Tag: Review

BONUS CONTENT: Looking Back at Final Fantasy X (PC, PS2, PS3, PS4, PSVITA, SWITCH, XBOX ONE)

With the release of the new Final Fantasy XVI trailer I can’t help but think about the series as a whole as well as my favourites of the series. I struggle to pick which is my favourite, that would be like picking a favourite child. I would never be happy carving a hierarchy into stone, solemnly decreeing that this is the definitive order and so shall it be for all time. I would probably make my list out of water as like water my opinions are fluid, constantly shifting from outside influences. Sure some titles will remain in familiar territory. Using the Premier League as a metaphor, FFXIII will always fall around the back of the pack and fight against relegation, FFXV despite soiling it’s underpants in the final third does enough to hover around mid-table with the likes of FFV, FFXII & FFIX, although the latter 2 do make it high enough now and again that they could qualify for the Europa League and the top spot is usually fought over by FFVII, FFVIII & todays subject matter FFX.

Final Fantasy X tells the story of Tidus (whom I always pronounced as Tie-dus, it was years later when I watched a making of documentary that it was pronounced Tee-dus), a young blitzball player from the large city of Zanarkand. His home is attacked by the gargantuan being known as Sin. After the attack, Tidus finds himself lost hundreds of miles from home. A chance encounter with the summoner Yuna and her guardians finds Tidus a way home.

The game really made you invest in and bond with the characters which makes the stories twist and the end that much more heart wrenching. As previously mentioned the world was also full, vibrant and rich, oozing with culture and lore. This is even before I mention blitzball which I spent more time playing than I care to remember. I would have loved blitzball to have been release as a FIFA-like spin off. Graphically too, FFX was a huge step up from the previous console generation and truly showed off the capabilities of the PS2 at the time.

Final Fantasy X may be a game that fights for the top spot but that doesn’t mean that it is without it’s flaws. It was the first Final Fantasy to ditch the world map for a series of smaller locations which made the world feel small and far too linear, not to the extent that XIII did but it was still an unwelcome change to the series. Also the sphere grid levelling system meant that because everyone can learn every skill & ability each character looses their unique feel in battle later in the game, with Overdrives and Yuna’s summon ability the only unique abilities left. This is not to mention some of the cringe worthy dialogue (The laughing scene in particular).

From the outset you can tell that Final Fantasy X is a very different breed from the Final Fantasy games that came before it. The use of voice overs, mo-cap & skeletal animation & 3D backgrounds being the most noticeable. This huge evolutionary leap is due in part to the series’ jump from the Playstation to the Playstation 2. The massive increase in hardware capability gave Square that unrestricted creative freedom to take the series away from the tried and tested Final Fantasy model. Although this does mean a few classic flavours of the series get left out in the cold, this however is the price of progress and whether you like it or not it’s happening. I brought up this same point in my Final Fantasy XIII review all those years ago and although I am for the evolution of the series and it’s modernising to introduce new players to the franchise I still yearn for some of the classic characteristics to come creeping back in, mainly a full explore-able world. We’ve not had one of them since FFIX. Imagine if Final Fantasy XVI comes with a modern fully rendered 3d world to get lost in, full of secret locations and optional cities and towns? If it does I think I will genuinely loose my shit.

by Individuo

BONUS CONTENT: Dungeons and Dragons and My New Perspective on Baldur’s Gate 2.

Despite the disadvantages that a global pandemic has on interacting with new people, I have been getting into Dungeons & Dragons. I have played a few sessions, even playing as Dungeon Master on some occasions and I have revelled in the experience, but what was I to do in the periods between? This is what drove me to revisiting Baldur’s Gate 2.

Baldur’s Gate 2 starts with the hero of the pervious game and a few companions captured by the elven mage Jon Irenicus in order to use his powers as a Bhaalspawn (A child of the God of Murder) for his own evil deeds. The player and his party must escape from Irenicus’s clutches and stop his horrible doings. Although between these two point a vast amount or very little can happen depending on the players actions.

I’ve never played the first Baldur’s Gate, opting to jump straight into the second instalment. I believe I first played Baldur’s Gate 2 in 2008/9 and I must admit I struggled in getting to grasps with the games lore and mechanics since I came in all fresh faced and bushy tailed. Although now coming back to it after a few D&D sessions I have a much clearer picture of the world and it’s workings (I originally didn’t get what the whole d4, d6, etc. thing was, I do now). To be fair I have been playing the Enhanced Edition recently which does have a few extra bits but for the most part it’s the same game.

