inFamous Second Son vs. Mass Effect

Happy first post of 2015! and with it being the first post of the new year, I am going to absolutely do the same content as always! Surprise! Well here's a breakdown of inFamous for no real reason.

InFamous Second Son was the game that Playstation had managed to release exclusively early in the release of the PS4 that really displayed the power of the PS4 and the extent of exclusives PlayStation had at the time. And this game was pretty darn good. The graphics are high fidelity and you can pull off huge amounts of damage and explosions in game that all look brilliant. The game play is solid with all of the abilities and upgrades making the game diverse. But with that all, I want to talk about one of the staples of inFamous games which is the Hero/inFamous choice decisions. This is because one of my other favourite games, Mass Effect 2, also had this system, being the Paragon/Renegade system. The difference being, the two games handled the system very differently. 

In both games, you play the game normally, but in several plot moments you choose to do something good or do something bad and this will affect your character’s morale alignment. Doing a lot of bad things like kicking babies will make you evil and doing a bunch of helping granny’s cross the street will make you good. This varies the game play in both Mass Effect and inFamous Second Son, but in much different ways. In Mass Effect, Commander Shepard would be more of an A-hole or hero in dialogue with other characters, allowing him to make decisions he could not have made if he was neutral. In InFamous, not only does your character change, but you can then unlock new abilities in game play that give you more options in combat (such as more AoE damage as evil and more precision damage as hero) which I would argue makes the game significantly different compared to Mass Effect. 

This is a great example of narrative storytelling vs. game play story telling. The hero/villain aspects in Mass Effect only affect the narrative of the game, whereas the hero/villain aspects of inFamous affects the game play. This tells me that the experiences made in inFamous are much more valuable to establishing your character than the narrative. This is because you can show a player who he is or let him be who he wants to be, and the second option is much more effective at establishing a character. This needs to be implemented in more games and I feel although this was a short post I’ve left at least one person thinking about this topic.

Spec Ops The Line & Ludo-Narrative Dissonance

Just about everyone who plays video games has either played or heard of the modern military shooters like Counter Strike that have been popular since the first Call of Duty released in 2003. Since then many games have expanded upon and, well to be honest, glorified the military as we view it today. We have seen the best of the military and just how powerful and action-packed it can be. But very rarely do we see the worst of the military, the things that we can only tell stories about. And even more rarely does a game pull it off without seeming "preachy" or "anti-government," So when a game like Spec Ops: The Line hit shelves it was a fresh look at an often overused subject.

In most people's minds, games where you shoot people like (Call of Duty, Battlefield, etc) the game usually gives you a reason either through the game play or the narrative to indeed, shoot people. The reason can either be "They are terrorists trying to kill innocent people" or even such things as "They killed your wife and family, kill them" but in any scenario you are usually the good guy doing the right thing by killing people. The main difference in narrative and game play that Spec Ops: The Line uses is that you are not killing people that are inherently evil or need to be killed, you are killing other soldiers in a scenario where only one of you will survive. This brings us to the plot of the game.

WARNING--- SPOILERS FOR SPEC OPS: THE LINE ---WARNING

The plot of Spec Ops is very similar in structure and delivery to most modern military shooters that we have today, but the story itself is very different. You play as Martin Walker, a Captain in the American military who has been sent with a squad of two other people to rescue Colonel John Konrad and the "Damned 33rd" Battalion that was trapped and presumed dead in Dubai, where massive dust storms have destroyed and collapsed most of the city. Once you enter the city you find insurgents that attack you, forcing you to kill them, moving forward to try and find the 33rd. You do find the 33rd, who have declared martial law and have started killing civilians and have engaged in a war with the CIA sent previously to rescue them. With this discovery you also find Konrad, who is leading the 33rd and overseeing their war crimes. Walker and his team end up in the middle of the battle between CIA and the 33rd, being forced to kill American soldiers in order to survive. Walker then starts experiencing hallucinations and in fact has hallucinated most of the events of the second half of the game. During these hallucinations it is revealed in fact that Walker has regretted the actions he has taken and that he is as much to blame for the deaths of civilians as the 33rd is. The game manages to perfectly deliver the story and makes you feel horrible for the actions you are taking. There are also decisions you must make throughout the game that revolve around either saving civilian or military personnel, and makes you question who's life is more valuable if both are innocent.

