The Outer Worlds is coming to Nintendo Switch

 

Private Division and Obsidian Entertainment announced that The Outer Worlds will be coming to the Nintendo Switch after launching on other platforms.

In the video below, Matthew Singh, Senior Producer at Obsidian Entertainment, talks about preparing The Outer Worlds for release on the Switch in partnership with Virtuos:

For those not in the know, The Outer Worlds is a new single-player, first-person sci-fi RPG from the original creators of Fallout that was announced during The Game Awards 2018. The player awakes decades after being lost in transit while on a colonist ship bound for the furthest edge of the galaxy.

They immediately fall into a deep conspiracy that threatens to destroy the Halcyon colony. As a result, they must explore the furthest reaches of space and encounter various factions, all vying for power. The character that the player chooses to create will determine how the story unfolds.

The Outer Worlds will be released for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC (via the Microsoft Windows Store and Epic Games store) on October 25, 2019. Following the release on these platforms, The Outer Worlds will also come to Nintendo Switch; no release date has been announced at this time.

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Interstellar Space: Genesis coming July 25th

 

Adam Solo and Hugo Rosado have come together in cerebral union to deliver Interstellar Space: Genesis and we are not worthy.

What’s it all about, you ask?

You, a young drop of sand in a vast and ancient universe, must compete for control of the galaxy. As you progress, you are watched, scrutinized from a distance by those much more powerful than yourself. But why do they watch, you ask? This much remains a mystery… A dark and mysterious mystery.

Interstellar Space: Genesis is, essentially, a 4X strategy game where your goal is to create and mange a galactic empire.

Praxis Games are the team behind SpaceSector, a successful website hub for sci-fi and space strategy games. These guys know what they’re doing and have shown this in the detailed bevvy of in game features.

Key Features

• Classic 4X gameplay
• Turn-based tactical combat
• Ship customisation and free space-based movement with range limits
• Custom Alien races with planet types, unique leaders, and randomised tech trees for civilisations
• Terraforming
• Diplomacy Systems
• Intricate and detailed colony development
• Exploration mechanics
• The freedom to determine a civilisation’s wants and needs
• Complex economic model
• Asteroid mining
• Space tourism, and so much more!

Trailer

Where can you get Interstellar Space: Genesis for yourself?

The game will be available on Steam, Itch.io, and Humble on July 25th!

 

 

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REVIEW / Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth (3DS)

 

When I went in to pick up Persona Q2 from my local EB Games, I asked them whether this was the last 3DS game on their “coming soon” list and they confirmed that it was, and had been for a good, long while. So, did what may be the Western world’s last ever 3DS game release help the handheld platform go out with a bang? No. No, it did not.

 

 

The first Persona Q game (Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth) was released on 3DS back in 2014. The game was unique in that it had the main parties from Persona 3 and Persona 4 meet up in a “school festival” in some kind of alternate universe where they had to try to escape, along with a couple of fun new playable characters unique to PQ. The art style was unique in that it transformed all of the characters into “chibi” versions of themselves, and the situation was unique in that characters from either game have never met before in a canon setting.

Persona Q was absolutely meant to be a fan service-filled love letter to the fans of both games and featured in-jokes and interesting new friendships and rivalries. You could use any combination of characters from either game in your party, which allowed for a lot of diversity in play style. Of course (spoilers for Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth ahead) the entire situation was wiped from all of the characters’ memories as a deeply unsatisfying way to end an otherwise unique and truly enjoyable game. Persona Q2, on the other hand, saves some time by not even waiting until the end of the first dungeon to be deeply unsatisfying.

 

 

 

As a longtime Persona fan and Persona Q fan (in spite of its bad ending), I was very excited that Persona Q2 was finally coming to the West. I had heard that sales in Japan were incredibly poor despite the country’s deep love for the Persona series in general, but I was not deterred. Persona Q‘s unique blend of first person dungeon crawling, lower-screen map drawing, puzzle-based gameplay wasn’t well-received by everyone in the first instance, so I wasn’t particularly surprised. Plus, the team from Persona 5 were going to be included this time, and the female protagonist from Persona 3 Portable, so that was an exciting update.

The game starts with the Persona 5 crew being unexpectedly transported into a strange cinema where dungeons are “movies” that have to be played through in order for the story to progress. As each movie is completed, one of the many locks on the main, mysterious door in the cinema is removed, potentially assisting their eventual escape from the labyrinth. All of the movies have features from other games in the series, such as the first boss being a variation of Kamoshida from Persona 5, and the second dinosaur-themed dungeon being called “Junessic Park” (a reference to the shop, Junes, from Persona 4).

 

 

You start with all of the party members available through Persona 5: Protagonist, Morgana, Ryuji, Ann, Yusuke, Makoto, Futaba, Haru, and Akechi. That’s standard JRPG fare, having about eight characters and only being able to select 5 for your actual party (divided between 2 or 3 members in the front or back row during battle). However, during the first dungeon you pick up your next character – Persona 3 Portable protagonist. She offers the same magic set as Ann but with more of a focus on physical attacks. As in mainline Persona games, navigators (Futaba, Rise, Fuuka) provide support from the sidelines. All party members, including the protagonists, are locked into their basic Personas but gain the ability to equip a sub-Persona to maximize skill coverage to hit enemy weaknesses.

