Somehow even though I have always been a big fan of the series. I have never played Doom 3. It was an error I had always meant to correct. A hole in my gaming knowledge that I needed to fix and yet for some reason, a hole I have never got round to filling. I had various excuses firstly the game wasn’t great, it didn’t control well, it was too dark, it needed a very, very expensive PC to run it and a whole other host of excuses I had given to myself over the years to justify my non-play.
Yet as these excuses were slowly fixed, the game was released on the XBox, PS3 and eventually the PS4, the ability to hold a torch was added in so you didn’t have to choose between being able to see or being able to shoot, for some reason I still couldn’t take the plunge. Had the game in my basket on numerous occasions on various different consoles and still couldn’t take the plunge. Something always held me back a little voice in the back of my mind always telling me to ”wait”
Now I know why. I held back because it’s coming to VR and (fingers crossed) it’s going to be amazing. The final and best way to play this game. After all who doesn’t want to scream into a headset as they curl up in a tiny ball on the floor, watching in disbelief in a CyberDemon tears you in half
It’s going to be amazing. Plus you can use your Aim controller on the PSVR
Don’t worry your not the only one. I have spent much more time than I would like to admit trawling websites, hoping to spot one out in the wild or stalking the PS5UK Twitter streams in the hope that I may be one of the very, very few that actually manages to grab one of these new shiny console’s before they are either all snapped up by bots or by those lucky few that just happen be on the website at the right time.
I don’t even know why I want one, I really don’t. Just caught up in the hype. It’s not like I will suddenly overcome my aversion to Dark Souls. I don’t have the capacity to die over and over again, just to learn and be a tiny bit better next time. Plus and this is probably what’s really stopping me is with everything else seemingly released on the PS4 I know I should just wait until the consoles are readily available and there is something I want to play.
So as I given into the fact that I will playing on the PS4 for some time yet, I decided to do an inventory of all the PS4 games that I have played over the last six years and make a note of what I should play and in doing that I had a little run down memory lane. As I looked across old saved files and trophies half forgotten I remembered all the good times I had with the PS4 and remembered some of the more obscure games that had been forgotten, not just by me but maybe the gaming community as well. So I thought as I had the time and a need to do something with my laptop that wasn’t refresh Twitter every few seconds I decided to create a list. A list of five PS4 games that you probably have in your backlog but, for reasons now lost to time, forgotten to play
Some maybe obvious some may make you shake your head but, at least I am not on Twitter 🙂
Mad Max.
You forgot it even released on the PS4 didn’t you? It’s okay, until about six months ago I had forgotten it existed as well – I guess that’s what happens when you release your game on the same day as Metal Gear Solid V: The Forgotten Pain. It is however a solid RPG with decent fight mechanics, excellent driving and an open world that feels somehow alive despite being very, very desolate and you have a pretty decent game. With the added Cherry on the top of this once being a ”free” PS Plus game you to may have this one gathering dust in your digital library
Mad Max the forgotten king of the wasteland
Concrete Genie
Okay, I will forgive you for forgetting about Mad MAX an obscure title from a few years ago. The next title on my list; the wonderful Concrete Genie should not be such a blast from the past as it is currently one of the ”free” titles available this month with PS Plus subscription and a good game it is. It has been in my ”about to buy” list more times than I care to remember and yet despite numerous good reviews, I just didn’t get round to picking it up. Yet I am more than happy to be playing it now. Its a wonderful contrast to the grey, overcast days we are currently experiencing here in the UK, a colourful bolt of light in our grey days. It’s a game where all you do is create, to bring back to life an old derelict shipping village with the help of genies you create using the PS4 as a magical paint brush. It’s a lovely tonic for the soul, With no death, no fighting and nothing in the way of stress.
Firewall Zero Hour
Can you sense a pattern emerging with my picks? Yes you guessed it this is another game that was once, back in years past available through PS Plus. Don’t worry though as Firewall Zero Hour is completely different from the other two. This is a PSVR game. Don’t groan. It’s really good. I promise. If your into team communication and like shouting out strange army words like ”spector inbound” and are not surprised when random strangers shout out ”’GO, GO, GO ”for the 27th time in row then this is a game for you. The only caveats to enjoying it are A; having a PSVR headset and B; Having the Aim controller. This game was made for the Aim controller in mind and it really shows, the level of immersion is simply stunning it will have you thinking your in the military in a matter of minutes.
