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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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[tab title=”Summary”]

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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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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F1 2015 – Preview

Posted on by Sean Cleaver

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The rain beats down heavily over Marina Bay. The flood lights are reflected, shimmering in the pools on the tarmac occasionally splashed with colour from the lights of ferris wheel. You’re thrashing through the streets, skating as you hit the puddles, the floor of your V6 turbo-charged hybrid monster scratching against the contours of the tarmac where it rises above the water. The raspy and angry sound of the 600 BHP engine roaring between the concrete barriers and bouncing under the stands as you enter the final chicane. It sounds like a petulant child as you carefully feather the throttle, taking every effort of your concentration not to squirm the misbehaving rear in to the wall, and screams with great freedom as the straight appears and you floor it, feeding petrol and recovered kinetic energy in to one last hurrah before crossing the line and taking the chequered flag… In 14th place.

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The changes to Formula One in the real world are finally ready to be properly reflected in the video game franchise from Codemasters. F1 2014 used the last generation engine and for those that played it, it definitely showed its need for an update. Yearly licences will always get to a point where the cross over of technology can betray it. F1 2014 was beset by this on both the gaming front with next-generation consoles and with the motor sport’s own evolution following a massive dynamic shift to more energy efficient vehicles. We previewed F1 2014 last year and you could tell from the games entire demeanour that this wasn’t going to be the game of F1’s past. In a way it was almost a good soft launch or education in to capturing the feel of the new cars.

So we fast forward to this year and F1 2015. A game that is coming DURING the season, which is excellent news. The game has traditionally, and rather annoyingly for Codemasters, launched towards the end of a season rather than other sports titles that precede their competitive starts. And as a bonus, although some may see it as a “thanks for sticking with us last year” present, last years Formula One season will be included along with the 2015 season. So you can dominate as Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes against two different seasons worth of driver lineups.

As you can probably tell by my opening paragraph, the game is tricky. It of course can be watered down with assists but, come on! The sport is deliberately trying to make these cars harder to drive, so go along with it. Like most simulation based games, practice and an appreciation of the learning curve needed to drive a virtual Formula One car is very rewarding. Especially when you see the work that has gone in to making the game stand out on Next-Genertaion hardware.

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You could argue that the EGO engine was due a facelift and it has got it. Whilst the Singapore circuit and the changing weather effects are quite obviously for our demonstration benefit, they are a great demonstration. The problem with many racing games, thanks to the realism in the cars and the track, is that the surroundings can suffer from not feeling very alive. But as you drive around Marina Bay in the lashing rain, you actually feel the tinge of fear. You have that worry that the beautiful puddle in front of you that’s majestically reflecting the light from the theme park is going to send you aquaplaning in to the floodlit tyre wall. As you enter the chicane under the grandstand towards the end of the circuit, you come close to where the waters edge is and you wonder if a big crashing wave will come over, through the barriers and on to the track right as you’re hitting the apex. Of course it won’t but that’s the feeling the game can evoke. Your fear and trepidation makes you falter with the intense concentration you need to drive these cars, and they are intense in the wet.

So much work has been done to make the game feel more alive and it’s not just a mechanical device in the gameplay, it’s also an atmospheric one. The new focus on broadcast cameras and new cutscenes, along with the return of Stevenage’s lesser known F1 master, David Croft, brings the game closer to the presentation that EA hit for their games. But this isn’t at the expense of the game or just added colour. If you remember the old F1 games on Playstation, you used to have Murray Walker making occasional quips which after a while grated and annoyed more than pleased. And commentary can quickly date a game. But the branding, the new camera angles, the more graphically televisual approach to things like menu screens, driver selection, etc can really get you in to it. Along with a new race engineer, the game is aesthetically getting quite the facelift, much like the sport.

I operate under a strange bias when it comes to Formula One games as I love the sport and I’ve really enjoyed Codemasters games. F1 2013 was a magnificent package. But I’m also quite demanding now thanks to what has come before it with Project CARS’s wonderful visuals, Driveclub’s amazing environments and the freedom and sense of vehicle character you get with the Forza Horizon games.

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Much like current Formula One, your management of your car and fuel is paramount. The control methods on both wheel and controller are easy to use (last year’s pad control wasn’t particularly great). But this heightened drama is being propped up by better AI and the Campaign mode. Picking a driver and playing an entire season with them has been a staple of ALL racing games so it’s good to see it finally appear in F1 2015. There’s the new Pro Championship mode which is for the purists (masochists) to give you the most authentic experience without having to individually turn everything off.

The dynamics of Formula One are changing all the time. For all of the Mercedes dominance, Renault’s failing’s, Red Bull throwing their frustrations at Renault, Bernie Ecclestone making soundbites that would probably dissolve many PR companies and McLaren Honda’s struggle to make their new partnership deliver on the track, it is the narrative behind all of them that grip up to those 2 hours on a Sunday where we live and breath our passion for the sport through our love of the racing on offer.

It’s something that the rule changes have done to give us a more open race and therefore a more interesting narrative. F1 2015 looks on course to give us the solid experience of racing and the drama we crave from the sport. If it’s the evoking of a powerful visual of a rain soaked track in Singapore, the elation of mastering a corner, the bittersweet sadness of seeing Jules Bianchi’s name in the roster from last season or the triumph of winning a race, the early impressions are that F1 2015 has it. Let’s hope it keeps up the pace during its final laps.

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Dirty Bomb – Preview

Posted on by Sean Cleaver

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Dirty Bomb is the latest effort from Splash Damage. The PC aficionado out there might recognise the name, but for everyone else here’s a little history. Fourteen years ago a group of online game modders became their own company and caught the attention of Activision and iD after creating maps for games like Return to Castle Wolfenstein and Counter-Strike. The company then ended up working for many publishers, like iD, creating multiplayer maps for Doom 3 and Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, working on the multiplayer elements of other games as well as making their own games. There have been some lows, BRINK being the most high profile, but now Splash Damage are back making games for themselves and doing what they do best – Online multiplayer gaming.

