Far Cry: New Dawn: Rebuild What Once Was.
After their long hiatus between Far Cry 2 and Far Cry 3 it doesn’t seem like Ubisoft is willing to let the series breath for much more than a year between releases. For some of the instalments this has been great, like the much loved Blood Dragon (which I’ve strangely not reviewed but I did complete) but it has cast a dim view on others like Far Cry Primal. With the wild success of Far Cry 5 it seems like Ubisoft was wanting to strike while the iron was hot and pushed out Far Cry: New Dawn as soon as they were able. Indeed New Dawn feels a lot like an overgrown DLC more than it does a full game, what with it borrowing so heavily from its predecessor and not adding a whole lot more in the mix. Still it was a mostly competent game in its own right, even if it was quite short by Far Cry standards.
17 years after nuclear war laid waste to the world in what has become known as The Collapse the survivors have emerged from hiding and are seeking to rebuild. You, known only as the Captain, are part of a travelling team of specialists that are helping everyone out in any way they can. One day you’re approached by someone from Hope county, Carmina, who’s settlement has come under attack from a gang of bandits called the Highwaymen. You agree to help however the gang gets wind of your impending arrival and derails your train before you can arrive. So begins your struggle to restore peace to Hope county, a task that will surely take more from you than you ever thought you could give.
The Dunia engine looks as great as ever, this time around with a more vibrant and saturated colour palette that instantly reminded me of Blood Dragon’s overblown visual aesthetic. This is very much contrary to the usual visual style that accompanies post apocalyptic games and honestly I quite like it. Sure, there’s times when it looks like someone let their toddler do the texture work, but it is both interesting and visually diverse. Interestingly it seems whatever optimisation problems were in Far Cry 5 at launch are gone as there was no need for me to tweak any settings in order to get solid performance and gorgeous visuals. Granted though the level of detail and pop-in was quite noticeable from a helicopter so it could just be better default selections than anything else. Still Far Cry maintains the standard it has long set for itself and brings a new visual flair to the post apocalyptic world that I’m sure will be replicated by others.
Where Far Cry 5 swing the pendulum more towards streamlining and simplification of the series’ core game mechanics New Dawn instead moves the needle back the other way a little whilst keeping most of the optimisations. The basics are still the same: limited weapon loadout, capturing outposts, crafting, etc. however the implementation of each varies somewhat from what Far Cry 5 did, enough so that it does play out like a very different game. There’s also some interesting mechanics that are included to keep you playing longer like infinitely upgradeable talents. recapturing outposts that get harder each time and a type of mission called expeditions that has the similar “harder each time” mechanic. It definitely seems like Ubisoft expected players to blast through the story and then continue to grind on these things for hours afterwards but, honestly, I don’t think anyone will see the appeal.
Combat feels a bit wonky as something weird has happened to the hit detection. Quite often shots that seem perfectly placed will miss, seemingly for no other reason than the game just didn’t think you were shooting at what you were looking at. It seems to get better with the higher end weapons so it’s possible there’s some stat I didn’t see which was affecting my aim in a way I wasn’t anticipating. Regardless the game doesn’t really educate you about anything like that so the first few hours are likely going to be spent wondering why you’re missing half your shots. Thankfully though headshots are a one hit kill, provided you have the right tier of gear for the enemy you’re trying to kill. You’ll also need a certain level of gear to even damage certain enemies, something that doesn’t become quite apparent until you run up against someone who seems impervious to all your bullets and only goes down to grenades. Thankfully the crafting mats for those are plentiful otherwise there would’ve been quite a few frustrating missions.
The crafting system goes back to its roots somewhat with animal skins now converting to various different crafting components that you’ll need to make the higher end gear. This does mean that hunting is no longer something you do when you’re strapped for cash; no you’ll need to go out and seek certain prey if you want to have the mats necessary to craft what you want. This wouldn’t be so bad if the maps didn’t really seem to lead you to the animals they say they do, quite often you’ll just end up in a barren area trying to figure out where the animal could be hiding. You don’t need to hunt of course, you can find most mats in chests or if you’re so inclined spend actual real money on buying them, but it is the fastest method by far. As someone who did enjoy hunting high end prey in the previous instalments I didn’t mind this so much although I would like the maps to be a little more reliable.
Further progression comes in two forms: ye olde talent tree and upgrading your own settlement. You’ll likely fill out the talent tree rather quickly thanks to all the points on offer from various activities: looting shelters, doing challenges and plain old levelling up. Of course the reason there’s so many points on offer is because some of the talents can be upgraded infinitely although I’m sure they reach diminishing returns at some point. I unlocked the whole tree without too much difficulty although to be honest I was just spending them at the end as I didn’t really need anything more beyond about halfway through the game.
Upgrading your base gives you access to various perks, most of which are quality of life improvements but others unlock the higher tiers of gear and vehicles that you’ll likely be lusting after. To get these upgrades you’ll need ethanol which comes from a variety of sources but the main one is from capturing outposts. After you’ve captured them once though you can scavenge them in order to bump them up a tier which, if you then go and capture again, nets you even more ethanol. Doing it with no alarms nets you a small ethanol bonus, which is pointless for the first level honestly, but doing it undetected nets you 50% more. For the tier 3 outposts this can be quite a lot, making getting those last tier upgrades quite easy. Of course doing that is easier said than done as the enemies at the final tiers can see you a mile away. Definitely a good balance of risk vs reward anyway.
Whilst there’s still some notable jankiness around, the combat being the worst of it, a lot of the polishes and bug fixing that went into Far Cry 5 have made their way into New Dawn. Even attempting some of the old physics tricks that would create some rather hilarious moments resulted in nothing much of anything happening. Disappointing in one respect but progress nonetheless. Some of the missions with unique mechanics (like the one where you travel north) were a little hit or miss, none of them requiring me to restart the mission but did point to those special instances not getting as much love as the base engine might have. So overall, given that New Dawn and Far Cry 5 likely share a lot of things under the hood it’s good to see progress in one translating to the other.
PLOT SPOILERS BELOW
The story unfortunately doesn’t really stand on its own feet, needing to borrow heavily from the previous game and unfortunately not adding a whole lot to it. The main antagonists in the game are laughably shallow, only managing to get any semblance of a compelling backstory quite late in the game. The strongest character in the whole game is Joseph Seed and that’s really only because he was already so well developed in the previous game. Far Cry isn’t typically renowned for having a deep and compelling story but they’re usually at least got something compelling to drag you along. This time around though? I struggled to even remember some of the character’s names when writing the review and one of them is on a sign in a screenshot I took.
PLOT SPOILERS OVER
Far Cry: New Dawn keeps true to the series’ formula, delivering competently in that regard, but doesn’t do much more than that. Some of the changes feel like a nod back to previous games but the bulk of it is following the trend that the last few games in the series have set down. There are some things done right, like the fantastical visuals and the trickle down of improvements from Far Cry 5, but other than that there’s not much more to talk about. I can only wonder what this game might have been like if it was an expansion or DLC to Far Cry 5 instead of a standalone title as it’s not really a game for those that haven’t played it. Far Cry: New Dawn goes down then as a slight misstep from Ubisoft in the series, certainly not a fall from grace but a small smudge on an otherwise solid recent track record.
Far Cry: New Dawn is available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC right now for $68. Game was played on the PC with approximately 11 hours total play time and 59% of the achievements unlocked.
Apex Legends: Battle Royale Done Right.
You never seen a review for a battle royale game here and that’s with good reason: I’m not a fan of them at all. I played PUBG for a few hours with a mate of mine, along with a couple hours solo to see what it was like, and honestly I just didn’t enjoy it. I like my shooters dumb and fast; the antithesis of what battle royale games typically are. When Apex Legends was announced I figured it was going to be more of the same and figured I’d leave it for more greener gaming pastures. That changed however when all of my friends started playing it relentlessly, giving me plenty of opportunity to play with a crew. Since then I’ve come to appreciate Respawn’s take on the battle royale genre, vastly improving on the formula by including numerous quality of life improvements that take nearly all the pain out of playing games like these.
Apex Legends is set in the same universe as the Titanfall series and takes a lot of design cues from its spiritual predecessors. All the weapons in the game are come directly from Titanfall, although they’re really only copies in name and look only. There’s really no plot to speak of, not that you’d be coming here looking for one, and the opening cinematic just serves to set up the characters that you get to choose from. As a big fan of the Titanfall series I can tell you that I was somewhat disappointed to hear that Respawn was working on this rather than another Titanfall game but after sinking a good amount of time into the game I think I can forgive them…for now.
