Category Archives: Games

How Detroit: Become Human Put an End to my Gaming Slump

July 12, 2018 mjvowles2014 Leave a comment

I was hesitant about the idea that Detroit: Become Human would be the title that broke my gaming slump. I’m also hesitant to spend full price on any AAA game these days- especially something I’m not familiar with. The rhetoric from my most trusted reviewers (“wildcard” Youtubers Yahtzee Croshaw, Jim Sterling, & Angry Joe) was that David Cage games were pretentious orgies of QTE’s, resembling laughably-bad interactive movies rather than actual games. And the opinions of reviewers I tend to regard with suspicion (IGN & Gamespot) were that Cage’s body of work represented not only his staggering genius, but an entirely unique and innovative approach to storytelling. Perhaps the truth lay somewhere in the middle, I thought. Or perhaps it all depends on the kind of gamer you are. I knew right off the bat that I’d be sympathetic to Cage’s mission statement, since I always give a greater importance to story than to gameplay.

I kept an eye on the promotional footage of Detroit up until its release and I was very impressed by its visuals. The game came out and I waited for the reviews. I just needed to hear that the story was decent. Androids were in vogue with me at the time, and it may just have been my joyful experiences of Blade Runner 2049 and Westworld season 2 that sealed the deal. I needed a rich world to get lost in. At the time I had no real outlet for escapism in my life. And I hadn’t played a game I really enjoyed since Horizon: Zero Dawn was released over a year ago.

It seems strange that one could have a gaming “slump”, but I honestly can’t think of any other word for it. In 2016 I was staying up all hours of the night pursuing the platinum trophy for Fallout 4. My PS4 was the material embodiment of my laziness. I spent so much time running around the Commonwealth chopping off the heads of Gunners and Super Mutants with my electrified Chinese Officer’s Sword “Brunhilde” that the irradiated wasteland felt more real to me than my actual life. But fast-forward a year to mid-2017 and I’m unable to play anything for more than 20 minutes. I was bored of gaming, if you can believe it. I tried Mass Effect: Andromeda, and it was probably the worst gaming experience of my life. I’ve never felt so let down by a game. I then tried Wolfenstein: The New Colossus, and that left me somewhat lukewarm. I wondered if I was truly falling out of love with video games or if I simply couldn’t find the right one to play.

I took a chance on Detroit: Become Human and my overall verdict is a pretty positive one. Is it a game so close to my heart that I end up taking it more seriously than my career prospects and personal hygiene? No. Unlike The Witcher 3 and Bioshock: Infinite, I won’t take it personally if you don’t like it. But did Detroit: Become Human restore my interest in gaming? Yes.

There are a number of things this game executes very well. The musical score is excellent; each of the three playable characters has their own soundtrack, and each piece of music has a distinctive tone reflective of that character’s narrative. As I’m writing this review I’m listening to the moody cyberpunk-noir music composed by Nima Fakhrara for Connor’s storyline.

The visuals for this game are also excellent- and on a number of levels. The artistic design depicts a Detroit that is both grittily-familiar and slickly-futuristic, and the raw imaginative power of the concept art is rendered beautifully in the game’s state of the art graphics. Every location feels unique and interesting- and more than that- like a place that is lived in. This is achieved by little details about the way everyday things function being given special attention. For instance, the blank-faced androids crowded in at the back of the buses, the way the signal on their foreheads changes color based on their stress level, the maintenance drones vacuuming the office carpets, the monorails, the articles on android basketball, and the CyberLife emporiums that look like a cross between an Apple Store and a 19^th century slave auction. Perhaps my favorite locale was the urban farm you have to chase a deviant android through during “The Nest” chapter.

In addition to the stunning environments, the facial animations in the game are as good as any you will see today. I haven’t been this impressed by a game’s use of motion-capture acting since L.A Noire back in 2011.

So what do we know so far? We’ve established that the game is a success on a technical and artistic level. But what of the gameplay? Most of the game consists of making dialogue choices TellTale-style and executing a sequence of Quick-Time Events. The story is entertaining, but not without its flaws. It brushes up on some complex themes- such as the nature of consciousness, whether or not a loving relationship can be established between a human and a robot, and the rising economic inequality brought about by mass unemployment- without really going deeper into those issues. The game misses the chance to say something original and profound as it seems more interested in pursuing a clumsy civil rights allegory. The story is definitely exciting, but it also has a tendency towards contrived melodrama. I enjoyed the creepy vignette where the player character has to escape a house of synthetic horrors, but found myself laughing at scenes where the humans started acting inexplicably cruel towards random androids for the sake of melodrama.

