Halo 5: Guardians - The gift that doesn't give - Xbox One Review

Let's get straight to the point, I'm no Halo fanatic. In fact, I didn't care very much for him. I picked up the series from 3 and just enjoyed shooting stuff. Even more so when I probably paid £20 for the lot making it worth the investment. Now I thought I'd change that and jump onto the pre-order bandwagon for Halo 5. Was it worth it? Hell nah

For anyone who has read previous articles, you'll be well aware that I enjoy story. Halo's trailers depicted a rogue Master Chief being chased down by another Spartan called Locke; a hench dude with a a beard that looks like he's drawn it on with a whiteboard marker. Surrounded by rubble, the 2 variants features both characters in vice versa roles drawing their weapon to shoot the restrained one. The whole world appeared to be mourning the death of Chief and the whole thing looked very distopian. Jump into the game and its dramatically different. There is only one confrontation between the characters and this is just over the halfway mark in the game, so about 3-4 hours in and lasts a mere 30 seconds. Chief isn't dead and the world has a far different threat to deal with. SPOILERS - Its Cortana. She's gone batshit crazy and is now planning to police all of the known worlds with some crazy machines. Here is the problem, after 6-8 hours of gameplay, the story isn't actually finished. The credits roll, the game is over and you're left wondering why you spent a fortune for something that wasn't even complete and drags a story so dull and lacklustre on for another instalment. I've played indie games for longer that were cheaper and far more enjoyable. It's the perfect depiction of a cash cow and it'll become another yearly game that bleeds money from its consumers because some mechanics are slightly different and the multiplayer maps have changed - aka Call of Duty.


Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed my experience of shooting stuff on platforms, moving on and rinse and repeat a hundred times, but I'm a different kettle of fish. I'm not there for multiplayer, I'm here for lots of fun and I didn't get that. We've established that the story was pulled from the inner rim of a public toilet but lets talk about everything else wrong with it.

• Its recycled
• Characters and Voice acting were rather dull (Sorry Nathan Fillion, you don't sell it)
• Weapons lack diversity, power and ammo. Seriously, how the fuck does it take a full magazine to kill one enemy!?
• No diversity in enemies. They're dropped in from the beginning and they never change so levels don't ramp up in difficulty, they just add more
• Repetitive zones and boss - Literally, its all the same
• God awful boost mechanic which moves you about 3ft at a time

Its not a long list, sure. Yet its a big list when the only things I can draw from it that are actually good are the visual cut scenes,general graphics and the sound effects. Many people worry about triple A games and the reviewers who cover them for the big publications and so far, these big guys have talked up and marketed these titles as some of the best games ever. I simply cannot agree and with complaints and rumours of paid promotions and reviews by these publications, its not looking good.
I'm currently debating selling or returning this item because it was honestly a bleed on an already tight purse that didn't give its customers what they really deserved - A game for the people, not for the bank account.

6/10 - Tune in next time to see the gradual decline of triple A games in record time

Look at the flowers, Treyarch - Call of Duty Black Ops 3 - REVEAL TRAILER

The biggest disappointments in gaming are back with another CoD. Treyarch really don't know when to stop with all of this. The extreme suckyness that is the Black Ops series some how is being continued. It may have worked for Modern Warfare, lads but they started good...

So yeah, have a glimpse at the biggest reskin of Titanfall you have ever seen and try to enjoy the last breaths of Treyarch before the community hopefully put it down. But y'know, as I'm a sucker for something to do, I may just buy it because I need something to fill in until Titanfall 2 actually rolls in.

Here is the worst game trailer you've seen for a triple A title in years!

Titanfall Beta - REVIEW!

As many of you may have noticed, the Titanfall Beta ended last week. I've left a little time between posting this to allow for it to settle down and hear some new information running up to the release. Down below is one of the first videos I uploaded to Youtube of my Titanfall antics. If you'd like to like, subscribe or anything else, simply go to the channel/video!

Titanfall is undoubtedly one of the, if not THE biggest game coming out this year. With rumours circulating about MLG competitions and Xbox One bundle with reduced price, this game is going to sky rocket even further than before. Based entirely online, the game has one weakness; No single player campaign. The lack of story worries me initially as it removes a lot of the potential. The story could be extremely fast paced and would be great to understand the warring factions. Although news of an online campaign within the multiplayer matches addresses these, it relies on others to pull their weight and also a stable internet connection to enjoy for a long period of time.

Ignoring the story, the Beta was simply an online stress test of their servers and checks on any glitches or bugs that may occur. Looking back at GTA V and others, the popularity of a beta would have solved many of the problems that plagued (and still do) its launch. With games like Bungie's Destiny later this year and Defiance (based on the Syfy channel TV show), it feels as if we are journeying towards multiplayer being the key component for gaming on the next generation consoles and Titanfall is the first to really open this.

