Xbox One

WWE Network – Review

Posted on by Sean Cleaver

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This week is wrestling week at TheGameJar. Which means we’ve asked all our writers to share memories of wrestling games past and present. Today, instead of a game, Sean looks at an app which is making a lot of noise and gaining a lot of subscribers.

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The WWE Network app certainly has made a big impact since finally releasing in the UK. It’s also something that a lot of people have asked me about since subscribing. Is it worth it? What’s on it? Is it just all the new rubbish? Well we thought we’d answer that for you. If you watch WWE at all then you cannot escape the rhetoric of constant promotion and advertising on its programming. There are a lot of good things about it, but the one that’s made the most headlines is the lack of quality in the current product (see the 2015 Royal Rumble match). I can’t argue that, but there’s a great deal that’s excellent.

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[Current WWE NXT Champion Kevin Owens, who is making the Powerbomb a feared move again.]

Firstly there’s WWE NXT, which had been on Sky Sports before now. It’s a developmental brand for WWE that has transcended its status to become a bit of a cult hit. One hour focused on new and great wrestling talent, without the storyline flack that the two big shows seem to be filled with. The divas get a proper wrestling outing too, showcasing the talent the WWE has in its wings for the future, and talent that will be very familiar for those who follow the independent promotions where a lot of these wrestlers cut their teeth.

In fact it’s the lack of the two big shows on the network that’s the most disappointing. There isn’t the big back catalogue of Raw and Smackdown that there could be. For all of the 1000 odd shows that there are of Raw, there’s not even a tenth of it on there. Same goes for Smackdown. There’s no Sunday Night The list can go on There are probably reasons for this and some things are slowly being brought out, like WCW Monday Nitro. But there isn’t even a hint at almost a decade’s worth of television, which is very disappointing. Although there’s lots of classic WWE like Tuesday Night Titans, Prime Time Wrestling and Saturday Night’s Main Event.

The thing is, you’d need to be quite the wrestling boffin to want and know of these things. What WWE Network does really well is its Pay-Per-View content, it’s highlighting of classic and brilliant wrestling and its in depth look at some of the greatest stars we’ve had. WWE has produced some excellent, if not incredibly biased, looks at the careers of many wrestlers, factions and promotions.

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[Great shows like Legends of Wrestling show that smoking cigars is very cool.]

Everything from former stars like The Hardy brothers to recent Triple H documentaries, all with interviews from many people. Stand out ones include a look at Bobby “The Brain” Heenan and Paul Heyman, both creative geniuses and arguably the greatest managers in the history of the genre. There’s some great specials from the vaults like the Legends of Wrestling roundtable chats which seem to be filled with lots of smoking… Seriously, everyone smokes in WWE apparently. There’s the excellent looks at now defunct promotions like ECW, WCW and AWA although again with a WWE bias. In fact one of the standout things, although stretched out over a full season it can get a bit repetitive, is the documentary of the Monday Night War. The television ratings battle between WWE (WWF at the time) and WCW which ushered in a golden age of wrestling and the Attitude era that we all remember so fondly.

The hardcore wrestling fans might be a bit disappointed at the occasional editing due to licensing purposes like music and the very fine cuts of events that we all love. But credit to WWE, it hasn’t been shy in putting tricky content out there. One former wrestler in particular is included in programming which is good as before terrible events, he was an excellent wrestler and is part of sports entertainment history. There are many disclaimers before most of the content that isn’t PG programming or programming they created themselves.

Technically the app on every console works very well. I’ve tested it on Xbox One, PS4, PS3 and Xbox 360. In fact the worst iteration of the app I’ve tested is the iPad version which also doubles as the generic WWE app for news. Although I’ve never had a problem finding content, everything is laid out in an easy to find manner, the quality of the streaming is excellent and very rarely drops and the PlayStation versions of the app include nice little chapter points to fast forward easily to specific matches. Why the Xbox version doesn’t have these I have no idea, because it really should.

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[Still my personal favourite Wrestling/Alan Partridge crossover.]

What this app does do is allow us to relieve what we loved as young people in the big and special nights. We can go back and watch Mick Foley being thrown off the cell. We can revisit the real Icon vs. Icon matches like Rock vs. Hogan and Ric Flair vs. Harley Race. We can look at those matches we never see nowadays like the hardcore matches, the first One Night Stand events and most of the ECW back catalogue and the original Hardyz vs. Edge and Christian ladder match. We can all relive our WrestleMania moments again and, thanks to the great value, you can watch all the new ones too without having to pay Sky £15 every time for just one show.

Whilst this can be for the purist, it’s great if you have young family members who are fans but can’t afford a Sky subscription or Pay-Per-View costs. It’s parental controls stop most things you don’t want them to see and you can relieve your best memories. Faces you’ve likely forgotten and ones that have never left you. Yes, there is a lot of content that is missing but arguably, a lot that’s missing isn’t worth being put on or is coming. Except for the huge gap in Raw and Smackdown replays, WWE Network hits the right button for fans of wrestling and those guys who remember what things used to be like.

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LEGO Jurassic World – Preview

Posted on by Sean Cleaver

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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.

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[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.

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[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.

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[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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Evolve – Review

Posted on by Sean Cleaver

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Having played Evolve back at Gamescom, I had a few worries. Come the Alpha and the recent open beta, I still had them. Come release day, I still had them. The thing is, I’ve heard a lot about Evolve. A lot of people have talked to me quite passionately about how good it was and how excited they were for it. Yet whenever I combined those conversations with my worries over the game, the answer was always something like “it’ll be fine come the release” or “it won’t be an issue.”

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[Satirists predict 2015’s Black Friday Sales]

Evolve is an online multiplayer team hunting game, or an asymmetrical multiplayer game. The idea is that you work as a team of four to hunt a monster, or as a monster to defeat the team. You do this across a variety of maps, which are essentially alien landscape arenas with some vestige of humanity.

As the monster you walk around these arenas eating things so you can evolve your powers of destruction, and kill your hunters/destroy objectives. As the hunters, each of you has a dedicated role: Beat the crap out of the monster, trap it, shield everyone and call air strikes, or heal the idiots who just charge far away from you. You then stop the monster by death or by preventing it from completing its objective within the allotted time.

The problems I had are these: I worried that the game was too reliant on its online component (something that was a complete failure during the PS4 alpha for various reasons) and that not enough people would be interested. I was worried that the game wouldn’t have enough to do in it for it not to become ultra repetitive. I was also worried that the console versions would become very redundant very quickly. Leaving the game to the PC market only, and even then to dedicated people, and that it didn’t have the longevity of the Left for Dead series, Turtle Rock’s previous ventures.

