Hi guys,
Seeing as Destiny is such a large game, I will be breaking this review down into small segments each disecting the components of the game, enjoy!
Story: You have doubtlessly heard a lot of bad things said about the core story of Destiny, and unfortunately they are all very accurate. There is a minimal plot line in the game, with most levels devolving down to a three wave system of enemys while Dinklebot(your Ghost) does something, using the same floating animation, to a computer. The only reason I stuck the campaign out was for the XP you got at the end of every mission. Before the game came out, we were led to belive that there was a vast and complex lore behind the game, and to some extent there is, but firstly you can't access said lore(in the form of Grimouir Cards) via the game, instead you have to make and connect a new Bungie.net account. And secondly the cards aren't the easiest thing in the world to navigate, I personally want to find out more about the Cryptarchs, but know very little because the Grimouir system is to complex for me to bother to hunt out specific infomation.
Weapons: The weapons in Destiny are a strange afair, once you get to level 20(which took me 12.5 hours) you want to start collecting Legendary weapons and armour(more on light levels later!). To give you some background, there are five levels of rarity for weapons, White, Green(Uncommon), Blue(Rare), Purple(Legendary) and Exotic(Yellow/Gold). So post level 20 you need Legendary gear to do decent damage to enemys. However the problem is that Legendary weapons feel un-satisfying at least for me, knowing that their is still one rank higher of rarity to earn, I am never quite satisfied with Legendary, this coupled with the fact that Legendarys are basically the weapons you have been using so far in the game, with a higher damage cap and more perks to invest in. Though non of said perks drastically change the wepaons and Legendary rarity. Then we move onto Exotic, which are somwhere between rare and mega rare, the difference with this rarity is luck. I have currently been playing for about 60 hours, I have 4 exotic peices, one weapon bought from Xur(unsatisfyingly), and from an Exotic bounty(to random to be fun), one chest peice as a random reward from the Weekly Nightfall, and my last peice is a chest peice which I got from an exotic engram, which I bought from Xur. I know someone who less than two hours after reaching level 20 had a legendary engram drop from a level 2 enemy, which then got decoded into an Exotic weapon. To sum up my thoughts on the weapons of the game, I wish there were tied to bosses and mini-bosses like with the high end weapons in Borderlands 2.
RNG: If you don't know RNG stands for Random Number Generater, ie luck. Far too much of this game rests on the shoulders of luck, there is no sure fire way of getting any specific weapons, or armour apart from doing near endless amounts of Tiger Strikes to get Vanguard Marks, or tons of Crucible matches for Crucible matches! You either get lucky with mission reward drops, or level up the Vanguard, who post level 2, gives you a package with legendary gear in every time you level up. You level up the Vanguard by doing a lot of the daily bounties, which get rather repetitive.
Crucible: Right moving onto the Crucible or PVP in this game, going into the games launch, I was super excited to get into the Crucible, and that was where I thought I would be spending most of my time. That really isn't the case now the game has launched, it's quite a fun side persuit, but I have put very little time into it, I have played a total of around 7 hours in the Crucible. About 4 of those hours were because I was forced to be in there for my Thorn bounty! The largest problem stopping it from becoming awesome, is the lag, the netcode for the game is aweful, and any time you get a kill, the score for that kill won't show up for up to 10 seconds! I've had it where I have got a kill, then been killed, waited for the repawn count down, and only a few seconds after getting back in does the kill notifier pop up! This may not sound like a lot when you are just reading about it, but in person when you are playing it yourself, it is the worst thing that could plague a Multiplayer game in my opinion!
Gameplay: I know I have been dissing this game a lot, but the moment to moment gameplay of Destiny is very fun and satisfying, the weapons do feel very nice to use, though once you have used one Scout Rifle you have used them all! The enemys are diverse, and unless you spend an extended period of time on one planet, then you won't get fed up of the enemies.
