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

 

Edge of Tomorrow - Quicky Review! - SPOILERS

If you've been to the cinema recently, you've most likely been barraged with Edge of Tomorrow trailers and advertisements. Normally I would go off them gradually, although with this, I felt compelled to go see it. The trailer looked better after I saw it a few times and with Tom Cruise's success in Oblivion and many other Sci-fi movies, I knew it would be a good watch.

In recent months we have seen comets flying over the sky of Russia and many other places on the news. Using the footage, Edge of Tomorrow has built upon the idea that they harbour life. However, this life is a little less microscopic and a little more giant, rip your face off and swing you round like a piñata big. Eventually the spread of these monsters has led to the European mainland becoming alien HQ. Much like the D-Day landing in WW2, England send troops over to the beaches of Normandy to push a seemingly weak army back into the stone age. Not all goes to plan and our protagonist --Cage, ends up dead, only to repeat the day continuously until he can find a way to end this war and the slaughter of the humans for good. The story reeks of Nolan's signature psychological games and most likely takes reference from him. With the increasingly bad K-D ratio of Cage rising steadily, he seeks help from the poster girl of this war. The Iron Bitch/Rita soon is able to sympathise with him as she has experienced the same. After a particularly jarring training scene we learn that there is a master key that if destroyed, will kill these aliens for good and they embark on a giant adventure to blow it the hell up. Without releasing a lot of information and ruining it, the story is surprisingly solid. It's engaging and the continual death toll of Cage and the repeat beatings he gets forces the same emotions of stress and anxiety that he feels. Just slightly less damaging and without the months lost...

Apart from the movies solid story, it cannot stand on that alone. After all, it is a sci-fi. Visually the movie looks wonderful. Although I can see many of the scenes being filmed on green screens, the general flow of everything going on made it bearable. Everything looked great but I do have to question the designers of those creatures. They are nightmarishly scary. If I was ever to dream something like that up, I would get myself checked. They looked amazing and did instil fear with the rapid movement and screeching. Now with the barrage of deaths, a personal favourite was acid being dropped on Cage which was brutal to watch but I may have giggled a little bit. Fighting with non-existent creatures isn't very easy so when they are being flung about, its animated brilliantly.

There isn't really not much more for me to say. Yeah sure, the acting wasn't the best but what can you expect. It's Tom Cruise in a Sci-fi movie. We come for fun action scenes where humanity fights against an alien terror and kicks some ass with it wrapped up nicely at the end. The fact that the story was good (perhaps generic in the genre) and looked great made at all the better. In the sci-fi genre, Edge of Tomorrow deserves 8/10. It's a full on fun movie with plenty of twists and turns that keep you guessing! Go see it! Seeing it's Wednesday, Orange Wednesday it!

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!

World War Z Quicky Review! -Spoilers-

I shall let you know now, I have no idea how to review this movie. My irrational phobia of zombies made this movie had to concentrate and the fact that I watch very little horror/thriller movies, gives me little, if any understanding of the genre and style it works in. But I shall give it a stab!

As you could probably have guessed, World War Z is based on a book which depicts the rise of an infection that mutates humans and creates the walking dead. It's a simple plot, but the focus is more on the tension that can be built, alongside acting. The basic premise is the simple part.

Attention falls primarily on top of the tension builders. For instance, a scene - which is eerily reminiscent of Dead Island's hotel scenes - we are working through the tight spaces of a lab with little weaponry and at a crawl to avoid zombie attention. Music builds at the right points, silently enough that it fills the scene without being obvious and every environmental sound pricks your hair up. The perfect mix of music and scenery made the whole cinema quiet, my sweaty fists crushing my girlfriends hand as I squeeze uncontrollably.

However, there is instances where tension is diminished and can be somewhat laughable. The
dormant zombies do very little apart from repeating a movement continuously. As ominous as this sounds, a zombie bumping it's head against a wall, just looks stupid. It doesn't create a sense of mindless killer. We also come face to face with one which isn't biting but acts like a hamster or rabbit which it munches on a carrot. The performance was laugh worthy, due to it being way over the top but the make-up was unbelievably realistic.