What I have found when looking at other reviews is that people have completely misunderstood a lot of the information surrounding the game. There are massive criticisms from users on Metacritic and Steam over microtransactions. This needs addressing, as at present there is absolutely nothing in this game that is behind any kind of pay-wall to allow you to play it fully. The only thing that could be counted as such is a special edition monster only available to certain packages. There are many downloadable skins available for the game. That’s it. That will undoubtedly change with further DLC but the game isn’t requiring it in order to play, nor is there any pay to win solutions.

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[“Do you think this’ll make the Hunters Calendar next year?”]

From what I can tell so far, the problems for the PS4 that were apparent in alpha have been resolved. The game has some pretty decent matchmaking that doesn’t leave you hanging around too long. It was the top selling game in the UK last week too, so there’s obviously people playing it. There are offline elements but the need for people to be playing the game, so that you can get the best experience, is evident. However there are ways that the game tries to overcome this people quota issue.

In fact, it takes a leaf out of classic PC FPS gaming. I feel the game becomes quite similar in this regard to things like Quake 3 Arena and Unreal Tournament, although given the developers PC pedigree it’s hardly surprising. If there isn’t enough people then the game will put in bots – AI controlled characters – to fulfill the roles. It’s quite clever in that it will help keep the online game alive even if it hasn’t filled up with actual players. It also makes up the majority of the solo play as well. Plus the AI isn’t ludicrously stupid for either you or the monster. It’s nowhere near the excitement of playing with other humans but it will do while you’re waiting for them.

This is where Evolve is at its best though. When you have a full party of people who know their roles and can communicate via chat, this game is a tactical masterpiece. The monster is a wild card and getting things exactly right is incredibly rewarding as an experience. Sadly it is rare that it occurs at the present moment. I’ll come on to the characters themselves but the way that people have been playing the game, in my experience, is very console specific in the run-and-gun style. Which can make games a tactically inept cat-and-mouse chasing simulator. If the console audience is ready to adapt their style of play and ability to communicate better then this game would truly be revolutionary. Unfortunately I still haven’t fully experienced that yet.

The positive is that Turtle Rock has given the people all the right tools to do it. In this regard they have a created a fantastic game, even if it is slightly limited by the built-in desire for online play and future DLC. The game modes are very simple and easy, yet are challenging enough to not become dull and repetitive in a short space of time. The Evacuation game mode is the highlight here. It’s masked as a solo campaign option but the five mission stages that you can complete (win or lose) is best played as a night event online in a party with friends. It’s amusing if you’re all together chatting and it is a separate enough entity that you could just do that once every few nights with your mates without ever leaping too far ahead.

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[And here we see one of natures most homicidal, sociopathic creatures… And what they’re hunting]

Graphically the game runs very well and with stable frame rates. The art design is excellent and creates some incredible alien worlds that science-fiction filmmakers would kill to have. My only criticism of the level design is that it can be very Monster-centric, making the early level hunters struggle to get around.

I’ve not seen many issues relating to Internet connection but there are certainly things that the game could patch like the in-game volume. It’s incredibly loud, louder than any game I’ve played, straight from the intro video. The in game sounds are also so loud that it eclipses the party chat in volume, which is a pretty key element. But these are all patchable things that can be easily addressed.

The characters or Hunters all have a different element to them. There’s four classes (Assault, Trapper, Medic and Support) and each of them have an important role to play. Which is where the need to play tactically really becomes necessary. The characters individually don’t have enough attacking power to just spray the screen with bullets. So you have to actually work together to get in to the best position to use everyone’s abilities. It becomes tricky when the environment starts working against you due to your failings and you realise that some kind of balanced personal weapons for each character is not only useful but completely non-existent. It’d be nice to have something that can tackle animals and such without your team having to bail you out or leave you for dead.

The rub of this is that more characters and monsters unlock the more you progress in the game. They are very typical of a 2K game release; slightly humorous and cliché meatheads/rednecks/smart-asses that come complete with occasional funny dialogue and cut scenes brimming with banter. They aren’t original at all, especially the first medic Val who could have been stolen straight from Resident Evil, but they are all entertaining enough in the short term that you rarely feel they make much of a difference to the game. Their weapons however do. The Assault character’s guns obviously occupy the role of a tank. The Trapper has some excellent things to help the hunt without being offensively anemic. The medic is very poorly equipped for a fight but essential to keeping your team alive, so smart monsters tend to target that role first. The Support or the buffer role is a bit weak but has a powerful yet cumbersome air strike ability. Together they work very well but if someone gets too far ahead then it can get very lonely and very deadly incredibly quickly.

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[Maybe he should try some Listerine?]

The monsters all have different attacks and abilities with the Goliath, Wraith and Kraken (Ed – every game has a bloody Kraken now, is Lovecraft out of copyright or something?) heading up the available line-up, unless you are rich enough to buy the special edition with the Behemoth. I personally love the Goliath’s fire breath that satisfies the inner need for me to be a dragon. The Kraken has enough lightning for me to scream Return of The Jedi Emperor quotes.

The only tricky thing with the monsters is finding a safe enough place to evolve and unlock more powers. Generally you are already on the run at that point and it feels like birds are everywhere. But you find yourself playing, again that key word, tactically. You know you’re one monster so you have to adapt, learn the map, work out how to separate the team and who to target.

The thing is that the game provides a lot of satisfaction as long as the right people are playing it at the right time. It’s like when you play an online FPS mode and come up against a clan. You are obliterated, utterly embarrassed and become incredibly jaded with your experience. For the most part, Evolve is an incredibly successful attempt at a complex style of game that challenges gamers to be better gamers and rewards them for doing so. It also is incredibly well designed, balanced and well thought out for the style of game it is. Normally the word “hunt” would go in the same sentence in gaming as Cabela or Duck. The only thing that lets it down is that it is reliant on communication, good teamwork and the collimation of that to create its online experience. Which is something that console gamers (I’m sorry for pigeon holing us but its true) so often lack. But it will challenge you and if you have a group of friends that all have the game then you will definitely have fun and if you’re willing, it will make you a better, more tactically thinking, gamer. After all, it’s evolution baby!

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Evolve is a very good game that certain audiences, in my opinion, aren’t ready for. The PC market should love it as should parties of gamers. There’s a lot of noise about DLC and things that aren’t included in the game, as well as it’s longevity. But the game itself is an excellently produced “asymmetrical” multiplayer game. The weapons and characters are all interesting to play as and the environments are great.

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– Excellent gameplay that challenges gamers

– Interesting weapons and character roles/monster abilities

– Not totally dependent on Online availability

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– Potential DLC costs a big factor

– Hard to find a good team of people regularly

– Even with bots it does have a limited longevity on console

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For all the noise surrounding the games content issues, it needs to be pointed out that they are not the game. The game itself is excellent and if there was more to the formula that could survive outside of the multiplayer design, then it would be one of the best. Whilst there are short term solutions to that, the experiences I’ve had on console haven’t been showing the game to its best ability. Maybe that will improve as a core group of fans develop. But the vehicle itself, the game, is great despite its limitations.