Replayability: This is a tricky issue to raise for Destiny, becuase it is the most subjective issue in gaming. The amount of fun you have with this game post 15 hours will solely rely on how much you enjoy doing the same activities over and over again. Technically there is an infinite supply of things to do in the game, the daily bounties, daily story mission, weekly strike, weekly Nightfall strike and occasional timed special events will keep certain players busy for many hours. However for some gamers this constant grind fest(Destiny summed up in two words!) will be highly unappealing.Which brings me onto my next point:
Post Level 20: Once you pass level 20 you will have to aquire special gear which has a new stat on it called Light, with that peice of gear equiped your character will now have as many light points as where on that peice. This is not only a strange system of leveling, but also highly unreliable, as RNG rears its ugly head again, as you could reach level 26 or 27 quite quickly, or someone could take dozens of hours to reach that mark. However long it takes you to get to level 27, you then have to start grinding what are called Ascendant Shards, which are required to rank up you gear to give you more light points. These Shards are very hard and slow to aquire unless you do the Raid frequently, which brings me onto:
The Raid: On paper the raid in the game, works extremely well, but in practice when you give the game to the real gamers, it falls apart. The Raid is a six man event which will take bare minimum 1.5 hours first time. Put it this way on the first day the Raid was released the first team to complete it took in excess of 11 hours! All in one sitting. Communication is an absolute esential, and you all need to be very experienced players with high rank weapons. Here come the big problem, there is no matchmaking. So you have to personally find five other players who can all sit down with mikes for a good few hours in one go to complete this mission. Now somepeople may argue that you can just play the game without doing the Raid, and yes you can. However whilst doing the raid you can get up to 15 Shards, in a few hours, at the moment I can get up to 4 Shards in 2 hours if I am extremely lucky. Most days I get none. Added on to this the fact that all primary weapons(exotic weapons included) have no elemental damage on them, ie Solar, Arc and Void. But if you play the Raid enough, you will get a whole host of primary weapons with elemental damage on them. Effectivly, think of the Raid weapons as Exotic(they are Legendary) weapons that you can use 3 of(you can only equip one exotic weapon). These high teir weapons really come into their own when you do the Nightfall Strike, which always(bar one week in ten so far) has a burn on them, which means that a specific elemental damage deals around 300% extra damge, both dealt by you and the enemies. At the end of the Nightfall Strike, you are guaranteed high rank gear, be in legendary or exotic gear, or Ascendat materials, or Strange Coins, all of which will come in very usefull. The clincher come when you put 2 and 2 together and work out that if you do the raid enough, you are given a much, much easier time of the Nightfall than someone who hasn't done the Raid. This coupled with the fact that you can only get to level 30(the max rank pre-DLC) by earning the very rare and random drops of Raid armour from the various chests and enemies in the Raid. All told the Raid makes a very large part of the game unplayable for far to many people(myself included) for the amount of time and energy Bungie put into it! My last note on the issue is this, according to the Playstation trophies a mear 13% of players who have Destiny have completed the Raid!
Round Up: Although I have bashed this game alot, it is still a very fun game to play, and one that will suck a lot of time from you if you give in to it. You can spend fun filled hours, doing Strikes, Crucible, Exotic and normal Bounties, material farming and more. The most important thing to bare in mind with this game, is that it will get better, multiple patches are in the works as we speak(write?), the next one which will be out by the release of The Dark Below(the first DLC), which will give a drastic change to all Exotic weapons. Bungie are one of the best developers out there for listening to thier audience, changes for a ton of stuff are in the pipework, and I have near total faith in Bungie to bring Destiny up to the level that I know it can be; we just have to wait.
My total review score for Destiny is: 8.5/10, with the capacity for Bungie to make it a solid 10/10.
Thank you very much for reading my long ramblings, check back soon for more new content!
Ed
Monday 24 November 2014
Wednesday 12 November 2014
Advanced Warfare Impressions
I have now had Advanced Warfare(or AW as I will be referring to it as) for a few days now, and have put a good number of hours into the game, so I thought it was time for me to bring my initial reaction of the game to you, though I will only be talking about the multiplayer side of the game today, you will learn about what I think of the rest of the game in my full review later this month! Also I have played AW on the PS4 so that is what I will be referring to. Let's start with the most obvious change in the CoD series history, the exo suite, for from reading about it or watching some footage of the multiplyer you will not fully understand what a difference that the exo makes. I know going into playing for the first time I was quite anxouis that the movement would be hard to control, and I wouldn't be using it much, however within a few matches I came to the realisation that this game really is the comeback year for CoD. The movement, I find, is pretty easy to pick up, as long as you remember that you can only exo boost every 3 seconds, and you have 2 boosts, so you can boost twice, but then wait 3 seconds for one to regenerate, and another 3 seconds for the other boost to regenerate. Any time you are in the air(quite alot) you can press sprint in any direction and you will boost in that direction. While you are on the ground you can boost any where in the 180 degrees behind you, so left, right and behind.
