Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy go Telltale Episodic!

After months of waiting, Telltale have finally released a trailer for their upcoming series of the Guardians of the Galaxy which has received a very mixed response.

Watch it here!

It appears that Telltale have stepped away from their iconic art style that's prevalent in The Walking Dead and Borderlands releases and opted for a style similar to Disney's Infinity games. As a fan of the developers, I prefer the scratchy and darker hues that Telltale have demonstrated and feel like GotG is going to be commercially driven - similar to the Minecraft series. We see the emulation of the property owners styles to fit into the mainstream expectations of the younger, more mainstream audiences rather than the comic book fans and hardcore fan bases. The characters appear very long and slender with a lot of block based colours and little defining features to portray itself as a Telltale game. 

In all honestly, i feel the trailer demonstrates nothing of significant value. The action and comedy factors that underpin that Guardians of the Galaxy aren't showing through and it feels more of a show reel of that characters we will be seeing through the 5 episode series.

What do you think of the trailers, are you excited or as wary as us? Let us know in the comment section down below!

Marvel and Square Enix Assemble!

Marvel are finally returning to the PC/Console gaming realm! (Although we are getting Guardians of the Galaxy by Telltale SOON) A trailer released on the 26th details the brand new partnership between the two industry giants depicting the Avengers weaponry and tools scattered across a devastated landscape.

So what exactly does this mean? Well first of all we are getting a number of games over the next few years. The first release is rumoured to be a Spider-man game in 2018 BUT this is more likely the Sony release that has been floating around. Secondly, its going to look hella' pretty and will quite possibly be in tune with the current MCU.

Watch the trailer here!

What do you think of this news? Any Marvel heroes you want to see get their own game?

Rise of the Tomb Raider - Xbox One Review - Buy this game if you want to creep out your neighbours! - SPOILERS

Many moons ago, Josh reviewed the first instalment of Crystal Dynamics' Tomb Raider revival and spoke in detail about how much he enjoyed it. A few months later, I got my hands on it and loved it to pieces also, but will the latest episode hold its ground to its epic older sibling?

No.

In all reality, its a huge disappointment that has left me rather bitter. The previous Tomb Raider was an all-round quality game. Its visuals were impeccable, gameplay was fun, different and based heavily on survival and the story used that. It developed the origin story to one of gaming's most prominent characters that is loved the world around, whether its through movies or gaming. Rise of the Tomb Raider is a shit show.

Every single advert I saw brought huge attention to their review quotes, the Daily Star in particular said "Visually Stunning" and threw a whopping 5 stars its way. So, lets begin with that. First of all, its the Daily Star, so I don't need to go much further with that. Secondly, why are the visuals selected over everything else within the game? Well that my friends is because that is all this game has. Beautiful landscapes, levels, tombs and character details do not make a quality game, just great quality cutscenes. And trust me, you'll see plenty of those. In fact, so much so that you'll wonder if you're the one playing the game. Now, don't get me wrong, I play Telltale games and they're big, explosive adventures with a storyline so gripping, you can't help but feel like you've lost a little bit of your soul when you lose a beloved character, and the majority is a sequence of cutscenes with varying quick time events (QTEs) and doesn't have much in the way of raw gameplay. But this. This is shameful.

So, its "Visually Stunning" and hell, I can agree with that. Until it comes down to animations. When you move around the map, all is fine, its when you are involved in the action that it really falters. Running through endless hallways from a threat that can't hit a barn with a minigun from 30 yards is something you experience often and explosions miles away from you fling you whether you were near it or not. Say you're a little slow and something crashes through the wall ahead of you, instantly you're thrown into the wall as if it had actually hit and that is just poor planning. Like it or not, this shit happens way too often. Climbing up rock faces, boundaries are ridiculous and cause Lara to spaz out trying as she tries to work out which direction she wants to go and if you approach a ledge, you're lurched up onto it with a body that seems to be able to do the impossible. Not to mention the absolutely retarded falling mechanic which often freezes her mid-jump as she floats to the ledge that she may or may not decide to grab which results in a frozen corpse falling down the crevasse with a solid thud at the bottom.

On the topics of thuds, I've got to be honest, I would have loved a lot more focus on sound and music. One thing that should have been worked on is the voice acting. Sure, Camilla Luddington does a

good job as Lara. We saw that in the previous, but lets get to the brass tacks, I don't want to listen to a symphony of her moans and groans as she jumps across sections in what can only be described as a mass orgy porn flick. With little knowledge of what is actually going on next door, your neighbour may never look at you the same. Not to mention that any element of stealth is thrown out the window as the groans echo across the cavern like smashing a plate in a crowded restaurant.

What of gameplay? Well, as I said, stealth is something that honestly makes no sense. Its use in the game is to reinforce the survival aspect involved but also the fragility of Croft, however its of no use. Very few sections require stealth and when they do, you're tasked with killing everyone in the area rather than moving around and escaping the danger without turning into a one-woman army. Not forgetting the fact that you fart loud enough and everyone knows where you are, even if you've skulked off quietly in another direction. So, what happens next? Well, that fragile girl that is fighting for survival pulls out an AK-47 and mows down anyone near and crafts a menagerie of grenades and weaponry to kill them with varying degrees of brutality. Now I've spoken about character animations, but lets talk about her role as a historian. This "archaeologist" is armed from the get go but also has a distinct lack of interest in preserving anything. Everything she touches breaks. This so called archaeologist has broken everything to get one thing that, spoiler alert, she breaks! She kills hundreds of people, murders countless animals to get new crafting materials and destroys anything she touches. At Least Indie had the decency to kill Nazis. But lets not stop there! How about all that progression she made in the original game? She's forgotten it all. Literally everything has gone. It seems as if she survived, only to suffer a concussion when she got on the plane home and that really halts the immersion for a returning player. Perhaps if there was a bigger push towards weapon upgrades, progression and skills could have been done through that medium, not by erasing all previous progress.

Now we hit the real big issue, the story. Honestly it is a huge cluster fuck of sexual tension and daddy issues that make pornographic plot lines seem clever and highly under appreciated. Trident, a group of bible bashing Christians are after a tool for immortality that was created by Jesus. We track it down, they follow us, a twist occurs that was as obvious as an Afro-American at a KKK clan meeting, we find Jesus and escape together with the sexual tension so thick, you'd give Donald Trump a run for his money. So we are up against a bunch of clueless, delirious, religious nut jobs with a shit ton of money. Only to find out that this Trident force aren't done yet! We've got another one on route, just this time we might get away without the infuriating daddy issues that turned a survivalist into a drag.