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So now we have Dirty Bomb. Set in a futuristic capital called New London, mercenaries and private militias are rulers of all. New London is empty after a dirty bomb was blown up over it. Now people are coming back to loot this city and get money. Those people are of course you and your employers leading this online first person shooter to pit teams against each other with the focus on objectives, mostly attack and defence. We got to play a small beta in actual London and tried two game modes in local online play.

The first game mode we played was a control-based game. The defending team had to stop the attacking getting through a wall and then, once they failed at that, they had to stop the attacking team from blowing up some containers. This was set in a pretty nicely designed map with some good open and constrictive flash point areas.  Secondly we played an objective match in New Camden where we repaired an armored vehicle just to go 500 yards to a medical centre and steal medicine.

I’m probably the wrong person to preview this though as, despite my cynical sarcasm, I’m not someone that regularly enjoys team FPS games and my lack of a PC really prevents me from playing them. I know and watch many of them though and when you see CSGO, Team Fortress 2 and many other online game modes of other games like Battlefield, you have to wonder what the motivation is to break in to the market, or split it in your favour.

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However, I was surprised how easily I got in to the team aesthetic with four people on my team from various European news outlets. So whilst English wasn’t the first language of the team, we all bought in to the communication and the organisation. One reason was because you quickly realised that you needed to in order to accomplish your team goals. But the main reason was that the game made it really easy to get in to, especially for a fairly uneducated, crap player like myself. It is incredibly fast paced and there is quite a solid feeling of achievement for succeeding as a tema, and being the best on your team.

I have no muscle memory of WASD or clouded conceptions of these types of games. So coming in to it from a complete n00b standpoint has made me realise how clean and approachable the game was. Everything in the game was smooth and worked as and when you wanted it to work. From special tools to weapon switching and changing character, everything makes sense and does so without a large learning curve or an effort to buy in to the fiction.

Your loadout isn’t limited to the guns either. You get to choose three different characters, all of which have different classes and ability benefits to your team. And as you die you can respawn as any of them. There are big tank units, medics, scouts and engineers. Engineers are essential for the objective parts as they can quickly arm and disarm bombs and repair mechanical things quicker than anyone else and I spent the most time as this class. They seemed to be the most useful for the game types we were playing, and weren’t too slow or lacking in the firepower.

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The thing is that Splash Damage knows what they’re doing in creating maps. They evocative sense of tradition and arguably tourist-clichéd London is ever present, the design is great to create some balanced and enjoyable team play and works very well in getting you playing. The criticisms I have though is how needed this is. Whilst the game has its own take on the genre, it is almost scared to commit itself to having its own identity, which is understandable given the reception of BRINK. There’s a glut at the moment of both old and new team based online games. Evolve is discovering that it’s hard to move the audience across from what they know and have invested in. The game also has some micro-transactions, which can translate as pay-to-win. The game is officially free-to-win with free characters (mercs) that rotate but there are ones that you can pay for with in game or real currency. The packs that you see in Battlefield/CoD/CSGO/et. al, which Dirty Bomb calls Cases, are also available via contracts in game (so challenges) or by money, along with a Merc starter pack you can get during the Beta. So the micro transaction option is there, but not necessary.

Dirty Bomb so far is an enjoyable game and does everything right and well. But it’s not a departure enough yet to capture a new audience or steal them from other games. It doesn’t really have enough confidence in itself yet to compete. But it will, and if it gets enough traction, it could do good things. It’s certainly on the right path. It is tongue in cheek with its humour and design, it’s visually opulent enough to make your wonder where everything actually is in regards to current real London and who doesn’t love a casual mention of Wheaton’s Law in their trailer? But most of all, it plays well and that’s the most important thing.

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Battlefield Hardline – Review

Posted on by Sean Cleaver

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“Sir, Mendoza’s last run in the field, no offence, was a total clusterfuck.”

It’s hard to not see Khai Ming Dao’s first critique of her new partner as a tongue in cheek look at the last Battlefield outing. Battlefield 4 was one of the titles badly affected by EA’s 2013 of discontent… Ok it wasn’t really called that. But Battlefield 4’s online issues and subsequent board and legal battles are well documented. Enter in to the fray 2015’s Battlefield Hardline. A game in itself that was delayed twice after an arguably poorly received Beta last year.

[Nick Mendoza - Greener than a field of grass in the spring time]

[Nick Mendoza – Greener than a field of grass in the spring time]

Rolling the DICE this time around is Visceral, a studio best known for the Dead Space series (although they also had quite a run of 007 games in the past). And as a departure from the more futuristic armed forces based gameplay, we enter the world of the Miami Police Department and their never-ending war on drugs. Nick Mendoza, a police detective who is also a refugee of Cuba, comes fresh faced in to the department and starts by helping to botch a simple search with his partner, Stoddard, stumbling upon an worrying development in the cocaine trade. Nick then gets partnered with Kelly Hu’s character, Khai Ming Dao, and the two unearth worrying revelations about the force they work for as well as the drugs trade they’re trying to curb.

I’m not giving away any spoilers, although you have probably guessed at this point that Nick ends up as a prisoner and there’s a lot of shouting and comedic lines. That’s because they’re all in the trailer. To be perfectly frank, despite the TV presentation, this is just a B-movie script. You’d see this plot in the summer movie list starring someone like Jason Statham or the never-ending ream of former SNL comics who straddle the action movie/funny man circuit. It’s an entertaining don’t-think-too-much romp of gratuitous gunfire, explosions, criminal underworlds and broken trust. In fact the only thing missing from its action movie stereotype is some pathetically carnal whimsy between the main characters. Although you will get you comical tech wizard sidekick and his crazy Ex who you’d never have pictured him with – literally ticking all the boxes of a mindless audience approval screening for a formulaic American TV detective show.