Now that I have recapped the plot, I can finally talk about the main point of this post, or in other words, the confusing term in the title, Ludo-narrative dissonance. This may sound like a word only meant in a university Language Arts term paper it simply means a conflict between a game's plot and its game play. This term is mainly used in a derogatory connotation, as in when a game mechanic or level directly contradicts the plot, pulling you out of the game and ruining immersion. I, however, would disagree and say that the ludo-narrative dissonance in Spec Ops: The Line actually immerses the player more, as the game's plot actively makes you feel horrible for slaughtering soldiers, whereas the game play promotes the killing. The way that the enemies will swarm in waves like lambs to the slaughter, and the tool tips on loading screens tell you things such as "enemies will only drop their weapons when executed" or "grenade launchers can kill several enemies in one area" suggest that the game indeed wants you to kill the enemies and use the most brutal ways to do so. This is very interesting that a game would specifically contradict itself in order to drive its story home.

 The enemies in Spec Ops: The Line are very different from other enemies, not only in the way that they are told through the story, but how they are presented through the game play. The soldiers you are fighting, as I have explained several times, are soldiers. And while they are fighting you and you are killing them, they are not enemies. Think about other FPS military shooters. Who are the main villains in these games? Middle Eastern terrorists, Russian terrorists, or Chinese/Korean terrorists most of the time. Can you see the pattern here? I talked in the beginning of this post about how most modern shooters give you a reason to kill the enemies you're killing. The way that they do this is by demonising and dehumanisation. This is because for a player to want to kill someone, they have to believe they are doing the right thing by doing so. Demonising is making the enemy seem evil in some way so that the player feels they are eliminating evil, making the player inherently good. Dehumanisation is making the enemy not seem human or trying to remove sympathy for the enemy, so that the player doesn't question why they are killing the people they are killing. This isn't just in games however, even way back in WWII and many other battles in history, both sides have to both demonise and dehumanise their enemy in order to make their soldiers actually want to fight. Even in modern America, the government is associating these Middle Eastern extremist groups as evil so that people will want to join the military to stop this evil. This is the same as in just about every FPS. The thing that truly separates the enemies in Spec Ops from normal FPS enemies other than the narrative constantly telling you "killing people is bad" is that in most combat situations in Spec Ops, you are the one to shoot first, often hearing enemies having casual dialogue or in the first level just trying to talk to you before you end up firing upon them. This not only drives that you are the instigator, but makes the enemies have entirely different motives to fighting you. They are trying to kill you not because they are evil, but because in their eyes you are evil and they are simply trying to stay alive. This brings me to the sentence that might just summarise the last several paragraphs of writing you have had to wade through. "Evil is in the eye of the beholder" This is saying that in Spec Ops: The Line, there is no clear enemy, as you are as evil to the enemies as they are evil to you. It is not a battle of good vs. evil, it is a battle of two equally flawed and equally righteous in their cause enemies.

After having read this, I hope that i have at least piqued your interest in Spec Ops: The Line as it is a very good game. Many people will say that the game is bad either because of the game play or the way the story is conveyed, but to anyone who has played a modern military shooter, it takes the genre and flips it on its head. This is why I would highly recommend Spec Ops: The Line to anyone looking for a story that can truly show you the horrors of war and it's consequences.

GTA V Just Got Better

When I heard that GTA V was getting a remake, I jumped on that hype train and rode it to release. But are some new features and a graphics update worth the purchase of the game twice? Well let's find out.

GTA V was originally released October 2013, and quickly rose to the fastest selling piece of electronic media to date. With the release of the new generation of consoles; however, Rockstar decided to rerelease the game with reinvented graphics and new features. It also added the new first person camera, which was a highly anticipated change from the normal third person view the series is known for. While this sounds like Rockstar just trying to make it's install base play the same game twice, they did add the ability to transfer your GTA Online character over to the new generation along with all of their stats and money. This really enticed me to make the switch as i knew I wasn't going to have to sink any more hours leveling my character up. But the most impressive thing to me was the graphics. The graphics of this game were already impressive on last gen, and with the overhaul of new textures and rendering capabilities the game looks magnificent. The way that water moves dynamically and the city streets are crawling with traffic and people just immerses you so much in the world that it is very easy to get lost in the ever changing  story Rockstar is trying to tell.

