It's unfortunate that I should have to tell people to people to avoid this game even though it can be enjoyed somehow. What's presented is a very fun and challenging rally racing game with changing physics for separate event types that keeps the players on their toes, but it's severely ham-stringed by a difficulty setting that is almost impossible to win against when set to the default. It's great for anyone who's a fan of rally racing games but not so much for anyone else.
To those of us who do enjoy the off-road sport, V-Rally 4 is a decent game with solid racing but not much else to speak of. The metagame of managing a team and budget adds a realistic but somewhat unwelcome touch by charging thousands of dollars to maintain operations. It feels very hands off but is unavoidably necessary to upgrade vehicles in order to even stand a chance at a podium finish. Higher level mechanics, researchers, and a PR agents must be added to get better parts and access to higher paying events. Car upgrades come sparsely and are unlocked per days raced as opposed to an XP system, it also forces the player to manage the budget: will a car upgrade help now or would it be better save up for a new car for higher level races? It hardly matters because the AI is constantly overwhelming if not adjusted and even at the default difficulty setting it seems to be hard to keep up even when pushing the cars to their limits. Lowering the difficulty feels no better when things seem to be going well in a race only to somehow find yourself in 9th place at the very end. Lowering the difficulty lowers your overall prize money so the unhealthy balance of risk vs reward has no appeal.
The changing physics happen with each and every race and event type. The rally racing is the most diverse between dry asphalt, snowy roads, sand, and more. Buggy racing hardly feels any different when powering through water or sand but recovering from a large jump can be unpredictable. Gymkhana is on dry asphalt but you're expected to drift through hairpin turns, often times with a FWD car. Hill climb is the fastest on dry asphalt and can be tricky with unexpected turns and no pace notes to guide the player.
The game has a distinct lack of personality and design-wise is very boring. The in-game UI is dull and there is no flare or excitement when pulling off a perfectly executed handbrake turn around a hairpin or landing on all four tires from a jump is met with no excitement or reaction. It features a very basic photo mode that only angles and zooms the camera, nothing more. (The screenshots in this review were taken by me.)
The locales are gorgeous and light rays, grass, water reflections, and dirt clouds make everything look amazing and is the best part of the game. However there's a big lack of variety in regards to the amount of cars and
tracks available and racing the same places over
and over will become tiresome after just a few
hours.
Sound design has taken a hit with each engine sounding different from one another but not very powerful. There is no bass to the backfires, no feeling from the tires squealing, and no reaction from the crowds. Pace notes are accurate but not very detailed for the rapidly-changing rally events, even the co-driver sounds bored and not concerned with the racing. The only music is in the menus is same song repeated each time a race is finished.
If you've beaten the WRC games as well as the DiRT series then you'll find plenty of faults with V-Rally 4 but you may also find enjoyment in the challenge. When compared to the other series it feels like a budget title which is a shame since the V-Rally series, which started as an offshoot from the NFS franchise, has a pedigree as far back as the first Colin McRae Rally on the PS1. It has changed developers and some ideas were gleaned from the others but nothing about this title pushes the limits of rally racing games or makes the player want to play more.
If an XP system that rewarded the player for drifts, speeds, jumps, etc had been added in exchange of team management, it would have given the game it's own personality. It would have added an arcade flair to a sim racing game. Instead it's hindered by copied ideas and a difficulty system that doesn't actually adjust. V-Rally could be better in the future but only time will tell.
Anthem
started out as a great game with plenty of things to do, places to
explore, enemies to take down, weapons to discover, a story of decent
length, and an endless possibility for the future. A brand new IP that could rival Destiny or The Division that immediately
fell apart after the first patch wherein weapon and loot levels were adjusted.
Suddenly it was difficult to find new weapons, and the ones in a player's possession were no longer as powerful as they once were.
Then another patch, and low-level weapons were too powerful, and the better loot moved to the after-campaign missions.
Then another patch and the weapons evened out and the loot was given freely to everyone.
Then another patch and suddenly part of the loot disappeared.
Then another and another and another and now no one has any idea just how powerful their weapons actually are.
Despite the overwhelming near-constant release of patches, Anthem is a good game. Plain and simple.
The currently unnamed planet that the game takes place on features amazing scenery divided into locales that unfortunately get tiresome after
the 10th hour or so when every nook and cranny has been explored. Caves that lead to dungeons which house hidden missions are sparse and are merely tantamount to hidden side quests. An invisible roof barrier and walls that time the player out keep anyone from truly exploring what at first looks like an open jungle. Fort Tarsis is vibrant and feels alive but barren with a lack of NPCs that were abundant in the first trailer shown at E3 2017. It may be improved upon if there are future expansions but only time will tell. Each dungeon and Cataclysm are unique and never copy-paste jobs of pre-made layouts. Strongholds, Cataclysm events, agent
quests and contracts, and legendary contracts at first seem like they
would offer a wide variety of mission types but most are
seek-and-destroy, item collection, or task the player with fending off an attacking group of enemies.
It's not all hindered by BioWare's indecision
though. The main saving grace is the action itself: there are plenty of
fights to get into in the overworld during Freeplay and each one can last several
minutes, some may lead into a side quest wherein enemies must be defeated or an object must be located. Freeplay offers up the entire map for the player to explore with four others. You can group with random people and head out to cause trouble or simply hunt things down on your own. There are hundreds of lore items to find throughout the game that
build on the depth of the world that detail the various factions, creatures, and history. These appear in random places but are so rare and insignificant to the overall game that only someone looking to complete things 100% might care to find.
