there is with a humourous character and a playful destructible course. The actual gameplay is largely unaffected with very similar controls and displays as you would find in the previous games, although it does look a little easier to read, a litter tighter in the design and a little clearer overall, with the exception of the putting and green reads which are, frankly, pointless. All this is then coupled with an incredibly repetitive and cliche ridden commentary team that seems to have the NBC logo attached to it for no other reason than to look a bit like the TV. It’s absent everywhere else so it’s inclusion is confusing.

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Gimmicks are here a plenty actually with a PGA Prolouge mode that introduces you to the game, its controls and a rather bored and nervous looking McIlroy speaking to camera about his Open Championship win, which you then recreate through the tutorial. There’s a Nightclub mode where you do several challenges that look like the golf course version of a nightclub (Why? I mean honestly, why? You want to show night, I get it but a “nightclub” themed mode in a golf game? Seriously?), and there’s an online play mode but mostly, much like everything else, it has all been scaled back. No skins mode (there goes my old drinking game), no select holes (back 9 for example) and no alternative game modes really at all. Which would be ok if you could actually play a full round of golf in the career but as soon as you start, you get the highlights of the last few holes. Your entire career mode is basically not messing up what the computer has already simulated for you. Hardly my career, is it?

We’ve had a few sports games lately on the site that are entering their first current generation attempts. It feels worryingly uniform now that (unless you are FIFA seemingly) game modes and features are haemorrhaged for seemingly little gain in the new experience or anything above an expected graphical improvement. It can’t be easy for EA Tiburon as they haven’t used the Frostbite engine before now, and they’ve produced, under the pressure of expectation, a stable and capable golf simulator. Unfortunately in doing so any of the magic and fun of the previous iterations appears to have left with Tiger Woods (although he certainly hasn’t kept that magic himself). It’s an interesting reboot with a big new name and with a sport that will likely see a much more open and less solitarily dominated landscape in the future. If only the game could have captured that.

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Rory McIlroy PGA Tour is a new direction for the EA Sports franchise that has had the chip lifted from its shoulder and let free again. An engine change and a new generation of consoles seems to gone well and the gameplay is still as reliable as it was before. So in one sense, job done. But the lack of game modes, massive cuts to the roster of golfers and courses, and customisation and career mode input has taken some of the spark from the game and really, for a generational leap, it has fallen way short and landed with a rather subdued thud in the bunker.

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  • A nice looking golf game, with only occasional visual glitches
  • A solid gameplay experience that has carried well from the last generation
  • An easy to read display that allows you to play well, and quickly.

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  • A complete lack of features compared to previous games
  • A huge lack of courses compared to even the last game
  • It feels like its missing a little bit of its soul, like it lacks the confidence to be a new golf game.

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[tab title=”Why a 5.5?”]

I mean, honestly, it’s not a terrible game. It’s very playable if only for the time it takes to play a casual 18 holes. But the lack of anything that made the last games great has really hurt this iteration. For once, in an odd circumstance, we’re actually upset that there isn’t more in the game to do because they have transitioned to the new engine and new generation quite well. But poor looking player models, a third of the courses and with 75% of the fun removed from the experience, it needs some saving to build on the solid gameplay they have next time out.

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This review was based on the Xbox One version of the game, provided by Xbox. Thanks!

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F1 2015 – Review

Posted on by Sean Cleaver

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Formula One is the pinnacle of Motorsport. There is no denying, despite the rise in popularity of endurance racing, MOTO GP, rally and other disciplines, as well as the introduction of Formula E, that Formula One is still at the cutting edge of aerodynamics, engineering and now, hybrid racing. We’re almost two years in to the V6 Turbo kinetic recovery era and, despite the dominance of one team and certainly one engine manufacturer, the technology is well and truly at the forefront of design and evolution.

So it should also stand to measure that Codemasters’ latest iteration of their franchise, F1 2015, should not only reflect this but also embody it. We are well and truly in to a new generation of consoles now and this game is the first look at the new and improved EGO engine. The past two releases on the last generation of consoles were not anywhere near the standard we’ve come to expect of the studio. GRID Autosport felt like a shoe-in to make up for people upset with GRID 2 but it really fell flat and looked rushed. F1 2014 was a shadow of its former years, but with good reason. Unable to release on the now current generation consoles, Codemasters had to come to grips with a rapidly changing F1 rule book and a short amount of time to do it (as well as probably having to release annually due to contracts). The game and the studio were not ready and it showed. You could say it was their Red Bull/Renault moment.

Recently, the studio has won back some kudos thanks to the early access PC title DiRT Rally which takes the formerly “Colin McRae” titled series back to its time trial rally roots and successfully so. The hype for Formula One then is very much real among racing game fans who are excited to see this new engine look spectacular, excited for the changes in the rules, for performance to be expertly reflected, for an in depth setup changing option, and a great racing experience against both AI and online drivers. I can tell you now that three out of five ain’t bad.

Firstly the game engine does look spectacular but not in the way you would imagine. Sixty frames per second, perfectly replicated tracks, cars with up to date livery, and a smooth and exciting experience are all present and accounted for. But graphically, it doesn’t have the visual effects or the artistic panache of Project Cars (also published by Bandai Namco). Although it doesn’t really pretend to have them or even match that level of photorealistic detail in anything except the cars, or the swoon inducing lighting glares. In the effort of maintaining realism to an obsessive level, you won’t get the traditional gaming motion blur to replicate the feeling of speed. As part of the more realistic “broadcast” style, the game looks and replicates a television broadcast experience. For example the lack of natural light on an overcast day dulls the visuals, as it would on screen. Your TV camera won’t get the artsy motion blur we’ve been spoiled with for many different racing games. Surrounding scenery though can look a bit flat and the crowds/marshalls are still poor last generation blurred models (something Forza Horizon 2 is far better with). But other than those niggles it does work incredibly well.