Then in the next dungeon, you eventually acquire all of the party members from Persona 4: Protagonist, Yosuke, Chie, Yukiko, Kanji, Rise,  Naoto, and Teddie. While the skills offered by each party member differ a little (e.g. Chie’s ice attacks are predominantly phys + ice attacks rather than actual magic), it’s really all the same thing with a slightly different coat of paint. Readers of this review may already seen a problem – this is a lot of party members. Consider that later in the game, it’s almost a certainty that the player will acquire another eight party members in the form of the Persona 3 team, and the system quickly becomes unworkable and overwhelming.

 

 

The game does not have an EXP share type ability, so your party members that you leave behind receive no experience. Side quests regularly require specific party members to be present to reap certain rewards,  so there’s good reason to try to keep everyone evenly leveled, but it’s also incredibly important to have proper skill coverage. The constant balance of equipping and fusing new sub-Personas, keeping everyone evenly leveled, swapping over (or having to buy new) equipment to make sure everyone is geared up properly…is honestly exhausting. I realize I could just leave some characters in the dust (and indeed I did – I hate Teddie and never used him once) but I also believe it’s a failing of the game to not give any kind of left-behind EXP bonus to help out the zoo of party members you’ve been asked to babysit.

Persona Q2′s persona fusion system is aggravating, as navigators are able to equip sub-Personas to offer more useful skills during battle or while dungeon crawling. However, navigator skills are evenly distributed onto personas along with standard battle skills, meaning that sometimes one must choose between using a persona as a navigator persona or a good battle persona. I wholeheartedly believe that this was a choice made to increase the difficulty in the game, but it serves to do nothing but irritate the player.

 

 

As a fan of Persona Q‘s dungeon and battle system, I was disappointed to find that not a lot had changed. There are certainly some small quality of life improvements that have been implemented here and there, but the core gameplay remains very much the same, despite the massively expanded cast. Systems such as Persona 5‘s Baton Pass have been implemented (though changed slightly to match PQ‘s gameplay), and the navigators regularly remind you to use it, but if you have even the slightest concept of how to hit enemy weaknesses, it almost never becomes necessary to use. After four years and a new handheld, I would have expected more innovation.

The next issue comes in the form of EXTREME FLANDERISATION. For those who are unfamiliar, “Flanderisation” is what occurs when a character with a particular quirk or interest slowly becomes consumed by said quirk or interest until they’re less of a character and more of an embodiment of whatever that thing happens to be. Chie is the most obvious example in Persona Q2, wherein her love of meat is referenced by her, or others, literally every time she shows up.

 

 

Unlike the first Persona Q game, the in-jokes and character interests aren’t just liberally sprinkled throughout the game. Instead, the player is forcibly held down and buried in them. Part of what made me stop playing the game was how painful the character interactions became. The only genuinely interesting cross-game interactions come in the form of the new combo attack system that usually pairs two previously-unacquainted characters together to unleash a devastating attack. Those are few and far between.

The dungeons are long and with very little variation. The interactions between the characters and the puzzles serve to do nothing but slow things down in ways that feel so completely unnecessary. At one point, the team must lure a dinosaur with some meat. A meat container is located, and that should have been the end, but instead a lengthy scene ensues where the team finds ingredients, argues constantly, cooks the meat, and finally brings it to the dinosaur. The entire time I was just waiting for the stupid scene to end, because it was just chock full of Flanderisation and weak, uninteresting dialogue.

 

 

The drawn graphics, such as the character profile pictures in the menu, are crisp and very cute. I can’t fault those. Maybe it’s just because it’s been a while since I last played my 3DS, but the character models look a little blander and more poorly constructed than those in the previous game. There’s regular lag during battles with more than three enemies on the screen, and well-known enemy types were misnamed on more than one occasion. The whole construction of the game just feels lazy, though there are the occasional gold nuggets of pretty design and interesting mechanics.

The music is this game’s main redeeming quality – it is absolutely outstanding. While playing what I did play of the game, I had multiple tracks stuck in my head and on repeat on YouTube when I had the option. Persona 5‘s main vocalist does an outstanding job, as do Persona 3 and Persona 4‘s vocalists when they join in. The opening cinematic music is just as jazzy and enjoyable and will undoubtedly get stuck in your head. I can’t praise the music in the game enough. It’s varied but honors the originals when remixes are used, and all of the original music is absolutely wonderful. If only the rest of the game would follow suit.

 

 

In the end, I couldn’t finish Persona Q2. I couldn’t even get to the point where I received my third and final batch of characters. Based on what I could see in the menu, I imagine there’s a system wherein you can make use of and perhaps gain experience for your unused party members, which at that point would number above 10. However, the game was too trying, too weak, and too disappointing to continue with so that I could find out. I am deeply disappointed with Persona Q2, and I highly encourage veteran Persona fans to think twice before torturing themselves with this game.