There are six(!) different currencies within the game (unless you count two of them separately). Gold, weapon/javelin parts, compounds/alloys, embers, crystals, and shards that must be bought with real money. Gold and shards are used to buy emotes, armor packs, textures, and decals but gold must be grinded for which can potentially take hours and sometimes days to attain. Weapon and Javelin parts are used for crafting blueprints which are obtained by finding new weapons. Compounds and alloys are used with shards to craft mods for weapons and Javelin parts. Crystals were introduced in the cataclysm update and may disappear, much like another past currency did. There are four Javelin types to choose from: Ranger offers the most balance, Colossus brings heavy armor and shields, Storm can attack enemies with elemental powers, and Interceptor being the fastest but most frail. Each part of these can be visually customized to the players choosing, from armor sets to paint and decals. One of the main attractions to Anthem is the ability to fly; each Javelin can go a considerable distance on it's own and when cooled by flying through a waterfall, making an immediate descent, or flying low to a water source can prolong the overheating. Customization options for the Javelins are lackluster and, as I said, gold must be
grinded for days to have enough for a decal, a pack of armor, or even an
emote. Weapons must also be grinded for in all areas with the best
appearing at complete random (I received a Legendary pistol from Free Play) and are not guaranteed after completing a high-level mission.
After the main campaign, the contracts become repetitive and, aside from
strongholds and Cataclysm, are one of the few things to do to keep players interested for just a little bit longer.
Audio quality is top notch with the main star being the guns and explosions. From the lowly pistols to the heavy machine guns, each one packs a punch and feels powerful. The sounds of the Javelin are clear as day when running through the jungle or flying. The jungle creatures, waterfalls, the ambience of Anthem tech, and even the enemies have all been given special attention. NPC interactions in Fort Tarsis sound like natural conversations and the voice actors perform excellently (Sentinel Bren is
adorable, fight me). There are many characters to meet and all of them offer different context choices when speaking with them, there is no right or wrong way and they all lead to a mission.
I was an Anthem apologist for a long time, I only looked
at the good parts of this game and tried to tell people to only focus
on those, but those good parts only go so far and after each patch has
further twisted the overall gameplay, I can no longer tell people to
focus on just that. It clocks in around 50 hours of play time and easily recommendable to anyone who loves the the shoot-and-loot trend.
Anthem isn't a bad game by any stretch, it's just hindered by some initial poor design choices that have since been repaired while others have been made more complicated. Until BioWare releases an expansion the audience for this title shrinks
daily and that is unfortunate since there is a massive amount of
potential that would keep people coming back for years.
If the WRC and DiRT series could be compared to Gran Turismo and Forza, then Sebastien Loeb Rally EVO could be compared to Driving Emotion Type-S:
a one-off game from SquareEnix (back then just SquareSoft) that may
have looked decent given the initial reviews, but once played the
disaster that it truly is becomes apparent. It can't hold it's own
against the bigger titles and is left on the shelves or in the cloud as a forgotten
regrettable purchase. Developer Milestone has been around since the 90s
and have worked on the WRC series in the past and is currently the developer of the MotoGP series which proves they have some knowledge
when it comes to sim racing, it's just surprising to see how mediocre
Rally EVO truly is. It seems to have hit a bump and crashed headfirst into some trees.
The
first and immediate problem are the physics that seem to toe the line
between reality and arcade: it's hard to understand just how they work
and even when you think you understand them, the game seems to change with each and
every car and surface. RWD cars slide violently from the back when braking while 4WD cars seem to
lose the ability to steer altogether when the brakes are pressed. Thankfully options such as traction and stability controls can be adjusted from the menus even during a race. Wonky physics aside, the game has a rewind function that allows to undo some mistakes. These are limited in the number of uses for each race and have a time limit before being able to be used again so crashing so soon after using one can be frustrating.
The
variety of race types is commendable but some of them are absolutely
useless in the overall package of this being a rally game. Modes such as Sector racing, which has you racing to be the fastest driver in a sector on a single race track, can last less than three minutes. Elimination races are something you'd expect to find in an arcade racing game. The rally stages are the best and there's a huge variety to the courses, with changing surface types. Speaking of, the career mode feels
more like an arcade mode by jumping from event to event being broken up by classes for each car type. The
Loeb Experience portion of the game does the same thing but is unlocked by climbing higher on the reputation ladder. All
the while there are no end-race consequences for damage so you don't have to
worry about paying for repairs, you can use those credits to buy new cars and
keep going. It all adds up to a game with $30 worth of quality and
content that retailed for $60 at launch.
There is nothing steady about the overall game when you have to remember how to drive a RWD car on the snow in one race to a 4WD car on dry pavement in another.
Each stage and locale are
detailed to be as realistic as possible and feature some of the courses from the official WRC calendar, but there's no pizzazz behind
it, all the colors feel muted and the scenery feels lifeless. In spite of that, the light rays,
reflections, and shadows are excellently placed and reflect nicely off of the car and bodies of water or ice. I use the first screenshot as a Facebook banner and one of my relatives thought it was a real
picture.
Each car sounds unique and the backfire from the more powerful vehicles have a nice bass to them. Pacenotes seem to go an extra mile in the wrong direction
compared to other games and the co-driver sounds like a robot. Even counting down at the start of a race you can hear him say "Go?"
There are audio hiccups and more than once while playing, the co-driver switched to a completely different language. Several times there are audio clips of Sebastien Loeb speaking to the player in the career mode only it's not
really him. Loeb is French and has an accent, the man in the recording
is purely American
Every once in a while a game comes along that
has some competence: it "works well" but for some unexplained reason all
of it comes together in a big mess of slush that gets pushed to the
side in favor of a more well-established series of games. For those who
don't know, Sebastien Loeb currently has the most victories in the WRC:
77 wins according to the website (for comparison, McRae
only has 25), so a man of such importance should have had a better game
than this. I didn't expect Colin Mcrae Rally series level of quality but if I'm being honest I'd like to see another developer
take over this title and try something new.
While running and jumping around the vast city of Hover, you come across a locked box. After a few seconds of hacking it opens to reveal a gameball. Video games are highly illegal on this world thanks to the imposing security force. You are part of a resistance movement to bring games back to the masses and with your parkour skills the multiple levels of the city are simply your playground. You grab it and run, leaping over walls, bewildered citizens jumping out of your way, through tunnels, across rooftops, through a crowded plaza. Suddenly a security camera spots you and from seemingly nowhere a hovering SecuBox is right on top of you, threatening to take away the console or imprison you. You run and the adrenaline starts pumping.