Abzu
The next game up on our list isn’t a shooter, doesn’t have you driving through a wasteland fighting to survive or even have you trying to reconnect with your community. It also has not been ( as far as I know) ever appeared on PS Plus but it is a completely delightful and utterly beautiful experience. Abzu is a game created by one of the creators behind the excellent Journey and if you have played that then you will know what kind of game this game is . For this is a game about starting again. About tranquillity, about peace. Maybe even the meaning of existence. Well at least that’s my take on it, on what I make of the story. The game world has been overpopulated to the point of extinction and that is exactly what has happened. Most things on what I think is Earth have vanished. You are a part of the last few reaming people left on Earth and your task is to see, what’s in the sea. A Sea that as first, is quiet, with only a few shoal’s of fish swimming here and there but as you progress through the game you are able to unlock various different species of fish (and some mammals) and as these new species are added to the game they add an extra array of colour and variety to the levels that truly has to be seen to be believed. A bit of sunshine on a grey day
The Order 1886
The most controversial game on this list by a long way. I don’t blame you for not playing it. It is a wildly indifferent thing, a deeply conflicted thing. The negatives are many it has; dodgy AI, indifferent character controls, a beautiful look but don’t touch world, sluggish pacing and too many other negatives to name, but it has some positives as well; it is utterly gorgeous to look at, a story that’s good when it get’s going, characters that are for the most part well rounded and cut scenes that are a thing to behold, they really are a thing of beauty. Yes the gun-play maybe be dodgy and the game may finish just as you start to get invested in it but, I left wanting more. I wanted the story to continue and that is why it’s in this list, plus it’s got werewolves, who doesn’t love a werewolf story?
Any on this list take your fancy? Any recomendations you can give to me?
Let me know in the comments below
P.S I am not actually allowed to play Firewall anymore. I live in a flat and apparently my neighbours don’t like it when a grown man screams out” Alpha, Tango, Charlie. GO. GO GO” at four in the morning
P.P.S Haven’t actually completed Concrete Genie yet, so if the cute little Genie creatures turn out to be a murderous horde conjured up from another dimension – you have been warned 🙂
It look’s like Biomutant the game that has been ”about to be released” since 2018. Has finally got a release date and that date is the 25th of May 2021. Celebration indeed
For those of us unaware what all the fuss is about. Biomutant is an open world game set in what looks like the far future. A future where humanity has ceased to be. A future where all that is left of us is rubble and waste. Abounded shops, derelict apartment blocks and the occasional downed plane littler the world. A world that has slowly returned to nature. A nature that is starting to see it’s next dominant creatures. This time the dominant force’s in the world have decided not to throw all their eggs in one basket as they do with humanity but have gone with a much more varied response. For it look’s like all the animals in this world from mice to turtles are now sentient. All trying to life their lives as well as they can.
The gameplay of Biomutant seems to be similar to that of the Monster Hunter Series. Where everything you see has a goal a life it’s living and it’s up to you to try and mess that up. It also looks stunningly gorgeous
It’s also an RPG. Everything now seems to have some of RPG element doesn’t it? So of course you can create your character. Tailoring it’s needs to your specific playstyle. You can craft your look making it feel like your very own character. All the while being careful of the RPG mechanics. Basically everything has an effect on your precious stats.
In fact the only thing that puts me off this game. A game that looks good enough to be a AAA game is that the animals you come across in the game seem to see so very much alive. Their animations are so fluid, the colours so vivid. In fact my only reservation about playing this game is that the game might, and I really hope it doesn’t make me kill them. I know this is silly they are after all only computer generated images. But as much as I watch the trailer. I can’t see one of them, that I don’t want to turn into a cuddly toy and there is no way that I could kill a teddy.
Spider-Man: Miles Morales, is a game about becoming a hero, not being a hero, working your way up to it. Learning as you swing, it’s about finding your feet, finding your self but also loosing people along the way, It’s a game about finding trust in yourself along with trusting other people.
So with that little lot out of the way let me try and explain why I think Spider-Man: Miles Morales. Is a great Spider-Man game, Beware spoilers ahead.