[Press X to administer Savlon to wound]

[Press X to administer Savlon to wound]

There is something with the episodic format that works though. It worked very well for Alan Wake, it’s worked very well for TellTale games although that’s become more strained as they become more generic in their design, and Battlefield Hardline is no exception. However, because the whole game is there from the off (as in you don’t have to wait months for DLC or the next episode) and you could easily complete the story within a days gaming, you could very well miss these nuances. The “Next Time on…” and “Previously on…” segments simply don’t exist unless you save and quit out of an episode. All of the little nods to the popular TV formats are there, from characterization, multiple layers of intrigue, secrets, lies, etc, etc. But it doesn’t make a game. It makes for some entertaining cut scenes and moments but the gameplay of Battlefield doesn’t really match it. And personally I can find it quite jarring when the 30fps cut scene changes in to the 60fps player controlled shooting time.

The mechanic in the game is the ability to be non-violent. The reward for not spraying bullets into a zone is that you can unlock and upgrade weapons, attachments, etc, for arresting people rather than mercilessly capping them. In effect, the reward for being a pacifist is that you unlock newer, more customisable, shinier ways to kill people. Once you’ve hit level 15 and you’ve found all the case files to unlock everything, that’s it. With the recent issues with policing in America and what is seen as a militarisation of the force and a reduction in accountability, there’s probably been better times to release a game where a major part of the gameplay is arresting, or killing several unnamed Latino racial stereotypes for bonus points. But once you’ve earned those points, the hypocrisy can begin and you can start playing the game the way first person shooters are meant to played – Like a mindless, bloody, hilariously over the top, unaccountable hero: Utterly empty

[I know it's American but I want a Swag bag, not loot]

[I know it’s American but I want a Swag bag, not loot]

In that regard, absolutely nothing has really changed in the game since Battlefield 4, at least not for me. Yes, there’s been little changes to the gameplay here and there, the removal of grenades from the single player changes the game into a bit of a Metal Gear Solid stealth simulator (albeit a pretty poor one), but very little actually changes the game or how you play it. The graphics on the Xbox One version run at a lowered 720p so that the frame rate can be consistently hit. The PS4 version does run at a higher resolution, but a lot of the game is, simply, quite messy. Certain areas are graphically very poor, which isn’t surprising given the resolution. But the textures at times are shoddy, the aliasing is abysmal and the whole thing plays like a faster frame rate past generation game, and not the HD re-release kind. Yes there are some awesome moments in the game that take in sound and visual cues like the hurricane hitting the mall, but for the most part it really is sub-par. I’ll be honest, I’ve not been impressed with EA’s flagship engine. The Frostbite 3 engine seems to be either beyond the capability of the consoles it’s running on or no one knows truly how to get the best from it. In fact the best game using the engine so far has been Dragon Age: Inquisition. Hardline is most definitely not a good advert for the engine, away from the high-end PC hardware acceleration.

The graphical difference is very clear in the multiplayer modes. Battlefield’s multiplayer relies on not being graphically heavy so it can withstand the big team nature. Personally, I find the amount of people and the utter chaos utterly confusing and frustrating. The now tried and tested CSGO style of earning money and unlocking weapons and bonus packs is in full force here but those feel incredibly difficult to achieve thanks to how tough the early level options are to use. The game modes, mostly variants on Capture the Flag and Control game types slightly amended to suit the policing theme, are fairly obvious rehashes of normal game modes with swanky names and aren’t a massive departure from Battlefield’s past. Whilst it can’t graphically hold a torch to Call of Duty in these modes the more realistic and frenetic gameplay does aid certain game types, but only once you’ve racked up multiple deaths in your effort to level up. At least a lesson has been learned from the previous release and the servers are plentiful and fully operational. The benefit of having what is essentially a good, competitive multiplayer environment is that the infrastructure is finally there to support it. And for all its entry-level difficulty, once you do get some success and push on through the levels it can be very enjoyable. Much like many other recent online games, it benefits a lot more from having a group of friends that are all in on the action and playing regularly.

Whether or not it is the right time to release a game based on heavily armed police forces full of corruption against a nameless, seemingly replaceable, throng of Hispanic and Latin organised criminal gang members is slightly contentious. But it’s recent events that have dictated that the game can be perceived as insensitive, not the initial conception and plan that must have been drawn up 18-24 months ago. Sadly the game hasn’t really improved or built much upon any lessons within that time since Battlefield 4. For all of the criticisms, the beta feedback and the delays, the game hasn’t grown like, and it’s a bad comparison, Call of Duty has in the recent years. In fact, its distance from Activision’s franchise in the release cycle has certainly brought more of the series’ faults to the fore, at least more so than normal. This one is certainly for fans of Battlefield’s multiplayer and is definitely focused to capturing an audience that is willing to dedicate time and form groups to play it, much like its PC online FPS cousins. For the rest of us though, it’s a short-lived action romp and getting the box set of The Expendables movies could better scratch that itch.

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Battlefield Hardline excels in what it does best. Which is really frustrating for the game as it spends a long time trying to avoid it – That being the frantic shooting of all manner of bullets against the enemy. The police drama is a good enough B-movie and the style certainly works as a format but the content holds very little for video games like this. A consistent and functioning multiplayer hides a game confused between a pacifist setting and a all guns blazing FPS format.

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  • Interesting change in game focus
  • Multiplayer is fully functioning and well supported
  • TV style and Episodic format works very well

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  • Incredibly poor graphically for next generation consoles
  • The usefulness and novelty of hypocritical non-violent gameplay wears off quick
  • Very little improvement on Battlefield 4

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This game has tried to change the landscape a bit. It hasn’t been too overly brash about itself or claimed itself to be a new frontier in gaming. TV episodic tropes are tried and tested. But beneath the good intentions lies a game that is incredibly hypocritical of its pacifistic direction due to its FPS roots, a game that is graphically shoddy and a difficult multiplayer for entry-level players. It is at least stable and works, but all in all is confused and lacking.

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This review was based on the Xbox One version of the game.

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Super Dungeon Bros – Preview

Posted on by Sean Cleaver

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Super Dungeon Bros is a four-player game that brings some of the best elements of some of our favourite multiplayer indie games. You can see the inspiration of games like Castle Crashers. Dungeon raid, rouge-like, co-op smashing games have been a regular staple on people’s top console indie games lists although not many have done them too well. The aforementioned Castle Crashers is probably the best example.