 

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FREE DLC for The Messenger out now!

 

Avast ye scurvy dogs and avail yourself of this pirate’s booty! Fans of Sabotage Studio and Devolver Digital’s Ninja Gaiden inspired retro platformer, The Messenger, have been graced with some free DLC today. Entitled Picnic Panic, this free piece of DLC is a sun-soaked jaunt back into this amazing game.

Available now for the PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch and PC, The Messenger was also added to the Xbox Game Pass for PC library and is up to 33% off on all platforms. That’s an amazing deal!

Not only are the beloved characters from the original game tagging along on your trip to Voodkin Island, but you’ll be able to explore three refreshingly new levels – each culminating in unique and inventive boss fights.

If that’s not enough to entice you into our tropical getaway, Rainbowdragoneyes has provided 13 brand new tracks for your Voodkin Vacation playlist.

If free DLC is for you, check out the video below for a sneak peek of what you can expect from this new content.

 

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REVIEW / Void Bastards (PC)

 

Ever wonder how a roguelike first-person shooter would play out? Well, Void Bastards is exactly that: a game inspired by the BioShock series and System Shock 2 described as a strategy-shooter. Developed by Blue Manchu, the one behind the tactical game Card Hunter, Void Bastards got the backing of the prestigious Humble Bundle (the website that sells videogames where a portion of the profits go to good causes) as its publisher.

 

 

In Void Bastards, the pivotal character isn’t the one you control, but rather this eccentric human resources robot that has control over a bunch of prisoners to do its bidding. You are the prisoners; controlling one at a time while completing tasks for the HR bot like collecting a line printer or something else menial like that. While the tasks are mundane and boring, achieving the tasks are a different story. You see, the prisoners have to ransack these out-of-commission spaceships and navigate the dangers within them.

Automatic gun turrets waiting for any movement to gnarly space pirates who are also ransacking the ships are just some of the dangers waiting for you in Void Bastards. Not only that, the ships contain so much oxygen for you to breathe, so if that runs out, well buddy, you’re dead. Also, did I mention exploding ectoplasm? With many things to potentially kill you, you should fret not, because if the prisoner you’re controlling dies (and death is inevitable, even the game tells you), another prisoner will come out of hibernation to continue the tedious task your predecessor was given.

As with any other roguelike game, each prisoner is unique in some sort of way to give you that feeling of novelty after each untimely death. The uniqueness comes in the form of genetic traits, and as we all know about genes, some are awesome (hello piercing blue eyes) and some are shitty (boo diabeetus). In Void Bastards, your prisoner may inherit an incessant cough from smoking so much, so trying to be a sneaky kitty to collect those fuel cans may not be a winning strategy. Your prisoner, however, may have such great aim that sniping headshots are so much easier.

The strategy component of Void Bastards comes from the different ships your prisoners will be scavenging. Each ship has some travel requirements, and those come in the form of food and fuel tanks. The ships contain scraps and parts to salvage, and these ultimately are the items that will help you build your arsenal against enemies. From makeshift grenades to staple shotguns, obtaining the items needed to build these will need some strategic thinking on your end. You can’t just jump to any ship at your whim to collect that AA battery for the laser cannon, you will need to collect food and fuel tanks from a bunch of ships before you can do that.

In all, Void Bastards is a good roguelike FPS game. It’s a game where you can easily spend half an hour to eight hours and feel accomplished either by picking up a few food items or completing that fancy new shotgun. It’s also one of those games where you actually have to think about your plan of attack in salvaging the ships: Is it better to pick up those batteries from this ship or maybe the ship with a bunch of fuel tanks will make traveling easier? At the end of the day, as long as your’re pleasing that HR bot, your prisoner may earn freedom one of these days.

 

 

This review is based on a retail copy of the game provided by the publisher.

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PREVIEW / Bloodroots (PC)

 

I was able to play a preview of Bloodroots on the PC via Steam, and I want to give my impressions of the short demo. Developed by Paper Cult, the game reminds me a lot of the Kill Bill movies both in story and action. The story follows Mr. Wolf, a man left for dead in the wilderness. He is out for revenge, and whoever stands in his way will meet bloody and gory deaths.

 

 

 

In Bloodroots, the world is your oyster…for weapons. Basically, Mr. Wolf has three actions besides the basic moving around that you can do: attack (i.e., punch), jump, and pick up items. While you can pretty much clear the level with just Mr. Wolf’s punches (Trust me, Mr. Wolf is One Punch Man kind of killer.), you are given the whole environment to kill. See that wheelbarrow with hay? You can let Mr. Wolf ride it to smash an enemy into roadkill. Oh, the wheelbarrow broke? Use one of the wheels to fling around and decapitate an enemy’s (or two) head.

 

 

 

Utilizing this open-weapon type of environment, Paper Cult really takes the tempo of Bloodroots as a fast action game. It’s perfect to know that it only takes one attack to kill an enemy, no matter how bulky or scrawny he is. It’s also fair to know that it takes only one hit for Mr. Wolf to die. Yes, you don’t have a health bar or lives in this game; it’s kill or be killed. Luckily, there’s plenty of save points in the level, so that if you screw up, you will not have to start from scratch.