On the topic of performance, Brad Pitt's was good; not amazing, but good. For the majority of the movie, the camera is focused on him and what he is looking at. We do also get a few variations from Brad, but we don't connect to them very well as the have no character development and very little line. The characters that do stand out are the adopted son, and the family. The adopted son, comes out of nowhere and does nothing, the youngest daughter screams continuously while the eldest chooses to ignore instructions and almost get themselves killed and finally the mother. I swear down, this women just wants her husband dead and is extremely stupid! (You will see why, if not comment and I will tell you! xD)

On a final note, the cinematography is great, framing on certain scenes cut out things that are quite sick which helps keep a low age rating, but also factors out the excessive Tarrintino blood. We also have little snapshots of what Pitt is observing, all of which are clues for him to piece together - or the audience if you can work it out before him. Another scene is one of the first zombie encounters in Korea. The lighting of the plane, mixed with heavy rain and the screeches of ensuing zombies makes the scene incredibly vivid and the whole area sticks in your mind as one of the best sets I have seen.

So, I feel that my overall rating will have to be 7/10. Its smart use of the camera and the thrill-ride of a journey which had my heart pounding and my girlfriends hand throbbing were all great bonuses, but you do feel that certain characters are an annoyance, zombies behaviour is entertaining and the story was a little sparse.

Meat Loaf LIVE Last Bat Out! - Birmingham NEC - Quick Review!

I'm still having trouble remembering which day it actually is seeing I spent more time travelling than actually at the concert, so do excuse the size of my review!

As you can see on the poster, it says a concert in 2 parts! The first half is a mix of his newer stuff and anything else after Bat out of hell. The second act is the whole album with film snippets from a documentary between songs and then a few little extras throughout. One being the guitar solo from Lynyrd Skynyrd's Free Bird on a Union Jack Guitar!

Practically raised on the album as a kid, this was a must. We only heard about it a few weeks ago and found there were tickets available! (Should still have some about!) So Dad and I jumped in the car and travelled 3 hours up to Birmingham's LG/NEC arena. The show was about 2 hours 30 minutes and surprisingly was filled with more middle-aged men than many my age!

Meat Loaf is getting old, no doubt about it. He has lived the rock n' roll life and is defiantly showing the signs of age. His voice is very raw and can't compare to the past, yet he is aware of this and toned himself down and pushed the music up a little more to compensate for it. However in recent years he is looking a lot thinner than before, it probably has something to do with the movement of his hands when he is signing... All I could hope was that the camera group wouldn't use Photoshop on the footage...

Tickets were a decent price, accessibility was very good and left us with a few empty rows behind us to jump about and sing Bat Out Of Hell and I'd Do Anything For Love (Still feeling it in my throat). I got a few little bits to say I had been, I also got a couple tiny videos, which I shouldn't really have taken. I will also stick a few of the pictures I took below for you to peek at. If you wish to see the videos, leave a comment below and I shall upload them!

Overall, the show was great fun, great music and a great atmosphere. I'm normally used to seeing people bleeding with no shirts on or things along those lines when I come out of a show but it was fairly civilised!
A must-see for any Meat Loaf fan! GET SOME TICKETS!

Just before the show, you can see that we were a little far back but next to some beasty speakers!

Mid-show, sorry for the lack of quality. My phone doesn't zoom in to far!

Stone Sour - House of Gold and Bones part 2 QUICKY REVIEW!

 Ha!, didn't expect me to throw this out, did ya!?

Right, straight to it. The album doesn't drift to far from what we normally expect from Corey and his gang. So we won't be hearing any fan boys/girls crying about them changing. Around about average, the album is 51 minutes long and

Corey Taylor's ability to shift between deep growls and harmonies are well executed and isn't over the top. We open with what appears as a calming track but soon kicks in with true Stone Sour fashion!

Musically the album is filled with killer riffs, a mix of old tape or vinyl recordings blended to make them as creepy as damn possible, and then drop into the roar of the guitar. They have kept their metal flavouring which everyone likes and we won't see many people moaning about drastic changes or those 'Hipsters' with the whole "Saw em before they were cool" shite!

