Mass Effect Andromeda Arriving Soon & ME2 Free!

2017 has only just kicked off and Bioware have already blown the doors off with their latest press release. The hotly anticipated release for the latest instalment into the Mass Effect Universe will be arriving in North America on Tuesday, March 21, 2017 and Thursday, March 23, 2017 in Europe.

Bioware's general manager continued by writing - 

"Mass Effect: Andromeda is our most ambitious Mass Effect game to date. We’re telling completely new stories, creating new characters, new planets, new species, and introducing new gameplay systems. And for the first time, we’re bringing Mass Effect to the Frostbite game engine, an incredible engine that’s delivering a tremendous graphical jump from the trilogy to Mass Effect: Andromeda. To deliver on this, we’re taking all the time we can to make sure you’re getting the best possible experience."

In conjunction with this news, NVIDIA released a gameplay trailer showcasing in game footage and a few of the menus, mobs and manoeuvres in glorious HD (#PCMasterRace). From this short snippet alone, visually it looks incredible with crisp lines and a variety of lighting and colour. The menu concerns me due to its rather rapid and clunky looking movements but this could have been sped up.

With such hype and excitement behind Andromeda, EA have made Mass Effect 2 FREE for all users of their Origin platform for PC users. No news surrounding the console community yet but the big partnership with NVIDIA probably influenced such promotional strategies.

Are you excited for Andromeda? Let us know in the comment section below!

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

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

No.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

6/10 - This is becoming all to common.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

8/10!
PS - Deathclaws be scary

 

Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 - WHEN WILL IT STOP!? - Xbox One Review

About 6 years ago, I began my foray into the Call of Duty series with Modern Warfare 2 for my brand new Xbox 360. MW2 is the most beloved and coolest CoD game to date, ever since, I've made sure to get my hands on them and play them but nothing lived up to Infinity Ward's quality. The game took a huge hit with Black Ops. It's quality was naff and it's general gameplay and story were duller than a blunt kitchen knife. It seemed a trend but does it stop here?

Well...Not really. We are 40 years after the events of Black Ops 2, subtle references to the villain of the past give reasoning to the huge amount drones and their constant reliance on something so easily manipulated, as we keep finding out. We are a nameless character, male or female with the ability to choose from a selection of facial pre-sets. The male voice is played by Farscape's Ben Browder and the female by Abby Brammell. We are also joined by a whole host of faces and names throughout from Christopher Meloni, Neal McDonough, Ron Perlman, Robert Picardo, Jeff Goldblum, Tony Amendola and the legendary Nolan North to mention a few. Its not only their voices, many of them have their faces digitally mapped into the game much like Advanced Warfare's Kevin Spacey and Troy Baker to create another selling point. Now sure, they look good and it was cool to see a few familiar faces but it didn't add much, especially when you watch the movement of the faces during dialogue and all you see is an empty black hole into the abyss. I wouldn't have been surprised to have seen someone's hand and a couple black lines from the side of the mouth too their chins. As for the general voice acting, its was alright. Now we shift to our character. The need to even create one is rather obscure, you only see yourself in a few transitions prior to levels and in game cutscenes, so its general need could have been fulfilled in a far more practical manner - AKA, not have it at all. The quality of our face is also far less than that of any other character so its difficult to justify why they simply didn't use their voice actors like every other character. Typically, as ever, there is a bad guy. We need to find them and kill them. This time however, its a "complicated" story of AI, CIA and biotech enhancements on your squad. Rather than spoil anything, you have a chip in your brain that allows you to control certain aspects of the world around you and give you advantages on the battlefield. But, we never started with this. In fact our first mission is us diving into Egypt to save a high ranking official. Upon rescuing him, we are treated to a rather impromptu massage from a defective masseuse that pulls a couple limbs off and uses them to beat me into oblivion. But all is not lost! Rescued by an elite group of operatives fitted with biotech chips, top of the line prosthetics and Meloni at the helm, the very same organisation that we join in return for saving our life. Now as a story, its lives under its own guise of "oh so complicated" when in actual fact, its a very basic story that decides to throw some of its Nazi zombie features in for no apparently reason other than, "eh, fuck it". Character development is non-existent and the attempted love/relationship story arises from nowhere and vanishes quicker than a fart in the wind.