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

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Saints Row 4 Re-Elected & Gat Out Of Hell – Review

Posted on by Sean Cleaver

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We here at TheGameJar have previously been very positive regarding 2013’s Saints Row 4, as well as previous Saints Row games. I personally however have never been in that bracket having never really experienced the franchise. I know, I’m a bad person but life, other games and just general laziness has kept me from the franchise before. If anything it puts me in a unique position as someone who can come to the newest gameas a new player and see if it’s really accessible to a new generation of console gamers.

But the questions you must be asking yourself, and presumably you ask for every next generation remaster, are these: Is it worth me buying the game again, has much changed or improved and is there any point to doing this anyway?

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Firstly, there might be if you’re interested in the standalone “expansion” pack Gat Out Of Hell, which I shall come to later. Secondly, it is my firm belief that a lot of the final games of this past generation of consoles really stretched them to their limits and having this new tech is a good way to show what their game really could do. This isn’t the first open-world remaster I’ve played/reviewed and I’m pretty sure it won’t be the last.

So here is the thing… I can’t decide if it was worth doing. That’s not a negative yet, so hear me out. The game runs very smooth although its upper frame rate of 60fps is rarely held that high and the game, despite a massive overhaul in textures, still has a lot of jagged last-generation textures in it. Along with fairly flat and uninviting tall building with boring static lights-behind-a-drawn-curtain images that give it a very inorganic feel. It’s touches like this, which also appear in Sleeping Dogs, Watch_Dogs and even GTA V that make you realise that these games are last generation. That’s not a bad thing for the nostalgia kick or if you’re a fan. But this really isn’t too far off the PC version of the original release graphically. Work has obviously been done but it makes it more apparent where work hasn’t been done… If that makes sense. It is certainly an improved and smoother experience compared to what it was, but all that really does is make you realise what it should have been when it was released.

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Which is why you really need to want to buy this game. I’ve enjoyed it, don’t get me wrong. But it is riddled with in-jokes and references to the series’ previous iterations. Failing that though, the game is still the exact same fusion of gaming and pop-culture references piled in to one big comedic world fiction. It is funny. Yes it can be puerile and filled with ridiculous machismo but it is still the right side of funny. Whilst for a new player, the characters are already established lampooned tropes of action movie characters in a Matrix-esque world and plot, the whole thing is still fun to play. Even though for the earlier part of the game I had absolutely no idea who anyone was or what was going on. I can see though, if you’ve played it all before, there’s very likely to be nothing new for you here.

In fact the greatest thing about this isn’t the remaster itself, but the package that comes with it. If you put it off the first time after Saints Row The Third then now is a good time to get back in to it. As the original release doesn’t differ massively in graphics from The Third, this version certainly does. Along with all the DLC and the expansion, it makes a very good cost effective package. And what isn’t great about shooting up aliens in a virtual city and capturing areas, only to be greeted with the ’90s infectious rhythm of Haddaway’s What Is Love when these sequences are over.

Gat Out Of Hell, Saints Row 4’s standalone expansion, sees us take control of Johnny Gat and Kinzie Kensington as you are flung in to hell to save the President (i.e. you) who has been unceremoniously sucked in to the underworld thanks to Matt Miller’s party game going the way of an early ’00s teen horror. Again this is definitely more for the fans of the series rather than a new guy like me, given the plot and people involved, but sadly this game doesn’t really do much more than Saints Row 4 did anyway. The superpowers are changed for arcane ones (flying with Satan’s wings for example), and the world is a new area with the same darkness and gloom as Saints Row 4’s perpetual early evening atmosphere. The plot, involving stopping the president from marrying Satan’s daughter with the help of former adversary Dane Vogul of Ultron, is typical of the franchise but stretches in to the realms of being too over the top. The strangest thing is that the streets and the general art look doesn’t remind me of Saints Row so much as Carmageddon.

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Yes there are new weapons, new things to do, interesting pseudo religious entertainment tropes and Satan to kill. Including the much publicised Armchair with mini-guns. But the game offers exactly nothing that Saints Row 4 already does, except with a new skin. It feels like it’s interesting and cool for about ten minutes and then you realise it’s just what Saints Row 4 did with a lick of paint and maybe a bit more demonic inspiration and then you tire of it very quickly. That is where this pack does lose its value a bit because you are essentially getting exactly the same type of game, challenges and humour that you’ve probably already grown tired of by playing Saints Row 4 or the Re-Elected version again. I can’t help but think that if this release was closer to the game’s release date (i.e. not 18 months later) then it wouldn’t seem so repetitive. Thankfully both versions of these games are available separately on the digital stores for Xbox Live and PSN and Gat Out Of Hell is available on PS3 and Xbox 360 as a standalone release. So if you think you’d lose out on enjoyment by having the whole thing, there are options for you.

Essentially this game or collection of games is exactly what you’d think it would be. A sharper, smoother version of the over the top, well balanced open world shooter with crazy customisation, and full to the brim of gaming cliches and references that we all know and get. Does it deserve a second term? Maybe, but I’m sure fans would want to see something new instead and for the uninitiated like me, it does make me wonder what kind of game the next one would be. This is a last generation game with the veneer of the new generation loading and processing. It does the job, but in another way it’s a bit like a middle-management role that no one really asked for or knows why it is there, except to contrast against the seriousness that makes up most of our AAA gaming at the moment.

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Whilst Re-Elected is a nice return to something you’ve probably already finished, there’s a certain replay value in the experience but not much more. Even for someone who hasn’t played it before, you can see where it can get repetitive and tiring. Which is why Gat Out Of Hell just feels like it missed the mark. Otherwise, if you’re a fan and you want to add to your collection, go for it. If you really want more of the singular experience of the expansion or the original game then these are all available separately and that might be better for you.

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– Smoother and more playable experience.

– Still the same Saints Row you know, with the same humour and disregard for propriety.

– As a package it’s pretty good value, especially if you’re new to the series.

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– Very little has actually changed or improved apart from textures.

– Gat Out Of Hell is more of the same, quite literally.

– Can be very unaccessible to new players for early parts of the game.

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When the game came out, we originally gave it an 8. It was and is a good well balanced open-world third person shooter with challenges and things to do. But other than texturing and general smoothness, very little has actually changed. That also extends to Gat Out Of Hell, which feels more of a byproduct of the remaster rather than the game itself. Entertaining but nothing we’ve not seen before, quite literally.

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

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Project Cars – Preview

Posted on by Sean Cleaver

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Project Cars is responsible for a first in my life, my first 4K gaming experience. In an era where open world driving games seem to be the more successful of the four wheeled genre, Project Cars has gone to a very traditional route. One that games like Gran Turismo has treaded and arguably worn out over many years.