Like all of Respawn’s games Apex Legends comes to us via the Source engine, albeit with a completely different kind of aesthetic to that of their previous titles. Instead of the more realistic visuals that the Titanfall series was known for Apex Legends goes for a slightly stylized look with bright colours, reminiscent of other slightly cartoony games like Team Fortress 2. That being said the world they’ve crafted is brimming with detail, enough that in my time with it I’ve yet to fully explore the single map that you’re given to play. Performance is still quite good even on my now 4 year old rig, something which I’m sure has helped broaden its appeal tremendously. That’s likely Respawn’s reason for keeping with their modded Source engine for so long as it’s far more lightweight than its competitors. Apex Legends might not do anything particularly novel visually but it certainly pulls all its varying visual elements together nicely.
The core of Apex Legends game play is the same as any battle royale: a number of players drop into a large map which constantly shrinks and the last one standing takes the crown. Whilst the addition of classes is certainly one differentiator it feels like the most minor compared to the rest of the improvements they’ve made to the formula. The inventory system has been streamlined to perfection, allowing you to loot with reckless abandon and know that you’ll always be upgrading your gear. The integrated ping system is an absolute godsend for both pub groups and organised teams alike, enabling rapid communication without the need for voice chat. The pace of the game has also been ramped up significantly, both in terms of how long matches take to complete as well as how long it takes to start one. Gone are the long downtimes between matches, replaced with a rapid fire matchmaking system that ensures you’ll never go more than a couple minutes without being in a fight. Instead of simply being a “battle royale game with X” Apex Legends feels like the new bar for what all games from this genre should be.
Whilst Apex Legends comes from the same developers who gave us Titanfall the combat is nothing like it at all. The gunplay is far more in-depth with numerous options that are sure to suit any player’s preferred style. Of course whether or not you can find your preferred kit is all up to RNJesus, so you’re forced to get good with a number of weapons so you always have something you can rely on. After a short stint trying my hand at sniping I’ve settled on a more medium range build typically consisting of a SMG (a prowler with select fire being my favourite) with either a peacekeeper or EVA-8 as my backup. This does mean of course I’m usually the first one in and the first to die but that’s pretty much my playstyle for all shooters anyway. Your mileage will vary though and the only way to figure it out is by playing.
The character classes mean a lot less than they do in other games, mostly just giving you some additional things to play with rather than actually making a huge difference to how the game plays out. I started out playing as Gibraltar, thinking that the gun shield would give me an edge in gunfights. That advantage was quickly outweighed by the fact that the shield is a massive giveaway for any enemies who might be looking for you and his other abilities didn’t really feel like they were making much of an impact to how my games were going. So I switched to Bloodhound which provided a lot more utility overall, even if the impact of their abilities still feels pretty minor overall. Realistically I think this is probably the only way you could do characters and still feel like its balanced as anything that really changed the gunplay dynamics would make it feel quite unfair. That’s why you don’t see any characters that have abilities that directly buff gun damage, reduce reload times or anything else of the sort. More the abilities are about positioning, intel and forcing your opponents to make bad decisions that you can take advantage of, adding an intriguing layer of strategy rather than simply finding the best place to camp.
The ping system goes a long way to making the pub experience much better, facilitating a higher level of communication than you’d typically find in any multiplayer game.It helps that it’s given such a prominent position during the tutorial, ensuring that everyone knows how at least the basics of it works. Of course whilst the pub experience is far better than any other battle royale game I’ve played it’s still a pale shadow compared to the experience of playing with a proper squad, especially if you’re like me and love dropping straight into the hottest zones and getting your fight on immediately. Indeed that’s probably why I’ve enjoyed Apex Legends so much more than other battle royale games; there’s a steady stream of mates to play with.
The microtransaction system doesn’t feel particularly in your face, only really showing up during the pre-match screens where you see your team and the champion’s player cards. Even with the legendary drop of crafting materials above I still don’t have enough to craft a legendary skin (that’d take 2 of the above drops) and there’s unfortunately no way to melt down other drops you’ve gotten to get more materials to use. This is all deliberate of course, forcing you to either play more or to shell out some real money to get the fancy cosmetics you’re lusting after. I’m quite fine with this approach honestly as you’re more likely to pay to lose with these kinds of things, what with all the sparkly skins that people seem to be rocking. We’ll see how long it takes me to crack before I pay a couple bucks to get a skin as I think it took me a couple hundred hours in DOTA 2 before I bought my first there.
Apex Legend’s release hasn’t been without its issues, many of which I’ve thankfully not experienced but have affected those I’ve played with. Crashes are commonplace, especially for those rocking the latest graphics cards from NVIDIA, which can often leave you a man down right at the start of a match. The servers will also turn the tick rate right down for seemingly no reason at all, making everyone move in slow motion before it starts to clear up. There’s also some weird loading issues with the pre-match lobby, sometimes dropping people before they get a chance to choose a character. Respawn is aware of all the issues and is working towards fixing them although they have said that they’re probably not going to bother putting in a reconnection feature due to their concerns around abuse. That’s somewhat disappointing so we can only hope that the work they do to increase stability makes the need for a reconnection solution moot.
Apex Legends is likely to down as the surprise hit of 2019, coming out of nowhere to dominate the charts with its fresh take on a genre that had started to grow stale. Its improvements come in the form of making the genre more approachable to a wider audience, reducing complexity without taking away from the depth of the gameplay. When I first saw it I didn’t think it would have anything to offer me but here I am, some 34 hours deep in it with no signs of stopping playing anytime soon. Those that were looking to unseat Fortnite as the game of choice now have a new contender they have to beat and a bar that’s been set even higher again.
Rating: 9.25/10
Apex Legends is available on PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4 right now for free. Game was played on the PC with 34 hours of total play time and 42% of the achievements unlocked.
Battlefield V: A War Fought by All
Quite often I surprise myself when I go back to previous reviews. I’d forgotten just how much I had enjoyed Battlefield 1 when it came out, seemingly loving the new Operations mode which kept me coming back for a while (although no longer than what I did for the review it seems). I hadn’t really been following the development for Battlefield V but on the surface it’d seem that, if you liked its predecessor, you’d like the enhancements that were coming along with this latest instalment. However this time around it felt like more of the same as there was nothing particularly innovative or novel about this latest Battlefield that grabbed me. That coupled with some rather egregious launch day issues made for a very middle of the road experience, neither completely terrible nor something I’d recommend you’d seek out and play.
Much like its predecessor Battlefield V retains the same story vignette style for its campaigns, although there was far fewer of them this time around. They all follow pivotal stories of World War II but they are all, of course, entirely fictional which seems to annoy the history buffs to no end. They’re incredibly simple in their construction, taking place in the multiplayer maps and almost entirely consisting of running from one base to another, completing some rudimentary objective before moving onto the next. It seems that DICE is taking a kind of softly-softly approach to killing off the single player experience, rather than take the direct (and more controversial) route of just killing it off completely.
The Frostbite 3 engine is looking as good as it ever has although it is starting to show its age in some places. Mostly this comes up when you’re in tight environments or up close to things where the numerous visual tricks that the engine uses start to come into stark relief. The Battlefield games have always been at their best in giant environments where you can enjoy the wide vistas before a sniper takes you out from the other side of the map. Performance is still workable although it seems that DirectX 12 support is still a little patchy, glitching out hard on me and causing a few crashes even after installing the latest drivers. I’ll touch more on that later though as there’s definitely some larger issues at play here with the usual DICE jankiness turned up a couple notches in this release.
At its core Battlefield V feels the same as it has for quite a while now, retaining its penchant for large battles on in huge spaces with all the trimmings you’d expect from a large war simulator. The classes are the same, sticking to the same 4 tropes that were defined so long ago. There’s supposedly some improved versions of other game modes but, in all honesty, I never really got around to playing them. No I spent the majority of my time in the game playing with friends in the one game mode that they never get wrong: conquest. In that regard the Battlefield experience I had felt pretty much the same as it always did, for better and for worse.
Combat remains much the same, favouring a slower paced strategic type of engagement rather than say Call of Duty’s flurry of bullets and respawns. That still brings with it all the less desirable aspects of course, like snipers being able to one shot you from places you can’t see them and one shot kill headshots from guns that really have no right to be that effective (like the Medic’s MP5 which netted me far more kills with that then even I felt was fair). The large scale battles in conquest do retain their larger than life feeling though, something which precious few games have been able to achieve. Surprisingly though even with many players taking advantage of the insane 11 day head start (my mate being one of them, dumping some 52 hours into the game before its official release) I didn’t feel as disadvantaged as I previously did. Indeed unlike previous games where a maxed out tank player could ruin the game for an entire team this time around things felt an awful lot more balanced. Either that or I’ve improved dramatically over the last few years but I doubt the countless hours I’ve spent in COD have really helped me that much in Battlefield…
The single player missions are a relatively short affair with most of them being over in an hour so. If you’re so inclined there’s a bunch of hidden collectibles strewn about the place which, if you complete the associated challenges for the mission, will give you an unique melee weapon for use in multiplayer. Honestly given how basic they are I really wasn’t inclined to search blindly around the giant maps looking for them, especially when the combat wasn’t exactly fun or enjoyable. You see most of the missions are meant to be tackled stealthy, but they don’t equip you with many tools for doing so outside of throwing shells to distract people or highlighting them with your binoculars. The AI is so extrucingatly dumb that DICE counteracted that by making them all top tier marksman, able to hit you with a pistol with sniper like accuracy. Of course you can counter this by alerting them and then running behind a door, which they’ll all then happily run towards allowing you to mow them all down.
