Hyper Light Drifter Review

On July 31, 2016 By Matt BroadeyIn Game reviews, games, reviews, video gamesLeave a comment

Hyper Light Drifter, for all of its clear influences, offers a world and experience that feels truly different and alien. It’s like a game, a concept album, and an experimental short film all rolled into one. Inspired by creator and Heart Machine founder Alex Preston’s life-threatening health condition, Hyper Light Drifter is an achingly beautiful, psychedelic, and weirdly personal creation that demands your attention, at least for a while.

Hyper Light Drifter is an action game in a pixel-art world set to a woozy, moody score from electronic musician Disasterpiece. The Drifter, whom the player controls, must pick through the broken land in search of a cure for their mysterious illness.

As the Drifter, you’re equipped with a thrumming energy blade to carve through foes and charge your pistol (and any other gun you find in your quest). You can also dash in any direction (an animation that’s stunningly realised with smear techniques that perfectly emphasise your snappy momentum) to avoid incoming enemy attacks and projectiles. Most attacks landed upon you by enemies deal one point of damage from your health pool of 5. You can recover lost health, however, using medical kits- although you can only initially carry 3 of these, and they’re sparingly scattered throughout levels to encourage caution.

The map of Hyper Light Drifter is, at first glance, fairly simple. Branching out from the central hub town are paths to four main areas, each with their own theme, enemies, and boss. Beating each area takes you one step closer to unlocking whatever lies in the centre. You’ll need to uncover a number of purple crystals to progress through each area; some progress-critical doors require you to have found a number of these, however to “complete” an area you’ll need 4 crystals as well as to activate a special large crystal guarded by the local boss. None of this is explicitly spelled out for you; it’s simply an intuitive conclusion gleaned from your environment. A more thorough completion of the game, however, calls for the acquisition of all 8 crystals in each zone.

Travelling through each area involves a mix of combat and exploration-driven puzzle solving in a manner that’s not dissimilar to Zelda games, although considerably more freeform. The paths you’ll walk are riddled with secret passages and invisible secrets to uncover; sometimes you’ll find Gearbits (currency tied into the game’s upgrade system), sometimes you’ll find a hidden purple crystal, and occasionally you’ll find a secret room that you need to return to later on. Hyper Light Drifter’s secret-ridden levels lend even more mystery and depth to an enigmatic and enthralling world, and this sedate exploration and platforming gives the player ample time to recuperate between fierce fights.

You’ll need caution and wits to make it through Hyper Light Drifter’s enemy encounters. Not only are you required to carefully observe each new encountered enemy, it’s imperative to make use of your environment to survive. Level geometry can be used to divide and conquer your sometimes-overwhelming adversaries, take cover from projectile attacks, and deadly traps can be turned to the advantage of the wily.

Even so, there are some pretty deviously laid-out challenges to overcome that will almost certainly lead to repeat deaths. Fatality can come swiftly and frequently in this game, however you’re never dropped in too far away from the offending encounter with a checkpointing system that rarely frustrated in the 6-and-a-half hours it took me to reach the end credits. I could often see exactly what my fatal mistakes were, and was for the most part able to jump in and try again almost immediately.

Hyper Light Drifter could definitely be labelled a hard game. With the action as intense and punishing as it is, there’s definitely a ramp for starting players to climb before competence is achieved. This is especially true of the area most players are likely to tackle first, which is home to frog ninja-esque enemies that are devilishly difficult to read and dodge. But when you start to read the game’s rhythms, use the environment to your advantage and keep a calm head through it all, you’ll tackle each fresh hurdle with a smile on your face. You’ll learn to be adaptable and, importantly, precise. This game is reminiscent of Dark Souls and bullet hell roguelikes like Enter the Gungeon in that way, perhaps owing as much to them as it does to the more obvious inspirations from the 8- and 16-bit eras.

There’s an upgrade system in place to buff your abilities and unlock new skills. What’s impressive is how some of these options can impact gameplay. The deflecting skill allows you to slash enemy projectiles with your sword, redirecting them back at your foes and allowing for a much more proactive, aggressive approach to ranged assailants. Chain dashes allows you to, well, chain dashes together much more quickly, an invaluable trait for zipping smoothly out of danger (if you can keep cool enough to pull off the timing). Alongside these more interesting power-ups are simple upgrades for improved survivability such as an increased carrying capacity for medical kits.

Whether you’re trudging up the worn steps to a mountaintop temple or engaged in savage combat, it’s hard to deny the sheer beauty of the game. The attractive pixel art visuals are rendered in an attractive autumnal palette that giddily bleeds neon for a unique cyberpunk style that’s unlike anything I’ve seen. The enthralling visuals aren’t just for show, either; there’s a great deal of narrative duty resting on their shoulders. There’s not a single uttered word in Hyper Light Drifter: all characters chirp out some gobbledygook while pictured speech bubbles convey the meaning behind their words and stories. Zones are rife with environmental clues to the backstory of both that area and the world at large. Hyper Light Drifter might be light on explanations, but its scenes and atmosphere are pregnant with meaning.

Those bewitching visuals don’t do all the work, though. Hyper Light Drifter’s atmosphere lends as much of its personality to its music as it does its looks, and Disasterpiece’s heady electronic score is just as unique as every other aspect of the game’s presentation. In the same way that I can’t imagine Nicholas Winding Refn’s Drive without its soundtrack, Hyper Light Drifter’s score manages to perfectly synergise with every other aspect of the game to cement the identity of the whole. I highly, highly recommend playing through the game with headphones if you’re aiming for a bloody transcendental experience.

The game’s impenetrable story and early difficulty barrier might turn away some players early on, but with a little bit of persistence Hyper Light Drifter is a game that deserves to be played by anyone willing to give as much as they take. It’s a pulse-pounding, precise action game with an atmosphere to die for again and again. This outstandingly alien world is worth diving into.

Pokémon GO Review: Magic From Mediocrity

On July 24, 2016 By Matt BroadeyIn Game reviews, games, reviews, video gamesLeave a comment

I don’t think anyone could have anticipated Pokémon GO’s runaway success. What started out as a Google Maps April Fools’ joke has blossomed into a worldwide phenomenon, skyrocketing Nintendo’s value and prompting millions to leave the house to hunt imaginary creatures. I don’t need to tell you this; it’s all over the news, and everyone has heard of “That New Pokémon Thing” by now. What’s incredible about Pokémon GO’s triumph is that it’s all despite the app’s systemic mediocrity, laundry list of technical issues, and overall lack of support from its creators.

After customising your trainer avatar and struggling to find a free screen name, you’ll be guided through catching your starter Pokémon: one of the venerable trio of Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Squirtle. Finding and catching Pokémon starts by leaving the house and going for a walk, and when you’re close enough to a Pokémon it’ll pop up on your Google Maps-like interface. Hunting down specific ‘Mon in your area is aided by the “Nearby” feature, which uses a hot/cold approach indicated by the number of footprints beside each individual creature: fewer footsteps means you’re closer.