Hover: Revolt of Gamers is developed by three French amateur game designers with the studio name Fusty Game. This is the second game they've developed, with the first having unfortunately been canceled on Kickstarter. The style is similar to the ones found in the movies The Fifth Element and Star Wars: a variety of alien species living together in a multi-tiered society with the threat of a police force controlling everything. Alien languages on billboards, anti-video game propaganda, and the jumbled crowd of alien species walking about lend greatly to the atmosphere. The gameplay is a mix between Jet Grind Radio and Mirror's Edge: a fast-paced first- and third-person camera view allows you to feel in control as the action takes place. Delivering gameballs and completing missions will help you raise your stats to better your speed, jumping, and grinding, just to name a few. This is a parkour game; it unleashes the fast-paced art of free running into
an open neon-colored metropolis that's rife with sharp angles, large
drops, bright lights, and a security force that wants you out of the
equation. The futuristic world is a maze of pathways and, barring the obvious invisible walls, if you can see it then you can get there.
Following a MASSIVELY successful Kickstarter that ended with over triple the amount of the original goal, they were able to not only double the initial size of the city but they brought on board Jet Grind Radio/Jet Set Radio Future composer Hideki Nakamura. If you were a fan of his work for those games then you'll feel right at home here. Also for those of you lucky enough to have an Oculus Rift handy, the game is compatible with the headset but may give you motion sickness if you're unprepared for the insane movement. Biggest of all is a planned Wii U release, however no information on this has been posted. Those who were lucky (and rich enough) to contribute majorly to the Kickstarter will get rewards along the lines of a special DJ pet, an exclusive character skin, a physical copy, and, to someone who contributed $1,500 to the campaign, will have their likeness turned into a giant statue somewhere in the game.
In your free time between missions, you can explore the city to look for the best lines to get the best speed and ways to get around. It will most certainly put your pathfinding skills to the test. Currently the alpha version only allows players to traverse a small section of the city, both online and off. You can gather gameballs, GameGirls, avoid police, and take part in a few races against NPCs, or race other plays online if you prefer. The full version will have missions that include police evasion, stealth infiltration, and a few more variations that the creators have yet to reveal. A deeper character customization will be available in the full version as well as spraypaint tagging, more playable character skins, a deeper history of the world, and an expanded soundtrack.
A modern mid-level system will have no problem playing Hover on medium graphical settings. It will take a lot of horsepower to make it run at max with 60 fps. Fusty Game took no prisoners with the depth of the game's graphics. Even my laptop that's only a few years old manages to crank out a meager 15 fps on the lowest settings. There's a lot going on that's not on-screen that the game is having to keep track of: mindless NPC pedestrians, traffic, and the security system are all present and don't fade at a distance. Expect the fps results to pan out better as they make the game more compatible with different setups.
The game is compatible with an Xbox 360 control pad and is easy to use with it's minimal button usage. While it feels more organic than the keyboard and mouse layout it loses the ability to make sharp turns and that is something that's required for traversing this city cleanly. A rewind feature is extremely useful and helps you correct mistakes if you miss a jump or find yourself stuck in some way. Currently in the alpha there is no limit to how far back you can go. The ability to scan things can bring up a text menu with some interesting tidbits on the city and its inhabitants. This can also show you the locations of important NPCs, gameballs, race starting points, holographic signs, security cameras and E-cops. It can leave the screen cluttered and is disorienting at first. Time will tell if this is corrected.
The Fusty Game team: Charles Vesic, Marine Baron, and Pierre Raffali
If you missed out on the Kickstarter, Hover will be coming to Steam via Greenlight and will be available on PC, Mac, and Linux OS's in a multitude of languages. No pricing or release date has been posted yet but its not too late to get in on the hype. If the alpha proves anything, its that even dedicated fans can make the game of their dreams. There is something awesome about just hanging out in another world, running and exploring. Hover has something that a lot of the AAA titles these days are lacking: fun.
You know your favorite band's greatest hits album? Sure, you've heard all the songs before and are probably tired of them but you know they needed to make a little more money before the next full release so a greatest hits collection is their next step, and maybe you still buy it anyway. Colin McRae Rally is that in a nutshell. I understand that its actually a port of the iOS game which is a remake of Colin McRae Rally 2.0, but you would think Codemasters would add a little extra to sweeten the deal for both new and returning fans of the original franchise. Instead it feels like less-than-half of what the latter games in the series became and a barbones recreation of the PS1 classic. Last year Codemasters teased that the next CMR game will be focused on rally racing, rather than hopping from one sport to the next as done in the DiRT Series. There's been no word on whether it will be the next DiRT entry or a return to the classic CMR staging but us fans can only hope that this isn't what they were talking about.
There are only 4 cars and 30 stages. The stages feel planned out rather than organic. The physics dulled down. The power sucked out. The driving stiff. The awesome feeling of awesomeness as you drift through a hairpin is completely absent. A lot of the magic has been lost in its conversion to mobile, and even more so with its port over to Steam. I'm sure the original was never this dull and there was more than likely an exciting feeling of powering through turns and speeding through forests but this time it suffers by removing a lot of the technical aspects that introduced a lot of people to not only sim racing games but the sport of rally racing as well. Players can no longer tune their cars before each race (which is fine because all four cars play exactly the same) and for that it grudgingly inserts itself into the casual racing category, but even then it fails because the driving is simply boring.
The physics problems are just the beginning. In one of the first races in Australia, a large jump is the main event that completely breaks the game (see below). As your car almost does a barrel roll in mid-air it immediately proves the point that the game engine itself is broken. Speaking of breaking, the cars actually break down as they drive through the stages, and not just falling apart from hitting things; by the end of the second stage there is a clanking sound that wasn't there before that lets you know something is seriously wrong. Repairs are still allowed after every other stage but players may find the 30 minute time limit a bit too short for all the damage that was mysteriously caused while driving.
Australia, Greece, and Corsica are the only three locales to drive through and there just isn't anything within them to make things interesting. There are no sights to see, no majestic backgrounds, nothing within the roads to make it fun and yet it stretches out to 10 stages a piece. Ford Focus, Subaru Impreza, Mitsubishi Lancer, and Lancia Stratos are the four cars but, like I said, since they all play the same it only comes down to which one you prefer.
