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.

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

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.

Assassins Creed Syndicate - Live Reveal & Trailer!

Well, here it is guys. The brand new instalment of the Assassins Creed series has finally arrived, titled Syndicate. Based in London during the Industrial Revolution, we follow our new Assassin, Jacob. Funnily enough, the combat has taken a very personal approach. Its much closer and features a lot of the weaponry used in that period, such as the hidden blades and brass knuckles in giant gang fights! Everything seems very direct, gory and fast paced but its character is what has drawn me in. Every game based in London loves picking up on Jack the Ripper, what will stop these? Could Jacob be Jack? Could those he murdered be spies for the Templars? I'm officially calling it. Jack the Ripper is our Jacob.

Hopefully we will see a return to Assassins Creed that is truly worthy of the next gen consoles that we all deserve!

Soon we will have an official trailer to show everyone who missed out on the live showing so stick around for more information!

Assassins Creed Syndicate will be dropping on the 23rd October for Xbox One, Playstation 4 and PC.

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

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!

GTAV Heists - Review - A Little too Late?

I'll be uploading some videos soon!

Its been over a year since the release of the biggest game in recent history. With promises of online heists, many of its devoted fan base waited through the delays and poor community feedback. Finally, it arrived. Yet, was it worth it?

As it stands, I've only had time to play the first two heists, Fleeca Bank and The Prison Job.

As soon as I got into a lobby I received the call from Lester. After a little back and forth, I was finally able to participate in the first job. In the same format as the single player campaign, the job is dividing into sections and makes you clear off the entire checklist before doing said job. Each time you have to go through a process of hosting a lobby and inviting people into the game, this is where I experienced many a problem. First of all, you have the rabble of GTA who will not wait for people to join the lobby, secondly you have the extreme pressure on the servers causing certain functions to dissipate and finally close the lobby. As a format, the process of joining is not easy. Its in fact a nuisance. In the second job when one person joined, it would kick another member out meaning you'd have a conga line of players incoming and out going because they were clashing.

Gameplay wise, it's no difference to the game. AI's are just as dull and fairly easy to whittle through, unless you pull the short straw and get stuck with a dullard (this is often). Restarts are punished and the overall outcome is far less which has a sense of reality which is also effected by the quality of vehicles you bring to them. For a host, you drop a lump sum of money up front. The Prison Job is the first mission that you have to do this for. For a whopping 40k you can go ahead and start robbing people. Considering the payout from the last mission was significant, espicially as the host, you can finally earn a decent amount of money without spending hours grinding 'Rooftop Rumble' and races. Now you can just grind heists!

Its a great change to the economy of GTA and nice to have something that actively rewards you rather than being pressured into buying virtual currency. Fortunately, I'm skint and have plenty of time on my hands to grind away but this really makes it easy for any player to enjoy the game again, Unless you're a PC fan... Perhaps in a few months we'll hear about a new GTA coming out next year as they may have finally milked the GTAV cow dry.

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.

Black Ribbon's Top 5 Games of 2014 (As picked by Drake)

No, I'm not dead, just extremely lazy!

With the flurry of Next-gen releases in their first year, picking my top 5 should be a really difficult task. Although the monumental cock-ups make this list dubiously easy. In no particular order, lets get the list going...

1 - Shadow of Mordor

Shadow of Mordor was one of the games that has slid under the rug in many lists for the overall year and its a rather sad sight when Assassin's Creed Rogue is consider better. I often find myself questioning he logic of many of the groups to select a game with no innovation on the previous
generation console over a new IP with incredible mechanics and gameplay. Shadow of Mordor's visuals and story occasionally let it down but the creative power struggle system, fun combat, its return too Middle Earth and the vocal talent created something truly spectacular that has great length.

2 - Far Cry 4 

Ubisoft's year has been tainted by bugs, poor gameplay, hype and generally poor creations. Fortunately for them, many of us still bought into the series' and that's all they really care about.
Although they are likely to pay for that, they have had relative success with Far Cry 4. Unfortunately, I never managed to get around to reviewing much around the October Gamergedon but here is my TLDR version - Incredible visuals, addicting gameplay, fascinating story and characters with the added "I'm not running away from a psychopath in case he gets even angrier" ending that finishes the game in anything up to 15 minutes with gameplay that lets you walk around the room and finally, lets not forget that Troy Baker plays Pagan Min. Who can hate it? PS - Fuck the eagles.