Its not hard, I'm sure you've caught my drift by this point. Its not the Tomb Raider I wanted. Its not what should have been. You can't polish a turd and it seems like the graphics department tried their best to cover up the story that seemed apt for a teen novel. Including the removal of the rather enjoyable multiplayer scene, this game has taken a huge leap backwards rather than innovating and giving their loyal fans hope in a system of games that annualise the same thing year on year for inflated prices only to be slapped with a season pass on launch that costs an extra 50% that adds little to the experience in a game more baron than Katie Hopkin's soul.

6/10 - This is becoming all to common.

Fallout 4 - War Never Changes - Xbox One Quicky Review - MINOR SPOILERS

One of the biggest games of the year has dropped. We are back in the Wastelands of Boston. A lone Vault Dweller on the hunt for their son, armed with an arsenal of guns and some rusted power armour. We are a pre-war relic who watched the bombs drop on the US. We fled to the Vault and were lured into cryostat chambers that froze us for over 200 years until one day we wake, in a daze we watch as our wife/husband's casket is opened and the baby ripped from their hands and a bullet lodged into their skull and then we freeze again. Waking up again, we manage to escape and witness the effects of the experiments created by Vault Tech industries and we stagger out into the open to see what happened to our home. Now, this is as much as a can say without dropping some big spoilers but considering I've only logged in about 25 hours of gameplay so far and 5 of those are in the actual quest line, what little I have experienced so far is fascinating and incredibly engaging.

My experience with Fallout is very limited. I've watched gameplay footage from the first game and played a few hours in Fallout 3. I enjoyed the experience but I got frustrated when I ended up wandering the wasteland in zones way to big for me. So much so, I got lost and never managed to make it back. Since then, I've matured (a little) and have experienced the ever amazing Skyrim and find myself more than competent to progress through this. So I'm not fully versed into the narrative of the world but I know the lore behind the Vaults and the effects its had on the world and the mutated wildlife that has taken control of the environment.

Obviously as a company they would have cut a few corners to make them optimum for next generation consoles and this has been done by utilizing various parts from previous titles such as the animations from Skyrim. Now this isn't too much of a problem. For something so large scale, I tend to be a lot more lenient but a little variation wouldn't go a miss. Now here is the big issue that people raised prior to launch and that was the visual quality. Trailers made it look a little cartoonish but dropping in myself, I think its a gorgeous art style for a world ravaged by radiation for 200 years and it is much easier on the resources available. Now this hasn't stopped the game from loosing frames rapidly when loading areas and in combat situation and that comes down to poor optimization across the consoles which could have been resolved had it been play tested correctly. Otherwise it looks fantastic and the quality is fantastic. Sure, its not Square Enix levels of detail with incredible hair physics but its good enough.

As it stands, I had no idea what to expect from this. With the rate of triple A titles dropping that suck and the bombardment of early access games supported by industry giants that really don't live up to their own hype and run when shit gets difficult, faith in the industry is a little fractured, just look at the PC port of Arkham Knight. I had prepared myself for the worst. I worried about wandering off into the wasteland and never coming back home armed with nothing more than a kitchen knife, but I was wrong. I love it. I was hooked within the first 20 minutes. The opening sequence, War Never Changes is one of the most striking cinematics I've ever seen (Click the link to watch Sip's playthrough and experience the opening cutscene and some gameplay). Its a gorgeously filmed and animated piece that shows you the events that led up to the "Great War" that created this lawless world as narrated by our lead man. As the cutscene disappears, we are greeted by our narrator and his wife looking in a mirror readying themselves for the day ahead, this is our character customisation and creation. The customisation is a bit of a fiddle but its extensive and deep enough that you could almost create yourself. All the way through the process, both of the characters chat, little bits of information around items you've just changed from witty quips to cute interactions that made them feel so human, so real and then you begin your day. Walking to the crib of your new born to say morning,greeting your robot babysitter that does all the dirty jobs around the house and living the daily routine while the news chatters away in the background. We all know the bombs are dropping and shit goes wild, I won't ruin anything from here for you but its such a touching experience that gives the characters an incredible amount of story in such a short space of time, even if the baby does look like its farther was actually an alien...

How about its core mechanics? The shooter aspect is very clean, weapon variation has been fairly limited and buying weapons is pretty much a definite no no. Modification of the weapons is the best way to increase your chance of survival and they're giant, from tons of saw blades too new receivers and various other pieces that physically change the aesthetic of the weapons too. Alongside the classic VATS system that now slows time down, means you have to make on the fly choices on where to hit and the estimated damage can significantly drop by the time you accept your desired choices. One of the biggest talking points is the power armour. The Fusion powered heavy armour that gives you a huge level of strength and protection is great fun and getting it from the start of the game allows you to survive the harsh environment a lot more effectively, however, its cumbersome to obtain the Fusion Cores to run the armour as they either cost a fortune or you have to find locations and caches out in the world. I, however, stole a ton because the guides online were actually wrong for my playthrough. If you were playing the Fallout Shelter app that released earlier this year on the reveal of the game, you'll love this next section. You can have bases. You craft items, make sure your people have beds, food and defences to protect them. Its a cathartic experience that I've spent an unhealthy amount of time and effort working on. It doesn't have much of a purpose yet but its a typical thing that would appear in such an environment. As for the rest of the core mechanics, many are derived from Skyrim. Slight differences in skill management but the typical dialogue tree is very basic and doesn't allow for a variety of choice dependant on skill.

To sum it up in the briefest ways possible, we are back in Skyrim. They've taken something successful and implemented it into one of their other titles and added a load of extra little features.  If you enjoyed Skyrim, its a guarantee that you'll love this. The Music is phenomenal and side quests are really where your time is going to be spent, whether you mean to or not. Its a game that is going to last. Not a 6 hour campaign with so many hours of multiplayer that is a literal repeat, over and over again. Its varied and probably has a good hundred or so hours crammed in that are immersing and engaging. Its taken pieces from other titles, albeit bearable, there is no variation between them and that really knocks it out of you and characters have no facial expressions with very little mouth synchronisation in conversation which is fairly poor for new titles. Considering that is is highly addictive and I'm shooting through this, just so I can get back to playing it is testament enough to how enjoyable it is (I've hardly been on ARK too!). At £40, its value for money. Its not often that you get hundreds of hours playtime with very little bugs and glitches. There are a few glitches, one has surfaced in the last few days that can crash the game completely across all consoles and I've witnessed mutated bears moonwalking up trees but for the current gaming era, its got most of its shit together and thoroughly deserves..