Where there are the artistic sacrifices however, significant gains are made in other places. Wet weather and night races are exciting and incredibly tricky. The weather effects aren’t going to hit you like DriveClub would, but Formula 1 wouldn’t race in those extreme conditions anyway. It does the levels it needs to do well and with expert translation to the car, the handling and the track evolution. The cars and the AI have a massive increase of memory to race better and give you as a driver a more authentic feel. The heat haze from the car’s exhaust is not just a pretty effect as I will explain later. The crash particle effects and the ancillary features like the pit crew and a tablet for the garage set ups are all nicely done, as they always have been. The actual experience of racing, the broadcast chatters and the overall environment around you has been well refined.

What this does is make for the smooth, constant experience, that Formula One is. The gameplay has much more room for interpretation and even if you’re on a wheel or a pad (we played with both) the level of feedback you can feel from the car is extraordinary. You can tell when the back is just a tiny bit lighter, when your brake bias is just that bit too far forward, when the tires are cold and when the torque constantly throws you around as you accelerate out of a corner. Die hard F1 fans will be happy to know that a rudimentary understanding of what everything does and tinkering with set-ups is not only recommended but practically essential on higher difficulty modes. More casual players won’t have a problem getting to grips with the cars thanks to the level of assists but will struggle to race the AI without delving deeper in to the inner workings of an F1 car.

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The understanding will make your experience better and possibly more frustrating. In real life F1 there is an issue with overtaking that I now appreciate a lot more thanks to F1 2015. The heat haze from the exhaust isn’t just a load of hot air and a nice effect to see, it is potentially crippling to your race. One of the issues with the current aerodynamic rules and set ups in real life is how much turbulent air a car causes. Normally when you get in to the slipstream of another car, the reduction of drag should allow you to have less air resistance and close up on the guy in front. But now, the air from the car and the exhaust, combined with the squirmy nature of the modern F1 car actually leaves you with no grip at all. So much so that being under the rear wing of another car will impede your progress. Your car will list one way or another and you’ll be forced to heavily compensate to keep the car facing the right way through a corner, taking vital life out of the tires and combatting wheel spin. This happens regularly in F1 2015 and it’s a frustrating and accurate representation of the sport at present. The best tactic is to hold distance about a half second behind before a DRS zone, use the corner to catch up and have the momentum to leapfrog and be beside your opponent so you can cleanly pass or out brake him at the next corner.

You get the message that F1 is realistic to a point which might take away from the enjoyment of it as a game, but it is an F1 simulator so this is kind of what you expect. And whilst the addition of broadcast style presentation and new cutscenes is nice in a “Pro Evo 5” kind of way, they don’t really bring much to the overall enjoyment. New tweaks like your car being tended to on the grid for the race, rather than the garage, and a new race engineer voice are all nice though. The new feature for the in-car experience on consoles is the radio chatter. You can now directly ask your engineer about race updates. It’s voice activated so you can press the assigned button (L1 in my case) and just say a phrase to get information from your engineer. That’s using Playstation Camera, Kinect or a headset. You also have the entire 2014 team list and season (Caterham and Germany both present), as well as a day one patch that puts the Manor Marussia team in and updates the McLaren 2015 livery. The Pro Championship feature also gives you the hardcore full weekend, no assists experience that you can’t be bothered to manually adjust to in the normal championship mode, which is convenient.

Yet there is a list of things that really let F1 2015 down and it’s a list that grew longer the more I played it. The lack of a career mode is a well explained absence from Codemasters but it is an absence none the less. Personally, I find it a bit too forced to have your generic avatar with your name racing. I’d rather have a full team management mode or some kind of career progression system with a supporting formula. But its absence highlights that this game has three game modes: Championship/Pro Championship, Quick Race and Time Trial. The lack of a challenge mode is a bit of a shame as something like that could have compensated and has always enjoyed the kudos of leaderboards and the Codemasters RaceNet. Sadly, there is nothing in single player for RaceNet users.

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What about online? Well… You shouldn’t have asked really. Patches will surely come but my experience of the online game has been incredibly bad and practically broken. The “hopper” system that searches for suitable session types, ability levels and the like, is supposed to make it easy to find and partake in games quickly. There are different difficulty hoppers and a race challenge that changes to reflect the real life calendar. Except I’ve been barely able to connect to any lobbies, when I do the hopper is already three or four races in out of five and therefore is rather pointless competitively. The game somehow cannot fathom what position you are in either. One race I spent the entire time in 7th out of 9 racers, crossed the line and was rewarded with first place. There were no penalties or anything to cause it, I was just given it. I even got the trophy for it. Sadly this needs to be patched rather quickly, for PS4 especially.

There are a few other things as well such as graphical glitches in replays (the cars constantly leave a tyre trail), and occasionally disproportionately fast race AI (frustrating after your two hour slaving over a setup and getting nothing out of it). The Race Engineer talk back feature can be clumsy as I couldn’t find the talk button whilst racing with a wheel and couldn’t reassign it in the menu. The manual is impossible to do while racing if you don’t have a headset (far too clumsy), and (most importantly) didn’t work with chat headset that Sony supply with the PlayStation. I tested the crap out of it and it only worked with my Turtle Beach headset. I also found that the engineer’s voice level is too low, even at full volume with the other sounds adjusted, and that the saturation of engine noises during races is so similar that, again even with levels adjusted, it’s practically impossible to hear your own engine. I’ve spent a lot of races either visually glued to the rev limiter or, after a couple of laps, changing gears by instinct. Maybe this is better with headphones or a good sound system, but on a TV it’s very difficult.

F1 2015 is a fantastic leap forward for the series, and game the engine and playability shows good promise for the current generation of gaming. Whereas many have struggled to get their visuals across or to hit a specific frame rate, F1 has sacrificed the right things in the right places graphically to make an enjoyable experience. But the whole thing kind of feels like an incomplete project. The game feels complete (which could be slightly worrying if you over think about what you don’t like), but it’s very obvious that the work, the improvements and the refinement in everything around the engine and the basic racing mechanic is not. Ultimately the game desperately needs a large renovation of its multiplayer set up and quickly, but fans should enjoy the single player experience even if it isn’t the immersion they crave for just yet.

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[tab title=”Summary”]

F1 2015 feels like a Formula One game. All of the detail, the graphics, the setups, the torque, the wheelspin, the frustration of riding in the wake of another car… All of it is good and a great reflection of the sport as it currently is. But it does feel like it’s a project that is still a work in progress with numerous glitches, absent modes and a very broken multiplayer. One for the die hards who will happily enjoy and wait for more.