On mobile devices you can choose between tilt controls with auto-acceleration or full on-screen controls. On the PC/Mac version, you can choose to use either the keyboard, a gamepad, or wheel support. Mapping the controls are difficult as it seems to fight against what the player has chosen as presets. There is no pressure sensitivity for accelerating and braking so even the keyboard feels fine when being played with.
(via Steam community member CueZero)
The graphical update is just about the only thing done well enough. The graphics engine gets the job done until you notice the faults such as front-facing sprites for the trees, flat crowds, and the plastic-like textures on the cars. The stages fair no better with a static image for the background and distance pop-in. Understandably this is all limited due to being built for mobile but nothing was changed for the Steam release. If you own a computer from 2006 then you should still be able to play on lowest settings with few hiccups. The co-driver directions by Nicky Grist are just pre-recorded and chopped together but are accurate enough to not leave you heading toward a tree at high speeds. One of the biggest concerns that you'll face immediately in the area of sound is the airhorn which blares EVERY TIME you pass a crowd and is so distracting that you may want to consider turning the SFX down, which in turn reduces the engine and gravel sounds so its a lose/lose situation unless you can do without either. Sliding on gravel or the pavement produces an accurate enough sound and crowds cheer as you pass but your attention should be focused mainly on the directions rather than immersion.
Engines don't sound powerful at all and gradually decline in strength the more you drive. At least they put in enough thought to make the engines separate from one another.
There is no in-game music, only the menu, which is a simple tune that is easily forgotten.
It will take you about 5 hours to complete and there is very little after-game. Playing a few stages here and there is all it will amount to but there are other racing games on the app stores and Steam that are worthy of attention. This game should have stayed on the mobile platforms and even then the small amount of content should be asking for no more than $5. To even call itself a remake is a disappointment since it doesn't really feel like a Colin McRae Rally game, more like a fan project. The original CMR games were about the driver's skill and knowledge of the car and physics, that's all been thrown away in favor of tilt controls and making it more mobile friendly. The thrills of driving and overcoming opponents have been cut out in favor of ease-of-access just to make a quick buck. Its an insult to the series and the fans, and that's what hurts the most.
As
I said before in my preview of Shadowgate: point-and-click games,
more commonly known as the Adventure genre, are becoming few and far
between these days. Some of the more recent notable games of the last few years would be The Walking Dead series or The Raven, but if you want
to travel back in time you may recognize the Monkey Island series
or Maniac Mansion, which was also ported over to the NES during its
lifetime. Given that every title in the genre does something different, measuring this adventure
to the old school Shadowgate rather than comparing it to other adventure titles only seems fair since even the devs call it a re-imagining. The changes, similarities, what it
does well now and what it lacks are up for inspection. Its mostly the same Shadowgate, but this time you get a lot more reasoning behind the journey.
As Jair Cathegar, you are instructed by the wizard Lakmir to take on a perilous task by traveling far and finding your way to the living castle of Shadowgate, then navigating its many perilous halls to stop the evil Warlock Lord, Talimar the Black, from unleashing the Behemoth to destroy the world. A little ways in to the game the bulk of the plot is explained to you through a couple of cutscenes. Lakmir, who is a surviving member of the Circle of Twelve, the only other being Talimar, has grown too weak to fight him face-to-face. Which is where Jair Cathegar comes in. He's descended from a long line of kings and prophecy states that he will be the one to defeat Talimar, but standing in his way is the castle and it's many, many, MANY traps and treasures. Almost everything you pick up can be used for something down the line but there is also a hefty amount of trash. Discerning which is which is up to the player. On the hard difficulty, you're limited to how much you can carry and since the puzzles adjust with each level something that can be used at one point may instead work somewhere else on another difficulty. Its these three levels that give the game am immense replayability factor.
Fools Rush In
The first thing you should know about playing Shadowgate is that its not for those who lack patience: you will die a lot and if
you're not adept at using your noggin to solve some complex puzzles
then I'm afraid Shadowgate isn't for you. Additionally an attention to detail and a keen eye for things that stand out is also definitely required. If you enjoy games with a steep level of challenge then you'll love it. If you're
looking for a nostalgic trip you may or may not be disappointed: while a lot has changed, conjuring up memories of past solutions might help you in
some ways but not in every case. In the first screen you find a talking skull named Yorick that offers vague hints and the occasional commentary, he's a decent traveling partner and provides a few passing chuckles, you're notfied by what he says when you hear bones clatter ominously. If you don't like his chatter you can simply choose to hit him to make him speak less. There is no direct combat, just a command that will let you HIT something, including yourself. You will encounter a few beasts that will attack and sometimes finding a way to avoid combat is your best bet.
From the dragon immolating you with
fire breath to falling down a pit, almost
everything can kill you, the game is still fraught with the
familiar death traps that made the original so tricky to navigate.
Shadowgate can be smooth as silk when you remember all of the
possible combinations of things and think cleverly on when and how to
use items. Sometimes being stuck in an area will require backtracking by several rooms. Keeping your torches lit is also a priority. Yorick will notify you when the light is getting too low, and letting it burn out is a bad idea. Once the fire is gone, you can't start another one, and it'll be awfully hard navigating the darkness by feeling your way around.
Shadowgate
now has a spacious interface with the inventory and other options no
longer taking up most of the screen. Part of the action unfolds through a
text box at the bottom while an animation shows. Yes, a basic reading
skill is required to play. The most dialogue you'll come across will be written on notes, the voiceovers are sparsely placed throughout the game. The way of playing takes some getting used as it seems you need to be sure which command you're clicking at the top of the screen or which item you're selecting. Sometimes trying to click on an action requires a second click (or my 2-month old mouse is already breaking). The menus and inventory seem to get in the way of the game itself so if you prefer keyboard bindings over mouse movement you can set those up in the options, or in case you want the very old-school MacVenture feeling.
