After working on it and educating myself on how, I've finally got a complete website. I'd like to thank all my regular readers, and hope i see you on my new url. I'm happy to announce:
Monday, June 17, 2013
Thursday, June 13, 2013
Review - Remember Me
Remember Me, or rather, Art design - the game, Shows some great moments and some unique highlights, but also stumbles with some basics in a third person action game. The keyword in Remember Me is, obviously, 'Art design' with a great focus on bringing Neo Paris to life, and a special attention to details, making this a very visually impressive game.
Set 70 years in the future, the world is practically run by an organization called The Memorize corporation, having created the Sensation Engine, mostly referred to as Sensen, a brain implant that allows the manipulation of memories, removing bad ones, or just sharing on the net, Memorize can police and keep the population under surveillance.
On the other side of this spectrum is a group of memory hunters called 'Errorists' to congregate and unite in their mission to bring down Memorize. Caught in between is the part of Sensen users who overloaded on memories and degraded their Sensen chip and suffered a mutation themselves.
![]() |
Nilin is also multicultural, very PC |
Remember Me kicks off in the shoes of Nilin, our heroine, somewhere in a facility, With so few memories left in her noggin she can barely stand and walk. A voice in her ear, from a man calling himself only 'Edge' helps her out of her predicament and guides her to freedom through a very uncomfortable body disposal system.
It's a pretty clever way to utilize the games own concept to explain exposition, and we get to explore the story with the same starting point as our main protagonist. And of everything well designed in the game, nothing comes close to Nilin herself, from her clothes, hairstyle, combat moves, athleticism, attitude and abilities, everything comes together beautifully.
Nilin is a great female character, though dependent because of her memory loss, she just 'feels' powerful, like the strongest person in the world, this is best portrayed with her 'overload' ability where she literally scrambles her enemies' brains and gives it a powerful blast of memories, instantly incapacitating them.
![]() |
There is a lot of climbing in the game, fun though |
Another good decision was to ground everything as much in reality as possible, combat for instance, Nilin cannot harm robot by punching them, because that is silly and every game should remember that. Or her climbing, she doesn't 'lift' herself to a ledge 10 feet above her, she actually steps and jumps off the ledge she was hanging from.
When she gets shot or hit by a droid's capture field she instantly goes down. No sitting behind a waist high cover and complaining a bit and the bullet magically disappears and her wounds heal, nope, Nilin goes down like a sack of potatoes, and we loved that, making it easier to relate to Nilin's mortality and humanity.
The story can feel a bit fragmented and isolated, whatever you do in any chapter before chapter six aren't referred to or has any bearing on the next coming chapters, or at least it seems like that until chapter six and through the rest of the game where everything comes together as a whole, but it can be a confusing road to get there.
![]() |
If you turn the camera facing Nilin, she will look at you, creepy. |
Using the combo lab, the player is able to customize their own set of four combos, adding in effects such as healing or cooldown on Nilin's five 'special abilities'. In the end this is to add variety to combat, but ends up being an aesthetic option rather than tactical. Near the end we had a super long kill-everything-in-one combo, an emergency heal combo and a cooldown+big heal combo., leaving a whole combo unused.
Our biggest issue with the game however, was the camera, that camera is not your friend, when opening doors with our 'key gun' the camera was still locked on to the door going upwards, leaving us looking at the roof and Nilin running into the nearest wall whenever entering a new room fast.
Normally the camera acts on an axis on a line with the characters eyes or center of their head. Imagine a stick between the camera and a character's head, so when she looks up the camera moves lower behind her, and moving above her when looking down but in both cases keeping Nilin's head in the center.
![]() |
"Scramble scramble scramble" |
And although this mostly applies to Remember Me as well, when entering a small room or if Nilin's back is close to a wall this axis get's completely ruined, often changing to way above Nilin's head and looking around feels sluggish and uncooperative. And the password riddles seems like something that would make sense in French, but definitely not for a Norwegian.
