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.
First day at new job as a cop, the city gets invaded with zombies. The Resident Evil 2 remake 1-Shot demo( What a mouthful!) came out Friday January 11th and boy do we have a lot to talk about before the full game release happening January 25th!
This is a ground up remake of the 1998 PS1 classic of the same name. The game starts instantly insisting you be able to read. Once you take control of rookie cop Leon S. Kennedy in the zombie ridden Raccoon City police station, right away the graphics are mind boggling! This game is visually stunning, liquid freedom will stream from your eyes.
The attention to detail builds the atmosphere making it very spooky, too spooky for me almost. Controls are fluid, the camera perfectly follows you, and a fantastic soundtrack accompanies the year’s first AAA horror game.
1-shot for those of you who don’t know means you have one chance to play the demo, not one bullet. Please learn from my mistakes. I thought I only had one bullet…. There is a timer that displays thirty minutes. Sadly you can only play up to a certain part. Spoilers: Lt. Marvin Branagh has you take a look at video footage. SPOILER WARNING IN ITALICS. Leon sees Claire and is excited she has made it, lastly you are told how to get to the courtroom to meetup with her.
What happens when you beat it?
The demo thanks you for playing and a trailer of what’s to come rolls. Hunk confirmed as well as the ever difficult tofu mode is back! Yes… You can play the game as a giant blob of soy goodness!
Fans of the Resident Evil series and newcomers alike will enjoy the challenges presented. The enemies are very meaty and take a few bullets to go down. You will eventually get the the ability to stab via the survival knife! In your travels you get to see potential puzzles, other environments to explore, secrets, and signature twisted imagery. That first guard who Leon helps was brutal to look at, those intestines look so real, we have those in our bodies and there it was in my escape from reality!
I truly thought I’d see the infamous Licker in the first long corridor with windows. But the true horror there was Tiffany whom I haven’t seen since high school shrieking about IT WORKS and Herbalife from outside.
I definitely recommend the Resident Evil 2 1-Shot demo (or as I like to call it 5 Nights At RPD) to hold you over until the release day! If you enjoyed previous Resident Evil games, Left 4 Dead, Outlast, and a plethora of others, download the demo today!
Everyone has been upset over a particular mission. Nordlys depicts a woman and her mother opposing German troops who are transporting a nuclear compound known as hard water. This event actually took place under several men trying to sabotage the plans. All the complaining about misrepresenting history has made something clear. We now all know what really happened.
You know, Black Ops has been the frontrunner in FPS games for a long time. It was only a matter of said time before they made a Battle Royale game mod. But it’s a good mode, along with several other great modes. Check the video on what we think.
An Old Mech Game Given The Present of New Life By Future Tech
In a landscape nearly devoid of mech-based adventures, Konami (the company best known for being terrible) dug deep into its bag of old games and gave Zone of the Enders a second life. The irony behind Konami remastering another amazing series by the great Hideo Kojima is pretty amazing, but enough politics. Zone of the Enders: 2nd Runner Remastered is a third-person action adventure set in a futuristic world where humans inhabitant both Earth and Mars and war is fought in space. Released for the Playstation 4 and PC on September 6th, 2018, the remaster was developed by Konami and Cygames. Does Zone of the Enders deserve to exist alongside the rest of the recent remasters?
More importantly, how does Zone of the Enders work in VR?
(Note: VR Review does not impact the overall score of the game because it is not the originally designed experience.)
Graphics 1/2
There should absolutely be a standard for allowing companies to use the term “Remastered” for any future game release. Zone of the Enders: 2nd Runner treads the line between just better than the craptastic Shenmue remakes that Sega released and the absolutely stunning Yakuza remakes that Sega released. One major advantage for Zone of the Enders is the great way that the game was originally designed to not look hyperrealistic. The visuals paired with the level of fun the game carries makes it very possible to kick back and look beyond the broken character models. Without ever having been to Mars, its safe to assume that Zone of the Enders did a great job recreating exactly what the surface of the red planet looks like.
