26:03 – China is censoring multiplayer games (and Why Blizzard were being foolish).
29:00 – How the lockdown gave us some serious downtime for gaming.
You can watch this with the video accompaniment on our Facebook page. Why not give us a LIKE while you’re there. You can watch all our videos right from FB using Facebook Watch!
Otherwise, if you want to you can go to YouTube. Just remember that YT is dying.
If that’s all you need to know there you are, you got it. Oh, wanna know where to watch it? We have that too. For all official Xbox streams, you can find them at:
Just pick your favorite platform and jump on it. Except Twitter. Stop giving people reasons to go to twitter. It’s already enough that I embedded to Xbox Series X tweets in this little article.
Of course, the top Juggernauts of the industry are also doing their own streams, name IGN and GameSpot. Maybe if we just ignore them they’ll go away? I’m not saying you should watch the official stream instead but…
Oh hey another tweet!
Boot up Xbox 20/20 with a new episode of #InsideXbox this Thursday, May 7 @ 8am PT for a First Look at Xbox Series X gameplay from our global developer partners.
Whoa. That startup sound hasn’t given me the chills this intense since the Powermac G3. You know the one. That one. That one right there. But the Xbox Series X tone is obviously superior.
Also at the top I mentioned Xbox 20/20 and yeah, that’s a thing. Not sure if they’re going to keep it going past 2020. If it’s cringe, hope not. If it’s not-cringe, keep them coming!
Hope you’re ready for all the WORLD PREMIERE’s we’ll get bombarded with. HMG is going to do what it can to get you a cheat sheet on everything announced the moment the stream is over.
Hate reading? The audio version can be found HERE.
A long time ago, US citizens used to have these things called jobs, and they prevented us from playing our beloved videogames. During that time, when you got home from work, you’d sit back and play whatever you’re playing recently. If you were daring, you might play TWO videogames back and forth.
Except I have five. I’ve divided my time between The Division 2, Doom Eternal, Forza Horizon 4, Battlefield V, and Fallout 76 Wastelanders.
I want to start by addressing Battlefield V, as something was announced that while writing this. Support for Battlefield V is getting dropped, it’s going to get a few more bits of additions but the final patch is on its way. Final. I’m not particularly mad, because well… I can just go play Star Wars Battlefront II instead. It’s been fixed, and it is essentially just an elaborate Star Wars mod for Battlefield. Anyway, both are massive online multiplayer first person shooter games.
The Division 2 was being sold for $3 a couple months ago. Wow, it’s almost like it was an omen. I start playing this game about a supervirus that wiped out millions of Americans and now… yeah. That thing. The Coof. What is it? It’s an Ubisoft game. That says it all. You are in Washington DC, and there’s a bunch of pins on the map. There’s busywork, unnecessary busywork, actual missions, and random faffing about. You know it’s actually rather soothing and therapeutic compared to the other games. It’s a third person multiplayer cover shooter with loot mechanics.
Doom Eternal, on the other hand, is NOT soothing. Accompanied by a soundtrack that can only be described as “the sounds of a chainsaw being transposed to metal” it’s an intense experience. DOOM 2016 started the franchises new first person frenetic kill-room experience. The sequel decided that it wasn’t hard enough and just tosses you to the wolves the moment you start the campaign. Just look at the new banner for this page! It’s balls to the wall action that will make you better at all other shooters.
Forza Horizon 4 takes a special place in my heart.
A free roam racing game with online elements made sure that there is so much shit to do, it’s almost too much. The map looks like an Ubisoft map with the amount of pins on it. Yet, I never got to spend enough time with the game because of review obligations to the page, but let me put I this way. I’ve played what has to be more than 60 total hours of gameplay, and I barely touched the infinite amount of campaigns and races it has. The live events soak up my time. Hell the game even has its own battle royale, no I’m not kidding, look it up.
Finally, we have the Wastelanders DLC update for Fallout 76. Congratulations Ubisoft, you made an extremely boring and empty survival FPS RPG into a slightly less empty version that’s still marginally boring. New content means new character, so I left my two existing characters off to the side. I haven’t touched them in more than a year. The experience is incrementally less boring, but it’s still boring. I spend more time at user camps fiddling with my gear than I do playing actual missions. I’m just glad the game space is getting over implementing survival into every game.