Final thoughts, Remember Me tells a great and unique story in a fantastic looking Neo-Paris with an exciting and nicely designed main character, for a brand new ip from a brand new studio, this is a very impressive showing. The music and score are breathtaking and well composed.
The lack of oomph in the combat upgrades, a few unfair deaths where Nilin might hit a ledge at a slight angle and decide it's better to fall to her death in stead of hanging on and a fidgety camera is kind of a let down, but varied locations, fun traversal and a brilliant protagonist makes Remember me a solid:
4/5
This game is just fun to play because more games need heroines like Nilin, not just because she's a strong female, but because of her depth and her relatability. If you like Sci-fi in a futuristic and stylish setting, heavily rooted in a plausible reality (maybe except the whole memory manipulation thing, but who knows?) then this is definitely for you.
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Review - Nintendo Direct E3
Nintendo
Well instead of pulling out all the stops and doing a big press conference, for the first time since the first E3 back in 1995 Nintendo has opted to do their own thing with a Nintendo Direct.
So for the games revealed, we got a new Mario, and it looks fantastic and I cant wait to try it out. Pokemon X and Pokemon Y was shown, though I have to admit, I am a little skeptical towards the new graphical design, but we'll see when it's out.
Mario Kart 8 looks very interesting, with the anti gravity feature opening up many, many possibilities for hidden paths, shortcuts, gameplay in general, so it's very exciting to see what they come up with, Nintendo might not be 'hardcore' but they know how to make fun games.
I dont really have an opinion on Wii Party U, it feels redundant and unnecessary when you already have a popular and widely loved franchise in Mario Party, I would much rather see my Mii playing alongside Mario and gang as a feature in Mario Party. We also dont want a new attempt at Wii sports. Wii sports sold as much as it did because it was free/bundled, it never had much to offer besides bowling.
Monolith Soft's X looks interesting, like a mix of JRPG and third person action game in a huge open world, the way it look brings to mind Monster Hunter. Also Bayonetta now has short hair? Well, that's interesting, considering her clothes are made of her hair that seamlessly blended together below her shoulders in the first game, but she still uses her hair for spells, including the hair covering her body. So that brings me to two possibilities; 1. She is dressed in dead hair that will wither and probably smell pretty bad. 2. the hair comes from somewhere else on her body and someone needs to give her some basic grooming tips.
Rounding up the pièce de résistance, Nintendo announced a brand new Super Smash Bros for both Wii U and 3DS, out smoe time 2014. It's not a new melee, but it introduces a couple of new characters, first is the Animal Crossing 'Villager' who looks quirky and has hard to predict abilities. Second, with one of the coolest reveal videos I have ever seen was MegaMan, I know, finally right, he looks like a short and long range brawler with the ability to change his main attacks just like in the game.
All in all a fairly well put together video, we can only hope that next year we get a full press conference with more gameplay and live demo's. And finally, Nintendo, when is the Vitality Sensor coming out!?!
Well instead of pulling out all the stops and doing a big press conference, for the first time since the first E3 back in 1995 Nintendo has opted to do their own thing with a Nintendo Direct.
So for the games revealed, we got a new Mario, and it looks fantastic and I cant wait to try it out. Pokemon X and Pokemon Y was shown, though I have to admit, I am a little skeptical towards the new graphical design, but we'll see when it's out.
Mario Kart 8 looks very interesting, with the anti gravity feature opening up many, many possibilities for hidden paths, shortcuts, gameplay in general, so it's very exciting to see what they come up with, Nintendo might not be 'hardcore' but they know how to make fun games.
I dont really have an opinion on Wii Party U, it feels redundant and unnecessary when you already have a popular and widely loved franchise in Mario Party, I would much rather see my Mii playing alongside Mario and gang as a feature in Mario Party. We also dont want a new attempt at Wii sports. Wii sports sold as much as it did because it was free/bundled, it never had much to offer besides bowling.
