Review: Halo: Master Chief Collection

Halo: Master Chief Collection
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Cost
$59.99
Format
Digital and Retail
Size
59.11 GB
Available On
Xbox ONE [Reviewed]
Release Date
11/11/2014
Developer
343 Studios
Publisher
Microsoft Sutdios
Modes
Single Player, Co-op, Multiplayer

In 2001 the world was introduced to what would become one of the most influential games and franchises in the industry. Halo Combat Evolved instantly was recognized as the definition of what console first person shooters could be. Beautiful graphics, intense sci-fi story, groundbreaking couch and lan-party co-op, and the best controls the genre had ever seen. Three years later Halo 2 took everything that made the original special and multiplied it by a thousand. The story revved up, the graphics were arguably the most impressive of the time, and the controls were better than ever. Most importantly however, the multiplayer exploded the collective minds of the gaming world—and to this day is one of the most memorable and powerful online multiplayer experiences the medium has ever seen. In 2007 the hype machine was at an all time high for Halo 3. And while the game may not have quite lived up to that hype, it’s probably more based on how ridiculously and unreasonably high the expectations were, because the game itself was nearly flawless. Halo 3 was the first HD Halo game, it launched on the Xbox 360 and was the must own game for any owner of the console. The biggest competition for Halo 3 was how perfect Halo 2 was in the eyes of the fans; and the new franchise that would overtake Halo as the biggest online FPS in the industry itself for next decade, Call of Duty. For the next few years the Halo franchise seemed to be trying to find itself. There were a few spinoffs here and there like a failed RTS and a lackluster top down shooter for tablets. There was also a pseudo-sequel to Halo 3 called ODST that was a solid game filled with controversy. Bungie was the developer for this incredible franchise for every major adaptation on the consoles, and they tried to have a nice going out party called Halo Reach. But overall the fans’ reactions were quite negative. Bungie left Microsoft and 343 Studios took over and created Halo 4. Underwhelming and seemingly unfocused, Halo 4 was not the inaugural 343 party that was hoped for. But before that even, 343 worked on the Halo Combat Evolved Anniversary Edition in 2011. This was the tenth year anniversary of the game that started it all.

All of this Halo history is to prepare for one of the biggest remake bundles the gaming universe has ever seen; Halo: Master Chief Collection. 343 promises that Halo 1-4(all the Halo games starring the Chief himself) will be smashed together in one uber game with all the features from the originals plus some added features they didn’t have at first. Along with each game in its original form, Halo 3 and 4 have been up-ressed to 1080p and 60fps. Halo Anniversary is packed in and also has its multiplayer going online for the first time ever on a console. And Halo 2 gets the same treatment the original Halo got three years ago with it finally going HD, its multiplayer coming back online, and added features like brand new beautiful remade cut scenes. With four full campaigns, four full multiplayer games built into one, and endless hour of fun and nostalgia from one of gaming’s biggest franchises, 343 seems to have the perfect formula for a massive success for everyone and a perfect filler to play as the world waits for Halo 5. Oh, and speaking of which the Halo 5 Beta is packed in and will be available soon. Here are the big questions; does the entire Halo experience still hold up today or do aspects seem outdated? And if it does still hold up, can 343 possibly hold up their bargain and give us everything they promised?

If you go back and play classic 2D games from the NES and SNES type era, most of the games truly still hold up. You’re still going to have a whole lot of fun playing anything from Yoshi’s Island to Tecmo Super Bowl to Earth Bound and everything in-between. Of course some games are truly dated and almost unplayable now, but the majority of those 2D gems are still great fun to play today. This sadly is not the case with 3D games. The N64/Playstation era had so many amazing games, some are still fun today but a lot of them just can’t hold up compared to the gameplay in current games. The same can even be said for some games from the Xbox/PS2/Gamecube era. Although nowhere near as flawed as the N64/Playstation era, there are still games that we thought, “HOLY CRAP THIS GAME IS AMAZING!” but if we play it today the controls, camera, etc just fall flat. I thoroughly loved Halo Combat Evolved and its campaign when I first played it on a friend’s Xbox and again on the PC two years later. Today it sadly just isn’t the same. I could go back and play Super Metroid or Super Mario World a million times and never stop loving it. But Halo Combat Evolved just isn’t that kind of game. Compared to the advancements in the genre the controls feel slow and the levels are drawn out for much longer than they should be. It always felt like my next objective was the same as the last. Walk over there, press a button, clear out bad guys, walk over there, go to that thing, kill the guys in the way, etc, etc, etc… The health system was changed in the newer Halo games for the better. It’s hard for me to enjoy a game when I just fought my way through a massive horde of covenant bad guys and barely survived with ONE sliver of health left; only to get a checkpoint and have an even BIGGER gang waiting for me and now I’m out of health and low on ammo. The original Halo may be one of the more influential games of the past two decades but playing it now feels like eating a delicious bowl of Lucky Charms….that’s been sitting on the table soaking in milk all afternoon; used to be amazing, now it’s just gross.

Halo 2 and Halo 3 are quite different. The campaigns themselves still feel slightly longer and more repetitive than they should be—but the areas visited, the gameplay variety, and the controls themselves offer enough diversity to allow for a fun and satisfying experience. Meanwhile needed and helpful changes like a better health system and usable equipment help improve the gameplay from the first. The story throughout these three games is confusing to some fans and entertaining to others. There are four, no maybe five different species? All fighting for different things? Who are the flood? The prophets do what? HELP ME! I personally enjoy the story in the Halo Universe, including the first game(to me the only redeeming factor to still play the original). It’s easy to make a story for a book, movie, or game that puts two forces against each other in an all out war. But Bungie decided to make a complicating yet engaging story with betrayal, exile, unexpected alliances, and a slew of hidden motives and interesting twists that doesn’t disappoint. The Master Chief and Cortana have a very interesting relationship. I like the Gravemind, the Arbiter, and Guilty Spark. One of the biggest complaints for an unknown reason to me is the Flood. Some people hate them but I find their presence in the game to freshen up the gameplay with a zombie like feel as well as add an interesting dimension to the story. Even though I suffered through the original, after playing all three games I felt very satisfied with the gameplay and story as I finished the fight. And then there’s Halo 4…

Halo 4’s campaign is dull, repetitive, and does very little to advance on what Halo 2 and 3 had to offer. The gameplay is fine, it’s just that there isn’t enough new. The story focuses on the Master Chief and Cortana’s relationship; this is a smart decision and is the strength of the game. But the rest of the story seems pointless. The Flood are gone but a new species called Prometheans are involved instead. They are uninteresting. Both the covenant and the brutes, the main enemies you face in the original trilogy, are full of life, personality, and even humor. Prometheans kind of just exist for the sake of existing. And in an attempt to create a major villain for the Master Chief to face instead of facing a species alone, 343 created Ur-Didact, a forerunner and commander for the Promethean military. I understand what 343 was going for; they wanted their own Bowser, Ganandorf, Joker, GlaDOS. But instead they just overcomplicated an already fairly complex story and added a villain that has already been placed on the backburner, as Halo 5’s villain has been revealed to be a brand new character.

When it comes down to it, Halo’s multiplayer has been the biggest draw to fans and the most significant factor to its success. Halo 1-3 at the time of their respective releases had some of the best, deepest, and just plain fun multiplayer gameplay the fps genre had to offer. Halo 1-4’s multiplayer is all back, every single map, all in its original form but in HD beauty. Halo 2, being the favorite Halo child, even has some maps completely remade with new textures and lighting to look absolutely stunning, as opposed to just upping the resolution. So how do these great MP experiences hold up today? Sadly, as much fun as they were when we first played them, they just aren’t what they used to be.

Let’s start with Halo Combat Evolved. This game is now thirteen years old and boy oh boy does it show. Not only in the graphics but also in the gameplay. It’s clunky, confusing, and beyond hectic. It’s hard to tell what’s going on. Did I hit that guy? Is he dead? How’d I die? It’s fun to jump in for old time’s sake for just a few rounds, but other than that it has almost no replay value and is more annoying and confusing than any kind of fun. The original Halo’s mp just doesn’t feel good at all. And thankfully the series made massive improvements going forward because Halo CE is as barebones as it gets and not at all in the good way. It used to be fun, just like owning a pet rock used to be cool.

Halo 2 is almost everyone’s hands down favorite Halo mp game; and for good reason. The jump from the original is exponential. It feels better, it plays better, it looks better, it sounds better, everything is better. Still however, it’s not quite what it used to be. I’m afraid some of us will be disappointed with it. Think of it this way. Remember when you used to go to Chuck E Cheese as a kid? Remember how exciting the arcade was? Remember the massive cage of those weird ball things you jump in? Remember the maze of tubes and tunnels and slides to crawl through? Remember the awesome prizes you could get? Remember that amazing pizza? Remember those creepy yet strangely intriguing giant Chuck E and friends that would walk around and give high fives and hugs? Yeah that was just so awesome right? And yeah, as a kid it kind of was. But what happens when we look at it years later through our adult eyes? We see that the arcades games are outdated and boring. The big cage with balls is gross and full of germs. The tunnels really aren’t as big as we thought they were. The prizes are more worthless than toys you get at the dollar store. The pizza is cheap, nasty, two-dollar, thin-crust pizza you buy in the frozen isle. And those weird strange feelings we got with the giant Chuck E was for good reason because inside is some alcoholic forty-seven year old balding creep in a sweaty costume. While Halo 2 isn’t THAT bad, the analogy stands true. Halo 2 MP is fun and nostalgic, but it’s just not that great anymore. I don’t want to go to Chuck E Cheese. I want to go to amusement parks for my thrills, the bar for my food and fun, and my own couch for real video games.