Honestly I’m starting to get on board with the idea of not having a single player campaign at all if they’re going to be this basic. I can understand the idea of wanting to provide glimpses into various parts of the setting but I’m not particularly interest in that as a subject and, from what I’ve seen, the things depicted in there aren’t exactly what the history buffs enjoy either. Honestly I’d prefer a shorter campaign, maybe say 3~4 hours or so, that was a polished end to end experience. Heck that used to be what most of these games delivered (although I admit many derided them for the short length) so maybe their return to their roots simply hasn’t gone far enough.
I’d probably be a little more generous if Battlefield V wasn’t so unpolished on release, both for the single and multiplayer experience. Every new release of Battlefield seems to bring with the same old bugs, chief of which is a physics engine which gets routinely confused on how to simulate the most rudimentary of things. I had one instance in the single player campaign where someone spawned inside a vehicle, immediately died then started to vibrate violently as they bounced between the outside and inside of the vehicle. I had the bomb on a couple maps spawn in the ground (in an area that wasn’t destructible either, see below screenshot), preventing the team from picking it up and forcing the game into a neverending stalemate. This is somewhat par for the course with Battlefield games but, honestly DICE, it’s time for you to either develop Frostbite 4 to address these problems or find a new engine entirely.
All of this culminates into an experience that isn’t so much different from those of Battlefield games past which, depending on what you’re looking for in this game, can be a good or a bad thing. For me personally the Battlefield games have always had a pretty limited lifetime for me; the lack of repetitive hits to my dopamine centers that other competitive shooters provide meaning I’ll go and seek out my fix elsewhere after I’ve had my fill of Battlefield. For others though, those who play Battlefield as their goto hobby, it’s going to mean that they’ve got more of the same experience that they want.
For me though? Battlefield V feels like it was off the mark a bit, getting just enough things wrong to make it feel a bit more middle of the road than it otherwise has. Many of the things that make the series great are still there: the massive environments with huge battles, a deep progression system that will keep players engaged for ages and new game modes which, whilst I didn’t particularly engage with them, shows that DICE at least wants to try some new things. But for every one of those positives there’s a handful of negatives as well, enough so that after 12 hours in the game I think I’ve had my fill. Sure, part of that is because Black Ops 4 has managed to get its hooks into me again, but even then I’ve played this Battlefield for longer than its predecessor and I liked that one far more. I know there’s precious few people who read these reviews to figure out what game to play but if you’ve been sitting on the fence for this one, waiting patiently for my opinion on it, I’d probably say give it a miss for now.
Maybe pick it up just before Christmas so you can own all the noobs when they get their copy 😉
Rating: 7.5/10
Battlefield V is available on PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One right now for $59. Game was played on the PC with a total of 12 hours play time and 26% of the achievements unlocked.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 4: There is no Mason.
The past 2 Call of Duty games weren’t really up to the standard that I’d come to expect from the franchise. Part of this can be attributed to Black Ops 3 being my favourite in the series, the multiplayer keeping me going for a good 150+ hours before I decided to call it quits. So my expectations were probably higher than they’d otherwise be for Black Ops 4, hoping to rekindle that love of the COD multiplayer which I’d lost for the last couple years. Whilst on one hand all the ingredients are there for that to happen again there’s been some glaring omissions and strange launch-day decisions that have marred what could’ve otherwise been yet another solid COD game from Treyarch.
This is typically where I’d give a brief synopsis of the initial plot for the game but since Black Ops 4 lacks a single player campaign I have none to give. Sure they’ve buried some meagre bits and pieces on the specialists training modes, giving you a brief cutscene here or there that speaks to why each of the character classes have their abilities, but that does not a single player campaign make. After it was announced that this was the case Treyarch confirmed unequivocally that they never intended to put a single player campaign in, citing the fact that most players simply jump straight into the multi. I have no reason to doubt that but out of the 3 Call of Duty developers they were always the ones who made the most interesting and engaging stories. Leaving that out seems like a missed opportunity, one that this reviewer certainly laments. Of course it wasn’t taken away for just any old reason as it was replaced with Blackout although whether or not the trade off was worth it will be entirely up to you. For me it certainly wasn’t (more on that later).
The Call of Duty games were never known for their cutting edge visuals, instead favouring higher performance to go along with the game’s rapid pace of combat. This trend continues with Black Ops 4 with the game striving to maintain a smooth, high frame rate experience over providing Crysis-like eye candy. There’s also less opportunity for level and set designers to showcase what the engine is capable of doing due to the game being multiplayer only. All things considered though the game looks perfectly fine for what it wants to be: a fast paced shooter. I will admit though that I figured that for the handful of cutscenes they created they would’ve spent a little more of their ridiculous budget on making them a little more cutting edge.
Black Ops 4 retains its 2 core game modes that most players will know, regular multiplayer and zombies, along with the new Battle Royal mode called Blackout. The base multiplayer games don’t deviate from the COD formula much, retaining the same Pick 10 system alongside a familiar cast of weapons. Some weapons now have the option of an Operator Mod which will significantly change the way the gun operates from simple things like massive rates of fire increases to strobe lights for one of the shotguns. Deviating from the last few titles as well is the lack of loot boxes with the only microtransactions in sight being used for buying different cosmetic skins for the specialists. Perhaps the biggest change though is the lack of automatically regenerating health, instead relegated to a piece of equipment which you’ll have you manually trigger to regenerate health. Most interesting of all is that the stim pack is actually a choice, you can replace it with another piece of gear if you so wish. For those who are really at the top of their game this gives them a very high risk/reward balance to play with, one I’ve seen used to both great and ill effect. Suffice to say the core of Black Ops 4 doesn’t deviate too much from the formula with the exception of Blackout.
To be completely open here I’m not the biggest fan of the Battle Royal format. I’ve played my share of PUBG, both on PC and mobile, and it can be enjoyable with a bunch of mates. However I like my FPS games fast and furious, something which the COD franchise has supported me with for many years. Battle Royal on the other hand is very much a slow and considered game, one that favours being patient and formulating a strategy if you want to win. Sure I could just parachute into a hot zone and likely die in the first couple minutes if I wanted to speed things up a bit but honestly, given that there’s a much more capable TDM and other modes available right there I’m far more likely to want to play that. Still in the interests of seeing everything that Black Ops 4 had to offer I figured I should give Blackout a try and, well, it’s pretty much as you’d expect: PUBG with COD weapons. I’ve heard from many that it’s a pretty great experience (which is likely given that Black Ops 4 has seen incredible sales) but for me, as a rusher type player in these kinds of games, it’s the antithesis of what I want from this kind of game. Your mileage may vary, though.
A good chunk of content for Black Ops 4 comes from 3 so right off the bat you’re going to be back in familiar territory. The same goes for the character classes with half of them being direct copy and pastes of their former selves. At first I was a little miffed at that, wanting a whole new experience, but I got over that relatively quickly as I realised it gave me a headstart on knowing the maps and which character classes I’d fit best into. A lot of the weapons have been changed around and there’s a much more wide variety of mods to choose from, making a great deal of the game’s weapons viable in PVP (so long as you can get the right unlocks done, of course). The starter classes are also well rounded as well, one of them coming with a fully kitted out gun that you won’t be able to get until level 50 or so. I’ve found the most success running with the Spitfire SMG, a bullet hose of a weapon that feels like a long range shotgun when you upgrade it with laser sights 2 and the extended mag. The ARs and shotguns were also somewhat viable depending on the map but SMGs felt like the better all round weapon if I wasn’t quite sure what I was getting into.
The class abilities are a bit of a mixed bag given that they all seem to have rather lengthy cooldowns and can be real hit and miss affairs. The shock drone, radar beacon, assault pack and razor wire ones seem to be the most useful, having a direct impact on your performance in a match. Other ones like the cluster grenade and trip wire feel hit or miss, unlikely to provide a consistent boost to your ability to win matches. For some of the ultimate abilities you’ll be lucky to get 1 off per game (like the vision pulse one) whereas the other, less impactful ones (like Crash’s overheal) you’ll likely be able to get off 2~3 times easily. I’m sure this is going to be a boon for competitive teams as there’s a clear delineation between support and offensive ultimates, allowing them to fine tune team comps quite well. For pub players like me though it’ll just come down to whichever one feels best to you. I’ve standardised on Crash for the most part since that seems to help my team out the most.