My time learning how to play D&D has been a revelation in regards to my experience with Baldur’s Gate 2. The extra background knowledge meant I could properly tweak each party member to use specific gear and properly strategies combat so was no longer relying on blind luck and determination to get me through the game, this in term gave me a greater respect and appreciation of the game which is more than deserving of the critical acclaim it got at release all those years ago. The world is massive with so many side quests to do and different people to meet. The story is a true epic and with the Enhanced Editions graphical upgrade it doesn’t feel all that old despite turning 20 this year.

I’d defiantly call it a must play for any D&D or Western RPG fan, although since it has been out for the last 20 years I can imagine all D&D & Western RPG fans have already played it. It certainly makes me more excited about Baldur’s Gate 3 which has been on Early Access on Steam for a while now but at £50 for a game that’s not complete yet, it’s still a bit rich for my blood.

by Individuo

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2 (PC, PS4, XBOX ONE)

I think I stuck just as many hours into Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 on the PSone as I did on Rayman, Resident Evil 1 & 2, Metal Gear Solid, Command & Conquer, Command & Conquer Red Alert, Crash Bandicoot 1, 2 & 3, Final Fantasy VIII & Final Fantasy IX. In fact I’m pretty sure the only game I played more of on the PSone was Final Fantasy VII. So when news reached me that the first 2 games were being remade for the current generation I was pleasantly surprised. I never would have thought the games to be that sort after that a remake was in order (than again Metacritic names THPS2 as it’s top rated Playstation game of all time), so with The Last of Us Part II behind me lets grind some rails and Ollie some magic bums.

This is normally the part of the review where I write a description of the plot of the game. Given that games pre Tony Hawk’s Underground didn’t have a plot there is little to tell here. There are several different areas, you have 2 mins to complete any number of tasks for that area varying from score so many points, pull off a certain scored combo, find some items, destroy some stuff etc. Unlock so many and you can move onto the next area.

Right from the word go as soon as I appeared in the tutorial area everything came flooding back to me. Like riding a bike my muscle memory kicked in. It wasn’t long before I was building up combos and not falling on my ass. The controls feel just as tight as they did back in the Playstation era. The use of the joystick rather than the original D-pad means that the game easily mistake left or right with a diagonal, but switching to using the D-pad gave the game a bit more of a retro feel. Something that doesn’t feel retro however is the graphics, they are much, much, much improved. The lighting effects, the rendering, the modelling, the textures. All of it modernised for the 21st century.

The game feels exactly like what a good remake should feel like. When I started playing and the classic playlist starts I felt like I’d continued off from where I had left off with the original games all those years ago, despite all the aesthetical changes. With the likes of Resident Evil 2-3 & Final Fantasy VII, they felt like new games that gave nods or had similarities to the original & with Command & Conquer I was just playing the original. THPS1+2 is the games adapting to the current generation so that new fans can enjoy the same experience we did all those years ago.

Overall I hope that this is a resurgence for the Pro Skater franchise. It was a series that fell off of my radar after the Underground games, which was a shame as I really enjoyed the first Underground game. THPS gameplay with an underdog rags to riches storyline, sign me up. It may have been a bit cliché but it was a step in the right direction. I hope that with the serge of popularity developed with the remake we can expect delve again into a spot of storytelling.

by Individuo

BONUS CONTENT: Looking back at Half-Life (PC, PS2)

In my Witcher 3 review I mentioned that there were people in some circles that regarded The Witcher 3 as “The greatest game of all time”. As much as I enjoyed the game I whole heatedly disagree with it being the greatest game of all time. Although this did lead me to asking myself what I thought the greatest game ever actually was. I came up with a lot of strong contenders, Final Fantasy VII, Metal Gear Solid, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Grand Theft Auto III, Silent Hill 2, Portal, but to name a few. I came up with Half-Life quite early on during my brain storming session and with each game that followed it, the less likely it seemed that I was going to be able to top it. So there you have it, Half-Life is the best game of all time and below I shall tell you why.

The story begins with our mute protagonist, physicist Gordon Freeman arriving late for work (I assume he couldn’t call it to work to let them know on account of him being a mute in the pre-email era) at the Black Mesa Research Facility. Once he finally arrives, a routine experiment on an other worldly material goes awry and causes gateways to another dimension to open spewing forth legions of alien creatures. It is up to Gordon and the other surviving members of Black Mesa to close the portals and save the world.