3 - The Wolf Among Us

The Wolf Among Us is another Telltale game based off of the comic book series "Fables". The story of Bigby Wolf and the sudden murder spree to hit Fabletown is one with bigger twists than a twirl bar, more violence than a Michael Bay movie and an art style which elevates the series to new

heights. The wonderful thing about The Wolf Among Us is how engaging it is. The space between episodes was filled with The Walking Dead Season 2 and looking at the Wikia in the vain hope the next episode would appear. Its adventure into fable characters would normally be very Disney or Pixar like but Telltale and Fable's creator turned the world upside-down to create a dark, atmospheric neon lit world filled with a rising evil and isn't afraid to get its hands dirty.

4 - Walking Dead Season 2 

So, I've already mentioned Season 2 and it stands as one of the best game series' that I have ever played. The Walking Dead game inspired me to watch the TV shows and get into the comics and I've

never been happier with such a creation. Season 2 follows Clementine's fight for survival without Lee in her life. The fight for survival by a little girl in a traumatic world is distressing enough but when she feels more like a daughter and your responsibility is to protect her, anything that happens can be disastrous if you get it wrong. Telltale's knack and style has successfully carried The Walking Dead into 3 seasons and DLC that will stay with me as some of my all time favourites. A must play for any zombie survivalist.

5 - Dragon Age Inquisition

Every Dragon Age fan wet their pants with glee upon the news of another instalment in our beloved series. While 2 is considered the worst and often belittled, some of its characters carry over into
Inquisition alongside one or two from Origins that is incredibly gratifying to be reunited with. Bioware has a knack for creating games with vast worlds and territories that bring you into contact with some of the most crazy and loveable characters ever written. As for next-gen visuals, what Dragon Age lacked in texture, it made it up with the lighting. Atmospheric and beautiful, is not it for Bioware, the combat system and gameplay have improved drastically making Dragon Age a deadly competitor in the RPG market.


As a bonus, I feel an honourable mention should be made to another 3 games that I absolutely adore.
Bonus - Titanfall for its incredible reimagining of the FPS genre, Plants VS Zombies for its whacky take on modern shooters with a family friendly game that also appeals to the hardcore gamers and finally, Hearthstone. Not one for Blizzard MMOs and RPGs?, Say no more. Hearthstone blends the World of Warcraft characters into a FREE card game with balance, no pay to win features, a competitive community and all round fun.

How'd I do? Let us know your picks in the comments down below! Also go check out our new writer's view on this years movie selection. Click here to see his top 5 movies of 2014.

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.

Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel - Quicky Review

 

I'm rather disappointed by this new Borderlands. I was hooked from the day they released info on the playable characters and that Claptrap was actually one of them. Being my favourite character and all, I was excited to get my hands on it at this years EGX, only to feel that the game wasn't as smooth as I hoped. "Perhaps that's because I'm playing on a PC that has a really low sensitivity setting" I thought to myself. Alas, I was wrong. The game has an awesome premise. Jump back to the beginning with the introduction of Jack before he became Handsome Jack - The Hyperion boss.
My problems stem more from that actual gameplay and its lack of change. If something works, don't fix it seems to be what was going through their minds on creating this. The game has had many issues with it through the years and nothing has been done to really address these issues. One of this issues are the image and texture rendering. I run the most recent Xbox 360 and hasn't incurred any damage to give it reason to run slowly or have any issues but it was having huge problems loading in textures and left some areas resembling smeared feces. It was always something that bugged me with the previous games. Although they are quite old now and software was different, I just let it slide but when you have the huge increase of technology in consoles in preparation for the next gen releases, things like this shouldn't be happening more often that you find a hooker in the red light district. The style of the game is great and with them working with Telltale games to create an episodical based game is something that could really flourish but the here and now is rather disparaging. Its not just wandering about the map and loading in areas poorly, its also mid combat where the game cannot cope and begins to grind and drop frames rapidly, albeit momentarily, it is another common occurrence that severely hampers the flow of the action.