Story:
The story is a very, very obvious too anyone with even a passing interest in previous Spider-Man stories. Its a corny tale, of friendship and family mixed in with a high-stakes game of city wide destruction. A perfect Saturday morning Spidey cartoon, given enough life to make you care about the main players in the campaign without ever really feeling ”padded out” or stretched. Plus you can even dip straight into this, if you haven’t had a chance to play the original game as there is a handy story re-cap available from the start screen
Gameplay:
I can’t really credit Spider-Man any higher than say the game is a joy to play. Of course your playing Miles Morales in this game not the Peter Parker of the original game and it shows in everything from Miles does from swinging around the city, much less confidently than the older Spider- Man to the way Miles fights through out the game. His moves just don’t feel as fluid as the original’s and is a little disconcerting , when you first get to control Miles through the city, his jerking awkward style is just so different from the original Spider-Man game and took me a few minutes to really get the hang off. I was expecting him to control as well as my Peter Parker had done at the end of his game, but once I remembered that Peter had, had to learn all the techniques had during his adventure and it was unfair of me to expect a new character and one literally learning on the job to be as good as someone who had spent literal years practising their art I relaxed and started to enjoy this new style, it looks and feels dangerous at first. I was really worried for the safety of the both of us a I careered into building after building. Luckily neither of us were in any real danger. Soon I was diving from the highest of highest, tricking my way down again. A big smile on my face .It’s safe to say that he fights much better than he at first swings. He’s confident when he goes into a battle, initially with fists, feet and web but, soon his arsenal grows into powers that include (spoilers) Mile’s very own Spider power the power to not only use Venom a sort of Electric force power that charges through his body giving you the power to smash players up into the air or just crash into a powerful or group of enemies at once, dealing a large portion of damage to the group. These powers are supplemented with the ability to absorb the power of generators leading to some spectacular shots of Miles releasing this energy as it charges through him. This is all sublimated by another power, which I used through most of my time playing this game. As Miles discovers this power during a pivotal moment in the story. I won’t spoil it here. It is safe to say that it got me through many tuff spots. With all this power it is safe to say that by the time the credit’s roll your Spider-Man will be a Spider-Ninja a one man army ready to tackle what ever threatens him.
Open World:
It is safe to say that the open world aspect of this game is most people’s major criticism of the game. It is also safe to say that it is not one of mine. Yes, you could complete the main game in a few hours, but that isn’t what this game is all about. Sure the main story is fun but, where the main action is, is the side-quests. These side quests really help flesh out the game. The bring life to characters that would otherwise be quite one-dimensional and that is before the side missions on the Spider-Man app are put into the picture. These missions add another layer of complexity to the title as you swing from one criminal outbreak to the next, these small, but varied little quests really help bring life to the city itself and as the missions can be re-played again and again with added incentives such as knocking a few enemies off a roof or completing a combo with a certain number of hits, you will come back to them again and again trying out new strategies or practicing new skills learnt through completing the various training missions dotted about the city scape and if you couple all of that with the added mission you get only after the main story has been completed, you find a game that’s bigger than the sum of it’s parts. Yes the main story is small and fairly quick to finish but, by doing just that you miss out on what really brings the city and it’s people to life. To really feel like the new hero on the block finish as many missions as you can. It easily add’s another five or six hours to the game.
Graphics
A game’s graphics are the last part of any game to talk about. Who cares if the game is nothing but a shiny picture. Stunning too look at but, not devoid of any game play. I am happy to say that Spider-Man: Miles Morales, is a very pretty picture to look at a stunning series of set-pieces await your eyes even if, like me you are playing the game on a PS4. Yes the game may have been created for the PS5 but, it still looks absolutely stunning on the PS4. from sunsets across Manhattan, with the sun setting just out to see or the incredible light show whenever you get to unleash a venom power, the game is stunning a technical marvel. One that had me stopping and staring in wonder more than once.
If you play it. Watch out for the extra credit seen once the credits roll. There is more to come.
Afternoon. As we all know the only way to finish something is too start it. So with eyes firmly closed, finger hovering over the X button on the Dual Shock controller I took the plunge and picked a random game from the backlog to play.
That game dear reader was none other than the Last Campfire. A puzzle platformer from the mind’s at Hello Games. The developer responsible for No Man’s Sky.
The Last Campfire has you controlling a small, adorable creature called an Ember and you must control this Ember as he or she makes there way through the between worlds a kind of limbo, as you progress through this Limbo you will come across others of your kind. Others who have become lost along their own journeys and in becoming lost have given up all hope of ever reaching their goal, with there hope having left them they become Forlorn. These Forlorn are shells of their former selves. With their hope now lost, they have given up completely and now sit as still as stone, waiting for the end.