Halo 3’s multiplayer holds up better than the rest. Halo 3 had such huge expectations after Halo 2, so in many eyes it’s just not as good. But if Halo 3 came right after the original Halo and Halo 2 didn’t’ even exist; I’m nearly positive it would be loved just as much as Halo 2. The multiplayer has buttery smooth controls and an extremely balanced approach. It took all that was good about Halo 2 and just made it prettier and better. Some think it’s hypocrisy to say these types of things, but Halo 3’s multiplayer is the best in the series and the Master Chief collection proves this. If Halo 3 came out today it wouldn’t seem that outdated and ancient. Halo 2’s glory days are long gone, even if those glory days were absolutely incredible. Halo 4’s multiplayer isn’t barely worth touching. It’s unbalanced, doesn’t feel like Halo, and just doesn’t hold a candle to Halo 2 and 3. For some, since it’s the newest, it might be good fun. But to most Halo purest they’d rather play real Halo or something else entirely.

Sadly the servers for the first couple weeks have been awful. Finding a game can take an extremely long time and if you’d like to party up with a friend and frag it up together, good luck. This is unacceptable and 343 and Microsoft need to fix this ASAP.

Graphically the Master Chief collection is an odd game to review. Of course it spans across almost a decade and a half of games so the visuals will be polarizing. Halo Anniversary get’s my worst dressed award. Not because the original game, no that’s allowed to look old and prehistoric, it actually has a charm to it. But the anniversary version falls flat on its face. With just a simple button you can at any time switch from the old school graphics to the new updated anniversary graphics. The anniversary graphics just don’t look that good. Of course compared to the classic game it is much better. However compared to recent games it has flaws. Even when compared to 2007’s Halo 3, the 2011 Anniversary Edition looks pretty much the same. This makes no sense to me, it’s nice that the original can look better, but wouldn’t you want to update it to today’s standards? There are also some very curious artistic decisions. For example there’s one moment in the game when I’m supposed to be in a dessert like area, Cortana even references it. However it looks green and filled with trees. When I switch back to the original game it sure enough looks dry and dessert like. Why did they change the actual layout of the land? Other places like the creepy hallways of the flood look dark and scary in the original. But on the new version, that eerie feel is replaced with bright blue and purple lighting that take the atmosphere right out of the game. I’d almost recommend playing it all in its truly original form. Halo 2 also has an anniversary edition, but it’s done much better. Halo 2 looks nice, the colors and lighting hold true to what they originally looked like, they just look better. There is more detail, more appealing visuals, but not at the cost of the original feel and atmosphere. Meanwhile the remade cut scenes by the CG company BLUR are absolutely astounding. It’s no hyperbole to say that the BLUR cut scenes made for Halo 2 are the best that gaming has ever seen; and even the movie industry should be jealous. I’m sure the internet has already done this, but you could easily just take all the cut scenes into one big video and it has the quality to be a full animated movie. Halo 3 holds up nicely, there are no visual changes, no anniversary edition, but now in 1080p and 60 frames it looks very good. Halo 4 may be the black sheep in every other department, but there’s no denying the game has beautiful art and stunning visuals. And can I just say, the art, graphics, sound design and most importantly music of the Halo series is perhaps one of the most impressive the industry has ever seen. Say what you will about the franchise, but the Halo feel is just oozing out of these games because of truly special direction and execution in all of the art aspects of the series. Bravo Bungie, and 343 too I suppose.

343 set out to make the ultimate Halo and Master Chief experience with: Halo Master Chief Collection. They promised to give the fans all four games wrapped up just like they were made to be with no changes. Then on top of that they promised to also give visual and optional touches. The multiplayer gaming has been the bread and butter of Halo since its start, and 343 promised everything to be there just like we remembered it. Did 343 deliver on that promise? Yes and no. The original campaigns are all there, untouched and perfect. Meanwhile the anniversary updated visuals for Halo 1 and 2 make the game more appealing to the eye if you so desire and the BLUR cut scenes draw the players in to that world like never before. The multiplayer however is broken and needs to be fixed. 343 can’t promise everything how we remembered it, but not even have things playable. Even with the multiplayer hiccup there are still some problems. And this is not really 343’s fault. Instead it’s time’s fault. Just like your favorite pair of shoes, your first car, and your beautiful thick hair; in time your shoes will be worn down, your car will break down, and your hair will turn gray and fall out. Halo just isn’t what I remembered it to be. But it’s okay. Even if when playing these games again I noticed more flaws than ever, it still brought back memories I can never erase. Halo is such an influential franchise to so many gamers. Even if it’s not as excellent playing it this time around, that doesn’t mean it’s not worth giving it a shot again for old time’s sake. The campaign is still good fun and the multiplayer still has epic moments and crazy laughs. Halo 1 does feel outdated in every aspect now sadly, campaign and multiplayer. But playing through the campaign one more time still has just enough fun in it to help carry you through to the REAL fun that is Halo 2 and 3. Halo 4 just doesn’t feel like a good fit in this package and shouldn’t have been included. The story is disconnected from the original trilogy and the multiplayer isn’t fun. It would be like if Lucas Arts packaged Star Wars episodes 4-6 AND 1 all in one package. It just doesn’t work. If for nothing else, Halo: Master Chief Collection is the original trilogy all in one disc, and that trilogy is one of the best in video game history. That alone would be worth it. Throw in the still fun Halo 2 and 3 multiplayer and we’ve got ourselves a really good bundle. The game is worth the admission price for Halo 2 and 3 alone.

PROS:
1) So much content
2) Beautiful art and music
3) Full trilogy in one game
4) Halo 2 and 3 multiplayer
5) Nostalgia

CONS:
1) Halo 4
2) Halo 1 doesn’t hold up
3) Halo 2 MP just isn’t as magical as it once was
4) Major multiplayer server issues

8.5
Excellent

 

Review: Never Alone

Never Alone
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Cost
$14.99
Format
Digital
Size
2.8 GB
Available On
Xbox ONE [Reviewed]
Release Date
11/28/2014
Developer
Upper One Games
Publisher
E-Line Media
Modes
Singleplayer and Couch Co-op

Never Alone is a 2D side scrolling adventure game from Upper One Games and E-Line Media. It tells the tale of Nuna, a Inapiaq, as she braves the Alaskan frontier to save her village. She is joined in this adventure by a companion Fox. The two characters are either controlled back and forth by a single player or by a second controller in couch co-op. Yes, it’s another digital title that doesn’t support Live. It really makes me want to question Xbox and just how hard is it to hook into Live.

Never Alone is a gorgeous game. The characters and the backdrops are some of the most detailed and vibrant I’ve seen on the ONE. The wind looks likes its cold and biting, the environment looks harsh. The details in Nuna and the fox both from a character design aspect and also in their movements is simply top notch. As they run and climb and move through the world it is easy to immerse yourself in the story.

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The story is told, narrator style, by a Inapiaq and is based on a real folk story handed down generation to generation. As you complete levels you unlock these amazing cultural insights that are mini documentaries that further explore the lives of the Inapiaq. These cultural insights represent the collectibles in the game. There are 24 total and probably 21 of them are given to you as you follow the story. You would really have to go out of your way to miss 90% of them. There are about 3 that are just off the main path, but truly these 3 are in about the only other non-main path areas you can go. If you see a ledge or rope that is not on the main path, chances are that’s a collectible area. The cutscenes are told in native scrimshaw and look just as good as the rest of the game.

The problems start to arise in that a game is not just pretty pictures. You need an actual game to play and Never Alone is a very basic adventure game at its core. Nuna runs around and climbs things and uses her bola to destroy ice and to activate spirits, while the fox is able to reveal and manipulate hidden animal spirits to create and move platforms for Nuna to use.

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The most interesting part of the game, the interaction between the fox and Nuna, is marred in that it seems they never knew whether to make a single player game or a co-op and ended up with something that doesn’t really work for either. As a single player game you really are only playing one character in that you do something with Nuna, switch to the fox, and then do something else and then switch back. There is nothing that requires both characters to do anything at the same time. The puzzles were a lot easier in co-op but overall co-op was unfortunately a fairly boring experience. Player A does something then Player B then there is more running. No coordination is really needed. The second half of the story has an interesting twist, that is great story wise, but makes playing the fox particularly boring from this point on. A good co-op game requires both players to work together, where Never Alone would probably play out exactly the same if it was played by a single person using two controllers.

There was a section with a moving crate witch shows some of the basic flaws of this 2 character system. Nuna had to control the crate and both Nuna and the fox needed to reach a high ledge. So I had to have Nuna hold the crate while the fox made the jump, then while I was getting the crate back into position for Nuna to jump, the fox AI would repeatedly jump back down ruining the entire sequence and forcing me to restart. The companion AI is really just set to follow mode. They will do any basic jump but anything requiring a real button press you need to switch over to do yourself. Most of the puzzles were artificially harder because the AI wouldn’t hold where you needed them to or they lagged so far behind your movement they got crushed by just not keeping up.

My entire playthrough of the game, with loading and deaths, was just under 3 hours. I hate trying to create a subjective coloration between cost and time played but 3 hours is a short game. And 3 hours for $15 is definitely on the high end of the current market. There is no NewGame+ here, no try to beat a par time, no reason to replay period really. I finished the game, watched the cultural insights (if you are a achievement hunter there is a achievement for finding and watching them all. I can confirm you can start each one and back out if you want to but they are really well made.) and then I was done with Never Alone with no hook or desire to return.

It’s not a bad game. There are no glaring flaws or errors or glitches (The fox did get caught in the environment one time) it’s just that there is no wow factor either. Nothing that grips me and says this is something that adventure games have been missing and here it is now. The game is gorgeous and the story is well told but for me it seems like they made a good documentary and then shoved a Max: Curse of the Brotherhood clone into it.