To me one of the reasons for Half-Life’s legacy is not so much the story but in the way it tells it. Previous 1st person shooters of the day (Doom, Duke Nukem 3D etc.) told a story not much further than, run down a corridor and shoot the things that are shooting you. This was not so much a story, but a brief followed by the game. Half-Life in contract had the story run through with the game, the world would develop as events escalated. Events witnessed by Gordon would drive the plot forward along with narrations by and between support characters.

Half-Life has immersion leaking out of it’s eyeballs. The game world, the narrative, the realism, everything about the game seemed like it was solely designed to draw in the player into a gaming experience never experienced before. The game abandoned the idea of levels for one continuous world, this made the world feel large in scope as in doing so it preserves the flow of the game. Guns and health would not hover aimlessly in mid air waiting for the player to pick it up. Health had to be gained by interacting with certain wall consoles, while guns and ammo were found either on dead soldiers/guards or found from armouries around the game. The world was interactive in ways never seen in previous FPS’s. One memorable example being at the beginning of the game where Gordon can interact with a microwave causing a casserole inside it to explode.

Even now, almost 22 years after it’s release it’s legacy stands with all the games that have come from it’s creation, both physically with the likes of Counter Strike, Team Fortress & Portal, as well as the countless number of games since that have been influenced by Half-Life’s innovation and narrative. Half-Life was the first great trail blazer that revolutionised the First Person Shooter and paved the way for others to push the boundaries out that little bit further. It was Issac Newton that said “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants”. I believe that when it comes to video game innovation Half-Life is defiantly one of the giants in which the industry stands upon and because of this it is hard to deny that Half-Life is one of the greatest, if not the greatest video game of all time.

by Individuo

The Last of Us Part II (PS4)

Finally. A fat, juicy AAA title to sink my teeth into that wasn’t a reboot. Sure it is a sequel but that can be forgiven as it is a sequel to one of my previous Game of the Year winners. Let us re-join Joel & Ellie in their post-apocalypse fight for survival in The Last of Us Part II.

Just before you proceed, thought you ought to know There will Be Spoilers.

So we start the game with the ending of the previous game conveniently retold to us by Joel and the massacre he made of the Fireflies in order to save Ellie from being dissected in order to find a cure for the Cordyceps fungus pandemic. Fast forward 4 years later and the two have settled down to life in Jackson, Wyoming. During a scouting mission Joel and his brother Tommy rescue a survivor Abby from a hoard of infected. Abby takes the two back to Abby’s group who unknown to the brothers are remnants the Fireflies who ambush the brothers. Ellie finds Joel just in time to watch Abby beat Joel to death for killing her father, one of the surgeons who died in Joel’s massacre. Ellie swears revenge against Abby and sets out to Seattle in pursuit of Abby and her gang.

Now I like to think that someone somewhere at Naughty Dog read my review of The Last of Us and thought “Yes, we must fix those niggles for our next game”. I think this because that’s exactly what they did. Unlike the first game I really managed to get absorbed into the game and feel immersed into the world. The stealth aspect that felt as thought it was at times either too sensitive or not sensitive enough has been evened out too. The game looks and feels superior to it’s predecessor.

From the very onset of the game the visuals are absolutely stunning. The detail of the environment and the fluidity of the characters movements and facial expressions show that a lot of time and effort has been spent polishing the game to such a finish that even Rhianna would complement it’s shine. This enforces the immersive capabilities of the game. You can’t help but feel tense as you sneak up on an enemy as you hope to your preferred flavour of deity that the poor bastard doesn’t turn round.

The immersion is also helped by the depth of the characters in the game. You get a sense that these are real people, feeling real feelings and having real struggles. However, I failed to sympathise with either Ellie or Abby during the game. Ellie’s sole goal is Abby’s death because she killed Joel, but Joel did a shitty thing and kinda deserved what he got. On the other hand Abby did a particularly shitty thing in killing Joel so kinda deserves what’s coming for her. All my sympathy was spent on the horses having to stay out in the cold as long as they did and later on getting blown up and shot, despite the fact they never killed anyone (that we know of). This makes the message of cause and consequence in regards to revenge and taking a life that the game is so obviously wanting to portray somewhat weaker with each enemy Ellie makes new neck holes for.