Fear not for these little creatures though as it is up to you as you progress through a magical land of giant talking frogs, enormous pigs that want nothing but to eat, eat and eat again and sad fisherman to find each lost Ember/Forlorn and try to restore their hope. To help them toward their goal.
It sounds easy, doesn’t it? All you have to do is find a cute little blue thing and make them happy again. If only it was this easy for each tiny Ember has locked their hope away in the form of a puzzle a puzzle that must be solved for the Ember to be free. The puzzles are not generally that hard and generally fall into a few categories: they either involve you manipulating light, manipulating water or steam or a mixture of all the above. There are a few that break from that tradition but I won’t spoil them for you hear. The puzzles are fun, light hearted and are for everybody. There is nothing Witness-esque in these puzzles they are all taxing up to a point and family friendly
The main problem I had with the game was just finding each of the puzzle rooms, there is a light story current running through the game and whilst the world created does feel alive with characters that have made a home for themselves in this this world between worlds. Embers that have not yet fallen into the trap of becoming Forlorn and loosing their hope, will stop and talk to you as you go about your day, Other creatures that happen to live in this world, will ask you for favours or just add a bit of background colour and all this does help create a vibrant world that does feel alive but, I just couldn’t navigate it very well. I am sure this is down to my own stupidity. I have a terrible sense of direction but, I just felt that the guidance to some of the more obscure puzzles could have been a bit easier to navigate.
Over all this is a lovely game. One me and my wife were happy to devote an evening too and did I mention the Platinum trophy at the end of it? No, well let me just say that this game has a very, easy Platinum we were awarded it simply by playing the game as we would normally do – that may explain why some of the puzzles were a bit out of the way. But it’s very easy none the less. We didn’t have to do anything silly like complete the game twice or complete all the puzzles whilst standing on our heads. No special instructions needed just make sure you get all of the Forlorn in each game world. There will be a count of how many you need in the campfire around each level. It’s not many something like seven in each game hub. With the rest of the trophies being story based.
It’s the return of Street’s of Rage the fourth in the long running series of side-scrolling beat em up brawlers and it is wonderful. A real passion project from developers DOTEMU and Sega is a real labour of love. A masterpiece of the highest order a real bone-crunching, table smashing, world saving tour de force with a soundtrack to match
Its safe to say that I love the game and let me try and break down some of the reasons why:
The first and probably most important thing for me is that it takes me way back to 1992 yes, all the way back then. A time when you sat huddled around your CRT television and you pickled your side and stuck with it. You were team Sega or team Nintendo and that was it. A time when I was nothing but a mere slip of a gamer. A gamer that wanted nothing more than to beat up a few goons, save the world and ”accidently” hit whomever was playing as the second character a few too many times with a poorly aimed punch or special move. I had a great time doing it and I’m still not sorry.
It’s great to play. There have been many games that I have tried to pull of the way it felt to play a Streets of Rage game and many have failed. Streets of Rage 4 succeeds and then some. The fighting feels right. With a weight and a force behind the attacks that feels instant and gratifying. You can have fun just button-mashing your way through levels or take your time and really get to know the combo’s. For fans of the series and genre. It hit’s every nail on the head
It’s very, very pretty. Very pretty. Everything in the game is hand drawn and it looks it. Rage 4 is simply one of the best looking brawlers on any system. The character models look great standing still but in motion is where they really shine. Be it Axel doing his signature ”Grand Upper” move the devastating upper cut of destruction or new character Floyd and his robotic arms of Chaos, each character models sings. It’s a game so beautiful to look at the game play could be taken right of the pages of a comic book or be turned into a cartoon. It’s a pleasing delight. A feast for the eyeballs.
It sticks to what it does best. Fans of Streets of Rage have come back to the series for one reason and one reason only. To fight BAD GUYS. This is what made the Streets of Rage series so fun to start with and it’s good to see the series has not strayed from that path. There is absolutely no fluff in the game. No way to make your character incrementally stronger, no character buffs, no changes of clothes and absolutely no micro transactions. It’s a game that sticks to what it does best and is all the better for it.
The Soundtrack. Just as in the original trilogy I found myself bopping away to the sounds of this game. I am even listening to the soundtrack as I type this page out! It’s great. I don’t think there is anything on there to quite beat Yuzo Koshiro’s legendary ( in my opinion) Go Straight but it’s very good. It had my head bopping and feet tapping.