I couldn’t do this review without talking about the current state of the multiplayer networking, specifically the 20hz server debacle. To put it simply the Black Ops 4’s server engine runs at 20hz, meaning all in-game events are updated 20 times per second. That sounds plenty fast enough however most modern games run at double or triple that and even Black Ops 4 itself ran at 60hz during its beta phase. The problem with this is that it leads to really inconsistent play with players able to one shot kill each other, seemingly land shots on you when you’re around a corner or, if you’re lucky, seemingly grant you super powers with the ability to kill anyone before they have a chance to react. This issue only seems to be amplify the host advantage problem as well, making some games an absolute nightmare for the opposing team. Treyarch has said that the limit on server tick rate was done to ensure that they could maintain the service during the initial rush and that it would eventually be put back up to 60hz. If they stay true to their word then Black Ops 4 might actually be a great game to pick up around the holiday season but for now, if you’re someone who’s interested in playing competitively, it may be best to give it a miss until 60hz makes a return.
The lack of single player and the 20hz servers might not sound like big issues but for someone like me, who really enjoyed Treyarch’s cerebral plots and glass smooth multi, they’re huge marks against the best Call of Duty game I’ve played in the last 3 years. To be sure I still feel that Treyarch is the one the others should follow but even this instalment feels like the weakest one from the developer to date. Perhaps I’ve begun to outgrow the series or maybe it’s taking a new direction that leads it away from me, I’m not sure, as all I really know is that the near unmitigated fun I found in previous titles has been gone for some time. Black Ops 4 has a potential redemption story ahead of it in the form of better multiplayer servers but I’ll still have that hole in my heart which only a Treyarch COD story can fill.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 retains the trademarks of the Treyarch style that, in my opinion, makes their version of the IP the best. The combat is still great, the various weapon options still a joy to fiddle with and the familiarity of old maps made the transition in that much smoother. Blackout is something that I personally could do without but it’s likely to be a drawcard for the numerous players out there who love the format and have tired of current offerings. The lack of a campaign is certainly disappointing and the inclusion of a token effort felt more insulting than if they had just left it out completely. The 20hz server issue is certainly annoying but I’m hopeful that it will be fixed as the player base declines from its launch highs. For what it’s worth I’m still enjoying the multi and I’ll probably put a few more good hours into it before I call it quits completely. Perhaps the residual hype from Black Ops 3 is what has doomed me here but I can’t help feeling that I wanted just a little bit more from Treyarch this time around.
Rating: 8.0/10
Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 is available on PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4 right now for $89.95. Game was played on the PC with a total of 8 hours of play time.
Destiny 2: Forsaken: The Dark Side of the Light.
Destiny 2 wasn’t in a great spot. The last 2 expansions were met with derision from the community and many were questioning whether or not Bungie was really listening to the community. Curse of Osiris might have been a well timed injection of content for PC players but for others it didn’t even touch the sides after months of waiting. Warmind did little to address this, failing to bring enough to the table to even keep casualcore players like myself interested. For many then Forsaken was a make or break moment, either bringing them wholly back into the fold or pushing them away for good. Thankfully it seems Bungie took some inspiration from The Taken King expansion and revamped many aspects of the game, providing a vastly improved experience for all players. Whilst the changes might not be for everyone, indeed more casual players might feel a little left out in the cold, there’s no denying that this expansion has breathed much needed life into the franchise.
The Prison of Elders has suffered another breakout and you travel there alongside Cayde-6 in order to put a stop to it. When you arrive there however you discover that Uldren, brother to Mara Sov Queen of the Awoken, has escaped from his prison and now commands a bunch of Fallen with disturbing new powers. It is there, in the depths of the prison, that Cayde falls to Uldren; his light snuffed out. Upon returning to the tower the Vanguard is split about what to do: Zavala stating that they’re not an army and they won’t step into a war with the Reef and Ikora grieving heavily for the loss of one of her closest friends. It is there where you, the Guardian, begin to walk the path of revenge seeking out Uldren by picking apart his army and discovering the darkness that now binds the Reef.
Destiny 2 is looking is as good as always, exemplified by the absolutely incredible level design that has become their signature style for this franchise. All the new areas are simply stunning, smothered in details both large and small that make exploring each environment an absolute joy. I wasn’t on board with it the initially, the cramped confines of the Tangled Shore feeling somewhat antithetical to the typical massive, open space environment. However that all changed once I was in the Dreaming City which was a visual marvel all of its own. I’ve yet to explore all of the strikes, dungeons and the raid yet but I’m sure the trademark visual style is present there too. Whilst games are rarely made or broken by their visuals it certainly doesn’t hurt when they’re as good as what Bungie is putting out here.
Forsaken shakes up Destiny 2 significantly by adding in a lot of mechanics (some new, some old), integrating various quality of life improvements and revamping the progression systems. Each of the subclasses get a new talent tree that comes along with a new super, giving players a whole bunch of new mechanics to tinker with. The max light level is now a whopping 600 although you’ll find yourself at 500 before the campaign ends. The various kiosks that were present in the original Destiny have now come back in the form of a collections tab, enabling you to track your various armour sets and access them instantly from anywhere. Bounties have returned and function much like they used to, although they now (thankfully) share their own inventory tab with other pursuits and quests. A new PvEvP mode called Gambit as been added in, something which both myself and the wider community enjoys immensely. The end game area of the Dreaming City is a seemingly ever changing landscape, one that is still yet to reveal all of its secrets to us. Suffice to say Forsaken is the shot in the arm that Destiny 2 needed, even managing to bring back many players I never thought I’d see playing Destiny again.
Progression up to 500 is a whirlwind of loot, much of which you’ll be casting aside as you push your way up through the levels. For someone like myself who wasn’t 400 at the start of the expansion there’s a little bit of grinding to do between missions to ensure you’re at the right light level but once you’re beyond 440 or so it doesn’t appear to be an issue anymore. Once you’re at the first soft cap things slow down a little bit, powerful engrams being your primary source of power ups moving forward. There’s a second soft cap at 520 where powerful rewards outside of the Dreaming City only bump you up one light level or so, making them far less useful for progression. For casuals like myself this means you’re not going to be hitting the max light cap anytime soon and unfortunately there’s no real way to catch up either. This is directly geared towards those who view Destiny as their hobby with 3 characters that they max every expansion. Whilst I admit it was somewhat disappointing to learn that I probably couldn’t raid for a month or two I’m hopeful that it’ll be worth it once I do finally get the chance to do it. Going by the light levels in the tower it seems like there’ll be a lot of people who will be right there with me.
The return of random rolled loot, along with the much more expensive infusion system, is a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand it does make duplicate drops less of a let down as there’s always the option of getting a god roll on one of your favourite weapons. On the other because infusion costs so much you’re likely going to be wearing a mixed bag of items for quite some time as keeping your favourite items upgraded is going to be too expensive. This does mean you’re far more likely to experiment with your loadout than you previously were which is probably a good thing (especially given that I’d been using the same armour and weapon set for the last 2 expansions). One of the saving graces is that infusion the same items into each other is very cheap, just glimmer, giving you a relatively easy way of keeping your god rolled items around. The previous item type lockout has been reverted to the old Destiny 1 style as well, meaning if you do really want to keep an item in a particular slot at max light level you’re no longer restricted. That’s probably out of necessity however, given the radical changes to the weapon system.
Weapon variety has been dramatically increased thanks to nearly all weapon types being available for all slots. Power weapons are still restricted to their slot but fusion rifles, sniper rifles and shotguns can now roll for both your kinetic and energy slots. This means that, if you’re so inclined, you could roll a build that’s all shotguns but you’re likely not going to want to due to the ammo types. You see weapons now also carry with them an ammo type which is aligned to the old Destiny 1 style. That means the more powerful special ammo weapons, even if they roll in the kinetic slot, will still use that ammo type. They all have independent pools , so say if you’re using 2 primary ammo type weapons and run one dry the other one won’t run out as well, but you’ll still probably want one of each type for a balanced load out. If that sounds confusion it is a bit but once you’ve figured out what kind of load out you want to run balancing around it isn’t too much of a challenge. To be honest I’ve been running 2 primary and 1 power weapon for most of the game, only switching in a shotgun or fusion rifle when it makes sense.
My love/hate relationship with Destiny’s PVP scene continues with Forsaken although the reasons for each have shifted somewhat. The core PVP remains unchanged although the meta has shifted significantly from what I remember (pulse rifles being the bees knees? Weird…). Gambit is certainly one of the more enjoyable modes, even if it’s being ruined somewhat by the overuse of Sleeper Simulant, something which can’t be nerfed fast enough. Iron Banner was honestly a complete shit show for someone who was somewhat underleveled like myself, being routinely matched with guardians 20+ light levels above me. The new talent trees seem to be dominating over their older companions, much like they were back in the Taken King. Given that there’s one for each subclass though that’s less of an issue than what it was back then but it still feels a little sad that the old guard has been left out in the cold once again. Still I’ve managed to top out my share of games here and there, both in Gambit and regular PvP, so it hasn’t been all bad.