So we have established that the combat is good (actually looking back I haven’t, btw the combat is good, done, moving on) and the story telling is good. However, the parts in between them are a bit of a slug-a-thon. These are the parts in films that are usually skipped over, like how you never see James Bond browsing through duty-free as he waits for his flight to be called to continue to where the rest of the plot is happening. Usually these parts consist of move in said direction for a while, except for the little open world bit where Ellie must roam the central district of Seattle looking for gasoline.

So if Naughty Dog are reading this (as we’ve already established, they are) recommendations I would like to make for The Last of Us Part III are in short: a) More open world explore and b) A bit less Ludo-narrative dissonance please. Aside from them just do more of the same please.

by Individuo

Hades (PC, SWITCH)

I almost yearn for a day where games stop being about ancient Greece and the mythos surrounding it. Sure I understand that it’s culture and it’s stories were very well documented and preserved, making it a very easily accessible idea barrel for writers of all kinds. However, when the same games are set around the same fables doing the same thing it makes the whole pot a bit stale. Hades on the other hand, does things a little different.

In Hades you play as (as you would expect) Zagreus (got yah!) the son of Hades who has grown tired of lazing on his father’s infernal sofa eating Doritos and playing GTA and instead wants to go outside to play with all the other deity atop of Mount Olympus. Hades (the god, not the place) is very nonchalant about Zagreus decision to leave, probably because he believes Zagreus will give up trying to cut through the legions of the damned that guard the way. This is because Hades is all in favour of serving life lessons, he could just tell Zagreus no and send him to his room with no dinner after Zagreus tells him that he hates him and that he’s an asshole but nobody would learn anything, Zagreus would just hate his dad and still hold a desire to leave. However if he lets Zagreus try to leave only to find how difficult it is to do and have him return home with his tail between his legs, then that desire would be gone. Anyway, enough of deity parental strategies and lets get back to the game.

First things first, I love the art style and visuals of the game, it makes it feel like an animated heavy metal music video which scores many bonus points in my book. I also very much enjoy the looping gameplay mechanics the game offers. It seems to play with the idea that everything in the underworld is already dead, therefore cannot die. So each time you do “die” you get revived back in daddy’s lovely country villa with all your level ups intact and all the previously defeated enemies re-spawning. That’s great because it means that with each death the difficulty curve flattens a bit making the difficulty feel a bit more adaptive meaning you’ll never find yourself getting stuck at the same place for too long. The not so great thing about it is the slogging through of early areas to get back to where you were previously. What does make it interesting is you can randomly encounter other deities along the way who will lend you special powers to help you through your journey, These powers however do disappear when you die. The rouguelike-ness-ness-less-ness of the game means the maps regenerate every time you die too which in turn randomises the enemies and the other deities you meet. This keeps the game feeling slightly fresh as each play though is unique to the one before, even if only slightly. The gameplay is by far some of the best I’ve experienced this year. The controls felt very fluid and I could easily get Zagreus to do what I wanted him to do when I wanted him to do it. I could start firing a volley of arrow at my target and in an instant dodge any incoming attacks. This fluidity of controls becomes very important as the number of enemies increases.

If I have any gripes about this game it would be that the mechanics and rewards can be a bit overwhelming when first starting the game, it’s attempts to educate the player fall a bit wide of the mark but once you start playing the game and experimenting around with different types of weapons and level ups then they become a little less daunting and the variety that it creates adds to the games charm and fun. Later on in the game as you come across more enemies in each room the visual effects can obscure the view of the player somewhat and yes I am scraping the bottom of the niggle barrel to find something less than good to say about the game.

Overall Hades very much has a “Just one more” factor on it’s side which will keep players engaged for longer and longer the more powerful you become and the further you travel. It is most defiantly a game I will most defiantly continue playing after I finish my review. It also great for both those all day sessions and those moments where you only have a few minutes to spare whilst you’re waiting for your lockdown banana bread to bake.

by Individuo

XCOM: Chimera Squad (PC)

This was a game that I didn’t know even existed until A few months ago. If you’d like to cast your minds back to my XCOM: Enemy Unknown Review you’ll know that I found it to be an excellent play with a difficulty curve that resembles a brick wall if you don’t know what your doing. XCOM 2 I also enjoyed despite the fact that it was nearly a copy-paste of the original, warts and all. So lets see if lightning can strike not just twice but three times.