A lot of shooters sure, but they are all very different gameplay wise. And I can’t pick one to stick with because I want to play the others too. Also, I constantly press the wrong buttons in many games, especially Fallout 76, because every one of these has a different control scheme. I get by just fine.
If you’re wondering why I haven’t picked up Super Final Fantasy VII Remake Midgar Edition Deluxe Part One & Knuckles, it’s because I already have plenty to play. Five games on rotation alone, these don’t even count the backlogs of games I want to play. Do yourself a favor and have a look through the games you own. Get cracking at the ones you’ve been meaning to play.
Hate reading? The audio version can be found HERE.
Allegedly, Rage 2 was an endangered game until Avalanche Studios “rescued” it. I’m not sure that is truly the case. The shooting in the game is still the ultra-satisfying and fast paced action you expect from id software. It’s just too bad there’s this whole map and plot that get in the way of your enjoyment. How so?
GRAPHICS: 1/2
If you like sand, you’re gonna love 80% of this game. There are spots that aren’t sand, and they actually don’t look as good.
There’s no designated aesthetic for Rage. It has been, and always will be, a combination of other similar games smashed together.
The draw distance on the map is dismal, and that’s on the Xbox One X version. And don’t get me started on their FOV slider.
Some games make you stop and stare in awe at the land before you. In Rage 2, I couldn’t ignore the scenery fast enough.
At least there was nothing distinctly terrible about the visuals?
STORY/IMMERSION: 0/2
I don’t always skip cut scenes on a first playthrough. But when I do, it’s usually another id software game. Like Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, I regularly bypassed the plot out of sheer boredom.
The plot is too hard to follow anyway, the game expects you to just know stuff about the lore of Rage, which is something nobody has.
Did I even need a reason to shoot baddies? The game could have just said “here’s the bad guys, shoot them” and I would have had a blast.
But the game is so serious and the ridiculous action is at odds with the serious plot.
The plot also seems considerably unfinished, like it’s one third of a Far Cry game. And just like Ubisoft, they were keen to just litter the map with different stuff to do that earned you points towards being given story missions. One of which was a real slog.
This game was finished during a 3-night rental. Well, 4 nights total but I didn’t play it one night. I had to sort of force myself to plow through it.
AUDIO: 1/2
Soundtrack sounds like it’s on autopilot. And even worse, there were times where it became grueling. Because occasionally the action music won’t shut off and continues looping.
I’m trying REALLY hard to remember any song in this game and I just can’t. I distinctly remember the Mutant Bash TV song being OK. But that’s because it was comical.
The guns and explosions are satisfactory. You can certainly feel the impact when you pull the trigger.
Voice acting isn’t bad. Not that I know that much since I skipped half the cut scenes. It’s whatever. It did the job bare minimum.
When you pick up items of any kind you hear the same exact “pow” noise every time. You also get a chime when you upgrade but there are many upgrades where there’s no sound at all. Really removes the “ooomphf” from leveling up your sh*t.
The sound FX are like a poor imitation of Titanfall 2‘s BOMBASTIC level up and weapon sounds.
GAMEPLAY: 2/2
Despite the open world feeling like more of a nuisance than a gameplay feature, it does leave a lot of areas to go to. And in all those areas are baddies and you get to shoot them. This game is at its best when you are shooting the baddies.
But seriously, id software has first person shooter mechanics down pat. It seems like Avalanche just used the exact same structure they did in their “Mad Max” adaptation, but let id do all the fine tuning.
The powers are fun, and while the challenge dramatically change, it’s not bogged down by any RPG elements. Each location just has a challenge rating, from 1-10, and I appreciate that you can just walk on in to a high difficulty area and still win if you’re good enough.
There are probably cooler guns, yet I spent the majority of the game with a heavily upgraded version of the starter weapon, the ranger assault rifle. And it never got old. Especially when upgraded to high capacity and faster fire rate. Why aim when you can shoot more bullets?
FUN: 2/2
When this game is a shooter, it’s a great shooter. When this game is an open world sandbox, it’s a boring commute between combat sections. I almost would have preferred to just have a loading screen to teleport me to all the missions.
You know what really breaks immersion though? Having a pause menu that stutters and lags when you go from category to category.
Also the HUD disappears if you press the “Xbox” button. I had to do this frequently because I was capturing footage.