PROS:
1) Beautiful artwork
2) Fantastic story

CONS:
1) Shortest game on the ONE
2) Fox’s part in second half in minimal
3) Co-op is not engaging to both players equally

6.8
Average

 

Review: Volgarr the Viking

Volgarr the Viking
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Cost
$9.99
Format
Digital
Size
432.07 MB
Available On
Xbox ONE [Reviewed], PC
Release Date
10/31/2014
Developer
Crazy Viking Studios
Publisher
Crazy Viking Studios
Modes
Single Player

Volgarr the Viking is an old-school action sidescrolling beat ‘em up that is built to be a reminder of what arcade games used to be. The gameplay, difficulty, and graphics make the game look and feel like it could have easily sucked up your hard earned quarters and sat right next to Golden Axe, The Simpsons, The Turtles and more in the early 90’s. Every aspect of the game is a tribute to those arcade classics—nothing more so than the difficulty. Volgarr the Viking was developed by Crazy Viking Studios. It’s a kickstarted game which was initially released on Steam. After success on the PC, Volgarr has moved to the home console and is ready to make you scream and cry. Are they screams of delight and tears of joy? Or is it more agony and suffering?

As mentioned before, the difficulty level of Volgarr the Viking is its foundation. The design of the enemies, levels, and gameplay all revolve making the game painstakingly difficult. You play as Volgarr. You wield a sword and a spear. The sword works well at close range and the spear is used for ranged attacks. The spear is also used as a platform. Volgarr can throw a spear into the wall and use it to jump up to higher places. Just a few hits can kill Volgarr. In each level there are treasure chests that give upgrades. A shield can block projectiles; a fire sword gives more range and more powerful hits. If Volgarr takes a hit, he loses an upgrade. Enemies are all designed in different ways. Spiders jump forward and are difficult to attack from close range, but they are too short for a spear at long range (as it goes flying over their head). Skeletons hold shields that block spears and high attacks, so the only effective attack is ducking down and hitting them low. Meanwhile zombies take one hit to kill them, but if you hit them down low the split in half and the top of the body falls forward and can damage Volgarr. Every enemy must be learned—which is another way of saying you will die a hundred times before you figure it all out.

At first this is extremely frustrating, welcome to old-school gaming. Each level took me anywhere from one to two hours to complete. However this is where the game nails the old-school feel and delivers on the mechanics it strove for. Because after exhausting so much time, effort, and skill into each level I can complete them in as little as five minutes. First I needed to learn all the ins and outs of each enemy and the levels itself and after the seemingly torturous discovering process I’m able to fly through with relative ease. Gameplay like this was a stable in classic gaming and really hasn’t snuck its way into modern gaming. In most games today, enemies have a health meter, levels are designed to help the player move through safely, and normally the real challenge comes with just the number of enemies on screen or maybe the strength of a boss battle. It’s entirely possible to play through whole levels of games today without dying at all. And checkpoints are thrown around like contraceptives at college orientation. In Volgarr the Viking you get one checkpoint in every level. There’s a beginning, a checkpoint at the halfway mark, and a boss battle. Even the boss rooms don’t have checkpoints. This is something I do have to complain about. In a game like Megaman, it’s a relief to make it to the boss room because if you die there you can try again if you still have lives. In Volgarr the Viking, you have to play through the entire second section of the level again, because you will come back right at the checkpoint again. The bosses are just like the levels, it takes some time to learn how to defeat it. So getting thrown all the way back to the checkpoint is very painful.
The graphics are impressive for what Crazy Viking Studios was going for. It looks very much like a game from the late 80’s early 90’s. The main problem is that there isn’t really anything that gives it its own unique feel. In other words, if Volgarr was a game from the arcades back in the day, it wouldn’t be remembered for its visual fidelity at all, as the characters and levels aren’t anything special. The levels vary and have their own style. The enemies look fine in each level. But the enemy originality is nothing special. The water level has frogs and oysters. The jungle level has lizards and snakes. The music is strange. At some points it sounds good, at other points it’s almost painful. The biggest problem is that it just doesn’t fit with the game’s art and design. The gameplay feels old-school. The graphics look old-school. The music just isn’t. I expected some sweet 16-bit goodness to pleasure my ears. Instead I got some weird pseudo-atmospheric generic songs that have no memorable values. If you’re going to make a game that beckons game to the classic days of arcade gaming, you need to go all out in every aspect.

One of the biggest frustrations to the game is the saves. After beating a level you are supposed to be able to skip that level in the future if you choose by walking backwards from the spawn point of every level. However this just doesn’t work for a large majority of the players who picked up the game. When the game was initially launched on the PC it didn’t even have this option. The only way to beat the game was to play all the way through nonstop. So maybe we shouldn’t complain so much because this option was a gift from the developer’s right? Wrong! Even though it’s something that they threw in to lighten the blow, it’s still something that is supposed to be in the game that just doesn’t work. Playing through every level straight-through is semi-ludicrous. Once you’ve beaten the level a dozen times, you shouldn’t have to much trouble beating it again. But there are six standard levels and six more secret levels, so beating them all the way through will take an extremely long time. After completing a level I felt exhausted and wanted to just save and come back later, but I couldn’t.

Volgarr the Viking is a good game. It’s extremely difficult, but in a fair way that is challenging instead of just unnecessarily cruel. If it takes an hour to beat a level the first time or two, but just a few minutes to beat it after that, then you’ve got a game that is tough in the right ways, just like the best brutal games of old. It teaches you how to defeat the game through the games difficulty itself. The gameplay and art would be right at home in the Penny Arcade in my local mall twenty years ago. Sadly the music can pull you out of that experience. However if Volgarr the Viking was in those arcades it might not be remembered today. I just don’t feel like it has its own unique place in that arcade world. A game like Shovel Knight, which was released earlier this year, manages to borrow from classic NES era games just like Volgarr borrows from classic arcade games. However Shovel Knight does two things that Volgarr does not. Firstly it never breaks from being a 100% NES old-school type game. From start to finish Shovel Knight is an old school game; gameplay, music, graphics, feel , everything. And secondly, more importantly perhaps, Shovel Knight borrows from the NES epoch but STILL manages to create its own special distinctive experience. If Shovel Knight was a game created in 1988 for the NES it would still be remembered today as one of the greats. Volgarr doesn’t have that distinctive feel, that thing that sets it apart and allows it to be its own extraordinary game. If you want a new game that delivers on the same exact hardcore experience that graced the screens of arcade monitors in the early 90’s then Volgarr the Viking will not disappoint. Just don’t expect a game that will blow your mind with new creative experiences in an old school skin and feel. But…. do purchase a few new controllers because you may break a few in anger at some point.

PROS:
1) Difficult and challenging in the right ways
2) Arcade feel

CONS:
1) Music
2) Nothing truly distinctive
3) Glitches to game saves

6.5
AVERAGE

 

Review: Sunset Overdrive

Sunset Overdrive
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Cost
$59.99
Format
Digital and Disc
Size
23.17 GB
Available On
Xbox ONE [Reviewed]
Release Date
10/28/2014
Developer
Insomniac Games
Publisher
Microsoft Studios
Modes
Single and Multiplayer

The year is 2027 and a new energy drink called Overdrive has turned the citizens of Sunset City into crazed mutants. The game plays out as a action packed 3rd person shooter with crazy movement. You grind on rails and bounce off of tree tops and skim over the water. The game is based on moving fast equals staying alive. You not only have to contend with the mutant hordes but also scabs, human criminals who are using the mutant scare to try to take over the city for themselves. There’s a mutant apocalypse coming can’t we all just get along?

The story is extremely funny and heavily self-aware. In one of the early missions you get a status update from a NPC back at the base and the NPC with you asks how you are communicating with the base. Your character scolds them for questioning something that is there just to move the story along. The general plot of the story is you are trying to escape Sunset City so you can tell the world what Fizzle Co is up to. In a welcome twist to the evil corporation trying to take over the world standard, here it was just a sad accident that the drink is destroying Sunset City. There was no malicious intent here, mutants don’t carry a lot of pocket change and make many energy drink purchases so it’s detrimental to the bottom line all this mutant business. But since it did unfortunately happen, Fizzle Co is also not really interested in taking the fall for it either.

The campaign is not particularly long and consists of 27 main missions that can be done in less than 7 hours time. So if you are a Point A to Point B and only play a game’s campaign type of player then the content level is certainly lacking. But if you are a Open World player of the highest of caliber and love the search for Side Missions and various Challenges then that time will more than double. Challenges consist of speed traveling, killing things in certain way and a ton of other stuff. Lots of variety. Add in an insane number of Collectibles and there is quite a bit to do in Sunset Overdrive.

Traversing the city is very smooth. Moving from grinding a rail to bouncing off some building awnings to hanging from some power lines is quick and smooth. My one issue with movement is there is a system of poles you can swing around to get a speed boost that almost never ever ever with my character grab them. They really are not needed but a lot of them have hanging collectibles and the range and perfection you need to grab these is a little insane. But that really is the only issue I had with movement. Sunset Overdrive really nailed the movement, from being able to reverse to changing from top riding or bottom hanging positions based on if you are trying to dodge incoming fire.

Combat in Sunset Overdrive is 3rd person shooter with a auto-aim system. You can manually aim if you want but you are typically grinding so fast that manual aiming is an exercise in futility. The game is based on speed so use it to your advantage. There are a ton of crazy guns to find and buy. Ranging for TNT Teddy Bear launchers to bowling ball launchers to flaming shotguns. As you use each weapon you can level it up for more damage and more ammo up to level 5. Leveling up your gun is just stage 1. On top of the weapons you are also working towards getting AMPs. AMPs are bought by getting the collectibles in the game and do things like add fire damage or stun damage all the way up to each time you jump on a bounce area the whole area below that is a mini bomb. These things get crazy fast and they have levels also. But that’s not all. You also can earn badges for grinding and getting kills with weapon types. These badges are combined to form Overdrives. Overdrive are bonuses like carry more single shot ammo or do more damage to this enemy type. You can really make your life a LOT easier by making sure to have the right AMP and Overdrive combo for the situation. If you want to get into the nitty gritty of the system there is a lot you can do, if you just want to get some bat crazy effects going then that is definitely an option also.