8/10!
PS - Deathclaws be scary

 

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

Assassin's Creed Syndicate - Anything is better than Unity - Xbox One Review!

It's that time of year again when our wallets and purses are left crying in the corner of the room, vacant and hollow - AKA: The greatest time of year for gamers. Triple A titles are raining down on us and today we start this with the first entry, Assassin's Creed Syndicate.

Follow in on from the resounding success of Unity *cough*, Ubisoft continue the annual outing with Syndicate. Based in London in the late 1800's we join Jacob and Evie Frye. Assassin twins with no direct connection to those from previous iterations but raised by an assassin family. Their mission is to remove the tyranny of the Templars from London and finish the grand master Starrick for good...So like every other game. In the current time line, we are back with Shaun trying to find another precursor artefact. Just this time we watch them through some floating camera drone cut scene that does nothing to progress the story or add anything vaguely interesting. It seems as if Ubisoft needed some sort of validation about what they were doing so they can keep this train a'rollin'. So, here we have it. A linear story with the same formula, rinse and repeat. Its alright if you ignore the simple changes that have gone into creating it. Like CIA black ops files, there are thick black lines over names and places and then Ubisoft takes it, rolls a dice and there you have it, your characters and location done. We've seen as of late that they're picking up on this and are trying to diversify gameplay to reinvigorate the fan base. We see with Chronicles: China that they've been struggling to maintain the hype that was once reserved for their epic Ezio cut scene trailers layered with staggering music by now switching the gameplay dramatically to a stealth based platform/side-scroller. However, Syndicate hasn't done anything new. In all honesty, its actually removed one of the more popular mechanics which was the sailing (don't lie, everyone loved sailing the seas and blowing shit up in their OP boats). Understandably boating in London in the late 1800's isn't that easy but they have worked on liberation of rival camps and regions with your trusty rope launcher. That's fun. Liberating an entire borough on London of its Templar/Blighters gang ends with a big brawl between you, your crew, the Blighters/Templars and the areas boss, unless you've already chased them down and spread them across the pavement with your carriage. Roughly 10vs10, the fight can end very quickly if you're quick to catch the leader prior to the fight. Constantly upgrading and crafting new weapons and tools means you're almost always ahead of them in fire power, most notably gun wise.

As ever, combat within the AC universe has always been extremely fun and violent. Finishers and multi-kills are now even more brutal which also intelligently use the wider environment to pierce your enemy to the wall or make them into your newest desk accessory. Multi-kills aren't very often and require a setup so they don't become tiresome to watch or do and the general assassinations are fantastic. Kicking the shit out of people is just so fun but every action seems to be a some super human speed that is impossible to achieve with such weaponry. However, it seems that every police officer, Templar and gang member knows the main characters. So the super secret assassins of the secret order are known by everyone in London and their hideout is as subtle as a streaker at Sunday Mass. This winds me up to no end. You cannot walk though a neighbourhood without drawing the attention of 20 people, murdering them and moving on rapidly only to get caught out again a few blocks down the road. Any reason to beat the shit out of someone I guess. Yet we do not have a non-lethal way to progress. If an objective says not to kill a police officer, I have to kidnap them individually and knock them out away from all their friends one by one. I'm sure if you have the patience to do it meticulously, you'll find some way of bullshitting it but if you're like me, flooding a quarter of London in Templar blood was far more appealing. I tell you what is not appealing though, the shitty boss fight at the end which is a simple sequence motion that is repeated 3 or 4 times with slight variations with an illogical starting point for the character in relation to the cut scenes. Now here is the real kicker, its not too buggy. I had my fair share of bugs the crashed my game, killed me and made progress through zones very difficult. One of those is when you enter combat and all attacks to nothing. You run about trying to get hit but you can't do anything to stop it. Then we have the various audio bugs that didn't sync with the on screen animations and the invisible enemies that you've managed to morph with the wall. But, nothing game breaking and in regards to Unity, that's a winner.

Visually the environment was stunning. Landmarks and set pieces looked amazing and a certain WW1 memory sequence created some even more amazing pieces and interactions. Now, I play on an

Xbox One, the lower spec of the next gen consoles and I'd presume that my experience is far less than that of the PS4 in comparison. Character variation was good but the city is so big, you see many of the same people hanging around and you've probably killed the same guys over and over. My only gripe visually is fluidity. Anything the characters touch that isn't their uniform is stiff, like cardboard and the hair isn't even smooth, in fact you can visibly see the pixels that make the strands of Evie's hair. Its nice to see a female character in the main character slot but other female characters that originated in the gangs that were heads of the groups felt as if they were trying too hard to appeal to that section and really impacted the reality of what women actually had to fight for. The aim to put female characters in the games are fantastic moves, especially in the Creed and the Templars but the general gang populace, it wasn't that way and feels more like pandering to the extreme voices. We do get a cheeky mention of women's rights in the bonus WW1 mission which was very amusing and actually addressed the situation in a historical aspect that doesn't shun the past but brings light to the horrors of the past. By all means, I don't believe the games to be 100% historically correct but it brushed the social issues of the time under the rug by acting like it never happened and created an idealistic image in a fairly distopian story that still shows children being worked to the bone by factory bosses.

I wouldn't say I come into the AC universe to see the best voice actors in the industry create art but the script needs to match with facial movements and convey the correct emotions where necessary but often enough Evie's mouth moved very little and emotion was lacking, but in all fairness, the stories and characters weren't so engaging that you could immerse yourself into the world and feel for the characters. Some felt rather attached to the sibling disputes while I felt them more of a nuisance and that the relationship wasn't explored enough to get a solid grasp of who these people are, its only towards the end of the game that we actually hear any mention of their parents real names and a history on them but still nothing on our protagonists apart from the fact that Jacob smashes shit up, Evie fixes it. It felt more like a big blockbuster action movie that priorities excitement and general fun over script, dialogue and character depth and if I'm honest, I'm okay with that. Its been fun and I will certainly be going back to experience some more of the extra missions, potentially more WW1 missions and generally beating the shit out of people. How is that not fun!?

Worth the pick up - 7/10

Let us know in the comments below of what you think of Assassin's Creed Syndicate and head over to our Youtube channel to watch all the shit I do over there!