Its got multiplayer. Yes 4 player co-op is here. Yes more than one player in a Rage game is hectic. It’s chaotic as each player battles over dropped items, players rushing forward to pick up health items. Who knew food left outside was good for you! Of course you don’t want to be the player that’s always rushing forward trying to engage the next wave of enemies before your team mates have finished of the current lot but, believe me when I say that there is always some who seeks the madness of chaos the never ending charge into battle. The joyful smile on their mad face as their team mates shout at them again to stop it.
Of course if your multiplayer mates our a bunch of sadistic crazy people we know have a one on one brawler Street Fighter style for you to settle your differences. Its new to me I don’t remember it being in the original games but, here it is. Ready for you to fight with your friends
The secrets. Secret’s always give a game a bit more replay ability and Streets of Rage is no different in wanting it’s players to return for another run to save the city, so there are secrets dotted through out the game. Most of these secrets tend to be in the form of retro 16 BIT Levels! That really take you back to the era and they even come with a 16 bit CRT level filter. Great fun to play and great fun to find.
There we have it 8 reasons why I think, if you are a fan of the genre and Streets of Rage in particular Streets of Rage 4 is an absolute must-play a masterpiece of a title. I am not sure if it dethrones my personal king of the genre, the near perfect Streets of Rage 2 but that could, just be the rose-coloured spectacles talking.
I have a question for you, how can something so cruel, unforgiving heartbreakingly bleak and downright disturbing, be so utterly brilliant?
I don’t know how Naughty Dog have done it
Yet somehow they have. The Last of Us was my favourite game from the PlayStation 3 era and The Last of Us Part 2 is my game of the PlayStation 4 era . It is an utter masterpiece filled with three dimensional characters you can really find yourself caring for. The level are based on the semi-open world formula and I think this really helps the game as I don’t think the game could exist as well if it were open world . The Last of Us 2’s story needs to be constantly moving to keep the player involved in the story, constant side quests, probably involving too many fetch quests would have slowed the game down to a crawl, loosing its much needed momentum and affecting the real impact of the story. The semi open world levels are just big enough to give the player a choice of options in how to deal with any given situation, yes many of those situations involve fights with hostile enemies and options are open to the player in how they want to deal with these situations. but I think the best moments in the levels are when the player’s left alone in the world to pick over the bones of a city that has fallen apart, rotten and is in the midst of being forgotten. This is a world filled with the remanence of an old world, a world that is slowly being grown over and reclaimed by nature and I think whilst taking your time to go through each level slowly you can really feel the impact this has on the characters as they try to forget their past and the lives they once lived and try to carve out a new life for themselves in this world knowing that death could only be minutes away.
Does it help that its beautiful ?
It has to be in my opinion the best looking game on the console a technical achievement of the highest order. A masterpiece that game companies will be trying to get close too late into the next console’s life span. It is simply stunning to look at. If your a fan of the photo mode be prepared to spend hours working on your perfect shot as everything in the game looks beautiful. The rain makes you feel cold, the sun makes you reach out and grab that screen and the shots of the moon will have you worrying that you have some how stumbled into ancient Transylvania, with Dracula lurking around the next corner. Its a beauty to be hold. Once as I controlled Ellie as she walked through a corn field, I found myself wondering how the corn felt as her hands brushed across it – something I have never even considered before in a video game. Naughty Dog have made everything in the game look alive or in some cases very, very dead. Everything feels vital to the world and begs for you to interact with to see what the next corner has to offer.
It is because it’s filled with surprises? (spoilers)
In a world where anything could happen from a firefight with an troupe of cultists, to an unscheduled fight with a group of the infected as you were just looking for supplies. Things happen that you don’t expect and that happens quite a lot. Its a game that keeps you on your toes and it’s all the better for it.
It’s very Bleak
This isn’t so much a positive as just something the game does so well. The games world is dark and desolate place. A world that has been overrun with decay and hasn’t yet decided how to fight back. Sure there are moments of joy and happiness but these rare moments of joy have to be earned and enjoyed in the small window of time they exist in. The world of the Last of Us is ever changing and it is rarely changing for the better
The characters?
You would expect everybody you meet in the game to be full of dread, overcome with fears of death and what will become of them after that – they really don’t want to be bitten. But the characters seem to, for the most part be able to move on, push past the trauma and lead somewhat normal lives in this chaotic jungle. They may not be around for ever but they, for the most part seem to want to make the most of life while they can still cling to it.
