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THE CREW
Game Blast Score: 8.5
“The Crew” sets out to be a massive, multiplayer racing game unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. You can form “crews” with anyone and take on other factions for money. Or you can drive from New York to Los Angeles in a single sitting. You can buy a Chevrolet Camaro and fit it with a lift kit and big tires to go offroad. “The Crew” promises so much.
The Crew has two of the best trailers cut for any game in the last few years. The first was for its unveiling at E3 2013. Set to the thumping, submit-or-die pump of the Glitch Mob’s ‘Warrior Concerto’, it dished out an action-packed series of cinematics that showcased the game’s deep vehicle customization options and white-hot racing.
The second trailer rolled out at E3 this year, was a softer, more low-key affair. Like its predecessor, it showed off the massive map in the game, but its focus was on the variety the environment possessed. As the strains of Oliver Tank’s ‘Last I Night I Dreamt of Everything' sidled under the action, players watched cities give way to deserts then to ice-packed mountains and stretches of tarmac lined with forests.
Both trailers, however, contained one misleading element. They both seemed to imply that The Crew was game largely focused on co-op play, and from the hands-on I had with it a couple of weeks ago, this doesn’t seem to be the situation.
GameBlast score: 10.5
Over a series of off and onroad races and a couple of missions (in which the aim was to ram an NPC vehicle off the road) there was no attempt at working together on the part of myself or any of my ‘Crew’ members. We slammed into each other to gain pole position. We shouldered each other on corners to get ahead. We cut each other off whenever we could to make sure we dealt the killing blow to any target vehicle we were after. In other words, it was every man and woman for themselves and teamwork be damned.
According to the developers from Ivory Tower, co-op does play a huge part in The Crew in its Faction Mission (which we’ll get to in a moment). But there’s very little evidence of team-based activities in the single player game. Perhaps this is because it focuses on the activities of one individual trying to join the ranks of an a criminal organization that uses cars to pull off heists, so he can gun down the leader. It would probably make it hard to make such a character sympathetic, if he was plotting to do this with four willing partners.
As the campaign unfolds, players earn reputation and money, which respectively raises their standing on the leaderboards for each mission and allows them to buy a fleet of cars. They also earn modifications – in the form of shocks, tyres, nitro boosts, suspensions, paint jobs and more – for placing in races and mini-challenges they can complete while driving through The Crew’s sprawling, massive map in Free-Drive mode.
The mods and equipment are split across four tiers: Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum. Players can start earning mods in the first three tiers from the get-go – and the colour they earn depends on where they place in every event – but once their level cap is high enough, they unlock the Platinum Mods. These are the elite tier vehicle modifications and they boost The Crew’s replay value substantially; once they’re installed, players can dive back into earlier missions that they placed badly in, and attempt to push themselves up the leaderboards.
What “The Crew” does have going for it is an idea: exploring the U.S. The virtual world is scaled down from the real thing, of course, but the sheer size of the map Ubisoft has created is absolutely astonishing. It took about a half hour to drive from Chicago to New York: That doesn’t sound impressive, but consider that you could get across the entire map of other games in that time.
The biggest draw for “The Crew” is its multiplayer mode, but there’s also a huge number of story missions to complete throughout the country. It’s definitely enough to keep you busy for a while, if you’re a solo player. Joining multiplayer matches was easy and fluid, when I could find people playing. But this is a brand-new game, so the population will grow soon.
It’s hard to know where to begin. “The Crew” is super-ambitious, but it falls completely flat in execution. Sure, the world is big, but there’s nothing impressive in it. Yes, there are missions, and you can drive to representations of U.S. locales to eat time -- but the scenery is just so boring. All the towns look depressing and generic, aside from obvious geographical monuments (Gateway Arch, Cape Cod, etc.).
Ubisoft could have made the locales at least feel distinct with local radio stations/music. Imagine Eminem and The Temptations in Detroit, Chuck Berry and Nelly in St. Louis. Maybe the Beastie Boys in New York. Perhaps Fall Out Boy in Chicago. Instead, there’s 30 or so random tracks built in (with Lorde’s “Royals” making an appearance for some reason). Thankfully, there’s always the “import your own music” function, because you can listen to “Royals” only so many times on a cross-country drive.
FARCRY 4 REVIEW
GAME BLAST PRESENT FARCRY REVIEW
Ubisoft has definitely got a theme this year and it’s one of choice. Assassin’s Creed Unity introduced open-world assassination missions so you can choose how to approach your target, while Watch Dogs put a tonne of hacking gadgets at your disposal and let you decide which ones to use. Then there’s the huge open world racer The Crew due out in early December. That theme of choice pervades Far Cry 4, too, which is apt given the series has always had a strong sense of exploration, freedom and choice. But Far Cry 4 takes this freedom to another level within the storyline itself. Far Cry 4 sees you play as Ajay Ghale, a young man returning to his homeland of Kyrat with one mission – to scatter his recently deceased mother’s ashes. As you’ll know from the various trailers though, Ajay’s arrival into Kyrat doesn’t go quite as planned thanks to the country’s tyrannical King, Pagan Min.
Of course, the main aim throughout the game is to get back to Pagan Min, who sadly features very little throughout the game despite him being one of the strongest characters.
Instead, you’ll find yourself caught between Amita and Sabal, the two leaders of the rebellion, The Golden Path. Here’s where the choice part comes in. At key points during the campaign, you’ll have to decide whether to side with Amita, who tends to be the more modern of the two, or Sabal, who is more concerned with the history and traditions of Kyrat.
The choice you make affect the immediate missions. For example, one choice might mean deciding between gathering intel from Pagan’s men for Amita or protecting some of your soldiers in one of Kyrat’s villages for Sabal. However, it initially feels like your choices only affect that one mission. Once you’ve chosen one side or the other, the next Golden Path mission will be the other leader giving you the guilt trip and then it’s over.
But as you continue through the campaign, you start to see that your decisions have slightly larger consequences. Don’t expect storyline ripples a la Mass Effect, but at the end, the finale plays out the way it does because of the decisions you’ve made in the closing missions.
Although the main Golden Path missions will mainly see you completing tasks for Amita, Sabal or another lady called Noore, you will meet some other characters during your Far Cry 4 story.
One of those will be a familiar face for those of you who played Far Cry 3 – Willis. The undercover CIA agent makes a return in Far Cry 4 to give Ajay some information about his family and he has the majority of the mountaintop Himalayan missions to gift you.
There’s also Longinus, who is a religious nut trying to atone for his sins by collecting blood diamonds from Pagan’s men. He definitely means well, but his extended spouting of bible literature makes you wish Far Cry 4 had skippable cutscenes. Thankfully, he only crops up in four missions, but we advise popping to get a cup of tea while he harps on.
You’ve also got Hurk missions. Hurk is the guy your pal will play as in the co-op sections, but you can also do some missions for him within the single-player campaign. He has a bizarre sense of humour and a rather irritating voice, but his missions are extremely fun – especially when you get to go mad with a pneumatic stake.
Often The Golden Path missions aren’t available for a time. This forces you to pick up some of the side missions. That is particularly true for the Yogi and Reggie side quests that see you embark on some drug-fuelled adventure that will have Kyrat radiating in psycadelic colours before your eyes as statues drop from the sky or enemies spontaneously combust. They’re very trippy and have the best soundtrack, so are worth a laugh or two.
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CALL OF DUTY ADVANCED WARFARE
With Advanced Warfare, Activision is taking the extremely successful Call of Duty mostly to places it’s already been, which is to say this is a game about war, shooting, explosions and guns. But it’s also taking a stab at some realistic futurism with the ‘Exo’ suits your character gets to wear, which augment your ability to navigate your environment and deal damage to your enemies, and weapons that boast some plausible improvements over their counterparts of today. And of course, Kevin Spacey is all over the place.
Here’s a disclaimer up front: I don’t usually spend that much time playing these kinds of games. My interests favor swords, sorcery, giant rolling Katamaris and colourful characters. That said, I also cut my teeth on classics like Medal of Honor for the PC, and the early Tom Clancy Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon games. Still, I’m coming to Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare with only a casual knowledge of the games in the series that precede it.
That said, I thoroughly enjoyed Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare’s single player campaign. It struck a good balance between exposition, basic instruction and making sure you get to the action right away at the beginning, jumping you right in at the start and only then peeling back for the traditional “oh here’s some training simulation” to refine the basics you pick up in the initial live combat opening level.