Despite all the complaints above, the actual combat just makes up for it in so many ways. It’s similar to Destiny in a way. They got themselves a great shooter that feels well polished, looks good, but lacks in story and creativity.
As stated earlier, this game was finished during a rental. By the time I finished, I had not done many of the side quests and locations to clear. If I had more time, I might be inclined to do them. But, it’s just not a $60 experience. That campaign is short and there are plenty of elements that keep Rage 2 away from greatness.
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.
Assassins Creed III is the latest game from Ubisoft to receive the “Remaster” treatment. Pretty much all of their games have now been upgraded or started that way. Even Assassins Creed 1 has Xbox One X enhancements. Yet still, there are a plethora of videos popping up. They show the new remaster looking much worse than the original. This isn’t even the first time this has been done. Assassins Creed, the Ezio Trilogy was also lambasted for looking worse. However, in that case, it didn’t actually look worse. Polygon just chose to only show off stuff that looks worse. It included a bug that has nothing to do with the remaster. And here they are doing it again. The character models may look like clay, but everything else in the game looks far better than it ever did before. Here’s why.
Also, it’s free if you had the season pass for Assassins Creed Odyssey. Considering that the standalone game or the season pass both cost 40, you should definitely buy the latter.
Xbox continues to
power on with their greatest asset. The Xbox Game Pass already has a
load of great games to play. With this update, there are even more
great choices. What’s best about these is their value and length. A
lot of the games on offer are solid, well rounded experiences. They
aren’t just dropping a few niche and trashy disposable games. They
are getting you THE best games from yesteryear. The titles in this
pass of theirs are all of the games that if you missed, you need to
play. What are they?
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
The original Deus Ex game was an absolute paradigm changer for the PC gaming industry. N’stuff. I’ve never played the original. I started with Invisible War, a game everyone hated but that’s only because nothing could be as good as that first game (and it’s janky AF). But after that failure, the Deus Ex series found life in the prequel series starring Adam Jensen. A man who is basically the Major from Ghost in the Shell but is a gruff dude working big tech security, and later, Interpol. Mankind Divided is a direct sequel to Human Revolution, which came out last console generation. It wouldn’t hurt to play that title, but it’s not absolutely essential to MD, since a lot of the characters from the first game are mere afterthoughts. That and a handy-dandy 11 minute video comes with the game to recap it for you.
What happens next, is you find yourself in a world the producers called the “Mechanical Apartheid“. This is due to a mass hack that resulted in one of the world’s most bloody acts of terrorism, an event where all cybernetically enhanced individuals received some sort of hacking signal that reduced them to turning into a vicious mob, killing everyone (until Adam Jensen stopped). Understandably shook, the world of the enhanced, now known as the slur “klanks”, live under constant supervision by a humanity who doesn’t trust them. But Adam Jensen is special, and because of his skills, he lands a job at Interpol working a counter-terror task force. Over the course of the game, you will explore the streets of Prague while trying to stop an ‘illuminati’-tier conspiracy that if fulfilled, may destroy the freedom of all individuals as we know it. Yikes.
This game is play it your way, and is mainly a tactical stealth action game. You can stealth your way past everything, hack your way past everything, shoot your way pas everything, blow up your way past everything, or mix it up a little bit. Sadly, the project was suddenly forced out the door before it was completely finished. It now serves as what was supposed to be a new trilogy… only the other two aren’t currently getting made. If you go into this game aware that a few threads will be left dangling, you’ll still have a blast.
Prey is another game with a littered history. The original Prey came out in 2005 after being worked on for 15 YEARS. No joke, but it finally came out and it wasn’t half bad. Some people may accuse the game of being racist for having an Indigenous American protagonist who uses ancient Indian magic to protect himself, and to that i say get the fuck over yourself. It’s a game. And the sequel is even better.
See, Prey was originally supposed to come out as Prey 2, a pseudo-sequel at best where you play as a bounty hunter who rounded up criminals using gadgets and some parkour. The game disappeared. Then, at an E3, it re-emerged as Prey, which means I now have to distinguish them by release date. This time Arkane Studios made it, the brains behind Dishonored. Just like their other game, Prey became a game in same style as the “System Shock / Bioshock” games.