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[tab title=”Good Points”]

  • Smooth 60FPS graphics.
  • Up to date 2015 season and bonus 2014 season.
  • Excellent translation from car’s handling to controller.

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[tab title=”Bad Points”]

  • Broken Multiplayer.
  • Absent Modes.
  • Occasional Glitches.

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[tab title=”Why a 7?”]

I’m a massive fan of Formula One: the sport. Therefore I will and do enjoy the game version. Critically the game itself is rather good as a single player experience and I’m sure a few hot patches for AI and driver performance will help in balancing everyone else’s experiences. A career mode would have been great but I’ll take its absence in lieu of having a bad career mode instead. The current issues with the multiplayer though are very poor and need to be fixed soon, and all these little glitches and issues sadly detract from what has been a promising outing.

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This review is based on the PS4 version of the game and tested with the DualShock 4 Controller and the Thrustmaster T300 RS wheel.

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Tour de France 2015 – Review

Posted on by Sean Cleaver

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There is a strange allure I have with licensed sports games. I just want to play them, just to see what they’re like. The more common sense person in me says “Don’t be a dick, Sean, that game is £40 and you’ll play it for a week maximum.” It’s this reason why I owned the TNA Impact game, the Rugby League games back on the PS2 and even golf games. I’ll look at a game like the Tiger Woods Masters game and think “Wow, that’s cool! I want to play it” despite my interest in golf being a rather shoddy back 9 at my local course when I was 17 years old. But I am a fan of racing and every year, cycling grows in prominence, especially in the UK. We have some of the best riders in the world right now and the legacy of our success from the 2012 Olympics is still rather strong here.

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We have some great names like Sir Chris Hoy (who’s interestingly making the leap to motor racing with the Nissan Le Mans team), Sir Bradley Wiggins (who presumably has a career as a Rhys Ifans lookalike as well) and, according to Tour de France 2015, Chris Frame and Mark Civendash… Yes the heavily licensed video game version of cycling’s pinnacle event is missing arguably two of its greatest stars. Their teams are licenced like Team Sky and Ettix Quick-Step but they aren’t. It’s one of the oversights that have dulled this experience for me as, believe it or not, I was very interested to see what this game was like.

One the face of it, the game is a less leisurely cruise though some of France’s greatest scenery among a throng of computer controlled cyclists vying to be the famed Yellow Jersey. Or if not that, one of the many sub-event jerseys like the polka-dot climbing leader or the green sprint one. You can race through these multiple stages and sub-races in your own pack or as part of the peloton and work your magic through the many stages of the competition. Great if you’re a video game playing cycling fan.

Not so great if you aren’t or if you’re hoping this would be a good entry in to the sport for you. Very little is made clear about the event. Where as most mainstream sports games are quite simple in their scoring and how someone wins, cycling is not and you will quickly become frustrated that it’s not a first past the post scenario. The game manual does help a bit but there’s very little clear indication in the game as to what exactly you’re racing for. How you get the overall lead isn’t particularly obvious, or how various people regularly affect the overall standings as you’re racing and what you’re supposed to do about it. Climbs and sprints, yes, very obvious, but everything else? No. There are also single rider objectives that you can meet for bonuses but even still, they are rather unclear if you aren’t a cycling aficionado.

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Which is a shame because one thing that Tour de France 2015 gets really right is the strategy element. Your one button click wheel can control your entire team remotely to plan and strategise exactly what you need to win a stage. Get your people up for the sprints or the climbs then get them to hold defence as you slavishly avoid the wind on the wheels of another before timing your breakaway to perfection. Micro-managing everyone’s energy levels for the best parts of their particular race along with your own wall hitting risk (which you will do), and timing when to top that up with a quick supplement will distract you from the fact that the game doesn’t make the experience that enjoyable.

There’s a commentator/team manager whose received pronunciation voice wobbles like Griff Rhys Jones trying not to sound welsh but accidentally slipping. It’s such a weird combo that you could imagine Coogan and Brydon lampooning it over a chilled chardonnay and a Boudin Blanc whilst following the tour via the regions lavish eateries. At times, the man adopts the tone of an overly worrisome elderly gentleman who bears more resemblance to Lance Corporal Jones than a professional cycling coach. Don’t panic though, as he’s there to guide you with all 8 lines of dialogue he has… Repeatedly.

This package leads to frustration as during vast parts of the game you are in the French wilderness minding your own business, expending far too much energy. Your control method can be adapted of course to however you play but it is essentially one button at a time. You press square to hold behind another rider or RT to pedal. You can then tap X to attack. All of this expends a lot of energy for your rider before you get to a big climb or sprint so you can either run your own race or languish in the peloton for the duration. Then if you want to try your strategy you’ll bumble along as you reach to keep hold of your racing button and select your teammate, ultimately losing grip and slowing down massively or steering in to a verge.

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Oh well, at least the game looks good, right? Well no surprises as to what you’ll see anyway, lots of fields with copy and pasted corn, sunflowers, motionless cattle and their human counterparts with their cars parked up on sides manically waving flags and shouting what I assume is complimentary encouragement to you in french. It’s all rather static and a little bit sterile. I mean I’m not expecting Euro Truck style immersiveness but when the Tourmalet climb appears pretty much out of no where on the horizon and your limited camera movement and one view cannot see its imposing form really approach, it’s a bit annoying. Looking back to the peloton, every rider has the same face and body and this only changes when you get a podium screen. Crowds will mob the course as you approach a climb before sliding hastily away when they realise they’re in the middle of a bloody road, and I do mean comically slide. Like an old Quake style stereoscopic no clip mode. And whoever decided that it was a good idea to give the sound department all of the Vuvuzelas from the 2010 world cup and make them the crowd horns and noises should really have thought better.

I’m making a little light of this situation obviously but it is a game that doesn’t give too much to you and probably expects you not to be asking that much from it in the first place. There’s an local multiplayer mode, a Pro team mode for those who want to create their own team of super riders to earn the yellow jersey and a challanged mode. One thing I’d have liked is a freeplay mode so I could have done individual stages but other than that, the game has everything it needs and it has the strategy right, if not the gameplay to pull it off. For the price, it is one for cycling fans who enjoy it but if you’re a more casual fan of the sport or even just the event, then you’ll probably find it frustrating.