What surprised me about Advanced Warfare most might’ve been how much I enjoyed its story. The plot, while both predictable and shallow, was nonetheless solidly put together, well-told and well-acted by both the animated characters (which look fantastic on the PlayStation 4, by the way) and the voice actors behind them, which include Spacey in a key role that’s probably really best described as the lead, given his screen time, Troy Baker as the player character Jack Mitchell, and Gideon Emery as the creatively-named “Gideon.”
While the story isn’t going to blow anyone away, even with its big ‘twist’ (which you should be able to see coming from basically the opening cutscene) it’s sort of like any good big budget action movie, in that it’s a simple story, well-told, with a focus on action and special effects that makes up for the lack of a deep narrative. Again, I’m not the most familiar with this series, but as far as action games go, this is one of the better recent entrants from a story perspective.
On the gameplay side, Call Of Duty delivers typically solid first-person shooter action. The fundamentals are all well done, as is the new arsenal of weaponry. Each gun can be found throughout the game outfitted with a number of different sights and scopes, and you’ll find pretty quickly that you’ll likely prefer one type over another. Tracking down the right weapon variant for your play style adds to the experience, and I quickly found I’d become either frustrated when I couldn’t find a weapon with a threat indicator, or feel a wave of relief wash over me when I could.
As for the Exos, the exoskeleton augmentation suits that soldiers wear in Call Of Duty: Advanced Warfare, they do indeed offer fun gameplay tweaks, including the ability to jump much farther than you can normally in games like this, a hover break for steep descents, grappling hooks for zipping around maps and quietly taking down bad guys, and much more. Each mission has a different loadout, and pretty rigorously guides and limits your use of these new features, but in multiplayer it’s up to you to determine what powers you carry, and how you use them.
Multiplayer is a part of Call of Duty that is markedly improved in this generation, in part because the Exo’s really open up the game for the kind of fun that the series’ ultra-realistic approach just couldn’t offer, as opposed to something like what Titanfall or the Halo series provides. The Exo’s abilities make it easier for new players to run away when they need to, and the Combat Readiness Program that lets new users slowly immerse themselves in multiplayer without verbal assaults or even a stable identity to be ashamed of is a terrific touch.
Of course, I still suck at Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare multiplayer, and I’m easy fodder for more experienced players in standard games. The inclusion of the excellent co-op assault mode makes for terrific local cooperative multiplayer experiences, however, and I’m old school enough that this more than makes up for an online multiplayer component that’s still dominated by the most dedicated, mostly obnoxious hardcore players.
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DESTINY
GAME BLAST SCORE: 9.0
Destiny takes place centuries into the future where Earth, and the now-colonized local planets in our solar system, have been mostly eradicated by what we can vaguely refer to as “The darkness.” There’s one remaining city on Earth, protected by a massive, floating spherical alien being known as the Traveler. It was this mysterious being that brought about the rapid evolution and expansion of humanity and who protects what remains on Earth. It’s also the Traveler that serves as the plot device behind the “Light”-powered abilities of the Guardians – the warriors players play as in Destiny that are divided into three familiar classes (Titans, Hunters and Warlocks).
The Traveler, the rise and fall of humanity, and the other alien species – some only playable, others only killable – are just little bits of the cool lore behind Destiny, lore that’s barely explored and detailed in the game. There’s sadly not much of a story to speak of in Destiny, which make the rare bits of dialogue between the game’s few characters feel even more odd and out of place. At the beginning of the game all players are introduced to a little robot ‘Ghost’ sidekick (voiced by Peter Dinklage) who, from mission to mission, offers plot information through exposition to pull players through, but most of it is uninteresting and forgettable because of how poorly it’s presented.
Destiny’s story and setting are rather lifeless. Of course, this is partly due to the game’s post-apocalyptic setting, but it’s mainly because Bungie took shortcuts and embraced dated MMO design philosophies in crafting the missions and environments. Invisible walls serving alien spawn locations are everywhere! Outside of the few scripted Ghost and Speaker (faceless man who represents the Traveler) scenes, and merchants in The Tower (the game’s social hub), there are no other characters to interact with. The story missions are relegated to running solo (or with up to two friends) and simply eradicating everything that moves. Same goes for the more challenging Strike missions which feature matchmaking to fill your three-person Fireteam. In between those missions or at any time after once unlocked, there are also ‘patrols’ where players explore the four maps they’ve already seen (Earth, the Moon, Venus and Mars) in the story missions and earn additional experience and reputation by picking up little side quests.
The side quests involve players approaching and activating flashing beacons which prompt narrated mission instructions from characters you won’t know anything about and all the objectives are practically the same. Like the worlds they take place in, the patrol and story missions are not dynamic or interactive enough, and as a result Destiny is largely disappointing and unoriginal as a first chapter in something we’re told is “just the beginning.” Even the public events in these areas,which involve killing a mini-boss or protecting an area for a few minutes, become quickly repetitive but still must be played for additional daily rewards. It’s very detached and lacking of that feeling of being involved in something epic or meaningful.
Bungie’s expertise in visual design, sound and gameplay mechanics saves the game and make Destiny something worth playing despite its flaws and omissions (and long load times). Destiny looks and plays very well, bolstered by artistically crafted menus, and is meant to be played with others. That really starts after playing through the game once through to hit its soft level cap. From there, to continue progressing and taking on Destiny’s most rewarding challenges, players must acquire rare, legendary and exotic armor and weapons, and that’s achieved through replaying the game’s cooperative strikes, daily/weekly challenges and the competitive multiplayer in order to collect certain, needed items.
This is both the best and worst part of Destiny. Strikes, which can be played with up to three players, are where the game shines, but there are only six of them. They don’t change much as the difficulty ramps up since it translates into simply putting more bullets on bosses, so while there’s something special about taking out aliens and even bigger aliens with friends, doing so repeatedly to level up, to complete bounties or for a small chance at gaining hard-to-acquire loot, may not be enough for all players.
The harsh grind is centered around Destiny’s problematic looting system which primarily gives players the same lower level (read: useless) gear through ‘Engrams‘ - items that need to be decoded. Picking up the rarest Engrams inexplicably rewards players mostly with less-valuable items, and when added to the already-demanding repetition, there are multiple layers of Destiny throwing up walls to prevent players getting something new and leveling up their Guardians.
This is how the game can be addictive because players must attain certain gear to play some parts of the game, but punishing at the same time for how that’s achieved. Destiny even holds back players from buying gear at vendors by making them grind for reputation points. Players are also expected to run in circles or “farm” on worlds to pick up resources and loot chests for materials to upgrade, an obsolete MMO mechanic which is painfully dull and unnecessary. When you do get that legendary or exotic weapon though, or cool color shaders to change the look of your armor, it does feel good.
While a cooperative-focused title, Destiny sadly does not support local play on the same console or via LAN, something Bungie were champions of in the Halodays. Destiny may really depend on who you play with so if you don’t have equally-leveled friends playing on the same system, you’ll need to reach out to strangers since matchmaking isn’t supported in the daily/weekly challenges or the game’s high-level raids.
Destiny also features competitive multiplayer, dubbed ‘The Crucible‘, which actually lets players use their same characters from the main game, even down to the unlocked abilities and high level gear. It’s an interesting design decision to let players grow their characters in multiplayer before finishing the level-specific story missions, but the game lets players boost the difficulty on story missions, even if it does present a problem with balancing on the competitive side.
Most modes in The Crucible balance out weapon damage so low and high level players can fairly compete, but it doesn’t account for players who have more abilities unlocked or special features on higher level guns and armor. Add to that the unique powers of the three classes and corresponding subclasses, which are unbalanced, and multiplayer can be frustrating at times depending on the mix of players or team sizes. It’s a neat concept and a great way to earn additional loot, and there are even bounties specific to The Crucible, but like the main game, the competitive multiplayer is half-baked and lacking in creativity. There are some great maps, but no new or innovative modes compared to other shooters, and certainly less on the variety and vehicle front than Bungie’s past efforts.
Destiny is the type of game where there’s a lot to enjoy if you make the most of it. Putting in an effort to coordinate with others to tackle certain bounties or challenges is just plain fun, and the story and other stuff isn’t required for that sort of cooperative experience. That’s where Destiny is at its best and where it can build from in expansions and sequels. As the launching pad for a new franchise however, Destiny ultimately feels incomplete, yet it’s still a game we can easily recommend for shooter fans. At the time of this writing I’ve put in 59 hours and 49 minutes into Destiny (my hunter and gear pictured above) and have acquired legendary or exotic gear for every weapon and armor slot. And I’m still interested in getting online to try the raid with friends so that speaks volumes to where Destiny succeeds and how much potential it has.