Along with the graphical overhaul I may as well get into the new first person mode. The game already played very fluidly so the new perspective doesn't look as natural in your movements as your character is constantly moving very erratically instead of fluidly transitioning from jog to sprint. Don't get me wrong though, the game is still as immersive as whatever first person loses in fluidity it gains in pure immersion as you see everything through the eyes of your character, making everything from shooting cops to piloting a chopper much more visceral and enthralling as you can now look down sights and play the game more like a FPS. It also adds to the interactivity being able to look around the inside of whatever cockpit or driver's seat you're in. One of the best additions to the game is definitely the PS4 controller support. It allows you to swipe up or down o change radio stations or quick throw a grenade by swiping up while aiming

As with the new content, all of the previous DLC is already in the game provided you have a constant internet connection (which was very much a problem for me last week) and all future content should support the new additions to the game like increased multiplayer player cap. There is new content coming out soon as well (HEISTS!) and all new guns and clothing added in already like the new rail gun (explosive round rifle) and such gruesome tools as a hatchet. With the new content also comes new missions to do to unlock some of the content. I don't want to spoil them as they are pretty darn cool but I will say the new car the Duke O' Death is the best vehicle and has the funniest way to get it.

So with all that in mind I would absolutely recommend buying the game again as it utilizes the new consoles features and adds a whole bunch of new content. So if you're looking for a reason to buy a next gen console, the new GTA update might just be on the list.

The Binding Of Isaac Rebirth: The Breakdown

If there are any games that can make a person more angry and tormented than rogue-like shooters, I have not heard of or ever want to play that genre. The game I am breaking down coincidentally happens to be one of these shooters.     *sigh*
The first thing that I have to say about this game is that even though I mainly played this on PS4, it was in fact first a flash game and made by Edmund McMillen and Florian Himsl in 2011 that quickly built up a devout following and became a classic indie hit along with Super Meat Boy and Fez. The Rebirth remake of this game, which was released in November 2014, was made with a much bigger team and included a lot of new content including new playable characters, items and enemies. It also changed the art style from the "drawn" style of flash to a more suitable 16-bit style of graphics, but I'll get in to that later.

Before I can explain the art style I do need to explain the story in order to give the art some context. The story of this game is indeed very crazy and deals with very adult topics ranging from abortion to infanticide. The story; however, is broken up as the game's levels are broken up because of the randomly generated nature of the in-game dungeons and the story is in fact more told by the game play and the art than the explicit story sections of the game. The game that is told you is that you play as Isaac, an infantile child who is all but ignored by his religious mother until she receives a message from "God" telling her to kill Isaac, much like the tale of Isaac and Abraham from the Bible. Isaac overhears his mother's plotting and escapes into the house's decrepit basement, establishing the setting of the game. The rest of the story and background information are revealed to the player through transitional loading screens and through the various enemies and bosses throughout the game. This is in fact a very creative way to tell game play and rather diversifies the story from most triple A games that have come out in recent memory. The minimal amount of story also compliments the rogue-like aspects of the game, as you will be playing this game in different "runs" or lives that will last varying lengths before you inevitably die and have to restart the game from the start in true rogue-like fashion. As much as the story goes your goal is to reach the bottom of the basement and defeat your mother to unlock 1 of 13 possible endings, but there are levels and story given after this point that will vary from run to run.