Corey has always been strong when it comes to his lyrical capability which is reflected in Slipknot and other projects or collaborations. Nothing lyrically is actually lacking, but songs do appear very similar in their tones, style of vocals or common vocal trends (I can't think of a word for it, gimme a break).

I'm enjoying the album, it's short, so I recommend downloading it. Unless you are an extreme fan of hard copies. The album doesn't have much variation to differentiate it from previous albums and

seems like it may just drift out of people conciousness in a months time. Hard work has gone into this album and the music is alright. Yet why part 2?, it seems like they trapped themselves into following part 1's style and may be the reason that it appears much the same.

I'm thinking that the album deserves a 7/10

Paramore's self titled album QUICKY REVIEW! 2013

Hello guys!, Paramore are back and it's not bad! Since two of the original group left, you would think that it was kinda the end for these guys. Yet they have bounced backed with a fresh new style!
Let's start with my basics for a good album. Length is an hour plus, which I feel all albums should at least aim for when music costs as much as it does. Even if the quality of the music sucks, they have given you an hour of suckiness for your dosh! My second positive for this album is the release, we in the UK got it before the US which is the 9th! Not a huge gap, but it's nice to see that the UK are getting earlier releases recently. One issue I do have however is the interludes...it's not a fecking show, play the music...
Paramore recently said that the single "Still into you" was written as a pop song, this may seem a huge punch in the face of die hard anti pop people out there, but the album blends pop and Paramore's classic pop styling throughout the album even sometimes having an indie flare wrapped up inside. Opening up the album with "Fast in my car" really helps to strengthen my claims.

Lyrically and musically the album is good, catchy choruses and powerful riffs make this album a definite listen, yet it does lack some finesse with how Hayley's voice can over power the music and doesn't blend with backing track. The album flows nicely between songs but doesn't show you the

change, which can make a song appear much longer and quite dreary to listen too. As always there are lyrics that don't vary and feel like they have just been copied and pasted later into the word document!

Overall, the album is good, it's a sound album and as a fan of them from Misery business, I've seen what they've been through, such as the dark times with the whole Twilight thing...but anyway I have seen that the group are changing their style and adapting with the music industry to access a bigger audience and I believe they have done this very, very well!
7/10 from me!

Imagine Dragons Night Vision album - QUICKY REVIEW!

We finally have it here in the UK!, it's only taken a few months...

Since the release of the single "Radioactive", I've been dying to listen to the album. On release, you notice that the tracks aren't as powerful as "Radioactive", yet they do still have a punch to them.

Unfortunately the album is 51 minutes long, which is a little shorter than I would like but the general quality of the music is brilliant, especially for a breakthrough album. The album is 13 songs long, which should technically be 14 songs when there is "Che-ching" missing from the US version of the album and "Fallen" from the UK version. This make me a little wary as the album lacks a great song to spread to their new audience but to also expand the length of the album to 55 mins.

Musically the album has the iconic indie style which varies song to song capturing your attention and avoiding the song feeling like they're dragging on. It's very calming and really is a nice album to cruise around with in your car...It works for me and my occasional spouts of 'road rage'. The instruments don't drown out the lead vocalist, but help to pronounce his lyrics and his distinctively powerful voice.

The lyrics are varied giving diversity to the album, moving from inspirational to stuff you could consider love songs. Every song has the catch chorus that wraps you into the song and gives even more power to each song! Vocally the lead singer has a very obvious style but manages to adapt to each song independently. With all the power and catchyness of these songs, you can see why they are getting used for adverts here, there and everywhere. I just hope that the songs don't get overplayed to the point that it can ruin this brilliant album.

Overall, I love the album. It doesn't blend into one big song, it has brilliant vocal and lyrically capability and has a nice mix of backing music. Occasionally however some song to appear a bit samey and catchy and strong songs are picked by advertisers to sell an item which may ruin some of the songs for me but I think this album deserves all the praise it is getting...8/10...maybe 9/10!

P.S - I also recommend buying the Amazon MP3 version, simply as it costs a lot less!