Now combat also had its fair share of problems. The slowness of movement does little to help with my play style and comfort but my main angst is with the balancing. Playing as Claptrap, a robot, you would think rigid aim with weapons would be something rather standard but aiming down the sights of a rifle will only aid you if you wish to hit anything a mile away from your target in an attempt to scare them off. As a character, he has always been funny and I will always choose him over anyone else, yet he seems extremely underpowered. Combined with his Vault Hunter.EXE power and skill tree it can all do more to screw you over rather than the ones you should be killing. From Claptrap to general enemies, you won't find anyone actually level with you for a fair fight. If the enemy is equal to below your level, you waste them faster than Charlie Sheen with some 7gram rocks and if the enemy is higher than you, run. Run like the wind. If you can't get into cover quick enough, get riddled by every single round they fire. Their aim is impeccable and enough to kill in seconds. The balance for everything is grossly disproportionate. Some bosses where hard as nails while the very last boss only took a pistol and a repetitive action to kill.

So, terrible balance, the accuracy of a blind man firing a 50.Cal and a piss poor skill tree that hinders more than benefits. What do we really have left? squat. Sure the story was quite good and a nice insight into who Jack was prior to going crazier and the process that unfolds but it does become a real pain in the ass when you feel you've reached an end only to be slapped with another thing that requires you to run back and forth for another hour just so you are at a level equal to the quest. Its not something that has sat very well with me. I enjoyed the first 2 but I'm seeing nothing exciting, innovative or game changing in a series that was growing in popularity so well. I'm thoroughly disappointed. With huge potential, came great disappointment. At the price of £30, its not too bad but I suggest, no, I implore you to get it when it drops into the 15-20 range to tide you over between releases that are going to be far better. 6/10.

Shadow of Mordor - UK Quicky Review - Xbox One

With one of the most low-key advertising campaigns and some of the worst adverts I've seen for a game in quite a while, Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor arrives to the masses. Prior to release day, I saw little to indicate anything about the game. Considering my only interaction other than pre-ordering it months ago was my recent trip to EGX London where I got to play Shadow of Mordor a whole week before its UK release. After getting a hands on, I left happy.

Set in between the events of the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings books & films, Shadow of Mordor follows the story of Talion. A ranger guardian of the Black Gate prior to its fall to Sauron and his forces. Its fall is where we meet Talion for the first time and watch him get sacrificed by a group of Sauron's cronies called "The Black Hand". Upon dying, the spirit of an elf lord whose identity is that of Celebrimbor. This may rings bells with many of those well versed in the lore of LOTR as Celebrimbor is the creator of the rings of power and the one ring. As for the rest of the lore, I know very little. When Talion was originally killed, he also lost his family. His role from this point is too find those who killed him and his family, cut their heads off and every other thing that spreads Sauron's will. As you progress, it becomes more than revenge. It becomes a duty. With great power comes huge responsibility and you do this through saving slaves of the Uruks and Orcs, fending off the hordes of evil and finding out who and why you were chosen. In theory, the story is actually fairly short. The only reason I logged a total of 32 hours until completion was because I found myself wandering off to kill the relentless hordes and do a multitude of side quests. As much as I enjoyed the story and relished returning to one of my favourite worlds, the actual bones of the story didn't engage me as well as they should have. Certain characters just appear and its only through collectible artefacts that you find more in-depth content as to who these characters are before they vanish, never to be seen again. The story does well to construct why you're still alive and the combat, collectibles and side missions give the game sufficient length.