This one also features a wide variety of powers and play styles. You can shoot your way through, hack your.. YOU GET THE POINT. This one features a far more bizarre plot. You are on a space station (sorry for spoiling the first 20 minutes of the game), where some experiments on a shapeshifting aliens species has gone awry. They have done a LOT to ruin the station, and if you don’t solve all those problems and a single one of them makes it back to Earth, it will be DOOMED. Peep our review here.
Monster Hunter World
Monster Hunter is a much beloved franchise known for its challenge and scope. You don’t simply fight monsters. You track them down, you beat them to a pulp, and then you wear their bones on your favorite armor. So does your cat. The cats are pretty rad in these games. However, for a very long time, MH was a very niche title for a specific audience, yet Capcom broadened that scope with Monster Hunter World.
This version of the game provided updated controls, a new story, and a huge focus on online multiplayer to get a lot of players. And it worked. During a very quiet January, this title popped up and became the surprise first-hit of the year. Actually, not only that, it set a new all-time record in sales for Capcom. It keeps people coming back with a steady slew of both free and paid updates. You’ll never run out of stuff to do.
This series is a tough and very involved game. Hunting monsters takes preparation. And preparation requires a full understanding of the ins and outs of the game. Preparation is key. Everything from crafting gadgets, potions, poisons, and other key items can make all the difference during your hunt. Of course, this game has a very, VERY extensive tutorial that makes sure you’re always on top of what you need to know. Sometimes it feels like the tutorial never ended. But 25 hours was enough for me. Also I cheated profusely and usually just “fired a flare” during the fights. That means 3 people will show up and kill the monster for you. You could possibly play the whole entire game this way if you wanted. And should. JK, but check out our review.
Vampyr
Developer DONTNOD is a game producer that makes the best 7/10 games you will ever play. They are notorious for their storylines, which aren’t simply engaging. No, these devs would prefer to bludgeon you over the head with hard-to-discuss topics like memory erasure, suicide, assisted suicide, drug abuse, unfiltered teenage angst, and high school drama classes. Then, in comes Vampyr, a narrative heavy action melee game with a slower and focused pace. If you wanted to play the “easy version” of Dark Souls this is the one. Not only that but they recently patched in a story mode and a hard mode so you can either play it as super easy Dark Souls or actual Dark Souls.
Maximizing the potential for irony, the story stars a recently vampire’d Doctor, Jonathan Reed. He’s world renowned for his research in… wait for it… blood. Yep, the blood doctor turns into a blood sucker. Vampyr gets about as bleak as it can possibly get. You are in an old london riddled with Spanish Flu. The citizens of London aren’t a particularly happy or nice bunch either. Between researching links between the flu and a vampire epidemic, you also deal with the citizens.
Many of them need your help in more ways than one. Not only do you do random quests for them, as per most games, there’s an additional angle. You also have to diagnose them and craft the cures for their ailments. Also, you get teased by the level up system. Level up from fighting enemies, but you get a huge XP bonus if you kill an innocent. Yeah, that’s this game. Those aren’t even the truly tough decisions either. You’ll encounter those at the end of each act and marvel at how all options seem wrong. We reviewed it here.
Despite what some online comparisons indicate, the remaster is the superior version of the game.
Let’s preface this one differently. I was a big Assassin’s Creed fan but AC3 greatly reduced my love for it. And Unity murdered it. When I played that game all those years ago, I was disappointed on all fronts. I was also setting really high expectations that could not be reached. And I wanted to beat the game before the real life “December 21, 2012” end of the word scenario so I rushed through all of it. Hated the difficulty, the setting was underused, Connor wasn’t a good protagonist, and lots of bugs and grievances with the detection settings for NPCs.
Well, I either completely sucked back then, or Assassin’s Creed III Remastered is a much better experience. This re-release comes with a remaster of Liberation HD (a remaster of a remaster?) as well. This remaster came out March 29, 2019 and either is free with your Assassin’s Creed Odyssey season pass or in the store for $40. The season pass for Odyssey costs $40 so you have almost no reason to not have that marvel of a game and its DLC packs. So, is it worth a revisit after so many years? Or perhaps, for those who haven’t played it, a decent entry?