Collectibles. Normally I would rage against a game that sports over 600 collectibles but Sunset Drive does two things that tones my rage down quite a few notches. Firstly, you can buy maps for all the collectibles in game and see exactly where everything is making it a lot easier. Secondly they are not just achievement guide selling collectibles. You actually use these items in game to upgrade and make your AMPs so they have a purpose. 600 is still insane and it definitely will add quite a few hours to your gameplay of just nothing but running around the map but at least they just aren’t there to sell strategy guides.

The multiplayer is co-op with a competitive side. Although all 8 players are working towards the same goal, each player is scored individually. The missions are extremely varied from simple kill missions to item to retrieval to defense missions. There is a standard map voting at the end of each round and then you all run to the next part of the map for the next missions. The game can get quite crazy with 8 people shooting a million pyrotechnic guns in a small area but the game never showed any sign of slowing down or lag which was a welcome change from normal online play for most games. For a game that is so self-aware you need to actually activate mutliplayer (Chaos) from within the single player. So if you want to do some co-op you first have to load in the game and make your way to one of the Chaos portals. Nothing too crazy but an annoyance if all you want to do is get your multiplayer on.

I had, and am still having, a blast playing Sunset Overdrive. It’s definitely over the top in almost everything it does, which can be off-putting to some people, but I find it an amazing game. Once you get some of the higher end AMPs and the craziest of the crazy guns the game really takes off and looks just amazing with bright colors and over the top explosions. Insomniac has made one of the top games on Xbox ONE.

PROS:
1) Fun and Fast paced
2) Self aware with great comedy
3) Interesting characters

CONS:
1) Short campaign

9.4
Excellent

 

Review: The Wolf Among Us

The Wolf Among Us
box_BLANK_w160
Cost
$24.99
Format
Digital & Disc
Size
x.xx GB
Available On
Xbox ONE [Reviewed], Xbox 360, PS4, PS3, Vita
Release Date
11/4/14
Developer
Telltale Games
Publisher
Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
Modes
Single Player

The Wolf Among Us tells the story of Bigby Wolf, otherwise known to you and me as the Big Bad Wolf from the 3 Little Pigs fairy tale. Bigby Wolf is the Sheriff of Fabletown, a small enclave of characters of lore and stories who have come to live in the real world among us humans. These characters include Snow White, Ichabod Crane and the Woodsman from Red Riding Hood to name a few, along with mythical generic characters like Trolls. To hide their true identities, since Fabletown is located in the heart of New York City, Fables must use a magic called Glamour to make themselves look human. Glamour is regulated and expensive. Those who break the rules are sent out to the Farm, a location that is not explored in the game but the characters allude to it being less than comfortable. Think the TV show “Once Upon A Time” even though in truth the FABLES comics predate Once Upon A Time by probably 10 years or more.

rev_wolfamongus_02

The game plays out as what I would call an interactive story. There are some point and click sections and some QTE (quick time event) button action sequences but the majority of the game is conversation choices. Not to say you are going to be sitting there just watching cutscenes. To the contrary, you are interacting with the story constantly. I can’t really call it a point and click adventure in the traditional sense because the game hand holds you throughout. You simply are not allowed to move on until you get all the clues or information you need. Even failing a quick time event typically doesn’t create a game over event, you’ll just fumble around a little and continue on with your fight or chase. There are sections where you could die and have to reload but they are few and far between and you’ll typically be started right back up in the middle of what you were doing trying to get it right this time. In my entire playthrough of the game I managed to die once, and that was because I was interrupted in the middle of a QTE and looked up to my dead character.

rev_wolfamongus_03

Where this game, and with it all Telltale Games, shine is that all your choices constantly affect the game. Obviously if a character dies, they are not going to be in a scene latter in the game, but the system goes much deeper than that. Something as simple as being rude to someone in a conversation at the start of the game will affect how they react and deal with you 3 Episodes later. These relationships and events carry across your entire playthrough of the game. We’ve all played games where you choose between X and Y and it changes the game, but in The Wolf Among Us these events happen all the time. You can change a character’s perspective of you multiple times in a single conversation based on your choices. Something to note though is that no matter how bad or good or indifferent you are, your never locked out of any content, only the context of the conversations and interactions change. You don’t have to be nervous you are “ruining” this playthrough with your choices. Be as bad or good as you want to be. Then play again and do the opposite.

rev_wolfamongus_01

The story really is the thing here. It’s superbly written and the entire cast is amazing. All the characters feel like real people with real problems and as Bigby you have the opportunity to help or hinder them in their day to day lives. The lip syncing is probably the best I have ever seen which is so important to draw you in and make you believe the story is real. Add to that that it is pretty hard to dislike a character whose entire personality is based on the choices you have made for him and it’s a great experience.

There are a total of 5 Episodes with each Episode broken down into 5 Chapters. Each Episode is about an hour and a half of content and I finished my first playthrough in just under 9 hours. The game plays out as a TV miniseries complete with a Previously On at the start that is dynamically created based on your choices up to that point. At the end of each Episode you are presented with a screen that goes over what choices you made and how they line up with the rest of the community and not just the version you are playing. Mine included the ONE and 360 player bases.

If you’ve already played The Wolf Among Us in it’s episodic format then there are only superficial changes to the full retail release. It does play smoother and looks nicer but there is no added content of any kind that I could find. The achievements, although bumped up to 1000gs, are exactly the same as they were before, just doubled in value.

The Wolf Among Us is a compelling story in a world filled with interesting and well developed characters and I strongly recommend it if you haven’t already played it in the 360.

PROS:
1) Well told and acted story
2) Unique game experience
3) You craft the characters and world through your choices

CONS:
1) Almost no way to really fail, so no real tension
2) No new content vs 360 version

8.0
Excellent

 

Review: Chariot

Chariot
Chariot Pcitre
Cost
$19.95
Format
Digital
Size
2.69 GB
Available On
Xbox ONE [Reviewed], PS4, and PC
Release Date
09/30/2014
Developer
Frima Studios
Publisher
Frima Studios
Modes
Single Player and Couch Co-Op

Chariot is a puzzle based platformer with couch co-op features and a humorous tone. Developed by Frima Studios, the game tasks you with pulling and pushing the king’s funeral wagon through caverns and caves to a place to bury the remains. Along the way the witty king’s ghost complains and barks out orders as he wants you to collect as much loot as possible and find the perfect place to rest. The game focuses on secrets, unlocks, and branching paths in level by level progression.

Chariot’s gameplay is extremely simple. Each level however is not. The player is tasked with basically moving the chariot through, over, under, around obstacles to the finish of the level while collecting gold. There’s a rope that can be attached to the chariot to pull it over tough objects and to the goal. There are branching paths and hidden items everywhere. Some trails lead to more gold and other may lead to blueprints that can unlock equipable items to help along the journey. Items like a light to travel in the dark or a pin to place the rope in one spot to let the chariot hang to help traverse to new spots. The gameplay is straightforward to a fault. Although this could be categorized as a puzzle game, it will almost never challenge the mind. Each “puzzle” moment was just another time-consuming obnoxious barrier in the way. Moving around is slow and monotonous, as it takes an extensive time to just move the casket on wheels anywhere. The gameplay isn’t demanding enough on the brain to make it feel like a puzzle and the movement isn’t fun enough to make the game feel like a platformer. The levels are massive. The first few are basic, but the deeper you get into the game the larger the maps become. The branching paths at first are nice, but quickly it becomes tedious to collect everything. In a game like Mario, as an example of a standard platformer, when you see a pipe to climb down or a secret path you can quickly run down at full speed, hop on some goombas on the way, get the secret Yoshi coin and be on your way. It’s fun to go find hidden things because just running and jumping is fun in it of itself. In Chariot it feels like such a chore to just get to the finish, why would I feel obligated to go off and explore in different areas?

The good thing about the hidden items in Chariot is that they do improve the overall experience. In many games the collectables are just for fun—in Chariot they actually allow for the unlocking of some helpful items. However with so many branching paths it became annoying to take the time to go down all of these paths and get gold nine times out of ten and only get that nice blueprint after every nook and cranny has been checked. Gold in it of itself is used to buy things after turning in blueprints at the store, but running out of gold is hard to do as it’s everywhere.

Chariot does a very nice job teaching the player about gameplay mechanics. In some games all you get is a picture of a controller with words mapped to each button (one of my personal biggest video game pet peeves). In other games there can be lengthy confusing tiresome tutorials. I think the bet games educate how to play the game by creating intuitive level design that naturally teaches what to do. This could be as simple as just having a sign that says, “Don’t fall down that pit man, there’s totally snakes and stuff down there and that’s just scary! Press A to jump over it kay?” Or it can be as helpful as seeing that first bullet bill in Mario sail way over your head, so you can clearly see how that enemy moves and attacks, so that the next time it actually does fly straight at Mario you can jump over it with ease. Chariot does this smart instruction of its game for the most part, except when it comes to attacking the bad guys…

One of the most annoying parts about Chariot is the enemies, or as the king calls them, looters. Rat like creatures and bat like creatures hide inside of holes in the wall and attack the king’s treasury to attempt to run off with the gold. The first few times this happened to me I had no idea that I could slice these little cretins by pressing ‘X’. Once that’s learned they become just obnoxious foes that get in the way. The way to avoid them completely is to move quietly and slowly passed the dark holes they live in. Simple enough right? WRONG! You have to move like a slug on sedatives to evade these snatching scalawags. Seriously just the slightest movement will make them all attack you, which again isn’t a big problem it just makes the game THAT much more boring. Even worse is that the majority of the spots where the looters are hidden are places that are impossible to avoid. For example I fell down a mandatory pit and at the bottom were three holes filled with bats that came swarming out as the king screamed out, “I THOUGHT I TOLD YOU TO BE QUIET!” I had literally no choice but to awake all of these loathsome thieves. Or on similar moments there are barriers to climb over and drop down on the other side and even though I see the looters waiting in their little hole and I know I can’t make a big noise, the only way to get down off the ledge is to drop down right on top of them. It’s like every single decision made in the game’s design was to force the player to move unnecessarily slow. To reiterate, the game’s movement and pace is already very slow. There are seemingly endless branching paths that give me things that only slightly push the game forward. The “puzzles” are more like exhausting time-consuming hills to climb up and over as opposed to creative brain-teasers. And now they throw in enemies that provide no physical challenge other than being MORE dreary obstacles in my way and if I want to try to avoid them completely I have to move even slower and quieter than ever? I’m not sure if I’ve ever played a game this anti-ADHD! I’m not at all opposed to slow paced methodicital games, in fact I love a lot of them. But because the puzzles aren’t really puzzles, the platforming really isn’t platforming, and the enemies aren’t really enemies there doesn’t seem to be a logical reason at all to make this game so deliberately sluggish.