Monolith Soft's X looks interesting, like a mix of JRPG and third person action game in a huge open world, the way it look brings to mind Monster Hunter. Also Bayonetta now has short hair? Well, that's interesting, considering her clothes are made of her hair that seamlessly blended together below her shoulders in the first game, but she still uses her hair for spells, including the hair covering her body. So that brings me to two possibilities; 1. She is dressed in dead hair that will wither and probably smell pretty bad. 2. the hair comes from somewhere else on her body and someone needs to give her some basic grooming tips.
Rounding up the pièce de résistance, Nintendo announced a brand new Super Smash Bros for both Wii U and 3DS, out smoe time 2014. It's not a new melee, but it introduces a couple of new characters, first is the Animal Crossing 'Villager' who looks quirky and has hard to predict abilities. Second, with one of the coolest reveal videos I have ever seen was MegaMan, I know, finally right, he looks like a short and long range brawler with the ability to change his main attacks just like in the game.
All in all a fairly well put together video, we can only hope that next year we get a full press conference with more gameplay and live demo's. And finally, Nintendo, when is the Vitality Sensor coming out!?!
Review - Sony E3 Press conference
Sony
So once again Jack Tretton takes the stage and start off the conference, talking about PS3 and Playstation Vita, promising more than 85 titles, big, small and indie before the end of the year, including some remakes like God of War 1 & 2 HD (so we get to buy these for a third time) and Final Fantasy X & X-2.
The show starts off a little slow, but whoever planned this conference needs to get a raise, they quickly finish with trailers and info on Vita, Ps3, GTA 5 bundles and, well, everything not PS4. And before you know it Andrew House takes the stage and introduces the PS4 design. It looks good, but it also looks kind of safe, like , there's no groundbreaking design here, its a rectangular box, tilted backwards, but it still looks good, so, cant complain really.
Naturally since they left it out at the reveal, they have to go through features, and what the Playstation 4 can do, remember, Microsoft used 45 minutes of their 1 hour press conference to do this, so we expected to sit through alot of tedious talking, wich is fine normally but at this point it was about 3:30 AM here so I was kind of tired. Less than 10 minutes later, not only did they finish, not only are they starting demo reels of games, but they straight up announce a first part brand new IP.
Now at this point, all competitors should be sitting upright front and center taking notes, because now it's becoming clear that this press conference will be one to remember. And what a show it was, where Microsoft showed games, games, games, Sony showed gameplay, gameplay, gameplay, and i might be wrong here, but it felt like more games altogether. Sony came out, saw an opportunity, and it felt like, since their press conference was delayed, that they revealed more than was originally intended to really establish dominance this generation.
Shuhei Yoshida might be the most adorable presenter known to man. And the line of Indie developers playing their games as they're being introduced was a great touch that some might not catch, but they showed you eight games, running on Playstation 4, live in only five minutes. the variation, pacing, presenting, timing, this press conference was nigh on perfect, so congratulations on that Sony.
Highlight games in the show were The Order (1886?) which looks like a steampunk olden London third person shooter, kind of like Damnation, only hopefully, good. And god help me, Knack looks pretty beast, speaking of February reveals, compliments to Sony for Blasting through those in quick succession, moving on to new reveals and more gameplay of the game's able to show it.
Final Fantasy XV looks great, as a Final Fantasy fan i will endlessly support the franchise, ever hoping for a new blockbuster like Final Fantasy VII, but this one looks seriously good. Kingdom Hearts 3 had me jumping out of my seat, with what looked like scripted, in-engine gameplay. I guess we all kind of saw it coming, but the reveal was fantastic all the same.
Favorite part of the conference was Jack Tretton's speech completely devastating Xbox One, after the show Microsoft commented that they did not compare consoles or press conferences because their's was a machine for the future while Sony's console was for right now. Well with all the restrictions on X1 It feels more like the console of the past, making the same mistakes Sony did with PS3, just 10 times worse, PS3's only mistake was taking too much focus off games and making a media machine with expensive hardware, making the price ludicrously high, but never limited or restricted. X1 is like a remote control with 10 buttons, but you can only press 5 once and they're locked forever.