“Developers truly benefit from the skill of using cartoonish art styles and Zone of the Enders wins heavily thanks to its anime style.“
VR: The game looks worst. The real question here is: was anyone expecting any other response? When playing in first-person through VR the game doesn’t look bad but it definitely doesn’t feel immersive. Think about this one thing for a second. When playing in third-person all of the lasers and explosions are happening, visually at least, in front of the character. When playing in VR the player can look at all the angles of this lighting special effect that was designed to be viewed head-on. Boom, worst, not entirely immersive but not bad. Shenmue was still worse and it wasn’t even in VR.
Story 1/2
For anyone who has not played the first Zone of the Enders, STOP. There will be spoilers ahead because Zone of The Enders: 2nd Runner is a direct sequel. With that said, it’s been damn near 15 years, so get over it. Ready? Let’s go. The game takes place two years after the events of the original game. Playing as Dingo Egret, a miner working on the planet Callisto who comes across the all-powerful orbital frame, Jehuty. That is literally the last part of simplicity this game has until the very end credits. From that point it goes into true Kojima mode with main characters dying and being revived, past significantly important characters appearing then suddenly deciding they want absolutely no part of the new story, and a world-destroying battle between two superweapons on the brink that falls on poor Dingo’s shoulders to be smack dab in the middle of.
Anyone who has ever been a fan of Gundam, Metal Gear or any mech-based anime will absolutely love this. Anyone who read that last sentence and thought what the f*ck is a Gundam, maybe stay away.
VR: Same story. Really not sure what anyone expected to see here.
Audio 2/2
Sound effects help to drive the validity of any game’s atmosphere and Zone of the Enders sounds like a robot war. Nailed it; not a beat missed. Lasers flying by sound way more dangerous than they look. Explosions are short-lived, but in the moment they sound very great. The voice acting and dialogue is great even though it doesn’t seem like any of it was updated for the remaster. It was just really great from the source. The menu sound effects sound exactly like the sounds from Metal Gear Solid 1-3 so super fans should be prepared for some nostalgia. Some excellent nostalgia. Damn Konami why you do Kojima so bad.
VR: Sound is the most critical aspect of VR. If the game sounds right the player can get fully immersed in the experience. Zone of the Enders takes place in space and space is, by most accounts, pretty quiet. That empty atmosphere is great as long as there are no other sounds in the outside world. Most people can’t afford to play their VR in an isolated perfect environment but everything else sounding great is definitely a VR experience.
Gameplay 1/2
Zone of the Enders: 2nd Runner Re-Mastered is a remastered PS2 game, and it definitely shows. The control schemes are extremely dated and very light on motor control demands. There are only a handful of buttons used from the entire DualShock remote. Even with the highly bragged about adjustment of the way the secondary weapons button works it still feels super dated. The biggest issue with the controls for the game is found in the lock-on system. For whatever reason, the lock-on system locks on to whatever target that it wants to and when changing targets, probably due to the fast-paced gameplay, the thing goes bonkers. Rather than simply pushing the analog stick towards the closest target to lock on, the game just cycles randomly through all the targets on screen. That’s a really bad thing to happen when playing what is essentially an on-rails shooter.
VR: Probably the best VR experience available to date. The entire game is playable in VR and it feels amazing. Jumping into the cockpit of the super mech known as Jehuty is everything most people want from a VR experience. This is a VR Experience that should not be missed. With better visuals, it would be the epitome of VR gaming. It still suffers from most of the things that made the non-VR version hard to play but in VR those are well worth the pain.
Fun 2/2
Wooooooooooohoooooooooo. Playing Mech games is arguably always fun. Anyone who disagrees is entitled to their opinion but is completely wrong. Outside of the frustration of losing a battle due to a faulty lock-on system, it’s very easy to let time fly by as Jehuty flies or slides all around the surface of Mars, the interior of a massive space battleship. It’s an on-the-rails shooter for the most part in the vein of a super modernized Gradius, but who didn’t like throwing quarters in those old arcade machines? The other issue with the game that hinders its fun levels just a tad is that the save system doesn’t play entirely nice with pick up and play gamers. Fortunately, the PS4 rest mode is a nice workaround for this objective-based issue.