Mafia III - Official RELEASE Trailer

The long awaited 3rd instalment into the Mafia series is finally upon us. Will it follow Vito and Joey from 2 or take its own new path? Well apparently its going to take a new path, throw the past away and join a gentlemen named Lincoln Clay in 1968 after the Vietnam war. As a lover of all things Mafia and crime related, I'm worried. Its not what I had hoped for. See for yourself below

Batman: Arkham Knight - The Grand Finale - Minor Spoilers!

The Rocksteady series of Batman games have been some of the best and undoubtedly, one of the best super hero games to date. Does Arkham Knight follow suit? Yes, yes it does.

So this is the first and last of the series to run on next generation consoles and its safe to say, it didn't go well. It seems as if a lot of games designed for the next-gen consoles seem to have huge optimisation issues on the PC. The issue was so bad, it led to WB pulling it from PC sale until its at a good standard. Now considering I played it on the Xbox One, I can't complain. The low runner in the current generation, the expectations aren't for 1080p, 60 FPS, 4K sorta' stuff but it held its own and looked gorgeous. Visually the game was stunning (as ever) but we suffer from the issue of 'Detective Mode'. The X-ray vision is almost in current use if you're trying to find something among the clutter of buildings and lights. Orange people normally mean some sort of outpost and any respectful completionist will get all of these. The same goes for the ridiculous amounts of Riddler trophies and riddles, just so you can fight him. While you're in detective mode, you are taken out of the world. Your view of the world is a menagerie of blues and oranges with a range of a couple hundred yards and finding anything outside of this view is near impossible without an online guide. I'll never deny how useful this device is, in fact it has aided me in my near completion of the game. However, given the chance, I would like to be able to find things in the world substantially easier. I don't want to wait for intel and I don't want to spend hours looking for the firemen in obscure areas of the map that you just can't admire.

But enough about that. Lets talk about what we are really here for. The story, the story of the Bat. Turns out the antidote against Joker's blood in Arkham City didn't actually fix anything. Batman is left with the blood coursing through his veins and is in a desperate chase to find a cure. While doing so, Scarecrow and the goonies decide to take over Gotham with the help of the Arkham Knight. A face completely unknown to Batsie until clues are literally slapped across your face like a wet fish. Perhaps a slightly more subtle approach would have created a huge gasp of excitement and glee but considering I can't remember much of the previous games, the clues gave me a good reminder. So, the Knight and his Militia crew join forces with Scarecrow, Penguin and Two-Face to take down Batman. Penguin and Two-Face supply the goods and Scarecrow gases the whole city in a new fear toxin while the Arkham Knight orchestrates it all in an attempt to kill Batman.

All very simple and understandable. However, it runs for quite some time. You can either divert and do the side-missions for each villain in the game or you can plough on with the main quest as you are haunted by the Joker which was honestly my favourite part of the whole thing. I spent 2 days playing, with at least 20 hours in game with a respectable ending percentage. All the side quests were fun, the stories were intriguing but the boss battles at the end were repetitive.

Repetitive, how? you ask. There is very little skill involved in beating these bosses. With a 3 or 4 stage sequence that doesn't alter as you progress, it feels like the mechanics never change. In fact, one of them isn't even a boss fight. You simply have to keep pace with them while they wear themselves out, 4 times. The combat is good but the nature of repeating yourself 3 times for the majority of the bosses lacks any individuality or excitement. Its a turd in the industry of boss fighting. We get very little variation from a platform based game like Dante's Inferno because they are limited to that scale but you had to put some sort of effort in. Simply brute forcing it would get you no-where while this, you can do very easily, especially when the AI is stupid enough to run in front of Batman's new tank. I'm not saying its all bad. The combat is still fluid, even though you still occasionally leap from one side of the room to the next, you still get that sense of achievement when you wipe out a room of goons with a few tactical advantages, even more so when its an uninterrupted combo streak. I previously mentioned the Batmobile and honestly, its incredible. Its rotation capabilities and speed is great and the combat missions with them is so much fun. Outnumbered by 40 other tanks, they have balanced it enough to be quite the task if you aren't paying attention and extremely fast paced.

Honestly the games haven't changed much from what they were. Is it a worthy send off for the series? Hell yes. Should you get it? Hell yes. Is it the greatest game? No. Yes we have many big name voices that give depth to the characters such as Telltale's Dave Fennoy who voiced Lee in the Walking Dead episodical series, John Nobel who voice Scarecrow. Mark Hamill who recites his role as The Joker and my favourite, Troy Baker, who voices a whole host of characters. The cast is simply perfect. The voice acting was spot on but the audio was an issue. It was never very clear or just cut off all of a sudden. Some things were simply too loud while others were so quiet, you hear half the conversation among the various other environmental sounds and people chatting over others is a huge annoyance. In all fairness, I can't reward it for its poor optimisation for PC users. That is a huge cock-up and a mark down and the elongated story that could have ended 5 times earlier were enough to make me wonder about the vast knowledge these super villains are supposed to have, even more so with Riddler. Honestly, in what world is shooting buttons in the order they light up or racing through an underground track deemed as a puzzle!? Its almost as if this instalment has taken the best of the previous and done very little to improve or derive something new, compelling and extreme enough to be any bit daring. Enjoyable, stunning and good fun, the game deserves a 7/10. Taking into factor the poor launch with a 3.5GB day one update and the general predictability, this could have been the greatest in the series but it played it way to safe.

ARK: Survival Evolved - Early Access Review

Since I heard about a survival MMO with dinosaurs, my interest was peeked. After debating long and hard about my interest in joining the Alpha process, I held back until it came to Steam on the early access program. With Jurassic World just around the corner, its safe to say that this release is a big one which has seen almost 50,000 people on at this very moment. One of those being myself and I've thoroughly enjoyed myself. Its nature as an early access game means that the review is based on what I saw from day 1 onwards but it has seen a few gigs worth of updates since then to improve its optimization issues.

So ARK is a game you may have heard about. In fact, you should have heard about it. The game is a survival world dominated by dinosaurs. Your aim is to live, tame creatures and make your way to the end game bosses. Now its been a week since I started this review. Why I've taken so long? I got incredibly involved with the game. I'm now sitting on around 30 hours of gameplay with a crew of about 10 people starting out on a new server and we are no where near the end game. As an online experience, it is one of the best I have ever had. From starting off with a humble straw hut as I wandered around solo trying to navigate the map, my area and the gain a general understanding of the creatures that rule over the land. Its safe to say that you will spend some time trying to level up and gain better access to food. Although a little punishing to begin with, once you get a feel for the lay of the land, starting up is an easy task, as long as you don't wander near any of the carnivores.