Developed by Monolith and WB Games, you may recognize the combat and movement features as they originated from the Batman Arkham games. Was this good?, in a way. Having played all of the Batman games, it felt quite a common experience. Unfortunately the controls can be finicky. Rather than impaling a dude with your sword, you often end up diving around like a dog with a bag on its head and there's often feels like a few seconds delay that means counters don't take effect and ends your combo. Its parkour can be unbelievably infuriating due to item borders that are bigger than the visual object. As someone who enjoys a good bit of button mashing hack and slash games, its combat was really fun. Dramatic combat finishers with enough blood to satisfy Dracula's thirst and have me giggling with glee. Sure, its a little repetitive and the variation of combat finishers isn't particularly vast, especially considering that you can counter 2 people at once but for some reason no dual execution. Another disappointment is the boss fights. In all honesty, there should have been 4-5. It only felt like 2 because the rest were so short, it didn't require much combat and those that did became quite tedious after a while of dealing with the finicky controls. What pulls it back for me if the Sauron's Army section. Although erratic, it is great fun. These Captains and Warchiefs are the leaders of the Orc army plaguing Middle Earth and you need to wipe them out before they become too powerful. Leave them and they grow stronger and become a huge pain in the ass if you stumble upon them on a merry trot around. Its a relatively simple thing to learn and full of achievements that can be done through the story without trouble.

For many gamers, one name pops up fairly regularly and has voiced some of the best and most iconic characters in recent years. His name is Troy Baker. Troy voices Talion this time around and I have to be honest, I didn't realise it was him until I looked it up. His ability to shift into these different persona are phenomenal and to actually witness him do it, sits heavily on my bucket list (sad, right?). If there's any Dragon Age fans reading, you will also be happy to hear that Claudia Black is also lending her voice for another spooky witch. Futurama's Bender also voices, courtesy of John DiMaggio alongside quite a substantial cast of names. The voice acting was right on par. Troy Baker nails the voice creating yet another gritty voice for another badass. Variation between Orcs are obvious but continual conflict means that you get through them in a short period of time but otherwise, everyone did a fantastic job and killed it.

The game looks wonderful. Playing on an Xbox One, the resolution is lower than its PS4 counterpart but I've never been one to see such a huge difference between HD resolutions. The only issue I can honestly pick is that the rain looks a bit dated and occasionally characters look more like wax rather than flesh. I've also mentioned about item borders but in total, it doesn't really affect the most important factor which is the story.

So, we have a hack and slash Lord of the Rings game with characters voiced by Troy Baker, Morrigan and Bender with a story that is meaty and gameplay that hooks you for longer than 6 hours. What's not too love? Straight off the bat I can say this game stands as one of the best I've played in quite a while. Pure fun for everyone, even if you aren't a Lotr fan! Probably one of the best games this year, Shadow of Mordor stands upon the graves of lesser games. Although, we haven't had a great year in gaming in reality. Overall, I feel that the game is great and it deserves all the praise it has been getting. 8/10 for a wonderful cast and story but its controls really agitate me and the boss fights were a huge disappointment. Worth the trip too your local game store...or Amazon...

Destiny [Xbox One] - Next Gen Review

If you've lived under a rock for the past 18 months, you probably haven't heard about the new big kid on the block. His name is Destiny. Created by Halo's original makers - Bungie - and Call of Duty's Activision, Destiny is a new creation that supposedly incorporates open-world styling in a first person shooter setting. Think about Defiance but on a fairly restricted scale. But what is it?

Continuously we were bombarded with messages saying that this game had huge and expansive open areas for you to explore and fight enemies within. However this is not the case. These big areas are just CoD maps. You cannot just wander and explore the world, you follow a set path. You have to go on "Patrol" to really explore these worlds yet we have no inclination to actually do so. Its not open world. With very little to actually find on the surface, why should I bother spending ages looking about for some chests that are in vastly limited numbers when I could be getting on with the story?

This is were it gets funny. The story is almost non-existent. Thrust into this war to save the traveller (giant floaty ball), you must defeat its enemies that have come to claim it. You go all Master Chief

This time I chose the Warlock. Very Star Lord

and go kill everything in your way. You meet new races and your only reaction is to kill them. Each planet have their own race of fighters mixed in with the "Fallen" that fight each other...for some reason...Its simply not engaging. Riding off of the success of CoD and Halo is all that this is doing with a few vocal talents thrown in for good measure. I can't quite tell if the story is so convoluted that its just dull or that it suffers from CoD syndrome and lacks any substance other than "BLOW HIS FUCKING FACE OFF!"...