XCOM Chimera Squad takes place 5 years after the end of XCOM 2, where ADVENT (the alien-led government of Earth) has been overthrown and left earth. Taking place in the fictional city of City 31 (after writing that I asked myself if I could come up with a better city name, it took me 6 seconds to come up with the name “Cohort”) where humans, aliens and hybrids live together. You play as XCOM’s new Chimera Squad, a multi-species peace keeping special task force tasked with keeping the peace of City 31 and bringing down organised crime within the region.

I’ve heard it mentioned that the game feels like an XCOM Saturday morning children’s TV show and I have to say that it’s a very apt description, the game feels very safe like it’s trying too hard to appeal to the lowest common denominator. Instead of being able to recruit randomly generated recruits whenever you can afford them, the game has a handful of personalised characters air lifted from whatever B-list kids TV shows they could get their hands on. This means that there’s no permadeath, so if a squad member is downed in battle they get a attribute penalty until they spend a couple of days in training to put themselves to rights. The battle sequences too feel a lot like “Baby’s First XCOM”, they are split into several smaller battles with breach sequences between them, allowing you the opportunity to take out a few enemies before the battle begins in earnest. Both of these changes flatten the difficulty curb with a bulldozer. Although saying that, I had to change my normal XCOM approach in this game because the developers have done away with both the sniper and the demo classes. Given all the above I found myself getting quite bored, quite quickly.

It wouldn’t be much of an XCOM game without our base and in true XCOM style we have our base but in true Chimera Squad style that has also been simplified. All rooms are available from the word “GO”, all you have to do is assign people to rooms in order to utilise them. This was a problem at the start of the game, since I only had 1 team member spare I would have to halt my R&D when a squad member needed healing. Deployment is similar to the previous XCOMs but instead of countries you deploy in city districts, each district having it’s own unrest meter. If a district fills it’s unrest meter, the city anarchy meter will start filling, when that meter is full the game is lost.

Another thing that really annoyed me were the alien members of the team, they felt far too human, some of them felt more human than some of the human characters. There wasn’t any kind of a culture clash within the team. Again going back to the kids tv show analogy, they felt like the arbitrary alien sidekick who’s only reason for existing is because it scored well with the 7 to 11 year old demographic. The whole nicey-nicey feel good frictionless vibe within the squad feels artificial and staged which rubs me up the wrong way.

Overall the game feels like someone had the great idea of a SWAT-esque XCOM game (XCOPs if you will) but then marketing got their hands on it and thought it would sell better if they diluted the game to appeal to the 7-11 age range; However, In doing this they have removed the appeal of the core demographic of the series since there isn’t really any kids TV shows that appeal to adult gamers, with the exception of Ducktales.

by Individuo

Vigil: The Longest Night (PC, SWITCH)

Before we begin I’d like to thank the guys over at Another Indie for sent me a copy of the game to do this review for them. It’s the first game I’ve been sent to review, which makes me feel more like a professional than a hobbyist, so to me it’s quite a big deal. In return for their generosity I’m promising myself not to fuck this up. So, here goes.

Vigil tells the story of Leila, a more than capable Vigilant warrior. Who upon arriving back in her home village of Maye after years away discovers her sister to be missing and as such sets off to find her. Whilst there Leila discovers that all is not right at home. Shadowy figures appear and terrible happenings occur to which Leila must get to the bottom of in hopes that it will reunite her with her sister.

One thing I would recommend is if you are playing it on PC like I did, use a controller. The game feels like it wasn’t designed to be played using a keyboard, I felt like I was all fingers and thumbs a lot of the time, especially when trying to access my equipment or levelling up. After a while I managed to get to grips with it but I did have to change the dodge button because I found my game would minimize when continually mashing it with Windows asking me if I wanted to turn on ‘Sticky Keys’ which got quite frustrating, especially during boss fights.

There are 2 major niggles I have about the game that I found hard to overcome. The first of them is the map, I look at the map and the term, “Cluster Fuck” comes to mind. Speaking of cluster fucks this brings me to my second niggle, the story telling. I felt like a lot of the story was lost beneath a bombardment of text boxes. I get where the team were going with this, flesh out the world with lots of decryption in a Dark Souls-ish way but I don’t know if it’s a problem with me or not but I don’t think Dark Souls games tell a good story and Vigil suffers in the same way. Both games do a great job at crafting and defining the world in which the games are set but I did spend most of the game wondering around the map wondering why I was doing any of it.