Photo-realism in both environments and cars is not just possible but also essential. Manufactures get the final say on the cars they’ve licensed as well as track owners and sponsors having to clear their input as well. We’ve said before, in an interview with Project Cars Creative Director Andy Tudor, that photo realistic driving games should not only be the norm but are practically the only option. The technology is there, the capability is there and the requirement to produce games like this demands it.

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However, pulling off the technical excellence is one thing. Giving a game a feel and a character on top of that is another thing entirely. It’s something we felt DriveClub was lacking. It’s something I find personally with the later Gran Turismo’s. Something about them feels a bit nebulous in the cars and the driving itself. You could argue that I’m being a tad pious but simulations and arcade games should be able to define the cars ability much clearer in these times. Especially when a game like Assetto Corsa is doing it independently of big publishers and money.

So where does Project Cars sit in this? I have to say, especially to a console audience, it sits at the top of the pile. There are many things that games like Forza Horizon 2 and DriveClub have done well independently like great lighting, dynamic weather, day/night cycles and car customization. Project Cars does it all, excellently, from the get go.

Firstly when tackling the selection of cars, this is very much a racing game, not a streetcar racing game. These are the kind of cars you’d see at a weekend at Brands Hatch, Silverstone or Nurburgring. Not just your big DTM, LMPG supercars, McLaren’s and Pagani’s but the other classes and manufactures closer to the street like Ford, Mercedes-Benz, and BMW. The interesting thing is that the vintage cars are well represented here too. From my guilty pleasure of a Ford Capri to my non-guilty pleasure of old Lotus F1 cars, everything is not only perfectly reproduced but the way the cars drive are all unique and challenging in themselves. This is a game for people who know names like Jason Plato, Alain Menu and Jim Clark as well as names like Andre Lotterer and Tom Kristensen.

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The tracks range from actual circuits like the ones listed above and including many others across the globe like Australia’s Bathurst and California’s Laguna Seca with its infamous Corkscrew turn. But it also stretches to real albeit less licensed areas like the Cote d’Azur or Monaco, as we all know it. There are even some nice fictional road trip areas to the region, as well as the California area, to give you that off-the-track feel.

The real magic of this game is its dynamic environment system. The game has settings that can change the weather randomly or by design, everything from clear days to rain and thunderstorms. The date and time is also customizable with an option to speed up the progression of time so that you can literally experience four seasons in one day… One full day, that is, with night included. You can also historically set the date and time of a race so that it takes historic weather data to produce what was actually happening at the time. June 3rd 1984 at Cote d’Azur would certainly be one of my recommendations.

All of this works perfectly well straight from the off and whilst there are still a few bugs in the preview we played, these are mostly fine-tuning of cars handling and collision dynamics. Make no mistake about it, this is a game that will be enjoyed by the virtual petrol heads, as well as the more casual intrigued racer, but it will take some mastering, as it should do. If playing Gran Turismo has taught me one thing it’s that repetition is key to driving. Project Cars however makes that just a bit more fun than previous genre titles. This is definitely helped by the immersive graphics. These look great on the PS4 preview build we played and it has all the traditional views you’d expect, including the more immersive helmet cam.

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This is where my first 4K gaming experience came in to play however. I was lucky enough to play the game on a PC at 4K, 30fps (the game can handle 60fps, but the TV we were using couldn’t) and with a wheel. At this point the game really blooms. Things that you might not notice so much on the console really shine. For example I went around Cote d’Azur circuit in a generic pre-hybrid Formula 1 car in the helmet cam view. Firstly the things you notice are the things that racing drivers actually do.

Your view naturally turns to look at the corner but your virtual head barely turns. What it does is focus on the corner, which completely alters the depth of field you have to your dashboard and the surrounding environment. It’s a subtle touch that naturally happens anyway if you drive and might even pass you by because it is that natural. Secondly, the lighting changes and the shadows move around the inside of your helmet as you go around a track. It’s when you notice that the game is doing this everywhere that it really begins to impress you. With the future of Oculous Rift support, this game’s immersive racing will be a massive cut above other PC options and definitely a rival to the independent games currently available.

Driving with the wheel certainly left my arm a little sore thanks to force feedback and occasional collisions. But what was certain was that it was far easier and much more fun than using the controller. That deftness of throttle control is hard to achieve any other way and the game certainly rewards you for using this method. Having used a wheel for other games, this game is definitely worth the sacrifice of savings to get a good wheel and seat combo.

The game has had a few delays, which is understandable once you play it and see the work that has gone in to it. Mid-March is the current estimate but I wouldn’t be surprised if it went a bit further back just to perfect it. Because that is something this game prides itself on, its perfection. With a 30fps cap*, the PS4 handles the game well and I would presume that the Xbox One does the same thanks to the newer SDK’s giving more memory usage. Although the release is planned to be 60fps. How the Wii U version will turn out is anyone’s guess. But if you are the kind of person who has the time and money to build a phenomenal PC and can support 4K gaming, then start saving now.

*This cap refers to the experience of the preview build on PS4 that we played. Not the final product.

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This preview is based on a preview build, played on a PS4 and a PC.

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LEGO Annouce Dinosaurs and Superheros (Jurassic World)

Posted on by Sean Cleaver

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It’s not often we cover news, but this one was certainly too big for me to miss posting about.

Warner Bros Interactive have announced the TT Games/LEGO line up for 2015. These include another Marvel tie in with LEGO: Marvel’s Avengers, new LEGO Ninjago game: Shadow of Ronin and iOS releases of The Lego Movie videogame and Lego Batman: Beyond Gotham (the 3 has been dropped).

But the big news is that we’ll get more Chris Pratt, along with Sam Neill, Richard Attenborough and a double helping of Jeff Goldblum. If you’ve worked it out already (without looking at the obvious title), clever girl. Some of the more astute of you who have played and competed LEGO Batman 3 might have noticed this pictured dinosaur in the credits, along with John Williams’s famous score. Personally I blinked and missed the connection. But finally dinosaurs are coming to LEGO.

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LEGO: Jurassic World is a tie in to the upcoming 2015 movie reboot of the series also titled Jurassic World. But it will also include parts of the first three movies: Jurassic Park, Jurassic Park: The Lost World (Dino-Godzilla) and Jurassic Park 3 (Island+Dinosaurs+Sam Neill=Cash). In traditional LEGO game style all of these movie tie-in games will be available for every console (360, Xbox One, PS3, PS4, PS Vita, PC, Wii U, 3DS) along with LEGO Ninjago: Shadow of Ronin being 3DS and PS Vita only.

So a few things we’re looking forward to? Well obviously being able to repeatedly punch Dennis Nedry and the kid from the first movie who got himself electrocuted. We’re looking forward to dinosaur consultant Phil Tippett being brought in and turning TT Games area of Manchester in to a crazy Velociraptor party. But mostly, we’re intrigued as to what LEGO: Marvel’s Avengers is actually going to do.