This all seems to to add up to one of the complete gaming packages I have ever had the pleasure to play. Yes it may be bleak and left me feeling pretty crappy for a few hours after I finished but, I still cherish the time I spent with it. It’s almost the complete game and one I think most people will love.
Normally I don’t tend to write about games, I haven’t enjoyed. Pretending instead to treat it as something that never happened, a mistake on both my part and the part of the game. Something that is best forgotten and left in the past.
Sometimes however, rules need to change. Words need to be typed and things need to be said. This is where I find myself with the PSVR release of Gorn. I can’t stand this game. For me it’s like a relationship that has gone wrong, we didn’t get on from the start and now its best we keep apart. These are the reasons why my initial hope for Gorn turned into Hate.
Overhype. I watched videos of the game for months before it’s release, admiring it from afar, the game looks incredible, it’s a mindless gladiator simulator. with cartoony graphics with realistic physics, Everything is very cartoony, the crowd are giant heads peering down on you you can where the gameplay is just you trying to survive a gladiatorial onslaught you can pull opponents apart throw them out of the arena, stack them up into little piles of dead pixels, shoot arrows, hit opponents with hammers and a whole range of other options, with the end goal being for the player to smash each opponents into a messy pulp and generally have a fun time. Think Bar Simulator with a lot more care and attention
Controls . The controls for the PSVR Version of this game just don’t seem to work for me, I have seen videos of people gliding around the arena dishing out death at every single angle like some sort of gladiatorial avenging Angel, where I am stuck going backwards when I want to forwards and forwards when I want to go backwards. I know the game has a cartoony feel with it with your opponents moving more like giant jelly babies than real people but I just can’t get the hang of it, my opponent’s must laugh as the seem me edging nearer and then further away.
The Health System The health system is by far my least favourite part of the game. It runs like this as soon as you are hit be it a fist, a hammer or an arrow you start to blead out with a portion of red to indicate you are bleeding filling up the screen, the red will very quickly fill up the players vision meaning that the player has bled out and that they are dead with the only way to avoid this is to quickly quickly kill an opponent in the few seconds you get before dying. Now I don’t know if you have played this game but, this mechaninc is something that fills me with absolute panic and more than a few curses being shouted around the house, trying to fight whilst you can’t quite get to where you want to go is one of the most frustrating gaming systems I have ever come across. I hope that something like a three hit and your out system is implemented in a future patch,
Variety I know, I knew what I was getting the moment I first picked the game up Gorn its a fighting sim, what did I expect? Well, I think I expected a bit more fitness to the combat than just grabbing a weapon and walling my arms about hoping for the best outcome but, it still doesn’t hide the fact that you can pick up a weapon and throw yours about in the hope of winning (good for fitness, I guess)
It could just be me Of course it might just be me, my camera could be too low (tried it) I could just be crap – fairly likely or and my probably most likely the game isn’t for me. Not everyone can be a winner, I hope if you have played the game and if you have any tips please let me know
It is possible to love a game and yet somehow dislike it? If it is, Fallen Order is that game.
Don’t get me wrong it is by far the best single player Star Wars game of the last few years, it just isn’t the best game Remedy Entertainment have made that award, in my opinion still goes to Titanfall 2.
There is a lot to love about Fallen Order. It includes an incredible amount of fan service for the average Star Wars fan, from the authentic swoosh the lightsabre’s make as you twirl them around your body to either defeat enemies, deflect blaster bolts or just twirl it about in your hands to get a feel for the jedi’s favourite weapon the lightsabers are very impressive, next up are the worlds themselves which are for the most part very different from each other, I won’t go into any specific spoilers here but you feel like each different world is it’s own part of the puzzle with each individual world adding to your hero’s Journey. yes they do all fall into the Remedy Formula of lots of jumping, lots of running and then lots of wall running but, when it’s this good who can complain. I can just see why nearly all of the planets are abandoned, they are all very hazardous, My favourite thing about the game has to be the Storm Troopers themselves, they are an absolute credit to the game and the developers, they have all been injected with a kind of personality some will call out to a group if they see you, some will try and tackle our Jedi hero all alone, their dialogue is brilliant, if in a group some will start out defiant calling out Cal, telling him he is about to die, before quickly complementing his guard, if their attacks can’t get through, and as there numbers dwindle some will call out to Cal telling him that they don’t need the help of the other Storm Troopers that they will be enough to defeat home others when down to a one-on-one situation will see the impending doom on the horizon and say things like ” they knew they were going to die here and how they didn’t want to be the last one standing ” all of this adds some personality to the game, a bit of gallows humour to what could be a very straight forward fight against underpowered cannon-fodder enemies
The Bit’s I didn’t Like
Every Ying must have it’s yang For Fallen order they are a few bit’s of the game that just didn’t feel right for me, some bits that just made me go oh, okay and here they are.