So what else is there? Anything new you may be asking?. Well there are a couple things. One is the biotech chips which give you a select amount of abilities that can control the flow of enemies and remove threats more effectively. Some allow remote hacking of devices for control purposes while others garner the ability to fuck shit up and implode combat drones. They've also reduced strafing

abilities from AW, only giving you a forward slide which is a faff in general as its only engaged while running at a certain speed so its a little bit annoying for sliding between cover. It's also taken another leaf from AW but we all know that this leaf came right from Titanfall and that is the wall running ability, but this time you have to unlock it with points rather than it being part of your super solider get-up and its a really clunky affair. Its not smooth and its hardly used. Unless you're like me and it suddenly appears that you need it to cross a gap for 1 section and you didn't unlock it because it was already part of your training and you presumed you still had it!...

Visually the game looks sharp. Some textures aren't perfect and as I've already mentioned, faces lack a good form of animation and suffer from looking like clay or wax models. But its not all bad. The UI HUD is fantastic. Very simple and easy to use and the tactical elements included give some great guidance throughout and reveal kill zones and enemy locations. However, when setting my safe boundaries, loading screens prior to levels completed ignored that and cut the majority of the level names out which was a rather infuriating issue that bugged me consistently. The music is okay. Nothing dramatically amazing that sticks to mind but the sound effects need toning down. I was playing with the stereo output via the controller with my Razer Kraken Neon Pro's at a decent level but voices were often distant and the explosions were physically painful.

 Now, multiplayer. The only reason anyone buys these games? Probably. My experience is short and it'll stay that way with Fallout 4 on my lap, Tomb Raider on the back of a truck on route to me and Star War Battlefront so soon after. I opened it up to be greeted by a selection of classes. Typical destroyers and abilities were attached to them which would have certain effects within the game, their genders can't change but they have a variety of customisable pieces. So, jumping into my first game, I've already been kicked out of 3 and joined lobbies where nothing happens at all. Team balancing takes an age and starting and getting into a game is just agonisingly long when you just want to play a single round. Perhaps its the Xbox's awful wifi receiver connection or perhaps its the CoD servers being rammed or more than likely, a combination of both. Levels gained in the campaign also do not affect the online multiplayer meaning that it is useless to have such an unnecessary mechanic. But considering I finally managed to make in into a game, lets talk about it. Bearing in mind it was one map and my only match so far, it was alright. I fell off the high-rise building a few times and often got myself lost looking for people who blended into the environment making them rather difficult to see. Upon entering the round, we are greeted by a League of Legends (Maybe Dota, I don't play it) player roster that details the enemy players and what class they are running, once again, a pretty useless addition that tries to give the illusion of strategy to then round out the match with a podium finish of those who performed the best that features a short bit of dialogue from the top character. Honestly one of the most cringy experiences I've ever had to witness in a game. Now here is my biggest gripe. I can hear where the enemy team is. Not because of their footsteps or movement but because the characters are screaming and shouting. In close quarter situations, its becomes a cluster of shouting that draws more and more people in and any element of surprise is removed when some bell shouts "Enemy down!" at the top of their lungs. 

Now has the game changed? No. Not at all. If you scrap all of the tiny little additions of the player rosters and the "new guns" You'll probably see the lifeless corpse of Treyarch's World at War and Infinity Studio looking back in disgust at the desecration of the classic Call of Duties that made the series such a big hitter in the market. Now, I don't think we've seen the end of it. In fact, I'm sure it'll continue for a few years now with the same dull and boring story with minute mechanic changes because its audience so wholly digest it, they cannot actually comprehend that the series is simultaneously fucking them while gradually feeding them more content so they keep their mouths shut. We are left with a series that is watching its audience become self-aware (perhaps that's what the story was really going for) and see what they're paying for year on year.

Use Cara Delevingne as much as you want. It ain't going to make the game good! 6/10
Buy it cheap, play it for a few hours and watch as the map packs destroy and displace the player base.

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Worth the pick up - 7/10

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

Mafia III - Official RELEASE Trailer

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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