Don't Starve Short Review

Don't Starve is a game which I have been addicted to for the last week, the concept is simple as the title suggests, but the content is deep.
Klei Entertainment is best known for its platform games. Don't Starve is a completely different direction for the company, coming from a company who created the Shank series for example. Don't Starve should not be marked as yet another survival clone after the success of Minecraft, the game is unique in many aspects.
The visual style gives is unique, giving off a feeling of a world drawn by pencil. It's simple but effective, it fits in well with the simple, casual feel of the game. Survival is the key idea for this game, the aim is to try survive the longest amount of days possible. It gets rather deep and immersive when you begin to struggle to find food so you don't starve. Crafting is very important in this game, creating tools and stations which allow you to further increase the amount of items you can build. Each day you must keep an eye on time and return to your campfire before night, otherwise you will face certain death from the dangers in the wild.

Unlike Minecraft, every monster seems like a serious threat to your survival and are rather tough, it makes you think about every battle and assess the threat. Considering the game being relatively cheap on Steam, there is a lot of fun to be had with the game. The game is still in alpha therefore expect regular support for the game and loads of brand new features to expand on the all ready solid content.

Gears of War Judgement Review

Gears of War Judgement is certainly another Gears of War game. Created by People Can Fly, makers of Bulletstorm a fantastic game. It's a prequel to the first game with the player taking the role as fan favourite Baird, surely it's a recipe for success? Kinda.

To start the campaign has created an arcade feel to the campaign in the way of earning stars for your performance, these can be increased with the player using more creative ways of killing. The problem I have is the campaign is then split into sections because of this, the game truly suffers. It feels like I'm doing a series of challenges instead of trying to enjoy the game how I want. It also manages to put the momentum on hold every time you finish a section, at times I really struggled to become attached to the story at all. I really enjoyed Paduk though, his character did feel fleshed out. However the same can't be said about Sofia who I feel was the tag along woman in our squad who felt kinda left out at times in dialogue.

Judgment follows the tradition and treats its main villain poorly. General Karn's screen time is limited, his impact is barely felt, and his fight is kinda poor. He exists purely for the sake of a predictable and anticlimactic final boss fight. The squad AI is actually a bit better than previous games, I actually got saved from time to time and they actually killed the odd Locust.

Now onto multiplayer. It's a mixed bag really, I will start with what I liked. The attack-and-defend OverRun mode feels like an extension of  Beast Mode. Five COG soldiers do their best to keep incoming Locust from destroying their defenses and opening a new spawn point. If the Locust succeed, the COG fall back and try again until the timer runs out or their third and final base is destroyed. Then the roles are reversed.  The Locust classes add a variety of playstyles for people to play and learn to counter,  campaign-influenced skills for each COG character give it a distinctly Gears of War feel.

 

 

This mode is jut as fun as anything introduced in any previous Gears of War game. Now to the bad, the class system. For some reason every shooter now believes we need a Call of Duty style class system. Guns have been introduced and the weapon selection has changed for the worse, no longer can you have a shotgun and assault rifle. Options really feel limited and to say the worst, generic.

 

Final Verdict - 7.5/10 Overall Gears of War Judgment is a GOOD game, but it's far from brilliant. I praise games for trying to bring changes, but for the most part changes were made that were not needed. OverRun is a stroke of genuis and brings some really fun moments, especially with friends. But the campaign lacks any sort of badassness that the other Gears of War games had, making it he poorest campaign out of any Gears yet.

 



Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance Review

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is around about  4-10 hours long  (depending on difficulty). In that time you will be blown away fighting all kinds of brilliant enemies in spectacular style,  it's a tight action game whose campaign moves as quickly as its excellent combat.

With a boss battle on average every 45 minutes, you really are in some serious badass fights regularly. Traditional Metal Gear games have relied on the element of stealth, although this game does feature that, the main focus is melee combat. Combos gracefully fall together, with a combination of sword strikes, kicks and aerial attacks. The animation for these look stunning to say the least, I have never been this excited for a game like this which obviously had so much work put into it.

With unlockables you can easily get past that 4-10 hours and sink many more into the game. With a ton of moves, one of which answered one of my main problems, a dodge ability! Which I really enjoyed using.

Once Raiden slays enough cyborgs, he can enter the time-slowing Blade Mode and slice his sword in any direction, this will slice parts of enemies of in a jaw-dropping way. It also adds a new twist on the game in terms of strategy, slicing  weapons of cyborgs to leave them vulnerable, or slicing armour to reveal weak points.

This game's soundtrack is also one of the best I have heard in a game in a while, each boss theme is unique and makes fights even more awesome. Hands down the big winner for best soundtrack this year, simply put it's outstanding.

Other unlockables are available, in a way I love by defeating bosses you gain their weapon. The only thing is these weapons are rather bad, they replace some of your attaks and can restrict some combos.

