That’s right, I content that Metro Exodus is a survival horror game that occassionally becomes a shooter. I go over that in the beginning. But after, if I still have your attention, I have some nice tips for you if you plan on taking this incredible journey.
The original Crackdown game came out in 2007 and received a lot of attention after it was revealed that you would get access to the Halo 3 multiplayer beta if you bought it. That’s one way to get attention, and as a result, a decent number of Xbox fans got to play it. Crackdown 3 was originally teased at E3 2014 and has finally been released. It is a freeform sandbox action game developed by Sumo Digital and published by Xbox Game Studios. You play as an agent of “The Agency” a group of super-powered police, with extraordinary strength, aim, jumping, running, and others. Your goal is to take down a crime syndicate, and in this third installment, an oppressive corporatist regime. This particular game lets you play as, basically Terry Crews. Xbox fans have waited a long time for this console exclusive game, so how is it?
GRAPHICS: 1/2
The
graphics in the game are a bit odd. It seems like they were trying to
be cel-shaded while not being cel-shaded. Some elements have that
cartoon look while others have some very defined textures. Absolutely
a mixed bag. But it’s not just the textures and bright neon lights,
the cutscenes are inconsistent as well. In the beginning of the game
you get a full animated, pre-rendered primer, which gets cut short.
After that you get motion-comic cutscenes that seem rather
low-effort. Then you also get in-game cutscenes here and there. The
last are the worst. I’ve frequently had animations fail, with my
agent glued to the air while a guy in a mech threatens you. Other
in-game cutscenes stutter. And this is on the Xbox One X. The
playable agents also appear to be a little lacking in quality. Terry
Crews as Jaxon looks fine, but the rest of the characters look like
they just used a face generator from Mass Effect. Andromeda. But with
that weird inconsistent cel-look.
STORY: 0/2
I don’t know how you can do worse with a story like Crackdown, but they managed to do the unthinkable. They added a plot to the game that actually made it less enjoyable. In the original games, the plot was basically “Here are the bad guys, go get ’em”. This game gives all the enemies their own stories, but they are all really half-assed and emotionless. I cannot remember a single character’s name or what their deal even was. This guy is the chemicals guy because reasons. This guy is the guards guy because reasons. This guy has captured monorails cuz reasons. That moonshine stand needs to be destroyed because reasons. It would genuinely be better if I were just told to go at it.
But they try to characterize it so hard, it becomes cringe inducing, with motivations that don’t make any sense and asinine monologues. Worse off is the over-arching plot. Short spoilers for the very beginning of the game, the Agency is sent to a city to fight some kind of “blackout” but get killed in the process and time passes by a few years (I think). Next, a character revives your agent of choice and unleashed you into the city. The story is simply that the blackouts caused everyone to flee to the city because it still has electricity. No really. And then it turns out the city is run by a ruthless corporation, TerraNova, who immediately enslaves all the refugees. Yeah, makes perfect sense to me.
AUDIO: 1/2
If you don’t particularly like it when you hear a lot of useless banter over the radio while you’re doing stuff, you are going to have a bad time. The legendary “Voice of the Agency” played by Michael McConnohie returns with a vengeance. The whole shtick with his character, is he’s sort of the real protagonist of the story since your agent doesn’t talk much. Both in the original games and this one, he frequently says dumb things over the radio based on what you’re doing, such as:
Skills for kills, agent!
Sounds like there’s a hidden ability orb nearby, you should look for
it.
Burn baby burn.
Wow, now that’s an explosion.
You’re unstoppable.
In the original game, this quirk was done every once in a while, and it has a certain charm about it. However in 3, he has something to say every five minutes. It would get annoying real fast for most players. I like it personally, but objectively, it’s super obnoxious. Still, his voice is amazing, and he needs to do audiobooks. As for the other characters? Largely forgettable. They did very little with Terry Crews other than the opening cutscene. The soundtrack sounds like a royalty-free selection of faux-dubstep tracks that fail to impress. Most of the guns and explosions are pretty satisfying. Also, the iconic sound of the agility orbs are still there.
GAMEPLAY:
1/2
Rather than having any campaign missions whatsoever, the game has you just complete a series of objectives. You just do this until you clear enough to fight the boss in charge of those battle locations. So, no real campaign here, you basically just make your way around the map, playing section after section. To give it some credit, the main map isn’t full of empty spaces between objectives. All challenges are located relatively near one another. You won’t spend a lot of time driving because it’s so easy to jump from one to the next. Honestly, it’s a welcome change to have a more tight-knit experience than most sandbox games. But a sandbox it still is, and it has plenty of flaws.