GRAPHICS: 2/2
There will be a video on this in the near future but this title is the subject to a bit of controversy. If you look for graphical comparisons on Youtube, you will see that some of them imply it to be superior, yet others imply that it is worse. Whether it is misrepresenting the game on purpose or not, this review is from the “Xbox One X” version of the game, so the most graphically powerful console release. I can personally confirm that the release is highly superior in the graphical department. With the exception of a handful of faces, you’re getting better looks across the entire board. You have better color with HDR, lively landscapes, and incredible textures.
STORY: 1/2
You can’t really change an entire story in a remaster, can you? What you CAN do is try to engage your player more this time around. AC3 tells the story of… Haytham Kenway? Yes, the game pulls a reverse Metal Gear Solid 2. A sizeable chunk of the game has you playing as a character who is completely absent from all of the marketing materials. After a while, you do finally get to Connor or Kanien’kehá:ka (don’t try to pronounce it, just give up). The problem with this character is the game gives him a very rich setup due to the events of the first hours of gameplay. Yet at every turn, Connor manages to remain as dull as humanly possible. More on that in audio.
The other issue is that the setting doesn’t really do a good job at expressing the ins and outs of the Revolutionary War. Sure, there’s a lot of text you can read, but in terms of the game on its own, you basically just jump in and out of several world-famous events. Funnier is that it implies that Connor was at the front of all of them. Paul Revere? Connor? Boston Massacre? Connor. Boston Tea Party? Connor. The freaking battle at Chesapeake Bay? Connor.
Really stretching the believability, but then again this series more firmly expresses itself as alternate history. This makes the second time around a lot more enjoyable. Not to mention, I personally was able to focus more on a lot of content I had to pass on because I was so eager to finish.
AUDIO: 1/2
It’s not every day you come across a voice actor who is a direct descendant of American indigenous tribes with a fine understanding of their languages, but here we are. Noah Watts, of the Blackfeet nation, voices our protagonist Connor. He speaks English and… not English. #OnlyTheFacts | Now, as said before, Connor is a dry and wooden protagonist. This is really not the fault of the actor. The dialog given for his character contains little in the way of flair or emotion. He speaks very directly at all times. He comes in two flavors, deliberate and agitated. That’s it. The rest of the cast wasn’t too great either. As for SFX? They’re mediocre. Nothing wrong about them but nothing to grab your attention.
I must make it painstakingly clear though, this game has one of the GREATEST original scores in the entire Assassins Creed franchise. That genuinely made the game a good experience overall. Quite emotional too, making up for some of the acting.
GAMEPLAY: 2/2
So, at the time it came out, AC3 had a bit of a difficult learning curve. A lot of the combat mechanics, controls, and gameplay style of the game change in the transition from the Ezio trilogy to III. However, coming directly off of AC: Odyssey, the game is retroactively easier to come to grips with. If anything, the game feels more limited. No dedicated stealth mode button. Combat is the old style of “counter-attack kills” that were prominent in most of the series. The simplicity of the game in comparison to the new game actually made it feel a bit more streamlined. It was almost arcade-like to play this game after every game we’ve had since.
It also seems as thought a lot of changes streamline the overall experience. Some redundancies were eliminated. Enemy detection appeared to be slower. The ship combat was easier to handle. Every step of the way, quality of life improvements are there, on every front. Oh, and the load times, those are some short load times. Especially for fast traveling and desynchronizing.
FUN: 2/2
The fact that I took my time to play through more of the game is a very big deal. This time around, I bothered to unlock all the fast travel locations in the underground. It was a bit grindy, but manageable. The silly “homestead” missions actually felt like they were worth the time. That is despite the fact that the “convoy” system of the game was an absolute waste of time and needlessly complicated. I did all the district liberations and recruited all 6 support assassins. I did several of the optional naval battles. Not everything could be helped. The almanac pages are still dumb, as are all of the other fetch items the game throws at you. But I must stress that above all else, I had a much, MUCH better time playing this game again. I was supposed to be playing other games, yet I kept coming back to this re-release time and time once more.
Assassin’s Creed III Remastered is a huge improvement on the original iteration. Between the streamlining of gameplay elements, the simplicity, and the visual quality? This is a good remaster that has been released at exactly the right moment. If it has been a while since you last played, give it another shot. If you’ve never played it, also give it a shot. And ignore the real world plot, it’s still crap.