GAME BLAST REVIEW
GAME BLAST SCORE: 8.0
ASSASSIN'S CREED UNITY REVIEW
With Black Flag a rum-swigging success story, the question on Ubisoft’s collective lips must have been: “What do we do afterthe drunken sailor?” It was never going to be easy to follow in Edward Kenway’s slightly wavering Assassin footsteps but as you squint up at an eagle circling the spires of Notre Dame and take in the bustling chaos of French Revolution Paris, you’ll quickly realise that - despite enjoying your Caribbean holiday - you’re home now. Assassin’s Creed Unity manages to not only deliver an astonishingly beautiful recreation of Paris, but an open world sandbox so dense and rich you feel like there isn’t enough time to see everything on offer. Proper assassinations step back into the limelight, free-running takes on new levels of slick rooftop traversal and (despite some less attractive ‘Creed hallmarks making an unwelcome return) Unity’s visuals feel genuinely new-gen.
Unity is the tale of Arno Dorian. Without spoiling too much, he’s on a quest for some serious vengeance and finds himself quickly popping on a hood and hidden blade and becoming embroiled in the Brotherhood of Assassins just as Paris decides to overthrow the monarchy. Handy. Refreshingly, unlike AC3’s determination to hit every location on the American Revolution tourist map, Arno’s journey is distinctly more character-focused. Expertly woven into the narrative, the Revolution itself is a clever story tool as the Assassins and Templars wrestle for control in a tumultuous political environment. If that doesn’t sound cool enough, there are severed heads on sticks too.
The fact that Arno is a likeable soul with a sense of humour and a sharp tongue made the 50-or-so hours I spent with him a pleasantly enjoyable experience. Add in the ‘fiery Templar’ Elise and, despite her continent-crossing accent (seriously, is she English, American, Australian? It's bizarre), you’ve got some characters worth caring about. As a big fan of Ezio Auditore, I find this young Assassin pleasantly reminiscent of the charms of the Renaissance Master himself, and followers of Edward Kenway's rogue-like personality should be suitably charmed too.
Paris is enormous, beautiful and positively dripping with atmosphere... and blood, from the newly hewn victims of the ‘National Razor’. Ditching old-gen tech means thousands of non-player characters wander the streets waving flags, burning effigies, frequenting markets and going about their daily business. As Arno careers through the newly introduced interiors of buildings to escape inevitable pursuers (who don’t like his habit of stabbing their bosses), the inhabitants scream and dive out of the way. The level of detail, as you find your way inside buildings such as Notre Dame, are an atmospheric joy as dust billows under your feet and shafts of sunlight fill the halls of the sparkling homes of the French aristocracy. Impressive contrast lighting means the game takes a second for Arno’s eagle eyes to adjust as you plunge out of an open window to make an escape, meaning you never quite know what’s going to be on the other side.
This being the first new-gen-only AC, Ubisoft has finally taken the time to tinker with the main pillars of the franchise and free running has had a welcome overhaul with the addition of parkour up and down buttons. While free run down takes a few hours to get used to after years of hammering jump and hoping you don’t fly backwards off a wall, Arno’s deft twists and turns, as he descends to the bustling streets, quickly become a satisfyingly stylish way to travel. New-gen tech also means you can’t stop watching his coat swish as Arno leaps between buildings in a single, exhilarating, gymnast-style bound, or slides deftly inside an open window.
But what of the ‘assassin’ part of Assassin’s Creed, you ask? The stabbo? Well that’s here too, and combat has had an overhaul to pop the odds squarely in favour of the opposition. Where Black Flag celebrates the mashing of the counter-attack button with its ships-full of human-shaped, hidden blade cushions, Unity has removed the feature altogether. Attack, parry, and roll are your new friends. Add in the reinstating of the rather old school health potion feature, and open-combat is considerably trickier and more difficult to get used to.
It can be upgraded with skills and your choice of armour, but you’ll quickly find yourself avoiding large groups of civilian-police and guards, unless you fancy a frustrating dose of desynchronisation. Combat is ultra gory and satisfying once you’ve mastered its art - whether you choose two handed heavy weaponry or a sword and pistol combo - but it’s in trying to avoid it where Unity falters slightly. While the encouragement of stealth is no bad thing, especially with the welcome return of large scale assassination missions where you can choose exactly how to play, the game suffers from the franchise’s traditional 'clumsy enemy AI' and occasional stealth hiccups.
A few other AC bugs linger; you can be spotted behind cover, enemies will either forget you in an instant or continue to hunt you from afar, and the game’s desperate insistence to not let you interact with mission objectives while your conflict indicator is high is infuriatingly last-generation design. "I’m here," you scream, "isn’t that enough?" It’s worth saying too that frame-rate wise, I experienced things slowing down occasionally through busy scenes, in both review and retail copies. Another unwelcome AC hallmark returning to plague the new generation.
Yet Ubisoft has learnt from many previous mistakes. Eavesdropping has been pleasingly binned as a campaign staple and the few tailing missions that do appear are without any of the eyeball pulling frustration of previous games. Despite plenty of typical Creed maguffins there’s a distinct sense of fun pervading the story missions too, with a sprinkling of Hollywood hokum as you experience a surprisingly interactive initiation into the Brotherhood and chase a hot air balloon across the rooftops of Paris.
Assassination missions are plenty and have a cinematic vibe as Arno identifies numerous ways to enter forbidden areas. Plus, the ability to perform additional tasks in these missions adds an enjoyable extra layer to proceedings. Add in the Rift sequences, where Arno crosses into a series of other time periods, and it’s clear there has been an injection of sheer joy into Unity that no fan of the Creed can miss. It is however worth noting that the game still suffers from franchise problems of old, occasionally bogged down by its own memory sequences and with a final Templar boss that you’ll just be glad to get out of the way so you can head back to Paris and keep collecting chests and hanging off gargoyles.
True greatness lies just one handhold out of reach as previous issues rear their ugly Apple of Eden shaped heads. You now play in The Helix, Abstergo’s consumer version of the history hopping Animus where players can play as previous Assassins. It's Ubi’s gentle way of trying to untangle their own plot wires down the back of the Assassin TV cabinet and the possibilities it offers now seem endless, if a little cheaty. A video game within a video game? Meta just got a whole lot simpler.
When it comes to extracurricular activities, side mission content is positively gargantuan and your map will quickly, happily overwhelm you. Paris Stories, indicated by an Assassin symbol on the map, are an incredibly varied selection of over 40 missions, pulling you deeper into the history of the city. Starring Revolution 'celebrities' such as the Marquis De Sade and Madame Tussaud, these missions are no longer just a case of travel to point A to stab exhibit B, but investigation missions, bodyguard duties, sabotage plans and seemingly endless fragments of fascinating history that always build on the richness of the world. Add in chests to open, cockades to find, artefacts to discover, murder mysteries to solve, Nostradamus riddles that transform the city into a cryptic treasure hunt and a slew of social missions (phew) and Paris is enough to send you down a hole of OCD induced collect ‘em all despair. Even more interestingly, the game rewards exploration by not popping all the goodies on the map from the start. Sneaky...
Then there’s the small matter of playing with your friends. It is called Unity after all and herein lies the reason for the customisation options on offer. For the first time, you can personalise your Assassin fully and where this could have been a risky step, the customise section is a confident addition that rapidly endorses the feeling of achievement as you progress through the story. Arno is ever evolving, unlocking new sync points to spend on skills, and Creed points to upgrade items of clothing. The level of choice on offer is gloriously varied. Plus, the dilemma of choosing between double air assassinations or professional lock picks at a stage when you’ve only got nine sync points to spend is a far cry from the unlimited equipment in previous entries in the franchise. Unity is far better for it. Like Assassin pocket money, you can save up again to buy, but it’s choosing what you need for the murder at hand that’s key.
Taking to the internet with your Assassin is relatively simple too. Co-op missions and heists are scattered across the map. Not wanting to aggravate the lone wolves out there, these can all be played alone. However, they have been designed for two to four players and are best played that way as you sneak with friends through heavily guarded areas, and make the most of group skills. Co-op missions each have their own narrative too, and moments of emergent gameplay are enjoyable as you battle guards on the ground, only to have a group of comrades rain down with air assassinations from above. Shared stealth is ridiculously satisfying and it’s been worth the wait for the feature to be implemented in a meaningful way. Being part of a pack of Assassins, each armed to the teeth with their own abilities, hurtling across rooftops on the way to a Heist is a joyous new way to experience the franchise.
Unity manages to push the series forward enough to make this truly great, it’s only sad that a few left over hiccups have carried over from the previous generation. Traditional Creed problems aside, this manages to be an unrivalled murderous sandbox and Paris hands over a visually impressive blood drenched historical playground.