Overall, great show, masterfully executed, the Assassins creed freeze is natural with an unfinished game on an unfinished console. Paying less than $5 a month for online is reasonable and it comes with so much content you get your money back literally the first day you pay, and it also comes with Jack Tretton's promise that it will help improve online down the road, so we all benefit individually and as a whole. Microsoft will have to seriously rethink their strategy, although I don't think that is feasible at this point if they're to make a November release window. It just might be in their best interest to postpone the release until early 2014 with a new strategy, but hey, what do i know. Good luck to both companies and i look forward to both of their releases.
Review - Ubisoft Entertainment E3 Press conference
Ubisoft
Ubisoft had a great showing this year as well, Starting off strong with Jerry Cantrell (Alice In Chains) on stage jamming with some Rocksmith. And love her or hate her, I personally love her, Aisha Tyler hosting the whole conference in a #Girlwood shirt referring to her E3 2012 comment that she "get girl wood for games" you go girl. They showed a bunch of games and I'll do a quick run through of all of them, so let's go.
Splinter Cell Blacklist, There's not much to talk about here, they showed very, very little, but let you hear a whole lot of cuts from the story, apparently Sam has to work with a woman he doesn't want to because nobody works better with him than her...whatever that means. The star here is the Spies VS Mercs multiplayer mode, innovative and looks very fun.
Rayman Legends continues the style of play from Rayman Origins, a well made and challenging platformer with crisp controls.
The Mighty Quest for Epic Loot showed a hilarious cgi trailer describing how the game would be, you have to defend your own castle as well as attack others for loot. I'm not sure, we'll just have to wait until we see more, looks fun though.
South Park Stick of Truth appears as funny as ever, they didn't really show much new stuff here, mostly Cartman appearing and callign a release date for "the holiday season 2013 or, you know, some holiday season, you know how video games are" #Nagasakifart
The Crew looks like a very interesting racer, it gives off a strong Burnout Paradise vibe, just a lot bigger and better, with a huge open world, actually the entire U.S. it seems, and the ability to go anywhere to explore offroad and on.
Watch Dogs is Watch Dogs, they've showed this so many times that you can find a trailer or some gameplay anywhere, it looks good, and i cant wait to review it when it comes out.
Just Dance 2014, I'm not much of a dancer myself, but now you can change the song mid dance. And the use of the Wii U tablet looks really fun in a party setting.
Rabbids Invasion, not really sure what I'm expecting from this, I've never been a huge Rabbids fan, but I'll definitely have my 7 Year old son help me review the game.
Assassins Creed Black Flag, To be honest, back when this was first revealed I thought this was the weakest of the series, to me pirates seems like a run down niche by now, but the more I see from this, the more excited I get, mostly because it looks absolutely astounding, so beautiful on the next gen consoles...Even if it did freeze during Sony's gameplay footage. But stuff like that can happen, there's a reason the game is not out yet, it's an unfinished game playing on an unfinished console, what's important is that it proved it was not pre-recorded, but actual live demonstration of a next gen game, something we can all appreciate.
Trials Fusion and Trials Frontier, finally a new Trials game, even with Trials HD seemingly infinite possibilities in its creative mode where people have made completely different games with the motocross engine, I saw a mini golf game made from Trials HD today as a matter of fact, right here. So I cant wait to see what comes out of Trials Fusion. Trials Frontier is a Trials game for mobile devices. Also this trailer had my number one pick for best song in this year's E3 press conferences: Anonymous FT. Taz - Look at me
The Division, now this looks REALLY interesting, a third person mmo shooter, absolutely amazing looking and seems really fun as well, also #MONEY! A 10 minute gameplay trailer followed where the guy, when moving in cover behind a car closed its door! he closed the door!
