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

Dead Space 3 Review!

Dead Space 3 was met with some mixed feelings back when it was first shown at E3. Have these worries been adressed in the game? Does it live up to the high standards of the original 2 games? The game has certainly taken a turn from fright factors, it instead heads towards breathless entertainment. The campaign's story will grab you and involve you straight up to the final credits.

We are yet again put into the shoes of Isaac Clarke, this time to destroy the Necromorph origin, a Marker, on an icy planet called Tau Volantis.  Before you start, the game makes a decent attempt of filling in the back story through the use of a short cutscene which talks about the events of the previous 2 games for new players to the series.

Dead Space 3 still sounds brilliant, with gruesome noises such as the snapping of bones been clearly heard. It adds to the horror of the game as you hear silence being broken as a Necromorph smashes through a vent. With headphones it certainly provides a sense of horror and panic for the player, so if possible experience Dead Space 3 with a set of headphones.

Dead Space still keeps the focus on well-thought out shooting mechanics and strategic dismemberment of your Necremorph foes.  Once you reach the frozen planet, the game does seem much more open than previous titles. This shifts foxus away from constant suspense and more towards a more action-based experience. This is not bad though, we still get them moments of horror, but this time it feels like a blockbuster experience.  With a large portion of the game set in on an open planet rather than claustrophobic corridors, Dead Space 3 still manages to capture a wonderful sense of atmosphere. 

With constant strong blizzards you never really know what is ahead, even in an open world, an enemy can be a couple feet in front and you won't know till it's too late.  Scenery is stunning with huge variations in every chapter, each giving their own sense of danger.

But perhaps the most blatant statement of  an intent to focus on action comes is with the new co-op mode. The second player takes the role of John Carver, a hardened soldier. Co-op is certainly fun and probably the most amazing thing is the changes in the story with co-op, it will make you want to play a second time to see the changes.

Dead Space 3 has taken in some new features to help with the action style, rolling is one. Isaac can now roll out of the way of attacks, but it feels very clunky and unreliable at times and proves hard to roll out of the way of incoming attacks. The cover system, although it works, does seem a little underwhelming and could do with improvement to help combat feel more epic against the marines.

Probably the best new feature is weapon crafting, a much bigger improvement from the former simple weapon upgrades. You can now mix and match weapons together to create the ultimate killing machine, the pieces are available throughout the campaign or crafted with resources. This certainly adds more replayability to the game as players will want to collect and build the ultimate Isaac.

For anyone who was worried about Dead Space 3, you really are worrying over nothing. Dead Space 3 still lives up to the high standards set by the first 2 games and delivers on every level, the move away from horror was not as obvious as I thought, I still found myself getting scared by a surprise Necromorph attack. If you look past the very minor problems of the cover system and rolling, you’ll be rewarded with one of the best sci-fi shooters of all time and a game of the year contender. Dead Space 3 gets a solid 9.5/10, a must buy for any gamer.

Metal Gear Rising Revengeance Demo Review!

When starting the demo, players only have the option of easy or normal. The hard option is locked out, was hoping to see just how hard this game was exactly. The tutorial is available, I demand you play the tutorial. Don't be an idiot like me and skip it then struggle to do anything for my first run of the demo. Tt explains to the player about the control method used in Metal Gear Rising and pays particular attention to the ‘Blade Mode’ mechanic. In this mode, players can slow down time to make precision slices with Raiden’s blade.

Players then get a brief overview of current events in the game and then chucked stright into the action.  One thing I would like to point out is just how stunning the game looks, it is worthy of being up there with other Metal Gear games graphically.  Perhaps this is why the demo racks up a huge download size of 3.4GB, all that destructible environment must use up a lot of data, and for a 15 minute demo, one can only imagine the quantity of data the full game will require.

The destructible environment is actually really awesome, even being able to slice up a bridge in the turtorial level. The slicing up of enemies also looks really nice and feels badass. The blade mode at times can feel a little clunky, with slashes spazzing out from time to time. The real issue of combat is the lack of a dodge feature, we get a parry option but that can only go so far in saving you from incoming attacks. It can make combat seem much more clunky than it needed to be and kinda restricts the possibilities of combat.

The demo feels very linear and lacking the variations of taking on a task like other Metal Gear games.  This is the purpose of this demo, to demonstrate the main features of the game so not to say that the main game will be like this.

 It doesn’t feel at all like any previous ‘Metal Gear’ titles, but this is good, it shouldn’t. It's a spin-off, it should seperate itself from the main series.

I'm sure for many Metal Gear fans, this game will serve them well. To other non- Metal Gear fans not so much. This demo should tide them over and it should keep the fans very occupied until its release!

Dead Space 3 Demo Review!

Dead Space 3 is back, showing us the horror of the Necromorphs from the eyes of Isaac Clarke. The big change this year is the addition of co-op, many people felt worried about this new addition. I played through on both singleplayer and co-op, I must say in co-op the game loses the scary factor from the game very easily as we began to laugh at each others bodies being stabbed! But it is still FUN which is what matters most, with seperate cutscenes being different playing on co-op I can see myself playing through on singleplayer and co-op.

The second big change in my eyes, is the frozen planet of Tau Volantisthat Dead Space 3 is set. Before we felt cramped in the tight, dark corridors of the former games, hopefully they don't do too much open areas in the game. It’s difficult to be intimidated by anything the necromorphs throw at him at this point. It doesn’t matter all that much because blasting the limbs off of foes small and giant is just as satisfying as ever. I feel like I'm evolving with Isaac and I'm no longer a scared baby.