There is couch co-op in Chariot but no online play at all. Each level can be completed a bit easier and faster with two players pushing and pulling the dead king to the goal. And there are also hidden areas in every level that can only be reached when two players combine forces and take on the task together. This actually helps the game, as the quicker pace negates some of the slow-paced flaws. But it’s not enough to save the game completely. And the decision to be couch co-op only is a bad one. I do love that couch co-op has made a small resurgence as of late, there’s nothing quite like competitively or cooperatively playing with a buddy right by your side. But many of us don’t have this opportunity. Why not be able to jump online with a friend and tackle the king’s demands as a team? It’s ashamed that this isn’t an option as it could have been one of the games saving graces.

There is a charm about Chariot that is nice. The art style is simple yet colorful and vibrant. In some levels plants and colors grow and shine as soon as you walk near them. The whole game takes place underground, so it can’t stretch its wings in very unique ways but the overall graphical design is still fine. The animations are cute and the characters are fun. However just the game itself, it’s probably too simple for its own good. How many indie style games look pretty much exactly like this? It’s wonderful to see games like Fez, Limbo, SuperTimeForce or Minecraft be limited in their overall graphical power but still manage to create their own unique artful style. Chariot is just another cartoonish sidescroller. The voice acting is one part perfect and one part appalling. The king does the majority of the speaking and his lines are often clever and amusing. He’s both demanding and needy, which is always a hilarious mix. His lines are quickly repeated however and this get’s old fast. Meanwhile there’s a skeleton that runs the shop above the caverns and the writing and execution of his character is awful. His voice completely doesn’t fit. The moment he started talking it pulled my out of the game’s experience and I for an instant didn’t even know who was talking. I thought the skeleton CLEARLY can’t sound like that, can he? His jokes fall flat every time. He’s like the poor stand-up comic who should probably just call it quits because tomatoes are about to start flying but he just keeps going.

Overall Chariot is a big disappointment. It has some things going for it. An interesting game mechanic, a silly slapstick story, charming visuals, and it’s October 2014’s free game of the month for Xbox Live Gold members! But the puzzles are to brainless, the platforming is to slow and uninteresting, and the visuals never go beyond the average indie art style stigma. Even the crazy king’s undead jokes and his journey for riches and the perfect resting place can’t save Chariot from itself. Honestly some games are broken, some games are flawed, some games are unfinished, some games are designed poorly, and some are executed poorly. But no matter what—games need to be fun. If a game is perfect in every way, but it’s not fun, then it has little to no purpose. Sometimes a game can be imperfect but still be a lot of fun. And In the end Chariot is just boring—to go along with its many other flaws—in the end Chariot is just not fun.

PROS:
1) The King

CONS:
1) Slow repetitive boring gameplay
2) Looters
3) The skeleton

5.0
DULL

 

Review: How To Survive: Storm Warning Edition

How To Survive: Storm Warning Edition
box_howtosurvive_w160
Cost
$19.99
Format
Digital
Size
3.00 GB
Available On
Xbox ONE [Reviewed], PS4
Release Date
10/28/2014
Developer
eko Software
Publisher
505 Games
Modes
Single and Co-op

How to Survive: Storm Warning Edition is a next gen update to the XBLA game How to Survive. This updated edition includes all the DLC for the original game. I’ve never got a chance to play How to Survive on 360 so I don’t know if this is a graphical or engine update also. How to Survive is a top down 3D twin stick zombie adventure game. The game can be played in either Single or Co-op play and has you exploring islands trying to get enough parts to fix your seaplane and escape.

The Tutorial is told through a series of survival guides written by a NPC in the game named Kovac. They play out in funny little pictogram skits within each book you find teaching you about your inventory, eating and everything else you need to know to survive. Genius tidbits like don’t sleep in the wide open as a zombie is going to come and eat your face. Stuff you need to know. These guides come into play in a nice loading screen mini quiz where correct answers gain you XP. It’s a nice bonus and the game only loads between islands so you can stay immersed the entire game.

This game is pretty brutally hard. Besides trying to keep your body safe from rampaging zombies, you need to manage your thirst, hunger and tiredness also. Of all of these thirst seem to be the hardest to maintain. There are some fruits that help with thirst but for the most part you are relaying on wells that are on the islands. The biggest issue is once you use a well, it’s done. Everything else in the game seems to regenerate on a timer but as so far I’ve yet to see a single well re-fill. It is also extremely important to keep up on the weapon damage curve. Not finding the one part to get the next bow really puts you behind and makes the game a drag as you tackle not only health but the thirst, hunger and tired levels wasting time trying to find that part.

The game is played out over a series of islands where for whatever reason each boat can only go to one other island. So you get the engine starter for the boat on Los Riscos Island and that gets you to La Vendida Island and it’s not a one use boat. You can now use it to go back and forth as often as you like. But on La Vendida Island there is a new boat to get you to the next island but it needs a fan belt or something. Why am I not just using the boat I already fixed up? It would of been more realistic to make me continue to upgrade the same boat and just have islands be further out. One of the biggest issues with the travel system is that any zombies in the area you are heading to will already be hitting you before you gain control. I’ve died quite a few times just by leaving an area and coming back to a horde or zombies waiting for me. There is no way around this, you need to dodge and roll and pray you get out all the while taking hits you don’t deserve due to no safe zones around loading area. There are quite a few punishing areas that seemed to be there just to hurt the player for no reason. During the games storms you’ll be hit my lightning a TON of times taking massive damage. There are near invincible crocodiles that sap your ammo with how much of a bullet sponge they are. Don’t even get me started on the bear that appeared out of no where and wrecked havoc on my inventory, destroying precious and rare items every time he hit me.

How to Survive has a very complex and interesting inventory system. There are just so MANY items to keep track off and so little space to keep them. I have tires and bones and special plants and all kinds of stuff that I don’t know when I am going to need it or even if I am going to need it. Things can be combined in multiple ways but early in the game their effectiveness is not known. It does add to the difficulty in a very thematic sense as it adds to the unknown factor of your character’s journey. Do I need this plant or is this tire more important? As a player though I hate having to throw something away without knowing it’s purpose or value. When you find a blueprint it will be added to your guide and you’ll know 100% for sure what you are going to get when you combine two items, but the game doesn’t hold you back from experimenting. It doesn’t give you bad options, meaning you will always make something usable, but without finding the page it’s a complete guess as to what is going to be the final product. The game also has multiple stage creations. Your first gun is going to be 5 parts added one as a time until you end up with a makeshift gun so there is some good depth here. If you have the inventory space you are allowed to dismantle items back to their original parts so that you can incorporate new and better things. My biggest piece of advice is to drop your extra items near a boat or safe house. This way you can find them later if you figure out later they are needed. The biggest problem for me is just finding the items. The game doesn’t highlight or give you an indication that something can be used until you are right up on it. There are tons of things just sitting in the tall grass you’ll walk on by 20 or more times until you finally walk over it and get the press A to pick up.

The story is your typical horror survival. Wake up on island, don’t know why you are there, just that you want to get away from the zombies. The voice acting is decent and each mission will have a little intro from the character and what they want. One of the major downfalls is that the gameplay started to get quite repetitive quickly. Every single mission you will undertake is a fetch quest. This boat needs this part, I need this thing to give you this other thing to give to someone else to get the thing you actually want. Again and again and again. The only thing that changes is the island you are on and although they’ll add some new enemies all the islands really look the same. The layout will change but from a glance you are not going to know one from another.

There are a few other modes that have been added to this version that were DLC for the original. There is a challenge series you can do single or co-op. Get to the plane fast, kill all the zombies, that sort of thing. Then there is also a randomly generated island where the layout is the same but what resources and where they are scattered. You also get additional characters to play through with and some alternate costumes that have added bonuses.

Overall How to Survive is an interesting take on Zombie Survival with its Thirst, Hunger and Tired system and it has an amazing crafting system but overall the game started to drag with its near endless fetch quests. If you like the survival genre then there are a lot of new concepts and ideas that push the genre forward in good directions and these additions overshadow the game’s shortcomings.