Once you’re close enough to unveil a Pokémon, the catching process is initiated by tapping the creature on your screen. The game then enters a first-person viewpoint as viewed by your phone’s camera, superimposing the Pokémon onto your camera’s view via AR (or a generic field scene if that’s not your bag). You then fling Pokéballs at your quarry Paper Toss-style to catch it before it runs away, timing your throw alongside a shrinking circle for the best chance at success. There’s no weakening your targets via battle; catching creatures in Pokémon GO is closer to the Safari Zone areas of the main series.

Levelling and evolving your cast of Pokémon is different to the original games, too. Capturing a creature lands you two currencies: Stardust, a generic resource used to increase your Pokémon’s Combat Power (CP); and Candy, a species-specific resource that is fed to your Pokémon to make them evolve. This encourages catching monsters of the same species repeatedly to accrue enough Candy to power up and diversify your collection of Pokémon. Duplicates can be permanently transferred to this game’s guide, Professor Willow, in exchange for an extra piece of Candy.

Wild Pokémon aren’t the only things you’ll be hunting in your area. Scattered around the map are Pokéstops, which are small landmarks that you check into for items such as Pokéballs, Potions, Revives, and Razz Berries (an item that can be fed to wild Pokémon to reduce the likelihood of their fleeing). These points of interest help give you something to aim for as you amble in search of nearby rarities. Interestingly, I’ve learned a great deal about the areas around my house that I wouldn’t have spotted or sought out otherwise- statues with some unseen detail or graffiti I’ve walked past a thousand times without noting.

Slightly more substantial landmarks, however, are awarded Gym status. This is where battling comes in, acting as the game’s multiplayer aspect. When you reach player level 5, you’ll be able to join one of three teams: Valor, Mystic, or Instinct. Players from each team will fight for control over Gyms for their faction. Training at an allied Gym will increase its level to allow more creatures to be assigned to defend it, while challenging and winning battles at a rival Gym will lower the its level until it’s empty to be claimed for your faction.

Fighting over and claiming Gyms is the game’s most disappointing feature by far; it’s such a poor representation of the main Pokémon series’ battle system. Rather than tactical turn-based battles, Pokémon GO’s fights are a repetitive and boring numbers game. Pokémon CP stats are probably the most important factor in winning a fight. Challenge a gym and you’ll face each of its defending Pokémon in what amounts to a mashfest; prodding the screen doles out your fighter’s basic attack, which charges a special attack that is activated by holding your finger down. Incoming attacks can be dodged through swiping to the side, but to be honest it’s more efficient to mindlessly assault your phone. Type advantages can be leveraged to take down your rivals, but more often than not the creature with the highest CP will win and the random assignment of each Pokémon’s paltry couple of learned attacks is a source of much frustration if you’re trying to play smart.

The whole Gym-competition process very much favours attackers; defenders can be knocked out of the gym one at a time, and if your Pokémon faint then you can back out to revive them before continuing your assault, meaning with enough healing items you can simply brute-force your way to victory. You’ve also got a team of 6 Pokémon with which to make your assault, which is at least a couple more monsters than the average Gym will hold. This makes it incredibly hard to maintain your hold on a gym for long enough to earn substantial defender bonuses. Needless to say, the whole battling system is mechanically weak and a near-pointless expenditure of time and resources.

Aside from that major mechanical failing, Pokémon GO is absolutely rife with technical issues so ubiquitous that you’ll be hard pressed to find discussion pass without their mention. The game frequently crashes and loses contact with the servers, an issue especially prevalent whilst catching Pokémon. Countless times I’ve had to reset the app as the game freezes on a rattling Pokéball, hoping that either I’ve caught the creature or that it’ll deign to reappear nearby for another chance at capturing it. Checking into Pokéstops frequently doesn’t work, halting your progress as you dumbly swipe at the screen in vain.

The Nearby feature has been broken for over a week now, showing all surrounding creatures as a distance of 3 footprints away. The use of this feature was more art than science when it was actually working due to its vague nature and and the unreliable updating of your location by GPS. Now players are forced to utilise the even more imprecise method of walking in random directions until their desired Pokémon moves to the top of the list, then hoping it springs up in the general vicinity.

It’s a fairly common occurrence for one of the game’s several menus or features to simply not load- arbitrarily locking player out of the Store, refusing to transfer duplicate Pokémon, or failing to load Gym battles. One time for me, after earning enough Pokécoins to make a purchase in the store the game decided to buy double the number of my desired item, effectively stealing my currency. That would be incredibly frustrating had I acquired those coins through microtransactions.

The most vexing factor in all of this is the almost complete lack of communication on Niantic’s part amidst these ubiquitous issues. Despite Pokémon GO’s overwhelming success, there doesn’t seem to be any substantial effort yet made to patch any technical problems. Servers would frequently break down entirely, often coinciding with the release of Pokémon GO in a new country. A quick check of official Twitter channels reveals a frankly lacklustre level of community interaction and support, the infrequent updates all-but ignoring the slew of problems ailing the app. It’s a situation that makes me wonder if they’re lazy, swamped, or just incompetent. That’s not a good look.

Pokémon GO, then, is a shallow, mechanically unfaithful game in technical shambles.

And I can’t stop playing it.

Despite its many, many failures and incompetences as a game and product, I’m borderline addicted to Pokémon GO. At time of writing I’ve caught over half of the available creatures. I’ve walked just under 75KM with the app open. The first night I acquired the game I walked around collecting Pokémon until my phone battery died, forcing me to come home. The same thing happened the following night. By the third day I’d acquired a portable phone charger to prevent that from happening again.

Pokémon GO manages, with simple geocaching and jumpy AR that makes the game harder, to inject a sense of adventure and discovery into the mundane real world. It magically invokes the fantasy that’s been the core of Pokémon since the beginning. I’ll run outside or explore new places just because a new Pokémon appears on the Nearby list, and several unintended hours will pass by almost by accident before I reluctantly return home.

Beyond that, Pokémon GO brings people together. On my first night out with the game I met and chatted with 7 strangers in chance encounters as we felt our way through its early stages. “All I want right now is a Dratini”, said one person. “I’ve hear there’s quite a few Dratini on Burley Road”, another chipped in. “Yeah, that’s the word of trainers I’ve met around there”.

Since then I’ve seen untold numbers of people out hunting for Pokémon. The game inspires conversation and co-operation; a Pokémon found in a location is catchable for everyone that stumbles upon it until it despawns. You can acquire Lures to attach to Pokéstops, summoning wild Pokémon to the spot for every player in the area for the next 30 minutes. You’re very likely to collaborate with at least one person in order to find some elusive creature, and in my experience it’s natural and easy. That’s quite something, speaking as someone that suffers from anxiety.

I have some doubts regarding the game’s longevity, but with the right updates I can see playtime stretching from a couple of months to several years. Currently the endgame is basically hatching eggs in the hope of acquiring unfound Pokémon to fill out your Pokédex. There’s a lot of features that I’d love to see: a friends system, trades, breeding, and most importantly an overhaul of the battle mechanics with the option to challenge friends to a fight. I really hope that Niantic listens to feedback and works to make Pokémon GO reach its sky-high potential.