 

 

 

The cool part about the save points is that I was able to plan my attacks after some trial and many errors. It’s almost like directing a movie: First, let’s throw this flowerpot to knock out that enemy. Okay, now run to that barrel, jump on it and roll over those two enemies in the corner. Finally, let’s pick up one of these fishes from the broken barrel to smack those three enemies up ahead. Maybe in the next playthrough, I’ll just lug around that sword to decimate all of them.

 

 

 

In actually found myself playing the only level I was given plenty of times. I can already see Bloodroots as a game that has a high replayable value. It also has a challenge mode where you are given a certain task to complete, and these challenges refresh weekly, with high scorers placed on the leaderboard. Expect Bloodroots to come out to the PC (via Steam), PS4, and Nintendo Switch in a few months. If you want to play the demo, you can check out its website, subscribe to its mailing list, and you will be given a key by email to play.

 

 

 

This preview is based on an Early Access version of the game provided by the publisher.

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A Trip to Otherworld, London’s Premiere Virtual Reality Bar

 

Nestled in East London is a VR experience like no other I have had before. Upon entering Otherworld, a VR bar under an unassuming railway in the Haggerston District, you are greeted with a white hall filled with “immersion rooms” and staff dressed in pseudo-futurist outfits. You can also hear Otherworld visitors in the immersion rooms yelling commands, calling out to friends for help, and laughing at each other as the faint hum of fans kick on and off in the units.

While my friend and I were a bit late for our appointment (sorry about that!), the staff accommodated us graciously and got us set up in our respective immersion rooms. Each room is a dark cylinder with a headset suspended from the ceiling and a set of controllers. In case you were wondering, Otherworld utilizes the HTC Vive VR headsets for their experience. After some adjustments and a quick tutorial of the island and games, we set off through the portal to the Otherworld.

Mikey from The Dream Corporation was kind enough to provide some info:

Once you have the headset on, you’ll be in the Otherworld. It’s a parallel universe with an island at its heart, which contains portals to sixteen of the best virtual reality experiences on the market. You can choose whether you go to fight for survival in a zombie apocalypse deep in Arizona; battle robots hell-bent on destroying mankind; soar from tree to tree and explore the secrets of the ancients; paint in 3D with light and fire — or many other experiences.

Inside the Otherworld you can see and hear your friends and explore together. Some of the sixteen experiences are multiplayer, and some are single-player. You can change between experiences at any time while you are in the Otherworld.

After some completely normal confusion as to what the heck was going on in the mysterious starter cave, we set off down the mountain and wandered around the Otherworld island searching for some co-op games to play. The island is visually pleasing housing four different biomes based on the seasons. These biomes also coordinate with the types of games that are housed in these areas. Honestly, had there not been a time limit it would have been nice to walk around and take it in a bit more. The island serves as the central hub to find different game experiences you can play with friends or solo. We immediately booked it to play the co-op zombie shooter Arizona Sunshine and the sci-fi shooter Raw Data located in the winter area.

Like all the games in the Otherworld, these are VR games you can play at home. Arizona Sunshine and Raw Data are available via services and consoles like Steam and PSVR, but the ingenious thing about the Otherworld is that is houses these games as experiences in their world – it serves as a repository for VR games which can make it super easy to swap them in and out of the game world as new and better games are released. Or they could add more games to the island. Either way, it’s a bloody brilliant system that they’ve developed that will stave off obsolescence.

Both Arizona Sunshine and Raw Data were similar experience set apart by two very different game worlds and themes. Waves of enemies will attack, requiring you and your friends to work together to fend them off and survive. Arizona Sunshine allows you to pick up weapons on the fly, where I started dual wielding pistols and pulling off sweet Matrix-style moves minus the actual hitting of any baddies. Raw Data allows you to pick a class of character that has different weapons and abilities. I opted for a bow-wielding cyber druid while my friend played as a robo-ninja. Pulling arrows from a quiver on your back and shooting them at drones in the air in VR is such a satisfying experience. Both experiences made me feel like a virtual badass but I would have loved to see how stupid I looked via their immersion room camera feed. I was also very thankful when the fans kicked in as I felt I was working up a bit of a sweat killing all those zombies and robots.

We tried to jump into another game called Windlands 2, but our time ran out as we were whisked away from our immersion rooms. Needless to say, walking out of the immersion room was an odd feeling after 40+ minutes in VR. You swing your arms around to walk through the Otherworld and my humorous first instinct was to the do the same leaving the VR bar. We ended up not sticking around for drinks due to a laundry list of breweries were going to stop by that day, so we dropped into a brewery next door for us to grab a pint and talk about the great time we had in the Otherworld.

If you are in London and looking for an awesome experience, I highly recommend stopping into Otherworld. Also, grab a drink while you’re at it.