Super Dungeon Bros takes this action into a top down, slightly isometric 3D view. The aim is to beat traps and puzzles along with occasional enemies to raid the dungeon with your three other compatriots. This is both on and offline, so you can all share a screen in your house or your own screens online. The game also allows you to craft weapons so that you can customise how you play, as well as use each other as weapons. There’s quite a nice set of weapons too from ranged crossbows to swords, hammers and even some mad co-op attacks. But the main joy is the constant trolling that will come.

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[Spectral ghost boss… Far more interesting than the title it’s spoofing.]

You can pick your fellow Dungeon Bro up and throw him as a weapon. Which also means you can throw him across chasms, much like dwarf tossing. You can also just descend the game in to constant madness by lobbing your friends off the map and endlessly kill them instead. You go from having great fun, to experiencing great annoyance and eventually end with uncontrollable laughter… a staple of multiplayer gaming if there ever was one. All of this ends with boss battles and then carries on continuously.

Each level is procedurally generated. That’s right, 2014’s buzz word returns and in this case, you get the fun of different levels every time. Although they do follow a basic rule set across the three different worlds of the game, set to some fairly heavy rock music. The game’s story is that it’s set in Rökheim, which is described as “a giant scar of godforsaken earth where wars are waged in underground crypts built by the gods themselves”… *Insert generic town insult here* But they are all yours to loot, pillage and get coin! Dungeons are awesome like that.

Whilst we were at EGX Rezzed we got to have a look at the game at the ID@Xbox stand. It was interesting to see the dynamic of four friends sat down and slowly realise that they can play the game and at the same time, screw each other over. It’s something this writer remembers very fondly, that communal sense of hating someone for ruining the experience of a game, but it was so frequent and often that much laughter was had. That particular experience was on Halo 3, but we can see ourselves having similar experiences with Super Dungeon Bros.

[Rule One: Where there are skull and monk like creatures - Avoid.]

[Rule One: Where there are skull and monk like creatures – Avoid.]

Do not fear though, as despite it being on the Xbox stand, it isn’t an exclusive. As we watched a group of people try hard to throw each other off of a floating tower, the developers told me that the game will also come to Windows 10 and will benefit from the same cross platform play as Fable Legends is going to have between that operating system and Xbox One. Although the game is also coming out on PS4, PC (older versions of Windows) and Mac and is also cross-platform on those formats as well. Which led us to presume that there will be some Steam integration for this cross platform support.

The game we saw was the first every playable version of the game and we were quite impressed with how stable it was (given that we have seen some games lately that aren’t at all). The game is due to be released sometime towards the end of this year by US developer, React Games and Watford based Wired Productions. The game is being developed in the Unity engine too so it should be rather pretty without being too strenuous on a system.

It is early days yet for this game and there’s a lot that is sure to come over the coming months, especially with more game shows and the ID@Xbox banner behind them. The self-publishing vehicle already has a lot of great games that have been released or will be released shortly. This certainly looks like one game that will be an entertaining party choice for those of us inclined to troll our friends.

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Hotline Miami 2 Wrong Number – Review

Posted on by Sean Cleaver

hlm2rft

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Hotline Miami 2 follows on from the enormously successful indie game Hotline Miami. For those of you that have probably seen but not played it before, allow me to enlighten you as to the status quo. Hotline Miami is a 2D top down shooter that is played at a frenetic and unforgiving pace. The style, which takes an eclectic look at the 80s through the eyes of an unnamed man (known by the community as Jacket and is inspired by the movie Drive), is a colourful and vibrant psychedelic mind explosion that is beautifully married with extremely prejudicial violence and an amazing electronica-fused soundtrack.

[Where everybody knows your name... Or mask, rather.]

[Where everybody knows your name… Or mask, rather.]

It was quite simply marvellous and extremely difficult and frustrating all at the same time. Hotline Miami 2 sets itself to conclude the story of the first game, a story that was a strange mix of imaginary and forced coercion into violent acts by the mob, and delivered by a narrator that was so unreliable, he’d probably get a job as Middle-East peace envoy. In a series of flashbacks and fast-forwards, which are beautifully realised by some excellent old VHS tape and tracking effects, Hotline Miami 2 gives you the before and the after of the first game, putting in to perspective the events that caused the extreme violence that’s tricky but enjoyable.

Whilst this is an excellent mechanic of course and the story actually tells you very little of what is actually going on (which might frustrate those of you looking for closure), it’s the constant jarring between different times and characters that will sit most uncomfortably for those used to a more linear experience. It possibly could have done well to have these flashbacks in their own chapters with the book-writing journalist bridging the narrative gaps. But as a criticism of the method in the game, it can lose you, especially if you spend a while on a tricky level and suddenly get thrown into unexplained mid-80s Hawaii with a covert military unit taking out rebels.

In fact at times in these levels the game becomes quite nostalgic for the older gamer. It’s less “Honolulu Strangler” and more “Operation Wolf.” Remember that arcade game? That big heavy plastic gun controller with moving parts that was always five times the size of your hands, whatever age you were? The comparisons don’t stop there. Where the first game echoed the inspiration of Drive, Hotline Miami 2 throws in the crime and decadence of Scarface, echoes of Platoon and Apocalypse Now in military thrillers, and a very unique look at societies fascination for physical and sexual violence in film and how it can blur reality. You are still left with questions and guesses to the real reasons of what’s going on, despite the political power plays happening in the background and the shared psychosis of the chicken mask. If this is the last one then the story is open ended enough to leave you wanting more.

[Shopping on Black Friday always ended badly.]

[Shopping on Black Friday always ended badly.]

The gameplay however isn’t as good as everything else going on around it. Playing on a controller is difficult but once you get in to it, it’s easy to use. Thankfully that responsive challenging control method and crazy pace hasn’t changed at all, but everything around it is a bit trickier than before. Which would be great if it feels like an intention of the game, but it feels a bit annoying, like the game has just copied the AI across form the first game without improving on it. Most annoying is when there are many enemies off-screen that kill you very readily.