LEGO: Marvel Super Heroes was already a fairly big game that had bits of the cinematic universe lore from phase one and two of the movie collection, along with comic book versions of properties Disney don’t have the movie licences for. It does seem like it’ll be a tie in to Age of Ultron, wgich is due out later this year, but it promises to include the previous Avengers movie as well (and presumably some more of the recently and soon to be expanded universe).

But I’ll leave you with this fun fact. A Samuel L Jackson character will now have been in three LEGO games. Mace Windu (Star Wars), Nick Fury (Marvel Super Heroes) and now John Raymond Arnold (Jurassic Park). It seems we shall indeed know his name when he rains his blocky virtual self upon our gaming systems.

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Are Boxing Day sales over for games?

Posted on by Sean Cleaver

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It was good to walk in to my local GAME store and see people queuing to buy games this past Saturday. Obviously the glut of online retail sales and their frankly aggressive marketing hasn’t dulled the public’s taste for high street shopping. And given that my town has either GAME, a CEX, or a very small (practically non-existent) section of WH Smith’s for entertainment sales, there truly isn’t anywhere else to go except online. Or maybe a supermarket but I always find it weird that these big chain stores are becoming the only non-online outlet for my hobby vices. I’ll have sale copy of NBA with my clearance advent calenders and family pack of Wotsits, please… My shopping receipts probably look like I have marijuana munchies all the time.

Which is why it has surprised me that big old Amazon, the internet terror that has dominated the retail and server-scape for the past decade has had no games on sale during the Boxing Day sales period. I mean quite literally ZERO. I know, I’ve been watching it like a hawk. DVD’s and Blu-Ray’s, yes. Xbox One console sales, yes. But games themselves? No. GAME itself had better prices on games before Christmas, which all went up after Saturday.

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But cast your mind back to Black Friday. Games galore were on sale. Mostly Shadow of Mordor and a few others. But there was certainly far more options at that time than there is now. I even highlighted on twitter how the Xbox store has an old game at effectively double the price compared to the US store. Although the discounts on PSN/XBL rarely get to be really… discounted.

Of all the games discounted this period, the big ones have to be Assassins Creed Unity, a game that was incredibly broken at launch and has received such a bad reception that a price drop was needed to shift the units, and The Crew, a game also with bugs at launch and that was mostly downloaded for free because of the issues with the former game. In that regard, any sales are good for those games. But there appears to be, compared to other times of the year, a massive absence of games on sale, or games that weren’t already on sale beforehand at better prices.

So is this it for the traditional “Boxing Day” sales time for games? Retail seems to have so many different sale periods these days that it’s hard to even define a sale period. No doubt the Easter period will see some of the better deals for gaming sales, or the same games at further discount. But the availability of digital platforms, of digital stores and the fact that every big release this year seems mostly to be part of the annual franchise brigade that holds their price until they become worthless in two years time, suggests that our linear interpretation of sales is probably at an end.

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Which is a bit of a shame because if anything us gamers have had to become more thrifty. I read a tweet recently about how even freelance journalists like myself can’t afford to buy all the games they want to play. I can’t either, I’ve just played some discounts and Tesco vouchers rather well. So all of us have to make use of good timing and good searching if we really want something.

Of course this probably has more to do with the success of Black Friday rather than anything else. I had a word with the management in my local GAME store, just casually, to discuss the prices. It was a bit crazy where Xbox One versions of games were cheaper than the PS4 versions and even pre-owned was more expensive than the new copies of games like The Last of Us. In the space of four days, The Crew had gone from £25 to £35 and back down to £30, presumably when someone realised that £35 was probably too high. The distributors and the console “powers-at-be” set these prices and amend them if they need to. So really, it’s got very little to do with the outlets selling the games as to what deals we get.

But Black Friday’s massive success has thrown a spanner in the works. From a business point of view, the January sales are great for showing profits and accounts in the black over a typically poor quarter for retail (as the pictured graph shows). The strength of the first month makes the rest of the financial quarter rather mute. What Black Friday has done has moved that to before Christmas and the success of those sales seem to have thrown everyone off. The price setters have already done what they needed to in order to drive sales so they don’t need to discount so much in January to drive those profit margins. It’s something that could unsettle our economy a little bit if the companies don’t adjust their predictions correctly.

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A great example of this is the rumour that the Xbox One is going back up in price to $400 in the US. That would knock on to the UK and see console prices likely return from the £320 mark to about £360-380. Given that you could have purchased an Xbox One during Black Friday for £269.99, enough units appear to have been shifted to start raising the prices, ready for when past generation game production finally starts to slow down. So when people are “forced” to upgrade, the prices will be higher, but enough has been sold already to inspire a higher amount of game production for those consoles. It’s a bit cheeky but it’s business.

What that means is that the traditional time of purchasing games appears to be at an end, something my local GAME agreed with despite queues to buy products. Steam certainly makes buying video games very fluid and their sale periods seem to be an event unto themselves. Online/High Street retail seems to have three periods that will shift units, Black Friday, Christmas and Easter. But Boxing Day, a time we used to love for having a wallet full of generously donated notes, looks like it will join that great retail gig in the sky along with Woolworths, Our Price and C-List celebrities opening Supermarkets.

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LEGO Batman 3 Beyond Gotham – Review

Posted on by Sean Cleaver

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Greetings caped crusaders! LEGO returns in DC comics form to control your minds, brick by tiny brick and shrink your world… Quite literally. LEGO Batman 3 Beyond Gotham is a LEGO game that is very obviously the product of three things. Firstly, complete and total passion for the DC universe by its creators. Secondly, its a game that has the vast experience of many LEGO games before it. And finally it is the product of a team who were able to fully express themselves and their creativity.

The story of LEGO Batman 3 sees our caped friends chasing after Killer Croc in the sewer to try and thwart another dastardly plan by the Joker. However with the rather large and hypnotising Brainiac looming down on Earth, backed up by the stolen power of the Lanterns, all the Justice League and the assembled villains must join forces to stop a bigger threat. It’s all very amusing and takes advantage of the characters own dynamics and storylines that are easily accessible, even if you haven’t exactly been a big DC or LEGO Batman fan. The story is quite simple to follow and in the great tradition of these games, very family friendly. It’s easily played by all ages due to its very familiar controls and is enjoyed by everyone for being the slightly neutral comical romp it should be and never takes itself too seriously.

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When you have done as many LEGO games as TT Games has, it can almost feel like second nature. This makes the third LEGO game after The Hobbit and Marvel Super Heroes in the last 18 months and whilst the feel of the games aren’t exactly getting tired, if you played them all then you must be someone who really enjoys them or are a massive fan of every franchise they’ve covered. If that’s the case then this game is definitely for you as a DC universe fan. The smash-everything-unlock-cool-things gameplay is as smooth as ever and I’m pretty sure there are less infectious things on the World Health Organisations watch list than this brilliant formula. It’s made all the more infectious by the sheer amount of unlockable characters that there are. Plundered might not the term for the depth of the back catalogue of characters they’ve given an outing to, but they certainly looted with intent to riot. They’re fun, quirky and not all together the most serious (Batcow, Condiment Man, Conan O’ Brian, Kevin Smith) but they are a vast and representative look at the DC universe.