Painting Life
The land of Tyragon is a dark and dreary one where
magic is abundant and there remain spells crafted from people whose
names have been long-forgotten, and Castle Shadowgate is almost the epicenter of it. The room and inventory art was done by Chris Cold, who has been able to create not only a variety of dungeons but ones that flow well together from one room to the next, they're greatly designed and all fit within the theme of what you would find given the atmosphere of the world. The cutscenes were animated by Wang Ling, also a digital painter, and are somewhat reminiscent of what you would see during the cutscenes of Guild Wars 2. You won't have to worry about too much brown or gray with splashes of colors in certain areas (as seen above) that almost command attention, each space is different and the map in the bottom left of the screen is a handy tool to help you remember where things are.
The
voice acting, though few, is top notch with voices neatly matching the
characters but the
main thing you'll hear will be the soundtrack which is impeccably
orchestrated: immersive, haunting, mysterious, calm at times and adrenalized at others, fitting the moods of the rooms perfectly. But don't you wish there was a bit more nostalgia to be had? Have no fear. In the options menu you'll find an NES music mode that inserts the original tunes from the 1989 NES release as well as the transitions and text-scrolling animation. Basically you can turn it into a big nostalgia trip with updated visuals. Its a nice addition that has no bearing on the gameplay itself but is a very welcome one.
Invokan, Agaap, Entraiz...
As of writing this I haven't been able to complete the game. I had a lot of trouble with it until Dave Marsh, one of the creators, helped me out. That being said I can't tell you how long it will take to complete but with the puzzles and items changing with each difficulty level you'll sink in at least a dozen hours. While
Shadowgate holds itself together like a AAA game you can't help but
feel overwhelmed as your torch light slowly dies and you've exhausted
all options to figure out what to do next, you will feel stupid that the
answer may be something you simply overlooked. A
lot
of thought and effort have gone into remaking everything and
making it all work together and it shows... almost a little too well. When you hit a stride it feels good but when the game comes to a halt then you need to think your way through. You might find yourself trying items and actions repeatedly on random objects in the hopes that something will happen, but it never does.
Upon entering the pitch black dungeon, a shaft of light pierces the darkness, illuminating a book upon a pedestal. Opening the pages you find only two words written in the entire book: "PRICE DROP!" Then a trap door opens below your feet and you plummet to your death. If you've been curious about it, its best to wait for a Steam Sale. Nostalgia or not, Shadowgate is a pure challenge to play and many people will be turned
off by that, which is a shame since this time around it has a lot more to work with. Amazing visuals, captivating music, and a bit more depth to the story give a more complete sense of the world than what we had on the NES. Games are meant to be fun but Shadowgate proves to be a lesson in patience and observation. The immersion in the world matters little if you're not allowed to guess. I'm not saying "don't buy this game," I'm saying you should wait for some brave adventurers to go first. But if you're craving a challenge, you may have found one worthy to test your mettle.
Shadowgate, originally made by ICOM Simulations, started life in 1987 on
the Apple Macintosh and found its way to the NES in 1989 where it
gained a cult following. It was innovative for the time with its
first-person view point-and-click gameplay on a home console but never
garnered a widely celebrated status, though it did have sequels on the
TurboGrafx 16 and N64 as well as a newer port to the Game Boy/Game Boy
Color. The story was you against the Warlock Lord as you sought to
disrupt his plan to summon a demon that will destroy the world. As you
made your way through Castle Shadowgate, filled with dungeons, traps, an
occasional dragon, puzzles, and hidden areas, you wouldn’t find much of
a sense of lore within the dark walls. The backstory was a generic
medieval tale of ancient magic versus evil, but at the time that’s all
you needed as a reason to make a game and go on an adventure. Jump to
2012 where original game creators Dave Marsh and Karl Roelofs have made
their own studio, Zojoi, LLC, and have “re-imagined” Shadowgate for a
new generation. Following a successful Kickstarter of over $137,000,
they were able to reach at least one of their stretch goals which will
let players adventure through a re-made Castle Shadowgate as well as a
third tower that builds on the world’s previously barren lore.
While it didn’t create much lore in itself it still held a very
mysterious atmosphere that was compelling and the new game will follow
along the same lines with both old and new pathways; the same formula of
puzzle-solving and dungeon-traversing as the original will remain with a
few puzzles remade and many new ones added as well as some content that
was cut from the original game. It will have 24 in-game achievements
that also tie in to your Steam achievements, an original NES music mode,
voice acting (so its not just music and sound effects all the time),
three difficulty levels that change the game’s puzzles, and will most
prominently feature amazing moving artwork by Chris Cold and Damian
Audino.
If you’re a fan of old-school point-and-click games then this new
Shadowgate is definitely something you’ll want to pay attention to;
games of the point-and-click variety have been fading in the last few
decades and most of them have moved to mobile devices at the cost of
graphics and length. But even if you’re not a fan, you may enjoy the
challenge that this game will offer and you might find it will be a nice
change of pace from the repetitive titles of the current generations.
Immersing yourself in the world of Tyragon, a place of magic and danger;
conquering the puzzles of Castle Shadowgate and discovering the truth
behind the Warlock Lord; and becoming the hero of a time-forgotten
prophecy. That sounds a lot better than another military shooter.
You can pre-order Shadowgate from Zojoi’s website
and there are three different tiers that offer an abundance of extras
(and right now, each pre-order has a 25% discount, prices described are without
the discount). The Wayfarer Tier, priced at a simple $19.99, gives you
just a Steam key for either a Windows or Mac digital download. The
Adventurer Tier, which is $24.99 includes the game and over two dozen
wallpapers based on concept art, the Grim Reaper, and a collection of
desktop wallpaper calendars. At $29.99, the Hero Tier includes the
former as well as a 25-song orchestral soundtrack based on the NES
score, a 60-page digital art book, digital map of the land of Kal
Zathynn, a beta test release with an in-game tester credit, and a
one-week early release of the full game.
Shadowgate will launch in late August.
I have pre-ordered the Hero Tier and have already downloaded the
wallpapers and soundtrack, the beta or full game isn’t available just
yet but when I get my hands on it, expect a review.