They followed up with a Q & A post show, taking questions on twitter and having all the presenters answer questions about their respective game. All in all a terrific conference, entertaining, cool reveals, great pacing, some quirky but funny humor. Good job Ubisoft!
Labels:
#girlwood,
aisha,
conference,
E3,
entertainment,
fart,
nagasaki,
press,
review,
tyler,
ubisoft
Tuesday, June 11, 2013
Review - EA Games E3 Press Conferences
EA Games
EA Games Had a great showing, maybe a little slow in the beginning with a lengthy, but fun Plants VS Zombies : Garden Warfare gameplay demo, live or pre-recorded is hard to tell, but looks live enough.
Moving on they showed a lot more of Titanfall with developers commentary. Titanfall is the first game coming out of ex-Infinity Ward' Quasi-famous developers Vince Zampella and Jason West's new studio Respawn entertainment. The pair is most known for spearheading the ever famous Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.
Need For Speed: Rivals looks interesting, it seems to have a new take on multiplayer, a considerable upgrade from previous title Need For Speed: Most Wanted (2012) and is currently being developed by Ghost Games and Criterion Games for all platforms to a holiday release later this year.
Following that a sequel to a personal favorite series of mine was unveiled, Dragon Age Inquisition, and though just a cgi trailer, it looks amazing.
NBA Live 14 is all about dribbling, dribble dribble dribble, not much more to take from that reveal. Madden is Madden, as a European it's hard to relate to Madden and i have never played any of the games, sorry. Even as pre-alpha footage FIFA 14 looks vibrant, sleek and immersive, definitely one to watch. Next UFC game looks fun, need to see more before I can go into more detail.
Highlight of the show: 64 players live demoing the new Battlefield 4 Multiplayer, it's heavily scripted, bringing many to assume its pre-recorded, I sincerely hope it was not and will chose to believe its all live. They brought down a whole building! not a small shack, but a huge skyscraper, and it looked amazing. What I noticed though was that the dust settled quickly and there wasn'tt much of it, this could be a great way to change the entire map with low visibility and a great way to make use of commander abilities.
And then came one of my favorite reveals of the whole night, Mirror's Edge 2, finally. Such an amazing franchise that deserved way more attention and should have sold way more than it did in its first outing. Hopefully now that the series has gotten more exposure over time we will see a lot more of Faith and her free running.
Solid showing from EA, keeping a good pace throughout, showed some great games, much to look forward to coming up with new games and new games for new consoles.
Review - Microsoft E3 Press Conference
Microsoft
Microsoft came out and delivered as promised, a whole bunch of games and gameplay. Standout moments include Forza 5, Dead Rising 3, Witcher 3, Project Spark, Killer Instinct and Halo 5, and a ton of in engine or in game gameplay, even though some were obviously pre-recorded Microsoft came out and gave us what we wanted. Saying Microsoft had a bad conference would be far from true, did they have the best? That's open for discussion.
One thing that was a trend throughout all conferences was technical issues, absolutely everyone had something happen, in Microsoft's case there were audio issues, no more apparent than in their Crimson Dragon trailer and beginning of the Battlefield 4 trailer where there was no sound at all.
The problem with Microsoft's press conference is that their consumers are worried, and they never addressed the issues people are still unsure about. Xbox One is littered with limitations and restrictions that encumber the system and the consumer, with required online connection at least once every 24 hours, ONLY to check if you bought something new to lock it to your profile. The online connection has no benefits for the user at all. The complicated way to share your games or trade it in, also for no benefit of the consumer and ONLY for Microsoft. This is a give and give relationship Microsoft, we give you money, you give us what we pay for, not you 'allow' us to use what you sold us.