With all of the new movement, how are the maps? Well, they are just as amazing as the movement, you never feel like you are to far from the action, this feeling is amplified by the fact that you can traverse the map very quickly. There is alot of verticality to all of the maps, but I haven't come across many if any people camping in hard to reach spots. The rate of progression is very nice, and though I have played in 2XP I am already at level 30! There are the new supply drops, which though very fun when you earn one, they are too random to be anything more that a side fancy. Which is a real shame because the system of random loot, is a very appealing one, especially as you can do just as well, with the standard weapons, they just maybe aren't quite right for you, but there is probably a variation out there to suit you!
Moving on to the weapons, they are all highly satisfying to use, from the 12 hours or so I played of Ghosts, all the weapons had no personality to them. Where as in AW there are so many weapons which feel like they do something different from the rest, you have the BAL-27(OP? Yes!) which shoots the first 5 or so bullets at a slower rate of fire. You have the AK-12 which is a nice all round weapon, but doesn't exceed at any one thing. You have the HBRA3, which has a rather slow rate of fire, but you feel like each bullet is packing a noticeable punch, but don't try to take it into a close range engagement. Moving on the the SMGs, I have only really used the KF5 and the ASM1 a little, the KF5 really does feel like a pole apart from the ARs, and though all SMGs need a buff they are still usable in the right scenario now. With the increased rate of fire and approximately 10% increase movement speed while holding an SMG, you feel totally different from when you are using an AR. And the ASM1 is a modern take on the Tommy Gun, which is an absolute blast to use.
You then have the most diverse create-a-class system to date, the Pick 13 system, it is the same as BOII's pick 10 system, but this time score streaks count as one point, so for me(someone who doesn't go on many kill streaks) I am running with a UAV and Carepackage, and going into the fray with one more perk. Speaking of score streaks, you can now tweak your streak to how you want it to be, there are about 6-7 modules you can attach to a score streak, each of which adds to the score you must earn before you earn said streak, so for me I am running UAV with player direction and support(progress towards the streak carries on after death) and a Care Package with Better Odds and Support. This means that I am guaranteed to earn at least 2 score streaks per match. The depth with which you can customise your streaks to be how you want them to be is really amazing, and don't worry, you can only add support to a hand full of streaks, and non of the high streaks!
Now we have talked about all the awesome things in the game, let's talk about the very low number of things that I don't like with AW. It really boils down to two things, firstly there are some pretty bad spawns, I have spawned in the line of sight of enemy players, I have spawned on the exact spot on which I just died, though this hasn't annoyed me as much as I thought it would. The game is just so fun to play that these occasional free deaths don't really bug me. The other annoying thing I have found(though you should note again that all my thoughts are before any patches have been released) is occasional severe frame rate drops and extreme lag, these session last for between 10-20 seconds, in which time I reckon I was getting about 5 frames per second! Such instances occur too often for me to dismiss them as nothing, but it is possible that the issue was fixed in the patch on 11/11/14. One last note, the reason I haven't spoken about the new game modes in AW, I due to the fact that I have only been playing Hardpoint, so you will know my thoughts on Uplink and Momentum in my full review!
That just about wraps us my impressions of Advanced Warfare, it is very very good, I would highly recommend anyone picking it up, whether you are a CoD veteran or new to the series, this is the time to get into it!
Thanks for reading,
Ed
P.S I'm back!
Thursday 17 July 2014
Battlefield 4 Tips and Tricks
Hi guys,
If you follow me on Twitter you will know just how big a fan of Battlefield 4 I am, and today I thought I would impart some of my wisdom to you. Well I hope it is wisdom or this whole post is a bit worthless but for now we will strive on under the assumption that is is wisdom and not the ramblings of a mad man! One last quick note, all of my tips today will be centered around how to do them on the PS4 controller, so I apologise if your are on any other platform!