The game play of this game falls into the mechanics used in the rogue-like genre. You start the game with the goal of going down through dungeons into the seemingly final boss dungeon. You start off the game as a literal naked baby with a low amount of life and a weak attack of shooting tears at enemies. The game's dungeons are randomly generated with random rooms containing upgrades and abilities and sinister enemies and bosses that will fight you. To beat a dungeon you need to defeat that floor's boss using whatever abilities and upgrades you have found. This will then unlock the next floor down with no way of getting back up. On certain floors there are also rooms containing gambling games or shops and special Deals with the Devil, where you lower your life bar for upgrades. As you progress, Isaac becomes more powerful with either more health or an upgraded attack or even a familiar that fights with you in battle. Throughout the game you will also be given bombs, which can be used to either blow open a wall Legend of Zelda style or destroy rocks blocking your path. There are also keys, which can be used to unlock doors or chests that contain special items. There are also coins, which are used to gamble or spend on items such as hearts or bombs. The game does have very in-depth item and ability systems that make it both unique and enjoyable. The boss battles and the inadvertent stories that they tell are also quite remarkable in how fun and diverse they can be. The final result, in which you either die or defeat the final boss, is amazing in how different your Isaac is in his appearance. And even after defeating the final boss there is an infinite amount of dungeons after that not only leading to incredible amounts of replayability but the ability to be immersed in the challenging and creative worlds.

The final segment of this here Breakdown will be covering visuals and sound. The actual fidelity of Rebirth on both PC and PS4 are actually staggeringly good, with the 16-bit graphics style lending to a stable 60fps. The art style is very beautiful in the way that all of the enemies and levels thematically merge into an immersive world and a beautiful game. The music in this game also just adds to the immersion with eerie and fitting tracks to go along with the general creepy theme of the game. The sound effects also hit bulls eye and fit very well with the various enemies and blood or tear based weapons.

After having played this game as much as possible and not even scratching the surface of the game's depths I can testify to how amazing this game is and just how much love and care went into it. The game's massive replay value and amazing art style warrant a high rank on anyone's list of good games. I can recommend The Binding Of Isaac: Rebirth with confidence.

Shadow Of Mordor: The Breakdown

Since I only got to play this game on the Thursday before the review I had to post about another game. But over the weekend I got to playing this and beat it. I'd have to say coming from a world with Assassin's Creed and made by the producers of the Batman: Arkham series, this game really welcomes the foretold "Next Generation" of games.



Now when I say "welcomes next gen" I mean that it introduces so many unique game play features and really shows off capabilities of the new consoles. (I played this on PS4 by the way) On the other end of the spectrum this game stretches across, there are many, many features and abilities this game "steals" from other games. Now I have been trying to steer clear of game play and go directly to story, but with so many features and very controversial game play features, I may break that self set rule. But I will at least start with the story so you can just read that and not the game play segment if you really don't want to.

 Now Lord of the Rings has a LOT of back story and I am glad for the sake of this Breakdown that Shadow of Mordor keeps the story simple and the over complicated plot to a minimum. That said...

SPOILER ALERT: SPOILERS FOR SHADOW OF MORDOR AND MINOR SPOILERS FOR LORD OF THE RINGS

The plot of this game does require a minor knowledge of the Lord of the Rings series, so I will explain everything like the read didn't know. Please excuse me if I am explaining things like you are a child. The game starts off with you, playing as Talion, a ranger of Gondor, an elite force sworn to protect the south areas of Middle Earth from the breaches of Mordor and all the evil that comes out of that place. One day the evil manifests into an army of the evil Uruks (orcs) run by Sauron, that overrun the wall and kill everyone inside, including your wife, your son, and you for a blood sacrifice. You are then "banished from death" and are unable to go to the afterlife, staying in limbo. In limbo your soul is merged with an elf also living in limbo and your souls are bound together. This elf gives you the powers of a wraith, which is someone trapped between the land of the living and the dead. These powers include mind control, super speed, and a magical bow. This wraith is Celebrimbor the greatest blacksmith of the 2nd Age, and more importantly, the creator of the rings of power. Celebrimbor was convinced by Sauron, under a disguise, to forge the rings of power for man and dwarf. Celebrimbor also forged the one ring to rule them all, the one that Frodo and Bilbo found. He also secretly forged the rings of power for the elves before Sauron captured him and tortured him to death, killing him and his family with Celebrimbor's own forge hammer. He is now on the same quest for revenge as you. You and him go out to find the person who killed Talion and set the curse upon you, the Black Hand of Sauron. Talion and Celebrimbor's quest for revenge drives them to free the slaves the Uruks are holding captive and break their hold on the land by means of killing, controlling, and overall chaos.