The controls to scan around the area are also fairly short in their stretch and there are several instances where the pathing of the enemies, especially dogs, gets caught up on something and starts spinning around. The new enemies that involve a bit more of a challenge are great but almost impossible when surrounded by more than one person with a gun. Sometimes the enemies feel a bit too awkward in their positions and dogs can be especially tricky if your timing is even a beat of a millionth of a second off when hitting the button.

Although your new characters can do cool things like stretching their arms to shoot horizontally in both directions, control a chainsaw and a gun at the same time, and barrel roll out of the way of fire, it’s the lack of the weapons and masks from the first game that sadly take away some of the replayability of the game. The level designs are good but ultimately don’t feel any different from the first. I personally would have loved more interactive things around the areas and the houses in the level introductions. They are there as newspaper cuttings, but a few more and maybe some more humorous spots could have bumped this further than being sequel that doesn’t change it up too much.

[For the stars of DuckTales, early fame led to a bad crowd.]

[For the stars of DuckTales, early fame led to a bad crowd.]

With that being said, for the negative aspects of how the game hasn’t grown or changed, it has a butt load of things that it’s absolutely excelled at. If you follow any games writer, PR person or general gaming related avatar on Twitter, you’ll know the Hotline Miami soundtrack is required Friday listening. Well, we’re adding another playlist to the Friday sounds. Hotline Miami 2’s soundtrack is not only longer, but also better and amazingly posited to the levels they are on. It’s actually a bit of an artistic masterwork when you see how seamless it is and how much the music keeps you in the game during the frustrating constant respawns.

The retro look at the 80s is also fantastic from video tracking and VCR sub menus when you pause the game, to the excellent use of Video Nasty cassette tapes as the level selections and the video rewinding effects to instigate flashbacks. It’s not style over substance by any means but the style is a key part of what makes Hotline Miami 2 a great game and as great as first one.

Hotline Miami 2 is once again an incredible ode-to-violence that will divide players between those who see it as a challenge, those who see it as masochistic, those who just love the look and sound of it and those who don’t have a damn clue what’s going on. There are some criticisms of the violence it portrays and that the sexual violence in the beginning is gratuitous and unnecessary. Which it is and the fact you can turn it off is an admission of that. The game hasn’t leapt on from the first and in some cases has taken stuff away that we would have loved. But what the game does best is put an incredible pop-culture visual over challenging levels that will dictate your Spotify playlists for many years. Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I can hear my phone going off.

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Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number has fulfilled everything we expected and asked for in a sequel, which was “more of the same, please”. More music, more 80s style, more challenging shooty fun. But we probably didn’t realise that we’d have liked a bit more refinement, maybe a bit of cohesion between flashback sequences and bit more of an improvement in the AI. But you don’t get what you don’t ask for, right?

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[tab title=”Good Points”]

  • Super awesome soundtrack
  • The conclusion and background to an intriguing story
  • More of the same from the first game

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[tab title=”Bad Points”]

  • Hasn’t changed enough, and removed some masked fun
  • Regular death from enemies outside of all vision
  • Narrative can be jarring in flashbacks

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[tab title=”Why an 8?”]

There’s a great game here, and a game that when you look past the amazing soundtrack that we love, the visual style that we applaud and the unreliable narrative we all discuss, could have been better. Little things like the enemy AI, being shot from off screen too often and a lack of improvement in that area of the game holds it back a bit. But it is still a great game and terrific value.

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

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LEGO Jurassic World – Preview

Posted on by Sean Cleaver

LJWFT

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Hold on to your butts… Clever Girl… Life will find a way… I’m getting these out of the way early so I am not tempted to fill this preview with many puns. But it’s true, there are numerous moments throughout the history of the trilogy (soon to be quadrilogy) of the failed Dinosaur theme park that have adorned our popular culture both visually and in quotes. Which is why it makes perfect sense for it to be a LEGO game. I can’t believe I didn’t see it before but if we’re honest, we’ve all wanted a great Jurassic Park game.

LJW1

[You know back in my day – the Cretaceous period – gluten intolerance wasn’t a thing.]

There have been people that have tried but in all honesty, LEGO as a video game franchise hasn’t produced a full on turkey of a game yet. So it’s good to see that the game we all wanted may well be best served by LEGO. In fact I’ve got a list of franchises that I would love to see in blocks. For now though, I can’t wait to build my first Dinosaur.

Yes, whilst there’s a lot that we’ll talk about with LEGO Jurassic World, the important thing is that you can build your own dinosaur and wreak havoc with it. Along with the dinosaurs from the movies, including the new movie, you’ll be able to unlock them all as you play the game. Much like in the films, Amber will contain dinosaur DNA for you to collect. This will unlock one of the twenty dinosaurs, which you can then use to create your own, much like the character creator that’s already there for custom players. Except in this case you’ll also get the abilities of that dinosaur’s part. Acid spitting? Sure thing. Finally giving a T-Rex long arms? It’s about time! And we’re told there’s an arena of sorts which you can pit your dinosaur creations against each other. Which, as a sentence, is pretty cool.

LEGO Jurassic World will have a lot from the new movie of the same name although right now we’re not allowed to know anything about it, because obviously that would spoil the movie. But the game follows the original three movies as well and there have been some very seminal movie moments in them. So we were given a few levels from the first movie to play.

LJW3

[Here’s a scene we all forget where human inability to do simple logistics ends in someone being eaten.]

First up, we got to takeover as extinct-species-poop expert Dr. Ellie Sattler who gets to delve into some LEGO dung and cure a Triceratops with lollipops and fruit. You can then control the Triceratops in order to bash things and complete the mission. It’s standard LEGO stuff until the storm starts approaching. Yes, THAT storm from the movie that so excellently screws over Dennis Nedry’s escape from Isla Nublar. There is a dynamic weather and day/night system in LEGO Jurassic World, which will enable things in the exploration phase of the game to change randomly, as well as in levels to suit the film’s transposed dramatic moments.