For more information, visit https://www.other.world/

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Red Faction: Guerrilla re-Mars-tered has landed

 

Red Faction Guerrilla Re-Mars-tered is here and on Nintendo Switch.

Developed by THQ Nordic; everything is set 50 years post the events that took place within the original Red Faction.

Playing as a guerrilla fighter for liberation over the enemy Earth Defence Force and set in an open-world Martian landscape.  The game maintains its destruction style game-play and fast guerrilla-style combat.

Features

The vast open-world affords players the ability to decide how, when, where, and who they want to battle. With advanced weaponry, modified vehicles, nonlinear missions, and defensive strategy gameplay. Players can use destruction towards tactical advantage and planned enemy attacks…or, just blow stuff up and mess with enemy strategy. There is so much for players to mess with and get stuck into. Multiplayer combat expands all of this even further when players take to various combat modes against each other.

Red Faction Guerrilla Re-Mars-tered features choice between Performance and Quality mode, with fully reworked graphics and textures, improved shadow rendering and lighting, reworked shaders and postprocessing, and included optional motion controls for better aiming in handheld mode.

Red Faction Guerrilla Re-Mars-tered is available on Nintendo Switch, PC, Xbox One and PS4 now!

 

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REVIEW / Fell Seal: Arbiters Mark (PC)

 

I love tactical games, always have. The problem with the turn based tactics genre though is that it’s largely been shoved in the mobile gaming camp. The reason for this is that anything turn based is really easy to manipulate with time gates, energy levels and all the other silly rubbish used by developers to make money. It’s the kind of thing that’s asking to be made artificially harder too. Anything for those bucks right? I’m pleased to tell you that the game I’ve been playing of late doesn’t fall into this camp. It’s Fell Seal: Arbiters Mark and you know what? It’s not half bad.

 

 

The last tactics game I really invested myself properly in was XCOM 2. I grew up with the XCOM and UFO games so playing the new ones was a no-brainer. If you’ve had a go at this series or games like it you’ll know what this genre’s style is all about. You basically follow a story though a series of increasingly difficult battles. Your success will not only come down to planning move by move within each mission but beforehand as well. A lot of what you’ll need to succeed comes down to how you gear your troops for battle, skill them, etc. Think of it like chess but on steroids.

Something to be said for all of these game is that they’re naturally quite difficult. This is a genre of smart AI opponents so smashing through a level knowing your adversary is as thick as two short planks won’t cut it and dying is never a good idea. There are usually penalties imposed of one sort or another for losing members of your team. In XCOM you face the ultimate penalty in that if you do something stupid your lovingly crafted marine isn’t just a bit dead, they’re gone for good. Fell Seal: Arbiters Mark is a wee bit more forgiving. Here party members pick up injuries and taking them into battle isn’t something you want to be doing on a whim. They won’t be at full strength making your overall job a lot harder.

 

Thin chess but more colorful and action-packed.

 

Something else to be said for the tactics genre is that you don’t have an endless supply of units to play with. You find yourself caring so much more about your characters because you can’t just magic another one out of thin air whenever you feel like it. In this case new Arbiters cost and you only have so much gold to play with. In addition to a general lack of resources, (nobody has infinite funds,) you’re creating a rod for your own back. Buying new characters is fine but you’ll have to level them from scratch. This means you care more about what you have and look after what you’re given to your best ability. You can level your characters at the guild before you buy them but that gets really expensive really quickly so it still makes sense to be frugal.

The above diatribe was quite important as everything I’ve just said applies to Fell Seal. In addition your characters are fluid and this makes things all the more fun. This isn’t a case of, buy a mage, get a mage. This is buy a mage then adapt them and mold them into something that fits your playing style. As classes gain experience and characters learn new things new classes become available. So as an example. I started out with two fighters in my party. One is my main character so has evolved into a Knight/Marked dual class. Each of these classes obviously has it’s own skill tree and operates very differently. The other is currently a Knight/Templar so while both are tanks with useful protective abilities they vary greatly in their skills. This applies for everyone in your party and it’s an innovative way to play.

 

Get comfy with the guild, you’ll be here a lot.

 

Something I particularly like about Fell Seal is that it doesn’t just give you everything from the off. Which is a good thing really because if it did you’d get completely overloaded with information. There is a lot of micromanagement going on with this game and being given every class from the get go when they all not only skill differently, play differently but also equip different items would just be a migraine waiting to happen. So … let’s take the Mender (healer,) class as and example. At LVL 2 they can learn wizarding skills, at level four an entirely new class called Plague Doctor opens up. Each class branches out in different ways and you unlock things as you go which really helps with the pace. Plus it’s fun to see what you can discover next.

As I’ve just mentioned gold and gear I think it pertinent to talk about the shop system. In cities you have your guild and a shop. Your guild is where you buy new team mates. I would recommend having at least two of each class if you can. This will obviously take some time with not getting everything from the go. As I’ve just said you can level them from scratch for gold and customize their look. There is just enough customization here to make it fun and allow for a unique looking party without pulling you too deeply into it. We don’t want you guys who spend three hours customizing your character to have an apoplexy every time you buy a new one. The shop is obviously where you buy your gear. Gold balancing is important. Every new recruit will need gear fitting for them and this costs. As with every RPG better gear costs more and your managing quite a lot of Arbiters so you need to be a bit smart how you go about things.