1) Spotting: This is probably the nost important tip I will give you today, as you will know shooting has been moved to R2 on the DS4(Dualshock 4) and spotting is now bound to R1, this is actually really handy because I have now got into the habbit of constatnly spotting and then quickly moving my finger back to R2 to shoot. I can't tell you the number of times it has saved my skin/shown me someone to shoot who I couldn't normally see, so get into the habbit of doing it constantly!
2) Big Map: You may not know this but even on console you can bring up the whole of the map, rather than relying on just the little one in the bottom corner. To do this you simply hold the options button(to bring up the scoreboard) then press R1 which will move it to the map, once you release options obviously it will take the map from the screen. However when ever you bring up the scoreboard again the map will instead be there, to switch back to the scoreboard press L1! I usually check the big map every time I spawn in so I can see whrere I need to go! Alternatlivly you could just check the spawn map and spawn where you think you are needed.
3) Sniper Lense Glint: If ever you see a little glint in the corner of your eye, like someone on the map is shining a torch right at you this isn't a bug, it is acutually the sun reflecting of the scope of a sniper! This is also usefull to watch out for if every you are trying to counter snipe!
4) Tank Weak Spots: Want to get the upper hand in a tank-on-tank battle? Well the sides of a tank will give you the lowes damage(so turn your side towards the enemy tank), but most importantly the rear of the tank will give you the largest damage! Bear these 2 tips in mind during a tank battle and you will more than likley win!
5) Talk to Your Team: If-like me- you don't particularly like turning your mike on to directly speak to your team mates, then you can hold L1 which will bring up this wheel of options:
You can then select one of them(by hovering over one of them and releasing L1) and then it will pop up in the top left of the screen for your whole team to read. Also any team mates nearby will be able to hear your plea for help of your command!
6) Squads: The first thing I do every time I join a server is press triangle to survey all of the squads, you want to pick the squad with the most number of people already in it(ovbisously not 5!) and join it, this can actually be really vital because with a large squad you are less likely to all die and lose your precious squad points. It will also give you a larger pool of players to choose to spawn on! Though be warned sometimes there will be a squad of less than 4 and it won't give you the option to join it, there is nothing you can do so just choose another squad.
7) Phantom Assignmests: Right this is my last tip for the day and it revolves around the ellusive Phantom Prospect and Treinee assignments. You have to be a Premium member to be able to start working towards the assingment. First though you must enter the correct passwords for each assingment, what you have to do is go the the leaderboards table and scroll down, then in the bottom left you will see a little mask behind another mask. If you click on this it will bring up a large page of code, don't worry this is what it is supposed to do, once it has verified you are a premium member it will ask you to put a password in, the first password you want to put in is, bumpinthenight, just like that with no spaces. That will give you access to the Phantom Prospect assignment. Then you will be asked to input a second password which is, epic dream worlds, this time with all of the spaces, this will give you access to the phantom treinee assignment. Good luck completing them!
That brings me to the end of my tips and trick for BF4, I hope you found this usefull in some way, if you did be sure to tell your friends about them!
Thanks for reading
Ed
If you follow me on Twitter you will know just how big a fan of Battlefield 4 I am, and today I thought I would impart some of my wisdom to you. Well I hope it is wisdom or this whole post is a bit worthless but for now we will strive on under the assumption that is is wisdom and not the ramblings of a mad man! One last quick note, all of my tips today will be centered around how to do them on the PS4 controller, so I apologise if your are on any other platform!
1) Spotting: This is probably the nost important tip I will give you today, as you will know shooting has been moved to R2 on the DS4(Dualshock 4) and spotting is now bound to R1, this is actually really handy because I have now got into the habbit of constatnly spotting and then quickly moving my finger back to R2 to shoot. I can't tell you the number of times it has saved my skin/shown me someone to shoot who I couldn't normally see, so get into the habbit of doing it constantly!
2) Big Map: You may not know this but even on console you can bring up the whole of the map, rather than relying on just the little one in the bottom corner. To do this you simply hold the options button(to bring up the scoreboard) then press R1 which will move it to the map, once you release options obviously it will take the map from the screen. However when ever you bring up the scoreboard again the map will instead be there, to switch back to the scoreboard press L1! I usually check the big map every time I spawn in so I can see whrere I need to go! Alternatlivly you could just check the spawn map and spawn where you think you are needed.
3) Sniper Lense Glint: If ever you see a little glint in the corner of your eye, like someone on the map is shining a torch right at you this isn't a bug, it is acutually the sun reflecting of the scope of a sniper! This is also usefull to watch out for if every you are trying to counter snipe!