Our next dramatic moment involves our favourite lawyer getting eaten. The scene of the T-Rex escaping the disabled electric fence and bullying a couple of kids (stupid T-Rex) in an upturned car is replicated very well. Highlights include the original voice work from the movie (including the wise-cracking Jeff Goldblum), constructing a distracting musical box that plays a version of John William’s excellent theme, and the special abilities of the characters. Dr. Alan Grant’s Velociraptor claw can cut through foliage whilst Lex Murphy, the screaming granddaughter of John Hammond, can scream which will break glass.

LJW2

[Objects in this mirror may be more blocky than they appear.]

Finally, we see the cheeky and broken-legged Ian Malcolm being rescued by Ellie and warden Robert Muldoon, before being chased by the rampantly annoyed T-Rex. You can also shoot things in to its mouth for an added bonus, but I was personally gutted to see our favourite mirror joke not make an appearance. Again this kind of level design is something that LEGO has done very well before and LEGO Jurassic World is no different.

Whilst the mechanics of play may slightly change between the games, it is a truly tried and tested formula that lends itself to a lot of nuances in Jurassic Park. One of which is the return to a more expansive open world and hub system. The Tolkein franchise games (Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit) all had a sense of the journey and the excellent areas of Middle-Earth. Whilst the two recent super hero franchise games have an open-ish world, it wasn’t the in depth and changeable areas that the Tolkein ones were, in my opinion anyway.

LEGO Jurassic World combats that by having two hubs and both the islands from the movies to explore, Isla Nublar and Isla Sorna. You’ll have the dynamic weather mechanic and of course the parks themselves. Mr. DNA, the theme park’s mascot, will be guiding you along the way as well as giving you education bite-sized Dino facts.

Mostly, I’ll be excited to replay various things from the movies and by association, watch all of them again. Too often I only watch the first one because it’s on TV conveniently on the same day and time that I order pizza. With LEGO Jurassic World, we appear to have ticked many boxes: Movie dialogue, excellent music, interesting levels replicated in LEGO and the beautiful South American islands of prehistoric genetically re-introduced doom. So if the early levels are any indication, then the LEGO franchise has found another new home in it’s chameleonic existence, and hasn’t jumped the Megalodon just yet.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXNwFstNTdE&feature=youtu.be

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Not a Hero – Hands On Preview

Posted on by Sean Cleaver

NOAFT

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Not a Hero will have a lot of attention coming its way. Developer Roll7 won a BAFTA for their skateboard game OlliOlli and their platform shooter is equally as addictive.

The game may hark back to the days of classic platformer design, things you’d likely see from a Spectrum, Commodore and occasionally 16-Bit consoles. But the look is very much of the 80s vibe. From the days when gaming’s limited colour palette meant bright and fun level designs.

NOA2

[Bunnylord is not afraid to get his paws dirty.]

The premise is intriguing and continuously funny (I’ll explain that statement later). The idea is that the not-so-evil visionary, Bunnylord, has decided to go back in time to become Mayor. Mostly because the world got in to such a state in the future that only he could change it by going back to the past. When he is there, he hires a group of mercenaries to eliminate those opposing his leadership. You are those mercenaries.

You’re not technically the bad guys though because Bunnylord is right and although his methods might be one you’d attribute to an evil megalomaniac, you are in fact cleaning up the town. And if you’ve played OlliOlli or any other Roll7 game, you’ll know that it’s something you’ll be doing at a frenetic pace that requires precision timing. Not a Hero does this perfectly with gameplay that’s reminiscent of the best shooting platformers of the 8-bit and 16-Bit age like Robocop Vs Terminator or that decent Batman game. You have very simple options but it’s the timing that makes it work. You can shoot, which is the easiest thing, get in to cover and shoot, fly through a door and tackle enemies or execute them.

NOA1

[Someone took the Blue Pill, we see.]

Instead of the awkward, or should we say challenging, control methods of other violent games like Hotline Miami, Not a Hero is incredibly easy because it operates with only one or two buttons, and very rarely are they operated at the same time. Like OlliOlli, the time that you hit the button and the moments you choose to pop out of cover, or jump out of a building is more important than the shooting itself. Scenes of buildings with a slightly isometric front on view give a great indication of what’s around you as well as an interesting city landscape dominated by “Bunnylord for Mayor” signs. He’s not evil, he’s cute…

Until he starts speak to one of your nine characters that is. This is where the game is continuously funny and incredibly sweary. A lot of people have put a big importance on procedural generation within games, however that’s been limited to the gameplay and the levels. Just check Steam Early Access or Kickstarter and you’ll see that procedural generation is now massively prevalent. Not a Hero has put some procedural generation in the speech rather than the levels, or at least you could say some randomisation. What happens is certain key words are replaced and changed when Bunnylord is talking to you and given you orders, leading to often hilarious and new passages of dialogue every time you play. It gives a new lease of life around the game repeatedly, especially when the levels are so gosh darn replayable.

NOA3

[It’s important to utilise cover against the gangs you’re cleaning up. You know, so you don’t die?]

We are introduced to the world when Steve, a former assassin, gets involved with “mayoral candidate from the future” Bunnylord, and becomes his campaign manager. Then begins the slanted 2D, or 2 and one quarter ISO-Slant technology as Roll7 call it, craziness of the cover-shooter… Which actually isn’t limited to shooting. Samuari swords, kick ass Tarantino-esque moments, jumping out of 5 story windows directly in to a van (which was a very enjoyable part of the demo we played) and a various cacophony of comedic 8-bit violence. The missions themselves are normally a fixed objective but you do get, much like in OlliOlli, a list of secondary things that you can accomplish in the level. Things like 3 executions slide tackle 5 enemies, that kind of thing. And these are occasionally randomised as well so that brings another new level of challenges to the game.