 

Why have a squad when you can manage an army?

 

The picture below shows a small army and I’ve been ranting on about looking after your troops. You won’t be using all of them in each mission but different parties yield different mixes of abilities so you’ll want them all to be in good fighting shape. The injury system means that you’ll want reserves so you can swap out benched characters. Injuries also stack. If you’re using a unit they can’t heal and if they die multiple times they’ll gain multiple injuries meaning it’s better to give them a breather between missions. The other thing about this is that it forces you to switch up your play style and try different combinations which is a really fun way to play.

To give you a very brief overview of the story. A great evil, (there’s always a great evil,) was put to rest by seven adventurers. Shift time forward and these seven have become the immortals. Given unnatural power by their good deeds they are basically gods in human skin. The immortals were placed in guardianship of the world but because they couldn’t be everywhere they created the Arbiters to look after things for them. The Arbiters are judge, jury and executioner. There is no law higher than them but they aren’t infallible and this has left a problem. Arbiter groups are becoming open to corruption and because they don’t need to answer to anybody but the council of immortals they are getting away with murder.

 

 

To give you a very brief overview of the story. A great evil, (there’s always a great evil,) was put to rest by seven adventurers. Shift time forward and these seven have become the immortals. Given unnatural power by their good deeds they are basically gods in human skin. The immortals were placed in guardianship of the world but because they couldn’t be everywhere they created the Arbiters to look after things for them.

The Arbiters are judge, jury and executioner. There is no law higher than them but they aren’t infallible and this has left a problem. Arbiter groups are becoming open to corruption and because they don’t need to answer to anybody but the council of immortals they are getting away with murder.

 

This is an RPG so story is everything.

 

On the up-side the Arbiter captain you’re playing has a decent set of morals and when she witnesses a murder she intervenes. The murderer is a pretty scummy nobleman called Alphonse and being a pretty scummy nobleman he believes he’s above the law and everybody that doesn’t have his level of upbringing. To make things worse he escapes a warm cozy dungeon by becoming a marked. Eventually an immortal basically decides they’ve been in the job to long and need to step down.

Each other member of the council names a marked and that individual has to go on a pilgrimage to prove their worth. When on this journey they are only touchable by other marked meaning your band of Arbiter’s are initially unable to recapture a killer. This doesn’t stop you going after him or ending up becoming marked yourself and the story spins from there. There’s lots of intrigue and it’s all very well written. Alphonse is a really nasty piece of work but he’s a puppet, it’s about working out whose pulling the strings.

 

You’ll be wanting to accustom yourself with this. You can go back and replay levels when you want.

 

This title controls relatively easily when you know what you’re doing. The fact that you’re using a gamepad makes navigation and movement a doddle which is great. The camera angles are not so great. Either I haven’t found a way to pan around the maps or a free roam doesn’t exist but when you can’t see where everything you’re facing is one would be very appreciated. Similarly the ability to rotate the map would come in handy too. You can’t always see enemies when they’re standing behind things and although not a big issue is a bit of a pain when you’re planning.

I know I was using XCOM as and example earlier but to be honest this title has the look and feel of Shining Force one of my favorite games from the Megadrive era. The 16-bit look they’ve gone for brings back a lot of happy memories of playing that game and is very fitting for the style so thumbs up there. The sound is fine. You all know by now I don’t pay attention to music so I never really score it. Like I’ve said before, if it isn’t annoying me it’s doing it’s job and I’m happy with that.

 

The maps are as varied as your enemies.

 

This is my sort of game. I always preferred turn based to real time strategy as I like to have a minute to think. If you’ve never played a tactics game but like things like chess definitely give Fell Seal: Arbiters Mark a go. Apart from a fairly limited tutorial and slightly unusual mechanics in places there really isn’t a lot to complain about. This is a game that takes a lot of brain power and strategic thinking. If you like your action fast an furious this might not be the game for you. It’s an RPG so for those of you that don’t want a lot of reading and storytelling this might also be a miss. I’m enjoying myself enough to want to complete the game, something that’s going to take a while, and I know I always use this as a yardstick but I think it’s important. The simple fact that I want to keep playing means it’s a win in my book and definitely worth a try for the strategy and RPG lovers amongst you.

 

Look and Feel: 7/10
Story: 8/10
Challenge: 9 /10
Replayability: 7/10

7.7

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REVIEW / Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fuelled (PS4)

 

When another Crash Bandicoot remake was announced, I was skeptical. After playing the pretty but operationally abysmal N. Sane Trilogy, I wasn’t keen to see another of my childhood favorites become beautiful yet unplayable.  Thankfully, when Beenox picked up the Crash Team Racing remake, they had listened to all of our bleating and whining and raging and did everything they could to not churn out something like Vicarious Visions did in 2017. The result was Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fuelled (or Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled, if you prefer the American English on the box).