PROS:
1) New concepts for Survival Genre
2) Complex and interesting crafting system

CONS:
1) Fetch gameplay gets repetitive
2) Game seems to enjoy punishing you for no reason

7.0
Good

 

Review: Madden NFL 15

MADDEN NFL 15
YEA! JUST MADDEN COVA BRO
Cost
$59.99
Format
Digital and Retail
Size
14.96 GB
Available On
Xbox ONE [Reviewed], PS4, Xbox 360, PS3
Release Date
8/26/2014
Developer
EA Tiburon
Publisher
EA
Modes
Singleplayer and Couch/Online Multiplayer


Each year Madden faces a challenge tougher than facing off against Cam Chancellor, Richard Sherman, Earl Thomas, and that stout Seattle Defense; tougher even than the 12th man screaming on the legion of boom on 3rd and 12. What’s that challenge? Meeting and exceeding the expectations of Madden gamers—who want an experience that looks, feels, and plays better every single year. Often times the biggest hurdle for franchises with yearly adaptations are themselves. It’s incredibly daunting to successfully iterate on games every 12 months. This is even more the case with sports games. In a game like Call of Duty, each year the developer can change the setting, the story, the multiplayer format, the progression, the guns, the maps, and more. For a baseball or hockey or football game what can you do? Maybe a new game-mode, but 90% of the time, game-modes come and go and are forgotten. Madden successfully created an innovative game-mode with Ultimate Team, and that game-mode itself has pretty much become the biggest attraction. The expectations for sports games almost can’t be met. Many gamers want something that feels fresh and new and exciting and unlike what they played nonstop for 6 months straight only 6 months ago. The best way to review or enjoy Madden, and other games like this, is to ask this question; what was done right and what was done wrong in last year’s version? And has THIS year’s edition kept the good and fixed the bad?
MADDEN PIC 8
Madden’s gameplay has been tried and true for a long time. Each year the developer attempts to update the gameplay to be both more realistic as well as more in tune with the NFL, which is ever-changing with new fads and trends. Madden NFL 15’s biggest gameplay focus is the defense. Since the Seattle Seahwaks decimated the NFL’s best ever passing attack in the Super Bowl they wanted to strengthen that side of the ball. In the past it definitely seemed like on the offensive side of the ball you had control while the defensive side was a guessing game. That and the offense has been just more fun. The defensive changes are across multiple levels. On the defensive line is where the game is completely altered for the better. If you take control of a defensive end getting ready to rush the quarterback you’ve got more options than ever. For starters you can get a boost off of the snap by hitting the sprint button the moment the ball is hiked. This is huge and gives players with quick fingers an advantage. However the offense can fake snap it and draw the lineman offside. Once snapped, you can use power or rush moves by hitting the button at the precise timing to obliterate the blocker and hit the QB. There’s also a tackle cone for when you are approaching the ball carrier. There’s a small cone that stretches out from the front of the player you are controlling that you can use to face the ballcarier, line up the defender, and make the tackle. There’s also a new camera angle that flips around and has you facing the offense. Personally I’m not a big fan and I like the classic camera look. All of these changes not only help you attack the offense better, they actually help in confidence as well, you feel like you’ve got a real shot at slowing down these crazy fast paced offenses. On the offensive side there are few changes when it comes to post-snap gameplay. It’s still for the most part smooth and responsive.

MADDEN PIC 3

One of the best parts about Madden over the past few years is the gameplaning and play-calling. And with Madden 15 the advancements are better than ever. Before I go over this let’s talk about the brilliant additions in the Skills Trainer mode. As Madden vets would know, the Skills Trainer is a feature that trains the player on all aspects of the game—anything from second-to-second gameplay, how to pass, how to tackle, etc. The training sessions that teach the player how to do the absolute basics may be a laugh and may seem mostly pointless to long-time Madden masters, and to be honest it sort of is. In the past, these extremely basic tutoring features were all that Skills Trainer had to offer. But with Madden 15 they added an incredibly helpful and fun array of teachings sessions. There’s a very helpful training course for how to read defenses based on their pre-snap look. Looking for cover 2, man to man, cover 3, and more is one of the best ways to understand where to go with the ball once the ball is snapped. There’s also a training session that teaches how to slide the line to block the oncoming pass-rush. It’s very rewarding to see the defense overloading on the right side, audibleing to a run to the left, sliding the line to the right, and running down the field 15 yards before even being touched. And then there’s the new and brilliant concept training. Concept training teaches the player what different routes mean and how they are properly executed. Instead of just seeing a bunch of routes spread out across the field you are taught to understand how to read the defense and manipulate them. You are taught with each concept which player should be the first, second, and third read. This not only teaches the game of Madden, this teaches the game of football in an impressive way. You can suck up all this knowledge and instantly apply it to your very next game. I personally played some of it just screwing around when I first played the game and didn’t think anything of it. However when I came back to the Skills Trainer and focused on the concept training my game jumped up unbelievably. It’s one thing to understand routes and defensive coverages. It’s another thing to know concepts, your reads, how to watch for which routes the safety covers, and how to bounce through your progression to pass the ball to the wide open receiver flying across the middle of the field.

MADDEN PIC 4

The other amazing addition to Madden 15 is the features that Smartglass had last year developed straight into the game. For Madden 25 there was a Smartglass app for the game that would show you what play the opponent just used, what plays they often go to in different scenarios, what plays the community suggests on diverse downs and distances, and how effective various plays are that you’ve used so far. This was all nice but daunting and distracting to have to look down at your phone or tablet and jump back up to the game to find what plays you’re looking for and what to do. All of this is now directly in the game easy to see whenever you are ready to pick a play. You can instantly see what play was just used by your competitor and how effective it was. You can also see what selections of plays have worked well and not so well for yourself, and every other feature that Smartglass had last year. This is pivotal for progressing through the match and picking the right plays for each down. From the beginning I used these features and they helped me tremendously. As time went on it also helped me to rely on it less and allowed me to create my own ideas of how to stop different offensive and defensive attacks that I face.

MADDEN PIC 5
After some time in skills trainer along with just time on the game itself to get a good feel of how things work, it’s entirely possible to develop deep gameplans and impose your will on the opponent. With truly understanding how offenses and defenses work you can create an identity for yourself. One of the great parts about this is that sometimes that gameplan will work from start to finish and you’ll win the match 28-7. Other times the opponent’s style might be a perfect fit to slow you down and you can choose to abandon the gameplan, change things up, or keep grinding until it works. Personally I’ve become in love with a running attack on offense and a bend but don’t break approach for defense. Even if the opponent is slowing down my rushing attack I keep pushing it. If I get stuck on a 3rd and long I have a few go to plays to pick up that yardage. Maybe it’s a halfback screen or a flood concept play that allows for a wide receiver to come screaming through the cover two wide open. The fun part about this is to keep evolving throughout the match while still imposing your will. On defense I like to focus on stopping any big plays first, I don’t like getting beat deep. Try to go deep and it will be intercepted or incomplete. I let some small dink and dunk passes over the middle and I don’t care if the opponent picks up small yards here and there. My plan is to wait for the perfect timing to call blitzes and force errant throws, I like to let the opposing QB think he can finally take a shot deep down the middle and instead I’ve got a safety ready to pick it off. As long as the opponent is the one making big mistakes and not me, I’ve got a great chance of winning. In one match during the fourth quarter of a very tight online game I stopped my foe on fourth and goal on the two yard line as he tried to take the lead in the middle of the fourth quarter. The score at this point was 21-17. When I took over the ball I hit four runs right down the middle for fifteen yards and suddenly the opponent was crowding the line of scrimmage with a linebacker blitz. I still wanted to keep running, to both control the clock and let him know his blitz didn’t affect me. So I called a counter running play and slid the lineman to block the oncoming run stuffers. I’d been running nicely all day but hadn’t yet busted a deep one, until now. The blitz was picked up and I ran 35 yards down the field and was suddenly almost at midfield. On first down I ran again right down the middle for just a few yards, but it was enough to get my rival cursing me out for playing so conservatively. The next play I called a run again, but before the snap I could see he was about to send everyone on a biltz to finally put an end to my running attack that was controlling his entire clock. I audibled to a play-action, changed my line to max protection, and noticed my speedy receiver was going to be in single coverage. So I hot-routed him to do a go route down the field and snapped the ball with a few seconds on my play-clock. Most of the blitz was picked up and the rest took the bait thinking I handed it off to my running back for the 25th time; I took a step forward, heaved the ball to a wide open receiver in the end zone and took an eleven point lead with only three minutes left in the match. Two plays later I intercepted the ball while he was in desperation mode calling the same crossing pattern play he called four times already and I won the match 35-17. Never have I been able to play with such control in Madden before; using more knowledge then skill. Skill is very much needed, but playing smart and learning when to take those chances and how to control the game is exceptionally satisfying.

MADDEN PIC 6

So much already and I still haven’t gone over MUT! Madden Ultimate Team has become Madden’s go to gamemode. While franchise mode allows you to play through the career of a player or own a football team and make business decisions, MUT uses collectable cards to build your team just the way you like. Basically it takes the idea of collecting football cards when you were growing up and slaps that into Madden, where you collect your QB, HB, WR, CB, and more. Each player has their own stats, with each card being categorized as a Bronze, Silver, Gold, or Elite card. There are also special cards like the Legends series which has great players from the past like Sterling Sharpe or Dave Casper. Or the Rising Stars series that focuses on young up and coming talent that is proving itself in the league. There’s even a series of cards from Football Outsiders, a website and program that digs deep into the stats and performances of NFL talent and evaluates them. These special cards can have even better stats and be worth more. All of these cards can be collected and used in your line-up. They can also be sold in the auction for anyone who needs the card and will trade them for coins, the games currency. Cards can also be added to sets, which have a pre-determined selection of cards that must be added to the set to give you a special reward. There are two main modes of gameplay here, single player and online multiplaer. The single player has various challenges that can give you rewards like packs with players in them or coins to buy more cards in the auction. The multiplayer is like going through a season and with more success you can get more rewards. There were a few big complaints in previous versions of MUT that were fixed perfectly. In previous years you could only have a select amount of cards in your “line-up”, like the roster of the real NFL. All the rest of you cards went to your binder. This is fine; however it used to be extremely annoying to find a card, select it for the roster, or add it to a set. Now it’s much more fluid. You can add players to the set right from the set itself for example. The binder is your roster now, you can do with them how you please and the limit for how many players you could have in your actual playing roster doesn’t exist anymore.