For me, the biggest drawback of the game is its implementation of motion controls. I didn’t mind them so much in Until Dawn, where you had to keep the controller as still as possible or face getting discovered by Native American demons intent on repurposing your jawbone as a coat-hook. That to me replicated quite well the tension of having to hold your breath, and therefore enhanced immersion. However the motion controls in Detroit are wholly unnecessary. They don’t add anything to the experience and their inclusion actually detracts from the sense of immersion. They suddenly pop up in the game’s action sequences and are finicky as all hell. So if the controller doesn’t register you moving it down in exactly the way it wants you to, your favorite character gets shot in the forehead. That’s what happened to me at least. A character’s death carries no emotional weight when it occurs not because of the player’s choice, but because the player wasn’t quick and accurate enough. And I became even less enthusiastic when the game rolled out another model of the android for me to play instead, because all of the character development I had taken a part in was wiped clean.

In conclusion, I think I can only recommend this game based on what you’re looking for. The pace is slow to begin with, and the chapter in which you spend most of your time washing dishes and cleaning up vomit will definitely put off some gamers. They’re probably necessary components of the narrative’s atmosphere and pacing, but I can’t blame you if you switch off the Playstation and start watching Blade Runner 2049 instead. You’ll find a far superior story there too. But for what it’s worth, Detroit: Become Human does have some exciting moments- enough that I enjoyed the game and wanted to play it when I wasn’t doing so. If what you’re looking for is fun gameplay, then perhaps this game isn’t for you. I would recommend this game to those that simply enjoy science fiction stories, and have at least some tolerance for QTE’s. As for me, this game ultimately broke the dry spell I had endured for over a year, and ended up being interesting and immersive enough that it occupied my thoughts when I wasn’t playing it.

Cross-Atlantic Co-Op with my American Roommate – A Way Out

June 25, 2018 mjvowles2014 Leave a comment

When I first saw footage of A Way Out at 2017’s e3 showcase, I was instantly sold on the idea. I felt like I had been waiting a long time for a unique, innovative and layered co-op experience tailor-made for my specific tastes. And having completed A Way Out, I’m still waiting for that experience. I guess that tells you my overall takeaway from the game already. In a way, nothing has really changed for me since I watched the gameplay demo at last year’s e3, except I’m thirty bucks poorer. I distinctly remember that I was drawn to the game on a conceptual level. I loved the idea of A Way Out, and I still do.

I checked a few reviews before buying it, and if anything they reinforced my enthusiasm for the title. I knew this wasn’t going to be the game of a generation or anything like that. It’s a niche idea, with a thirty dollar price tag that’s justified. It’s not a AAA title. I just wanted assurances that it was a solid game that ran smoothly and wasn’t complete ass. The reviews I watched gave scores in the region of 7-8, which in the gaming industry is considered about average (for some reason). So I bought the game and pitched it to my on-and-off American roommate Aaron during a phone call.

This, I said, would be a cooperative game in the truest sense of the word. We’d be playing as two prison inmates trying to escape and then evading capture once on the run. It’s not a shooter, it’s a game with a narrative focus, so we’d be completely reliant on each other throughout the game. We would be making decisions that affected the story together, we’d be working together to beat tasks specifically designed to be two-man jobs, and we’d be strategizing together.

I love prison dramas like the Shawshank Redemption, Cool Hand Luke, and Escape from Alcatraz, so the setting was a massive draw for me. I loved the idea of a prison escape game, and it was a setting I thought perfect for co-op. One guy hiding in the laundry cart while the other pushes it, that kinda thing. It just looked different to anything else I’d seen.

What I found really intriguing, I told him, was that this game didn’t have a fixed genre. Most games are built around a specific way of playing. God of War is based around the solid core of its hack-n-slash combat, The Walking Dead its branching narratives, and Battlefield its first person shooting. By contrast, the developers of A Way Out decided to write the plot, and then utilize whatever style of gameplay best fitted a particular scene. I thought this was really interesting as a concept, and even if the game proceeded to shit all over itself, it could still- in my eyes- retain a sense of dignity at trying something new. Some missions had us racing cars, others had us stealthing around, and some scenes were 2D platformers.