I'm playing on the Xbox One. With all they hype of graphics for the game, I felt my next gen console would grant me far superior visuals than my 360. Although I cannot speak for the PS4, the game does look good. Visuals are sharp and the landscapes do look great. The Guardians also look wicked. One thing I've enjoyed is finding new armour and weapons that look cool and improve my general look. But wait...Wasn't there talk of customization? Sure, there was. At the beginning, you choose the race, type and colour of your guardian but you won't see this often enough to actually care in the long run. If you wish to customise armour, you aren't in luck. Trying to create something that doesn't look like you're planning a gay pride parade across Mars, Venus and Earth is a huge pain in the ass. Simply because you need to actually find things that both improve and match. If its vastly better for defence, you don't want to hold onto something that just looks good but will hurt you in the long run. You can however get shaders. I have one. I can't use it yet as I'm not level 20 and I only got it because I pre-ordered the game alongside the upcoming CoD. Finding others are a mystery to me so I've left it down to looking a bit like a gay Star Lord.

Gameplay. What we all want to hear about. "How does it play?" I hear you asking. Well...Its alright. Aiming is rather slow and feels as if you're moving through glue. The rest of the shooty stuff is fine. You would expect it to be considering the developer combination. Moving is just a huge problem. Running about and shooting in chaotic areas means you cannot see where you are going. Often you end up getting stuck in a gap and then the game has a fit. Unable to jump out of this hole, all your character does is panic and appears to have some sort of seizure until he finally shakes out or you're shot dead because you can't turn around. When you play with other players, it can also be a huge pain in the ass when they continually push into you or walk into the line of fire causing you to waste rounds into the back of their skull. While also playing online with randoms, you will suffer. Continually I have suffered with it. Almost always finding people who are either inactive or inept.

This big fucker made life rather difficult

Just prior to writing this, I completed a strike mission with over 100 more kills than my team "mates" without being downed in the final attempt. Even worse is the fact that those inept are actually higher levels and will often try and grief you. From annoying humans to stupid AI's. Within the Beta testing, many complaints were raised about the Spider Tank and its incredibly high power for its level. Although I didn't have such a problem with it myself (Hide under the bridge and snipe it through the gap) it was substantially nerfed for release. Further into the game upon approaching several other bosses, these were also incredibly OP on their own or had continuous support respawning that you couldn't take him out without being surrounded by 2 dozen hostiles. The other issues is that many of the enemies don't know what to do with themselves. You can either find them hidden behind cover without moving or attacking or you will see them simply standing out in the open with little desire to do anything. The only other thing to really talk about is The Crucible. Online matches for those who get bored of the story. A mix of Captures and TDM's that do little to entice or excite me in the slightest. If you get bored of the story or feel you can't be bothered, they probably are the better place to go but in reality, we have plenty of other things we could be playing.

Perhaps my expectations for Destiny were rather high. Perhaps I caved in to the over generated hype by all the outlets and marketing campaign but is this really an excuse when Bungie and Activision were at the forefront of creating such a storm? I don't think so. The game is a huge disappointment. Already packs are being mentioned and are on pre-order in the hope to pad out the game in the long run but when you buy a game for upwards of £40, you want something with meat on. This was always the case before DLC became such a money-spinner and it angers me that I have to wait and pay more money to understand what the hell is going on with the story or get new game modes/maps. Being so utterly disappointed by Destiny, my only aim is to complete it, get some achievements and put it back on the shelf to look at in the future. Would I recommend buying it? Probably not until its on sale for a tenner. This grand piece of art only turned out to be CoD on a bigger scale. My rating for this feels like a 6/10. Maybe 7 if I get bored.

What did you think of Destiny and do you think DLC 'extras' are something we should embrace?

I'm just going to sit here and think about all the money I just wasted

Assassin's Creed - Rogue - Trailer News

EDIT: The trailer has now been removed

In the last week news of a foreign retailer releasing a pre-order for a previous generation Assassin's Creed titled "Rogue" - previously under the codename Comet - has gone viral amongst the gaming community.