The levels are quite a nice length in most places and the free form way you experience the later levels in the story is quite nice although it does lack a little direction. It’s a good excuse though to go and check out the Lantern planets and their wild, vivid and crazy colour palettes. It is definitely an expressive designers dream and after two games worth of the dark dank nature of Gotham, I’m sure it was well received. That along with some nice tourist attractions around the world and the replay value in the levels themselves for collecting and sight seeing (the moon is fun along with the ability to freeroam the Lantern planets), means there’s always something to do and have fun with in the game. Especially with the inclusion of Adam West and 1960s Batman as a bonus level. It may be one for the fans and the parents out there but if, like me, you grew up with early morning reruns of the show before the Tim Burton movies appeared then this will hit you right in the nostalgia bone.

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Whilst we can’t actually review the extra content that is coming, it is worth saying that if characters are your bag, the DLC on offer will be most fun. Dark Knight Batman from the Nolan movies, Arrow from the TV universe with Stephen Amell voicing… There’s lots to keep you as a fan entertained character wise. Is it worth the season pass money though? Well if it’s your thing to collect all the things then yes. Otherwise it might not be.

We’ve all got our favourite LEGO games. Mine so far have been the Star Wars movies (although the game does feel a bit dated now), Lord of the Rings and the Harry Potter’s. So when I have my criticisms of this game, please bear in mind that I know these are different universes and franchises and that they have a different artistic direction.

LEGO games in recent times have been very open world and Batman 3 is not, at least not in the same way. You have a central hub in The Watchtower where you navigate your way through the story, various unlockables and areas to reach those things. But it doesn’t feel very natural to do that beyond the level selection and transport to other worlds. You have to go to the Batcave to do a lot of things and that includes the frankly excellent bonus mission of the 1960s TV Batman. But it all feels very far apart and isn’t very well directed. Not like that of Middle Earth in Lord of the Rings, or even the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier from Marvel Super Heroes. It’s a bit hard to work out where to go and where everything is. Making a great little bit of exploration, sure, but it can get you lost very easily.

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The levels at times, despite mostly being a good length, feel a tiny bit too short. Some of the Lantern planets in the story, although you can replay them and explore them, feel a bit rushed at times. Like they needed to push the story along and not get the audience lost or make them lose interest. It’s a pacing issue and one that I feel all LEGO games suffer from at times after the middle part of the game but it would have been nice to have more time on those planets and some crazier things to enjoy. They aren’t a massive stretch from what the Star Wars games were achieving but they’re obviously much more colourful. Plus I’m pretty sure there are other areas on terrafirma in the DC universe that could have been utilised. Maybe that’s another game though. The occasional mini-game levels however, which look inspired by TRON/Daft Punk, are utterly confusing and to be honest don’t really add much to the game except a “what the hell is this?” reaction moment. I’d quite happily have taken an easy on-screen puzzle if I’m honest and kept them as a fun aside in the Batcave.

Balance is quite a key thing in LEGO games and for you to unlock all the characters, you have to want to unlock them. The balance of what the characters can do with their powers, modifiers, different suits and such is very key to how you play the game. Whilst you don’t want these bonus characters to be required in order to complete it, there is a bit of an overpowered set which you don’t really need to stray too far from. It’s not that bad a thing but it doesn’t really make you explore the other character options. Where as Harry Potter certainly did with their different spells. It would have been nice to have seen some more integration of the characters sets in to the main game for freeplay. I want an excuse to unlock Batcow! Although my only main character based criticism is how the level design of some of the levels really doesn’t like The Flash. Barry Allen moves so darn fast that you usually end up not actually fighting anyone, spinning around punching the air and falling off edges more often than a lemming.

LEGO Batman 3 Beyond Gotham doesn’t really go beyond what LEGO games are known for. But it is a romp that makes you wonder where the heck LEGO games could go next. Ghostbusters would be fun and I’ve always said the Star Trek movies could make good LEGO games, even Doctor Who (nerdgasm). But for now we’ve got to the point of exhausting the franchises we have. Is DC exhausted from this? Possibly. Other than story and environments, there’s not that much more I think that would bring people back to LEGO Batman as this has most certainly ticked and filled every box. A good LEGO game, a fun Batman game but easily consumed. Next, please!

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[tab title=”Summary”]

LEGO Batman 3 Beyond Gotham hits all the right spots for a DC fan and keeps up the great tradition that is now LEGO franchise gaming. It’s simple, easy, family friendly and incredibly addictive. Although at this point the gamer in me wants to see some more imaginative things, bigger, better puzzles and something new along with the smash everything, collect everything gameplay. But you can’t fix something that isn’t broken and LEGO games still work great, and this one definitely goes in the lexicon very nicely.

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[tab title=”Good Points”]

– So many characters, so little time

– The Batusi jiving, catch phrase slinging Adam West

– A nice expansion of the DC universe and for the player to see more than Gotham

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[tab title=”Bad Points”]

– Mini game TRON level not needed

– Watchtower hub and utility placement confusing

– The Flash is a bit too flashy and hard to control

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[tab title=”Why a 7.5?”]

The game is a great thing for DC fans, and a fun thing for LEGO fans, but even though it’s accessible to all, it doesn’t quite hit the interchangeable hairstyle on my LEGO head. There’s loads to do and some great extra bits along the way, along with some excellent worlds to explore. But it can be a bit confusing, easy to get lost and it isn’t a leap forward from the other two LEGO games we’ve already had very recently. It’s fun, but for me it isn’t the best the series has offered. But if you’re a DC fan then this will be brilliant.

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This review is based on the Xbox 360 version of the game.

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Never Alone – Review

Posted on by Sean Cleaver

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Sometimes we are blessed as critics and as players that we have a vehicle with video games with which we can experience art, art that no others have access to. There are parts of video games that you can argue transcend the emergent gameplay they inspire, or the visual treats and beautiful moments where music, visuals and story combine to make some narrative magic. Red Dead Redemption has this in the Mexico crossing. Bioshock has it in the encounter with Andrew Ryan. The Last of Us has it in the ultimate lie. Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons has it in its unique and symbiotic control method. Never Alone (Kisima Innitchuna) has it in its tradition and inspired recounting of storytelling.

never alone 3 Never Alone is a platform game that tells the tale of a young girl, Nuna, who ventures out of her village to find the cause of a blizzard. As she travels, she comes upon the destruction and unpredictability of the elements along with enemies to avoid. To help with this, she befriends an arctic fox that can control the spirits around her.