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Tour de France 2015 does exactly what it says on the box, it replicates the premiere cycling event with loads of licensed content and real stages you can enjoy. What it has in strategy though, it lacks in cohesion and end quality. With a little more adventure it could be a really good game though. Fun for fans of the sport and virtual representations, maybe not for more casual players.

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[tab title=”Good Points”]

  • Almost completely licensed teams/riders.
  • Great representations of the race stages.
  • Excellent strategy system and micro-management.

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  • Graphically a bit poor.
  • Confusing objectives.
  • No open freeplay of stages.

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This isn’t a bad game, it’s actually quite a clever sports strategy game given that it isn’t a management sim. But the one button control and the lack of coherence over what your aims are and how to employ the strategy is rather frustrating and alienating those without the knowledge. A few niggles add up to more and dampen your experience but the promise is there.

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This review is based on the PS4 version of the game.

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Thrustmaster T300 RS Steering Wheel – Review

Posted on by Sean Cleaver

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How to play racing games – Step One: Get a wheel.

It may seem like a simple and obvious instruction and one that is only acceptable if you are a racing game nerd, but the truth is that certain video games come much more alive and enjoyable with a peripheral. Racing games are most definitely one of them.

When we knew we were going to review Project Cars, we knew that Thrustmaster had been working with Slightly Mad Studios in developing their new wheel and said “hey, want us to try it out?” And they did! So after some creative construction, a frame was created to test the Thrustmaster T300RS wheel and the T3PA 3 pedal add on. I’m by no stretch an expert in wheels so consider me a good novice who’s riding the next generation hardware introduction beside you.

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Why did I make a frame? Well firstly height is an issue. If you’ve got a regular office chair for gaming, you need an acceptable height for the wheel. But you don’t need spend hundreds of pounds on a steel frame, although you can, and I would recommend it if you want the comfiest experience possible.

If you’re worried about spending a lot of money on a wheel and having a ghetto frame for it, don’t worry. I have a piano stool that mostly I use for putting my feet on and, with some parental DIY help, reconstituted an old draw to sit on top of it. It’s completely fine and very stable given the force feedback.

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Force feedback is an amazing thing, which has only got better since the days of Microsoft’s SideWinder controller. It brings a realism that breathes new life into a game. But enough of me babbling about how easy the set up and placement of a wheel is, let’s get to it.

The T300 RS is the first official PS4 wheel and comes with a detachable wheel in case you want to ever want to swap it for other add-ons. The wheel is very solid with a rubber texture for easy non-sweaty gripping, solid paddle shifters made of metal and easy to reach buttons for boosts, adjustments and pausing.

The wheel unit itself has a big motor that is actually rather quiet given the input it can throw out on you. The technical is that it’s a brushless motor with a dual belt. There’s a mount on the bottom for you to screw it down securely and believe me you’ll need to. The buttons are all excellently placed and responsive with standard controller layout and more cockpit style placement of the trigger controls. It’s a sleek black and all in all is a good-looking thing, although the mount isn’t particularly friendly to desks with a beam or metal bar underneath.

The pedal set up we have is the T3PA, which is a three pedal unit available separately – clutch, brake and accelerator. There’s a mode button on the wheel to invert the clutch and accelerator, which I’m assuming is useful for some people. But they are robust metal pedals and the brake pedal actually has some good resistance like a real car and makes for some interesting late braking fear in the games. There is something called a conical rubber brake mod included (a big bolt-adjustable rubber stopper) which basically means you can adjust the pedal to have more resistance which is good if you’re heavy on the brakes. All of the pedals are adjustable too in both height and position so you can have wider pedal spacing.

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The games we tested the wheel on were Project Cars and DriveClub on PS4, Euro Truck Simluator 2 on Mac and finally GRID 2 and Gran Tourismo 6 on PS3. So don’t worry, there’s plenty of games it works on and with Assetto Corsa, F1 2015 and WRC 5 coming for the PS4, there’s plenty of next generation stuff coming for you. A note that we couldn’t get the pedals working with Euro Truck Simulator 2 on the Mac, but the wheel worked fine. On investigation on forums there isn’t a single issue on PC so it’s probably a Mac driver issue. PC users, you are good to go.

It is strange though that the most problem I had with the use of the wheel was mostly dictated by the games themselves. For example, whilst there’s several adjustments you can make on Project Cars for the wheel’s force feedback, steering resistance, etc, which you’d probably expect given the dual development. DriveClub by comparison has nothing and the old PC player in me would have loved some remapping options or clearer indications on what button does what (damn this no game manual age).

The thing is once you have a good wheel (which this is) it can highlight the fault in some games. You can’t get a feel for the car in some games like GRID 2 and DriveClub because the controls are so arcade like and slidey or there just simply isn’t enough to the car to warrant the precision the wheel brings, or the wrist ache from all the fighting you’re having to do with the car channelling the uneven ground and torque to the steering.

This is why I’m looking forward to F1 2015 even more now, as this is a wheel that rewards racing. Precision, practice, lap times and feedback from the track, the dirt, and the edge of a kerb you can hang on to until the last millimetre. Project Cars is definitely best for this on console at the moment and the wheel. The different between these games (and they’re all enjoyable on a wheel for the realism) is that you are constantly fighting an unsettled car and wrestling compared to understanding the car and knowing how and why it becomes unsettled.

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For GRID 2, there were moments that the game was kicking the car out all over the place in a straight like which the feedback and precision of the wheel could only translate violently. Which shows the power of the wheel if nothing else. If you are getting rougher with the wheel, the pedals and steering feels like it can handle it. On my forum search I found a lot more serious gaming racers than I who were worried that there would be too much plastic on the pedals especially, but everyone seems to be rather happy. So don’t feel like you can’t give it some.