GAME BLAST REVIEW
GAME BLAST SCORE: 9.0
HALO
THE MASTER CHIEF COLLECTION
Freedom. Open-ended, strange new worlds, waiting to be explored at your own pace. Spiraling possibilities afforded by airy, freeform, dynamic combat. That’s what Halo is all about. And that’s what, a few presentational missteps and strange decisions aside, The Master Chief Collection is all about too.
Effectively a Halo jukebox, the MCC’s aim is to give you the Halo you want, customised to your own tastes, however and whenever you want it. Whatever your interpretation of, and preferences within, the series, this is your tool for realising them on a whim. A build-your-own-Halo kit of immense value to learned series enthusiast and eager-to-learn newbie alike.
All four numbered campaigns can be played straight-through or as individually selected missions. Themed playlists allow you to rattle through a concentrated burst of any Halo flavour you might fancy. Daring escapes? Have a whole block of them. Fancy a bit of tight corridor fighting? Pick your game, then have at it, entirely uninterrupted. Those difficulty-shifting, physics-bending, firework-launching skull modifiers you remember so dearly? They have their own menu too. Of course, well-paced, story-driven campaigns such as these are best experienced in their entirety, the first time through, but Halo also works so well 'in the moment' that this buffet approach to its varied gameplay is a very smart and welcome touch,
All of this is available from your first load up. Nothing requires unlocking. It’s a big bucket of fun, filled to the brim with every one of the series’ individual raw ingredients, ready to be reached into and consumed in any combination you wish. It’s all freedom. It’s all waiting to be explored at your own pace. As for the games themselves?
It’s a strange feeling at first, going back to the original Halo: Combat Evolved with objective, time-narrowed eyes, particularly through the stark retrospective lens forced by the proximity of its successors. To be blunt, in a variety of ways, the game is starting to feel old. That early, once-dramatic escape from the Pillar of Autumn now feels tame, sparse, even apologetic by modern standards. A couple of interior-focused later levels are inexcusably built of over-used, repeated architecture, copy-and-pasted again and again to create an uncomfortable sense of FPS Groundhog Day. But you know what? Ultimately, within the great scheme of Combat Evolved’s overall journey, none of that really matters.
Because Halo’s combat. Good Lord, Halo’s combat. Despite the sometimes dated design on show elsewhere - emphasised by it, in fact - it’s staggering how far ahead of the competition Halo’s core gunplay still is. In 2014, only Bungie's own follow-up, Destiny, manages to emulate the same feeling. No mere case of ‘point-and-click to victory’, Halo’s skirmishes furnish an unparalleled sense of presence, of agency, of this being your fight, shaped and won by your own actions. With only a handful of main enemy types (three, at its core), Halo creates a complex, ever-shifting set of priorities and emergent, flowing strategies within an organic ecosystem of enemy hierarchy, weapon use, and environmental possibilities.
There’s physicality, even a musicality, to the rhythmic momentum at Halo’s core. The medium-to-close range focus of the weapons forces intimate interaction. The perfectly pitched cycling of the Chief’s regenerating shields creates a cadence of attack, evasion and retreat as much akin to a spontaneously choreographed dance as a gun fight. When these endlessly satisfying qualities are amplified by Halo’s sprawling yet intricate wider environments, the result is still unlike anything else out there. In fact at times, such as in the almost open-world rural areas, or the bogglingly non-linear brilliance of the Silent Cartographer level, it feels as though free-roaming shooter series like Far Cry are still racing to catch up to what Halo did 13 years ago.
So it’s even more bamboozling that Halo 2 initially eschews so many of Combat Evolved’s structural joys in favour of a largely enclosed first half of labyrinthine urban environments and cramped alien interiors. Coming straight from the first game, Master Chief’s new handling, with its double-sized jumps and slightly airier aiming, immediately feels jarring, but that’s exacerbated by how little space the game gives it to breathe. It’s only at the mid-point, when things open up on a new Halo ring-world, that it all makes sense, the additional manoeuvrability finally justified and allowed to (almost literally) fly. It’s a deeply liberating moment, the location shift all the more exhilarating for it, but it does leave a frustrated wondering of what the previous few hours could have been
Speaking of jarring contrasts, there’s another interesting point to note with Halo 2. In addition to the greatly improved graphics shared with the first game’s remake, the sequel has brand new cutscenes, containing the same narrative content as the originals (alongside some new scenes linking the game to the upcoming Halo 5), but rendered to a retina-melting Xbox One standard. Borderline implausible in their photorealism, they’re almost worth playing Halo 2 for alone, but they do come with a price. So far in advance are they of the visuals of any game in this collection (even the gorgeous Halo 4), that the juxtaposition can be very uncomfortable. In isolation, they’re a stunning addition. Within the great scheme of the collection as a whole, they’re rather detrimental to coherence.
Thankfully, coherence is what Halo 3 is all about. Although visually unimproved from its seven year-old original version - again, jarring after its predecessor’s contemporary upgrades - bar the across-the-board boost to 60 frames-per-second, 1080p, this is easily the most confident, complete game in the collection. Opening hard, with a rip-roaring jungle rampage that re-establishes real Halo within minutes, it steadily opens up and expands its scale with a classy, assured swagger.
Combat is more thoughtfully laid-out and buttery-smooth than ever before. Pacing, escalation and set-pieces are nigh-flawless, even the most extravagant moments running on that same engine of player-driven agency fundamental to Halo’s identity. It perhaps lacks slightly in ambiance, missing the earlier (and later) games’ exotic sense of wonder, or Halo 4’s intoxicating visual fidelity, but it remains probably the closest we have so far to a Halo sweet-spot.
And as for Halo 4, now that we’re clear of the unrest caused by original developer Bungie’s departure from the series, there’s clearly a hell of a lot to recommend it. Starting a new story with a new setting, it recaptures the first game’s stranger-in-a-strange-land vibe better than any other Halo since, also establishing a surprisingly affecting darker tone by way of heavier, more personal narrative elements. Design-wise, it feels like a perhaps understandable ‘safe first attempt’ by 343 Industries, presenting the hits without veering far from the tried and tested course.
Its only real failing comes as the series’ traditional Covenant enemy roster is replaced by the less satisfying Prometheans, the extra combat dimensions furnished by their predecessors’ finely honed balance not quite there. But still, it’s a strong start for the new trilogy, and, running with the Xbox One’s extra performance, overwhelming in its beauty, last-gen origin be damned.
And then there’s multiplayer. And yes, that is an incredibly weighted statement to make in such a short sentence. Presented in the same game-by-game, pick ‘n’ mix format as the campaigns, the MCC’s multiplayer component is nothing less than a complete history of some of the finest competitive shooting ever seen on a console.
The versatility of Halo's combat model is a wonder in a multiplayer environment, scaling effortlessly from the broad-strokes anarchy of wide, vehicular combat, to intricate, granular, tactical play. Accessible enough for anyone to pick up and play, but holding immense depth and strategy for those wishing to look deeper, its creative but balanced weapon-set and penchant for real, drawn-out, cat-and-mouse duels make any version of it a timeless experience. Whether playing the stripped down deathmatches of Combat Evolved or the bells-and-whistles, sprint-enabled, ordinance-dropping, ability-unlocking extravaganza of Halo 4, that delicious, gooey core of pure gameplay remains at the forefront.
And of course, this is the most complete version there’s ever been. With every multiplayer map available immediately (including the previously PC-only stages from CE), it’s a catalogue of some of the best-designed environments ever to witness a teabagging. There’s a reason that people were still playing Halo 2 online right up to the closure of the original Xbox Live. There’s a reason Halo 3 and 4 are still active online today. And now you have all of those reasons in one place, via one menu, at the touch of a button. That’s an important thing to have in your life.
Having all four numbered Halos together in close proximity raises an interesting and unexpected conclusion. You see, whatever your perception of Halo, whatever instinctive thoughts and feelings make up the essence of the series for you, in truth it doesn’t exist in any single, concrete form. It’s the product of memory, nostalgia, and combined, long-term perceptions, a gestalt idea realised over the course of 13 years and multiple iterations. And that, ultimately, is where The Master Chief Collection shines.
Despite prioritising out-of-place technical revisions over the series’ chronological integrity - and thus throwing coherence out of whack with Halo 2’s presentation - the freeform, mix-and match approach taken to the collection’s structure is perhaps the closest we’ll ever get to a real-world realisation of the imagined Halo ideal. Able to finally play all of Halo, take it apart, rebuild it, and remix it to our own tastes, we can now play both Halo as it was made, and Halo as it exists in our minds. That’s a hell of a good thing. And whether you’re a series veteran or an interested new recruit, it’s something you should definitely consider exploring. In fact you should just do it. Right now.