Somehow, somehow, this game is so much more than the sum of its parts. Somewhere between the freezes, server crashes, and mediocre mechanics, there’s a magic to Pokémon GO. With some improvement, it could be the Pokémon game we’ve always wanted.

Song of the Deep Review

On July 17, 2016 By Matt BroadeyIn Game reviews, games, reviews, video gamesLeave a comment

Song of the Deep has a lot going for it. A passion project out of the venerable Insomniac Games, the first game published under GameStop’s new publishing venture GameTrust, and an enticingly unfamiliar setting inspired by Irish folklore. Despite all of this, though, I just couldn’t find myself liking it very much.

Merryn is the daughter of a fisherman, a kindly father who regales her with stories about the depths of the sea. When he goes missing, Merryn builds a makeshift submarine and sets out to save her dad. Along the way, you’ll find that there might just have been more than a little bit of truth to her father’s tales.

You control Merryn’s craft in a 2D side-scrolling Metroidvania-style adventure in the deep sea. You start out with a simple claw to attack hostile denizens of the depths as well as grasp, pull, drag, and lob objects in the water. You’ll soon expand your sub’s tool repertoire with rockets and sonar, as well as reinforcing it with armour and turbine upgrades. These customisations are all bought from a charming hermit crab in exchange for collected currency that encourages you to go out of your way and explore hidden nooks and crannies.

There’s a fair amount of combat in Song of the Deep, but the bulk of your time is spent navigating the expansive game world, solving puzzles to do so. Enemies are often just something small to gently impede your progress as you think your way around physics and exploration-driven environmental puzzles. It’s clear that Song of the Deep is aiming for a much more sedate pace than its brethren. You’ve a delightfully calming soundtrack to soothe your ears, a quirky handmade art style, and a lovely Irish-accented narrator to guide you through the story. Unfortunately there are some slight but pervasive frustrations that drag the game down from the pleasant zen-like experience it clearly wants to be.

Chief among these problems is the matter of pace. The submarine controls quite well, but its acceleration and turning arc lean towards the sluggish side resulting in an overall lack of satisfying momentum. Pair this with puzzles that require some deft handling and relatively fine aiming and there’s a fair amount of annoying backtracking to reattempt puzzles that you’ve worked out to the solution to, but must coerce your lethargic craft to meet the dexterity of the challenge. This is most apparent in sections that require you to pick up bombs attached to a chain and carry them to combustible obstructions. The bomb will explode on contact with any wall or object, and will float upwards on its chain when you sit still. Cue repeated runs of ferrying bombs through tight openings, hoping that your angle of approach perfectly lands the explosive in contact with the corresponding area and not scant centimetres away from it. Truth be told, a lot of the puzzles end up feeling like tiresome busywork instead of fun challenges, and there’s very little in the way of originality to them either; you’re most often simply trying to locate what amounts to a key for a door, or approaching problems that other games game throws at you a thousand times before.

There was also an infuriatingly glitched portion of the game; a chase sequence that has you escaping an area while being pursued by “Red Reaper” squid imbued with the ancient bullshit of the insta-kill. I’m not a fan of instant death in any game, but what’s especially vexing about this particular segment was that the Reapers would often teleport forwards and crush me for an unfair game over. The only way to deal with the situation was to retry repeatedly until the game deigned to work as intended.

Alongside mechanical foibles, I also found myself unable to connect emotionally with Song of the Deep’s world and story despite the intriguingly uncommon Irish legend connections. I think this is down to both aesthetics and plotting.

On the visuals side, although Song of the Deep sports a handcrafted aesthetic I didn’t find much charm outside of the character designs (and even those were awkwardly animated). Apart from the warm luminescence of Glow Kelp, environments often feel drab and dingy. I understand that the cliffs of Moher were a major inspiration on the game’s presentation in their muted majesty, yet I feel that a more vibrant and varied colour palette would lend so much more energy and personality to proceedings. There’s even a segment of the game where the narrator coos over the beautiful technicolour locale, and I had to wonder if she and I were looking at the same place.

With regards to the story, in spite of the fascinating legends the game draws from, there’s pretty much nothing original about Song of the Deep’s yarn. It’s a pretty standard Hero’s Journey, and doesn’t give you many interesting objectives other than “fetch the thing that advances the plot”. I’m sure that younger players might find Song of the Deep’s narrative quite captivating, but older players are likely to find the predictability quite boresome. That said, Merryn is a very fine role model for parents who want to introduce kids to a heroine that embodies the virtues of resilience, ingenuity, and kindness.

Alas I did not find myself captivated by Song of the Deep’s tune. The early game of avid secret hunting gave way to a bull-headed rush to mainline the story, with me often ignoring any treasure that was more than slightly out of my way. The game has a certain charm to it, but there were too many little irritations to test the patience until the experience became tedious for me. And that’s a shame, because Song of the Deep has a lot of heart and its lofty potential feels squandered.

Inside Review

On July 7, 2016 By Matt BroadeyIn Game reviews, games, reviews, video games1 Comment

You’d be forgiven for wondering just what the hell Playdead’s been doing in the six years since Limbo released. Much has changed since then; Limbo landed when highly-competent, independent games were still something of a novelty, and its relative simplicity might not hold up if it were released today. Six years of change has eroded and reformed the gaming landscape, all while Playdead toiled in near-silence on their spiritual follow-up to Limbo, Inside.

Honestly? It’s been worth every second. Inside is an incredible game that’s short of almost nothing to prevent it being labelled a legitimate masterpiece. It expands upon Limbo in every single respect while wearing that beating heart on its sleeve.

It’s absolutely imperative to play it knowing as little about the game as possible, more so than the many other recent games that invite that recommendation like The Witness, Undertale, and Pony Island. Don’t waste a first impression of this game by watching a playthrough. This one’s absolutely worth a naked, hands-on experience and I hope you’ll forgive any vagueness on my part regarding Inside‘s narrative and systems.

Inside starts in the same fashion as Limbo: a young, nameless boy is dropped into a dark forest and must move forwards. You don’t know why the menacing, uniformed men are combing the woods with flashlights and rabid dogs. There’s no dialogue. There aren’t even any worded tutorial tips. You’re given even less to go on than in Limbo; at least in that game you had a clear objective in finding your sister. Here you’re just a boy on the run in an oppressive and deadly world with a much less clearly defined goal. Maybe the boy has a plan. Maybe he’s just forced to press forward out of circumstance. It’s up to you to play through and decide for yourself, inferring what you can.

Controlling the boy is a simple matter since there’s only three inputs: move, jump, and grab. But there’s so much mechanical variety built upon that bedrock. As well as simple platforming through the 2.5D environments, progression is often tied to environmental puzzles. There’s a staggering amount of variety to these puzzles, making use of elements like physics, gravity, momentum, light and shadow, musical cues, AI observation and manipulation, mind control, timing, and object placement. The game’s short 3-hour length means that you’re always confronting new obstacles and you won’t see the same puzzle twice. Even potential frustration over difficult puzzles is mitigated for two reasons. Firstly, there’s never too much environmental clutter to distract you from the solution; you can often see every relevant object onscreen at once. Secondly, checkpoints are forgiving without feeling insulting- death is quite common, yet you never lose more than a few seconds’ worth of progress.