There are a list of supported games on the website with many more to come on PS4. The easy switch between the PS3 and PS4 is great for those gamers who still love a bit of the older games and PC enthusiasts can use it to for all the serious simulation games and the more mercurial Euro Truck series. In a way it’s quite a nice price point too at £299 to know that you’re getting quality but not paying ridiculous sums of money for a pro set-up you’ll only use for one game. If you’ve got the PS4 and a decent PC then this is pretty good multipurpose purchase. The things you need though is somewhere sensible to set it up, something to set it up on and a spare mains plug for it.

In summary, the wheel is a fantastic bit of kit. The T300 RS is a well built and enjoyable way to experience simulation racing, and if you get it set up right in the game, it can be good for the more arcade drifting based games as well. But this is best when you’ve got the time and inclination to spend a few hours tinkering your cars downforce and feeling why the car is wrong. It’s perfectly set up and designed for this and at times can be a bit too good for games that aren’t designed as simulations.

The build quality of the wheel is great and it isn’t going to kick you all over the place. The T3PA pedal add on is great although the clutch is pretty redundant unless you get the gear shift stick peripheral as well. If I had one bit of advice, it is to remember why in real life racing drivers take their hands off the wheel when in a spin or an accident… No sprains here please.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuw0cJ_Z2Vw

 

LEGO Jurassic World – Review

Posted on by Sean Cleaver

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If you had told the late Michael Crichton that his work would eventually become LEGO, he would have said “interesting, but please don’t let it be based on The Andromeda Strain because that movie has fucking bland colours”… Ok he probably wouldn’t have said that (it’s true though, watch the Robert Wise film it’s agonisingly bland in its visuals, even as a fan of the genre) but I’m sure he would have been surprised at the lengths his 1990 book would have been expanded to. Yes Jurassic Park was a book and the film rights were brought up before it even got published.

But now it is LEGO and because of that it is the new franchise for TT Games to give their trademark treatment to. On the face of it, a game that encapsulates 22 years of dinosaur action, terror, that rubbish third movie and the second one that is always on ITV2 but we never watch it, is a good idea. For years the Jurassic Park franchise has flirted with video gaming crapness, with the exceptions of the Jurassic Park: Rampage Edition and the arcade shooting cabinet of The Lost World.

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So here we are with a tricky franchise and a developer who has barely ever struck out.  Naturally, this works like an absolute charm and cleverly makes you spend money to see Jurassic World so that you can understand what’s about to happen in the game. It brilliantly mixes the fantastic visuals that the movies have created and the nostalgia that they invoke with the playful humour that has been tried and tested over many family focused games… More on that later.

As you would expect with any LEGO game, and even the ones we’ve recently reviewed, the gameplay is exactly the same as any other LEGO game – smash all the things, get all the studs and unlock all the people whilst enjoying creatively re-imagined parts of the titular franchise. It looks great on the version we played and isn’t an engine that stretches the older consoles either, so you’re all good on whatever platforms you’re using.

The two islands of Jurassic, Isla Nublar and Isla Sorna, are lovingly recreated with different areas for each movie, echoing the Visitors’ Centre of Jurassic Park, the terrible monsoon of The Lost World and the broadwalk of the new Isla Nublar complex from Jurassic World. There’s lots of interesting things for you to do and stuff to break and the levels have lots of fun things to juxtapose against the terror. Good points include the Jurassic Park theme music-box, an achievement for giving Timmy an electric shock and the continued presence of Jeff Goldblum, which is always a good thing.

It’s an incredibly evocative experience, especially if like me Jurassic Park was one of the first movies you saw in the cinema that wasn’t just a cartoon/kids film. That beautiful and dramatic score by John Williams is there in full effect, including some of the finer points of Michael Giacchino’s score for Jurassic World (the lovely horn motif that plays during the free roaming of the broadwalk is my stand out favourite). So you’ll get around twenty main missions, five from each movie, where you can revel in all of your nostalgic memories of the movies.

Like the most recent LEGO games, there are vocal clips from the movies in abundance, although a lot has also been re-recorded by the wealth of vocal talent in the industry (including Troy Baker and Nolan North). Sadly this includes Samuel L. Jackson from the first movie, but that’s presumably because his lines were delivered with a cigarette in his mouth and are quite hard to hear, and that he isn’t the most family friendly character… Again, more on that later.

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The key moments of all the movies are well represented although the first and last movies are the most creative and fun. The only problems with the others, which are problems with the movies in the first place, are that they become a little bit derivative. There are lots of leafy green areas, overrun jungles and hiding spots. The puzzles mostly involve opening things and avoiding dinosaurs, which, after a few hours, becomes very similar and familiar. Not that there isn’t new character or exactly the same puzzles but you do begin to get a sense of repetitiveness.

There are some nice chase missions that are included as a bonus, like being the dinosaurs rather than the humans. But if I were honest, I would have enjoyed them more in the actual game as a way to mix up the levels and make them more engaging. I only found a couple of bugs (a gyrosphere falling through the world and a few character changing issues, as well as a infinitely renewable coin source), which are frustrating but not game breaking. Then there’s your standard post-game free play and free roam search-and-destroy mechanics, which are the best way to explore, as always. You get that huge world sense like you did in Lord of The Rings and Harry Potter that makes you want to explore. Simple, engaging and intriguing – the perfect mix.

Yet there is one thing that hasn’t sat well with me, and it’s taken me a week to realise exactly what it was. I finally realised it is something that is completely missing from LEGO Jurassic World. Maybe I hadn’t noticed before consciously but it’s present in every other film based franchise LEGO game I’ve played. It’s possibly something to do with LEGO’s family friendly nature that they couldn’t show, despite having shown it before. So whilst I’m pointing it out and getting it off my chest, I’m not judging the game on it, and neither should you. Unfortunately, in my opinion, it’s one of the things that the Jurassic Park franchise not only excels at but also relies upon. I am talking about death.

One of the greatest things about the original Jurassic Park movie is how it doesn’t take itself too seriously. The falling banner about dinosaurs as the T-Rex roars is not only a great visual but also an amazingly ironic juxtaposition, purposefully created. It’s an easy joke but the death of the cowardly “blood-sucking lawyer” is black comedy at it’s action movie finest. Most of Ian Malcolm’s greatest quips are about avoiding death in an almost Woody Allen-esque overly talkative way (not surprising given that Goldblum’s debut was in Allen’s Annie Hall, and he siphons the actor/director tremendously in the films). But, and this isn’t a spoiler, nobody dies in LEGO Jurassic World.