MADDEN PIC 7

The overall set-up for MUT is brilliant. The execution however falls short in one major way. It’s just so extremely difficult and tedious to get good cards. You can slave away at many of the single player challenges and only end up with very weak cards. For example you can play a whole season in one of the challenges and get a gold player card, which sounds great until you realize that gold cards can be anything from 70 all the way to 90. And getting anything above an 82 is extremely rare. Usually you are rewarded with some 74 overall card that is pretty much an instant throw away. Meanwhile finishing a set can give you often amazing rewards, like a 90 overall captain card for each team. But the cards required to sacrifice into the set to get your reward are worth so much more. For example if you want the captain for the Bears, Matt Forte, you must first give up twenty cards that are from the Chicago Bears team. Some of these cards are pretty cheap in the auction, around just 3,000 coins. And maybe you already have a few of them from opening packs. But many of the cards go for 5,000 to 25,000 coins. One of the things you need to add to the set is an Elite Badge, which you can get from getting very very very lucky in a pack you open. But if you don’t have one, it costs around 55,000 in an auction. And the stupidest part is that one of the cards you need to place into this set is the 87 overall elite Matt Forte, who goes for about 35-40 thousand in the auction house. So I looked at the auction house for all of these cards and found out that they are worth over 170,000 coins! So if you have those cards, just sell them in the auction instead because guess what, the 90 overall captain card of Matt Forte that you will be rewarded from this set is worth only 74,000 coins. So it’s much smarter to just buy one from the auction. For some of the sets this is even worse. For example I got super lucky and received the Elite 88 overall LeSean Mccoy from a pack. He’s worth over 100,000 coins. If I wanted the captain card for the Eagles I would have to give him up, along with another 19 cards worth around 100,000 coins. OR I COULD BUY THE TRENT COLE EAGLES CAPTAIN CARD FOR JUST 90,000 COINS!!! The Mccoy card they want me to give up is worth more than the reward! There are a few of these sets that are actually worth it. For example if you slave away at the “Style Challenges” on solo mode for twenty hours you will be able to complete the set to get a 95 overall Peyton Manning and 95 overall Luke Kuechly. But even that you need to buy a bunch of cards from the auction too. No matter how you slice it, it’s both time consuming and often times not worth it at all to do many of the sets and challenges. Here’s the kicker, you can also spend REAL MONEY to buy packs that have cards in them. Pro tip, DON’T DO IT! The PRO cards have very weak cards in them, and it’s rare to get anything good. You can easily spend hundreds of dollars and just get a few good cards here and there. If you do want to put some money down every so often get the special addition packs. For example right now there is a Breast Cancer Awareness pack for about 5 dollars; these packs have a much better chance of getting some good players. So if you are tempted to spend a few bucks, wait for these special packs to go on sale. Overall the best way is just to grind through single player and multiplayer to get as many coins as you can so you can buy cards from the auction.

MADDEN PIC 9

Although many of the changes and additions to Madden 15 are some of the best the series has seen in years, there are still a few things that need to be addressed. The play-by-play commentary is absolutely awful. Phil Simms and Jim Nantz just don’t work well for Madden. Now this could be partly my own personal opinion, but I’ve never liked the commentary of Phil Simms anyway. His insight is often pointless and even arrogant. In any sports game you quickly start hearing the same phrases over and over and it can get annoying. But along with the repetition, much of the commentary is either completely worthless is just plain wrong. One of my favorite examples is a phrase that I hear once every few games. On third and long if you fail to pick up the first down you often here this: “This situation is tough, on third and long it’s tough to make a first down in these types of situations” Wow…. What brilliant commentary. A massive chunk of what you hear is just uninteresting mumbo jumbo. The best and most interesting information is usually just at the start of the match, when the QB comes running out onto the field and they have a few thoughts, or when a star like Le’Veon Bell makes a play so they talk about some of his special characteristics. But that type of commentary is few and far between. Sims also loves to talk about his own repeated thoughts, often saying, “It’s like I always say” or “Like I always say”. He even contradicts himself. One minute he’ll tell you that the QB needs to trust his arm and throw the ball down the field on 3rd down to pick up the first down. And then a few moments later he will say how it’s a good idea to throw the ball short on 3rd down and he hates when people say otherwise. The most obnoxious comments are the ones that are just false. He talks about a wide receiver just giving his everything to catch that ball but he just missed it. But in reality the ball was knocked down at the line and the receiver never even attempted to catch the ball because it wasn’t even close. Or if it’s cover 2 he will badger the QB for not throwing it deep down the middle, EVEN IF THAT’S EXACTLY WHERE THE BALL WAS JUST THROWN! Or he will talk about cover 2 when the play was just actually cover 3! On top of that Sims is just always right in his mind. In one game I was down by twelve points with two minutes left in the game. Before the snap he said that the decision to go for it on fourth down was the wrong one. And after I failed he said; I would have never gone for it, just kick a field goal and live to play another down. What are you talking about? Then I’d be down by nine points with less than two minutes to go! Why would that help me? There were plenty of times that Sims was on a tirade about something and the game is continuing with a big play down the field that they completely miss and act like didn’t exist. Also within the first match I played I already heard a dozen things I heard from last year’s Madden. Oh the list is endless; I can’t even begin to explain how repetitive, unbearable, and just plain erroneous the play by play calling is. Here’s the quick fix, get rid of Sims. Here’s the best choice, bring back Cris Collinsworth. I recently saw someone playing Madden 11 with Gus Johnson and Cris Collisworth. The duo is perfect for Madden. Collinsworth especially is a thousand times more insightful, polite, and non-arrogant. On top of that, although it would be time consuming, spend more time creating more phrases and dialog. And lastly develop the game to be more accurate with those comments. There’s nothing more annoying than to hear one guy say, “The quarterback is hoping to avoid being sacked for a THIRD TIME!” followed the very next statement being, “The quarterback has had all day to throw the football”.

MADDEN PIC 1

Sadly even though true game planning and realistic execution has been nearly perfected in Madden 15, there are still changes that need to be made. In one game I played, my online opponent on MUT had a stacked team, much better than mine, but I knew I still had a chance with solid gameplay and just being smart. On offense I was golden; I scored on every drive, all touchdowns and one field goal. However EVERY time he went back to pass he sprinted Peyton Manning directly in the wrong direction and while facing the wrong way he would launch the ball down the field 40 yards into triple coverage and make the catch. Literally no matter what I did it would work because he would just run towards my endzone and launch the ball while not even looking to a receiver and the ball would be perfect. It makes no sense. On top of that 5 or 6 balls were miss thrown and my defenders just dropped it. Yes it happens, defenders drop the ball, but some of these were such ducks that my 8 year old nephew could catch it. And on top of that he would scramble with Manning and I’d come screaming in with a safety or linebacker and hit Peyton Manning so hard that Archie and Eli should be able to feel it. I know Peyton is tough, but if on one single drive down the field I hit him four times so hard it looks like an eighteen wheeler hit a Prius and life goes on like nothing’s happened there’s a big problem. Madden prides itself on making sure the game is as realistic as possible, yet super strange ways to play the game like this sometimes work. My biggest complaint is the same it’s been for many years, and that’s controlling the player. There are different occasions while playing madden where you have absolutely no control over the runner with the football. For example you can throw a pass to a receiver who’s running an out-route, if you throw it just a yard or 2 before the out of bounds marker he will toe-tap his feet inbounds very realistically. If you throw the ball let’s say 10 yards from the line you can take control and cut up field as soon as the ball is caught. However almost every single time if you throw the ball with the receiver having about 5 yards to go before running out of bounds you have no control over the player and he will run out of bounds. Plenty of times on 3rd and short I’ll hit the wide open receiver on the flat who should just cut up field 3 yards for the 1st down but instead darts directly out of bounds as if the Gatorade table magically transformed into an all you can eat steak buffet. This is incredible frustrating. A similar problem occurs when running the ball. Each run play has a designed hole that is supposed to open so the running back can go bursting through. Sometimes that spot is not open and you’d like to cut back to a different lane. Sometimes it works just fine, other times for some odd reason you can feel the game not letting you move your player. The more you play the game the more you can feel this type of thing. In the open field you cannot really control a player as much as you’d like. Maybe I’ll throw a screen pass to Antonio Brown and I’ll see exactly what I want to do, I can see the players about to be blocked and the hole I need to squeeze through. But in game it just doesn’t let me fluidly move the way I know Brown can do with ease in the real world. These athletes can stop on a dime, react to a blocker, cut back inside, and explode down the field. In Madden they sacrificed total control for realistic movements. They want the game to look so real, but this has resulted in less control. My last gameplay related complaint is inconsistent blocking. As a player who loves to run the ball I see problems much more often than I’d like to. Sometimes I read the blockers and I’ll see my lead blocker about to demolish the linebacker trying to seal the cutback lane and I know I’m set for a huge gainer. But instead my full back just runs right through him like he’s Casper the friendly ghost wanting a loving hug and I get crushed for a three yard loss.

So let’s go back to my initial question. Did they keep the good from last year and fix the bad? For the most part, they absolutely did. The changes to MUT in handling the cards and fixing the overall presentation were much needed, sadly it’s still difficult to just get good cards without feeling pressured to waste real cash or grinding for hours and hours. The changes to skills trainer are amazing, if you want to advance your game exponentially then I definitely recommend. Not only does to educate on many aspects of the game, it also highlights how advanced and detailed the game has become. The best part about Madden has become the cerebral side of it, which is something I truly love. It’s one thing to be excited when you beast-mode over some poor cornerback with Marshawn Lynch for a long touchdown. It’s something entirely more gratifying to have a gameplan, execute the gameplan, adjust the play at the line of scrimmage fro when the defense adjusts, and consistently outwit the opponent. Madden 15 is as beautiful as any sports game ever. The lighting, effect, presentation are all top notch. And the facial animation is truly impressive. Although some players look hideous, most of the coaches and players look eerily similar to their real life gridiron selves. There are still issues with commentary, MUT can be overwhelming, and some gameplay changes still need to be improved on. But Madden 15 successfully revitalized the defensive side of the football, made proper adjustments to the presnap analytical aspect of the sport, and has created the best all around football game in the last decade.

PROS:
1) Graphically stunning
2) Skills Trainer
3) Defensive adjustments
4) Cerebral football at it’s best
CONS:
1) Good MUT cards WAY too hard to achieve
2) Sacrificed total control for realistic look
8.2
Excellent

 

Review: Project Spark

Project Spark
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Cost
$0.00
Format
Digital & Disc
Size
2.52 GB
Available On
Xbox ONE [Reviewed], Windows 8
Release Date
10/7/14
Developer
Team Dakota
Publisher
Microsoft Games Studio
Modes
Single & Multiplayer


Project Spark is a “game” where the main purpose is to get you to use it to create your own games. Where as games like Little Big Planet are games first, and give you the ability to create your own levels, Project Spark is where you create games and there happen to be a few official games to play. The majority of the content is geared towards you making a game. And you can make just about anything. 2-D sidescrollers, top down dual stick shooters, RPGs with leveling systems and unlocks. You think it up and you can make it, to a degree. This is a Free to Play after all. As with all these types of games there are a select few creators making amazing things that are definitely worth your time to play, but there are also thousands of unplayable boring garbage to wade through to be able to find the good.