Now lets get into what the game does well, first of I really enjoyed the art style, it resembles Briad if it were made by Tim Burton, both beautiful and grotesque in equal measures. I thought the animation of Leila was quite fluid but the enemies in comparison seemed a little clunky at times which impacted my ability to get immersed into the experience. I compared the game to Dark Souls earlier and in a true Dark Souls-esque manor, I died and I did so a lot. When quick loading it never took very long to get back into the game which is a positive but especially with the first boss I found the nearest save point was quite a ways from the boss fight itself meaning I had to needlessly repeat the same section over and over again. Having save points closer to the boss fights would be a huge improvement in my belief.

Overall if felt like I experienced a game of two extremes. The visuals and the attention to detail on the graphic art are brilliant but then on the other hand the story was so confusing and poorly told it might as well have not existed. It’s all shirt, no pants; Just like Winnie the Pooh. However; Despite all the negative points I’ve made the game is engaging and made me want to play on. It’s nowhere near a perfect game but it’s still an experience worth having if you enjoy a darker gaming experience. Well done to the teams at Glass Heart Games and Another Indie for a job well done and I wait eagerly for your future endeavours.

by Individuo

Command and Conquer Remastered (PC)

What is it with the sheer number of remakes that are coming out this year? I’ve so far yet to play a game released this year that wasn’t a remake or a remastering with the exception of Fall Guys (and anyone who’s read my review on it will know my feelings about it) and Endzone. So here’s another one to throw onto the pile. Command and Conquer Remastered gives us a revamped version of the first 2 games in the series (Command and Conquer, and Command and Conquer: Red Alert).

Anyone who hasn’t heard of Command and Conquer obviously never played video games in the mid to late 90’s. So for those of you who were too young to remember or didn’t care for them at the time let me catch you up. Command and Conquer is a military strategy game set in an alternate history where in the early 90’s a meteor crashes near the Tiber river in Italy, on that meteorite was a substance called Tiberium (named after the crash site) which absorbed and crystallised precious metals from the surrounding soil, but in doing so terraforms the immediate area making it lethal to anyone unprotected. The coming of the meteorite was predicted by the mysterious, messianic leader of the cult The Brotherhood of Nod (Nod for short) known only as Kane, who’s followers proceed to harvest the crystals to fund the cult. By 1995 Tiberium has spread all across the planet and Nod forces control about half the worlds supply and through it’s sale amassed a global army. This rapid growth and power grab causes the UN to establish the Global Defence Initiative (GDI), a global military tasked with controlling the spread of Tiberium and to oppose the actions of Nod. Red Alert takes place in an alternate alternate history when experimenting at the Trinity site, New Mexico in 1946, Albert Einstein manages to successfully travel backwards through spacetime, arriving at Landsberg Prison, Germany in 1922 where a young Adolf Hitler was just release from prison. Einstein erases Hitler from the time line and returns to 1946. This causes the growth of the Soviet Union to go unchecked leading to global conflict with the allied forces of western Europe.

Both of these games were solid staples of my early video gaming life. I spoke briefly in my Dynasty Warriors post that I used to really enjoy linking our 2 Playstations together and playing Red Alert co-op. I also remember going to my friends house some times afterschool where we would play 1 of 3 games, Final Fantasy VII, Resident Evil and Command & Conquer. So it’s safe to say that there is a fair amount of nostalgia floating about when I write this review.

On the subject of nostalgia, that seems to be the games biggest selling point given that they are exactly the same games with optional graphic upgrades as pressing the space bar switches between original and remastered graphics; However, I can’t imagine why you’d want to keep playing the game set on the original graphics since it just looks like coloured squares making other coloured squares explode into bits of coloured squares. The remastered graphics certainly make the game playable in a modern era but they are hardly anything special. Gameplay wise there is no difference what so ever, given that both games were remade using the same engine as the originals it’s easy to understand why this is. There are also a tonne of bonus unlockables for completing each mission, such as behind the scenes footage or bonus art work. I can imagine that this is mainly for the hard-core fan and that most players will give a miss. The music is the biggest improvement for me. All tracks from both games have been re-recorded by Frank Klepacki (the original composer) and the fan band The Tiberium Sons, as well as some songs from later games and some that were cut or lost from the original games.