GAME BLAST REVIEW
GAME BLAST SCORE: 9.0
FORZA
HORIZON 2 REVIEW
GAME BLAST REVIEW
Forza Horizon 2 is about the journey, not the destinations — like any good open-world game should be.
But, like Forza Horizon, Forza Horizon 2 finds mixed success in that regard. Horizon 2 has all the basics down, borrowing from almost a decade of Turn 10's racing fundamentals. But when it comes to building places to use all that hardware, the game comes up a little short.
Forza Horizon 2's story, such as it is, provides an excellent setup for the fictionalized southern European setting and the concept of the Horizon festival. I rarely asked why I was going on road trips or doing point-to-point races because the game contextualizes it so well. Just don't expect much more than that.
It helps that driving in Forza Horizon 2 is so enjoyable. The mechanical fundamentals of the Forza series are in place, though the move from 60 frames per second to 30 has made the car controls just a bit less responsive than they were in Forza Motorsport 5. Otherwise, Forza Horizon 2's car physics and handling are impeccable — each car feels unique, particular, like something to get to know. It's easy to develop favorites, and then, when prompted by a new championship class, to find a new favorite.
That shift from 60 frames per second to 30 is prompted by the broader scope of Horizon 2 in comparison to last year's Forza Motorsport 5. Horizon 2's world is big, significantly bigger than the last Horizon game, and for the first time in a Forza game, weather has been added to the mix to join the dynamic time of day — it makes for some spectacular sunsets and stormy racing.
In open-world fashion, there are collectibles. For example, there are more than a hundred billboards around the world to smash for bonuses. There are plenty of championships to enter, plenty of cars to buy, hundreds of roads to find and special cars inside hidden barns. All the pieces seem to be present to make for a consistently engaging hybrid of open-world systems and a deep racing game.
this game really does have it all, with some of the most ravishing coastal scenery you’ll have seen in a video game, and some equally lovely sights inland. It’s not just good to look at, either; it’s just as brilliant to drive. Take a hot hatch for a spin along the coast and into the mountains – a Focus RS, VW Sirocco or Alfa Giulietta – and there are serious thrills to be had in the sudden turns and sweeping corners. Take a Pagani Huarya from Castelleto towards Nice, and your stomach will be in your mouth as you dodge other vehicles and work to navigate the bends. But then the great thing about Forza Horizon 2 is that you’re never limited to the normal ribbons of track and tarmac. Speed through the lavender fields of Provence, or go off-roading up in the hills or mountains. As long as your car can take it, the incline isn’t silly and you don’t hit anything too solid, you can go pretty much wherever you wish.
That’s a fact the game explores throughout its many championships. As with Horizon, the conceit is that you’re taking part in a music and motorsports festival, where the world’s best drivers gather to race, party and share a love of all things automobile. Once you’ve qualified for festival entry, you’ll constantly unlock new events, giving you a chance to win credits, buy cars and unlock further races, taking you further and further around the map.Where everything in Horizon radiated out from one central hub, Horizon 2 has a slightly different structure. While you’re free to roam where you will, the campaign is split into a series of road trips, each taking you to several different regions, with a central hub and a choice of championships in each. Which one you enter depends on your current choice of car, though you can change both car and championship midway through, and the game prompts you to pick and event and buy an appropriate, affordable motor before you drive on to the next set.
You might miss the greater freedom of Horizon, but it’s hard to complain when there’s so much to explore, with so much variety, and when so much of it is so much fun. One championship might have you tackling street races and point-to-point races in hot hatches. The next might have you hurtling through the open countryside in a chunky 4x4, speeding the hapless Chelsea tractor through farmer’s fields, golf courses, medieval ruins and scenic river valleys. Another might see you driving around in a lightweight ‘track toy’, cornering like crazy and weaving through the pack. It’s never repetitive, a grind or tiresome. If you like driving and racing, then Horizon 2 will make you smile.
The formal events aren’t the only draw. Spread across the region you’ll find Bucket List challenges – one-off events that ask you to do something tough, fast or really dangerous with a borrowed car
The same goes for the showcase events which cap each road trip. Some sites might spoil them, but we’d rather you discover them for yourself. There are stunts here that even the Top Gear team might baulk at. It’s hard to remember a racer since the brilliant Split/Second that has worked so hard to make racing so spectacular - or so damn entertaining.On the default settings you might not find it challenging. Damage is nerfed, the handling satisfying but a little too smooth. Horizon 2 uses Forza-5 style Drivatars, giving you AI competition based on real players’ driving styles, but here the Drivatars are challenging without being mindlessly aggressive. They might trade paint, but they don’t seem set on tearing your vehicle apart, wheel by wheel.If that’s the case, it’s not hard to change it. Twitching the difficulty up from medium makes for a much more demanding game, but you can also nudge the settings one by one. Turn Damage up and too many knocks can wreck your car, putting you out of the race. Change the steering options and assists, and Horizon 2 plays more like Forza 5, making it easier to lose control and spin, but also adding new levels of tension and excitement to the action. It’s all up to you. You can enjoy Horizon 2 in your own way.
This kind of generosity seems endemic. You don’t have to grind your way to get a great car here, with credits dished out for winning, but also as prizes in a ‘wheelspin’ game whenever you level up, with sometimes hundreds of thousands thrown your way. You level up by driving stylishly; taking risks, going off-road and skidding round the corners, and even when you’re in-between races those XP are mounting up. You’ll be given cars for completing certain events, and there are even hidden – often vintage – vehicles loitering the landscape, concealed in remote barns. There really is an awful lot to see and do.
Meanwhile, you never feel that you’re racing alone. Even when you’re offline you’ll see drivatars screeching and rumbling their way around the roads, and online play is never far away, with both standard online play in the shape of free-roaming and road-trip options, and asynchronous online play through driving clubs, where you compete both within and for your club in the various events. We haven’t had much experience of the online game at the time of writing, but we’ll be back with an update when that changes.
Horizon 2 uses the power of the Xbox One to fuel a bigger, better kind of open-world racing game, but it also uses it to create the most beautiful racer you can buy right now. The car interiors might lack the detail of the best in Forza 5 or Gran Turismo 6, but the exteriors look incredible, with light seeming to sparkle and glow around every surface, every curve.
We’ve already talked about the scenery, but what hits you is the detail; the pedestrians you’ll find, sometimes in the strangest places, the way dust kicks up beneath the tyres, or a wheel arch seems to shift around precariously after an impact. The rain effects look superb and also have a tangible effect on the way your car drives. You can never call a game where a tiny Caterham can hit a lamppost with disintegrating realistic, but Horizon 2 does an incredible job of selling the experience.
Credit, too, to those who worked on the soundtrack. Not only do the vehicles sound magnificent, but the game’s fake radio stations provide a fantastic selection of urban grooves, leftfield rock and drum n’ bass, with more – like a fantastic mock-Italian classical station – tossed in fairly early on. There are times when Horizon 2 seems to get the music and the action in a perfect syn
Is there anything at all wrong with Horizon 2? Well, we were prepared to have a moan about vehicle customisation and upgrade options, but then we found them lurking just a bit beneath the surface. Occasionally the frame rate stutters, but we’re talking once for a tiny fraction of a second in every half hour or so of play. The individual radio stations might do with a few more tracks, but we haven’t got bored yet of the ones we’ve found. For goodness sake – this is a game that even finds a good use for Kinect as you don’t have to take your hands off the wheel to set your in-car satnav (aka Anna).
But then we come to the matter of Ben. As we mentioned in the preview, this irritating chump is your in-game bestie, always inviting you to do something really cool or reminiscing about the time you guys had last night. He is unbearable, not to mention the worst, most unrealistic-looking thing in the entire game. To put it in perspective, though, he’s not really in it all that much.
Nope. Sorry. Even Ben can’t ruin a game as good as this. Forza Horizon 2 is about as close to perfect as an arcade racer gets. It might not have the depth of a GT6 or ‘proper’ Forza, but who cares when there’s so much glorious surface, and when all of it is much fun?
DYING LIGHT
GOOD NIGHT GOOD LOOK
GAME BLAST SCORE: 9.0
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Dying Light doesn't just resemble Dead Island in its setting or style, it repeats entire gameplay features. The focus on melee weapons is the same. The kick you use to keep the undead at bay is the same. Even the stamina bar, which depletes every time you swing a pipe or wrench, is the same. The crafting is identical, in function if not form, allowing you to add elemental damage to your weapons through blueprints and upgrades. And the co-op gameplay is the same, as up to three others can join you as you leg it around the quarantined South American city of Harran, performing fetch quests, looting crates and earning XP.