Now to the game play. The game play of this game is very much a cluster of good and bad. It does use mechanics from other games, mainly the Batman: Arkham series and Assassin's Creed. Because it uses a free flowing combat system, and has an upgradeable skill tree, Shadow of Mordor uses the Batman system of attacking enemies freely an being able to attack enemy to enemy without stopping.  You build up a combo meter until you can unleash a devastating special attack. The combat system, except for the added gore of using a sword, is almost an identical copy of Batman's system, complete with a stun and a vault over enemies button. You also have a bow that uses magical arrows from Celebrimbor and it has its own skills like fire arrows and skow motion focus. I honestly never really used it but it does add another option in combat. It can also be used in the other part of Shadow of Mordor aside from open combat, which is stealth, and is also similar to Batman's system, with an ability to see enemies through walls and stealth kill them using a variety of methods. You can stealth kill enemies from behind, in front, or from above them. There are also special stealth kills like Brutalize, which brutally kills the enemy and scares off nearby enemies. The only real difference in combat and stealth from that of the Batman: Arkham series is the Wraith abilities, which later in the game allow you to "Brand" enemies, making them fight for you in battle or stealth brand them and activate them as a distraction. The branding ability also works on the various animals in the game, like four legged wolf-like creatures calld Caragors and giant troll creatures called Graugs. You can ride these animals after stunning them and have them fight for you. Branding also utilizes the major mechanic that drives and distinguishes Shadow of Mordor, the Nemesis system. The Nemesis system is a complex system that creates and upgrades the in game Uruk Captains and Warchiefs. They are randomly chosen normal enemies that are upgraded and turned into mini bosses. Each one has Strengths and Weaknesses in battle as opposed to normal enemies. They are also able to upgrade and become more powerful if they kill you, survive a battle against you, or retreat from a battle. They can actually get scars and burns from battle if they have fought you and will talk about these scars the next time they fight you. They can also go on their own missions to kill other Captains or complete challenges to be promoted and become more powerful. You can actually interfere with these missions to kill the Captain or randomly find them in combat. The Warchiefs are different in that they can have weaker Captains as their bodyguards, and can fight you with these Captains at their side. If you kill a Warchief it lessens the amount of normal enemies that spawn but like with all Captains a Uruk has a chance to eventually take their position. And back to the Brand system, you can Brand Captains and make them yours, allowing you to control them and tell them to kill Captains or become a Warchiefs bodyguard and betray them. This introduces a kind of champions system where you can help your Captain rank up and get promoted so he can kill troublesome Captains for you. The Nemesis system is the spine of Shadow of Mordor and really makes it the next gen game we were promised. There are other missions than Captain missions and the story, including sword, dagger, and bow missions that forge the legends of each of your weapons and changes their appearances. You can also free the human slaves around the map to find out information about Captains and their weaknesses. Overall the majority of your time will be spent on Nemesis missions and the story, which are both very good.

After having had beat this game and exploring the story it had to offer Shadow of Mordor is the next gen game we deserve. Like the Dark Knight. Alot like the Dark Knight actually. But still its own thing. The nemesis system really helped drive Shadow of Mordor's ratings and sales home.

AC II: The Breakdown

Assassin's Creed is an absolute juggernaut of the gaming industry, having revolutionized the way games were made. These games are some of the most highly acclaimed games in the world. Also they were at a discount on Steam recently.This game has a lot of back story, so I'll skip directly to the beginning of one of gaming's most notable stories. I will tell you the story of Altair. Also I'm changing the format of the post again to be more story oriented. Deal with it.

WARNING: SPOILERS FOR ASSASSIN'S CREED

The first Assassin's Creed actually has two stories. In real time is the story of Desmond, and the story of Altair, which is Desmond's ancestor from the Third Crusade. The story of Altair and Desmond are tied together, but separate stories.