I’m not sure what I was expecting from these games when I first heard about the Remastering. I went into the game hoping for the same feelings of nostalgia I got when I originally played them all those years ago, sadly however it just wasn’t there. As much as it upsets me to say it, the years have not been kind to the original games and sadly they just don’t hold up to modern military strategy games. They feel a bit basic and simplistic. In writing this review it’s come to me that I preferred Red Alert 2 to the original games. The story campaign was much better, it was far superior graphically and the gameplay was much more varied with a larger array of units and team perks allowing for different strategies. Most importantly however, it was more fun.

Like most of the time I revisit something I enjoyed from my youth, Command & Conquer Remastered doesn’t hold up to the place that I gave the original. The game feels that it has been released far too late to be relevant (a lot like most of my reviews). The industry has moved on and Command & Conquer feels like a bit of a dinosaur now. Maybe if the game was rebuilt from the ground up in more of a modern style (like FFVII:Remake) rather than the old game with a fresh coat of paint and a few bells and whistles stapled to the side I could get into it, C&C Remastered however is a little late to the party. It’s been 10 years since the last main title C&C game and 25 years since the original game was released. You ask me this is nothing short of a money grab in the name of nostalgia, then again would you expect anything else from EA?

by Individuo

Endzone – A World Apart (PC)

As we get ever close to the years end I’ve started thinking more and more about my end of year awards and as it stands I have only reviewed 3 games from this year (Resident Evil 3, Final Fantasy VII Remake & Fall Guys), which kind of makes for slim pickings. So I’m hoping between now and the end of the year to build up this list by first reviewing games I’ve already played followed by games I’ll hopefully be able to afford to purchase. So lets start off with a game I eagerly anticipated when I first heard about it, Endzone – A World Apart.

Endzone is a post-apocalypse city builder where mankind has emerged from a series of underground bunkers called “Endzones” 100 years after the world was devastated by nuclear war (Guess it is true what Ron Pearlman said “War never changes”). It is up to you to build your settlement, gather resources, keep your settlers happy and healthy by keeping them fed, watered, clothed, entertained and free from radiation.

Hands up anyone that’s played Banished? If you have then you have a pretty good idea about how Endzone plays. It feels a lot like a re-skin with a new overlay and a few extras tied in. The manual resource gathering is exactly the same, the allocating of workers is the same, the farming mechanic is identical to name but a few. Aesthetically however they are completely different, where Banished is lovely and bright Endzone is mush moodier and darker (I suppose an apocalypse is a sure fire way to tone down the mood).

I have a love-hate relationship with city builders. I love the idea of them, watching as from noting but an idea a small settlement emerges from it’s humble beginnings into a vast expansive metropolis. However I do find that as my settlements start to expand and become a bit more complex I start to loose interest. The problem I find is that as my project expands I start to loose sight of what the overall objective is. That’s why I prefer mission based strategy and simulation games, at least then I have a tangible goal to aspire too. This may have less to do with the actual game itself and more to do with my own indecision and inability to set long term goals for myself… but I digress. In fairness though Endzone in one of their recent updates has introduced a scenario mode into the game which renders everything I’ve just said moot.

The game is still in early access so as to be expected there are still a few kinks in the system that are being addressed, this is more in regards to balancing the gameplay and adding features rather than anything physically wrong with the running of the game. In the 15hrs I’ve played the game in total I think I’ve only crashed to desktop once or twice.

I mentioned earlier how Endzone has a few extra bells and whistles compared to Banished. Some of those additions you can imagine are more common place in a post-apocalypse world, things like radiation levels, dust clouds, drought, electricity etc. Although one addition that does stand out for me that I particularly enjoyed is that of the expeditions. This involves sending scouts out to ruins such as warehouses, greenhouses, factories and the like. Then sending out teams of explorers to scavenge ruins for resources. What I really enjoy about this mechanic is that some ruins will require explorers with certain expertise or equipment, for example exploring a greenhouse would require someone who has expertise in farming in order to gain new seeds or you might need to take better grade tools in order to clear obstacles. My only problem with this is that there is no way to micromanage your settlers so that you can train specific settlers to gain experience in specific fields, meaning that meeting conditions for some of the more demanding ruins can be more pot luck than anything else.

I have been playing Endzone on and off since it came out back in April and it has been steadily improving since it’s initial early access release and with more improvements scheduled I hope to see further improvements. Additionally, the developers have teamed up with OneTreePlanted who will plant a tree for ever purchase of the Save The World Edition of the game. Turns out you can save the planet by playing video games… Who knew?

by Individuo