Parts from other games. It’s been said a lot before and I am only going to repeat it here, Fallen:Order takes a lot from other games, just from my time with the game I spotted (cough, cough) influence’s from games such as Dark Souls, God of War, Tome Raider, Titanfall and most importantly the Uncharted series. Where the influences to some of the game’s mentioned to spot are easy, for example the Dark Souls references are easy to spot as Fallen Order lifts the game’s saves mechanic wholesale only changing the name of the save system it’s self from Bonfire to Mediation. I felt the game actually took much of it’s core gameplay from Titanfall, Tomb Raider and Uncharted. The game feels like a Tomb Raider game with the cinematic feel of the Uncharted series mixed in with it and this is great, all the above games are some of my favourite I love the genre. It’s just I felt that those other games did it better, Titanfall’s movement it’s sense of speed its copied here but not matched, the climbing taken from Tomb Raider is an imitation of it, I lost count of the number of times I died to the game not letting me grab an easy hand hold or just piloting me of the edge of a cliff and whilst these niggles do get ironed out as our Jedi get’s more powerful and more abilities are added to his repertoire it never felt like I was fully in control. I think tonally Fallen Order takes most of it’s hints from Uncharted it want’s to be Uncharted want’s to take it’s crown as the king of action adventure games, It wants to be seen as gaming’s answer to old Saturday morning cartoons and again there are some cinematic set pieces that are almost breath taking. Where in an Uncharted game a set piece is a thing to be marvelled at, the player feels like they go through it by the skin of their teeth but in reality as the explosions fly by and death hurtles past you at a hundred miles an hour the player is asked to do the minimum to not do much more than almost sit back and enjoy the spectacle. Fallen Order again tries to imitate this sense of spectacle, but can’t help adding in a wall run here or a delicate jump there, that just manages to take the players eye of the sheer enjoyment of what they are seeing as they fail at the last hurdle. Sometimes we just want to see a great explosion and a last minute escape.
Thank you for reading through my wittering’s, Have you tried Fallen Order, What do you think of our Jedi Hero?
Hi future me hope your well? If your reading this note, you are now waiting for the PSVR exclusive Blood and Truth to either install from the disk, download a patch or possibly, if the gaming Gods are really against you, your sitting there twiddling your thumbs as not only has the game taken ages to install but, you now have to install a soding great update file as well. Only time will tell, but right now in the what is your past, I think? Your sitting, looking at your phone far, far too much as you wait for the little message to pop up saying that your delivery has been dispatched. Your having a great time, aren’t you? Lucky boy. just try and remember a few things in the time between the you now and you in the 24 hours between typing this up and you playing the game
1: Spoilers are real. Try not to watch to many trailers, game play throughs and video reviews. Try and save something for your first play through. Try not to ruin it before you have even played it
2: Appreciate the moment. Give yourself a chance to enjoy the game, no rushing through to get to the end as quickly as possible, relax, take a deep breath take in the sights. You only get one first time.
3: Charge the Move controllers. You know you should have done it by now
4: Re-calibrate the Move controllers. This, you really should have been done by now. there veering to the left more than Nan after few seasonal sherries. It won’t just fix itself
5: Try not to say ”have it” too much, you are not a South London gangster. No matter how much the game tells you are
6: You have neighbours – try not to shout too loud. Just because you can’t hear them with your headphones on, it doesn’t mean they can’t hear you swear
7: Take a break. Too much VR gives even the most hardened gangster a headache
8: Ask your self why some of the baddies roll around like they are auditioning for a part in the N64 game Goldeneye. Then shoot them before they get a chance to stand up
9: Try and not get too upset when you try and catch a grenade – miss and blow yourself up
10: Try and not make a phew phew sound every time you shoot. Its not cool, your an adult, apparently
And there we are 8 tips to hopefully help future me enjoy Blood and Truth, if it turns up tomorrow and 2 things I really should do now. After all you can’t play with the Move controllers if you should be shooting left but all the controllers want to do is show you the right side of the screen and charging them up is really going to help getting the whole thing going.
What about you, are you planning to release you inner villain?