One major difference is parkour, that once-zeitgeisty method of locomotion that sees you mantling up ledges and leaping from rooftops like an excitable flea. This is a one-button affair, mapped to the jump command. Hold that shoulder button down when sprinting or leaping, and you'll grab whatever ledge you're looking at. It's never particularly elegant - this is more frantic scramble than effortless grace - but it gets the job done.
That job, of course, is keeping you out of the clutches of the undead which congregate in Harran's streets and shanties. Your common or garden walking corpse can't climb, so providing you stick to higher ground, you'll be unmolested as you chase quest markers across the averagely sized map.
The other notable addition to the Dead Island formula is a day and night cycle which dramatically alters your chances of survival. Once the sun goes down, deadlier mutated creatures are on the prowl, and they are both more tenacious and agile than the basic shambling ghouls. You're advised to take shelter in one of the many unlockable safe houses dotted around the city and speed the arrival of the dawn by sleeping through the carnage outside.
Both are solid ideas, if hardly original. Parkour has long since lost its novelty, both in real life and in games, and the nocturnal race for safety feels like a grungier, bloodier riff on Minecraft - or any of the dozens of other zombie survival games around at the moment.
The game certainly looks and performs better than Dead Island, which was always a diamond in the rough. There are still some creaky bits - textures pop in, sometimes zombies flicker in or out of existence, and while the environment has had some attention lavished on it, the zombies themselves are fairly crude up close. It's not uncommon to see these "biters" lodged in scenery, or getting themselves in a right mess as the AI pathfinding struggles to pick a route through the rubble.
But the game is capable of moments of beauty, and the character models are a vast improvement over Dead Island's balloon-limbed marionettes. The script, sadly, hasn't seen similar evolution, but the predictable tale of government malfeasance and despotic survivor cults does what it needs to do, and gets you up to speed on how to play and keeps you moving around the map.
It's just hard to muster much enthusiasm for the end result. Dead Island was a shambolic mongrel, but it had a cartoonish verve that made it surprisingly likeable. It knew that what players really wanted was to carve the limbs of zombies using an electrified machete, and it made sure that opportunities to do so were never far away.
With its emphasis shifted to avoiding zombie confrontations rather than revelling in them, Dying Light can't help but lack the sort of energy needed to keep your attention throughout a prolonged but repetitive campaign. Weapons feel nerfed, even once you've advanced beyond the basic starter arsenal, and zombies too quickly become damage sponges.
There are three upgrade trees - one for general survival skills, one for agility, and one for attack power. XP for each is earned ambiently - so for every leap and climb, you add a few points to the Agility total, while the same is true of Power and every point of damage dealt. It's a nice way to handle progression, ensuring even the most aimless jaunt serves a purpose, but you have to play for a very long time to unlock the really fun abilities.
Also holding you back from taking a proactive approach to undead clearance is the heavily punitive weapon damage system. Even the hardiest wrench will break after just a few skull cracks, and must be repaired with metal parts scavenged from the scenery. That, in itself, is nothing new but each weapon now also has a limit to how many times it can be fixed. There's no point getting too attached to a specific weapon that you've upgraded and customised, because eventually it will break completely and need to be trashed.
Clearly, if carving your way through the horde was cathartic entertainment from the off, rather than a lethal slog, there'd be no reason to make use of the parkour stuff, so all of these features feel designed to keep the really fun stuff at arm's length. For fans weaned on Dead Island's blood-stained excess, it can be a frustrating twist.
That's not to say there aren't flashes of grisly emergent brilliance along the way. Pools of gasoline explode, downed power lines offer impromptu electrocution spots and some kind soul has left useful spikes all over the place. Kicking zombies into these is almost always an instant kill, and the pleasure of these minor improvisations makes for a welcome respite from the drudgery that getting from A to B soon becomes.
As with Dead Island, multiplayer is what makes the difference. Whereas in Techland's previous games, you were simply bundled together into one game and left to make your own amusement, Dying Light displays a more curated eye for co-operative mayhem.
While playing with others, the game will serve up miniature challenges which both encourage co-operation and competition. There may be a survivor in need of rescue, and the player who deals the most damage to the zombies threatening them will earn bonuses. It may be a race to the next objective, or a fight to take down one of the larger club-wielding brutes. You can choose whether or not accept these bonus objectives, but they keep the world feeling fresh and reactive even once you've cleared the story and are just roaming around looking for reasons to get your hands dirty.
Similarly, there's also Be The Zombie, a free bonus DLC mode which allows you to invade other player's games as an advanced hunter mutant. In this form you can use tentacles to propel you through the air, Spidey-style, as well as using your blood-curdling scream to reveal the locations of human players. They, meanwhile, can use UV flashlights to sap your powers, leaving you vulnerable to retaliation. In other words, success comes from sneaking up on enemies, rather than chasing after them. With enough players, all flanking, distracting and pouncing on each other, it can be a real blast. With small lobbies, it's less appealing.
As a follow up to Dead Island, Dying Light represents an improvement on the technical front, but has lost some of its knockabout charm in the process. It shares its predecessors pace and shape, as things start on a relative high as you explore into the game's systems, but then tail off the hours tick by. Dying Light mixes up Techland's own recipe to enjoyable effect, but can't fully disguise its regurgitated flavour.
DYING LIGHT
GAME BLAST SCORE: 5.9
THE ORDER OF 1986
GAME BLAST REVIEW
The Order: 1886 is nothing more than a computer program. That may seem an arbitrary statement, but it’s simply not applicable to most video games. Not good ones, and certainly not full, AAA narrative experiences. ‘Experiences’ is the important word there. The best modern games are about involvement, empathy, and the player’s sheer sense of presence and agency in a living, breathing, creatively sculpted world. For all of the logical, digital mechanisms at their cores, they’re about creating a sense of life, a sense of place, and allowing the player to explore and express amongst all of that.
The Order: 1886 delivers none of those things. The Order: 1886 is a cold, uninvolving, desperately automated, experiential production line, churning out its prefabricated, prepackaged nuggets of brutally prescribed interaction as it wants, when it wants, and with a seemingly gross lack of insight into either the state of gaming in 2015 or the importance of player investment. For all of its arresting visual quality, it is no more a modern, AAA, narrative video game experience than a recently dead pig is a bacon sandwich.
The Order’s intent – if I interpret it correctly, and I really hope I do – is a worthy one. Progressive even, in its desire to tell an action-led war story that doesn’t focus primarily on the meting out of violence. But alas, The Order’s total misunderstanding of the relationship between player interaction, personal investment, and narrative resonance furnishes its execution with little merit. It falls far, far short of the powerful, storytelling epic it so clearly wants to be.
In concrete terms, what we have here is a roughly seven-hour game, about a quarter of which is comprised of brief, sporadically placed cover-shooting segments. The rest is filled with a lot of very pretty nothing. The shooting is adequate at best, limited chiefly by a minimum of enemy AI types. There are two. One hunkers down behind its chosen cover seemingly indefinitely. The other rushes down the player with close-range weapons, sometimes wearing heavy armour, and often annoying for all the wrong reasons due to the game’s inexplicable lack of evasive manoeuvres. Underwhelming opposition established, the scope for meaningful, satisfyingly strategic play is then further crumpled by The Order’s cripplingly narrow view of environmental design.
Corridors, streets, warehouse rooms and town square shoot-outs alike are as boxed in and restrictive as each other, often dropping a swathe of empty space between the player and the enemy’s resolutely dug-in position – sometimes even physically isolating you from the action entirely - creating the sense of firing into a self-contained diorama model from the outside. It’s as close to a fairground shooting gallery as modern games have ever come.
With weapons largely interchangeable - aside from a couple of more interesting, but barely used, area-specific ones - and enemies often respawning for long enough to make you feel that the game has broken, combat goes nowhere fast. Basic, yet bloated, it appears so infrequently over the course of the game that there’s no time for it to evolve. By The Order’s climactic stages, you’re experiencing nothing that isn’t present in the early chapters of this game, or any other shooter.
What do you do for the rest of the time? Not a lot. As unremarkable as The Order’s combat is, it’s when the game tries to expand the scope of its story’s delivery that it utterly fails. This is where its naïveté regarding the player experience becomes blisteringly apparent. Simply, it trots along with telling its story, but gives the player no meaningful presence within it. You know all the little filler actions you carry out between the main sequences of an Uncharted or a Gears of War? All of that corridor-walking, and radio-chatting, and door-opening, and diary-reading, and obstacle-pushing, and simple climbing and jumping? The rest of The Order: 1886 is made of that and little more. And by ‘little more’, I mean ‘an incredulous volume of cutscenes’.