The camera is the only real major problem that I have with the game, it seems to keep altering itself all the time in the worst possible moment. It can take away from combat and can actually get you killed from time to time. It is only a minor splinter in an otherwise fantastic game.

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is a brave move and certainly pays off, Raiden is finally back and more badass than ever. It's always entertaining, even if you are new to the franchise, I'm sure anybody can love this brilliant masterpiece. - 9/10

Wreck-It Ralph Review! - Beating Other Films One Pixel At A Time!

Wreck-It Ralph has proven to be one of the greatest animated films of 2012, (2013 in the UK). Wreck-It Ralph took the task of creating a film around gaming culture, as you can tell from my blog I'm a huge gamer myself! So coming from somebody that this film is aimed at, I can say it has completed the task with great success. I found myself chuckling at so many inside jokes which my friends did not understand, they really did work hard to include some references that gamers would find special.  From Sonic to Street Fighter and even the unexpected Metal Gear Solid, Wreck-It Ralph is bursting  with these gaming references!

Wreck-It Ralph is set inside the world of a video game arcade, a bright and stunning world where game characters can hang out together, it was rather funny to see some odd characters hanging out together. The story revolves around Ralph, a bad guy who wants to win a medal so he can be treated like the hero of his game. He sets out on an adventure to finally get that medal and become the good guy , the only way possible is by leaving his game and going elsewhere.

The world of Hero's Duty was my favourite location in the film, inspired by modern FPS games such as Halo or Call of Duty. The use of Skrillex, even though I usually hate him, actually worked rather well, it fitted in with the scenery and the action on the screen. The world of Sugar Rush I thought was not as impressive as Hero's Duty, it kind of lost its game feel, although it did give a feeling of Mario Kart. Gaming references also seemed to have stopped at this point and the film kind of lost its uniqueness to an extent, the film was still enjoyable though with the rather funny Oreo guard scene!

 The film's supporting cast are rather strong also, Fix-It Felix, Jr is the hero of the game Ralph inhabits, he is certainly a character inspired from the likes of Mario. Sergeant Calhoun, is the stereotypical FPS character, coming from Hero's Duty. A bad-ass soldier, who is usually paired with Felix as a love interest in the film.

King Candy is also a rather strong villain for the film and the 'end boss' you could say. His happy characteristics hide his true evil intentions and serves for a brilliant plot twist and fits in well with the rest of the story, leading to huge pay-off.

Vanellope is probably the weakest character in the film, she does provide some nice moments but her humour brings her down. Her jokes at times did seem a little childish and clearly made for the child audience to enjoy, they made a genius film at times look rather idiotic. Shame on you for whoever thought they were funny.

Wreck-It Ralph is a bold and risky move that certainly paid off for Disney, it's a brilliant and well-crafted film filled with gamer goodness. With originality comes success. - 8.5/10

The Walking Dead: Suicide King Review

The Walking Dead returned for the second half of Season 3, coming off what had been the strongest sustained period in the show’s history yet. The wait was worth it, The Walking Dead returns just as strong as it left off. The Merle and Daryl was quickly resolved with a rescue from Rick and Maggie, it was awesome considering it's the first interaction of the two brothers that we have seen in The Walking Dead (minus the scene in season 2, with Daryl seeing Merle in his head).


 Steven Yuen has gotten increasingly impressive as The Walking Dead has continued, he plays Glenn so well and it's great to see him getting so much attention. It's a character that I'm truly invested in and I think Glenn will continue to get better and better throughout.

Andrea continues her storyline in Woodbury, although I'm not all that bothered about it I can see why some may feel that it has dragged on too much now. I can also see the argument for why her character is dagging behind everybody else, her speach was lackluster to say the least. Another lackluster performance was the Woodbury extras! Seriously, did they pick them up off the street, they were kinda funny to be honest. They gave no passion to their yelling at all and seemed very B quality.

Carol yet again raised the bar on her character having some really nice moments this episode. Tyreese though gave a brilliant performance, Chad Coleman plays the role of Tyreese so well and even convinced me to pick up The Wire! His character comes off almost like the character Dale, good-hearted in a terrible situation. 



The ending to this episode, avoiding any spoilers, was brilliant. One of my favourite finishes to an episode yet, it showed how much the character Rick has came along since his days in season 1. His transformation is believable and I feel that he has been the strongest character this season!

Solid episode 8/10 - Some minor problems brought the episode down but some solid performances and a very creepy but awesome ending made this a brilliant episode!

Update for The Future!

Hello again. The blog is very slowly growing now and hopefully it continues to get bigger and better. I think the next big review will be The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct, so expect a feature length review for that! I'm also considering doing a couple classic game reviews considering we are in the quiet time period of gaming this early in the year, feel free to leave suggestions!

Quick Link To My Art of Dead Space Book

http://youtu.be/-LfQVSnrzHQ