The story takes a while to find its feet due in no small part to the whole CAYDE IS GOING TO DIE IN FORSAKEN hype that Bungie unceremoniously engaged in leading up to Forsaken’s release. The initial part of hunting down the Barons and chasing after Uldren though is really just a long setup for this expansion’s on-going story which keeps on evolving as the game progresses. I mean Cayde’s death was treated well given the pivotal role he’s played in the franchise up to this point but really it’s a secondary point to the game’s main story: that of the Awoken and the dreaming city. Given that I was discovering new story elements even as recently as yesterday says something about the narrative depth of this expansion. I’m quite keen to see how it progresses and am excited to see how the story evolves as I get to experience more of the content.
Destiny 2: Forsaken is the expansion that many of us long time fans of the franchise were hoping for. The improvements to the game’s various core mechanics, quality of life improvements and the large injection of content are all things that the community had been desperately waiting for. Some of those things might not be for everyone, like those of us who don’t have nor want to dedicate the time to the new grind, but it’s undeniable that the game has been vastly improved. This does mean that some of us will have to wait until we can fully experience everything that this expansion has to offer but, strangely, I’m ok with that this time around. I may not hit max light again this time around but I certainly feel like I’ll be sticking around to get a few raid completions under my belt. That’s honestly all I’ve ever asked of Destiny in the past anyway so it’s great to have the franchise back in full form.
Rating: 9.25/10
Destiny 2: Forsaken is available on PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One right now for $59.95. Total time spent in Destiny 2 is now at 130 hours with approximately 44 of those spent playing the Forsaken expansion.
Destiny 2: Warmind: Awaken, Rasputin.
After my Curse of Osiris review last year I didn’t put many more hours into Destiny 2, opting instead for the much greener pastures of the holiday releases. Usually I’d stick around for much longer, at least running the new raid enough so that it became second nature. However, after hitting max light and running it maybe twice, I found little desire to go back. Coming into the Warmind DLC I wondered, nay hoped, that this would be the one that’d reignite my interest in the game. Unfortunately, whilst there’s to spend your time in the game now, none of it was as compelling as previous expansions to the original Destiny was. So here we are barely 4 weeks after the release and I think I’m probably done with this expansion.
I haven’t run the raid nor am I at max light, and that should say something.
Guardians aren’t supposed to dig into their pasts, at least that’s the unspoken rule among those who were brought back to life by the traveler’s light. Ana Bray has spent much of her new life trying to rediscover who she was and her quest has brought her back Clovis Bray, the place of Golden Age miracles. Her journey has unfortunately awoken some ancient hive evil that frozen alongside the pinnacle of Clovis Bray’s achievements: the warmind Rasputin. So it is up to you once again guardian to safeguard our solar system against the dangers that lurk on Mars. This time however the danger might be one that we created ourselves.
Right from the outset Warmind promises a great deal more grind than any other Destiny expansion I’ve played before. The level cap has been raised to 30 and the maximum light level is a staggering 385 which, for those who previously maxed it out, gives you no less than 50 light levels to push through. Of course should you do all available activities there’s about 21 chances to get powerful engrams but only the most dedicated players will be able to get that all done. Like the previous expansion there’s a new world to explore (Mars) along with a campaign, a new raid layer and a smattering of other smaller things to keep you interested. For a certain subset of players I’m sure this is exactly the kind of content they’re looking for but I think the majority of players were seeking something a little more substantial given the feedback that Curse of Osiris received.
Right now the game feels like it’s suffering from an identity disorder. On the one hand it’s great that a lot of the older content is still relevant, with the raids staying at their old light levels but still dropping powerful engrams. This means that players who missed out on it originally now have a chance to play it as there’s people still running it. On the other hand content which has been upgraded, like the strikes, hasn’t had its rewards changed to match making them a laborious task that no one really wants to run. That’s changed a little bit recently, but having to run 4 strikes to get 1 piece of 365 loot isn’t a great prospect. So this means we’re basically back to square 1 in terms of progression, especially for solo players, hoping that the meagre weekly milestones and maybe a raid or two will give them the light boosts they need. I’ve done all the milestones every week and 2 raids since the release and I’m at light level 360. Sure that’s enough to do everything but that means 385 is probably a month or two of grind away, not something I’m particularly looking forward to.
Comparatively the DLCs for Destiny 2 feel a lot less…meatier than their counterparts did in the original. I can distinctly remember each of the ones I played having a hook that kept me coming back. The Dark Below had a raid that could be partly cheesed if you knew what you were doing, The Taken King brought with it the idea that a gun only attainable in the raid made the raid a whole bunch easier, and Rise of Iron extended on that idea beautifully. Curse of Osiris then just managed to drop at the right time, extending my original enjoyment of Destiny 2 when it would have otherwise withered away. Now, having been away from the game for 6 months and coming back to it for this DLC, I can understand better the greater Destiny community’s gripes they had about the previous expansion. It’s just not enough.
The campaign experience is as good as it ever was though, and the fact that it furthered the lore behind Rasputin extensively is something I thoroughly enjoyed. The whole journey will last you maybe 2 hours, at the end of which you’ll be max level and likely around 340 light if you play your cards right. Typically this is where you’d transition into strikes to gear out until you hit the soft cap but, as mentioned before, that’s not something you’re really going to be able to do. It’s a shame really as I saw the beginnings of some of the mechanics that were present in Rise of Iron that led to Outbreak Prime and thought I’d be in for another great gun hunt. As it turns out that’s not so much the case which is a damned shame. I was really looking forward to some kind of Rasputin powered AI super gun.
So where does this all leave us? For me it’s likely the end of the road for this expansion as I don’t feel like there’s much more for me to get out of it. For Destiny there’s likely one last chance to right the ship before a good chunk of its players give up on it forever: the “comet” DLC coming in September this year. If the leaks are to believed it could be Destiny 2’s Taken King equivalent, revamping the game completely with a ton more content than any of the previous DLCs. If Bungie manages to pull that one off it might very well be the shot in the arm the IP needs to placate its playerbase. If it goes the same way as these past 2 expansions I’m not sure there’s much they could do to rebuild their goodwill with the community. Stranger things have happened though.
Destiny 2: Warmind is an unfortunate second stumble for a game that was already having trouble staying upright. Whilst the core of the game that makes Destiny great is still there, accompanied by another fantastic (albeit short) campaign, there’s just not enough there to keep a player like me coming back for months at a time. This is the first expansion where I haven’t bothered with the new raid nor do I have any desire to max out my light level before I leave it to rest. Given that it may only be 3 or so months until Comet hits I feel like my time is likely better spent in other games rather than burning myself out on the Destiny grind. It’s a shame as I really used to enjoy that grind and I can only hope that Comet reignites that fire that once burned so brightly.
Rating: 7.5/10
Destiny: Warmind is available on PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4 right now for $19.99. Total time spent in Destiny 2 is now at 86 hours with approximately 12 of those spent playing the Warmind expansion.
Fary Cry 5: God Will Not Let You Take Me.
With the core essence of a Far Cry game perfected Ubisoft has turned to a couple other items with which to differentiate each instalment in the franchise. Most notable is the wide variety settings, each of them driving the narrative and mechanical stylings of the game. This particular choice of location, that of rural Montana in the USA, was an interesting one, generating a lot of conversation of how Ubisoft would approach many of the delicate political topics that are top of mind today. Strangely though little of the conversation focused on what the game itself would be like which, I’m happy to report, is still as enjoyable as ever. There are some choices I’m not a huge fan of however, taking away some of the depth that this franchise was famous for.
You are the Rookie, a new junior deputy in the Hope County sheriff’s department. You arrive at Eden’s Gate to serve Joseph Seed, the leader of a local cult, with a federal arrest warrant on charges of kidnapping with the intent to harm. Although Joseph offers no resistance, he claims that God will not allow him to be detained. As you escort him away the cult members lash out at you, downing your helicopter and your team along with it. You learn that the sheriff’s department has been infiltrated by the cult and they’ve prevented the National Guard from responding. It’s now up to you, deputy, to free Hope County from clutches of Eden’s Gate and rescue your team.
Far Cry 5 continues the series’ use of the Dunia engine, a highly modified version of the CryEngine. The visuals are stunning with obvious improvements in lighting, textures and the attention to detail. This is probably one of the few games, especially in the open world genre, that manages to look good both at distance as well as up close. This does come at a price however and my rig, no longer the towering beast able to take all comers, was brought to its knees more than once. A few tweaks here and there ensured that I was able to get smooth performance but some sacrifices had to be made. Most notably was the draw/level of detail distance which, whilst on foot, wasn’t much of an issue but was readily apparent when I was say flying in a helicopter. All things considered though I think it’d be safe to say that Far Cry 5 is likely to be one of this year’s best looking games.