VR: How do you make a fun game more fun? Add the latest technology to its tool belt. Playing Zone of the Enders 2nd Runner in VR mode feels like the way it was meant to be played. Zipping around Mars in first person perspective could only be more exciting in a Sword Art Online style full dive mechanism that doesn’t exist yet. Just to reiterate, everyone should play Zone of the Enders: 2nd Runner in VR Mode at least once. It is truly an experience.
Zone of the Enders: 2nd Runner is a remaster like no other. Sure, a ton of remasters exist that look a million times better, but Zone brings a brand new element to the game that hadn’t existed previously. Hideo Kojima must have shattered at least three or four rooms’ worth of valuable merchandise when he saw what Konami was able to accomplish with one of his crazy ideas. Honestly, it’s a bit confusing as to why Konami didn’t make the VR mode a more significant marketing push for the game. Priced at only $29.99 brand new, this is a must-have experience for anyone interested in VR.
Scratch that, anyone with a PSVR or PC-based VR system needs to get their hands on Zone of the Enders: 2nd Runner today. Especially since the evil monsters at Konami published the game, so we never know what to expect. This last good review pushed them to start making pachinko versions of the game.
Alright so maybe my inner MGS fan read into the avatar name to hard but this VR game looks awesome. Multiplayer Co-Op launching on October 9th for PSVR is Evasion. Check out the trailer below and see “GreyFox” for yourself. And don’t hate me this game deserves the clickbait attention. (Also that might be GreyFox, I’m on hold with the developers, Archiact, right now.)
Hey there, Chet here. Splatoon continues to be the game that I will return to one time every month just to partake in the Splatfest. I have an absolute massive mountain of work to do. This goes between playing games for review, editing videos, doing audio, and attending IRL events. Yet, I make sure I can clear at least a few hours to play Splatfest. I do it the very moment it gets announced. The challenge of FORK vs SPOON yet another link in their genius X vs Y schemes. To be honest, the TMNT one was just okay.
This time I joined team SPOON because I think the the Spoon is more versatily. You can technically cut things with it if you try hard. But it’s good for soup, and that’s the most important thing. Anyway, if you want to join me and my Inkroller shenanigans, you can check out the footage I recorded right here.
Another jam-packed October coming up on our wallets gamers but fear not the great folks at EA have our back. Or maybe they just have their best interests in mind. Who cares, however you look at it Battlefield V has been delayed.
Oskar Gabrielson, general manager at DICE, has said in an official blog post (no bogus crap) that Battlefield V has been delayed to November 20th. That’s right a nice little Thanksgiving shootout. Should be amazing.
The post kind of seems like they are crediting player feedback for the delay which means someone was listening. I just hope they were listening to the right complaints.
Tour was a nightmarish fun experience. Like it was really hard, expensive, and dangerous but it was fun none the less. Now that I’m back the free games are pretty cool. Solve a crazy murder or play an epic fitting game or get ready for one of falls biggest releases. It doesn’t matter whats happening late but take advantage now of all the free games still coming to PS3 and PS Vita. Here are the free games this month folks, you know cause July new game releases are awful.
As time moves forward people are moved on. This week we honor a man who was at the forefront of the gaming industry. Rest in peace Mr. Ted Dabney, co-founder of Atari, who passed away after a battle with cancer at age 86. We must also express ou feelings for John Bain, aka TotalBiscuit, whom also died from cancer at age 33. The HardModeGamers, the Lucky Gamer Recap, and so much would potentially not exist without your contributions. Now this week’s Lucky Gamer Recap:
1. PGA touring with… not EA
It seems those eager for more golfing games may be in a bad place. EA has lost the license to PGA Tour. The news came as Canadian developer, HB Studios, announced the addition of the tour to its upcoming title The Golf Club 2019. Rory McIlroy took the helm of EA’s PGA Tour series after they ended their partnership with Tiger Woods. And that game didn’t do well critically or commercially. Now, EA has lost the license completely but both sides claim the split was amicable. Meanwhile HB Studios is boasting that this validates they have the number one golf game on the market. Cool brag guys.