Another big feature is the gun creation system, athough it did nt seem to be a huge factor in the demo. It will be nice to always having to keep my eyes open for the newest loot drops so I can make the most from this new system and craft badass guns!

Dead Space 3 has certainly taken risks, moving from pure horror to adding elements of action. Will it pay off? We will find out on its release on February 5th 2013!

The Walking Dead Episode 3: Long Road Ahead Review!

The Walking Dead has yet again added another medal to the list, episode 3 shows just why The Walking Dead is the fastest rising franchise in the past couple of years.

The first two episodes of The Walking Dead: The Game slowly introduced players to a twisted world filled with zombies and crazies that forced us to make tough decisions based on how we thought our version of Lee would take these various scenarios. These different decisions that we have had to made in Episodes 1 and 2 have been able to give us a general outline of a “good and bad” way to do things. Episode 3 takes all of those defined lines and blurs them completely.

The more I play The Walking Dead: The Game, the more I feel my humanity slip away. I now feel like I make my choices on survival, they still are painful for me to make but I justify it by saying "I do this for Clementine".

As Lee, we see our group through some seriously screwed up and emotional moments, as well as a whole bunch of conversations and light gameplay problem solving. We see the most emotional scenes yet, my eyes teared up a few times but I remained strong!

We get introduced to more characters who add some interesting story and bring in some freshness to the game. It’s a harrowing fact but one that you won’t escape in a zombie-survival situation, the longer you survive often times will lead to fewer things to live for.

The game still suffers from the minor frame drops again, this time it was not as bad as usual though. This factor though is not a huge problem, if you have not purchased this game series yet now is the best time. If you love a strong story then this is for you, this game puts heavy rain to shame in terms of story.

9.5/10 best episode yet, delivers everywhere!

The Walking Dead episode 2: Starved For Help Review!

The Walking Dead: The Game -- Episode 2: Starved for Help is a suspense thriller. The main focus is a huge curveball this time being about how people cope in this madness.

The second of five downloadable episodes, Starved for Help picks up three months after the zombie apocalypse broke out in the original episode of The Walking Dead: The Game.

We now get to see our choices play out a bit more now that we had in episode 1 you don't get a second chance to say something in this adventure game; dialogue pops up, and you have a limited amount of time to make a choice that will influence your friends and make new enemies.

This episode makes us go to a darker place in The Walking Dead no spoilers to what exactly but I gotta say it was amazing. I found myself breaking relationships with a survivor and making new relationships which really I never thought I would do but it really is spectacular. I truly believed that I was Lee Everret (leading character) I even put survival before Clementine at a certain point which I really struggled to do because I love the character so much which resulted in me losing some trust with her.

I really did feel depressed playing this episode not in a bad way I loved it I really felt the weight of my actions on my back and realizing how much of a darker character I had now become. So many times I was shocked at what I was seeing happen and this story really gets you involved like nothing I have ever seen before.

Telltale have outone themselves yet again and I really cannot wait for episode 3 now which may even result in me getting even darker as a character or can I redeem myself? only time can tell.

some technical hiccups remind you of over and over again. Lip syncing seems to be a bit more lax this time around, music will drop out mid track, and animations will freeze as scenes change. This is no reason though not to try this game as it is a masterpiece but they pull you out of an otherwise engrossing experience.

The Walking Dead: The Game -- Episode 2: Starved for Help wasn't what I was expecting. Rather than focus on more walkers and more headshots, the game turns everything around and made me focus on the possible threat of other survivors. It made me realize I cannot be the good guy all the time and hope to survive it's definitely a different experience than the first episode and that is what I want.

Episode 2 gets a solid 9/10 only thing bringing this game down is the technical issues but really this is something special and I advise you to try it now.

Gotham City Imposters Review!

Its here, my anticipated review off Gotham Imposters. This game is a first person shooter
which bases its ideas on what many off us want to do ourselves dress up as Batman (or Joker if your an evil person) and fight crime! This game I was wasnt expecting to be an amazing game but I was infact really surprised at how fun this game actually is!

Presentation
This game contains a very interesting graphics style, it can only be described of resembling the kind of graphics featured in Team Fortress 2. This is indeed great as it really helps give Gotham Imposters a really feel of comedy which is what the game is going for, this also adds to this game managing to bring something different to the market dominated of serious shooters and lets players try something new.

The sound within this game is a mixed bag really, there is some really interesting sounds which do help add a comedy feel to the game. I do believe this game does need a much improved soundtrack but this isnt a huge problem.

Now to the main problems with this game, the matchmaking system I always had problems with it in this game sometimes you may be waiting 10+ minutes just to get into a game, even then it may not even be a full lobby. This is such a huge problem as it really does take away from how people enjoy this game.

Gameplay
The gameplay is something very similar to the likes of Call Of Duty being that the games only feature is online, means Gotham Imposters really needed to make gameplay something special which I do believe it does. The game features many unique features in its gameplay with some real interesting Gadgets which really bring some unique and funny moments, for example the glider really good fun when you and a couple friends are going around in a squad all using the glider. For an arcade title there is enough guns and other items to make it worth the money you will pay. The different body types can also make a big impact on how you play the game giving people many unique play styles compared to fellow gamers.

Final Verdict
9.0- A really solid title and probably one of the best arcad games to date a real treat for fans of FPS games and Batman fans, if you havent already try out the trial and maybe even purchase the game if you enjoy it Gotham Imposters really is worth the money and your time!

Welcome!

Welcome to a brand new gaming blog, I will doing game reviews mostly (until I decide otherwise) Would really love people to share and spread the word!