Finally the price, there has always been a $100 = €100 or $300 = €300, and we'we always accepted that, but now its time to break the mold Microsoft. $500 sounds like a fair starting price, it's a pretty heavy machine with loads of features, however, it's not localized, meaning most of the world will have to struggle with their broken English to use the voice commands. The TV features are obsolete and unusable for anyone outside of the U.S.A. although U.K. usually catch up to those features rather quick, as they have on the ps3, but most of us will never, ever have any use of any of those features. So we should pay more for a machine even though we can only use about 50% of the features on it (really all we can do is use voice commands and twitch... oh and games). €500 is not the same as $500, its actually around $700.
How is that fair? How can you justify this? I have never felt less cared about as part of a nation and part of a continent before, do you assume we pay you anything for a machine we can barely use and games we cant ever sell?
All info about the machine, price and restrictions I give a 0/5 mostly because they never address it. But put that aside and we're talking only about the games, then I give the show a 4/5
Monday, June 10, 2013
Sunday, June 9, 2013
Editorial - E3: 5 things to do and not to do
Sony
What to do:
1: Keep the momentum going after their PS4 reveal, that reveal was all about games, games, games, don't drudge down the E3 press conference with too much technical mumbo jumbo or showing us how fast we can change the channel for five minutes... oh wait
2: Show the box! It's pretty given that this will happen with the reveal teaser released and everything. still, just making sure: show it!
3: Address the issues Microsoft are facing and if you are doing some of the same things, give us the bad news then games, games, games!
4: Kevin Butler on stage!
5: End the conference with a bang, like a huge surprise, and it would be nice if it was about the console and not just a new game or IP. example: Playstation plus v 2.0 reworked with new benefits. or the actual price of the console.
What not to do:
1: Don't show the box.
2: Trophies will not carry over. Just bad.
3: show all the multimedia features of the box for like an hour or more, we get it, there's new stuff in it that you need to show, but keep it short please, this has been earmarked as a gamer's console. And we still know it will be a great multimedia machine, we got a PS3, the PS4 is an upgrade, so remember, an icon can do the same job in less than a second.
4: Always on = Always NO! just, don't do it ok, please?!?
5: Don't focus too much on move. if there's a huge upgrade to it, go ahead and show that, we know what it is, and we know what it does unless you have something new to show.
Bonus: Do. Not. Forget. The. Vita!
Nintendo
1: Hold a press conference. A lot of people say it's good of them not to hold one to come between the 'giants' Sony and Microsoft. And at some points i can agree, Nintendo don't really hold the same audience anymore, but not keeping a presence at E3 shows a lack of confidence and an overconfidence in Nintendo direct. Even without the hardcore audience your customers are nervous about their Wii u purchase and were waiting for E3 and some great game reveals to solidify their confidence in you.
Microsoft
What to do:
1: Apologize. I know that it would be a big pill to swallow, but recognize that the gaming community in general saw the X1 release as a failure. We know, it was never meant to show games, but neither did you show a games console, for instance, another site, let's call them "EGN" (please don't sue me!) said "even if they didn't show any games it doesn't mean there wont be games for X1, they're not taking anything away from the console" and I call BS on that, of course we know the games will be there, but show a tech demo or something! you had 0 in game footage, 0 graphical demonstrations, 0 outside-game features other than change the channel to watch TV. So for your core audience all you revealed was the design of the box and a whole bunch of bad news.
2: Get Gabe Newell on stage, cant help but love that guy.
3: Show the 'cool side' of Kinect. We know this conference could almost be called the Kinect conference, since it's integral to the whole system. I'll tell you a secret: nobody wants Kinect, we got burned on X360, it's inaccurate, laggy and prone to glitches, you have yet to prove it's worth, do it now in this year's E3.