If you care to look at my videos, it is easy to see how chaotic the game is. It feels like an all-out war zone although it's only 6v6, the inclusion of AI minions/grunts/spectres and the auto Titan function, the battlefield is packed. All the space is usable and easily accessible with the double jump and wall run functions but you cannot camp out as accessibility to every spot is incredibly easy. The fast paced nature and goals of each game also force you to keep moving and stop people from hiding in a corner under the stairs and delve right into the thick of it. All of it's mechanics are flawless and it flows brilliantly. All of the additions can switch the tide of a game for better or worst in a matter of seconds and it truly gets the blood pumping with no "WTF, How the fuck did he get me" when you no damn well how they got you. I couldn't get angry or rage quit like Call of Duty can do from time to time. Titanfall puts you in a zone and just doesn't let go!

As it stands, the game has the potential to be the biggest thing coming out this year. Smashing the CoD franchise into dust with it's new take on first person shooters and multiplayer team play. Jumping from this to CoD is probably the worst decision I have made and simply cannot wait for it's release!

Battlefield 4 - Quicky Review

I really don't know what I expected from a game that is only made for online purposes. Over the last few years, I only bought into Call of Duty and would spend time doing the campaign while sighing over the poorly developed story. This time around, I decided to get both. Seeing that Battlefield 4 was out in America before it was in the UK, it surly pissed a few people off. Alongside pissing off numerous amounts of Russians and Chinese nationals....

Around everything else I had to do, I didn't stick many hours into the game at all. Probably about 4-5 hours overall. It's really short and very confusing when you have no idea who "Chang" is. I still don't know if he has been a theme through the last couple of games but not addressing this to the new players is a really bad play on their behalf. With about six missions that are spread over a few days, everything moves fast. Perhaps a little too fast. The plot twists where predictable and lacked anything that would truly inspire or help you to interact with the characters on a deeper level. So throughout, characters were just distant. You are placed as a Sargent called Recker who doesn't actually say anything, even when he is being spoken too, a little anti-social if you ask me. It also appears that even when he is in command, everything is decided by everyone else. The rest of the characters are fairly annoying, you cannot relate to them and you learn nothing about them through the time you are with them.

For a game that competes with Call of Duty, every damn year, they should have a lot of effort and resources into the build and development of the game. However, the image was never clear. Surfaces looked fuzzy, AI's would glitch out, the environment never looked real enough to immerse yourself in. for my first outing, I had really high hopes for it, even with it's imminent next gen release bragging about higher visual specs.

Where the game shines is in combat. Plug in the headphones, crank up the noise and get ready for a shit show. Reserve ammo and steal what you can as enemies come thick and fast with little room for mistake and manoeuvre. Combat is quite fun, it's a bit of a switch from CoD but it's fairly easy to grasp. You cannot just shoot a moving target by sticking the dot on him, you have to consider that the bullet needs to travel to get there, this makes it feel very real and when you have bullets pinging around you, the only thing you want to do is pop the enemy quick before they overwhelm you. The glitchiness (if that's even a word) of the game got in my way a few times, lining up an enemy only to have it push you away several time, the enemies are also fairly spongy and do take accuracy to put down effectively. This isn't the case on multiplayer.

In total, it's a fun and enjoyable game to play, all be it stressful at times but it's weak and short story mixed in with the general glitches and underwhelming visuals, I have to give it a 7/10.
Tune in next week to see my CoD Ghosts review!

Far Cry 3 Quicky Review! -SPOILERS-

I finally managed to play it! I've had this for at least a month with the intention of giving it a go, it was a good thing I got it free!

After the previous Far Cry, I didn't really care for the series and we can still see many of those

annoyances coming through in this follow-up. I played 10 minutes of Far Cry 2 and then dumped it as it was so annoying, so I came into this one with little expectations apart from the raves reviews that came out around the time of its release.

Altogether, I did enjoy playing the game. There were flaws that would appear, simply to piss me off but some I managed to ignore. The sandbox world of Rook Island is amazing, the quality of the landscaping is brilliant and is one hell of a sight when you are using the gliders to travel. The thick jungles hide vicious creatures that want to use you as a new toy, which is bloody scary when you don't know where they are coming from! However the land can be annoying, when you cannot climb a slope over a certain degree or drive your 4x4 up it you wonder why you bother trying. Alongside this one of the missions detailed for you to jump from a bridge and use your wing suit to fly away, I happened to miss the chance to pull the chute, hitting the water and escaped off the map completely so my character drowned as he couldn't get back into the map world.