4) Tank Weak Spots: Want to get the upper hand in a tank-on-tank battle? Well the sides of a tank will give you the lowes damage(so turn your side towards the enemy tank), but most importantly the rear of the tank will give you the largest damage! Bear these 2 tips in mind during a tank battle and you will more than likley win!
5) Talk to Your Team: If-like me- you don't particularly like turning your mike on to directly speak to your team mates, then you can hold L1 which will bring up this wheel of options:
You can then select one of them(by hovering over one of them and releasing L1) and then it will pop up in the top left of the screen for your whole team to read. Also any team mates nearby will be able to hear your plea for help of your command!
6) Squads: The first thing I do every time I join a server is press triangle to survey all of the squads, you want to pick the squad with the most number of people already in it(ovbisously not 5!) and join it, this can actually be really vital because with a large squad you are less likely to all die and lose your precious squad points. It will also give you a larger pool of players to choose to spawn on! Though be warned sometimes there will be a squad of less than 4 and it won't give you the option to join it, there is nothing you can do so just choose another squad.
7) Phantom Assignmests: Right this is my last tip for the day and it revolves around the ellusive Phantom Prospect and Treinee assignments. You have to be a Premium member to be able to start working towards the assingment. First though you must enter the correct passwords for each assingment, what you have to do is go the the leaderboards table and scroll down, then in the bottom left you will see a little mask behind another mask. If you click on this it will bring up a large page of code, don't worry this is what it is supposed to do, once it has verified you are a premium member it will ask you to put a password in, the first password you want to put in is, bumpinthenight, just like that with no spaces. That will give you access to the Phantom Prospect assignment. Then you will be asked to input a second password which is, epic dream worlds, this time with all of the spaces, this will give you access to the phantom treinee assignment. Good luck completing them!
That brings me to the end of my tips and trick for BF4, I hope you found this usefull in some way, if you did be sure to tell your friends about them!
Thanks for reading
Ed
Tuesday 10 June 2014
E3 2014: Sony Fanfare
Hello everyone,
That's it, one more years wait until we get another game blowout, but fear not I will be keeping you busy breaking down and giving my thoughts on all the games shown at Sony's Media Briefing!
The games I will be talking about are going to be in no particular so let's get into the show:
That's it, one more years wait until we get another game blowout, but fear not I will be keeping you busy breaking down and giving my thoughts on all the games shown at Sony's Media Briefing!
The games I will be talking about are going to be in no particular so let's get into the show:
Uncharted 4 A Thief's End:
Where else could I start, but at the end. Uncharted 4 now confirmed as having our lovable adventurer reprising his role on our screens Nathan Drake is back. The game is set "several years" after his last adventure we hear Nathan trying to convince Sully to come out of retirement with him for one last job. A little on the stereotypical side but this is Naughty Dog here, rest assured that there will be many surprises. On a speculative note, I think that someone very close to Nathan has been kidnapped by the villain of the game. This is based of the fact that Nathan says in the trailer that he has no choice, and in the description for the video from Playstation it says " His greatest adventure will test his physical limits, his resolve, and ultimately what he's willing to sacrifice to save the ones he loves." So will we be seeing Nathan going through not only a physical test, but also a mental one? I know as much as you do, but we will be getting our hands on this game in 2015, I would put my money on it being released in either February or March, as this was around when Uncharted 3 was released!
Little Big Planet 3:
In the next Playstation exclusive we will be returning to the sack planet and helping Sackboy out in his new adventure(though with fewer guns than Uncharted 4), this time Sackboy has cajoled some friends to come with him on his adventure. Yes we will be getting 3 new characters to play as this time, with Oddsock, a dog like sack creature who can run very fast and also has the ability to wall jump! Next we have Toggle, who is either very large and heavy or very small and light, and this is controlled by pressing L1 I believe which toggles between the 2 methods of size and shape(See what I did there?). Finally we have Swoop who is a sack bird, so will be able to pick other characters up and transport them to platforms they wouldn't normally be able to get to.