It is based on the story Kunuuksaayuka, a tale from the indigenous Alaskan tribes retold in a puzzle platformer environment. Environment is something that should be mentioned here because the snowy plains look excellent and show off the Unity engine, with which the game was developed, very nicely. The colour palette might be different shades of icy white but that doesn’t lose any depth in the games backgrounds and levels.

Your arctic fox, a trusty companion who can control and summon spirits that act as convenient platforms, is your secondary player that you can swap between to help solve puzzles. From a gaming standpoint, it can be a little bit clunky at times and isn’t the super smooth experience that the rushing winds and icescapes attempted to convey. There are times that you have to be ready to pick up where you died as the game loads incredibly quickly back in to the action.

Your bola (a weapon of magical stones attached by string to a feather) help to solve some of the dead ends you come upon. The game isn’t that long but it is entertaining while you are playing, highlights being the Northern Lights that steal you away if you get in their path and you frantically being chased by a Polar Bear. The inner Attenborough in you wants to stop and admire the great creature and the gamer in you knows you can’t as you’re about to get eaten. From a gaming point of view, even though the game is over quite quickly, it is enjoyable, and it does give you an emotional story (although nowhere near the level of man blubbering that Brothers attained) that is fun for all ages. It’s easy to play and isn’t really that challenging save a few puzzles that require a bit more thought. In fact, I almost want it to be more challenging at times, but that’s just the gamer in me.

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However, this is where the lines are going to blur because this isn’t just a game. This is a work of art. This game is a beautifully realised experiment in to how traditional storytelling, and how generations that pass down the folk tales, can survive in the 21st Century. The story is read in their native language and the cutscenes are animated in a style reminiscent of the Scrimshaw drawings and carvings. The characters, the girl who is the piece’s everyman and the evil manslayer villain, are all from the folklore of a community and a culture.

Not like a culture that a western society may be used to now we are so mixed and interconnected, but one that has stayed true, has survived hardships and exists like a family. Whilst there is a gaming element, Never Alone strives to be an educational look into something that you might not know about unless you’d seen it on TV, read about it or experienced yourself, and it also strives to find new ways to tell the folk tales that inspired it.

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Folk tales are nothing new in games but they mostly work in an intertextual way. Games like God of War take myth and legend and remake it to tell their own story. Never Alone tells the story that is traditional and has always been told but has found a much more interesting and accessible way to do it than most other folk tales have. The game allows for you to experience the beliefs of Alaskans in a unique way.

It helps to show you how the Arctic Fox is a little rascal but will always keep you out of trouble if you befriend them. It tells you how the world is alive and how the spirits manifest themselves as animals or more human forms with the animal’s features. It shows you how they believe the Aurora Borealis are the spirits of the dead children dancing in the sky, and it shows you many things that a people have believed in and trusted and survived with for nearly 1,000 years.

When you are playing the game and you hear the voice of Robert Cleveland recounting the idioms of the folklore, and you get the connectivity of empathy with Nuna and the fox, you are kind of transported in to the world that these tribes live in. You learn and enjoy their beliefs and you find yourself becoming emotionally attached to the characters. The game completely succeeds in a way that most educational games haven’t since the early 90s when you used to get CD Roms with a computer bundle from your local store.

But whilst educational, your enjoyment of this game becomes more apparent because of how seamlessly it all integrates. The animated cutscenes, the beautiful art of the spirits that the fox manipulates to help you. The stark and harsh nature of the thick ice and destroyed wooden platforms and buildings. You are surrounded by nothing except the ice, the wind, the blizzard and the elements. But all the while, you are sharing your adventure with your companion fox. This transcends to the real world as you want to share this story with others. It makes you as a character, in a sense, Never Alone. The title is no accident as when you learn of the culture behind the game and the tribes, they too are never alone. It is a perfect title for a traditional story being told in a fantastically artistic and interactive way.

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[tab title=”Summary”]

The game itself could be better and a bit more polished in its controls and handling. Although its art design is great, the music and sound are excellent and it is a charming and intriguing tale being told. The experience is that of an educational one of a culture and community in which the indigenous Alaskan tribes have existed for many centuries and are sharing with us in a unique and expressive way. Backed up with some excellent unlockable videos to really explore this life and tradition, Never Alone is a fantastic slice of 21st century educational gaming that I would definitely like to see more of in the future. After all, there are many stories to be told.

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[tab title=”Good Points”]

– Easy to pick up and play

– Beautiful art and sound design

– An incredible story told in a traditional way

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[tab title=”Bad Points”]

– Controls are a bit clunky in places

– Not very long

– Isn’t too challenging to play

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[tab title=”Why a 9?”]

Very rarely do games come along that succeed in educating. But even more rarely do they come along and educate, entertain and create art at the same time. Never Alone may not be a long game, or the most challenging. But it is certainly one of the most immersive in its narration and storytelling, the most true in its design and inspirations and impressive in its environments. A beautifully realised tale imaginatively told in an incredibly expressive medium. If that isn’t art, I don’t know what is.

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This review is based on the PS4 version of the game

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Lords of the Fallen – Review

Posted on by Sean Cleaver

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Lords of the Fallen is a game that takes a lot of patience. It also takes time. It’s not a game you can casually pick up for a few hours and just enjoy, not unless you’re a hardcore, seasoned gamer who lives for the kind of sadomasachistic gameplay the genre typically provides. This multiple death action RPG, which pits your wits against ever more complex and deadly opponents while trying both your patience and sanity, is one of the first for the next generation of consoles but is by no means worse for it.

Full disclosure here, I am not very good at these games. In fact my ability to remain calm and best the tactics of bosses is poor at best, even though I know the tactics I should be (and usually am) employing. Maybe I’m just not quick enough or patient enough. Basically the reason this review is later than you’d probably expect is purely due to my playing of it, and my schedule allowing me to get the most time with it. These aren’t the kind of games I normally play so I’m naturally slower at them. I love watching people play Dark Souls online and I’ve started playing it numerous times before getting too busy. Saying that though, I have found Lords easier and more accessible to start than I have Dark Souls. Just so you know, as it is the game it is always going to be compared to, Dark Souls will be mentioned quite a bit in this review although there are many good reasons for this comparison.

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You will go through a very frustrating time in the early stage of the game where everything will appear too powerful for you and unless you have a few hours to kill then progression in the game will be initally slow. Especially once you’ve got past the first boss. However, after several more hours you will eventually be at a good level in your skills and inventory to have plateaued the difficulty in the general playing of the game, despite occasional enemies being hilariously hard in difficult to fight spaces.

In some regards, this is where Lords of the Fallen actually triumphs over Dark Souls, especially for the uninitiated. This easier gameplay is still challenging yet not too alienating for you to reconsider sinking a good weeks worth of play in to it. You could easily lose a whole weekend and finish the game and still feel quite happy about it. I’ve read and heard others refer to this as your character being too overpowered after a certain point, and if you are a well seasoned gamer with experience of these types of games then you might think that. But for everyone else that isn’t the case. The best way to describe the games challenges and difficulty is that it makes you feel like they are never beyond you despite testing you. It’s more of a “let’s sit down and talk about this” feel compared to Dark Souls’s “COME AT ME BRO!” attitude.