 

Image of me nitpicking the differences between American and British English

 

The original Crash Team Racing (or CTR for short) came out in 1999 on the Playstation and despite being a blatant Mario Kart ripoff, it very easily eclipsed it in terms of handling and track design. The story of CTR is very simple: Crash and his friends and foes have suddenly taken to kart racing and one day a villainous alien named Nitrous Oxide appears and threatens to turn their planet into a parking lot…unless the fastest among him can best him in a race. Through the adventure mode, you travel through four areas, each with five tracks, earning trophies by winning a race on each track and defeating bosses (all villains from previous games)  and unlocking each new area until you finally reach your race with Oxide.

In addition to just trophy-collecting, there are also CTR races, where you have to collect three tokens (a “C”, “T”, and “R”) around the track while also winning the race to earn a CTR token, and relic races, where you race around the track as fast as you can while breaking golden time trial boxes to take precious seconds off your time to earn a relic. Relics can be sapphire, gold, or platinum. Only by collecting all the time trial boxes, being exceptionally skilled, or a combination of both will net you a platinum. In the later game there are also gem cups that only unlock after certain conditions are met.

 

 

Outside of the main Adventure mode, there are also Versus modes for single tracks, Cups for four back-to-back tracks with cumulative scores to determine who is the best, Battle mode with special arena areas where you can change the types of power-ups, the battle mode (e.g. capture the flag, last man standing, point battle), time limit and number of attacks required to win, and Time Trial mode where you can earn special bonuses by beating the pre-loaded best times on each track.

There are a couple of new and updated Battle modes in Nitro-Fuelled, and in the single track sections, all of the tracks from Crash Team Racing: Nitro Kart are now available, which is something I was neither familiar with or aware of ahead of the game’s release. I had seen the Nitro Kart tracks in trailers and assumed that they were brand new tracks. All of the characters from Nitro Kart can also be unlocked  for use in the non-Adventure modes through various means.

 

 

I am told by our friend who has played Nitro Kart that the tracks and characters looked good, although there were some key things about certain tracks that had been changed for the worse. Specifically, in one track in Nitro Kart, the karts would drive up the side of a building rather than through it. In Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fuelled, this has been replaced with driving through the building, presumably because all of the different kart designs would have been too annoying to animate for the up-the-wall section.

Graphically-speaking, the tracks, menus, characters, and everything else about the game looks beautiful. The tracks and battle arenas have been beautifully recreated, although some of them look way different in certain places. For example, the tunnels in Tiger Temple are decidedly brighter than the dark tunnels from the original. And the entirety of Rampage Ruins has had a face lift so that the color scheme matches that of Papu Pyramids, rather than the muddier, darker look it used to have. While it’s a little surprising from a nostalgia perspective, there’s nothing wrong with these changes, as they still look great. Gamers who have seen the trailers and pre-release videos by the developers will have already noticed the vast amount of extra content added in each of the tracks.

 

 

There’s little nods to the games throughout the series, such as a big dragon in the background of Dragon Mines, some of the clone guys in cages and the birds you jump on in Crash Bandicoot in Cortex Castle, and many more. The level of detail that’s been put into the recreation of the tracks has been really faithful to the series and shown a lot of love and care for what came before. Also, the speed has been drastically increased across the board, so previously teeth-grindingly boring or annoying tracks such as Coco Park and Tiny Arena are now drastically improved or, dare I say it, fun? Another point in Nitro-Fuelled‘s favor is the music. Each track’s…er, track, has been remastered but kept similar enough that it’s recognizable, all while adding a little extra flavor in certain places. For example, Tiny Arena now has little electric guitar riffs that punctuate certain points in the race or the music itself, and that certainly fits everything about that particular racetrack.

While the recreation of the tracks has been very faithful, there are a few little things in terms of the tracks and the gameplay itself that have been changed for the worse.  The well-known shortcut in Crash Cove is really difficult to pull off now, whereas previously it was one of the most reliable. Perhaps gamer hands that are untainted by years and years of CTR during childhood will find it easier to pull that one off consistency, but everyone in our group had trouble where there was none before. Other minor gameplay issues include instances where you hit a wall and try to hop your kart back into the correct position. The game seems to have a lot of trouble with this, as if you’re hopping while holding the analog stick to the left, the game will sometimes make your character hop once or twice to the left, then back to the right, then to the left again. Super irritating and cost me more than a few races and time trials.

 

 

The rubber-banding seen in the original Crash Team Racing that saw high levels of player skill being rewarded by AI characters (particularly Polar, one of the slowest characters by stats) tearing ahead as runaway winners is still alive and well. This game has a real runaway winner problem, but I suppose that’s actually more realistic in the sense that in other true racing games, if you screw up early in the race, that may just result in you losing overall with no way of catching up.

Other elements of gameplay have been vastly improved. Certain shortcuts have become a little more reliable, such as the longer Hot Air Skyway fork jump. Most importantly, if you choose the Nitro-Fuelled version of Adventure mode, rather than being locked into playing as one character, you can change your racer at any time between races. I have to assume that the game scales and adjusts the NPCs and other factors to make this fair, but it’s really helpful to be able to swap over to a character like Dingodile who’s built for speed when doing time trials, or to a character like Pura who’s adept at turning, is very helpful.