As I alluded to in my opening paragraph Far Cry 5 maintains the formula that the franchise has perfected over the last 14 years. Whilst the long held tradition of climbing radio towers to uncover parts of the map has (thankfully) been removed you’ll still be liberating outposts, picking up various side quests and working your way up to taking down the Big Bad Boss of the day. Many of the core mechanics and progression systems have been streamlined significantly which, depending on your point of view, could swing either way. One of the most notable additions is the Arcade Editor, allowing you to craft your own levels and experiences within this Far Cry world. The less notable, more notorious, addition is microtransactions allowing you to bypass the built money grind if you so wish. For this old player it has raised an interesting conundrum as I’m typically a fan of streamlining games but in this instance I think it’s taken something away.
All Far Cry games start off with you being someone who really doesn’t have the skills to survive in the situation that find themselves in. Then, over the course of your play through, you begin to build yourself up through the various trials and tribulations the game throws at you. Part of this included a rather in-depth and daunting perk tree which progressively allowed you to build out your character along your desired path. In Far Cry 5 however many of the skills that you would’ve had to previously unlock, like say heavy takedown, are given to you by default. This does mean that you’re far more capable earlier on than you’d otherwise be, something that does help to speed up the pace of the game, but the downside is that the perk tree no longer feels as impactful as it once was.
Many of the talents are simply incremental upgrades to things you already have and a good quarter of them are dedicated to reducing the respawn times of your companions. To be sure there are a few that make a huge difference in how you’ll approach certain challenges the game throws at you but rarely did I feel the same power increase as I did in the previous games. Quite often I was left with a bunch of points and no real desire to spend them on any of the perks as I couldn’t see what advantage I’d get out of them. In fact the biggest power increase I ever got was when I finally got myself a helicopter with machine guns, something that takes a whole lot of pain out of the games more laborious moments. I’d forgive the lacklustre perk system if the other means of progression felt a lot more impactful but, honestly, they seem to suffer from the same sameness problem.
The power of your weapons feels largely determined by the type so that guns in the same category are largely as effective as each other. The higher tier weapons, which you unlock from increasing resistance levels across the board, usually come with more quality of life perks rather than an increase in overall effectiveness. The sniper rifles, for instance, go from bolt action to semi-auto, the rifles semi to full-auto and so on. The bow, unlike other Far Cry games, feels pretty damn useless once you get yourself a silenced gun of any description (which isn’t rare either, pretty much everything can be silenced). The prestige guns are also just unique skins rather than more effective versions of their common counterparts meaning any cash spent on them is ultimately wasted. Once I’d settled on my loadout (pistol, rifle, LMG and sniper rifle) I didn’t change it for the rest of the game.
What this leads to is an overall combat experience that, for a while, is somewhat varied but quickly deteriorates into a repetitive slugfest. It’s a shame really as the slow increase in my character’s power level was something I always enjoyed in the Far Cry series. Being almost untouchable at the end always felt highly rewarding, allowing you to breeze through challenges that were once a complete showstopper. In Far Cry 5 however it feels like after maybe 4 hours or so you’re basically at the limit and there’s little more that will change how you play. Of course it’s still fun to strafe an outpost with a chopper or sneak around with your cougar companion but the lack of variation does start to wear on you after a while. Thankfully the game recognises this and campaign progression gets faster the more you complete, allowing you to blast through the last area in about half the time when compared to the first.
Crafting has been radically simplified and decoupled from the progression system. No longer will you be hunting down rare game in order to craft a new wallet, instead they’ll form part of your cash flow that you’ll funnel into the upgrades of your choice. All you’ll be crafting now is consumables including all your explosives and “homeopathics” which include the usual foray of decreased damage taken, increased speed and so on. This does mean that the progress system is a bit more universal, alleviating the previous Far Cry game’s issue where you could have all the talents in the world but could still only hold 5 arrows at a time. Materials are found everywhere, including on enemies you defeat, so it’s rare that you’ll ever be wanting if you need to crafting something. Overall I think the changes are good from a quality of life perspective but does take away something that was kind of a signature of the series.
Far Cry 5 still retains many of the issues that Ubisoft’s open world games are renowned for like the incredibly janky physics and an AI that’s dumb as dogshit. As /r/gamephysics will attest to there’s a bunch of whacky physics interactions with vehicles, people and the environment. None of these are game breaking and many are great fun to watch. What’s less fun is the AI which, when it’s being used to control your companion, routinely goes completely off the rails. I had one instance when I was in a helicopter (which the AI was piloting) where it would randomly land for 30 seconds before taking off again. It didn’t even seem to understand that it shouldn’t land in the river and proceeded to so, almost killing us both. Similarly characters that are leading you or part of an escort mission get horrendously confused if anything out of the ordinary happens like, say, a fire happening near them which they caused. Of course that also leads to some rather fun times when you can really screw with the enemy AI but with the lack of a quick save/load system it’s not nearly as fun as it could be.
All of this being said though, for all its flaws, Far Cry 5 is still very much an enjoyable experience. Ubisoft has obviously taken a line to make the series more approachable to a wider audience, cutting down on a lot of the elements that would’ve been overwhelming to players just jumping into the franchise now. Whilst long time fans of the series, like myself, may not enjoy those changes I can recognise that a lot of reviewers are seeing these as positives. I couldn’t point you to exactly what made the game fun for me but I certainly don’t regret the time I spent in it and I’ll attribute part of that to the game’s story.
Whilst initially the game felt like it’d hit close to home on a lot of hot button issues the game draws a rather well crafted line straight down the middle, ridiculing both sides as much as the other. Many have criticised the game for not taking a stance one way or the other but, honestly, did anyone expect Ubisoft Montreal to make a political statement on the current state of the USA? Instead many of the side quests and throwaway parts lampoon the stereotypes of both sides with your redneck preppers on one and your new age hippie vegans on the other. Is that a missed opportunity? Sure, but I’m not looking to big name publishers and developers to make a statement. I’m looking for a fun game experience that I can switch off the higher order parts of my brain to. When I want to be stimulated I’ll take a deep dive into the world of indie titles.
Personally I started with John’s area before moving onto Faith’s and finally Jacobs. Out of the three I felt Faith’s was the strongest as it drew me in with a believable tale of how she came to be the person she was. John’s comes in at a close second for his portrayal of your stereotypical televangelist with an empowering catchphrase. Perhaps due to the order I played them in Jacob’s felt incredibly weak, lacking anything to draw me in. Of course it’s a highly predictable narrative (all the way up a certain point, which I won’t talk about) but that’s one part of the Far Cry formula which I didn’t expect to get touched. Overall the narrative and its pace of delivery are well done enough that I was able to forget about the other flaws, at least for a little while anyway.
Far Cry 5 is certainly another solid instalment in the franchise, even if the streamlining of some of the games more iconic features didn’t sit well with this reviewer. The game retains the series penchant for high end graphics which are sure to delight fellow eye candy enthusiasts. The progression system, whilst more concise than it ever has been before, feels like it takes away some of the core aspects which drove the growing power fantasy aspect which I felt was core to the Far Cry experience. Couple this with the other lacklustre progression mechanics and the core of the game, whilst still retaining the things that make Far Cy good, just isn’t as enjoyable as it once was. However the game is still worth playing, maybe even more so for those who haven’t played the series before. The narrative, whilst missing the mark for many due to its fence sitting nature, is enjoyable for what it is. For Far Cry fans this instalment is still a must play but it falls short of reaching the same heights as some of its predecessors did.
Rating: 8.0/10
Far Cry 5 is available on PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One right now for $59.99. Game was played on the PC with 16 hours of total play time and 45% of the achievements unlocked.
Destiny 2: Curse of Osiris: Simulacra.
It was only last month that I reviewed Destiny 2 and so you’d be forgiven for thinking that Bungie was quick to pull the trigger on releasing the first expansion, Curse of Osiris. For us PC only players it is indeed quite a short time, I myself only reaching light level 305 the week prior. However for console players (who I assume make up the majority) there’s been a dearth of content for the past month and many have cried out in anguish over the lack of things to do. For a multi-title gamer like myself that’s a non-issue, there’s always something else to play, but for those who’d like to make Destiny their single game of choice it has become a constant source of angst. This expansion then would hopefully satiate the crowd long enough so that Bungie could implement more wide reaching changes to incentivise players to come back again and again.
Unfortunately for those dedicated players I don’t think Curse of Osiris accomplishes that but, for people like me, it’s a well timed injection of content that will likely keep me around for just that little bit longer.
Curse of Osiris takes you to Mercury, the forward base of the Vex and home to the Cult of Osiris, a group of people who’ve dedicated themselves to an incredibly powerful warlock that was exiled by the Vanguard. He hasn’t been heard from in some time however some of Ikora’s agents relay some information that indicate he may still be alive. This then takes you to Mercury, a world that was once transformed by the Traveller into a lush garden world which was then converted into a massive machine by the Vex. That machine is actually a massive simulation engine called the Infinite Forest, a place where the Vex attempt to gather data in order to formulate strategies to accomplish their goals. Rumour has it that Osiris is alive in there, thwarting all of the Vex’s attempts to simulate their way to victory.