If you remember this screen, congratulations: you’re old. :-P
TimeShift started life on the original Xbox and PC
featuring the rugged, average, white male hero Michael Swift. After
Sierra Interactive got the rights from Atari they gave the game a
complete overhaul and created the Time Suit, making the player
character anonymous in the process. Its a better a idea mostly
because it feels like you are in control. You hold time in the palms
of your... well, in your suit. From the sound of things, you almost
expect the story to go from one time period to another, chasing down
people or one man or even anomalies, setting things right in the past to make a better future, but unfortunately it never gets that
imaginative.
The story puts you in the place of a highly respected scientist
with a “mysterious past” who has been employed to work on a new
ground-breaking technology. I'm sure we've heard the story before but
I digress. It starts with the aptly named Dr. Krone (I can't think of that
name without rolling my eyes) destroying the lab and using the Alpha
Time Suit to make an escape. Acting quickly, your character takes the
in-development Beta Suit and, as the lab explodes, uses it to time
jump to a dystopian future where Dr. Krone has distorted history to
make himself the ruler. What proceeds is a war between the governing
army and the resistance. I know this story has happened somewhere but
I can't imagine where. After waking up from the time jump, you are given a waypoint and told to just go there. It never reveals the reason why Krone altered the timeline and you're left to believe its just because he's evil. You just accept it and start shooting enemies. It becomes quickly apparent that your time suit is malfunctioning and will make random jumps to save you from detected danger. Its nothing more than just a lazy plot idea to move you from one point of the game to another without explaining where in time you are.
The main star of TimeShift is the time control, which is
not given freely as the suit needs a certain amount of time to recharge
the energy after each use. You can start and stop using one of the
time controls whenever you want but when there are moments of heavy
action you might tend to forget. Pausing time will drain the most amount of
energy but during its use you can traverse certain obstacles, avoid
gunfire, or even take an enemy's weapon from his hands. Slow Motion
gives you the ability to move faster than everyone and doesn't take
as much energy as pausing, but enemies can still fire on you. Rewind is rarely used and it only takes the game back by a couple
of seconds but will never save you from dying. Later in the game you will encounter enemies with crude
time suits of their own that can ignore your time controls. The best
option to take care of these guys is to just shoot.
It seems the usual suspects in regards of guns are present: the KM2103 Karbine being your first gun is an assault rifle that can shoot
grenades as an alt-fire. Each gun has a main fire and alt-fire: the shotgun can single- or double-fire, the pistol can semi-auto fire
up to four bullets, the flamethrower (aka Hellfire) can shoot bursts of fire, the Thunderbolt is a crossbow with a zoom, the EMF Cannon, which is just an electric gun, shoots disabling electricity with shots that can be charged. There's also a sniper rifle and rocket launcher that deal the most damage. TimeShift never flexes its creative muscles enough to think of interesting gun mechanics that relate to time.
Guns aim steady but are never fun to fire and on the harder
difficulties it feels like a chore to take down an enemy. They take their sweet time to die and will sometimes take a
whole clip or more while a headshot may only knock off their
helmet. The chaos of being shot at means you won't have
much time to focus on who's actually hitting you. Enemy gunfire is also accurate and
it seems that very few bullets actually manage to miss you.
The Time Suit recovers your health automatically and using the
fast forward time control quickens the recovery pace. When dangerously close to dying, the edges of the screen turn red and the only thing to do is take cover. The AI is too dumb to come out of hiding and attempt to flank you, which provides a whole new problem that TimeShift suffers from: lifelessness.
Allies, who are all male and have the same body type, are capable of
taking out enemies but, again, you are the bullet sponge. While allies know how to fire they're also as dumb as the enemies. It screams of last-gen tech. You have little to no reprieve when being caught in the open and
a firefight ensues. Its this idea in game design that makes it feel lazy, not because you have something to shoot, but because the game only does firefights and time "puzzles" instead of providing interesting things to do.
Unlockables include videos, concept art, and level music which are unlocked upon the completion of levels. There are no
hidden collectibles or interesting easter eggs at all. It would have
done the game good to have some newspapers or videos to give even a hint of a backstory as to how Krone came to
power but its never that fulfilling.
The graphical effects are one of the few good things to mention in terms of looks. While surfaces are awfully bland, the water effects and depth of field are well done. Glass
shatters nicely, lighting effects are competent, and the effects when controlling time are nicely crafted. As everything
blurs, events rewind in real time, or everything slows down
as you speed past and it all holds up well. But take away this and it only goes to show that the amount of time taken to develop a game doesn't always mean its going to be the most spectacular looking.
Level design leaves a lot to be desired as narrow spaces and cover objects abundantly scattered about are what you'll find here. Its the same old "pathway-into-arena" gameplay that is present in most FPS games and the linearity is broken up with a sky level wherein you shoot a turret at enemy mines and jets.
Some explosions can shake the screen and are actually satisfying to see, but it doesn't happen very often. Enemies can get ripped apart and there may be some body parts lying around, you can also leave bloody boot tracks, making it definitely not one for the kids in this case.
You do get to drive an ATV on some occasions, which gets caught on nearly everything due to twitchy steering and has a needless turbo boost. The ATV sounds overpowered while the mounted machine guns and turrets sound weak. Its a bad case of audio mixup.
The constant sound of rain on the main menu and through several levels can get tiresome but its ignorable with distant gunfire and explosions echoing throughout the city, these give
a nice depth to the action of an otherwise lifeless setting. The downside of the audio being that the guns you shoot never seem powerful
in sound or effect. In fact, the suit is more noticeable by always making some sort of sound, whether beeping when low on health, the S.S.A.M. system telling you that danger is close, or the way it distorts sounds when using the time control.