Inside’s real achievement is its carefully maintained atmosphere of creeping horror. You’re in a cruel world dogged by beings that exude a dispassionate and ruthless air. You’ll experience fraught chases that perfectly evoke the terror not experienced since you were a child running hysterically from something fearsome, as we’ve all done at some point. It’s not necessarily those moments that’ll stay with you, though. Inside’s horror is largely of the more understated kind, tipping its hand to let you glimpse at snippets of a world gone horribly wrong. Relatively calm moments are still permeated by an all-encompassing unease and quiet atrocities are laid bare to play on primal human fears.

The 2.5D world is rendered in a highly desaturated palette, with only the occasional touch of real colour. Thick mist lingers in the background while murky waters ripple calmly. This moody world with its faceless denizens of ill intent envelops you with an immediate sense of foreboding, yet there’s a strange beauty to all the gloomy architecture. The mechanical emphasis of grasping and lugging objects around work in perfect unison with spot-on animation to give the game’s environments and characters a tangible, tactile quality that only serves to emphasise the horror.

The game’s sound design contributes as much to the atmosphere of dread as its visuals. Mostly there’s just the pitter-patter of the boy’s footsteps accompanied by his breathing, which changes when the boy becomes more panicked. In a few choice moments of revelation, though, music crests and swells to perfectly punctuate the tone of the scene in contrast with the usual feeling of being left alone with your thoughts in the quiet.

Inside shows Playdead’s mastery of storytelling without words and slick atmospheric direction all in one. You’ve got enough to build a story of your own that might differ from those inferred by each and every friend that plays it. You’ll agree on the broader details of Inside’s story, yes, but there’s a rich well of hints and other elements to wade through and discuss. I have a feeling that there’s more to Inside than they’re letting on. Chase all of the achievements and there just might be something to see for your troubles. In any case, do yourself a favour: play this game, in one sitting, alone. I think you’ll be glad you did.

The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine Review

On June 28, 2016 By Matt BroadeyIn Game reviews, games, reviews, video gamesLeave a comment

There’s a good argument to be made for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt as last year’s best game. Perhaps even the best game of this generation so far. CD Projekt Red brought a (dare I say unrivalled) level of craft and production to bring that world to life in a way that few could argue against. Even more impressive is its writing, with incredible multifaceted characters and storylines loaded with twists and turns. Even the side quests were packed with powerful curveballs.

After Wild Hunt’s first expansion Hearts of Stone triumphantly spun its Faustian yarn around the core game’s preexisting city of Oxenfurt, CD Projekt Red’s last hurrah for the series that made their name whisks you away to the duchy of Toussaint- a mountainous, French/ Tuscan renaissance-era-inspired land of knightly chivalry.

Geralt is summoned to Toussaint by duchess Anna Henrietta to solve an evolving string of murders of knights of the realm, victims of brutal slayings by a being known as the Beast of Beauclair. Along the way you’ll cavort with vampires, attend masquerade balls, fight in grand tourneys, and otherwise chase a trail soaked with blood and wine.

Early on in the expansion there’s a clear shift of pace. You’ll often arrive at a scene that is currently unfolding- the immediate aftermath of something awful. Whereas many investigative portions of the base game were archaeology hours or days after the fact, an early mission in Blood and Wine has you rocking up to a small town scant moments after terrible violence. A terrified horse gallops past you in the opposite direction and soldiers lose their grip on their last moments of life, eviscerated. Following such a fresh trail of destruction really gave a sense of urgency to proceedings in a way that poring through crime scenes long after the fact just didn’t.

Since The Witcher has always been about clever subversion, I was expecting a great amount of mockery levelled at Arthurian legend and the chivalric virtues. Yet while this is a promising emergent theme early on, Blood and Wine’s story doesn’t quite pursue that line with the same dogged focus that Hearts of Stone employed with its critical eye on Faust and Pan Twardowski. Still, in true Witcher style, this is a story rife with shocking reveals and intriguing characters. Special praise must go to Regis, a down-to-Earth friend from Geralt’s past whose inclusion will please fans of the books.

The tale that unravels in Blood and Wine is certainly engrossing and a lot of it’s just done right. The absolute highlight for me must be one of the subtler fairy tale nods in the game that has you investigating a spoon-collecting ghoul. It took me a while to see the link to Beauty and the Beast, but it’s there- but with reversed gender roles and a clever heaping of irony. There’s a subtlety there that perfectly encapsulates The Witcher. The resolution of this excellent thread serves to highlight not only the quality of CD Projekt Red’s storytelling, but also their runaway success in realising Geralt as a character.

It’s increasingly obvious in Blood and Wine that Geralt is a fully-fledged person that we’re keeping tabs on rather than a blank slate for us to project ourselves onto. Not only does he have deep history a lot of characters that we’re just meeting, but no matter which way you choose to take each branching questline, your decisions feel right for him. Either way of resolving the problem of the spoon-collecting ghoul reveals aspects of Geralt that would ring true with anyone’s interpretation of him. It’s one of CD Projekt Red’s greatest triumphs.

Along that line, I’m extremely pleased that your Geralt’s romantic choices are honoured in Blood and Wine. Hearts of Stone’s use of Shani as a romantic prospect felt slightly too uncomfortably forced for my liking, since my Geralt was pledged to Triss yet the script called for flirtation with little room for deviation. In this expansion, though, there are occasional yet important references to whichever relationship you pursued back in the core game, if you pursued a relationship at all. It’s a great touch that really helps pay off any serious romantic storylines pursued by the player.

Unfortunately the story’s not perfect. At one point a major antagonist promises calamity should the protagonists fail to deliver something within three days. The scene cuts to black, and the next scene opens with an establishing shot labelled “a few days later”. Why specify three in-story days when you’re going to cut to such a vague time? Why skip forwards at all when you’ve clearly set a bar for Geralt and the player? Even a couple of scenes where the protagonists fruitlessly pursue the set task for three days would be better that that. It’s an incredibly dissonant moment from a team that otherwise has a firm grasp on clear and clever writing. And when the antagonist unavoidably delivers on their awful promise, that completely throws any amount of moral ambiguity surrounding them out the window. The Witcher’s villains are often sympathetic, but any amount of empathy for this individual’s actions is lost in moments in the name of a big set piece. I’m highly suspicious that CD Projekt Red were working under constraints of time or money when they produced this portion of the game, because it sticks out like a sore thumb.

And that’s a shame because Blood and Wine has a frankly obscene amount of production quality and content for an expansion. Toussaint is a massive area roughly equal in size to any of the countries found in the base game, and it’ll take around 30 hours to wrap everything up. There’s dozens of contracts and side quests to play through, with highlights including the navigation of the bank’s bureaucratic system and tracking down the stolen genitals of a famous statue. Sadly too many of these missions are punctuated with bouts of unnecessary brawls and violence, whereas Hearts of Stone’s hour-long wedding scene managed to squeeze in a solitary yet appropriate fight. I just wish CD Projekt had trusted their writing to carry these small nonviolent stories. Still, slight dissonance aside the side content of Blood and Wine is as excellent as it is varied, and makes for a fine excuse to explore Toussaint’s many map markers. You’ll want to replay the story too, since you’ll only experience one of the two possible penultimate missions.