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There are the all-important people eating scenes but all of them blissfully avoid actually committing to the death of a character, regurgitating them after, or just casually changing their death to a relevant whimsical scene. But, and maybe I’m being too adult about this, death is a central theme of the film series and is something that is expertly handled by them. Most of the deaths in the movies are comically based, rather than terror based (with the exception of Jurassic World), yet the complete avoidance of them in the game actually takes away something from the story and the fiction. I get why it’s happened because, a dinosaur eating someone is pretty terrifying. But it’s not as if the games haven’t done death before.

Another thing, and maybe I’m being picky, is a completely needless mini-game involving the Pachycephalosaurus. At first I thought it would serve a purpose to teach you a new mechanic but it just teaches things you already know from the earlier missions and is just there to divert the play from the story a little so you can explore the area. But you then have a part where you use the dinosaur as a battering ram before beating off your fellow Pachycephalosaurus’s in what is almost a dinosaur version of cock fighting. All this happening in a tourist arena with P.A. bellows of “oh don’t worry, he has the hardest head,” as if crying virtual LEGO children are in the stands pleading with mummy as to why the dinosaurs are trying to kill each other. There is a relevant symbolism in this with the movie of Jurassic World, which I won’t spoil, but it’s lost a bit in the game given that it doesn’t attempt to put the more moral dimensions of the plot in to any context.

After a few hours back on the islands, I must conclude that LEGO Jurassic World is an excellent nostalgic love letter to a series we all hoped would have a good game waiting to evolve from it. Although the movies are PG, I feel that the humour and the game itself has been aimed at too younger a player and could have had a bit more freedom in using the source material (Jurassic World is 12A). All of the excellent LEGO staples are there, including character and dinosaur creations, and it all works brilliantly. It is most definitely the best Jurassic Park/World game made and a good LEGO game, but could have done with a little more appreciation of what the audience can handle.

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This is probably the best LEGO game in a while, at least since Lord of the Rings for me personally. The Jurassic Park franchise fits it very well and TT Games has yet again, excellently put their trademark humour and enjoyable gameplay into practice. There are a few unpolished bits and the games suffer mostly from the same reasons that the movies did. Fun to play, good nostalgia and dinosaurs.

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– Dinosaurs, nostalgia and no expense spared.

– Great open world map.

– Another franchise that fits great with the bricks.

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– A bit unpolished in places.

– The story suffers after a while, much like the movies.

– Tiny bit repetitive in the puzzles.

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[tab title=”Why an 8?”]

Whilst I have some criticisms, I’m not judging a score based on them. But there some unpolished parts that more testing could have helped. The game though is a lot of fun and enjoyable for a while, and whilst the pace suffers during the third movie, the only problems mostly stem from the source material. Could have been a little bit tighter in places and the bonus levels would have been great

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This review is based on the PS4 version of the game.

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Project Cars – Review

Posted on by Sean Cleaver

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We’ve been lucky enough to have checked out Project Cars a few times over the course of the past year. This review is going to confirm some things we’ve already said and probably you already know, which is that Project Cars is awesome.

Of course I have to talk to you about this from the console perspective, but I’m no slouch. I’m well aware of the PC offerings like Asseto Corsa and I’ve been playing racing games on this new generation of consoles very rigidly. However, this is nothing like DriveClub, this is nothing like Forza Horizon 2 and to compare them would be an error. The closest thing you could possibly compare this to is Forza Motorsport 5, but again, that would belittle the attempts of Slightly Mad Studios.

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The game has seen its bumps along the way. Funded by the community and the developers themselves, tight budget constrictions and no publisher to fund them (although Bandai Namco now have distributed the game) has seen some big ideas and some big sacrifices. The planned Xbox 360 and PS3 versions were dropped due to the consoles being unable to run them, and the WiiU version was recently put under fresh doubt for the same reason. The investment in this is now reliant on just three platforms: PC, Xbox One and PS4.

Graphically, you can easily (and I mean easily) see why other consoles would have struggled with this game. It is quite simply sublime. From the detailing in the inside of every car, to the shape and look of every car (we’ve talked to Project Cars’s Andy Tudor before about photo realism), to the look and feel of every track – Project Cars is the almost the most graphically complete racing game on the next generation consoles… Almost, with the exception maybe of DriveClub’s beautiful settings and weather dynamics, but it will take some beating. My favourite touches always involve the depth perception of the player, something exclusive to the helmet camera. You can see how your view shifts to where it needs to be as you come to a corner. You lock your attention on the apex of the corner as your dashboard becomes blurred, losing focus in favour of the next place you need to be but relying on your track knowledge as a driver to be already slowing, braking and controlling the car, especially if surrounded by other cars.

What the graphical touches do is highlight how important the thought process is of a racing driver, which given the major involvement of racing drivers in the production of the game is no surprise. The way your head turns and the focus shifts is encouraging you as the driver to always be a few steps ahead, at the minimum. As you focus on the corner, you aren’t actually looking to turn in to the corner. That thought process has already happened. What you’re thinking and looking for is the point where you can get your foot back on the accelerator and power out of that corner as quickly and as smoothly as possible. In fact the helmet cam actually be a little cheat for people who turn off the suggested driving line as it helps to to dictate your braking points.

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There are issues. Occasional glitches, some skipped frames, the gear changing animation frustratingly (and probably unavoidably) happens after your gear change, especially noticeable if you use manual gears, and the game’s replays also suffer from car placement glitches. There are patches due to help cure some of these issues but for the most part, the game does exactly what it needs to do on the screen. This includes some excellent customisable HUD options and data which, if you know even a minuscule amount about racing, are incredibly helpful for reasons I will embellish on later.

Behind the virtual wheel the game plays like a more hyperactive Gran Tourismo than the earlier mentioned comparisons. As far as PlayStation goes (which is the version I tested) Gran Tourismo 6 is probably the closest most recent PlayStation game to it and in the earlier parts of the game Project Cars excels it. The career mode sees you starting in karting and very quickly puts you in to souped up road cars around the more national level racing circuits. You end up signing short contracts for a season in a formula with a team with many invitational races and tournaments along the way. To be honest, this is quite nice as a career mode. Compared to DiRT and GRID’s various attempts at “fan” accumulation, and Gran Tourismo 6’s utterly asinine and soulless progression, it’s one of the best modes that isn’t narratively based (I’m counting most open-world racers as narratively based).