Best of all, I told Aaron, he wouldn’t have to pay a dime. I had bought the game and he would be able to experience the whole thing with me for free. The game gives you a token you can give to a mate.

We started with pretty high hopes. We laughed at the shower scene at the beginning where one of the playable characters gets hosed down like a disobedient chimp teetering on ironic self-awareness. We had fun talking to NPC’s in the prison yard and debating whether or not to be jerks. But as the game progressed, particularly once we left the prison, we realized that we were laughing at the game and not with it. The characters are shallow and utterly dull, the plot increases in ridiculousness all the way until a climactic twist that makes a mockery of the entire narrative, and you’d find more believable dialogue in an Evil Angel spoof of Star Trek: The Next Generation. The whole thing is infused with this 1980s-era B-movie camp, which didn’t sit too well with me considering the 80s is probably my least favorite decade of all time.

I realized that for this game to really be a hit, it had to be well-written. The gameplay isn’t the draw here, because there is no central gameplay mechanic. Every chapter is a watered-down version of a different genre, the shooter sections about as polished and nuanced as a mid-90s CD-ROM title. I wondered if the game was trying to be intentionally silly, but if that’s the case it doesn’t really work. GTA: V had godawful writing, but no one cared because no one played it for the story- folks were there to rob banks, build their dream house, and reenact the Dukes of Hazzard on their way to the next meth lab. A Way Out doesn’t have that. And without any kind of immersion, we had little reason to play the game at all except to laugh at it.

However, I’m still glad I played it. And like I said, my stance remains unchanged since I saw the e3 demo. A Way Out is a good idea- it’s just not executed all that well. There’s a lot of potential in the concept, and I hope someone tries something similar again. My favorite moment in the game was a sequence in which Aaron and I had to steer a canoe on a perilous, white-water cascade. It was the scene which best fulfilled what I wanted from a co-op experience- we had to communicate quickly and make split-second decisions about which side to paddle in order to avoid crashing into jagged rocks. It reminded me of the second video game I ever played- Wild Rapids for Playstation 1.

In conclusion, I’m not sure I would recommend A Way Out like I did Vermintide, but I do want to stress that I don’t think the concept is inherently flawed. I just didn’t fall in love with this game the way I thought I would.

Games

Cross-Atlantic Co-Op with my American Roommate – Vermintide

June 24, 2018 mjvowles2014 1 Comment

Even though I haven’t been playing my trademark single player RPG’s as much this year, I’ve still found time for a little gaming. I don’t play quite like I used to, but the games I have indulged in recently have been co-op titles. My tastes haven’t changed, it’s just that I’ve been too busy to pour my time into something as vast and complex as Elder Scrolls or The Witcher. It also has a lot to do with the fact that there have been few single player games coming out of late that I’ve been really interested in.

What’s been so great about co-op gaming is that it gives me something fun to do with Aaron, my best friend who lives in the USA. And since Wolfenstein: The New Colossus came out, I’ve only really been using my Playstation 4 as a Roommate Communication Device. I’ve had some great fun down the years playing co-op experiences like Black Ops’ Zombie mode and Overwatch with my American roommate, and I was super-excited for us to play these two games while we are separated by the Atlantic.

Vermintide was a Christmas present from Aaron and his fiancée Anne-Marie. It’s a Left 4 Dead style game where you battle your way through a horde of rat-men in the Warhammer universe. Even though it is high fantasy, it’s got this apocalyptic tone to it. The Skaven represent the end of civilization for the surface world. They are like a literal plague crawling out of the sewers. I found them quite interesting as antagonists go; there’s a sense of futility in trying to hold out against an enemy that just keeps coming. It made me feel like this rag-tag team of bandits Aaron and I were playing as really were the last people on Earth. It’s the same reason I loved Mass Effect 3 so much- the fight against the Skaven, like the Reapers, feels hopeless.

As far as gameplay goes, it’s solid and smooth. I wouldn’t say I love the combat- I wanted a little more for it to feel like a hack-n-slash- but it’s adequate enough to still be enjoyable. I just don’t get the same bloodthirsty sense of satisfaction I get when mowing down Zombies on Tranzit. I wanted the Skaven to feel more squishy, as gross as that sounds. I just didn’t feel all that heroic when I was fighting them. The visuals are good, and the atmosphere in particular is excellent. If you can find a moment to catch your breath in between getting molested by those cunting Gutter Runners, then do check out the lovely vistas the city has on offer.