There's very little music present, in fact there's almost none at all besides the moments of "epic" encounters. You hardly notice it and, sadly, I didn't notice it all even after turning all other sounds off just to try and hear it. I know its there because the soundtrack can be unlocked and played in the main menu. What we do get in the ways of musical offerings is an electronica-drenched, moody, eerie-sounding mix of songs that fit well with the mood of the game. Its actually good. Possibly the best part of the game overall. The shame of it is that you hardly hear it when playing
The usual Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, and One-on-One battles make up the multiplayer aspect. TimeShift gives us two unique modes called Meltdown Madness and King of Time. From the in-game description, Meltdown Madness is: "Throw Chrono Grenades at the opposing team's machine to prevent it from functioning. Your team wins when you machine completes its countdown." And King of Time has the players vying for control of a Time Sphere, which gives immunity to all time effects.
There is DLC available in the form of maps for multiplayer. One of them
has 5 new maps and is free, the other is $10 and uses 5 maps from the
single player campaign as battlegrounds.
What gives the multiplayer a unique spin is that the time suits don't come in to play. Instead, the energy meter is present and a small area is time-altered through player-thrown grenades. These grenades can slow or stop a player in their tracks. In defense, you can select a temporary burst of "time resistance." There are also several power-ups spread throughout that include time resistance, energy refill, armor power-ups, and heavy damage. Its unfortunate that most players will seem to rely on the random throwing of grenades to get kills so instead of the hectic mayhem that can determine which player is better its reduced down to who can manage their energy the best.
No one is playing TimeShift multiplayer these days, so the only thing to do is check out what it could have been like.
TimeShift is a lesson in de ja vu and contradiction: you get the sense that you've done this all before with some other game but here it wants to make you think its original. It can't stick out on its own because other games have used the time control aspects and used them well. Its not bad. In fact it fails at failing. TimeShift is a solid effort at a game mechanic that we don't see very often and for that it sets itself apart from other FPS games. But its this reliance on the time control aspect to carry the bulk of the game that only makes it come across as unimaginative and just plain boring in every other area. A dull story, dated graphics, pathetic AI, and scripted action means you should never start playing TimeShift, that way you'll never have the disappointment of having to stop. Those of you who think you've missed out on it can find the physical 360, PS3, and PC versions dirt cheap on a used game rack or in the bargain bin, $30 on XBL, and $15 on Steam. Maybe it should have stayed on the original Xbox with Michael Swift. It may have improved it as, at that time, the FPS craze was just starting and the time control mechanics would have made it stand out.
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If I may speak candidly, and this includes spoilers: The comparison to Half-Life 2 is something that needs to be
addressed. You are given a suit with certain powers, sent to an
unknown time and city. You
fight your way out to the countryside only to fight your way back
into the city against a single regime. The dictator is speaking to the
citizens through various displays placed all around the city. The suit
recovering health automatically. The player character having an
unknown past. There's a bridge level....
I found it hard to review TimeShift because I had to play it
again. I've already done so twice before, on
normal and hard difficulties only for the achievements, and that felt like enough. Plus the
comparisons to Half-Life 2 makes it feel like I've played it a dozen
times already. It's just not very fun to play. It can get intense and
the game is solidly built, but it never gets fun. The ending to the game gives a finality to this story, only to undo what was done at the lab explosion, leaving it open for a sequel. The longer I took to write this review, the more I began to think of this as one of my all-time hated games, but I can't hate it because it did what it set out to do: make an FPS game based around time mechanics. For that, it begrudgingly gets my respect, but I'll never enjoy playing it.
Made and published entirely by LucasArts, Republic Commando was launched just before the release of the Xbox 360 and received mainly 8/10 ratings. To be one of the better-praised FPS games of the time, it wasn't very widely spoken of among the people I knew.
Republic Commando puts you in the role of Delta RC-1138, call sign Boss, as he leads an elite group of Clone Troopers, each with their own personalities and specializations, through missions on Geonosis, a destroyed spacecraft, and the wookie homeworld of Kashyyyk. You play through the tutorial in the first level and its incredibly simple, showing you all you need to know to use your armor's capabilities and to use your squad effectively. The rest is shown as you travel through the game and its very easy to pick up and play. One major drawback is the length: there are only three levels, each with several chapters, and once they're done, there's the multiplayer that feels like just an add on. Republic Commando feels like a build up to something greater, but I don't think we'll see it anytime soon.
One major feature of Republic Commando is the use of squad tactics. Tactics is a word used loosely in the sense that all you have to do is aim at a designated point and press the USE button, giving a command to one of your three squad mates to complete the task at hand. By holding down the same button you can bring up a command menu to order your squad to secure an area, fire on one target, form up, or cancel whichever maneuver you had previously chosen. Its a little bit of Rainbow Six but doesn't really hold any significance here as these commands don't really feel necessary when playing the game.
Republic Commando definitely isn't big on downtime unless you want to be the one planting explosives or slicing (hacking) a computer, which there is a lot of both. Possibly 20% of the game time is used for this. You can give these commands to your team but they will take the same amount of time performing the task despite the backstory claiming they're best suited for these certain operations. All this happens while you're being shot at and listening to their banter during combat; they love to talk and are present for most of the
game with the exception of the tutorial and parts of two levels. There is
no lone-wolf gunning and your squad will take the initiative to take out enemies and are not satisfied to let anything slip past. They're not just random cannon fodder either:
They take a lot of damage and you'll find yourself often reviving them
mid-firefight during the latter chapters. Its a nice change of pace from other FPS game's
bullet-sponge action but it does get bothersome when you're the only one left standing due to the AI being spread too thin.
Shields and health both deplete quickly if you're not careful but you're never too far away from a bacta tank, which in basic terms is a health refill station, or an ammo drop. Don't worry if you do get taken down: just as you have time to save your squad, they have time to save you. You can order them to carry out their current orders to take out enemies, finish an objective, or to come and rescue you. The latter puts them in danger as it takes a few seconds to revive someone, leaving the healer an easy target and only puts the downed member back at half health.
You're not stuck with the assault rifle for the total length of the game. At one point you can find sniper and grenade launcher attachments, you're also never left without your trusty sidearm which recharges ammo automatically. Alongside those you'll find an old-fashioned physical shotgun, a wookie bowcaster, a rocket launcher, and a mini-gun each dealing out better amounts of damage than your rifle. Thermal detonators (physical), Electro-static Charge detonators, Sonic detonators (mines), and flashbug detonators (flashbangs) are the grenade types and you'll use a lot of them to take out clustered enemies. One drawback is that the grenade selector display is cryptic and you'll find yourself throwing a flash instead of a thermal unless you memorize the icon for each.