4: Show off this 'upgraded achievement system'
5: Reveal the price. i talk more about this in my 'not to do'
What not to do:
1: don't estrange the larger part of your consumer base: Everywhere in the world other than the United States. What do I mean? well let's say the console costs $400 USD, that's about 2300 NOK (Norwegian krona) however, since we live in Europe, and only because we live in Europe the console would cost 400€. I realize it looks nice on paper $400 and 400€. but the price just went up for Europeans from 2300 NOK to about 3000 NOK. that is a considerable leap. that's one whole game plus 100 NOK more. Normally this would be fine because we're used to it, but we only get half the console, remember all those things you were so proud to show on your reveal conference? Well we cant use any of that, voice commands will probably not be localized either, not that English is a problem for most of us, however we do feel silly A: talking to our TV B: even more so doing it in a foreign language. So we should pay 25% more than the U.S. for half the features? I'd say 300€ sounds about right this time (2300 NOK, same price as U.S.). and then we wont mind if you raise the price a bit on your monthly fee or sale price Once you get all the features on our consoles as well!
2: Leave the whole 'One box to rule them all' concept out of this, we got it the first time, we will forever be reminded by the name of the box. We don't need any more.
3: keep talking about other things than games and game features on the box to an absolute minimum.
4: no fake tattoo reveals please, only real tattoo
5: don't try to 'explain' your press release to us, we're not idiots, you're trying to kill used games by 'letting publishers decide', the console requires online connection to work, even if it is once every 24 hours, that still requires an online connection. And the kinect will always be watching us as long as the console is on standby. these are not good things. but at least we know them.
Thursday, June 6, 2013
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
Review - The Last of Us
How do you elevate storytelling to a new level after giants like Bioshock, Heavy Rain or Metal Gear Solid? Well Naughty Dog has raised the bar, and then some. From the start you're instantly sucked into the atmosphere, story, and character only to face a tearful turn of events only minutes later.
Simply the attention to detail in this game shows how much love, time and appreciation went into this game, sitting in the backseat of a moving car and panning the camera around while your character moves around following the field of view, or quip remarks after reading collectibles.
The story takes place 20-21 years after the initial outbreak of a Cordyceps virus (this is a real thing by the way) epidemic, where the infection starts growing rapidly on the anger-inducing part of the brain, making them feral and highly agitated, after some time the fungus grows out of the skull taking over most of the face and upper part of the head.
These advanced mutations render the unfortunate infected blind and are referred to as clickers because they use a growling clicking sound to see around them using sonar waves. But when these creatures are at the end of their life, they sit down against a wall and sort of becomes one with their environment.
These 'dead' clickers produce and release spores around them, infecting anyone who inhales them. The not-so-far-gone infected still sees, and depending on their visually represented stage of infection some have already started clicking, these are fast and vicious, referred to as 'Runners'. Still easier to handle than the clickers themselves.
To talk about the main characters themselves it's hard not to go into spoiler territory, but their archetypes are easier defined, but harder to emote until you actually play the game. Joel is gruff, a hard ass and pretty averagely normal guy, making the best out of a bad situation for him, and to some extent his partner, Tess.
Ellie is a typical teenager, testing limits, rebellious and foul mouthed, and clearly the star of the show, she is completely capable and never seem out of place in combat, so even though this whole game is basically one huge escort mission, Ellie seems more like a willing participant, rather than a helpless girl who 'needs' anyone.
The third honorary main character, would be mother nature herself, every room and every object in whatever area you may be in is somehow connected to the earth, anywhere you look, you will either see something green or brown, and completely jaw dropping beautiful, several instances will have you just stopping whatever you are doing, just looking around.
Far into the game there are still areas that surprise and beautifully represent the time of year you're currently playing. During winter you might find yourself just looking at the prints you made walking backwards or in circles. For the keen of eye, you will even notice that the snow glitters, it glitters!
Naughty Dog, yet again proves how much care and thought are put into even the smallest segments. The meat and potatoes in the game here is all about story, and what a story it is, this is one of those games that are not about reaching the ending, but rather absorbing and enjoying the journey to get there.
The writing, directing, voice and motion capture acting are amazing all on their own terms, earning their own score and we give them 5/5. there's not much to talk about here, anything you ask if they do right, the answer is 'yes' or 'better than you have ever seen before'. and Gustavo Santaolalla completely captures the energy and atmosphere of every scene with his score, someone throw this guy another Oscar right now!