Riding on the hype of this news, an apparent still leaked (and trailer) from the upcoming trailer has surfaced on the web. Documenting the release for November 11th which follows Unity's release on October 27th. Demonstrated by the image sources say that we are keeping to the style that made Black Flag such a success. This being a new assassin, a big ass boat and a vast map to play with presumed to be the Arctic. I can't deny, no confirm the validity of these claims so we simply will have to hold on to see.

What are you hoping for from codename Comet/Rogue and do you feel its too much for one year? Leave your comments down below!

Source - http://kotaku.com/leak-shows-off-rogue-this-years-last-gen-assassins-cre-1616239537

Sniper Elite 3 - Can it Hit the Broadside of a Barn? - Quicky Review!

Want a game for your next-gen console at £40 that isn't finished? Well this is you game! Rush to your local retailer and purchase this game with a story shorter than that thing you call a penis, next-gen graphics from 2002's Gamecube, a 16GB install, a frame rate that drops as often as an alcoholic in a vineyard and glitches enough to make EA's UFC proud. Having seen nothing about Sniper Elite III at EGX until a few months back, I was fairly excited. X-ray kill-cams and an intuitive mechanic for snipers sold me on V2 and returning with "Improved works" and some new extras just seemed like a much stronger game. It may simply stand that the Xbox One version of the game is supremely glitchy but that's no excuse for a game that cost £40 and just appeared out of nowhere one day without much warning.

If you're looking for a story that engages you in an action packed adventure with colourful lead character and a dark villain to boot, Don't play this. Both of these feel non-existent. Considering you only meet the villain in the final mission and kill him a little later, it feels really unjustified to pave the way for an insane Nazi, only to cut him down without any enforcement of what he is doing that is

Kaaaarl...That Kills People...

anything other than following orders. Our lead man whose name is never mentioned in game but is Karl Fairburne is practically faceless. With the emotional range of Ryan Reynold's Deadpool, the only difference is that Karl talks to himself like a madman...

The redeeming factor for Sniper Elite is the X-ray cameras. Trying to get good shots for the recording (Will be up on the Black Ribbon Youtube channel soon!) was great fun. A yelp of happiness spewed from my mouth once I finally managed to achieve a testie shot on some poor bugger. Playing on the 'normal' rating was fairly simply to do as long as you didn't go getting sighted and make a lot of noise. Bullet drop was the only gimmick that affected that particular setting of difficulty with several others ramming up the difficulty for those with the patience not to draw everyone out and play whack-a-mole with dozens of Nazi craniums.

As a pre-order bonus, I was 'rewarded' with DLC. The trend sweeping over the industry to stick DLC straight after the game is released has to be the worst idea in history. So you couldn't just place it in the game to warrant the money I've just spent on something that's only positive part is shooting AXIS forces in slow-mo, in the nuts and just general violence? I would continue to rave on about the game being screwed. So badly screwed that I had to replay a mission from the begin just so I could get a recording that didn't feature a tank locating me 12ft underground. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy shooting people and it's just a mind-numbing experience which anyone can enjoy while investing the same brainpower as a breastfeeding baby. 6/10 is where I have to place this. With no characters, a story which was already written in for them, just dumbed down and it's fuck-ups are infuriating to battle with. DO NOT WASTE £40 on it. Wait until it's cheaper! Then you may enjoy it.

Watch_Dogs - Review! - Was it worth the wait? - SPOILERS

After spending every available minute I had on Watch Dogs over the past 2 days, I have finally completed the campaign mode and a few of the little extras. Now considering that I've been waiting for this puppy since the first reveal trailer early last year, I was major league bummed to turn up to Eurogamer and find that they only had a stinking demo presentation that we couldn't get our hands on, then to find out that it was pushed back until now stung. The 3rd person sandbox RPG was enough to capture my attention after my huge admiration for Red Dead Redemption a few years back (Still one of the best games known to man...) and blended with a modern world piggybacking on the recent NSA coverage makes this quite a topical game.