Toussaint itself is a far cry from the war-torn swamps, forests, and towns of Velen, Novigrad, and Skellige. You can almost see how Toussaint’s inhabitants pull the wool over their own eyes as they live out their days working vineyards in idyllic countryside bursting with vibrant colour. There’s even an entirely novel accent invented for the region to really hammer in the feeling of a foreign land.

In terms of progression, the expansion offers a new levelling concept in the form of more powerful Mutations for Geralt to undergo. Levelling points and mutagens can now be traded to unlock Mutations that augment Geralt’s combat, signs, alchemy, or a mix of all three. If base development is more your thing, you quickly gain access to your own villa and vineyard to spruce up to your liking and decorate with mementoes of past adventures.

All in all, Blood and Wine achieves what it set out to be: a victorious conclusion to one of the best games of all time. It’s far from perfect, marred by occasional dissonant writing goofs and a slightly disappointing inability to commit to the implied send-up of Arthurian values. But Blood and Wine is still an exultant beast of an expansion jammed with quality content rife with wit, heart, and soul. A flawed gem is still a gem, and Blood and Wine shines alongside the best of them.

Crows Crows Crows Continues To Charm With “The Temple of No”

On June 25, 2016 By Matt BroadeyIn blog, Game reviews, games, reviews, video gamesLeave a comment

Crows Crows Crows is the English-based independent developer behind last year’s Dr. Langeskov, The Tiger, and The Terribly Cursed Emerald: A Whirlwind Heist, also catchily known as DL,TT,aTTCE:AWH. A complimentary game, the Steam store trailer promised an action-packed heist romp. Upon loading into the game however, it becomes apparent that there’s only room enough for one player at a time. The game’s backstage team have gone on strike thanks to terrible working conditions, and it’s up to you to press the switches behind the scenes directed by Simon Amstell’s voice while a fictional “player” makes their way through the game. Think The Stanley Parable, but more linear, yet lacking none of the charm or subversion.

Dr Langeskov wasn’t just a neat thumbing of the nose towards AAA game development, but a proof of concept of sorts for Crows Crows Crows: hearts full of whimsy, eyes set on the creation of “experimental games”. While Dr Langeskov’s Stanley Parable comparison is obvious, the game’s sharp wit and unique writing style certainly grabbed people’s attention and established the spirit of the studio.

Since then, Crows Crows Crows has been largely silent. There’s a weird puzzle game on their website, Report A.807, which consists of Police report details covering several burglaries around Europe. I almost didn’t stumble across the game myself; there’s a small folder icon labelled “A.807” right at the bottom of the screen that I’d predict most will either not see or outright disregard.

On Monday, Crows Crows Crows released another small complimentary game on itch.io. It’s an interactive story game made in Twine, and it’s called The Temple of No. As one amongst many delighted by Dr Langeskov, I soon set aside some time to play through it.

It’s only 10-15 minutes long, but The Temple of No is a delightful diversion for that duration. I’m not going to reveal anything else about the game; it’s a shot of simple joy that is best consumed unspoiled. Expect a slew of chuckles, a sea of personality, and a dozen tiny surprises. If nothing else, this game proves that Crows Crows Crows has the writing chops to charm and captivate its audience more than once.

Every way I look at it, Crows Crows Crows seems to be onto a winning strategy. They’re steadily drip-feeding us with tiny flashes of brilliance to remind us who they are and why we should care about them. For a small studio, that’s incredibly valuable. For the consumer, there’s a certain comfort in testing a studio’s output before eventually laying down money for their first proper release.

Not every indie developer can muster the resources to chase such a system. It definitely helps that the team’s made up of successful creatives like William Pugh and Jack de Quidt who’re doubtless in a much stronger position in terms of funding than the average small independent developer. Still, I have high hopes that this strategy might be as disruptive as The Stanley Parable was a few years back, with more developers following suit. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

In the meantime, go and enjoy The Temple of No. You’ve deserved it. Bring headphones and be ready to grin.

Mirror’s Edge Catalyst Review

On June 19, 2016 By Matt BroadeyIn Game reviews, games, reviews, video gamesLeave a comment

Mirror’s Edge always felt like a peculiar experiment that was surprised at its own existence. Back in 2007 the increasing prevalence of AAA open-world games and the upcoming Assassin’s Creed had placed parkour at the forefront of the conversation. Worlds were becoming more explorable, and the tactile promise of clambering all over it was increasingly enticing. Perhaps even more enchanting was the premise of Mirror’s Edge– controlling expert free-runner Faith from her perspective, to many the game felt like a tantalising glimpse into the future of engaging navigation as an immersive line between player and world. Did it actually rock the world? No. But it remains a cult classic because it dared to be different.

Mirror’s Edge Catalyst is a reboot of the series-of-one that aims to inject more backstory and character into Faith and her world, the city of Glass. At the start of the game Faith’s been in prison for two years for reasons that a loading screen tip tells me are covered in a companion comic. Once out she’s immediately whisked away from the state-mandated prisoner release program by her old friends, the Runners. Glass is a city obsessed with jobs and status while Runners are neutral not-quite-rebels skirting on the edges of the law to live on rooftops free of the caste system. It doesn’t take long for Faith to become embroiled in a war between the Runners, Kruger-Sec (the private security/ law-enforcement arm of the ruling Conglomerate), and terrorist group Black November.

As a Runner, your gameplay loop mainly revolves around getting from A to B in as fast and smooth-a manner as possible. On the Xbox One controller once you’re running, a press of LB corresponds to “upwards” motions like jumping, running along a wall and mantling ledges. Correspondingly LT involves descending movements- sliding under obstacles, dropping off ledges, and landing into a roll to maintain your Momentum- an important mechanic that I’ll get back to. RB swings you around 180° for speedy heel-turn or faces you away from whatever wall you’re running up/across to leap onto handy ledges. Early on you unlock a MAG Rope, which is for all intents and purposes a grappling hook to swing from, zoom up to, and pull down predetermined spots in the environment.

As in the original game, Catalyst’s parkour features highlighted objects along your path to indicate your suggested route- so vault-able ledges, ramps, swing bars, and other items of interest are emphasised in red. This time there’s even a red trail to help guide you along your path- this is called Runner’s Vision, ostensibly an overlay in Faith’s contact lens implants. This interface doesn’t always suggest the quickest route, so there’s merit to exploration, and players that don’t want their hand held can customise the system to their pleasing.