In our play through with Cletus, our shotgun gave us some great range. Being able to shoot through doors and enter a room straight in to cover like a violent pixilated ballet gave us great hope for the rest of the game. The characters all have their own weapons and unique personalities and I’m not sure there’s a better, non-evil, humanitarian potential candidate for government than Bunnylord in all of existence. I kind of hope he hijacks our actual national election and given the pictures on the official website I don’t think he’s beyond that, especially as the release date on Steam (PC) is May 7th… Election day. Coincidence? I think not. Whoever becomes mayor, the PS4 and PS Vita will see a release later in the year.

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Titan Souls – Hands On Preview

Posted on by Sean Cleaver

tspft

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Titan Souls is a very interesting game by three man team Acid Nerve and is being published by Devolver Digital. What started originally as a game jam project between friends has grown up somewhat and will make its debut on PC, PS Vita and PS4 in April. The premise is simple. Boss battles. The game is a series of boss battles against you, your spritey little adventurer. There’s the added bonus that you don’t have to do much either as all of the bosses have one hit point/health point. So one shot and they are dead! Excellent.

["No Salesmen Please"... Phew!]

[“No Salesmen Please”… Phew!]

The problem with this is that you only have one hit point too. So one shot and you’re dead, although you respawn outside the boss battle room to try again. It’s made slightly harder by the fact you only have one weapon, an arrow. You can charge up your shot to fire from distance and POW! Except you only have the one arrow so you have to go and get it back or press the recall button to magically pull it back to you.

The art of boss battles is one thing that hasn’t been lost in gaming. By that I mean that, unless you play everything on such an easy level you could accidentally sneeze and hit the shoot button in something’s face, you have to study, learn and adapt to beat a boss within a game. It’s one of the things that stories are made of, how you defeated the boss, how you did it differently, how quick you did it. Boss battles are a narrative part of the gaming experience.

Titan Souls is no different. Each boss is unique and you have to adapt your approach for each one. For example, a boss with a heart in a load of slime globules will divide into more globules and that makes for a tricky area to move around in. Some bosses need to have a bit of puzzle solving applied before you strike. It’s these little nuances in boss battles that makes Titan Souls quite enjoyable.

["Follow me, I'll take you back to your FarCry 4 DLC!"]

[“Follow me, I’ll take you back to your FarCry 4 DLC!”]

One hit point and one shot may sound masochistic but the sense of achievement for beating a boss in that way is a very rewarding feeling. It’s made even better when you’ve worked out a plan and pulled it off. Or even if you surprise yourself, like I did, by accidentally killing a boss with the arrow as it was being recalled and the boss was in the line of sight. And from this you’ll absorb that bosses soul, much in the way video game characters have absorbed spinning etherial particles and exploded ever since the movie Highlander’s Connor MacLeod said “There can be only one!”*

*Disclaimer: Sean may or may not have said this rather loudly while playing.

Titan Souls is also very well put together visually. The 16-bit inspired RPG look is pretty but also uncluttered. It doesn’t detract at all from the game, the battles or anything, yet it’s atheistically pleasing. You might feel it’s more of a Pokemon style look rather than an old top down RPG one, but the actual surroundings feel more like a Lara Croft-eqsue forgotten temple to these behemoth bosses. Vines and waterfalls over stone and tribal architecture, along with murals and ‘open sesame’ doors.

The bosses as well are all incredibly individual and look great, really putting the imagination to work in the artistic approach of the game. I faced the aforementioned Heart-Glob (if it doesn’t have a name yet then I’m coining that one), a laser cube that’s adorned like the Hellraiser puzzle box and a frozen pink thing stuck in a seemingly impenetrable ice cube. There’s 18 in all and you don’t need to kill all of them to complete the game so you can approach it however you want. The best thing is that you can’t even predict the bosses when you first play. They are all so different in look, style and attack that there’s a certain excitement at what you’re going to find next.

[The Return of Audrey II]

[The Return of Audrey II]

It’s a game that has a simple premise and a simple look (which is actually very hard to pull off). The gameplay itself is challenging and something that makes you think about how you approach a situation or a battle. Not just in the tactical sense but also how you react to your plan going south, as all plans normally do. It will certainly be one of those games where you have to beat everything just to feel like you’ve accomplished something, especially as it’s a game that’s happy to kill you repeatedly for your troubles.

The PS4 and PS Vita is getting this game along with PC but it has to be said that it really does suit the controller with its simple aim, shoot and dodge mechanics. It puts itself very nicely in to your hands. It may not keep you busy for a long time, but it has a lovely look, and an interesting charm to the idea of boss battles. It kind of makes you a little nostalgic to the way boss battles used to be in platform games, and how rewarding they were before a singular omnipresent antagonist. Enjoy it when it comes as it’s a nice example of a gaming staple being given a new and interesting life.

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Cities: Skylines – Review

Posted on by Sean Cleaver

 

Balance. Cities: Skylines has it. Whilst it is absolutely awesome to create the huge, truly 3D, Megalopolis that we’ve all yearned for since Sim City 4, city simulation games are actually a giant puzzle of balance. When you make a city, it isn’t just cool looking at the buildings? Isn’t it great to fly down the streets and notice the houses and cars zooming around? It’s one of the biggest things that gets you going in city builders, seeing your work breath life.  But trying to find that equilibrium of harmony so that you don’t grow out of proportion or decimate your resources whilst your population is swimming in filth, the deceased and can’t turn on a light to see that they’re drinking shit-flavoured water, is the biggest challenge. While much was lamented on SimCity’s size constraints, it really did teach you the lessons of good planning and staging your growth economically. It becomes something of a hangover when you come in to Cities: Skylines though.

Because you can just grow to enormous sizes there is a temptation to go absolutely crazy and just create your mega build. Which, if you’re in sandbox mode, you totally can and have the finances to easily manage the demands that present themselves. But in the normal game mode there are things you need to do in order to create the perfect, patient balance. The similarities to SimCity are very obvious in the games user interface and simplicity in its design and accessibility. This game has long been touted as “What SimCity should have been” and players of that game will see how familiar it is.