Graphically there’s been no changes but the new patrol area of Mercury and the raid lairs retain Bungie’s signature level design, renowned for its high level of detail and quality. Personally I’ve always been a fan of the Vex artistic direction, the Cabal and Fallen feeling rather boring and routine by comparison. So it follows that this is probably my favourite expansion so far from a visual perspective. The new patrol area isn’t particularly big nor very diverse so it does wear on you quickly. However the other environments retain the typical visual diversity I’ve come to expect from the Destiny franchise so it’s not all bad thankfully.
In terms of new content Curse of Osiris brings with it a new campaign that will run for about 2 to 3 hours, a new “raid lair” which amounts to a couple jumping puzzles and a single boss fight, and a few more progression related mechanics to make a few activities relevant. In terms of how this compares to previous expansions its pretty much as expected, the only one that seemed to drastically deviate from that being The Taken King. For this writer it came at almost the perfect time as I had cleared the raid multiple times (to the point of being able to do it in an hour with the right group), hit 305 and was starting to question whether or not I’d continue playing. So for a casual-core player like myself Curse of Osiris fit in perfectly however, for others, it’s likely too little too late.
Destiny 2 brought with it a lot of streamlining of the original’s mechanics, quite often to the benefit of both players and Bungie. However some of the changes took away some of the reasons that kept old school players coming back. Indeed many of the recent changes that have been introduced were things that were already present in the original, making it feel like we’re simply restarting the development process that was already completed. So for those who made a home in Destiny as their game of choice I can definitely understand where their concerns come from as many of the things that kept them back before simply aren’t there anymore. However for someone like myself these changes have been fantastic, allowing me to do so much more in much less time.
This is, of course, the long running debate of any MMO game: hardcores vs casuals. The hardcore players want mechanics that reward the long slog, things that take time to achieve and put them on a pedestal above those who don’t spend as much time in the game as they do. Casuals on the other hand want to experience everything the game has to offer in a much reduced timeframe. This war is, typically, won by the casuals as they usually make up the majority of a game’s player base. As I’ve grown older and I find myself with less and less time to put into games like this my consumption of these titles has shifted and those that provide mechanics to cater to my more casual-like habits get rewarded with my hard earned dollars. That’s the only reason I still play World of Warcraft from time to time as I know that I can see all the game has to offer without signing my life away. Of course I’m not every player, but I think I’m closer to the average than most hardcore players would like to think.
I mention all of this because it seems that the Destiny community at the moment is at something of a crossroads. Previous expansions typically had a decent honeymoon period where everyone would sing its praises for about 2 weeks. Then slowly the issues would start to emerge and maybe a month or so later there’d be the usual bitching about there being no content or nothing for them to do. Right now we’re just over 3 months into Destiny 2’s live and with the first expansion under its belt we’re already seeing those complaints and Bungie has even cancelled livestreams in order to address them. Regardless of the outcome of the changes the decisions Bungie makes today will set the direction of what the game is to become over the next few years; whether it follows World of Warcraft or becomes a hardcore nice like EVE: Online.
Despite all this however Destiny 2: Curse of Osiris is a fantastic, if a little short, expansion to the Destiny 2 universe. For players like myself it dropped a just the right time, hooking me right back in when I was getting ready to jump out. Fleshing out the world’s backstory through a solid campaign has always been one of my favourite parts of Destiny and this expansion delivers that well. The new progression mechanics are interesting if a little grindy for my tastes. The new raid layer brings with it some of the more interesting and unique encounters we’ve seen to date and, hopefully, that trend continues with further expansions. Overall whilst it might not be worth $20 just on its own as part of the collector’s edition or as a season pass Curse of Osiris certainly provides some good content at a reasonable price point.
Rating: 9.5/10
Destiny 2: Curse of Osiris is available right now on PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox one right now for $19.99. Total time spent in Destiny 2 now totals 59 hours, approximately 8 hours spent in Curse of Osiris.
Star Wars Battlefront II: The Dark Side of the Franchise.
I can’t remember a time when I was told by so many disparate people to not play a game. To be clear I don’t think the controversy surrounding Battlefront 2 is unjustified as the trend towards including what amounts to gambling in nearly every AAA title feels like a massive step backwards for the industry. More it’s the fact that the game itself looked fun, even with the microtransactions and loot boxes taken into consideration. So I went against everyone’s advice and bought a copy of the game thinking that, at the very least, it’d be worth it just to play another campaign in the Star Wars universe. Whilst that didn’t turn out to be the highlight I was hoping it to be the multi-player has been surprisingly fun, if marred somewhat by the loot box bogeyman.
The campaign centres on Iden Versio a member of the elite Inferno Squad, an Imperial Special Forces Commando unit, formed after the destruction of the first Death Star. She was on Endor when the second Death Star was destroyed by the rebels, splintering the Galactic Empire. The Emperor’s death triggered a secret contingency plan to ensure that the Empire retained control of the galaxy: dubbed Operation Cinder. Iden is then sent on a set of unusual missions to prepare for it when it becomes clear that the mission will be far more sinister than anyone planned for.
Battlefront II, like its predecessor, makes use of the Frostbite 3 engine which once again provides for some absolutely stunning visuals. Of particular note is the lighting which is simply without peer in any game I’ve played this year. Beyond that it’s impressive the amount of stuff they’ve managed to cram into every level and set piece, both in the campaign and the multiplayer. Those pretties do come at a cost however and whilst my near 3 year old machine was able to run everything on high @ 1080p I’m sure anything beyond that would’ve turned the whole affair into a slide show.
The core game remains largely the same, retaining the star card system and reworking the hero/more powerful classes to use a “battlepoint” system that allows you to buy them once you’ve accumulated enough of them through attacking other players, achieving objectives or, funnily enough, straight up dying enough times. Progression is, unfortunately, inexorably tied to the loot crates which drop star cards and crafting materials you’ll need to level up your class of choice. You can buy these crates with in-game currency you earn through playing however so you don’t have to spend money to get there but I’ll be damned if a bunch of people didn’t do exactly that. The same game modes make a return as well with the trademark 40 on 40 battles being the go-to favourite of many players. An “Arcade Mode” was introduced to get you used to the various non-standard classes, something which can be rather painful to do in the multi itself. All in all it’s pretty much the same game as Battlefront was with the progression mechanics all mixed up in a microtransaction hell.
Combat feels the same as it did in its predecessor, meaning that aiming down sights does nothing and the third person camera gives you the spatial awareness you’ll need if you want to be at all effective. Yet again it took me a little while to get used to it, my FPS tendencies that had been bedded in by Call of Duty and Destiny 2 needing to be shaken off before I felt like everything had clicked. Of course the power level between me and my foes was immediately apparent; fights that felt like they should have been even turning out to be anything but and I couldn’t go 2 steps without a sniper removing most, if not all, of my health. As I learnt the maps and started to progress a little this started to happen less often but it’s unfortunately obvious that those who’ve opened their wallets have a distinct advantage.
You see how you level a class in Battlefront II isn’t through playing them, no you level them by crafting star cards for them. Each of the cards you craft (or receive through loot boxes) adds to your “card level” for that particular class. Each of the cards has 4 power levels, each of which provides more benefits than the last. You can’t, however, craft the best card right from the get go. No instead you must craft a bunch of lesser cards (most of which you’ll likely never use) before you can unlock the next tier of upgrades. This means your best bet is to focus on a single class and craft a build that you feel most comfortable playing for a long time. After then you can start fleshing out the other classes like the upgraded troops, vehicles and hero characters. If this is sounding like a lot of work it most certainly is. I’m about 6 hours into the multi and my assault class is card level 10 with a few others around the 2 or 3 level. This hasn’t stopped me from being somewhat effective (I do about average it seems) but its hard to deny that a disproportionate number of those at the top are ones who’ve splashed a bit of cash around.
Worse still this also has a limiting effect on how you can play as the “upgraded” classes, vehicles and hero classes can feel woefully underpowered when you go from your preferred, card levelled class to them. Even if you do manage to get enough battle points to spawn one of them it’s quite likely that someone has already done the same, locking you out of playing one of them. Of course you could spend some credits to unlock another hero class (ranging in price from 5,000 to 15,000 credits) but, yet again, that’s an advantage that someone who’s shelled out cash is going to have over you. It’s possible that these issues are somewhat magnified due to my relative tardiness in getting around to playing Battlefront II but, honestly, systems like this that reward you with just flat out better gear incentivize all the wrong things in titles like this.