2. Remember the Garbage Pail Kids?
Well, they’re getting a video game. That’s right the Garbage Pail Kids game was officially announced. Do you want to know more? Word, so it’s going to be a free-to-play card-battle RPG. There will be original characters as well as newer cards thrown in the mix. Developed by Jago Studios in collaboration with The Topps Company, the game is currently in Private beta. There is no official launch date but it is planned to be release on both iOS and Android markets. It seems like things from the 80’s really are making the strongest comeback ever. Shout out to Stranger Things and Hipsters for that one.
3. Japan Exclusive: Dock-less Switch!
In a surprising turn of events, Nintendo has announced a dock-less Switch bundle coming exclusively to Japan. As most of us know, Japan is super heavy on mobile gaming. This move makes perfect sense in the idea of providing what the consumer wants. On the flip side it is definitely pretty self destructive considering they own the #1 portable console on the market. However, as far as I’m concerned this is confirmation of a Pokemon Switch game coming out this fall. Why else would they be so willing to ditch a core component of their hybrid console? No dock means it’s just a portable game console.
4. And there may be a new challenger… maybe.
During a recent interview with Bloomberg John Kodera, the new Playstation bossman, said he wants the company to continue thinking about portable gaming. He stated very clearly they are not discussing hardware specifics yet but they were carrying out experiments in the department. Could the next Playstation console be a hybrid like the Nintendo Switch? Quite possibly because this is also the same interview that sent the internet into a frenzy. A statement about the PS4 nearing the end of it’s lifecycle made everyone panic. Until they realized he was speaking from a sales of product perspective. The Vita is already dead, with physical game support and free Playstation Plus games already seeing an end.
5. Resident Evil Switch is cloudy with a chance of bad.
The good news: Resident Evil 7 is coming to Nintendo Switch. The bad news: Resident Evil 7: Cloud Version is coming to Nintendo Switch. The game that originally released on all the platforms isn’t getting a port. Instead Capcom is releasing something called, Resident Evil 7: Cloud Version, here’s the explanation. This is going to be a streamed game, much like PlayStation Now. Its a small download at only 45MB but obviously needs a constant internet connection to work. As of right now this is only coming to Japan (update: released in Japan May 24th 2018) which makes sense. They have the internet capability to support this, much like they did before with Phantasy Star Online 2. It’ll be really tough for this to ever work in America, but one can dream.
6. Madden NFL 19.
I know the NFL is in really hot water lately because of all the racism protest and stuff but that doesn’t stop the money train from running. EA officially, to no one’s surprise, announced Madden NFL 19 releasing August 10, 2018. The cover athlete honor has blessed, or cursed depending who you ask, incredible Wide Receiver Terrell Owens. There will also be a Hall of Fame edition of the game available for $80. The special edition comes with three days of early access, 12 gold team fantasy packs, an elite legends player, and more. This will definitely have some presence at E3 so if interested for sure tune in.
7. School Shooting Game? Very Bad Idea.
It never make sense to me when people claim that real violence is a product of fictional violence. The reference material for fiction is real life. Such is the case with Active Shooter, a game released on STEAM earlier this week. The game has been under fire for literally being a game about mass shootings. You can play as a civilian, a SWAT officer, or the active shooter. Tons of people were triggered over this. I can absolutely see why, but I still feel like the timing was wrong, the concept not so much. If it’s not for you, it’s not for you. It’s kind of silly for people to feel like if they don’t like something it has to disappear completely. Don’t get me wrong I think it was dumb as hell for this game to release with the school shooter being a playable character. I think it’s worst that the civilian is a character. Either way, I’m hoping to get an interview with the Dev team so we can discuss it in detail.