So, for its early access release, there is just over 50 creatures in game from the little Dodo to the end game Dragons. With towering Brontosaurs and T-Rex there is a wide variety to see all across the map. So the work that has gone into them is extreme and stands to reason why the game is so poorly optimized. With a minimum requirement of 4GB of RAM, the understanding is that it should run at a fairly decent quality at that point, however, this is not the case. To run the game at medium settings,

my 8GBs are having trouble keeping up at times. Framerates can fluctuate at 10-15 with background processes or windows in the background or 15+ without it but no where near a decent 25FPS to give smoothness to the lower qualities. Even those with extreme PCs struggle with its epic scaling. Alongside this we have characters never leaving the server. Unconscious bodies litter small huts and bases, ripe for the picking. Without a wooden hut or a secure base, don't expect to be alive when you come back. Raiding is rife and you are a prime target when near a spawn.

Its not the only bug, but this is a game that only appeared officially to the public on the 2nd and is already blowing other games out of the water. With a plan that looks towards the groups developing a console version for the Xbox One and PS4 in a little over a year, early access is only a step at drawing attention and hopefully will become the first survival game to actually come out of early access without suffering from the DAY-Z syndrome.

ARK is incredibly fun. Taming creatures and working together as a group to achieve a goal is great but its so much more than that. The exploration and online community make it that much better. Unofficial servers draw the better groups of people and these people instantly talk to you and give you a helping hand if you're out and about on your own walking for 30 minutes with nothing but a Dodo to keep you company. RIP Billy, you fought that Megladon like a champion, you will be remembered. They share food, dive in to help you fight something or invite you to their tribe. As a tribal unite, the game only exceeds expectations. Never fight alone again and wage a war with a rival faction and enjoy the company.

Get this game, participate in an online community that are excited and passionate. Play in a world where you can ride a T-Rex into battle and fly a giant eagle across the skies, who wouldn't like it!? 8/10!

Fallout 4 - REVEAL TRAILER - Skyrim goes nuclear

I'm a bad man when it comes to Fallout. My first and only experience of the series was Fallout 3, not long after I got my first Xbox 360. The time I spent within the game was very little, in fact I gave up as a merely lost track of what I was actually doing. Today is the day I realise I should get back into it.

So if you've lived under a rock the past few months, you would know Bethesda have been teasing something. No one was quite sure until yesterday when a Fallout styled timer appeared across their social media platforms and low and behold, we got a trailer.

The plot is one that reflects the series however, what drives that narrative is unknown. Hopefully we shall see some more information arrive when E3 is in full swing.

What do you think? Do the graphics look the part? Let us know in the comments below

Hatred - Quicky Review - Just because you can, doesn't mean you should...

You've most likely heard of Hatred if you have anything to do with the gaming circles. News of the so-called hyper violent top-down shooter couldn't have arrived at a worse time. This is because Hatred places you as a mass-murderer. Given a multitude of weapons, your only aim is to kill and massacre everything in some sort of holy crusade. When news broke about this, there were several mass school shootings and murders , so this glorification of violence to this degree has struck quite a few nerves. Understandably, the game thrived because of the controversy, as did GTA in it's fledgling years, but Hatred took it a step further. By claiming that they have creative freedom, they appealed to a lot of the hardcore free-speech members of the internet gaming community but was it really necessary? My opinion, not really. Its a bit insulting to say such a thing when you know your games only aim is to kill innocent people without an ounce of sympathy with an extremist. Without any justifiable story behind the character or why you pursue the actions, the game is simply senseless. It doesn't help that the achievements are rewarded for killing people, more specifically cops with certain achievements rewarding you for over 1000 kills.

The so called story is that our nameless lead hates the world. Everyone else is evil and inherently bad and the world must be cleansed. With little quips and quotes eerily reminiscent of an extremist, its a god given crusade. I hate it. Over top-down shooters have a form of narrative no matter how simple. This is really just killing people for the shit of it. Is it ground breaking for gaming? No. Its not innovative and its not creative. Levels are lacklustre, the art style is fitting but requires polish and the system is slugish. With a recommended settings such as 8GB of RAM and a multitude of others, the game is slow. It assaults the system with specs that are exuberant of what it should really be. Its poor optimization means that the framerate plummets and the game lags behind. My gaming laptop is nothing short of expensive and powerful for what it is but to have an issue running a top-down shooter is absurd.

As I mentioned above, the level design isn't great. Repetitive corridors, streets and homes with a few explosive barrels indicate what to shoot and general movement through them is hampered when you keep getting stuck on trees or in doorways. Everything looks very copy and paste and the art works makes the game a nightmare to play.The black and white often blends the aiming cursor meaning its almost impossible to see at the best of times. Not including the fact that its general movement speed is awful. Our lead is a combination between She-Hulk and Medusa with long black hair that flails around frantically at walking pace and gets even worse when running faster than Usain Bolt and a voice that grates more than Steve Buscemi's teeth. Other than that. The guns and general action were quite good but the AI is atrocious. Planned to make it easier to kill? I don't know but when you have simple civilians wandering around without a care while you murder the rest of the population, you would think running away would be the basic reaction. Nope, they run at you and nudge you along gently in their efforts. Then finally the set pieces. I never realised how poorly constructed American homes were. Everything falls apart on a blocky fashion, as if the walls are only made of plywood from a single round of buckshot. 

As a shooter, Hatred could have been a great game. With a few tweaks and a major overhaul of its premise, it may have been far more enjoyable. I agree with the argument for freedom of creation but just because you can do it, doesn't mean you should. The creators should really take a step back and look at what they've done. They have caused a big stir and put themselves on the map for the time being but as an independent group, funding will run dry and its employees may struggle to get work when they're associated with this project that they all seem to be so proud of.

Overall the game is a bit of a disappointment. I wasn't expecting the release trailer to show the complete introduction to the game and I was really hoping for something that had an interesting story to coincide with its dark premise and at least give some sort of reasoning or next level philosophy. Instead I was caught up in they hype for a generic shoot-em up that used shock to sell a game that is glitchy, poorly optimized, slow and unnecessary.Because its on release and there has been about 3 updates since I came off yesterday, I can't attack its optimization solely so the game gets 5/10. Its no Hotline Miami and its certainly not worthy of its fame, much like Kim...

Batman: Arkham Knight - NEW TRAILER - Why do people still live in this bloody city!?

The Batman Arkham series is one of my personal favourites and one of the best ventures for the DC universe to date. With Troy Baker also in the mix, what is there not to love?