 

 

In Nitro-Fuelled mode, you also unlock modifications for your kart (all aesthetic, thankfully) and also different skins for different characters, such as Scuba Crash (circa Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped) and Ripper Roo’s gentleman outfit (Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back). Some of these modifications are unlocked by meeting conditions in the game, while some are available on the Pit Stop/Daily Deals section of the main menu. With each race in non-Adventure mode and in Nitro-Fuelled mode, you earn Wumpa Coins, which can then be spent on anything in the Pit Stop. For non-Adventure mode, you can also unlock Nitro Kart racers, if you were ever particularly fond of the Norms or Zem and Zam or whoever else. Who else can smell oncoming micro transactions?

Another excellent part of Nitro-Fuelled mode is the ability to play as the bosses you’ve unlocked! Furthermore, they’ve been given stats equivalent to the other characters, so no longer will playing as Ripper Roo ensure victory against standard characters. Even Nitrous Oxide, once beaten, can be selected, which is a first for Crash Team Racing and something I was always salty about not being in the original when I was a kid and had no sense of what made a balanced game. Interestingly, even without selecting different skins, you can now play as the same character as one of your local or online co-op partners. You can have a battle or race full of N.Gins if you want!

 

 

On the earlier note about small details, I was absolutely delighted to discover that the giant save screens available in the original Crash Team Racing are alive and well and operate in exactly the same way that they used to – slam your kart up against them and wait for the screen to boot up. I’m often disappointed by the lack of creativity in save screens or lack of save screens at all (a tragedy of the autosaving era), so the developers ensuring that this was included really warmed the cold cockles of my heart. While there are modern racing controls (e.g. acceleration on the R and L buttons), the default and true way to play the game is still available, just as it was back on the PS1.

Beside the minor issues in gameplay that were mentioned earlier, Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fuelled, both from a nostalgic viewpoint and a modern day gaming viewpoint, is really spot on. The AI is absolutely devious in the best possible way. Rather than feeling as though the AI are simply following a track and tossing a few dice now and then to see whether they attack someone or not, it actually seems as though they’re reacting to what you and the other players are doing and responding accordingly.

 

 

More than once I’ve been shot out of the air at the last critical jump when I was in the lead – something you would have only expected a fellow human player to do because it was so cruel and pointed. Really, it feels like even when you’re playing with an all-AI list of racers, you’re actually playing with real people, and that, to me, shows that CTR has been appropriately updated to mimic actual car racing games, rather than purely sticking to the days of kart racers.

I guarantee that newcomers to CTR and even to Crash Bandicoot will still have a blast playing this game. It’s easy to pick up, the handling is great, the track designs are colorful and varied, and it’s just a really great time overall. Long time fans of Crash Team Racing will absolutely fall in love all over again. I think the mark of a good remake is that while you may return to the original on occasion and think of it fondly, you’re still very happy to play the remake for its convenience and for the strength of its recreation. The N. Sane Trilogy failed at this – I’ll always boot up my PS3 in favor of playing the remakes, but as for Crash Nitro-Fuelled? You can find me down at the glorious HD race track any time.

Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fuelled is available now on Playstation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch.

 

 

Gameplay: 8/10
Audiovisual: 10/10
New Remake Content and Improvements: 8/10

8.6

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It would appear the S.W.I.N.E. rabbits are recruiting

 

I don’t know what it is about various breeds of animal blowing each other up but it’s always a big hit with gamers. A really good example of this is Worms. That, however, was worm on worm warfare. If we want a bit of inter-species violence, we might need to look to S.W.I.N.E. HD Remastered.

Much to the annoyance of the rabbit army, the pigs went on a bit of a recruitment drive a while back. This obviously meant war (I mean really obviously that’s the point) and now they’ve decided to do a bit of bolstering of their own forces. The public service announcement below counts new troops among their ranks and tells the pigs precisely where the long ears would like to shove their carrots.

Those of you who played the 2001 original will know a little bit about S.W.I.N.E already, but might want to know what the HD remake is giving you before parting with your cash. This is smart, and to alleviate some of that indecision, I’m going to tell you. The HD version of the game features a bunch of improvements and visual enhancements over the original title. These include integrated language selection, a polished UI, and better unit ordering for smoother gameplay. For those of you that like a little something extra with your game, you’ll also get the original 2001 soundtrack, an art book with previously unreleased concept art, and a developer documentary detailing the recreation of the game.

If you’ve never played S.W.I.N.E HD Remastered and it looks just like your brand of silliness, you might be in luck. This title, along with other Assemble Entertainment games such as Leisure Suit Larry – Wet Dreams Don’t Dry and the titles of the Pizza Connection series, are currently part of the Steam summer sale. On account of my being nice and not condoning violence, I’ve left you a link to the S.W.I.N.E. Steam page here. Also, if you believe that, you’ll believe anything. Have fun.

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