Desmond Miles was born in 1987 in an Assassin camp. When he was 16 he didn't want to be an Assassin and fled the camp. He moved to New York and was captured by Abstergo Industries, who was the Templars reincarnate. Abstergo hooked him up to a future device known as The Animus, saying because his ancestors (like Altair), were Assassin's, he could use his DNA to revisit their memories. Lucy Stillman and Warren Vidic both held Desmond captive and forced him to cooperate and let them revisit his memories of his Assassin ancestors. The first one he starts out with is his Syrian ancestor, Altair.

Altair Ibn-La'Ahad was born in 1165, and at a young age, his Assassin parents died. Because of this, he himself was accepted into the Order of Assassin's. He quickly rose the ranks of Master Assassin. One day, the Assassin camp was attacked by Templars, who are the people the Assassin's want to kill and the reason the Order was formed. Altair successfully defended the attack, and continued to look for the people responsible. He later found out that the Templars wanted an ancient artifact known as the Chalice. Altair goes and starts killing Templars in search of the Chalice. After some time of Assassinating Templars, Altair finds the Chalice, only to find out that it is a women, not the cup from The Last Crusade. After finding the girl, named Adha, who was captured by Templars .Altair had to fight many a Templar to find her, eventually killing their leader, Basilisk. After fighting and killing him, Altair loses Adha, only finding out months later that she is dead. This leads Altair to kill the people responsible, even though it brings him no joy.

Years later, during the 3rd Crusade, Altair and pals are in search of an artifact inside Soloman's Temple. Inside he broke two tenets or laws of the Order. He killed an innocent, and he engaged his enemy directly. By doing so, the Templars inside escaped. Altair and pals narrowly escape and go back to HQ to tell them what happened. Another Assassin entered soon after, with the artifact Altair didn't retrieve. Altair and other Assassin's wound up going to the town of Masyaf to defend it from Templars. Altair ended up having to perform a leap of faith to escape. When he returned to the Assassin's base, he was found out about is breaking of the laws/tenets and was stripped of his rank unless he could assassinate nine Templars to redeem himself.

That is the story of Altair and Desmond, two Assassins with interweaving pasts and futures. No game play today because I'm moving The Breakdown over to a more story based blog. So feel free to share this with friends and tell me how you like the new design. And have a good day, or a bad one, everyone has those. But maybe after reading this it will be a good one. That would be nice.

Prototype 2: The Breakdown

So I was going to do Prototype, but I figured that the second one is better and now I can give the story of the first one as back story. Win win. Made by Activision I can say right now that this game is maybe the most gory and adult game I've ever played.

*MAJOR SPOILERS FOR PROTOTYPE*

So to cover the second game's story, I'm just going to recap the first. In the first game you played as Alex Mercer. You were a scientist working for Gentek, a genetic research company. Alex gets exposed to the virus and gains mutant superpowers and the ability to consume people and take their form. Manhattan has become infected by the same virus that gave you bad ass powers, except to normal people it is near deadly and mutates the populous to zombie creatures and giant mutants. You go around and find your sister and beat up bad guys and kill people. You then go head to head with the military and cause them try and blow up the city. You take the bomb out over the ocean Dark Knight Rises style and you end up regenerating back on the shore. 

The opening cinematic to Prototype 2 is all I will cover so as not to give any major spoilers. You play as James Heller, a marine bad ass who served in some war that no one cares about. Your wife and young child live in Manhattan, which is now recovering from Alex Mercer blowing everything up. As it turns out, while you were off fighting in a war no one cares about still, the virus from the first game gets released again and everything goes to hell. You find out your wife and child were murdered and you blame Alex Mercer. You then work on a special op to take over a part of the city, which is now a complete war zone, when Alex Mercer shows up. Mutants take out your entire squad and you chase down and try to kill Mercer. You manage to "hurt" him, but he ends up saving you from a mutant and giving you the virus. You wake up in a government laboratory with people experimenting  on you and putting you in an arena against other mutants. You kill them and break out of the laboratory. Have fun killing everything!