Since playing that game, I have got a lot of gripes with the game. For something that I've spent a year waiting for, I'm rather pissed. If I'm annoyed now, I dread to think what was wrong originally to push it back. Straight away we have the driving. Normally, I'm a good driver in games and I get the hang of it very quick but setting foot in a car in this game is one of the worst possible things you could do. Every damn vehicle has the turning circle of a lorry and apparently the ability to perform a burnout when you gently accelerate. The camera angles may as well have been shoved up Aiden's ass as they are some of the worst possible angles I've ever seen and when the majority of time is spent in the fuckers, you have no hope of avoiding them. I'm not expecting that Watch Dogs should be like GTA, but when you can't shoot out of your own damn car or throw/use equipment, it is useless to expect us to be able to take down certain targets who spend all the time on highways in armoured trucks and are near no environmental factors. The only decipherable way to ram them and in doing so do more damage to your car than you inflict and then stealing other cars only to wreck them a moment later. By wreck and run them off the road, by that I mean the poorly animated collisions which are more likely related to morphing. Hitting vehicles along the road almost always looks as if you're transpiring through them like a ghost... So yeah, I despised the driving. To the point I would be willing to never drive in game again. A quick tip, get the Uplay points and unlock that car or steal a car. Buying them is pointless. Other than getting the bonuses, Uplay works whenever the hell it chooses and the ubisoft servers would regularly not work for me and trying to exit to the menu doesn't work at all for me and stayed at one spot while I was away for 3 hours.

Now the core part of the game is the hacking. In advertisements, it portrayed the fact that you could

manipulate everything or a high proportion of things, yet when in the thick of the game play, its

rather sparse for variety but a lot of copy and pasting which can become repetitive if you play as sessions like myself. Apart from the driving mechanics, hacking was easy to do and infiltrating places was also incredibly easy if you didn't fancy the run and gun approach and have some patience. Using the environment to pick people off was rather amusing but if you didn't feel like it, you could easily beat your way through with very little resistance. If you hadn't heard, not long before its release, information was revealed that Watch_Dogs was in a higher resolution for the PS4 rather than the Xbox One. I cannot tell much difference on the One but I do get a little wound up by the fact that its scratched in on a 720p setting for HD. Albeit, the game looks nice and plays the Final Fantasy trick. Luring people in with images from cut scenes that use high standard visuals rather than the core graphics is always a cheap move to make but otherwise it looks good. The gripe is when you're being hacked, the full screen starts blacking out. Now, in reality, why does the screen go black? How can we actually be blinded? Are we a fucking robot!? Let's put ourselves into the future into the Watch_Dogs world. In a time when HD is advancing incredibly fast into 4K, why is it that music and screens glitch in game. Surly the outcome would be crisp shapes with no static and light skipping? Apparently not. In the words of Sips, it makes me want to rip my dick off.

Now, the real reason many by games is the story. I as one of them were satisfied. The campaign was sufficiently long, spending an age going between them probably prolonged the period and there is a lot of side missions to do along the way. The story is hinged upon the past actions by our lead --Aiden Pearce. The loss of his niece has led Aiden to become this masked vigilante called "The Fox", although you only find out the name at 2 instances; midway through and right at the end. As he tries to do good Aiden's new persona has put his remaining family in danger and they need his help to save them. It spirals through 3 villains that all have a lot of roots in the underground and cyberspace. Without spoiling much, the end was a little dramatic but satisfying after the hours you invest. The inevitable "boss" was pretty damn easy when you can set up a load of bombs and the death by the hacking of some personal equipment was an brilliant idea. Somewhat morbid but I couldn't help but revel in how much awesome there was in that moment. As an over arching story, it was average. It's been enough to spark the interest of media outlets who want to discuss its inevitability in the real world but they do the same in Die Hard 4.0 so it's not this new big thing...

So my overall score really focuses on how much I enjoyed it. Apart from the fact that it glitches like a bitch at times, the driving is enough to drive me insane and that the story could be covered in the next buddy cop comedy movie with Ice Cube and Kevin Hart, it was rather fun.  Blowing stuff up and shooting people is what's at the core and that does it for me. Although I can't quite justify the wait, I'm giving this a 7/10. Also the fact that "collectors edition" is more, "collect these 5 different additions with different things if you want everything because we are going to milk you like a little cow"...Cheers, guys. Plus, when you advertise something, don't ruin the secrets and create new scenes which never appear in game...