Team Dakota has included a short 3-D adventure game called Crossroads that is playable right out of the box. It’s really a story you are telling. Everything from what you are seeking to what buildings are in the starting town to what boss you will fight is all up to you and is generated in real time and is quite a bit of fun. My issue with Crossroads is that it’s really just a thinly veiled attempt to get you to buy DLC. Almost every options comes with 1 or 2 DLC options that when chosen send you straight to the store to buy them.

As a Free-to-Play game I understand that things are going to cost real world money. They need to make money to keep making content. Unlike 90% of the world, I understand that. Content Packs cost between 500 and 1,000 tokens each, which translate to $5 to $10. Some of these, like the Massive World Builder, are almost a requirement to build a game of substance. At launch there are already over 15 content packs to buy with various combos and bundles making buying decisions even harder. Here is a graph that Mescad made just to try to track what comes in what. Please look at this and tell me as a new player what the heck is going on here:
rev_projectspark_whattobuy

Most of the content packs can be bought with in-game money. Money is most easily earned through a series of daily challenges. The kick to the gut is that almost a quarter of them require DLC to even do. There are challenges for beating bosses that only come in DLC and there is always challenges for all 4 Champions, 2 of which are paid DLC. This money trickles in at crazy low rates. Like all F2P games you’ll earn a ton of money your first few days as challenges and milestone are easy to complete, by week two you are getting next to nothing. The other money grab is you can buy Spark Premium, for real money, which gives you a 200% bonus to XP and in game money and also allows you to buy DLC that costs real money for non-Premium players with in game money. So you have to pay real money to earn in game money to buy DLC without real money. WOW.

Project Spark also has a episodic game that is based on a cardinal sin of mine for creation games. The stuff that the devs put out, in Project Spark’s case: Void Storm, utilize things that we as players do not have access to in creating our own games. I expect the devs games to be better because of their vast knowledge and time with the engine, but I also expect to be able to look at that code and have it help me make my game better. Void Storm utilizes voiceovers and graphics and Kode that I don’t get to use. It would be one thing if these were presented as a showcase of things to come, but it feels more like they wanted to be able to do something that Project Spark couldn’t do, so they added it anyway.

Creating games is where its at through. Project Sparks has basic frameworks available to get you started and there is a active community to help with any issues you encounter. You are not going to create something amazing in the first 20 minutes though, there is a lot of code required to make things work. Coding in Project Spark is called Koding with a K, I guess just to be cool. It’s all based on When, Do statements and everything you can do is represented with Tiles so there is no guessing as to the structure or wording. Like When: My Player interacts with door, Do: Open the Door is a simple example. They give you the tools to make things a lot more complicated though like When: My Player has the Key and has killed 50 Goblins and I have 20 coins, Do: Open the Door. After you watch a few YouTube videos and really scour the forums you are well on your way to making a passable game. But who has the time or inkling to do that? If they had made the designer like they made Crossroads, where you are presented with choices. What kind of game do you want to make? What kind of enemies? Etc, etc and then you do in and do some tweaking it would have a much broader audience and a much lower bar to getting that first game created.

For you achievement hunters I feel like I’d be remiss if I didn’t spell out the insane amount of time it will take to complete Project Spark. First off there are a fair number of achievements that are tied to DLC. It is possible to earn enough in-game money to buy the DLC without real money but it’s going to be a fairly substantial time investment. There are also a LOT of achievements for getting an insane number of downloads (multiple levels on up to 50,000 downloads. Yes 50k) and votes on your levels. The game is currently flooded with garbage and instant win levels for people who are mad scrambling for achievements.

As it stands Project Spark is a great start. There is a lot there, but there is also a lot missing. The most positive thing I can say is the future looks bright as Team Dakota is actively working with the community to enact improvements and new content is constantly being added. For the cost of a big fat nothing it’s a fun quick enjoyable game even if all you do is play the Crossroads adventure game, which also is constantly going to be updated.

PROS:
1) Completely new game concept for the ONE
2) Official games are enjoyable and diverse

CONS:
1) Hard to find good games to play
2) Only 1 Tutorial included, needs more instruction
3) Money sink for more content
4) Hard to figure out what content to get and what it does

7.5
Good

 

Review: Forza Horizons 2

Forza Horizon 2
box_forzahorizon2_w160
Cost
$59.99
Format
Digital & Disc
Size
36.57 GB
Available On
Xbox ONE [Reviewed], Xbox 360
Release Date
9/30/14
Developer
Playground Games
Publisher
Microsoft Studios
Modes
Single & Multiplayer

Forza Horizon 2 is a open world car racing game where you are a racer in the fictional Horizon Festival. This year we are racing around 4 cities in Europe competing in a 168 4-race championships utilizing over 200 different cars. Yes, there are over 168 championships this year and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

The best part of this game is the real variety in tracks and events. Forza 5 to me was stymied by each series being the same tracks just with a different class of car. I’m glad people like to race on “Sebring International” since it’s a real track. I did too… the first 15 times I raced it. Then it’s just tedious repetition with a car that goes slightly faster or slower than the last one. Horizon’s open world allows them so much more variety in both length and scope, but also the type of race. Not just limited to laps around a track, Horizon adds a ton of more options like point to point street racing, rally races over the countryside, along with both open street (I.E. with traffic) and close off circuits. Plus with each circuit being just 4 events you are moving on and changing cars and classes frequently enough that it keeps it fresh.

They even make getting to the races more enjoyable. You are not simply thrown into the next Championship, you drive there. You explore, you earn xp, you earn perks. It’s the journey, not the destination. How fast can you blaze through that Speed Trap? A friend’s Drivatar is nearby, why not challenge them to a quick point to point race? There are 30 Bucket List challenges (with more to come) where you use some of the most iconic cars in existence trying to complete timed races and skill score earned in a set time, among many others. Hidden XP boards to locate. It’s really crazy the amount of stuff you can do just trying to get to the actual event. “But swaggers, I just want to race!” Well that is an option also as you can fast travel to the events and just get your race on (But it does costs you credits to fast travel and you do also need a skill (more on skills a little later!)).

rev_forzahorizon2_01

Horizon has an XP system like Motorsports 5 but with a more random reward system. Each level you earn you get a spin on the Horizon Wheelspin. Instead of a set amount of CR you earn either a random amount of CR or a car direct to your garage. One thing that is missing is the leveling of car manufacturers. I don’t miss the obnoxious achievements that went with it, but it was nice to get little bonuses for sticking to a manufacturer. Along with XP and levels to earn in Horizon there is also a perk system. There are 25 Perks to earn. You start at the middle and work your way out, with each layer costing more SP than the last. These are things like Hot Lapper; you earn 10% more credits in Rivals event or Paparazzi; An icon appears above cars you need for Horizon Promo. Promo being one of the many side activities where you are charged with photographing 100 unique cars for credit bonuses and an achievement. You earn SP to buy Perks by doing well and chaining abilities in both the open world and races. Things like near misses, burnouts, and speed all contribute to your SP. But hit a wall or another car before banking the points and it’s all lost. This is the major flaw in the system. Getting smashed from behind by a less than stellar player is counted against you when there is nothing you can do about it. In the Open World it seems like the AI Drivatars are out to get you. Wandering into your lane as you drive 150 mph down a open highway with a suicidal determination to destroy you both.

Online in Horizons 2 is handled in two different modes. The main mode is Road Trip. This puts you in a standard 4 race championship with some more multiplayer types games like King and Infected thrown into the mix along with some Team Based Races. The kicker here is that between each of the 4 races you have a full on rally race to the next event that also scores XP. After each series everyone in the game gets to vote on the next series from 3 options choosing car class and the types of races. Unfortunately if the group votes on a class you don’t currently own you don’t get a chance to buy a car, you’ll be thrown into a stock car of almost always sub-par stats. With the amount of loading and free roaming going on it seems there is plenty of time to allow someone to buy whatever they want before the first event starts. The other type is to just go into Freeroam with some friends and pick and choose events or bucket list challenges to do. Even though this is Freeroam there are still limitations between playing Solo or in a Party. Some freeroam activities like Barn Finds just cease to work in Multiplayer so make sure you know what you want to do before joining up.

The Forza series are a little less forgiving than other racers. Ability matters and car ranks definitely matter. In Solo this is offset by difficulties and assists, but in Online put two people with the same skill together and the one with the better car will always come out on top. Due to the random nature of the online you need to have a series of cars pre-tuned for all levels of play as you are given zero time in multiplayer to tweak. As I mentioned before if you come into a S1 series with no tuned S1 car you’ll be 30 points behind before the race even begins.

The game is just straight up gorgeous. The cars are amazing, the scenery is amazing, even the people are a lot more lifelike than even Motorsports 5. The rain and the weather, beside looking amazing, also effect your cars handling which adds a nice touch. If you had to nitpick anything there are minor issues, but completely minor. Things like tree branches overhanging highways. The whole world just looks alive and vibrant.

rev_forzahorizon2_02

The biggest strength of Horizon 2 is the depth of activities. You get bored with racing, you go search for some XP boards, you get bored of that you go do a couple Bucket List challenges, get bored of those and you’re back to racing, all in a stunningly beautiful world. If you’re a race fan you’re going to love it, if you aren’t, well Horizon 2 is the game that will make you a race fan.

PROS:
1) Huge world
2) Varied races and events

CONS:
1) Multiplayer integration weird
2) Drivatars in Open World do little except get in the way

9.2
Excellent