A unique combat system which sees you flinging yourself across the room at 30 thugs singlehandidly beating the live crap out of them with a grasious flow or the sneaky strap the bastards up by their testies to a ledge approach are just some ways the game is so fond in my memory. Its now that we can finally return to the DC world and do it all over again but this time we have Nightwing, Robin and Catwoman!

Bring it on!

Arkham Knight drops the 23rd of June this year

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!

Star Wars Battlefront - REVEAL TRAILER AND RELEASE DATE

Trailers seem to be dropping like flies recently...

Time for some gaming news. The long awaited Star Wars Battlefront finally got its release date after months of waiting from Star Wars and Battlefront fans alike. Filmed entirely through the Frostbite engine. With games stepping having to ramp up specs to appeal to the number junkies, this game looks to push the boat out with a giant motor on the rear. Lets hope it looks as good as its cut scenes!

With the upcoming movies (Trailer will follow this post shortly) the hype around the scene is mad so lets hope they all get it right!

Coming out this November 20th, don't miss one of this years biggest games!

Armello review - A good first step but a long 9999 to go.

Armello Early Access review

This card placing, dice throwing, role-playing board adventure game has been in early access on steam for a while. With its colourful cartoon art style and its so called strategic game-play, it was immediately peaking my interest.

Now, playing board games isn’t something I generally do, unless in the middle of a blackout with the family after the battery on my tablet has died. Let alone playing digital board games on the computer which is also damn useless in a blackout. In fact the last digital game that involved a dice was Mario party 5 back in 2005 on the Gamecube, due to the fact that I generally get very little entertainment from games which are determined from the outcome of a dice roll, and itself involve very little knowledge or skill to win, I was generally surprised on how much time I actually spent with this game. 

The context of the game is that the world of Armello is under threat. The Rot is creeping in, corrupting the land, spawning monstrous creatures that terrorise villages while it plagues the King slowly turning him mad. You play as one of the four Anthropomorphic animal heroes on a journey across Armello to take the throne for yourself and your clan and save the kingdom. 

Reading it back to myself it does sound like a fairy tale adventure, straight out of a children's book with its bright and colourful animations. Each card in the game looks amazing, each has a unique animated picture that really bring the game to life, to the extent that I wanted to see every card. Luckily there is a gallery mode to admire every card you play.
 

Players must travel across a hexagonal tiled game board to reach randomly placed quest tiles, which upon arrival are given 3 choices to a problem for example a abandoned kart in the road do you do option A,B or C. This is the so called "role-playing" portion of the game however, there seems to be no consequence to the choices you make making it fairly irrelevant to the gameplay thus shaping weak role-play. No matter which choice you make, upon completion you gain prestige, a currency to win the game, which is a bit too easy to acquire.

The most satisfying about Armello is the combat which is very much decided by chance with the roll of your dice. It is possible to win the game without fighting a single opponent or other player, you can easily hinder other players adventure using traps and magic which cost gold or magic.

Armello is the first initial project of “League Of Geeks”. The Australian indie game company originally announced Armello to be released as an Ipad exclusive which has still yet to be released, however they later made it available for Windows, Mac and Linux through the Steam client. You can still feel the initial tablet interface through the game play and I would Say the game would be more enjoyable with a touch pad interface.

League Of Geeks did start a Kickstarter campaign to raise a massive $200,000 to increase development to full time and for the extra support to the multiple platforms, which is pretty daring feat to ask for. By being a funder of the game, League of Geeks offered bonus content on release of the game with 4 extra characters known as the “Bandit clan” and access to another 4 which would come available as DLC to non backers, and it worked. To this date they have raised over $300,000 with 6239 backers and more money coming in with the early access on steam. 

The game looks promising, with its beautiful animations standing out, however it does come with, in my opinion a few problems. On single player watching the A.I take its turn was painful with only their character model moving a few spaces on the board which gets dull very quickly. The idea of setting traps, which in the game is known as perils is fairly worthless as players can just step out of the way. With each character having its strengths and weakness it both limits the player on what victory they can achieve making the multiple victory options pointless. The A.I. constantly starts fights with NPCs which it gains no merit from defeating, in this case the kings guard. Rot victory impossible! Gaining that much rot before the king dies isn’t possible. You have to be defeated by rot creatures to gain rot points which also immediately ends your turn. You have to lose to a rot creature every turn to have a value higher then the kings which is madness! I understand that the game is still in development with the early access but the rules of the game need a lot of revision. Despite all its initial flaws I actually enjoyed the game. I played it multiple times with different characters to hopefully achieve each victory option (still cant do rot victory). Hopefully upon the full release of the game they will iron out all of these problems.  

Overall if you like fantasy, turn based games with beautiful art then this game is for you. With updates around every other week the game is steadily evolving. I look forward to playing the finished product, thus Armello gets my full recommendation.

7/10 

Dying Light - Milking the zombie cow for all it's worth - Xbox One Review

With a European console delay, Dying Light was just outside of my grasp. The excitable child within me wanted it now, only to have it snatched away like candy by Warner Bros. distribution! Was it worth the wait? Sure it was. As a giant wet blanket when it comes to the reality of Zombies, my love of all zombie is rather ridiculous. Dead Island's humble beginnings was one of trepidation for myself, a deep longing to experience but the bladder of an incontinent old lady made it all the harder to pick up the game and play. So, I strapped myself down, inserted a catheter and got down to business. Its combat system was fun alongside a creative array of weapons and a horrifying landscape made it a huge favourite of mine. Why am I talking so fondly of Dead Island? Well, its by the very same creators of Dying Light. This time however, Techland have taken a somewhat different approach.

Dropped in by the GRE (Some world health organization), you are tasked with apprehending stolen documents and to also kill a certain target. Its a particularly muddled affair which never ceases to drag on. Rescued upon landing by survivors, you are treated for a bite wound and given the chance to earn your keep as a runner. With a conflict of interest, our lead man, Crane, is left with tough decisions between the few or the many. Crane is a one man army. A one man army against a legitimate army of thugs and zombies. Sure, its a fairly simple plot convoluted by the aspect of political bureaucracy and a villain with a mouth looser than that blonde bimbo in every high school movie ever, but the physical aspects of the story that would lead you closer to the enemy were actually very good and exciting. The quests in between that disguised themselves as story were mere side-missions for characters that were a dull as doorknobs. As for the rest of the crew, don't expect to get chummy with anyone. One such character, who happens to be the first you meet, is one of the biggest douchebags in the history of douchebaggery. With a voice that grinds worse than when you just miss that gear change, you often wish you could just nudge him off the roof.