I had plenty of moments of fun playing with Aaron, but I felt like most of them came from our own banter- such as the panic that would ensue when one of us is getting dragged away by a Packmaster and we’d cry “Help! I’m being dragged to the rape dungeon!”. There’s something creepy about the image of an 8-foot rat pulling along a hopelessly flailing wood-elf that makes me think of the unmarked white vans that park outside elementary schools. I do wish the game featured more situations that really encouraged true cooperation. For the most part, we were just fighting enemies alongside each other, which was still fun, but not in a tactical, interdependent kind of way. We guarded each other when one of us was carrying explosive kegs and we revived each other when we’d be truncheoned one too many times by a shaggy muroid cock.

Overall I enjoyed the game, and I’d recommend it as a chill piece of co-op fun for a couple of buddies. I liked what was there- I just wanted more of it.

Games

8 Games I Miss On The Original Xbox

March 17, 2018 mjvowles2014 2 Comments

Y’all should know at this point that Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and its sequel are my favorite games of all time. However I won’t be including them on this list. I’ve already written about my love for KOTOR and plan to do so again. I love it so much that it just transcends the category of Xbox Originals I miss the most. I think it would just overshadow the intent of this post, which is to bring to light some classic games I played on the original Xbox that have since fallen into the amorphous shadows of nostalgia. I was ten years old when I got my Xbox, and fourteen when I left it behind for a 360. The games I played in that four year period are too often forgotten, and today I’d like to celebrate them with you.

Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc

The Great Escape was the defining game of my childhood, and became an unhealthy obsession for me when I was nine years old. The sequel, Hoodlum Havoc, never left me quite as breathless, but it was still an enjoyable experience. It was the first game I got for the console, and to celebrate its arrival I had two of my best friends come over after school to watch me play it for the first time. I remember thinking that the game felt slightly more whacky this time around. The Hoodlums felt less interesting than the Robo-Pirates. The game did, however, freak me out a little bit. There was something about the recurring patchwork aesthetic just didn’t sit right with me, and the level where Count Razoff chases you around the mansion with an elephant gun gave me actual nightmares.

Favorite Level: Clearleaf Forest. This one felt straight out of a fairy tale- I loved the bright skies, the leafy atmosphere, and the gargantuan mushrooms. I specifically remember being blown away by the graphics as you approach Clearleaf Stadium.

Simpsons: Hit & Run

While everyone else my age was beating hookers to death with double-ended dildos, I was at home playing video games. More specifically, I was exploring Springfield in Simpsons: Hit & Run. I’ve always been a Simpsons fan and I adored this beautiful game straight away. I loved seeing all the locations rendered in a colorful, interactive open world. The idea of an open world game was completely novel to me at the time. I especially remember liking the sound the game made when you collected coins.

Favorite Level: Level 1. In this level you play as Homer as he investigates black vans and wasp cameras in the suburbs. This was my favorite area because it felt so bright and wholesome, as well as featuring several memorable locations such as the nuclear power plant.

The Hobbit

This is a game typical of this list and why I decided to write it. I loved it, but always forget about it. I wasn’t familiar with the storyline of The Hobbit, so the game’s fidelity to the book wasn’t an issue for me. It was a linear, 3D, action-adventure platform game, which- before my discovery of The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion at the age of fourteen- was my go-to genre. I loved the gameplay, the visuals, and the cinematics, so this title will always hold a special place in my heart.

Favorite Level: A Warm Welcome. This level is set in Laketown, and I’ll always remember it for its cozy- yet spooky- atmosphere as you use your stealth skills to uncover a conspiracy in the soft glow of the boardwalk torches and the light of tavern windows. It made me wish there could be a whole game based around sneaking around a floating city.

Azurik: Rise of Perathia

I always felt bad for never completing this game, but I eventually gave up because I didn’t know what to do or where to go. I remember feeling the game wasn’t very intuitive, and I had no investment in the plot. However, that might have had something to do with me plugging the headphones of my new CD player into my ears and listening to The Rasmus album Dead Letters as I played. This game makes the list because its world was just so damn imaginative. I will always remember this game as a feast for the eyes.

Favorite Level: The Water Realm. I remember getting lost and swimming so far that I reached the edge of the ocean, which was a giant waterfall to nowhere, like you see in those antiquated drawings of a flat Earth.