It isn't just new characters that is new in LBP3, no in this entry there will be more depth(literal back to front not scope) to the levels, and Sackboy will be able to take advantage of certain areas where he can climb on the walls! That wasn't the only LBP bomb Sony dropped on us last night, when Little Big Planet 3 releases this November we will have access to every single Little Big Planet 2 level, so as soon as you pick up the game, you will have thousands of hours of content at your finger tips!
No Man's Sky:
I think this was one of the best games shown so far at E3 2014, made by Hello Games, who brought us games like Joe Danger. This game looks amazing, the premise of the game is exploration, be it exploring open space filled with meteor showers or going on foot and becoming an intrepid explorer of foreign planets. Oh and there are an infinite number of planets because the game is procedurally generated. At this stage I don't think it is known what kind of multiplayer will be in the game, but in the demo we were shown there were other ships joining us in our interstellar dance. I was taken aback by this game and I can't wait to get my hands on this game!
Assassin's Creed Unity:
Words can not truly explain how excited I now am for the next entry in the Assassin's Creed franchise. Going into E3 when it was a near certainty that we would be getting a 4 player co-op demo, I was felt very little towards the game. Then they started playing and that soon changed! Aside from the co-op which I will come to in a second, 2 major features that I have been wanting for a very long time and have now been introduced into Unity are stealth mode(or crouching like in Batman) and the ability to shimmy down a tall building with both ease and speed! Well both of those things are new mechanics in Unity. We also saw a little glimpse into the number of side missions in the game, it may sound stupid but it looks like there will be proper side missions that may even take genuine detective skills to solve! Fun fact for you that you more than likely already knew, Unity is the more modern Assassin's Creed game to date!
Far Cry 4:
We got our first look at this game during the Ubisoft conference in the form of a first person cinematic trailer, then when the spotlight shifted to Sony, we got a sizable chunk of gameplay shown off. It involves the protagonist, liberating a monastery and we get a look at the mountains around the monastery. We also get a look at a couple of elephants, which are rumoured to the rideable. Perhaps the most interesting feature of the demo was when another player joined the game and helped to liberate the monastery, that in its self isn't all that interesting but after the demo we are told that anyone can be invited to help out in your game, even if the don't have the game! This feature will doubtlessly enrich the gameplay on a moment to moment basis, and I can't wait to see more of this game as we approach its release date later this year! On one last fanboy note the feature of a friend joining your game without owning the game will be available exclusively on the Playstation platforms!
Mortal Combat X:
I always give you all my honest opinions of the games I see, so I need to tell you that MCX looked awful. I have never been a fan of 2D fighting games, so I am already on a back footing. However the feature that is both central to Mortal Combat game and also what repulsed me away from the game is the violence. I can tolerate so much violence in a game, however in the gameplay for MCX it was quite frankly disgusting the level of violence present! I won't speak any more about such a game, but I feel I have made my position on the game quite clear.
Dead Island 2:
This was a game that was not even rumoured to be released, and in light of the fact that Deep Silver are now releasing 2 first person zombie games(Dying Light) I am surprised they are making this game. That fact aside the trailer we saw was a man jogging with the zombie apocalypse in full swing behind him. This man then slowly turns into zombie himself. The trailer then ends with our jogger being hit by a van, then the driver gets out and takes the shoe of the dismembered foot of the jogger! All in a days work then. I have never personally played Dead Island 1, nor did I feel I was missing out on the game, however this game with all it's next generation graphics and open world, this game has really peaked my interest. Maybe this will be a third party version of Dead Rising 3?
Grand Theft Auto V:
Possibly the most surprising(and welcome) announcement of Sony's conference was the PS4 trailer for Grand Theft Auto 5, there isn't much to say about this game really other than the fact that it will be hitting our shelves this "fall". It is also worth mentioning that GTA V will be coming to the Xbox One and PC at the same time! There was no mention as to if there would be any DLC bundled with the game, though as it stands there isn't any DLC, it would just have been nice to get a DLC announcement at the same time!
Bloodborne:
A new game from From Software will always mean good things are coming and this game looks no different! The trailer shows a cross between a Darks Souls 2(no relation) character and the Grim Reaper, fighting zombie esque creatures in a Gothic city with a very black skyline. The trailer doesn't show us all that much apart from the fact that it looks beautiful and daemons and devils will be involved somewhere! We don't have a release date other than coming 2015, so we will have to wait to get a true feel for what the game is. Though if we are lucky we may get a gameplay demo some time during E3!