The only issue that I have with it is that it feels a tiny bit forced because the game doesn’t strictly need it. There’s some nice, slightly unfulfilled, career choices like making a fake twitter name and having some fans comment after every race, and some very tiny email addresses where your team give you plaudits and others invite you to races. But it’s just there to read, there’s no real interaction, there’s no way to customise your driver in helmet or design and it’s all there just to push you to the next event. But with the game having everything unlocked straight away with cars and tracks, the career mode really is there to allow us to experience every kind of car. For that reason though, it might not keep the attention of the more casual player as there isn’t really anything to achieve in a gamification sense.

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The experience is very good of course, you can tell that the karts are zippy and responsive compared to the Renault that I went in to next. You can notice how slippery your car is when the tyres aren’t up to temperature and how your car struggles with cold and unbalanced braking.  All of this is brilliantly translated by the on screen data in the HUD and there are several third party apps that can record this information for your analytical desire. After a while though, it all gets a bit too similar especially with so many similar spec cars. Whilst you do get the feeling of every car it doesn’t translate in a way on the controller that you’d have hoped for given the onus on simulation. Add in to that the rather aggressive and poor AI which you’ve undoubtedly heard about then you do get rather frustrated.

This isn’t an AI that will get out of the way for you to get an easy win. But it doesn’t get out of the way at all or give any quarter when beaten, anywhere or anytime. This leads to frustrating collisions and several occasions of being run off the road. At times in practice and qualifying when you’re the faster car and overtake someone, you’ll immediately get a blue flag telling you to let the guy back through. The AI themselves struggle with the cars level of simulation detail with occasional sliding and tricky braking. All things real drivers deal with of course but when you have to cut a corner to get out of the way, or run slightly off to get around a car pushing you off the track, and you get penalised for it with lap penalties, it feels very harsh. If it happens more than once in a short qualifying session then you’ve got no hope of setting a time. So eventually, you will get frustrated.

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However, when you use a steering wheel (we used the Thrustmaster T300 RS which will be reviewed shortly), Project Cars becomes something utterly spectacular. The video below is actually me using the wheel, racing around a shortened Monza circuit in the Formula C (Formula 3) car. What the game’s realism does is make the steering wheel a much more enjoyable, reactive and interesting experience. You feel why the cold tyres make the all the difference and how the data shows you why you are overshooting corners with cold brakes. When you change to something else, even a McLaren, you can tell that the single seater cars are light and flighty compared to the dead weight of a normal car chassis.

 

You can understand when you go around Laguna Seca’s famous corkscrew and come to the next left hander, why you stay up on a high line thanks to a horrific dip in the track that completely unbalances the car. Practice sessions not only become essential but also a fascinating journey of discovery for the tracks and the cars. It breathes new life in to the game that you probably wouldn’t expect on console. Project Cars is a responsive and intuitive game with a control method normally championed by serious PC simulators and it works brilliantly with it.

The thing is though, this game is obviously for racers and it’s not that the game isn’t interesting or intriguing to people who aren’t huge sim racing fans, but the lack of a more narrative-based career progression and things to unlock does alienate the more arcade style of players. It’s not to say that this isn’t for them at all and that everyone can’t get some enjoyment at any level because you can. But this is a simulation racing game. This is perfected for the people with the kit who take as much pleasure on a track on their own perfecting a lap and a time as they do racing others and pulling off a tricky outside overtake at high speed with dodgem car wielding AI. And on that count, Project Cars is a spectacular game and a triumph for Slightly Mad Studios and the development model they used.

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Project Cars is the game that real console racers have probably been waiting for since Gran Tourismo 4. It’s responsive, interestingm in depth and rewards the expense of a wheel and a proper set up, whilst still being perfectly enjoyable without it. Arcade racers might get annoyed with the lack of career achievements, accolades and frustrating AI but can surely warm to that perfect lap which Project Cars captures perfectly.

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– Excellent graphical detail for cameras, cars and tracks

– Amazing depth of detail to suit all levels of racer

– Great support of steering wheels

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– AI is very aggressive and causes many issues

– Career mode doesn’t grab the more casual racer

– Some occasional glitches that we hope will be patched

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Whilst this game is absolutely amazing and a brilliant achievement for the production costs and the development model, I can’t look past a few issues, like the AI and a more narrative career mode might have increased the scope of the game a little further to encapsulate the casual player a bit more. I wouldn’t say the game is reliant on a steering wheel but the type of game that is make it clearly biased towards one which of course could limit gameplay for people who don’t own or don’t want to buy one. Still, this is the torch bearer for the coming years of simulation racers and I’m sure will be tough to beat.

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This review is based on the PS4 version of the game and also used a Thrustmaster T300 RS steering wheel and the T3PA pedal add on.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuw0cJ_Z2Vw

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Titan Souls – Review

Posted on by Sean Cleaver

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We covered the mechanics of Titan Souls and the history of its conception in our preview back in March. At that point, we were able to play the introductory levels and get a feel for the art style in the game, the simplicity in its controls and also a great sense of the inspirations behind it. This was also the demo that was released to play so you have all probably played it by now.

A brief reminder, Titan Souls is an independent game by new studio Acidnerve, a collection of three programmers who rose to the challenge Ludum Dare game jam with the theme “You Only Get One.” As such both you, and the bosses have only one hit. You must attack and kill a series of different bosses across the world using your one and only weapon – A bow and arrow. Keeping with the theme, you only get one arrow, which can be magically recalled back to you or you can pick it up. One you’ve tackled a Titan, you earn his soul through some awesome floating spirit absorption.

tsr2Now I’ve played the whole thing, I’ve accrued over 200 deaths in the mission to collect all of the Titan Souls and there are things I love and things that frustrate me. But firstly, a few disclaimers:

Whilst I possess a working knowledge of games like Shadow of the Colossus, I haven’t actually played the game. The game will of course feel like Shadow of the Colossus at times because it’s inspired by it, but I cannot make those connections like other reviews have. I was also playing this on a Mac with a PS4 controller. There were also things that irritated me that I couldn’t put my finger on until I saw a YouTuber play it and nail exactly what I was thinking so credit will be due.