However that is also a bit of a curse as, if you aren’t really the kind of person who will want to learn new tactics and play about with their options, the game can get incredibly slow and laborious for you. You could easily be patient and defeat a boss just using your magic gauntlet’s projectile attack if it’s levelled up enough. But that will take you nearly an hour and time is a precious commodity in the gaming world. Of course, it’s so easy to employ that tactic that you can easily get frustrated, start using alternative attacks, ruin everything and have to start all over again wasting even more time. Although you do get a lovely health boost from your experience ghost (like the souls from Dark Souls when you die) that drops on your death. The Experience system is actually very good. The Risk/Reward idea is well balanced with you either cashing in for safety or racking up the multipliers. Either way, your character’s skill progression is pretty easy to achieve over the course of the game. Even if you do get a little bit overpowered and just use your gauntlet to death.

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But to miss out on the various combinations and weapons on display in Lords of the Fallen would be a crying shame because this is again one of the games best features. Armour is excellently detailed and incredibly varied with everything from clerical clean cloth and plate armour to dirty jagged heavy armour. Every part can be worn independently and is totally interchangable in class and design. Heavy boots and light chest? Sure, why not. They look cool. The helmet armours, especially the face mask based medium armours, are increidbly awesome, invoking memories of Flash Gordon’s General Klytus. The weapons and shields are equally as cool with many different sword and axe options, including awesome drops from bosses like the Persistence greatsword, a massive flaming blade, and the Commander’s Shield. What’s even better is, unlike Dark Souls, the items stats are incredibly easy to understand and compare. Not basic but certainly streamlined to give you the essential damage/defence information that you need to know incredibly easily. Even the rune modifers that the Groot-esque spectral blacksmith helps you unlock are easy to understand, change and modify for the right battle.

Unfortunately this doesn’t lend itself very well to a balanced gameplay type, although I’m not saying that it should particularly. That’s the challenge of course to adapt yourself and your style to these different challenges. But these challenges do come at quite the learning curve, especially if you’ve just spent the past however many hours of the game perfecting what you’ve currently equipped. Ultimately it really depends on how you level up your character. There are three classes but these fairly redundant depending on how you use your experience points and spell points, although once you’ve got the gauntlet up to speed it’s a pretty heavy distance weapon, regardless of your character’s stats. The best go to tactic is speed in these games and that kind of dictates how you set yourself up with your armour and your overall weight that you’re incumbered with. The weapons are rather weighted towards the heavy side too with big, high strength requirement weapons that deal big damage very slowly. These quickly become impractical and the lack of lighter, quicker weapons with decent or modifible damage really makes the balanced/rouge class gameplay a longer, more frustrating experience towards the later parts of the game.

Part of me always questions why we refer to these games as being partly role playing in genre as they never really seem to do something that the genre naturally excels at; Storytelling. Lords of the Fallen has a basic arbitrary plot with several side quests to keep you pleasently confused. Confused because there is no direction apart from a basic instruction. Yes the game is intended that way, and its freedom of exploration should allow you to happenstance on dungeons and intersting areas. But in practice it makes you confused as to where you’re supposed to go, can get you stuck in an area way over your level or just lead to dead ends and locked doors with no apparent keys to find and unlock said doors. The voice acting is ropey in the cliche kind of way and your cast of misfits joke and monolgue their way into the oblivious ignorance that the mostly absent leader Antanas is pulling some kind of Emperor Palpatine style subterfuge over everyone. Yet Harkyn, your Roghar slaying anti-hero presumably on a quest for redemption, is actually pretty cool. A bad-ass monster with a terrible past, yes. But despite his tattoos of shame and whichever bullish way you choose to play him, he still seems to earn the forgiveness of someone somewhere and make them happy, whilst saving the realm that incarcerated him to prison and marked him for life.

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The game is intentionally claustrphobic. This makes battles incredibly hard at times but allows for a very well textured atmosphere with nice particle effects all round. The bigger areas have a nice artistic direction to them as well, with the bridge between dimensions being a stand out visual treat. But there aren’t enough of these to really capture your imagination like Dark Souls and they are a bit too similar. A snow covered monastary made of stone and a rather stone based Roghar realm with occasional smatterings of snow… It must have been quite a bad winter when the art designers drew up their concept pieces. It looks great but is all a bit familiar after a while, which doesn’t help your patience, and never really makes you go “wow”.

If you’re looking for reviews of Lords of the Fallen so you can deicde on whether or not to buy the game, it can be confusing. The experienced players will tell you it’s too easy. People like me will say it’s challengingly entertaining but that you shouldn’t get your hopes up for it being like Dark Souls or Skyrim. Ultimately the game succeeds in what it intends to do, which is be itself. It may not be for you, and the style of the gameplay may seem a bit too slow or weighty for the veteran players and the beginners. There’s life in the game with new game plus mode and different classes to try out but you really need to WANT to explore the options to benefit from it. If that’s your kind of thing then you’ve probably done that already in your first playthrough and won’t have much desire to do it again. Or you may consider that you’ve had enough of the challenge now you’ve bested it. Either way you’ll enjoy your time with Lords of the Fallen but just don’t expect it to scratch any itches other games have left you with and you’ll be pleasently surprised.

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Some might call it Dark Souls ‘lite’ or that it’s too easy once you’ve got your character levelled up. Personally, I found Lords of the Fallen enjoyably challenging and it is a game that, even though I’d never normally go out of my way to play, I actually have. There are things that make it much easier than Dark Souls for the uninitiated in the genre and it does look excellent, although the gameplay doesn’t really allow for a balanced approach. If you’re new to this kind of game and have a Next Gen console then it’d be a shame if you didn’t try it, especially if you’re going to buy Dark Souls 2 next year on reputation alone. Start here, and you will enjoy.

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– Excellent Visuals and claustrophobic areas

– Easy to read stats and excellent weapon design

– Experience System is great and game is open to many tactics

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– Will be a bit too easy to get overpowered for more experienced players

– Levels do get a bit similar in the smaller world

– Weapons, while weighty don’t, really give many lighter options

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As I’ve said, I’m not an experienced player of these games. But I do appreciate them and would love to get in to playing them when I have more time in my schedules. Lords of the Fallen is my entry piece and it should be yours too if you’ve never played these types of games. The visuals are great, the weapons and armours look cool and the game always makes you feel like you have a chance at beating it. A few more options for the lower weight armour classes and more varied classes of weapons would have opened this game up a lot more. But it’s a good marker for our Next Generation multiple death Action RPG’s.

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This review is based on the PS4 version of the game

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