Lord of the Rings: Third Age

This game was just hands-down awesome, and completely unlike anything I have played before or since. I loved that it took place in Middle Earth, but was its own original story, and the environments felt new and interesting, instead of being an exact replica of the sets in the movies. It felt like you were in the world of Middle Earth and exploring it for yourself. Now that I look back on it, it was a really bold direction in which to take such a beloved franchise- and the kind, that, sadly would probably never get made in today’s focus-group-tested, unadventurous, profit-driven, mass-market-appeal, live service apocalypse.

Favorite Level: Eregion. This is the one I remember most, making my way towards Moria through a forest that gives way to mountains.

Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy

This is one of my favorite games of all time. It’s definitely in my top 5. I loved everything about this game because it was letting me live out my own self-insert Star Wars fantasy. The combat was incredible, and I really like how the game was broken up into little missions, each one of them unique and beautifully rendered. I really felt like this game was all about being a Jedi- starting off as a naïve padawan, progressing through training, going on missions, and working to become a Knight. The Jedi Temple was kind of like Hogwarts. You had your wise teachers and jealous classmates. It was a blast.

Favorite Level: Dosuun. In this level you’re sent to a grassy planet to investigate reports of cult activity, only to get imprisoned by an Imperial commander who wants to use you as his play-thing. You escape from your cell and play the whole level without your lightsaber, using only blasters.

Jade Empire

My brother got this game while I was playing KOTOR. It’s less renowned than its cousin, but swap the Star Wars aesthetic for Chinese mythology and it’s basically the same game. These two games exemplified the golden age of Bioware. The writing in Jade Empire is Bioware at their absolute, unparalleled best, the soundtrack is superb, and the world is rich with unbridled imagination.

Favorite Level: Heaven. I was enchanted by the bipedal elephants that lived in the clouds.

Otogi 2: Immortal Warriors

Last, but certainly not least, is Otogi 2. This is the game that inspired this list in the first place. A title that absolutely sent my imagination into a frenzy back in the day, that critics generally agree is a good game, but which is mostly forgotten by history. Despite its critical success, Otogi 2 just didn’t sell very well. I played both 1 & 2 but I’m putting Immortal Warriors here because I remember it better. The combat in this game was immensely satisfying- a hack-and-slash with a fully destructible environment made by the same developer that later went on to make Dark Souls. I loved how dark this game was compared to everything else I had played at this point, and this was reflected in the chilling, melancholy, Japanese soundtrack. I also liked how before each mission there would be a little introduction paragraph to get you scared about the demons that awaited you.

Favorite Level: Lotus Pond. This one I remember most vividly. A grassy lair where you have to assassinate Chitou– leader of the demon spiders.

Thanks for reading! What games make your nostalgia list? Let me know in the comments!

Games

Horizon: Zero Dawn’s Frozen Wilds DLC Is Beautiful

November 25, 2017 mjvowles2014 Leave a comment

Horizon: Zero Dawn is my game of the year. There’s no other game of 2017 I’ve enjoyed anywhere near as much. I got it on March 1^st and within a week I had the platinum trophy. It’s not a perfect game- and there are flaws to be found such as the lack of interesting side-quests and the somewhat empty feeling to its gorgeous cities. It falls short of the standard of The Witcher 3, but comparing any game to such a complete masterpiece feels a little unfair. Horizon: Zero Dawn stands as the best title I’ve played this year because of its excellent storytelling, voice acting and world building. Guerrilla Games’ vision of a post-apocalyptic Earth is resoundingly imaginative and the spectacular artistic design is realized with slick, cutting-edge graphics. And that’s where we reach the subject of today’s post. I recently played through the Frozen Wilds DLC and like the game proper it’s beautiful. So beautiful, in fact, that I had to keep pausing the game during missions to indulge the Photo Mode. It’s quite fun actually. My idea for today’s post is not so much to review the game as to celebrate it. It’s my favorite game of the year, and I figured what better way to salute it than to share with you all a gallery of my favorite screenshots? All of these are taken by yours truly. Want a review of Frozen Wilds? Well here it is: if you liked HZD, this is basically just more of it.

My trusty synthetic ram Hemingway, before he got his horns blown off by a rampaging Fire Bellowback (see below).

I found that the DLC definitely ramped-up the challenge. One of my favorite aspects of the base game was the unique tactics required for each encounter. New enemies such as Scorchers and Frostclaws will throw you around like a rag doll.