The combat-light focus need not, of course, be a problem. Consider The Walking Dead. Ostensibly made of cutscenes, dialogue trees, and QTEs, Telltale’s game insightfully evolves those ‘filler’ mechanics – through depth, finesse, quality of writing, and weighty, branching consequences – into something engrossing. It’s far beyond the sum of its parts. Consider Sony’s own The Last of Us. Consider how Naughty Dog’s thoughtful use of downtime, of ambient exploration, light problem solving, and non-standard action serves to build narrative depth and texture, character empathy, and the relationships between those characters.
The Order seemingly didn’t consider any of the above, and instead simply presents the same eight-year old, stock filler ideas you’ve seen a thousand times before, at surface value, for hours on end. By padding out the majority of its running time with such a glut of limited offerings, unelevated beyond the basic form in which they appear in more complete games, the result is just a game made of other games’ filler. And to boot, one in which any movement or action runs the risk of being replaced with a needless and jarring cinematic at any given moment. The ultimate impression is one of having had a story related second-hand by a friend rather than ever having been part of it.
When The Order tries its hand at set-pieces, its cluelessness is compounded, the maddening, illogical, pathological need to turn everything into a QTE killing any excitement or sense of control. Its trademark werewolves come off particularly badly, appearing outside cinematics only as part of two hopelessly prescribed and distinctly un-fun set-piece types. One aspires to tense, cat-and-mouse action, but its unnecessary reliance on scripted button prompts in order to trigger an otherwise non-existent evasive roll – alongside the Lycans’ simplistic hit-and-run AI – makes for a reductive, mechanical experience, dull and irritating rather than fevered and exciting.
The other encounter type is a boss fight, specifically a knife fight, which marries pseudo-realtime control - as both adversaries circle each other pointlessly, and purely cosmetically - with ultimately meaningless slashing, which inevitably gives way to the barrage of button prompts that really push the scene forward. Thus, the creatures that should be The Order’s most unique asset are weakened, reduced to puppets and automata, with no tangible, threatening presence. A late-game stealth sequence is particularly galling for similar reasons, its non-linear environment buried beneath basic AI and yet more timed QTE demands for takedowns. Infuriated by its unswerving nature and instant restart punishment for failure, I rapidly decided to skip the whole experience in favour of a sprint-and-shoot crossbow frenzy. But even that approach is flawed, given the implementation of unavoidable, instant-death cutscenes, vetoing any chance to fight back when discovered.
These encounters sum up The Order’s problems rather perfectly. Whenever potential presents itself, the game can’t help but reductively shoot itself in the foot by removing the interaction that would have made a sequence shine, in favour of yet more relentlessly superficial delivery. Even its resplendent Victorian streets suffer, rendered in some of the finest visuals ever to grace a console game, but feeling resolutely lifeless. They’re filled with sterile emptiness, and punctuated only by NPCs so stiff, mechanical, and non-reactive that you can almost see the hinges at their joints and the tracks at their feet. The supposedly narrative-furthering collectibles - newpapers, notes, documents, and the like - frequently, bizarrely, hold no information at all, existing only to exist, as non-functional props. It all feels more akin to an unguided tour of an empty film set, or the exploration of a closed theme park.
It might sound an odd comparison, but when playing through The Order, I found it impossible not to think of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 1988 comedy classic, Twins. In the film, Arnie’s character, Julius, is a genetically engineered super man, a refined, improved version of humanity intended as a shining blueprint for the future. But he is born alongside an unexpected twin brother, Vincent, played by Danny DeVito, who exhibits none of Julius’ carefully chosen qualities. If The Last of Us – with its intelligent, progressive, resonating, modern interactive narrative design – is Julius, then The Order, with its dated, automated, uninvolving delivery of similarly epic aspiration is – as a scientist bluntly describes DeVito at one point in the film – ‘all the crap that was left over’.
EVOLVE REVIEW
GAME BLAST SCORE: 9.5
GAME BLAST
What a funny old game Turtle Rock has made. Not Joe Pesci 'I'm going to shiv you over this plate of linguini' funny. It's more 'unpredictable downright confounding, but against all olds, occasionally brilliant' funny. There's the core of a great premise here: you can't get much more viscerally primal than dudes going full Neanderthal on a 70ft squid thingie. Yet a good deal of the action you're treated to in Evolve doesn't so much court Darwinism as it burns books over a fire made from monster bones while hollering about Adam and Eve.
At its most base level, this four-vs-one co-op shooter acts as a hunting sim. Either you and three chums/AI bots form a crack hit squad looking to kill the other player's monster, or you take control of a beastie that makes the thing out of Cloverfield look utterly dreamy. Its chief objectives? Survive and gorge... oh, and make basically every other species on the planet Shear extinct. Survival of the fattest, baby.
When you play as a Hunter its your job to track, trap and ultimately settle your differences with the monster through a combination of reasoned discourse and biscuits. No wait... through brutal electrocution and air strikes. I always get those mixed up. As the monster, you must first simply eat any local wildlife in sight; the ultimate goal to evolve into your most powerful, 'level three' form, thereby either wiping out your puny human foes or destroying a power relay. It's a nice dynamic. On paper.
In the game's headline hunt mode, which ironically is Evolve's weakest, you spend much of your time either scouring or scavenging decidedly moist sci-fi forests. These sweltering surroundings act as one giant smorgasbord for the game's initial three monster classes - Goliath, Kraken and Wraith. Monster one is essentially a rock-chucking take on The Thing. Monster the second is a big ol' tentacle colossus that likes to fly and lay down mines. While abomination number three is a serpent-like being capable of teleportation and Invisibility. No fair.
Hold on there, Timmy/ Tina Teleport. Both the Kraken and Wraith must first be unlocked by reaching level one on all the Goliath's skill trees - buffed up by say, throwing boulders 20 times or doing 20,000 points of damage with its leap attack. It's an unwanted grind in an otherwise sensible progression system, and something you'll have to endure to unlock all available 12 Hunters, too.
Whether you'll feel compelled to snare 'em all depends on how much you can stomach artificial padding in a game that's pretty limited in scope. While later characters are generally better - Griffin the second tier Trapper can fire torpedoes directly at the monster, whereas starting character Maggie has to plant them on the ground - it takes a hefty amount of time to churn through the unlocks. Combined with 2K's unapologetic day one DLC additional character packs and it all feels a tad cheeky.
Still, the idea of basically playing as a video game boss is a brilliant one. In execution, being the Big Bad isn't entirely satisfying, but it certainly gives Evolve a hook. Mechanically, there's much to enjoy about the monster(s). You start each round with a brief head start on the Hunters, during which time you must create some distance from your would-be killers and munch anything within clawing radius to grow bigger. Being chased is fundamentally more satisfying than doing the chasing. And next to the Hunters' cluster of powers, which often make your view busier than a screen of Matrix code when they're fired in conjunction, there's an uncluttered elegance to simply sneaking, eating and occasionally eviscerating.
My main gripe with being monstrous is the controls simply lack the necessary feedback to convey the sense of power you expect. Sadly, you often feel more rodent than Rodan when wailing on a group of Hunters. Too many of your abilities feel weightless, while a hella-naughty camera makes the job of keeping tabs on all the little bastards swarming around your shins a serious chore.
That's not to say occasionally weedy attacks derail the pleasures of stomping about doing your best Godzilla impression. First up, even in the early stages of evolution, monsters are still chuffin' huge. Next, you get to clamber, glide and teleport with well judged, streamlined traversal abilities. Finally, you're allowed to throw boulders, conjure electricity storms and create clones to your disgusting heart's content. Now I see why Mike and Sully are so happy.
On the pesky human (and occasionally robot) side, Hunters are split into four classes: Assault, Trapper, Medic and Support. All of whom get jetpacks for scaling Shear's craggy topography. Hooray! In gameplay terms those classes roughly translate to... Big Shooty Man With Electric Rifle; Canny Tracker; Wait There I'll Save You With My Magic Healing Gun and Mr I like Dropping Carpet Bombs On People. Predictably enough, teamwork is key.
On their own, each Hunter stands little chance against a fully evolved beast. It's only when you combine their complimentary abilities that you really start cooking with monster-frying fire. A well-versed team constantly shield, heal and revive each other. Stuck in a squad full of loners/isn't fully mic'd up? You're in for a world of hurt. Make no mistake: Evolve isn't a game you can just casually drop into and expect to get the most out of. This is very much an experience best played with friends who constantly talk to each other. If you're paired with uncooperative/lone wolf online randoms, this can be an unwelcoming, often dispiriting shooter.