Every character is cast perfectly as well, with the fantastic actress Ashley Johnson playing the likeness of Ellen Page, Ellie. And veteran voice actor Troy Baker, recently known for voicing Booker Dewitt and soon to be known for voicing The Joker in Batman Origins, seriously, talk about acting range! And it wouldn't be a Naughty Dog game without the big guy himself, Nolan North.
And although those are just the main characters, absolutely everyone in the game just sound and act brilliantly, putting in a performance few can match and even fewer still can top. Thanks to a creepy old fortune teller and a magic eight ball, we now know the next soon-to-be announced release coming out of Naughty Dog; it'll be a book, its title: "how it's done!".
During our time with the game, we only ever managed to get into one multiplayer game, so we are forced to release this review without a thorough knowledge of the multiplayer, but we will release a part two of the review, we can however score the game, because even if you never touch the multiplayer you get a hundred times worth your money with the single player alone, so naturally;
Game Score : 5/5
The combat never becomes monotonous because the strategy, stealth and possibility to avoid combat altogether makes every encounter so tense and involving. The story is masterfully paced, the visuals, animations, acting, simply perfect. Giving this game any less than 100% would be a disservice to both you and us. Buy it!
Tuesday, June 4, 2013
News - Murdered: Soul Suspect, New IP out of Square Enix
MURDERED: SOUL SUSPECT takes players into a whole new realm of mystery where the case is personal and the clues just out of reach. A new take on the action/adventure genre, MURDERED: SOUL SUSPECT challenges players to solve possibly the hardest case of all… their own murder.
MURDERED: SOUL SUSPECT sees players take the role of Ronan O’Connor, a detective with a checkered past, whose life is brought to an untimely end by a brutal and relentless killer. Unable to move on and stuck in the limbo world of Dusk, he won’t find peace until he can bring his killer to justice from the afterlife.
Using his new-found supernatural abilities, Ronan is free to explore the town of Salem, Massachusetts, from his shadowy afterlife. Unable to communicate with the detectives on his case, Ronan must read the minds of the living, influencing their thoughts and actions. As part of his investigation, he must interrogate the ghosts of Salem’s past citizens to piece together the puzzle, while battling demonic spirits to save his soul and uncover the shocking truth about who is responsible for his death.
News - Metro last Light sales numbers
Sales numbers for Metro: Last Light has come in, and according to Deep Silver the title is enjoying a hugely successful first week of sales, outselling predecessor Metro 2033's first week of sales and enjoying great reviews from most gaming related sites, including our own.
On PC the game has sold triple the numbers of Metro 2033 worldwide sales in the first week. In the US, Metro Last Light has sold more physical copies in its first week than the entire lifetime of Metro 2033 to date, Worldwide, across all formats Metro: Last Light sold more in a week than Metro 2033 did in three months.
Unsurprisingly Metro: Last light has shot straight to number one on several weekly charts in European territories including Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France and the fourth week in a row in the UK. So If ever there was a time to buy the Season pack, this is it
“Metro: Last Light is Deep Silver's most critically acclaimed game to date,” said Menno van der Bil, International Commercial Director at Deep Silver. “We are delighted with the deserved critical and commercial success the game has achieved, and hope that this success represents a statement of intent for future quality titles from Deep Silver. We would like to thank 4A Games for their talent, passion and commitment in helping us reach this milestone."
“4A Games are honoured by the reception our latest project has received,” said Andrew Prokhorov, Creative Director at 4A Games. “We are a small but dedicated team who are lucky to have been given the creative freedom and support to make the kind of experience we dream, as gamers, of playing. Our work on Metro: Last Light continues with new single player DLC, and we look forward to revealing future projects from the team. We want to thank all the Metro fans for support we have received.”
Monday, June 3, 2013
Info - Review Embargo
The last of us has arrived! i cant release a review until june 5th because of embargo, but look forward to it!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)