The game is set in Wyoming’s Yellowstone National Park, north of where the base game takes place (Colorado & Utah). And I’m pretty sure what you see below is Devil’s Tower.

This is an example of DLC done right. It’s reasonably priced and worth every penny. No Season Pass horseshit. Guerrilla Games took their time and crafted something designed wholly for the fans to enjoy.

In preparation for this post I headed to Yellowstone’s famous geysers to take some photos only to get distracted and start harassing a peaceful herd of Tramplers…

Thanks for reading! Let me know in the comments what games you had the most fun with this year!

Games

Is Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus Worth Your Money?

November 7, 2017 mjvowles2014 Leave a comment

In my Wolfenstein: The New Order review I wrote about how I was initially drawn to the game because of an Amazon Prime TV series called The Man in the High Castle. The show was hot with me and I wanted more of that postwar alternate history in my life. I went on to enjoy the game as much as I enjoyed the show that inspired me to pick it up. When the sequel was announced and I saw that the story took place in a Nazi-occupied USA, I was thoroughly, thoroughly excited. The game was released on October 27^th, and two days later on the morning of my birthday, my brother drove me to the nearest games retailer and treated me to a copy of The New Colossus.

For today’s post, I’m going to structure it as an alternating sequence of pros and cons, followed by a short conclusion. There are no spoilers here, so all readers are welcome.

PRO: The biggest strength of the first title is back- that is to say, the story and its characters. What made The New Order great was the fact that despite the absurdity of its world, the characters were complex and their journeys were compelling. It would have been easy to make the characters as crazy and cartoonish as the setting, but instead they are all very nuanced and sympathetic. The game is marketed as dumb fun and on the surface it might look like nothing more than a gallery of creative ways to maim Nazis, but once you get past the grenade smoke and pull the shrapnel out of your eyes you find yourself immersed in a masterful narrative. I love that the events of the first game are revisited in the psychological toll they take on the characters. We are given insights into BJ’s childhood trauma, his sense of grief and anxiety, and the fragility that exists beneath his tough exterior. The cutscenes are fantastic and full in equal measures of charm, wit and emotional depth.

CON: For me, the game does not make effective use of the setting. In the previous title each location seemed to showcase life in a dystopian, Nazi-ruled Europe- be it the Gibraltar Bridge Megastructure, the Croatian Concentration Camp, or the massive high-security prison in Berlin. It had a picaresque feel to it; each level a colorful vignette that explored different parts of the Reich. In Wolfenstein 2, however, we basically get 3 American cities/towns, 1 of which is revisited later on. Everything else takes place in dull, samey military bases of one kind or another. I can’t help but feel like there’s so much missed potential. It would have been interesting to see more of the American people- perhaps at some kind of “Reeducation Camp”, or a jamboree for the American Hitler youth. Perhaps the Nazis redesigned Mount Rushmore to honor Adolf Hitler, or decided to drain the Great Lakes? Imagine seeing the desertification of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula! I was especially disappointed when I found out that the optional assassination missions all take place in different districts of the 3 places we have already seen. Why can’t we see what’s happening in Evansville or Colorado Springs?

PRO: The gameplay is still super fun, and by extension the game as a whole can be thus considered a successful game. The New Colossus has earned praise for its weapons, and it very much deserves it. I had a ton of fun using the heavy weapons and blasting apart the armor plating of encroaching Übersoldaten and Laserhunds. There are plenty of moments of high-octane, intense combat which will see you spray the rooms with lead and fire before throwing a hatchet at the commanding officer’s face and diving out the way as a nearby fuel tank explodes.

CON: The level design is awful in this game. Not only are the levels uninteresting as places, but they lack the clever pacing and structure of The New Order. There’s something messy about them that makes them feel like nothing more than a sequence of chaotic action set pieces. There’s also something repetitive about them as well. You’ll navigate an area that gives you the option to stealthily take out the commanding officers or go in guns blazing, only to enter the next area and be slapped with the exact same scenario. In The New Order, however, the missions would have this well-crafted sense of narrative pacing; a given level would start out with stealth, story and puzzles, before building up to a dramatic, action-oriented finish that it earns. Not so much in The New Colossus I’m afraid.

PRO: You get to ride a Panzerhund. This was something I’ve been looking forward to since the game’s announcement at Bethesda’s e3 press conference. The razor-toothed, Fahrenheit 451-style mechanical hounds are iconic to the series in much the same way that the Big Daddys are to Bioshock. Getting to ride one and douse the Nazis in belches of flame was a helluva time, and probably my favorite moment of the game from a purely gameplay perspective.