Aside from environmental obstacles, you’ll also encounter K-Sec security in your forays across Glass. There’s only a handful of enemy variants- baton wielders, gun toters, shock gloves, and armoured-yet-mobile heavy hitters. Combat has been given an overhaul, with more options for clashing with enemies head-on or zipping past them altogether. You can no longer disarm and steal bad guys’ guns. You’ve access to light attacks as well as heavy attacks that can push enemies in a desired direction: careening over ledges, stumbling over each other, or simply aside and out of your way. You can pair attacks with traversal, too- a light attack from a wall run, slide, or dropping from above will knock them aside allowing you to continue on your merry way almost unabated. Heavy attacks in this context will simply deal more damage, but it feels as satisfying to land a meaty foot-to-the-face as it does to maintain your run.

It’s in the mixing of traversal and open combat that Momentum becomes important. As you run, roll, soar and otherwise clamber across the world at speed, you build up a white bar next to your health that represents momentum. This is effectively a shield for enemy fire, explained in-world as you moving just quickly enough that you’re narrowly avoiding being shot to death. This makes brushing past a number of enemies much more possible and satisfying, and lessens the blow of enemy presence to that all-important flow of movement that characterises the game.

Sadly there are a handful of sections that force you to eliminate all enemies in an area, and those encounters are by far the game’s weakest points. It’s fun to take on a couple of guys- it’ll never stop being funny to me how they stumble like baby deer and collapse when you manage to smack one hapless soldier into his hapless friend- but a whole platoon of armed bastards really highlights that this game was not tuned for extended periods of combat. Most gallingly, two of the game’s biggest fights happen in exactly the same arena. It’s much more fun when the level design takes on a “run the gauntlet”-style path, as you seamlessly dispatch the odd soldier on the way to your objective.

Catalyst now has an open-world structure, and it’s taken somewhat of a Ubisoft-esque approach. Aside from collectable “Gridleaks” (floating globs of data in the air, I guess?), audio logs and the like, there are plenty of side missions that task you with traversing paths in the city within a set time period. Quizzically the courier missions, called Fragile Deliveries, are simply time trials. You’d think from the name that you’d have to maintain your momentum without suffering a harsh fall to protect your package, yet it’s simply an A-to-B time trial where your package “breaks” if time runs out. What’s also frustrating about these missions is the fact that the suggested path was almost never quick enough to actually get me there on time, leading to a frankly annoying amount of trial-and-error before finding a successful run. I eventually just gave up on all side content to chase the main story after I found out that a particular Fragile Delivery was only doable within the time limit if you’d unlocked the MAG Rope, something I was a mission or two away from achieving. Why would you make that side mission available to players that hadn’t earned that gadget yet? What you’d done, Catalyst, is waste my time. There are community-made races scattered around the place, too, but burning out on side content left me with no interest in pursuing them.

There’s also a levelling-up system now. There are three skill trees- Movement (11 of the 18 or so nodes are bizarrely unlocked at the start of the game), Combat, and Gadgets. In most games you get a sense of progression from levelling, but in Catalyst it just feels like just another check-list that arbitrarily limits your ability to maintain pace in a game all about momentum. The noise that triggers when you unlock a node is very good, though, so it’s got that going for it.

And so we get to the story missions. You’re given a bunch of pretty varied environments to throw yourself around, both across the rooftops and delving into large corporate buildings (although I would like to take a moment to point out that for a city obsessed with hard work to earn your keep, there’s an awful lot of empty offices in daylight hours). Glass itself is undoubtedly the biggest star of the game, and no matter what structural issues the Catalyst has you can’t fault the visual and physical design of the place with its gleaming towers and bright neon hues. Catalyst is a pretty great looking game, however that’s a compliment that comes with a massive caveat- on the Xbox One, there’s a slight but noticeable blur on anything more than 10 metres or so away from you. This is probably a tweak to reduce the graphical load but sometimes this blur can transfer to characters a metre away from you, which is quite terrifying to behold.

Aside from the addition of the MAG Rope and redesigned combat mechanics, there’s not much to Catalyst’s story missions aside from providing pretty places for you to experiment running though. Ninety percent of the time you’re simply working to get through an area, with the occasional aforementioned ill-advised combat-heavy encounter. The environments are varied enough in layout and flavour that you shouldn’t get too bored, but there’s a constant smattering of annoyances that hamper the experience.

The checkpointing system, for one, can be downright insulting. Sometimes I’d be a few minutes into a heated escape sequence before succumbing to enemy fire or miss a jump and plunge to my death. Often this led to the game reloading me to the exact point of failure, but without any enemies to be seen. This really cheapened the sense of danger that had been well-earned before one tiny mistake, and felt awfully patronising. A number of times I’d die and reload to precisely the spot I’d died, free to try again with a condescending pat on the head. Once or twice I was even teleported forwards, skipping out on a missed jump altogether. Those moments really hollowed the experience in breaking in cohesive flow of narrative. “How did you get out, Faith?” “Well, I fell down a hole, passed out, woke up and everyone had magically disappeared!”

But even that’s better than one time when I was tasked with running through an area that was collapsing beneath my feet. I died in the middle of that segment and kept being reloaded to the same spot with scant fractions of a second to gain my bearings and aim a jump properly. I had to reload that moment five times before I spotted the correct course of action, trading 30 seconds of loading time for three seconds of play each time.

Then there’s the fact that every objective in the game centres around traversal. Now, a great movement system can form a solid backbone for a game- just look at Spider-Man 2 or Crackdown. Mirror’s Edge certainly has a movement control scheme that’s inherently satisfying to get stuck into. But Catalyst’s problem is that that’s the whole game- races, deliveries, Grid Nodes, and story missions alike are entirely centred around speed and navigation with the most minor tweaks to the context for your actions. Your enjoyment and value gained from this game is likely to simply correlate with how long the game’s core systems can keep you entertained.

One of the main points on Catalyst’s manifesto is the invigoration of the Mirror’s Edge’s world and characters, since the first game’s approach to such areas was pretty minimal. I was quite baffled at EA and DICE’s treatment of Faith in Catalyst’s promotion leading up to launch; she’s got an iconic design, sure, but she’s not exactly a well of personality. She just really likes running and is sometimes forced by circumstance to act against the gigantic and corrupt forces-that-be. Not exactly the most original character concept. I’m reminded of the way Square Enix hails Final Fantasy XIII’s Lightning as a big, important character that everyone loves because They Say So.

Catalyst attempts to make us empathise with Faith through the introduction of an extra-tragic backstory and the implementation of third-person cutscenes so we get more of a physical idea of her emotions than what we can read in her hand movements. Unfortunately Faith’s contribution to most of these scenes is to run into a room, pout and perhaps shout a bit, and then run out of the room again. Faye Kingslee provides as compelling and emotive-a performance as could have been extracted from the script, but I just couldn’t find myself caring all that much about Faith beyond the fact that she’s obviously on the morally right side of the conflict. She’s just a bland, surly, generically “damaged” heroine without any character traits that set her apart.

The rest of the cast aren’t very inspiring, either. The leader of Black November justifies some horrible acts of terrorism with the most banal spouting of political science as if from a high school textbook. There’s a computer genius type that, you guessed it, isn’t too good with people, preferring the company of robots. The main villain of the story doesn’t evolve past “you underlings don’t know what’s best for you”, and even gets all excited about ordering your death because he’s upper class and you’re below him and oh boy we’ve all seen this villain a hundred times.