Firstly there is the big similarity that accessibility and traffic is king. Cities: Skylines is created from the mass transit simulator veterans Colossal Order (Cities in Motion). So it’s hardly surprising and makes sense to have traffic as a big part of your city planning. Getting people around is one thing. Making cool crazy roads is another. But beware as your services also rely on these roads and if they are too far away or hard to get to then your city will be swimming in garbage, dead bodies and burning down before you can scream “REDUCE THE GAME SPEED!!!” Education, much like SimCity, takes a very big presence as without it your city will have smaller buildings, more fires and less growth. It will surprise you, just like power, how much you truly need to build in order to sustain this even in the smaller cities of the early game stages.

Therein lies the puzzle of this balance as, at a moments notice, things can go from pleasantly docile to apocalyptically meltdown crazy. Which is something that Cities: Skylines does very well but it doesn’t go absolutely mad with obstructing your attempts to solve it. Unlike SimCity, the occupants of your efforts are mostly silent except for an initially novel Twitter-esque notification on the top of the screen – None of the screaming for superhero crime fighters or requesting for a church to be built, or demanding futuristic super fuels to increase trade options.

This is where you can divide your gaming audience however. Some people like the kind of quirky tongue in cheek nature that Maxis brings to games and SimCity had lots of it. Cities: Skylines has very little outside the quickly annoying top-of-screen birdy. Which means that outside of its technical gaming goodness, it can feel a bit cold. Given that a lot of your time you’re looking at a mass of green land slowly growing buildings, I personally sometimes yearned for that comedic touch. But the game doesn’t need that and many people will tell me to bugger off and play The Sims instead. So I’m very aware that for the purists and the serious gamers, this is in fact a positive.

Sometimes it can also be unclear what a problem actually is, and what the solution can be. Like SimCity, most of the time the solution is just patience, like waiting for fuel for power stations. Although there isn’t the same trading system that SimCity had so you can’t really see how industry and your specialist industries are doing without individually visiting them. Whilst the forestry and agricultural industries are great additions, I would have liked the opportunity for them to occupy more space. Like huge fields of land instead of the factory sized livestock pens, which have cows that by scale are mutant oversized bovine beasts.

I also find the need to put multiple power stations in your city so quickly slightly aggravating. Power demands are naturally high, but the fact that you can’t upgrade your buildings can leave you, in the early game, spreading multiple wind turbines and coal power stations across your map and barely scraping by. The lack of immediate leisure facilities and parks is a bit of a let down too, although there are some that unlock as you grow your city as “Unique Buildings”. It does limit some of the planning that you might want to do to encompass these but as with all creation, the ability to mercilessly destroy to create something better is a skill you need to possess.

Although your citizens very rarely complain about anything except education, it would be nice to have more options in making your city look prettier. Especially good would have been a brush tool for adding foliage that seems to be obvious UI option that’s missing. The game’s environments and maps are wonderful though, each presenting its own unique look and feel with resource management adding to the puzzle. And if you aren’t happy, you can create your own very easily or download one of the many available on the Steam Workshop.

Technically the game holds up very well. I was playing on a Mac, which isn’t the most stable of the OS’s pre-release, but it hasn’t caused me any problems. It’s available on Linux too as well PC, of course. But the system requirements you will need to get the experience you’ve probably seen in the trailers and watched YouTuber’s play is quite high. The game is perfectly playable on an i5 processor with a decent graphics card and enough RAM. But you have to sacrifice a lot of graphical detail in order to get anywhere near consistent frame rates. I mostly hit 30fps but I had to turn shadows off and textures down to medium. As my city grew, the lag did begin to increase, which I suppose you should expect given the amount that’s going on. But I’d recommend a big system if you’re going to create the mass of steel and concrete that the games can deliver.

The game’s blurb on Steam describes it as a modern take on the classic city simulation and for all intents and purposes it is exactly that. Apart from the moments of resource madness the game is very easy to manage. In fact its lack of adjustable difficulty might irk the most hardcore fans of the genre, although there is a hard mode. And whilst your imagination is fairly unlimited, you still have to imagine within some confines, which is a great puzzle that blurs lines between real life planning and gaming city planning. The support for expansion is brilliant with the Steam Workshop supporting customised buildings and maps for everyone to share with each other. If you’re ticking the boxes, especially against SimCity, this game has well and truly trumped it.

At the start though, I mentioned a hangover. On a personal critical reflection of the game the stigma of SimCity that’s around the genre, and especially the hype of this game, is at times unavoidably apparent. For all of the promise of the game being a better version of SimCity, that the fans actually wanted, this game completely nails it but at the expense of its own character. However this game wasn’t intended for that; it was intended for the dedicated and crazy people to build obnoxious, overwhelming metropolises and to create a supportive game and environment for the passionate modding community. With the seeming demise of Maxis and the buggy recycle that was Cities XXL, there may not be another time where PC gaming, nor any gaming due to console’s lack of strategy games, will have a studio which creates one of the founding staples of gaming so excellently. And if this is our last foreseeable option to modern city building then it is a damn fine one to have, if not the best we’ve had in nearly ten years. Balance is restored.

Summary

This is what not what SimCity should have been, but rather what SimCity could have been. The charm of Maxis is obviously missing but the gameplay, the mechanics and the scope of a good city building game is there. It’s an easy game to pick up and get in to and for the modding community it’s very well supported. Make sure you’ve got a good system though if you want the full experience.

Good Points

  • The game is suitably huge and expansive
  • Builds on SimCity’s easy to play UI and perfects it
  • Adds a few options that trump SimCity’s limited building

Bad Points

  • Lacks the charm of SimCity/Maxis
  • Can be a strain on recommend or lesser spec machines
  • A few building tools are missing that would have been nice

Why a 9?

This is quite simply the best City Building game available today and probably is the best since Sim City 4. In an era of freemium mobile gaming and the apparent downfall of Maxis, Colossal Order could be the heir apparent to the throne for a long time to come. There are a few tools missing and the game does miss some of the charm that its genre contemporaries provide but Cities: Skylines has reinvigorated a sadly sagging genre and is exactly what fans were looking for.

 

This review was based on the Mac version of the game.