CON: The prologue is nowhere near as good as The New Order. I know this is more of a criticism of The New Colossus as a sequel rather than a game, but I was hoping for an opening a little more memorable. I liked the cutscenes and flashbacks, and the haunting confrontation with Engel served as good motivation going forward, but the fight aboard the U-Boat just seemed to fall short of the standard set by the assault on Deathshead’s castle. The wheelchair was a nice touch but quickly became an annoyance when the lack of agility saw me get helplessly riddled with bullets.

PRO: I liked the little details in this game. You can certainly play the game as just mindless fun, and as I said, the combat is a blast. But if you do want something more subtle from the experience, there are a bunch of collectible epistles that flesh out the world of Nazi America. Whenever any story exerts self-awareness- especially a video game, in which you have to kill so many people- I’m intrigued. I’m interested in redshirts and games that give them character. The game’s cover shows you standing on a mountain of discarded Nazi helmets; it’s very much marketed as a Nazi-hunter simulator. But if you take the time to read the personal logs you find on your way, you often find yourself in a moral dilemma. I found postcards in which German soldiers wrote to their loved ones back in Europe, and some of them were quite tender and touching. Underneath the futuristic Nazi armor there are human beings with families and lives entirely ordinary. The game even addresses how many people BJ has murdered; we see a grieving mother in one scene, and in another we see BJ let a German soldier run free instead of killing him. The letters and postcards are particularly interesting, because BJ does not comment on them, and we the player have to fill in for his conscience. It makes us uncomfortable, and my takeaway is that the BJ in the world of the game is reading these letters and blocking them out to make his job easier.

CON: Personally I felt the game was in need of more unique encounters in the way of boss battles and vehicles. We had the Panzerhund and that was great, but the fun was over before we knew it. Imagine that the game is a sandwich, and the repetitive shoot-or-stealth scenarios are the upper and lower halves of the hamburger bun. Well the Panzerhund is a single slice of salami in the middle. We need more filling in this sandwich. We could have explored more dynamic swimming gameplay and underwater combat, we could have navigated environmental puzzles, and the game was in dire need of some good secondary villains to terminate on the way to settling the score with Engel. Where was this game’s equivalent of the London Monitor or Deathshead’s mech? The game’s final challenge was little more than a horde of troops. I was expecting something on a bigger scale- this is Wolfenstein after all, where the writers are only as limited as their imagination. Also, the futuristic unicycle was crying out to be used in some kind of swashbuckling escape sequence!

In conclusion I would say that Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus is a good game if not a great one. It is definitely worth your money, which is more than I can say for a lot of games these days. The game deserves credit for its artistic integrity and the lack of microtransactions or tacked-on multiplayer modes. The writing is excellent and there’s a good amount of content to keep you busy for a while. What did you guys think of the game? Let me know in the comments!

Games

The Best Upcoming Games You Haven’t Heard Of!

September 25, 2017 mjvowles2014 Leave a comment

For this post I’d like to bring to your attention the most ambitious upcoming games you haven’t heard about. These are just a few games I’m real excited for, that I think deserve a bigger slice of the proverbial cheesecake that is the conversation of the gaming community. There are just two rules I’m applying to this list. I’m not including games that I’m looking forward to such as Red Dead Redemption 2, Star Citizen, Metro Exodus, Days Gone et cetera, because there’s no chance any of us are going to forget about these titles or fail to notice when they’re released to a shower of confetti and champagne corks. They’re already well-established hype trains that don’t need any extra marketing. I’m also not including smaller, more classically “indie” games such as Cuphead, The Last Night, and FAR: Lone Sails, all of which I am also curious about and perhaps belong in a different list. Today I simply want to highlight several games I’m looking forward to that, while not having enormous budgets and marketing campaigns, nonetheless have the ambition and sense of scope you might expect from big AAA titles.

#5 Agony – Madmind Studio

The developer’s name says it all really, as we’re left wondering what kind of childhood trauma must have been responsible for the game’s iconic vagina-faced monster. Agony is a game I have been tracking for quite a while as the game’s vague 2017 release date has its small Steam community worrying that it’s been cancelled. It’s since been confirmed that this isn’t the case, but the publishers remain non-committed at this point to a specific release date.