It’s a right shame as the game is actually playable this time around and, honestly, quite fun. Whilst there are still issues with matchmaking, like a lack of team reshuffling between matches and the lack of a leavers penalty, there’s at least a relatively healthy community on PC now. No longer do I have wait ages for a spot in the single galactic war match, hoping that I end up on the winning team so I can farm some easy credits for an hour or two. Nope instead there’s always multiple games cranking and, on average, there’s a 50/50 chance of finding yourself on the winning side. It even got to the point where I figured I should finish the campaign, just for good measure, but honestly felt that I’d much rather enjoy playing a few multi games rather than going back to it.
The reason for that is, whilst parts of the campaign have their moments, it just falls somewhat flat from a story perspective. It’s a highly predictable one for starters, following the typical “bad guy realising they’re the bad guy” trope which makes it hard to really connect with anyone in it. Like most multiplayer focused games it’s also mostly an extended showcase for the levels you’ll be playing later, loosely stitched together with fragments of a story so there’s a reason for you to visit all of them. I didn’t finish it in the end but, honestly, I had most of the story played out in my head already (and a quick trip to the wiki shows that I was pretty close to the mark). All in all, whilst it’s commendable that EA DICE listened on this one particular thing they could have at least put just a tiny bit more effort into it.
Star Wars Battlefront II is a great game that got itself mixed up in the wrong crowd. When it comes down to it the flagship game mode, Galactic War, is a bunch of fun, capturing that feeling of being part of something much larger than yourself when you’re playing it. However the whole progression system being heavily tilted towards getting you to shell out for loot boxes means that the overall experience suffers greatly as a result. EA DICE may be making steps towards fixing it but we all know what the end game is here: placate us long enough so that the idea of paying for loot boxes becomes palatable again. Honestly it’s a right shame as beneath all of this is a great game that begs to be played, one I know a lot of people would enjoy.
Rating: 7.0/10
Star Wars Battlefront II is available on PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One right now for $59.99. Game was played on the PC with approximately 7 hours of total play time.
Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus: I’m Not Long for This World.
The Wolfenstein series’ soft reboot with The New Order back in 2014 was a gamble for then nascent developer MachineGames. The previous instalment in the franchise hadn’t performed well and many were left wondering if it would have a future at all. However they managed to release a game that was good in its own right, keeping the core old-school FPS feel and integrating it with modern-day improvements. The Old Blood was seen as a small stumble by most, the stand-alone prequel story not bringing enough to the table and being released barely a year after its predecessor. Suffice to say feelings were mixed around the announcement of The New Colossus as history showed that this game could potentially be a return to form or a continuation of its slow downwards trajectory.
For this writer, I’m glad to say, The New Colossus signals a big step forward for the franchise.
SPOILERS FOR PREVIOUS WOLFENSTEIN GAMES BELOW
You return again as B.J Blazkowicz, lying broken and bloody atop Deathshead’s fortress after defeating him. As your world darkens you give the order to fire on your position, hoping to rid the world of the foul technology that helped the Nazis conquer the world. However before you black out you see that your friends of the Kreisau Circle have come to rescue you, taking you away before they lay waste to the Nazi stronghold. Your recovery is long and just as you awake your location comes under attack by Frau Engel. With your broken body you haul yourself into a nearby wheelchair and return to what you do best: killing Nazis by the truckload. From here you continue your journey to free the world from Nazi rule.
SPOILERS OVER
The New Colossus is the second game to come to us via the id Tech 6 engine, the first being the DOOM reboot of last year. You’d be forgiven for thinking it was developed on a completely new engine as the graphics are a massive leap forward in almost all respects. However the release day version of the game was plagued with performance issues, something I noted early on after attempting to tweak my settings. After reading some forum posts I found that my drivers were 1 version out of date and, upon updating them, everything improved dramatically. The game still suffers greatly in outdoor areas, an ailment that seems to plague all id Tech games. Still this is one of the few games where I’ve been unable to max all the settings lest I turn the game into a slideshow. Kuods to MachineGames for continuing the trend of high quality visuals.
The core game play mechanics of The New Colossus remain largely the same as its predecessors being your typical mix of FPS and light-RPG elements. You’ll spend the majority of your time gunning down all sorts of different Nazis and their contraptions but how you go about that will be shaped by how you play and what upgrades you choose. The perk upgrade system is mostly the same, requiring you to perform certain actions in order to unlock them. Weapon upgrades are streamlined significantly, allowing you to unlock up to 3 upgrades for all of the normal weapons. Later on in the game you get access to contraptions which are another set of upgrades that unlock various areas of the game that are otherwise inaccessible. This then dovetails into the Ubercommander missions, which are essentially replays of missions you’ve already completed, allowing you to tackle them again with your newfound powers. All in all it feels like a tighter, more concise game overall which is saying something given that my campaign-only playthrough clocks in at just under an hour shorter than my The New Order playthrough.
Combat is mostly mid-paced, often starting with a stealth section followed by your typical corridor shooter affair once you are inevitably detected. There are some high action scenes where you’ll just be sending endless streams of lead down range but for the most part you can take your time when it comes to engaging The New Colosuss’ enemies. The shooting does feel a little on the rough side, the generosity of previous game’s hit boxes reduced somewhat requiring a greater level of skill on the player. Some of the guns feel completely ineffectual until you get one or two of their upgrades which, thankfully, won’t take too long if you take some time to explore a little bit. The game isn’t stingy with ammo drops either so no matter what gun you prefer you’ll most likely be able to use it as often as you want. Despite the slightly slower pace and less polished feel overall I’d rate the combat as equal to its predecessors.
Progression is broadly broken up into 2 main systems, perks and weapon mods, but you’ll also change the mix of your base stats as you progress through the game. Initially you’ll have a max of 50 health and 200 armour which, after a certain mission, will change to 100/100. This might not sound like much but it does change the flow of the game significantly, especially considering the game’s focus on over-charging your health rather than allowing you to increase it permanently. Thus the start of the game actually feels a lot easier than it does towards the end since you won’t be able to overcharge your health to 200 and also run around with 200 armour. If this is your first foray into Wolfenstein it might actually be a great way to ease you into the flow of the game.
The perks level up as you perform various feats and, curiously, don’t reset their counter upon death. This does mean that, if you’re so inclined, you could grind them out by save scumming but honestly most of them will come easily as long as you know which one to go for. They don’t provide massive benefits, usually just small benefits that will make your life a little easier, but all of them together do make a noticeable impact. The weapon mods are much, much more impactful often turning lacklustre guns into absolute beasts. The Sturmgewehr for instance when upgraded fully is by far the fastest way to take out armoured enemies and the Pistole is really the only gun that can be used in stealth when you get its suppressor. Progression stalls a bit towards the end since you’ll have upgraded your weapons of choice and unlocked most of the perks that aligned to your playstyle. The contraptions do add a little bit more flavour there but I didn’t bother unlocking the other 2 as I didn’t want to grind out the ubercommander missions. I’m sure if I did though I’d feel a little different about the progression stalling at 2/3rds through the game.
Whilst there are still some performance issues, predominately in outdoor environments, The New Colossus also seems to suffer from some weird bugs either due to running in borderless window mode (something which it natively supports), the Steam overlay or being alt-tabbed. Essentially whenever focus was taken away from the game and then returned to it there was a 50/50 chance of a crash happening. Often this wasn’t too much of an issue, the checkpoint system working well, however a few times it got me stuck in unskippable moments which I’d have to repeat a few times over to get past. Unfortunately I couldn’t figure out the cause of these errors as the crash reporter always alerted me that it couldn’t write the crash dump. I’m sure there’s a simple explanation to this and it will likely be patched in the future. Still if you’re wanting to avoid this it’s probably worth running it in exclusive fullscreen for now.
The New Colossus’ story telling feels head and shoulders above its predecessors, giving many of the characters and their relationships ample time to develop. To be sure the plot follows your typical action movie trope with few, if any, real surprises to be had. However there’s some great moments of levity and self-awareness showing that the writers knew that they were making yet-another Nazi story that needed something to liven it up. There is a bit of an obsession with long, drawn out scenes where you’re basically locked in place, some of which could have been trimmed down a bit and still had the same amount of impact. Still for a series where I used to rate the story as “interesting but forgettable” The New Colossus is one that I think I’ll remember fondly for some time.
Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus is a big step forward both for the franchise and MachineGames as a developer. The core of what made the original great is still there, retaining much of that old-world FPS charm whilst including modern mechanics to amplify that experience further. The game still suffers from some of the issues that seem to plague all id Tech based games but these are things that will hopefully be fixed in future patches. Over the top of all this, and likely the reason why I feel this particular game is a step ahead of its predecessors, is the story which does a great job of giving all the characters time to shine whilst steering clear of all too popular LOOK OUT FOR A SEQUEL cliffhanger. If Call of Duty: WWII left me wanting Wolfenstein: The New Colossus has me wanting for more.
Rating: 9.25/10
Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus is available on PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4 right now for $59.99. Game was played on the PC with 9 hours of total play time and 38% of the achievements unlocked.
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