Currently, the balancing doesn't feel quite right, either. While I already talked about the overly effective AI bots in our original review in progress, even playing with pals can often lead to someone getting the short end of the stick... or, in this case, ray shield. While each role has their strengths and weaknesses, it's the Trapper that feels really key. Capable of temporarily engaging a monster in an unbreakable bio-dome (an absolute match-winner if you snag the monster in its first form) or slowing it down with harpoons, this is the class that really dictates the ebb and flow of a match. As a result, if you're playing with someone who's cack-handed at putting down domes in time to imprison the monster, you're pretty much screwed.
Even when your tactics link together harmoniously, battles still often devolve into massive clustermucks. In Left 4 Dead, you'd never be far from a breathless last ditch stand or thrilling chase. Here, you often find yourself confined in a small area; manically spamming abilities in the vague hope of doing damage. Too often the game fails to channel its chaos into truly satisfying matches, even if the end result is rarely less than entertaining. Also, why Turtle Rock turned on friendly fire for that sh*tting air strike, I'll never know. Be prepared to be blown all over the shop. Stupid Support class.
Thankfully, proceedings are less chaotic outside of Hunt mode. Rescue, Defend and Nest all fair better by virtue of giving your more objectives to focus on. Having to save/slay colonists, protect/pummel a ship's power source or put a hurt on/hatch monster eggs moves the action away from overly hectic battles or the monotony of trying to Sherlock your prey's location by searching for flocking birds or footprints. My best matches have all come in these modes - a somewhat damning incitement of Hunt, maybe - but the more nuanced action really saves the game's beastly bacon.
Evolve is currently a smidge schizophrenic. Sometimes you play a match and the game's clever systems all coalesce beautifully; creating a charmingly hectic hybrid that occasionally channels Left 4 Dead's frantically back and forth antics while handling like a monstrous Titanfall. Play without mic'd up pals, though, and the pull of chaos is too strong, with battles struggling to keep their focus. The game also feels a little limited – you've really only got four match types to repetitively chew your way through – leaving you with an uneven, entertaining Jekyll and Hyde. Although last time I checked, Edward couldn't nuke people from above with an electric storm.
GAME BLAST SCORE: 9.5
BLOODBORNE REVIEW
Game Blast 2015
you awaken in a Victorian surgery after undergoing a blood transfusion administered by a shady, wheelchair-bound man. Suddenly you hear banging, then a guttural growl that chills the bones. A wiry, fur-matted werewolf stoops menacingly over a prone body, blocking the only exit. You've got two fists and a dapper suit - what to do? Well, die.
Doing so transports you to hazy netherworld the Hunter's Dream where you're stocked with weapons and sent back to kill the great beasts of Yarnham. Turns out it wasn't a trick at all - it was a lesson. That short loop was the game in a microcosm: teach, then test. You don’t so much play as learn.
From Software doesn’t stray far from its lineage, and as with Demon’s Souls and both Dark Souls games before it, Bloodborne follows a fundamental pattern: you cautiously enter a new, very scary area filled with fresh challenges and tough enemies. Dying often comes next. But then you return with conviction, armed with the vague understanding of enemy placements, traps, and attack patterns. Repeated visits firm your grip. Knowledge is power.
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And what a universe. The bleak, oppressive, but somehow innately beautiful world of Yarnham aligns so perfectly with the disturbing energy of Demon’s and Dark Souls that it feels like the series’ spiritual home. It's both lulling dream and waking nightmare. Great black cathedrals rise to meet a low dead sun, damp cobblestone alleys reflect a forlorn moon, and thick mist envelopes innumerable crusted tombstones, tangled forests, and shrouded paths.
Still, I found myself stopping to drink in every view, and that isn't an accident. From Software composes each scene to show what lies ahead and behind. Look down and you’ll see the bridge you battled on hours ago; look to the horizon and the giant crumbling windmill you're trying to reach will loom like a beacon. It’s Bloodborne giving you pause to appreciate how far you’ve come. Nothing is empty set dressing.
Contrasting where you stood at the start, a clean and cowering runt with hand-me-down weapons, to your later fearless, blood-caked hero who’s survived whip-cracking NPC invaders, conquered wolf-infested hamlets, and trounced a parade of harrowing bosses, gives a real sense of progress. You don’t really have a motive, besides a vague opening line about unravelling the mysteries of blood ministration, but that mystery provides ample impetus.
Opening a random door to link two previously disparate places is a mini victory, the map in your mind’s eye steadily forming. Yarnham is the evolution of the Resident Evil mansion. Of Metroid Prime’s Tallon IV. It's narrative irrevocably intertwined with geography. Rare benevolent denizens impart the stories surrounding Yarnham’s great beast hunt (most occupy houses, their interactivity signposted by purple lamplight). One involves a shrivelled hag in a cathedral, who asks you to advertise the building as a place of healing. After revealing its location to a suspiciously blood-soaked NPC, though, the next time I visit the hag she’s disappeared, potentially costing me a quality item or telling line of dialogue.Actions have repercussions. The act of exploration almost crosses into archeology, players dusting away layers of dirt to find hidden details.
But stopping and staring too long is folly, because creatures here want to make you into blood pudding. There’s the rank and vile - lame crows struggling pitifully on the ground before maiming you with broken wings, writhing corpses in rivers of waste waiting to pull you in - but it's the inconspicuous ones you want to watch for. Emaciated grave robbers scoop you into burlap sacks and hoist you to jail, and if the small giggling witches latch on they’ll carve into your face for three or four awful seconds.
Subverting the shield and sword fantasy staple, here you're given a gun in the left hand and something sharp in the right - a pneumatic stake, an electrified bollier, a good old-fashioned extendable axe. That’s right, no blocking. To compensate you're now ninja-quick, able to sprint, roll, and unload violent flurries on a single burn of the stamina meter. Each weapon has a powerful charge attack, as well as a transformation you can trigger on-the-fly and thread into combos. Your cleaver, for instance, folds out into a fanged scythe.
Most firearms aren’t so much long-range alternatives to melee as reincarnations of the parry system, best shot off during enemy attacks to knock them backwards for a takedown. Faster combat means you're going to get hit, so now there’s a short window in which, after taking damage, you can strike back to regain health. It pays to be aggressive, because in Bloodborne, offense is the new defense.
This high-risk philosophy permeates the entire game. For instance, whereas in previous games your souls stay where you died ready to be reclaimed, here a nearby enemy might steal your blood echoes. In killing it to return them, a passive mechanic becomes an active one. And rather than swigging from a healing flask that replenishes upon rest, you'll have to earn Bloodborne’s vials by killing things.
There’s one completely new challenge, however, in the form of chalice dungeons. Collecting materials allows you to perform a ritual at the Hunter’s Dream and create randomised fortresses you can share and tackle online. Roughly an hour long and composed of varied architecture, from ornate churches, to fertile gardens, to murky swampland, they extend an already 40-hour game potentially indefinitely.
Only a few minor blotches spoil an otherwise immaculate picture. You have to travel back to the Hunter's Dream every time you want to level up, store equipment, or warp to a different lamp, which makes for weary process punctuated by loading screens. Also, clothing revolves around cloak and leather, lacking the creativity and variety of the Souls games. The class system isn't as divergent either. Flamethrowers, cannons, and stake guns are fine toys, but ones you don't have to spec towards, removing a degree of strategy. While combat is still incredibly rich, the lack of magic, miracles, pyromancy, archery, heavy, medium, and light options means less specialisation, which discourages experimentation.
Bloodborne lies somewhere between Dark Souls and Dark Souls 2, better than the latter but not quite as good as the former.
If you've played those games, it's incredibly easy to adjust to this one. Take the concept of blood, acting as both life force and currency. It lets you level up, fortify weapons, and purchase items. The catalyst of cautious play, fear of losing your bounty - you drop it when you die, and get one shot at retrieval - naturally increases the more you have, fuelling compelling rounds of risk and reward.
Dark Souls’ iconic bonfires are replaced by lamps, used for warping back to the Hunter's Dream (be warned, this replenishes the world with enemies). Get online and you’ll see ghostly recordings of other players doing their thing in other worlds, only now they’re called spectres. Leaving messages on the floor for the community to read isn’t done with soapstone, but a notebook. The effect is reassurance rather than repetition. As with Assassin’s Creed, familiar mechanics are transposed wholesale on top of different settings and styles. The apparatus is universal, even if the universe changes.
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March 15, 2013
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April 22, 2013
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