With Dead Island, combat was great. Dying light?, not so much. In fact it felt more of a chore in

some cases. In some scenes, its demonstrated that the zombies can be killed by simply snapping their necks, by this logic, combat should be quick flowing and realistic. This is not the case. Any day of the week, being hit with a military combat shovel, blade first, would leave an assailant with a significant hole in their head, thus rendering the dead. Dying Light, not so much. Be prepared to whale on someone a good 10 times before the show any sign of dying...again. This issue is also inflated when in combat with AI survivors who can block throwing knives and block an axe with a kitchen knife. Perhaps this extreme increase in combat strength is due to the games most prominent feature. Parkour is great fun, when it works. Otherwise, prepare to fall obnoxious amounts of time.

He only wants a hug!

Traversing the world is fun, no doubt and its a great way to experience the game and effectively render combat useless meaning your interaction with the zombies can be limited, until it gets dark. If you have balls of steel and the brains of a nutjob, you can run about at night being chased by Satan and his posse of ugly volatiles. You will find yourself facing this guys when the story dictates, unless, like myself, you are extremely unlucky and it turns from 1PM to 11PM upon opening a door after a mission. If you like heart attacks, skid marks and night terrors, this experience is for you. As for me, I'll stay hidden behind this desk until its light again as I'm not going to be chased by 20 of the glowing bastards. With the added benefit of extra XP for taking this risk, you can get extra abilities which you may never use, but y'know, you may need it for that one thing that you're refusing to do anyway. So gameplay wise, the game is solid. Difficult and often punishing which also can be put down to the awful control scheme (who the fuck puts right bumper as jump!?)...

Next-gen consoles are increasingly being sold based on graphical capabilities, you would expect a diverse range of textures, environments and character models. Now, this is where Dying Light sinks for me. Obviously, with a whole island plagued by zombies, you cannot expect millions of different character models, however, when most of the inhabitants of The Tower looking exactly the same, it shows little effort, especially when you are surrounded by 5 zombies exactly the same. Even the species of zombies lack any notable differences amongst themselves. Many parkour areas were a simple copy & paste job with no additions or removals which made traversing the world without tabbing to the larger map a real issue for those who are in a pinch. Apart from the copy and paste marathon, the world looked nice. The vegetation often looked flat but when you're spending most of your time across the rooftops, that is a mere formality. Alongside a few little visual bugs, it could have been drastically worse

Solid gameplay, awful controls, a lack of diversity with a surprisingly decent story isn't the recipe to world domination but Dying Light is extremely fun nightmare fuel. Its also a game that you can simply drop into without issue as the story is very simple and explains why I spent more time avoiding it than physically playing it. 8/10 - would shit my pants again.

NEWS - Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 Returning to Next-gen consoles?

 

Everyone and their aunt has heard of Call of Duty, more specifically the acronym MW2, fondly remembered by many, myself included (I cut my teeth on it when I first got an Xbox 360). Since then, the community has become worn and tired of iterations that decided to destroy something that was almost perfect. So much so that one man has taken it upon himself to petition the devs for a next-gen recreation. Upon signing, the petition was at 300 signatures in about 20 minutes after The Lad Bible were asked to share the post, the petition has reached a whopping 6000.

With popular games moving towards next-gen re-releases, the opportunity to milk the cow even more is a no brainer for a company that is well known for squeezing the audience as much as possible.

If you would like to show your support, click HERE.

Source - The Lad Bible

Evolve - XBOX ONE - Can the big monster still pack the punch?

Online games are something I tend to stay away from. Not just because of an internet connection worse than a poverty stricken 3rd world continent but due to their lack of diversity and story. However, there are a few games that have worked solely on an online experience such as Titanfall which stands as one of the best online experiences I have had in many years and one of my favourite games to play on the Xbox One when I get bored. You also have the Plants Vs Zombies third person shooter that sits firmly as a fun and creative experience that has very little Cod or Battlefield mentality lurking among their community yet both lack a campaign to engage me into the world even more. As for Evolve, if you watched our EGX trip vlog, you may have picked up on my love and excitement for Evolve. As it stands, I got a hands on with the Kraken and whaled on the 4 hunters. Once the Big Alpha appeared, I got another chance to try all of the hunters which you can also see on the Youtube channel.

Evolve works on a 4V1 system online FPS. If players aren't found, AI's will fill in the gaps. Now 4V1 in any situation is bad, however, if that 1 is a hulking monster with an insatiable thirst for power and a passion for killing things and using your spine to scratch that spot you can't quite reach, its a heart pounding experience. From the alpha and beta demos, I experienced a good build, minor glitches at times and a few full on game breaking bugs. Its only now that we find out if Evolve and 2K studios can stand up and create a game that doesn't have its fans seething with rage.

Given some time to play around everything else, Evolve is remarkably easy to progress through. With very little time and motivation, it didn't take me long to to plough through character skills with very little progress through the levelling system. Not that the game needs a prestige system and an overdose of levels to gratify playing it for extended periods but its this length that reduces that games life with little potential for prolonged play without paid DLC. Alongside very few game modes, you get little variation to reduce modes becoming thin and rather lacklustre with little potential to move further. Considering my excitement, maybe I expected a little too much from a game that was an online exclusive like Titanfall but Titanfall came out with a lot to offer from the offset with a lot of fresh ideas. Evolve skipped that and dropped in a horde mode, right at release that with improvement, could have stood as a free inclusion to draw players back. Speaking of DLC, its seems to have taken a huge grasp in recent years and the DLC apocalypse within Evolve is just one example of why these guys need to rethink their plans. Sure, make money, that's cool by me but clasping for money from tiny extras like a weapon skin pack really isn't on in any situation. Alongside releasing 44 DLC pieces on release, being greeted by a massive day one patch that is bigger than most of the PC games I download and play and finding that the season pass doesn't give you all of the content leaves a sour taste in the mouths of those who have paid the extra.