Game play wise, the Prototype games have never been revolutionary, but they have made some cool mechanics. There are two forms of game play that blend quite well together. The modes are normal walking around mode and Blow Everything to Hell Everything must Die!! mode. The first mode consists of your abilities to run up walls to get places, glide through the air, and to disguise yourself. The disguise or "consume" ability actually has a lot of uses and is a very cool mechanic. The mechanic consists of you grabbing an enemy, having the option to consume them to regain health, to take their form and look like them, straight up turn them into a bio-bomb and football punt them, or to gain their memories and use those memories to get new missions to do. That's about all of the one portion. The second, more fun portion, is combat. In combat, you can morph your body into weapons that include a giant sword arm, claw fingers, or even a whip arm. You can also pick up weapons (Though with a whip arm why would you) The best part of any combat situation is hijacking. In later in the game you can choose to ride vehicles and choose to either rip the weapons out and wield them, to kill the driver and take the vehicle for yourself, or to straight up rip the cannon off a tank and smash it into the tank, evidently blowing it up. The third option is my favorite

As for the missions in the game, Prototype has the standard open world system. There are the story missions, which progress the story. There are also a plethora of not very good side missions. These involve such creative works as: Find and kill target, Kill multiple targets, Hack computer (James Heller hates computers for no real reason), or my favorite, storm military base and kill everyone inside. Another mission-like thing to do is to enter hives where the mutants are born, and from there if you can kill all the mutants inside, you can absorb the entire colony and gain new powers.

Speaking of powers, this game also has a vague skill tree system. You gain powers and forms during story missions, but you can gain new abilities such as advanced glide, or more melee damage. There are also perks tied to completing side missions. If you complete a small gauntlet of missions, you can gain a perk that helps in combat or with health.

The last aspect of the game is the art style, which is fantastic. The game's art style is very much reminiscent of Sin City, with the cut scenes being black and white and the blood and mutant glowing stuff being bright red. It looks very good and helps to give the game a vibrant life that plain grey's and brown's would not do. I personally love it.

After having owned this game for a while and nearly 100% completing it, I have to say this game is pure fun at  it's finest, from the grand epic story missions to the pure chaos of stomping around the overworld.

Game Review: Watch_Dogs

Made by Ubisoft, well known for Assassins Creed and Far Cry and a whole bunch of amazing games. Will Watch_Dogs be added to their hall of fame?

Before the actual review starts I would like to say I'm playing this on PS4 and this is the only game I actually have on PS4, so until I get another game I'll review games on other platforms. So now that that's over it's review time!

WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS MILD SPOILERS SO SUCK IT UP BUTTERCUP

So when I first saw this game, all I thought was "It's Assassin's Creed in the future and you play an assassin!" Well unless there is an Easter egg somewhere that I haven't found, the game is not that. At least not in a story sense. The main character, Aiden Pearce does know parkour, as well as how to sneak around and silently take people out, though not to the extent of the assassins of AC. The game play is similar though, with a dumbed down version of free running included. You can only climb objects just taller than you are, and falling off them causes fall damage. Still you can slide over low objects or jump off a wall to scale high ones. The game makes it fluid too, by making you hold a button whilst running to free run. The combat of this game is very fluid as well, now that I'm on the subject. Going from shooting someone in cover to vaulting over and performing a take down is very easy and smooth yet if your not careful you can be killed quite easily. The weapon's are all OK, with a one to five star rating on all of them telling you which ones are better than others, yet there are no real unique weapons or weapons that would cause much chaos as in GTA. The roaming around sandbox parts of Watch_Dogs is very entertaining as well... most of the time. The hacking is neat and allows you to hack your environment to make things explode or cause a car crash. And you can hack people to listen to their phone calls or steal their bank accounts. The most of the time bit before was the fact that blowing things up or killing cops is actually frowned upon, taking away your good rep and replacing it with bad rep, which in turn affects the way civilians react to you in the over world. This sucks, because I came into the game thinking if I got bored I could do what I did in GTA and just blow shit up, which I couldn't unless I wanted to ruin my in game rep. Speaking of GTA, the number of people comparing these two games is astounding. The only thing I can say is that GTA is meant to be fun when you are just messing around and crazy things happen. That's why there's rag doll and random events and such. Watch_Dogs is meant to be fun when you are doing something specific, like a mission or side objective. The game is built around constantly feeding you little morsels of enjoyment because the over world starves you. Whereas GTA's over world is very filling, and the morsels can be enjoyed more because they add to the experience. In Watch_Dogs, they are the experience. That is the difference and frankly is why the replay value is far lower than GTA's. 