One
activity has you liberating militia members by freeing them from
holding cells around the city. This activity will literally take you
one minute or less, as there aren’t that many guards, but even if
there are, all you have to do is jump over to the prisoner release
panel and hold LB. That’s it, you’ve freed the prisoners, and any
enemy in the area freezes in place while you get a “mission
success” screen. In another location, all you have to do is blow up
either machinery or storage tanks of a substance called “Chimera”.
I’d tell you more about it, but I can’t because I missed the one
point where they said what the stuff was and it’s not really brought
up again after that. Then in another, you have to capture monorail
stations because an evil AI is using them to… move drugs? Don’t
remember.
Had a hard time with glitches that were rather annoying. I’ve had input lag in sections where the screen gets busy, and other sections where the controls weren’t even responding. Also ended up getting an OP assault rifle in the middle of it the game. Once that happened, the game was barely a challenge. I might have to play it on harder modes to see if it’s better. Even then, once you piss off enough of the 3 different police factions? You get a city lockdown and are immediately inundated with enemies that are 4X as tough. When that happens, I just let myself die. It is more fun than dealing with that mess. The game’s idea of “challenge” is having you fight a boss while dozens of enemies spawn in at the same time.
FUN:
1/2
I had fun in the 3 days it took to complete this game. Every achievement I got after the first boss was a RARE ACHIEVEMENT. That’s sad. The game is just out and I’m getting rare achievements because not enough people bothered to finish it? Oy. Anyway, playing Crackdown 3 felt like a retread of the original game. It was enough to take me back to when I had just started College and got the original game. But by the end of it, you get tired of the game. You may get bored after finishing a few bosses. It’s a pretty low effort affair. Then again if you just decide to start jumping around, collecting agility orbs and doing side activities, you may find a sort of Zen. Seriously.
Saints Row 4 took to this sandbox super-powers type game and made it an absolute riot. But this new title feels like it’s a huge step backwards. It’s less of a modern Crackdown and more of an Agents of Mayhem experience. Which also wasn’t very good (and that was the same devs as SR4). My roommate found the game fun because he had never played it before. So, don’t pay full price for this game. Don’t bother with it unless you have Game Pass. It’s cheap enough to get a three month pass for the amount of titles you get to play. It’s a mediocre experience but if you “rent” the game by getting game pass, you will find yourself with far superior titles to play afterwards.
In recent times, it seems as though 60 dollars does not actually pay for the “whole experience”. With pieces missing from the game should you choose to buy the “base version” you are forced to miss out on certain perks and benefits. Sometimes it’s big, other times it’s small. But this, this is egregious. Ubisoft made a perfectly functional game and then chose to make it a bit on the grindy side, compared to other AC titles. There’s a boost pack than increases your money and EXP by and extra 50%, and then they have the nerve to charge 1500 helix points for it. It costs $20 to buy enough of these transaction credits and you’ll have some left over, but you can’t afford the upgrade on the lower tier. AC: Odyssey is an amazing and LARGE game. But, essentially, they are selling it for $80 by making you feel obligated to purchase this pack. Unless you really want to be a completionist and don’t mind random crap between missions, this is necessary. Not just side missions, you need to actually go to random ? points on the map and do just a very basic encounter to earn the EXP needed to progress in the story. It’s crap. Have a look.
Far Cry 5 is the newest installment in Ubisoft’s long-running Far Cry series. Typically traveling to tropical or exotic locations, this new entry drops you right in the heart of…. MONTANA, USA? Yes, that’s right, the creative minds at Ubisoft are no strangers to making drastic decisions every now and again and this time they’ve decided to bring the fight to the States. As a first-person shooter with an open world, you play as a custom protagonist (don’t steal) and fight against a doomsday cult that has forcibly taken over the entire county. That’s county, without the R. Like many of the games prior, it has an open approach to handle each situation, allowing you to either shoot everyone like a maniac or go stealthy like you’re Solid Snake. As an ongoing series, does it bring new life to the franchise or is this just more of the same?
GRAPHICS: 2/2
Dogs go woof. Cats go meow. Far Cry games have amazing graphics. There’s nothing to discuss here.