SCORE: 8/10
If I find time, I would like to play the Tyranny of King Washington DLC as well as Liberation, but that will have to wait.
Legacy of the first blood has concluded with the final chapter, Bloodlines. In our last video on this, Chet went through a series of questions as to what was in store for us on this episode. Turns out, some of those guesses were true. Have a look and see what Chet totally called back in January.
Chet supports AC: Odyssey’s Season Pass. 3 episode DLC, a $40 game, and then another 3-episode DLC, it’s absolutely worth it.
Remember when you just won cool gear for your character when you did well? Pepperidge Farm remembers.
Trials Rising is back. It’s the 5th game in a long-standing series of physics-based, motorcycle riding action. Although the new entry itself is rather decent, Ubisoft decided to be Ubisoft and find a way to ruin the fun. They added the basic bitch of microtransactions, loot crates, to the mix, and they don’t gel well. And they are supposted to give you cosmetic upgrades only, but the upgrades are garbage. Rewards are also few and far between, with the majority of upgrades being stickers, the least interesting cosmetic aspect. And then you can get some new gear for your rider and bike but you can also get friggin DUPLICATES. Got the same tires twice? Too bad, you can re-sell the tires for a currency that is totally worthless towards the cost of another crate. It’s shameful at best. Too bad.
But wait, there’s more!
Now, watch this and look at the stunning lack of actual features after opening so many boxes. The customization system in Trials Rising is absolute garbage.
Sadly, one person on our YouTube tried to defend this. You can help by going to the page and upvoting the video.
It’s been a long time since the Feudal Japan era had some new skin in the game of gaming.
Tenchu was the king of the PS1 era. Then Ninja Gaiden stole the throne. And now we have a new challenger. Developed by From Software, of Dark Souls fame (and Tenchu for real old heads), Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is a third person hardcore action RPG published by Activision. With a lot of similarities, many people have been comparing it very much to the Souls Series since its release for PS4, Xbox One, and PC on March 22nd, 2019. Is the story, action and adventure worth the intense challenge?
GRAPHICS: 1/2
Without question, Sekiro takes place in one of the most interesting worlds in video games, especially of recent. Vast mountains and beautiful landscapes turn from peaceful scenery to bloody battlefields in seconds. The development team at From Software definitely put their all into balancing the feel and look of the environments. But, even with all that effort, graphically it isn’t doing anything unexpected or dazzling. The character animations are mostly incredible, which is critically important for a precision based game. However, Sekiro never feels as stunning to look at as some of the other games released this generation.
STORY: 2/2
Twists and turns galore in this adventure of how a lonely boy gets adopted by one of the most dangerous men on the planet. Actuallym it’s even crazier than that. It’s really a master shinobi adopting an orphaned boy and making him a master Shinobi. Then that new master Shinobi being tasked with protecting the legacy of the Ashina family. Seriously, the game gets so deep in the lore that its damn never impossible to really explain it without spoilers. All that needs to be noted is that the story is fire. 🔥🔥🔥 Need further validation? Every single thing you find in the world, key item or plain inventory, has a story attached to it.
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice | From Software
AUDIO: 2/2
It’s always important to remind oneself that no-one could ever truly say what the past sounded like. But, when a company makes their world so realistic that people are willing to debate the realism, they win. In this case the sounds in Sekiro win. There’s an immediate tension generated deep inside when the sound of a blade draw comes whirring out the screen. Or the way the blood splatter and gurgle just make skin crawl. The most important sound in the game however, is the giant roosters cooing. Those damn roosters.
GAMEPLAY: 2/2
Precision, Precision, Precision! Every single step in Sekrio: Shadows Die Twice is about precision. But unlike past games Souls games, the Wolf is extremely agile. And that’s what makes the game great. The precision strikes feel that much more satisfying when everything feels like it’s happening at mach speeds. On top of the standard gameplay most souls devotees are familiar with, Sekiro has a very strong emphasis on stealth. Shouldn’t be much surprise considering the game is based on the ninja (aka Shinobi) and samurai, but man did they nail it.
The single stand out super feature of the game is by far the prosthetic arm. In all its gadget filled wonder, it adds an additional element of action to the game. At times it’s easy to feel like SpiderMan swinging through the air with the grappling hook. Meanwhile, the various other upgrades bring elements from other incredible heroes and warriors to the forefront. Without spoiling too much it’s important to note that a lot of the upgrades can be missed entirely. In true Souls fashion however, these boss battles prove to be controller breaking tough. And your tiny little health bar leaves very small room for error.