Mirror’s Edge Catalyst doesn’t say anything new. Yes, Mass Surveillance is scary. Yes, the inaction of the masses could be considered as a form of complicity with Big Brother. Yes, social immobility is bad. Most stories start with these concepts before running with them, but Catalyst is content to just keep beating you over the head with them, developing nothing original to say for its entire length.

Even the dialogue is full of tired clichés. How many times have you heard “You know I run better alone”? I had to roll my eyes when one character asked what happened to a vastly changed area of town, and someone answered “K-Sec happened”. Catalyst is filled to the brim with insipid, flavourless dialogue and “twists” you’ll spot a mile away. The first time I saw one character, I immediately declared “there is an obvious twist involving this person”. Lo and behold, five hours later this was confirmed. I’d feel clever about it if it wasn’t such a glaringly easy development to guess. Not even Faith can summon the energy to react to the presumably life-shattering revelation.

The game doesn’t even seem to know how to wrap itself up right. The final sequence of the game isn’t a climactic battle with any of the antagonists. It’s a fight against two of the most difficult normal enemy types in the game before control is taken away from you a while Faith fights the villain in a cutscene. It’s a flat, disappointing note to end on for a game that’s supposed to be built on letting you control the interesting action.

Mirror’s Edge Catalyst feels rushed. The bland writing, the cookie-cutter plot, the re-used set pieces, and the thousands of niggling problems of pacing and encounter design all coalesce to hold back a game whose core mechanics are actually very fun. Perhaps with more time to iron out the problems of writing, world, and encounter design, Catalyst wouldn’t be the frustrating thing that it is. The game’s a muddy amalgam of original Mirror’s Edge mechanics saddled with tedious writing and tired open-world design decisions that’ve been driven into the ground over the past few years. Maybe Catalyst falls short of greatness because, unlike its forebear, it doesn’t dare to be different enough.

The Walking Dead: Michonne Episode 3 & Miniseries Review

On June 7, 2016 By Matt BroadeyIn Game reviews, games, reviews, video gamesLeave a comment

The Guitar Hero franchise enjoyed widespread acclaim and healthy sales until Activision drove it into the ground. Content with near-nonexistent iteration, the series resigned itself to simply bombarding the rhythm-gaming public with a near-constant flow of new titles, a trend that peaked with a grand total of 7 releases in 2010. This continual influx not only bred dispassion amongst fans of the series, but surely limited the ability of the studios to develop games that felt like more than song packs.

Now I’m not saying Telltale Games have reached this point yet, or even that they’ll ever stoop to those lows. But if The Walking Dead: Michonne has highlighted anything for me, it’s the dangerous proximity of the Telltale formula to stagnation.

Other studios have taken cues from Telltale Games to actually progress the medium of choice-driven narrative games. Campo Santo, home to several Telltale alumni, wrote a beautiful playable essay on player agency and NPC interaction in Firewatch, while Supermassive Games crafted a deliciously engrossing horror story in Until Dawn, an ingenious use of the decision-driven mechanics popularised by Telltale. In other words: Telltale Games don’t have a monopoly on narrative games anymore.

The best recent release from Telltale Games is easily Tales From The Borderlands. Its success can primarily be attributed to its ingenious writing, but it also carried a worthwhile subversion to the Telltale formula in the form of unreliable narration. Most importantly, it was clear that the game was a labour of love and a clear effort to spice up the years-old core gameplay.

The Walking Dead: Michonne does not display such an attitude.

Michonne Episode 3 directly follows the preceding episode to conclude the miniseries. As Michonne approaches the final confrontation with her adversaries, she continues to deal with hallucinations and has to pull together her allies for the climax.

As far as the story goes, Episode 3 acquits itself well enough. The climax and conclusion to the story feels earned, and the scenarios that lead you there are engaging enough. There’s a smattering of touching interaction with some children you’re charged with protecting that’s particularly well done; the Walking Dead property continues to handle children quite well. These aren’t the disgustingly annoying gnats that most video game children are. The problem is that since the preceding episodes were so short, you’ve spent so little time with the cast that it feels like you’re being manipulated into instantly investing in these characters because of their obligatory innocence. Making a sizeable number of your allies children kind of feels like a cheap way of driving player sympathy.

Another disappointment is the game’s handling of Michonne’s hallucinations and guilt complex. Michonne is a woman forged in the fires of tragedy, true, but the way that her grief over losing her daughters is visualised in this game feels clichéd and forced. It’s a blunt-force stylistic choice that fits neither the thoughtful precedent set by the series’ writing, nor my understanding of Michonne as a character. It’s in the more quiet, conversational moments that the writing truly shines: where Michonne’s concealed inner flame flickers darkly behind her eyes and words. Not that she’s all anger- Michonne is a well fleshed-out character capable of softness, and it’s clear that her ruthless efficiency is fuelled by a complex of grief, wrath, and a determination to live. But slower scenes are never given enough room to breathe as the game barrels towards the end credits.

The length of all three episodes is certainly a factor impacting the value of the package. I’m a firm believer in case-by-case pricing, and I was originally pleased that this mini-series was accordingly priced for three Telltale Games episodes. However, with the three episodes coming in at a scarcely an hour each, the whole package clocks up only slightly more playtime than one of the longer episodes from The Walking Dead Season 1 or Tales From The Borderlands. That’s a fact that throws some doubt on the proportional pricing of Michonne, and it’s especially egregious when you account for the variation on show. More specifically, the lack thereof.

You only spend meaningful time in a couple of locations throughout Michonne. Most locations span multiple episodes; the house you’re at for the majority of Episode 3 was reached in the last third of Episode 2. The series was established on exploration of new environments, and while this is a miniseries there’s been far more diversity of location in any three sequential episodes of any other Telltale game. The places that you do visit in Michonne are drab, murky places devoid of any personality or life. The Walking Dead is not supposed to be home to exotic or vibrant settings, but that doesn’t mean you have to stare at what feels like a collection of brown smudges for three-to-four hours. It’s just an ugly production.

That’s an indictment of not just the visual design of Michonne, but the chugging game engine itself. Aside from some improvements on character models and animation, there’s not been much noticeable progression of the Telltale Tool engine over the past few years. The game stutters frequently on my decent gaming laptop, and camera transitions can feel awkwardly stilted even when it’s running as intended.

It all builds up to a whole that’s just not enough. The Walking Dead: Michonne lacks the variety and personalty of its peers, and even its moments of great potential are undercut by its stunted length and overall lack of originality. I can only hope that future Telltale games can learn from this and move on.

The Witcher 3: Hearts of Stone Review

On June 5, 2016 By Matt BroadeyIn Game reviews, games, reviews, video gamesLeave a comment

The promise of The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine’s Toussaint, with its injection of colour and Arthurian bent, tempted me back to the game that could be argued to be last year’s best. I’d never made time for the first expansion, The Witcher 3: Hearts of Stone, rolled out last October. I’m more than glad that I decided to play through it before running headlong for the mountains of Toussaint: Hearts of Stone is, by my estimation, The Witcher 3 at its best.