We’ve covered the control method quite extensively in that there are three controls that all work very well and are suitably challenging to the boss battles. I have to say that the PS4 controller feels pretty natural but I also kept using different buttons for my arrow because I could. I’d have quite like a singular trigger button for the arrow so I always knew where it was. But that’s probably more due to my calamitous fingers failing to hold the PS4 pad between multiple deaths.

Death is something that obviously occurs often and as such, re-spawning also occurs often but rather frustratingly distant from the battle you just had. This is something that YouTuber PyroPuncher pointed out in his playthrough and I completely agree. The sizes of the areas are pretty huge and it can take a while to get back to the boss. I mean, yes it’s only about 10-20 seconds but when you are in the zone and building up a rhythm of playing and fighting, even that gap can remove you from it.

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The size of the world is something that I’m a tiny bit critical of. I love it for reasons that I will come on to but sometimes it can be quite empty and long especially if you’ve already explored and want to have a change of pace between areas. It can take a long time and sometimes the world feels like it could have done with a little more refinement. There are some gorgeous chasms and excellent abandoned ruins littered across the lands but sometimes you do get to bits with repetitive rock textures and you just wonder what else would have looked really cool there. With that you then get the issue of the lack of direction. Nothing is telling you what to do or where to go. This is, for me, an excellent thing for such a small game because you end up discovering things as if you were discovering them in reality. But I know that some people would have loved a map, or a little arrow pointing you in a general area and that so much unfettered freedom can irk gamers that just want to get on with it.

On the flip side, the massive world does two things: 1) It looks absolutely beautiful. Titan Souls have five areas or biomes if you will. You have your beginning ancient civilization ruin, you then get a fantastically expansive plaza of that civilization, with a few buildings still standing for Titan’s but everywhere else succumbed to entropy and overgrowth. You have a firey chasm, an underworld of lava and volcanic rock, which also seems to have been conquered by the previous occupants. You have a mystical forest that is bent on confusing your sense of direction and you have my favourite, the magnificent snow biome with glaciers, big snow boulders, bridges over gaping chasms and the occasional torch flame that burns longer than the life that used it. All of this is beautifully realised in the 16-bit art style and, save using photorealism and AAA RPG graphics, it is the prefect style for the game and for the atheistic it conveys. We’ve mentioned the links to Pokemon, Zelda and others in our preview and it does take inspiration from all the best parts of those franchise’s world designs.

2) It is chillingly empty. Games like this are exquisitely designed in a conservative way. It’s not minimalist or lazy but it is purposefully and effectively constructed to evoke the sense of lonliness. It is stark to the point of melancholy, reflecting those that have died before you in their attempt to take the souls and that have left nothing. There are points that, as I’ve said, could be refined to make the gameplay a little bit more of a smoother experience but overall it projects the immortality that guards the world exactly for what it is… A curse.

One thing that really helps this lonliness is the music, which is quite simply wonderful. It is strict in its usage, hyping up for battles with added distorted guitar and rhythmic beats. But for the rest of the map it can be very stark but evocative when it hits. A gust of wind blows and a sad flute melody plays. It reminds me a lot of some of the more solitary moments of The Wind Waker, but it is gorgeous with its Asian inspired sounds and instruments. I highly recommend that you check out Devolver Digital’s SoundCloud page anyway but you’ll find some of Titan Souls music there.

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Then there are the Titans themselves. Some range from the incredibly to the absolutely crazy. They all have proper names, unlike the “Heart-Glob” I dubbed previously, but they also have a very unique personality. Everything from the Treasure Chest that is “Avarice – The Manifestation of Greed” to the rolling ball of lava that is “Rol-Qayin – The Forged Creation of Gol-Qayin” is beautifully realised and enjoyably independent of other Titans in looks and strategy. Yes you’ll get annoyed with many deaths but that does not dampen the enjoyment.

However, you get the feeling that something isn’t right with what you are doing. It isn’t anywhere near what Shadow of the Colossus does in the destruction of beauty but there is something that feels like a trap. Like theses were all once adventurers like yourself and you’re killing something ancient and beautiful. There is one particular Titan that I didn’t want to kill. It is not often that games do this but this certain part of the game made me very sad. Not to the level of sad that I got when Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons began to reach its climax but it made me question everything I was doing in the game and why.

This to me is the greatest achievement of Titan Souls because it has absolutely no right to make you feel that way. There’s no story laid on for you to discover. You only get the indecipherable text for each Titan. You don’t know the reason why your character is doing it. But you don’t really care because its an independent game without the big budget, it looks quaint and it doesn’t cost a lot so it’ll be a challenging little thing to play. Then the game hits you like that and you realise that whilst this was originally a game made overnight by three incredibly talented individuals, it definitely transcends its origin story to become a very personal game to you.

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Titan Souls is an amazing product of a few things that make gaming great. It has that wonderful element of fantasy and interactive quality that no other medium can give in making you feel alone in a big dangerous world. It showcases what talent this country has in programming and what people can do in such a small amount of time. But mostly, it is an enjoyable game with simple controls and an interesting challenge to players and people like me who overthink about things.

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– Wonderful bosses with excellent unique designs/personalities

– Gripping musical cues and brilliant atmosphere

– The art and world design is expertly crafted to be evocative

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– Distances between bosses and repsawning points can be a bit long

– World is sometimes too big, especially if you’re exploring.

– Lack of direction may frustrate some.

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I rate any game that can cut through my steely hardened shell of emotion that 31 years of being alive, being a gamer and being a creative person who is unafraid to share his work, has built up. The game is a beautifully solitary experience that provides enough of a challenge despite its simple premise and controls, its music is perfect for the art style and the loneliness the game brings to your character and there is a point that it cut through me right to the little bit of phantom sad muscle just above your diaphragm. It may be a bit hard for some but its so easily accessible and endearing, so stick with it.

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