Story wise, the game is really simple. You go out with all of your rich friends and brothers to then get stuck on Rook Island after you went off course while skydiving. Rook Island is inhabited by mercenaries, pirates and general innocents. You end up causing a lot of shit towards the mercs and pirates while you rescue your friends. The campaign is approximately 12 hours long and can get really far fetched. With the introduction of magic items about half way in, it seemed stupid when the game was positioned in a fashion that's more like a survival game and doesn't reflect the true gritty

Part of the badass tattoo!

style. Alongside the whole magic tattoo stuff which was really odd but is part of some cultures and does look pretty badass. The characters are really frustrating, your older brother who dies at the start was probably the most bearable seeing he was only about for 5 minutes. The rest of them are just douche bags, especially the stoner. Character development is little, if any. Jason (you) is also very boring. You see none of the stress he would go through, but you see him go from innocent teen to a mass murderer with a machete and an SMG with an ability to sponge bullets and damage from everything apart from a 10ft drop! His change was to drastic and never really made you engage with him.

Weapons in the game are fairly varied and the use of the bow is great fun. The bow and a scene at some rice fields really showcase the ability of it but also blow you back to the most recent instalment of Rambo! With the huge size of the map, you will have enemies all around you and you constantly need to maintain a supply of weapons and ammo which is fairly cheap and easy to come across. Once the campaign is done, you have the whole world to play in. Liberating the island is a big task but good fun when you go in like a ninja cutting the alarm and single handedly popping all the enemies off from a mile off with a nice sniper round to the cranium. Then you have the ones just just play up and enemies find you from an impossible angle which would get on my tits.

Finally the bosses. Vass and Hoyt. Using Vass on the front cover was a mistake, he appears a few times until you get to kill him, all being for a few minutes and then disappears. Bigged up as a huge psycho nut job, you would expect to see him more often and truly see this, but you don't. You get little samples and then it's over. Hoyt was much the same as Vass but you could see what he was planning for you from the moment you first met (as long as you actually looked around his place properly). His plans were so evident that they could have cut to the chase instead of making Jason look like an idiot. Finally we have the boss fights which just suck. You suddenly hallucinate, kill everyone in the room and are put through quick time events to kill Vass and Hoyt. It lacked any substance to really grip you and stress you out.

Overall the game was alright, I haven't covered everything as I'm still hungover but I believe this game deserves a 7/10. If only they could sort a few little bits out and I would be happy, such as the AI's and driving.

Gears of War Judgment REVIEW -SPOILERS-

Well hello everyone!, Sorry I haven't been able to do much apart from the odd trailer. Essays ain't fun!

Anyway, as you can already see, this review is about Gears of War Judgement (4).  On hearing about a sequel to Gears of War 3, I couldn't understand what they would be able to do when the Locust swarms were defeated and human society began rebuilding. However, we start a few weeks after the great war that the COG's fought in the Pendulum War's against other nations and in the aftermath of Emergence Day. Here we follow a younger Lieutenant, Damon Baird and his team 'Kilo Squad'. To set the scene, Kilo squad are dragged into a large complex while being labelled as war criminals, each character the reports to the leader of the Onyx core (Elite soldiers) in a tribunal hearing while Locusts fight the defences outside. As each character explains what happened, we play through their experience leading up to the 'crime' that they committed.

An interesting introduction and plot that managed to keep me involved. Yet that isn't hard when the main campaign took me approximately 6-7 hours of playing - Yes, I'm tired after playing till 2am but it just didn't feel long enough. For a game that costs up to £40 with an even higher RRP, you would expect to get a lot for your money. They even dropped in an extra campaign which is called Aftermath, this only took 1-2 hours. In this we follow Baird and Cole in Gears of war 3 as they go find a ship and some reinforcement for the final assault. This should have been a DLC pack or part of the story for the game it is involved in. It leaves me to think that this game was simply an opportunity of get some extra cash out of fans like myself.

Very little has changed in the world of COG's. Visuals are astonishing, with vast landscapes that need to be on a nice big 1080p screen! With new games, I will always look at their fire effects. This is my indication on whether a game is well made and well funded or vis versa. Gears had this effect which is brilliantly demonstrated with the first few minutes of game play, with a tree engulfed in flames filling the sky with a black fog. All the standard controls are back, no change there. They are still a little fiddly to start and can be a slight annoyance when you want to turn around sharply to smack a dude upside the head with your Lancer-chainsaw combo. Cover based shooting is always good but annoying when you try to switch between cover. I have also never understood how they are still alive when they hulk over any of the cover, but you know, it's only a game.

I've yet to test the online game play for this but seeing I have some time before the release of Bioshock, I should be able to give it a little poke. I know the standard games are back with all new maps. From my previous experience, online games can be really fun and do require a lot of team work between players to win matches like Horde, where you are bum-rushed by tons of the slimy gits.

Overall, the game is great fun. I'm a big fan of Gears and a big fan of excessive violence in games. As much as this is an unnecessary follow up to a game which ended quite clearly, the story was gripping and helped to describe a deeper look into Baird's background before he meet Dom even when it appears to be a way to get some extra cash, but we all know big corporations wouldn't go doing that now...Wink wink, nudge nudge...

 For this game, I will give it 7.5/10
(Because I can!, that's why!)