STORY: 2/2
There was a major disparity that occurred during the game’s marketing campaign where it was heavily inferred that this antagonistic cult is supposed to be reflective of some real-world events this past year. On the contrary, the antagonists seem to be the opposite of what people were expecting in that regard. That said, they are still menacing villains, and the cake doesn’t even go to the primary baddie, John Seed, leader of Project Eden’s Gate. You spend the bulk of the time fighting his 3 lieutenants, the other members of his family. Each leader has a lot of presence and menace to them, as they all believe they are righteous and go to great lengths to prove it. In a move that has to be taken with a grain of salt, you get frequently captured by these “peggies,” as the locals call them, every time you reach a milestone in every region. But progression through the game is kept smooth, where instead of being put on a straight and narrow path that will lead you to the end, you carve your own path through the game. A lot of Ubisoft’s games take this approach lately, but here it actually works because there’s so much to do that if you hit a particular story mission you don’t want to carry out, you’re free to take off and go do something else instead. Furthermore, the devs took great care to make a smaller, more tangible map that has a lot of character, both in its NPCs and scenery, instead of the average go-to “look how big our map is!” approach to level design.
AUDIO: 1/2
Now, credit where credit is due, the work was definitely put in for this game’s OST. The game features a licensed soundtrack full of rock n roll tunes you can hear on the radio. But it also features a radio channel being broadcast by the veggies that includes a slew of gospel choir tunes all based on their beliefs, which adds a lot of character. That’s all fine and good, and the original score for action scenes was unique with a lot of Americana and banjo, but more times than not, I just couldn’t stand listening to the soundtrack. The map music was especially egregious and got on my nerves every time I had to open the map, which I had to open it a lot. That said, the performances of each villain were all pretty decent and well rendered, but it’s going to take quite a lot for the game to ever have a villain as good as Vaas from Far Cry 3.
GAMEPLAY: 2/2
The DIY aspect of the game serves it very well. For the first time in the main series, Ubisoft has ditched a lot of the busywork you used to find in the other titles. You don’t have to go looking for herbs as often, for starters. Upgrades are based entirely on cash, so hunting animals only nets you more cash instead of having to find specific skins to craft specific upgrades. Crafting itself is kept to a minimum. And for the love of god and all that is holy, you don’t have to go climbing towers, Ubisoft is officially done with tower climbing. Other than that, your standard Far Cry fare is available here. Weapon selection is vast and varied, with bows, rifles, pistols, SMGs, LMGs, rocket launchers, and a couple easter egg weapons. There are also some decent vehicles to choose from, but once you’ve got a car that will take you from A to B, it hardly matters. My personal preference was using an LMG, burst first SMG, full auto SMG, and .50 cal sniper rifle. If that sounds like overkill, that’s because it is. It’s also because I always start off stealthy then whenever I fail I immediately whip out an assault weapon and gun some outposts down. I think I only managed to completely stealth a stronghold once in my entire run. This is some functional, good gameplay that lets you take whatever approach you want to take with anything.
FUN: 1/2
At some point, did Ubisoft declare they were going to be the new Bethesda? Because the Xbox copy of this game was chock full of bugs. Lots of bugs. Not many of them were all that hindering, but the frequency with which they occurred frequently pulls you out of the game. Textures don’t load, animations fail, an NPC keeps saying the same exact thing 3 times in a row with no pauses. It can get pretty obnoxious. Driving still has the autopilot function which is great since even though it’s intended to be used to shoot while driving, it’s actually a nice option to just push while you sit back and pack another bowl before playing some more. Also, there’s an arcade mode you can play at any time during the game and earn money and experience from playing, but most of the levels are unfinished trash made by people who don’t know what they are doing, and although there is a map filter you can use, it’s not all that helpful in weeding out the trash.
Far Cry lost a bit of steam with the last couple games, with 4 being on the bland side and Primal being just a bad idea in general. It has gained a lot by becoming a part of what seems to be the new and improved Ubisoft. This is definitely the best one in a while. If you wanna play the most MURICA game available on the market, look no further than Far Cry 5.
Vega and Chet from Hard Mode Gamers talk about Agents of MAYHEM. In Agents of Mayhem you fight the nefarious LEGION by doing random things and go into their underground lair. After that, you do more random things and then go into their underground lair. After that, you do more random things and then go into their underground lair. After that, you do more random things and then go into their underground lair. After that, you do more random things and then go into their underground lair. After that, you do more random things and then go into their underground lair. After that, you do more random things and then go into their underground lair.