The Witcher 3 was at its best when you were uncovering new and exciting stories in the world. The game is rife with dizzying twists and subversions to the fairy tales and legends from which it draws inspiration. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel; all manner of myths and legends askew through the filter of smart philosophical examination and a uniquely Eastern European perspective.

It’s appropriate, then, that Hearts of Stone runs with that strength: the expansion’s story kicks off with a spin on the Frog Prince before diving into a retelling of the Faust legend, or more specifically, the Polish folklore version of the story: Pan Twardowski. Geralt finds himself indebted to the enigmatic Gaunter O’ Dimm, a mysterious and menacing supernatural figure who needs your help. Olgierd von Everec, an immortal man, owes Gaunter payment for their Faustian contract- but first, Gaunter needs a proxy- you- to fulfil any three wishes Olgierd can dream up.

Along the way you’ll attend a wedding with a ghost, pull off a heist, and delve into a twisted otherworldly realm. What’s really impressive is the expansion’s comfort with its own pace. There’s a fair smattering of action, but that mostly takes a back seat to indulge in socialisation, detective work, and exploration. I really admire the fact that you spend a decent amount of time- a couple of hours, maybe- at a wedding where nothing goes horribly wrong and no one dies. And it’s great. CD Projekt Red are so confident in their ability to weave an immersive collection of characters and environments to ingratiate yourself with and it’s damn refreshing to see that self-assurance shine through.

A slight disappointment is the way Hearts of Stone handles its new romance option. Shani, a returning character from the first game, accompanies Geralt for much of the adventure. Their past relationship is brought up, and the two trade will-they-won’t-they flirtations for most of their time together. Not only did this feel less believable than the corresponding relationships Geralt had with Triss and Yennefer due to the relatively short amount of time Shani is about, I also didn’t feel comfortable being forced into this dalliance on account of my Geralt’s dedication to Triss. I wish there was an option to make my romantic situation clear early on to establish clear boundaries rather than endure this dissonant interaction.

That minor annoyance aside, you’ll be hard-pressed to find such tonally rich writing elsewhere. Hearts of Stone is bursting with humour and mystery, and positively packed with dozens of clever quirks and references that one might only spot on a second playthrough.

Hearts of Stone also continues The Witcher 3’s success in, quite simply, creeping you the hell out. The Witcher’s writing isn’t always self-serious, but there’s a fair share of grimness and tragedy that contrasts with the wealth of levity to really emphasise the dire stakes of the situations you’ll become embroiled in. You’re constantly reminded of the dangers of even vaguely associating with Gaunter O’ Dimm and Olgierd von Everec both. The Caretaker standing out amongst new foes for its chilling design. You’ll know it when you see it. There’s this pervasive sense of dread to the latter half of the expansion’s story as you peel back more of the mystery, and it’s delicious.

Alongside the main story there’s a handful of small side quests to dig into along the way, although these serve to complement your path rather than act as truly distinct distractions. There’s added nuance to character progression in Runewords and Glyphwords; these are enchantments that can be applied to weapons or armour with three rune/glyph slots, destroying the slots in the process but imbuing the item with powerful properties. It’s a nice layer of strategy that allows you to tailor your loadout towards your chosen play style.

Hearts of Stone spins a wondrous yarn. CD Projekt Red takes their time to weave a complete and engrossing story in and around the city of Oxenfurt, managing to make fresh and nuanced statements on age-old morality questions to boot- and in a way that’s only manageable in a video game emphasising choice. There’s so much richness and value here: further evidence that CD Projekt Red is a paragon of customer-facing, quality content.

Attack on Titan: Wings of Freedom Pretty Much Nails the Action

On June 5, 2016 By Matt BroadeyIn anime, games, video gamesLeave a comment

Attack on Titan: Wings of Freedom, simply referred to as Attack on Titan in Japan, is a third-person action game that has been out in its home country since February. Us Europeans won’t get the anime adaptation game until August 26th, though- meaning most will have to wait a bit longer to get their mitts on the thing. Luckily for MCM London attendees, though, a demo of the game was available to members of the public over the past weekend. I was one such participant, and I’m glad to say that the property has been executed quite well.

If you’ve watched or read the excellent anime or manga (or both, if you’re me), you’ll understand that perhaps the main pull of a playable Attack on Titan lies in the realisation of the 3D Manoeuvring Gear. If you haven’t followed the anime, this gear is essentially a harness that soldiers don to fire dual grappling hooks and zoom around vertical environments assisted by gas-powered thrusters. They need this hyper-mobility to outmanoeuvre titans- giant, carnivorous humanoids- to protect humanity’s last walled city.

I must admit that I doubted the translatability of the 3D Manoeuvring Gear to games. Spider-Man 2 showed us how to do swinging mechanics back in 2004, but there are several caveats to Attack on Titan’s setting that might’ve hindered the fulfilment of swinging in this game. Firstly, the buildings of Attack on Titan’s walled city aren’t exactly skyscrapers. The majority of the architecture doesn’t exceed three or four stories, meaning there’s less of a vertical buffer in the environment. Furthermore, the speed at which soldiers zip about is much faster than established swinging mechanics have exhibited. The need to accurately swing around and target weak points on titans at such velocity means there’s a slew of challenges to realising this mechanic.

The demo that I played was set during a battle to defend a portion of the city of Trost that’s been breached by the titans, in line with early episodes of the anime. The controls were a little bit bizarre to start out with, but I soon got the knack of controlling Eren on the PS4 controller. The X button is, as ever, the jump button. Pressing square launches you in the whichever direction you’re moving, and much like in Spider-Man 2 you’ve got to time your grappling hooks with for maximum speed of traversal through the environment.

When you do close in on a titan, it’s time to lock on to them using R1. At this point you can use the right stick to flick between several parts of the titan’s body- knees, elbows, and neck. A press of square in this mode attaches a grappling hook to the highlighted area, allowing you to circle around the anchor point for a short time. Pulling the L2 trigger at this moment causes the grappling hook to reel in, and a well-timed push of the triangle button launches Eren into a spinning sword slash to sever the appropriate area.

Much like in the anime, titans are a varied bunch. This means you’ll have to tackle individuals differently: more docile specimens can be dispatched quickly and easily by going straight for the kill-spot at the back of the neck, but more alert creatures won’t go down so easily. One might track your movements with their face, meaning you need to sever a leg to trip them up without risking the chomp. Some are unusually grabby, and require an amputation at the elbow before you’re able to zero in on their neck.

I must say that I’m very impressed at the execution of these mechanics. Rocket-powered swinging could’ve easily devolved to a nightmare train wreck of uncontrollable fumbling, or slowed down to the point of losing that characteristic dynamism. As it is, the system deftly juggles speed and precision to really capture the essence of the show’s fight scenes. It remains to be seen whether the game’s length is supported by varied and interesting scenarios to facilitate this action, but colour me very interested for now.

Image credits: koeitecmoeurope.com

Video Games Are Great

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