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice | From Software
FUN: 2/2
Stealth crawl through tall grass. Hang off the ledge and shimmy across to the other side. Come up and stab samurai through his damn chest. Oh, not a fan of stealth? Hang on, let’s try a different scenario. Walk calmly across the battlefield. Make eye contact with samurai. Draw blade and assume posture. Block then parry samurai’s strong offensive. Slice samurai off balance and stab him in his face. How’s that? See there are so many ways to approach any battle in this game that all play styles work. Want to rush in to battle and take on three samurai at a time, feel free just strike with precision. Want to run across rooftops and drop down on unsuspecting monster size targets to avoid a long battle. Go for it.
It is incredibly easy, once you get the hang of things, to get lost in the captivating world that From Software has created for hours. Even the enemies that look the same all approach battles differently. Almost as if their personalities are on display just as much as their swordsmanship. Despite what the media is saying, this game is not terrifyingly challenging. It is for sure realistically dangerous. One wrong move and its death. That rollercoaster thrill is fun.
The quiet pairing of From Software and Activision created a game the world needed. The redemption of the ninja and samurai. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is the unofficial spiritual successor to Tenchu. And despite all the games being great, except for Tenchu Z of course, this one ended up so much better. Sure, it might be a bit more challenging than the standard third person game but it’s worth the price of admission. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is a must have for any gaming fan’s library.
Outcast: Second Contact is a action adventure game developed by Appeal and published by Infogrames, with the remake put out by Big Ben. The game is set where a US Government agency successfully sends a probe to an alien world in a parallel universe. You wake up, and are greeted by an aliens race, at war with its own kind. Two group , Talan and Xue. Xue, is ruled by a dictator who has enslaved the Talan. Glob is their version of God, and they interpret the words of their God differently. Your job is to fight back and win over the hearts of the people. In turn, they will help you in your rebellion.
GRAPHICS: 1/2
To be honest, the graphics are poor. They remind me of Tomb Raider on PS2. It does have some color to it, sure. It’s got shades of tan and some blue in there. But the texture is grainy and it looks a bit like Turok. There aren’t a whole lot of detailed shadows either. Your main character is wearing what he has on the cover, so that’s pretty straight forward. A group of spiders in the game look like dust being kicked up. Like, if you were looking at brown static on South Park.
STORY/IMMERSION: 1/2
The story is deep in the sense that it’s fully fleshed out. But it’s not all that interesting. Glob vs God is an example of how much work they put into their creativity. The setting is an alternate version of planet Earth. I think, that’s what they were trying for, nothing crazy. In terms of immersion, the detail is still there. There are differences between the tribes and what they believe along with deep seated conflicts. You’re some type of messiah from the prophesies.
AUDIO: 0/2
It seems that there are like three voice actors. Possibly four. Absolutely nothing stand out to me here. It’s all throughly mediocre. But seriously, I think the cast had like five guys. Nothing remarkable about the sound FX or the OST.
GAMEPLAY: 1/2
On normal mode that game is pretty challenging, but it gets easier. That’s because you find people that will heal you for free, and money is pretty easy to get. You have somebody who will forge bullets for you too. So if you don’t mind the travel time you can beat the game essentially in a few hours. That would work in practice if not for the rampant amount of glitches. Whenever you talk to an NPC, the camera is incapable of focusing. That said, at least the bugs were not too crucial, just dumb. I fell under the map a few times, that was fun.
FUN: 1/2
Well, it wasn’t bad. It was somewhat entertaining. The shooting mechanics are fine but I guess I wanted more? It did keep me coming though. There was a bit where I got frustrated. It almost seemed impossible to dodge the bullets coming my way. Seems it was like a percentage thing. It was impossible not to get hit. At the time I was playing this short game, I took breaks between this and replaying Fallout 3. And streaming free games on twitch.
Overall, even though this game just wasn’t great, I still had a bit of fun. If you’re playing this for free, it may be worth your time. You’ll know quickly if you like it or not. I still feel ripped off in a way. They should have been paying me to play it instead. But no, it’s fine. It’s fine. I’m only a master in memes.