This game looks beautiful- albeit in a horrific, putrid kind of way. The developers, artists and animators deserve special praise for creating a version of hell that feels fresh, fantastical, and nightmarishly surreal. Agony is a survival horror game where you play as a tormented soul trapped in the underworld with no memory. What makes this game interesting from a gameplay point of view is that your ability to survive the harsh conditions of hell is tied to your unique power to possess and control not only other souls, but small demons as well. Keep an eye on this game because it’s going to drop soon for PC, PS4 and Xbox One!

#4 System Shock 3 – OtherSide Entertainment

This is the only game on this list that’s an already established IP. The reason it’s here is because I feel like the sequel to the groundbreaking System Shock 2 deserves more attention and discussion. I want to know what everyone wants from it, what they hope it to be, all of that stuff. There’s nothing like the palpable excitement of a fanbase to compound one’s own giddiness. System Shock 3 has been quietly in development for a couple years now and at present there’s no real release date in sight. What we do know however is that Terri Brosius will be reprising her role as deranged AI villain SHODAN, and that this time around we’ll be getting a deeper look into her motivations for wanting to extinguish the human race.

#3 This Land Is My Land – GameLabs

It’s easy to glance at these screenshots and think you’re looking at Red Dead Redemption 2. But what you’re looking at is its own beast entirely. Little is known about Ukrainian-based GameLabs’ open world western, but what we do know is that it looks gorgeous. What I find particularly intriguing about this title is that it’s got a focus on stealth gameplay, putting you in the shoes of a Native American warrior. This makes for a nice contrast to Red Dead, which I seem to remember being about conflicts between various shades of cowboy.

This game looks to stand out with a few quirks that deviate from the norm in AAA titles, insofar as the environment changes independent of the player’s actions. It should also be noted that no two playthroughs will be the same, as cities grow differently, camps change locations, and patrols change routes, every time you start a new game! This looks to be a very interesting game, so I eagerly await any new details regarding content and release.

#2 Project Wight – The Outsiders

I saw the gameplay demo for this one on Youtube a while back and fell in love at first sight. Not much has been revealed to us since then, but here’s what we do know: it’s a dark, atmospheric open world fantasy RPG with a Nordic setting. The twist is that you are a monster, and you will be feasting on the flesh of the Viking-inspired humans. In a sense the game is also post-apocalyptic, as your race has been pushed to extinction by the hunters of mankind.

Make sure to check this game out on Youtube because it looks like nothing else out there right now. Project Wight sees you play first as a cub in which the gameplay is more stealth-based, using the small spaces of caves to flee your human oppressors, and later as a fully grown beast with sharp claws and fangs at your disposal, allowing you to approach your hunters in a more aggressive manner. It’s also revealed that you have these batlike wings, allowing you to glide off of mountains and terrorize the forests below. This looks to be an interesting and dynamic way with which to expand upon the concept of an open world. Many games have given us the ground and the sea, but how many have given us the sky as well? It’s my opinion that verticality only improves games, so I’ll be very curious to see how this turns out.

#1 Freeman Star Edge – KK Game Studio

I hope this one works out, because it’s easily the most ambitious game on this list. This game promises so much that it will understandably make some people suspicious. Can it really deliver a game of such scale? Well we’ll have to wait and find out, but from what I’ve seen so far, I’ve been very impressed. In an age where so many mainstream games feel like hollow cash-grabs with just enough content to be considered a game at all, you can forgive me for getting hyped about a title that actually seems like it is being made to give players the richest experience possible. This is a project that reminds me of the times when games were driven by passion and not unabated greed.

Freeman Star Edge is an open world, action RPG set in the far future that promises a slew of features such as large scale space combat, looting, crafting, mining, exploration, base-building and stealth. This honestly is the gaming equivalent of a massive taco stuffed to the brim to various ingredients. There are giant futuristic cities that actually feel like real metropolises you can lose yourself in, as well as frozen wastelands whose vast emptiness extends in every direction as far as you can see. It’s a stitching together of the Sims, Mass Effect 1, Star Wars: Galaxies, Xenoblade Chronicles X, Dark Cloud, and Skyrim. The way the character in the gameplay demo crept around a house stealing from desks reminded me a lot of the Elder Scrolls games. The footage I’ve seen looks very good, although not quite as slick as the others on this list. You can join in with faction-based PvP combat or stick to furnishing your apartment if you’re more interested in single player exploits like myself. The choice is yours!