Ignoring the blatant money grabbing and the length, Evolve can be extremely fun. As the monster is a preferred character of mine, I was going solo and that often leads to some extremely tense moments that had me shaking from adrenaline pumping through me at a rate of knots when posed against a team that are well choreographed. Its these hairy situations that make Evolve fun. The same can go for for the Hunters but often enough, you play with people who simply want to run off and kill the monster on their own and surprisingly, it is almost always the medic. Given that they are given free reign of the map, they will not partner with anyone and the lack of a medic means those who are actually in the fight are left constantly being battered. As for the support class, they fell very inefficient. Their role doesn't change the course of a game unless you are trying to run away from the monster. Back to the monster, have to look at the support you get when you start the game. You have

to choose how you want to advance from the get-go, go loud and run or stick low and not leave footprints? Its erratic when almost instantly you can be tracked because you've drawn or scared the local bird population no matter how you've started and its this that means the monsters can often be caught in a matter of minutes giving all the edge to the hunters. If the hunters are sufficient players, you won't see stage 2. If they split and go solo, you will be looking at an easy win. From here we have to talk about the match making process that comes into play. Is it fair to drop someone in as a monster with no support against a team who are far superior giving an incredibly unbalanced match? No not really. Dropped into lobbies with level 15+ while I'm only 8 was daunting enough adding that I was only a Goliath against a squad of second+ tier hunters ended with me being killed in a matter of 3 minutes flat. Apart from the obvious team balancing issues, the AI is very well programmed. Sometimes they can be a little hard but it has been calmed down since the Big Alpha which means fighting AI's isn't impossible. The creatures of the land are unforgiving and generate enough distractions that can be used tactically depending on your situation.

Finally we have the visual aspects of the game. As a next gen game, they are up to standard. I'm not in awe of the work they have done, simply as I haven't been still long enough to focus on the vegetation of the landscapes. Although there was never a scene that captured me even when I was moving about. In Dragon Age Inquisition, I was caught by the composition and lighting effects within a jail cell while Evolve was more of, "Oh, that looks cool...". Their character designs are where Evolve stands out. Although the monsters are somewhat generic, the hunters run on irony and stereotypes for certain nationalities that are rather amusing and once decked out, look pretty badass. Although a story mode might enable this guys to flourish, they are funny amoungst themselves.

If you are looking for a bit of fun, something to kill a few hours, Evolve is perfect for that. As a long term commitment, it lacks. Eventually the games multiplayer will become sparse and the newcomers later down the line will find it hard to get a decent start into the world without suffering continuous losses until they level up and gain some perks. Visually it is good, I still have sound issues that make the game sound like a robot, whether that is something to do with latency, I don't think I'll ever work it out, but my experience on other online games says otherwise. Pick it up for a little fun, make sure its price is a reasonable £20 or so to get your value for money. All in all, the game is probably a 7/10. I certainly got caught up in all the hype from EGX but the overall outcome was still good and enjoyable except from its large flaws which in some cases, put money ahead of the consumers.

Assassin's Creed Unity - Review - [XBOX ONE] - Spoilers

Reviews and stuff are having to be put on the shelf at the moment due to heavy university load so things will come out when I feel up to doing something other than stare at a blank word document...

Assassin's Creed Unity was probably one of the biggest draws for users to upgrade to the next generation systems in the last couple of months only to be disappointed by the outpouring of hate on its initial release. Sold by the 4 player co-op, upgraded visual mechanics and streamlining functions among the French Revolution is very appealing, even if you've never touched an Assassins Creed game. However, Ubisoft have failed once again. Their huge undertaking with new IPs and the double release of the Assassins series left them at loggerheads with their dedicated audience. The time and budget for all of the recent games has really taken a beating and is suffering from CoD syndrome - The same thing every year, repackaged.

This instalment we follow a young man named Arno. As a child you watch his life falls apart with the assassination of his father and being taken into the care of an elderly man and the parent of the red head (Elise) who you chased about in the prologue. Any self respecting fan knows this story of a young man whose rebellion is typically the better of himself. We are looking at a complete Reskin of Ezio. Due to Ezio's huge success, trying to create a character like him was always going to end badly. We saw this with Connor and now with Arno. Both with the likeability of an ice cream in Antarctica. A few years soon pass by for Arno to a time where his adopted father is assassinated right in front of him. His mission now is to avenge the death and find the culprit, only to find something far bigger. Its not a story we haven't seen before but as we have seen in the trailers, the pairing of Elise and Arno from rival factions was something that drew huge attention and criticism. Some wondering why the Assassins have allied with a Templar and others welcoming the change. Although here is the problem, Elise and her Templar upbringing through her father (Arno's adopted parent) were never really implemented in the game for too long. Often enough it was just Arno on his own while this so called deadly Templar ran around uselessly in the background. Her relationship with Arno was heavily played and did add a few layers to him but its full blown impact did very little. (PS - if you can't implement women central characters into the series because it takes too much work, why do we have Elise?)... Then you have the Creed. In all honesty, Arno doesn't need to be there. He plays the central role and everything else does nothing but shout and moan.

The main problems for AC:U don't lie with the story. The majority of it was Ubisoft's incompetence. Its unnecessarily bad glitches that would throw you out of the game, the incredible AI's who would switch between male and female if you walked past them, the AI's that also stood on each others heads and initiated combat for no reason, because they are a general bunch of ass-hats with the competence of a 2 year old. Perhaps the degradation of controls and mechanics that drove many fans insane on their first experience of AC1! Or finally, probably the biggest problem that Ubisoft have; Uplay. The god awful servers and service that it creates has caused many issues for those wanting to play online with friends, but also the blackmail within the game. You cannot progress, unless you have uplay to access extras and you cannot unlock in-game chests if you don't have the AC:Unity companion app on your phone or tablet. Although some achievements are dedicated to getting all the chests, such a task may prove impossible for those with a temper shorter than Warren Davies.

The visual quality expected from a next-gen game is typically quite high and rightfully so. For Ubisoft, this should be plain sailing as long as they avoid the awful shading and waxy features of Black Flag, but noooo. Here we are, with another next generation console game, looking as if its been ported for the previous originally. Characters look awful unless they are in a cutscene and anything from the next upwards looks like every character has elephantiasis. More attention was paid to the AI characters cleavage rather than de-swelling her face from the recent bee attack.

Overall, the game was fucked harder than my bank account. Its terrible gameplay functionality leads the game into the record books for one of the biggest fuck ups this year. Its story was half-baked and its relevance to the Order and the overall arch cannot be seen at this moment. Perhaps the DLC will enlighten many as to where Arno will be soon considering the whole WTF ending. Before I close, I would like to point out a enormous issue I had with a particular "bridging" scene. With its release so close to that of the American's veterans day and the UKs remembrance weekend, climbing the Eifle Tower in occupied France and shooting down Axis forces is far from relateable to the story but also slightly disrespectful at this time of year.