Melee is satisfying as you
put your gauntlet knife into an enemy and your helmet is splattered with fluids. Meanwhile gunplay feels weak as
lasers constantly miss their targets due to the bad sensitivity for the
Xbox version (setting at 1 feels sluggish while 2 feels twitchy, this is improved greatly when playing on the 360).
Your HUD is constantly working by displaying your health, identifying where your squadmates are as well as their health levels, objectives, detonator counts, and can be switched between normal, tactical, and low light modes. The melee splatters and low-light modes feel like ideas taken from Metroid Prime and they work well here.
Friendly fire is present, and while your squad does its best to avoid harming you they may get in your line of fire which can drain their shields or health. Your squad will do their best to revive each other but this will cause them to be in the open and take damage themselves. Luckily enemies aren't exactly the smartest and will charge at you instead of sticking behind cover. It feels like a let down and the difficulty is never too rough if you're paying attention to the surroundings.
There's not a lot of enemy variety and you'll face mostly Geonosians, Trandoshans and their scavenger droids, battle droids and the occasional elite guard droid throughout the game's three chapters. Hilariously enough, the game features ragdoll physics on dead enemies but its only good for a chuckle as you push them around. There are also Clone Trooper and Wookie allies throughout but most are immediately killed off within the first few seconds of appearing onscreen. While the levels feel like they belong in the Star Wars universe, level design is lacking in
originality. It can be commended for not following the
now-traditional "narrow-way-into-arena" gameplay but it maybe could have
used a few of those to keep things interesting. Perhaps a test of the player's
skill to use the team effectively is what's missing. You can choose to run ahead and take on enemies yourself, or you can actually stand aside and let your team do all the shooting.
Graphics hold up well for a late console life release, looking crisp and without cracks, but it feels like the Unreal Engine 2.0 isn't being used to its full extent. Take Unreal Championship 2 for example, which was released a few months later and looked like an early 360 release. There are light reflections, lens flares, light blooms, and the HUD shows holographic standing positions for maneuvers. Several graphical effects occur throughout the game that affect the
player's display including static from electric-based enemies, waving
heat lines that distort the view, flashbangs filling the screen with
white, and blood, oil, or rain that are wiped off by an electric wiper.
The sound you'll hear the most is from laser fire, which is familiar among the Star Wars universe, and oddly enough doesn't wear out its welcome. Even the chatter among your squad is somewhat comforting as they often talk to each other. Scorch being the sarcastic one, Sev being the sluggish brute, and Fixer being average. (To show that there's a lot of voicework done, a YouTuber has compiled all of their voiceclips into 15+ minute videos.) Explosions have no real impact in sight or sound and it feels very tame because of this. Even wookiee yells and "screams" from the battle droids sound like clips taken from the movies.
The orchestral soundtrack in the background is constantly giving off a powerful tone and it feels in-place with the Star Wars universe but somewhat cliche here. A different approach in the music would have given the game its own identity and its almost a shame that that idea wasn't implemented. To be the die-hard tactical FPS that it was billed to be, it doesn't really have any edge soundwise. While the music video from Ash (featured above) is a nice touch its merely an addition and is unlocked right from the start, seems more like a promotion from someone among the development team who heard the band and thought they were good. Despite all of this, the sound is not the weakest selling point for Republic Commando.
Multiplayer on original Xbox Live may be dead but couch multiplayer is still present with splitscreen. It includes the usual offerings of Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, and Assault modes; the last being similar to Battlefield's Conquest mode.
Unfortunately, you only have 5 maps total to play throughout each mode. It feels more like an add-on than something worth playing. Regardless, if you can gather three friends to battle with you'll find that the multiplayer is hectic, fast-paced fun along the lines of the original Unreal Tournament. As your disembodied hands pick up weapons and throw grenades, you'll find that you can't aim down the sights of some guns, the bowcaster and the sniper rifle being the only ones that can. The same weapons from the single player campaign can also be found here. Aiming is very accurate and the multi-tiered maps offer plenty of corners to run away from a firefight. Running is the best option as it only takes a few shots to take someone out.
The multiplayer aspect is weak in the overall package, like a lot more could have been done since, being built off the Unreal Engine, it should have a lot more going for it. The map Arena G9 features two low-gravity sections on each side that is a great idea, but isn't implemented anywhere else. Its the small ideas that could have made this part of Republic Commando something worth experiencing more.
There's never any big "wow" moments and the story taking place during the Clone Wars, one of the biggest battles of the Star Wars universe, is awfully bland. The only unlockables are concept art, featurettes, and an interview with the game's director. If, at the time, you were in to Star Wars then the game really held nothing new for you except for a few new vehicles that were to be seen in Episode III. It didn't try to outdo the current reigning FPS champion of Halo and is almost content to do what it was planned to do. It succeeds in that respect but fails to try and tread new ground. It seems very comfortable confined into its own universe.
Personally, I feel like a lot could be done with Delta Squad through their differing personalities and ability to think for themselves unlike the majority of Clone Troopers. its a section of the large Star Wars universe that would be awesome to explore. More unlocks like skins, HUD customization, cheats for the Xbox version, and maybe a few others would have been nice touches to finish things out. If one thing is wrong with it, it never feels too difficult. You'll get taken down by an enemy's melee attack, and it feels more like a pause in the action rather an urgency.
Republic Commando is backwards compatible with the Xbox 360 and not only looks better in terms of graphics and video playback, it controls better as well. You can find it cheap these days and its available on Steam for $10, PC having the best graphical fidelity.
As a total package, Republic Commando packs in a lot and I'm sure the dev team could have made it an early Xbox 360 release had they waited. It would have improved the graphics, the controls and physics, the game length, and the AI. But for what it's worth, Republic Commando is an excellent and solid game.
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Wait a minute.... What's going on here? I call shenanigans!
