Its a massive shame that Activision kicked this out without any fanfare or support at all, as it's one of the most enjoyable shooters I've played in a long time. Sure it's fairly derivative, borrowing liberally from Bioshock and Half Life 2, but it combines what it takes - finding notes and audio logs from long-dead people to piece together the backstory, using a physics manipulator to move stuff about, buying gun/character upgrades for all your fancy plasmid-like abilities - and puts them together in an interesting way.
Briefly, the plot is about some military guys who go to investigate an allegedly abandoned Soviet research base on a remote island, and before long it all goes wrong with and interesting and fun time-travel plot, decent shooting, great level design (although it does stick pretty much in "crumbling Russian stuff" as a theme) and visuals that are still alright today, 5 years later. It even has multiplayer apparently, but I imagine that is well and truly dead.
My only real gripe is that there are no subtitles, which can make it tricky when you're listening to people talk in Russian accents through time loops or with other sound effects going on in the background, and also that there will never be any more games in the series to explore the ideas and setting further.
This is some grade A drivel right here. I can't think of anything positive to say. I guess the only compliment I can give is go buy Drive Club or Forza as this game doesn't deserve your hard earned dolla dolla.
Outlast 8/10 Waited ages to play this and it was definitely worth the wait. It reminded me a lot of Condemned in that they are both gritty survival horrors set in the real world that start off fantastic then take a completely unnecessary supernatural turn at the end. Although, I guess it wasn't supernatural per se, it was strawberry floating nanomachines or something, still, it took a stupid twist that should never have happened. The ending kinda left a sour taste. I'll have to pick up the DLC as I've heard it's even better than the main game.
Peggle 2 9/10 Been pretty addicted to this the past 3 weeks. More of the same really but when it's this good there's not much you can change up. My only complaint is that some of the new powers aren't nearly as good as the ones in the original. I miss the pedals a lot.
Honestly, I'm not sure how to even talk about it without spoiling it all. I'll say it was a novel experience. And thoroughly unenjoyable. I guess I did kind of enjoy it on a meta level where it was interested in seeing how a story could be told like this, but I gave up when the credits rolled. I don't care about this story, nor do I care for the purposeful obfuscations along the way, so I just couldn't be bothered to hunt down the missing clips. It's hard to recommend it as an enjoyable way to spend an evening, but you should probably try it for yourself. If you like Gone Home, you might like this
Lucien wrote:One low point was a mission where you try to sleep with a girl. If you get an S-Rank in the mission you can see the main female characters in their underwear as a 'reward'.
Super Exploding Zoo (PS4/PSV cross play). Really enjoyable little mini-strategy/puzzle game. Not difficult but challenging enough on some later levels but you soon learn the winning route to take.
Just got the Plat on it thanks to cross playing against myself on PS4 and Vita in Vs mode! Lol
Mario Party 8 6/10 It's neat how all the boards have different rules, but otherwise this version of Mario Party feels lazy. It isn't even widescreen, which is real odd for a Wii game.
+ Fairly(ish) original plot + Satisfying combat + Lots to do + Good soundtrack...
- ...which gets very repetitive - Lots of pointless/dull quests - Lots of repetition of 'dungeons' - Multiple play-throughs needed (and therefore even more repetition) to see the full story - Gets pretty damn tedious after a while
A brilliant slice of Wolfenstein pie - not too long but not overly short, either. Some fantastic locales and a great mix of gameplay styles, from steathing it up to all out blasting. Great production values, yet not particularly blessed with grand set pieces like its big brother. Anyone who likes The New Order must play this. 8/10
A textbook case of a slow-burner. When I started this, I wasn't really feeling it. The main character was totally unrelatable, and it was much too embroidered in anime tropes and otaku culture to suit me. When Mayuri, Faris or Lukako were speaking, or it indulged in "fanservice", I'd damn-near cringe to death. I guess it says something about the quality of the story, however, that it kept me from putting the thing down. Because it was magnificent. Half of the endings were just weak game-over screens, but any time you made it to chapter 10 it was gold. The time-travel experiments and voyage of discovery really reminded me of the movie Primer, and I really appreciated how it weaved real life stuff in there to help with the plausibility. What I didn't appreciate, though, was the moments where the player character was either violent against or contemplating sexual violence against some of the female characters. Left a sour taste in my mouth, that the sweetness of the true ending couldn't quite make me forget. If you like Zero Escape, you'll like this
This is an old school point and click adventure in the style of the Blackwell series set in a cyberpunk setting reminiscent of Beneath a Steel Sky. It is very good and does not do the usual hand holding that you might expect from the modern modern style adventure games being produced by the likes of Tell Tale. If you don't mind extremely retro graphics then give it a look.