On a graphics standpoint, Watch_Dogs looks better (at least on PS4) than most sandbox games I've seen. The glitch aesthetic gives it a very cool theme as well. The one glaring problem I had was the frame rate drops that happened. On a console that is not OK. Maybe on a low end PC but this is a PS4 I got literally one week before this review came out, so frame rate needs to be fixed. Admittedly it happened when a lot of explosions or details where on screen at once, and happened fairly infrequently, but guess what? IT'S CONSOLE THE FRAMERATE NEEDS TO BE CONSISTENT! I mean I'm fine with 30fps if I'm given 30fps, but dropping to 10fps is not acceptable to me at all. Other than that though the game looks good. I really thought the augmented reality theme was cool as well, with the profiler mode you can see civilians or enemies names, jobs, ages, and anything special about them. It was a really nice touch.

The multiplayer aspect of the game was weird to say the least. You can enter races and the such, but in multiplayer, other players appear as regular citizens and they can hack you or tail you to fulfil missions, and when they do, you have to figure out where and who they are and then take them out. Or someone can invade your single player world in their multiplayer and try to kill you. It provides a steady amount of tension to just roaming around (you can turn it off in the menu) There is a mode where you have to race around the city while some on their real world phone  hacks your world and sends police after you to stop you. It's a nice tie-in and playing on your phone males you feel like a true hacker. 

Finally, the story. I will spoil the plot of the back story, but that isn't really a spoiler when they cram it down your throat every five minutes. You play as Aiden Pearce, a hacker vigilante who had a hit ordered on him after someone hacked him while he was on a job. The hit failed and instead killed his six year old niece, driving him to get revenge on the people responsible. The game's plot is good for what it is. The characters are memorable but I never really cried or laughed at the story. There are some plot twists and such, but the story stays along a preset track and the main villain is presented right away, which gives you a feeling of progression when you complete a mission. The overall plot is nice and I liked the ending.

If you are looking for a grand on rails experience where you play a stealthy bad ass hacker, I suggest buying this game. If you want an off rails free roaming game about chaos and pure fun, go buy GTA V. Honestly in my unprofessional opinion GTA V is a better game. Just sayin'.

Game Review: Shadow Of The Colossus

To counter some recent newer games I've reviewed, I thought I might review a classic PS2 game, Shadow Of The Collossus.

WARNING: THIS REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS

1) Plot

Team Ico, makers of Ico, are well known for memorable stories. With dialogue in a made up language and almost no other characters other than your horse, the plot  is amazingly well told. The "narrator" tells you of your missions really well in riddle form.  Wander, the main character, may not talk during the game very much, but he does convey emotion really well. Sad moments are sad and moments of victory are gratifying. And the wasteland and nothingness between collossi feels like a weathered and rough landscape, beaten down by these great beings. The battles are memorable and quite sad when you see this majestic, peaceful creature, that did not mean you harm, fall, dead to the ground. The game leaves a lasting imprint and the end is very mysterious. The game itself is open to interpretation about the end, but one thing is for certain. This game is a classic

2) Graphics

The old PS2 graphics would make anyone cringe, but SOtC pulls it off with stunning light effects and camera work. The game looks amazing on PS3 with redone textures and better lighting. The vast landscape is gorgeous and the collossi are detailed and vivid. Although its not Battlefield it is good looking.

3) Mechanics

The mechanics and controls of this game are very early Playstation and triangle as jump and holding R1 are actually pretty good. You feel like Wander, holding on for dear life. I love the use of your horse, Agro, because the map is HUGE. The different ways you have to use things to defeat collossus does make the game more of a puzzle than an action game. It makes you think and be strategic, using your landscape to your advantage, from making one attack a peice of stone ground to break its weapon, to making one run into structures to stun it. The game pits you against superior opponents with only your wits and your sword. 

All in all, the game is amazing and I love it. I believe if you own a PS3 you should play this game. $9.99 and it is a very good deal. It is good enough I have no negative comments for it. This short and sweet review sums up a short and sweet game.

9.6/10