The Order 1886:
To be honest my hype for this game was really rather low before E3, and it only sank more after more gameplay from this steam punk cover shooting adventure, I don't know what it is about the game, but to me it doesn't look good. I know that is a bit harsh but there you have it. Seeming to follow suit with too many games, The Order 1886 has recently been delayed until 2015, so hopefully with the extra time to make the game they can capture my interest!
Destiny:
Last but very much not least, we got both a new trailer and a beta date for this beast of a game, anyone who preorders the game will be able to access the beta on the 17th of July. If you preorder the game for a Playstation console you will have access to the beta 4 days before anyone else! I can't tell you how excited I am for this game, and I can't wait to see more of the competitive multiplayer during E3! The game launches on the 9th of September and the day can't come soon enough.
There we go guys, if you have read the whole of this article then thank you very much and well done! I really want to know what you think about the games I have talked about so either leave your thoughts in the comments below or Tweet me.
Again thank you very much for reading, there has never been a better time to be a gamer, let's hope all the games live upto the hype they have just created!
Ed
Check back soon for more E3 coverage and an in depth breakdown of the Unity trailer!
Saturday 7 June 2014
E3 2014: What To Expect
Hi guys,
The time is nearly upon us, the time when all players unite under the banner of proud gamers. I'm sure you are aware that I am talking about E3, the global trade show where we are treated to an insight of what we will all be playing later this year in into the next! So I thought I would give all you internetians a run down of the games we know will be at E3, and the ones I suspect will be there. Without further ado let the predictions commence:
Battlefield Hardline: If you have kept your eye on my site recently you will have read my thoughts on the announcement trailer for the next Battlefield game. If you haven't had a chance to watch the trailer then you can rectify your mistake at the EA conference(which is live at 8:00 PM on Monday the 9th of June) where the trailer will be officially released. Bearing in mind the trailer has already leaked I wouldn't be surprised to see some extra gameplay to be able to show something new for everyone who has already see the trailer.
Destiny: This game is probably my highest anticipated game of the year(because we don't have many facts about BF Hardline), so I can't wait to see what new Destiny we will be receiving. I believe new Destiny gameplay will be shown off during the Playstation conference at 2:00 AM UK time on Tuesday the 10th of June. Bungie are absolute masters of feeding us enough information to stop us going insane but not enough to stop you coming back for more. I believe and hope that E3 will start the beginning of harder facts coming out the doors of Bungie, but for that, we will have to wait.
Assassins Creed Unity: This year all Assassins Creed fans are being treated to 100% more Assassins games coming from Ubisoft, yes that is right we will be getting one AC game for last gen consoles, and then Unity will be gracing the walls of next generation owners. Last year at E3 Ubisoft dropped the non to small bomb shell of naval combat on us. That led on to be an integral part of the game, so what will they be treating us to this year? I wouldn't go in expecting as much of a game changer as the naval combat, but I would like to see the introduction of a new gameplay mechanic that we haven't seen before. What ever we see, it will be at 9:00 PM on Monday the 9th of this very month!
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare: As with every E3 for as many years that I have seen, Activision and this year Sledgehammer Games will show of 1-2 single player missions for us to watch in irritation that they haven't shown us the thing that everyone buys the game for, the multiplayer. I would really like to see Sledgehammer games burst out of the fence and show us a multiplayer match played directly from the show floor. No matter what we are show it will with a doubt be at the Xbox conference which is on at 5:30 PM Monday the 9th of June!
The Division: Last E3 the crowds were stunned into silence when we got our first look at The Division at Ubisofts conference, ever since then the information scene has been desolate. This scene took a turn for the worst when it was announced that the game was being pushed to 2015, I suspect we will be seeing this game on our shelves around this time next year. Delays aside, E3 should signify the start of the trailer tirade that Ubisoft are known for, which isn't always a bad thing. We should be seeing a brand new demo at the Ubisoft conference(which is on at 11:00 PM Monday the 9th of June) and maybe get a solid release date, but I doubt that immensely!
Batman Arkham Knight: This game was announced out of the blue only a few months ago, but within hours of it being announced it had shoe horned it's way into many people top games of the year list, mine included. I am fairly confident in saying that we will be seeing more of this game in less than 2 weeks let's hope Rocksteady have got some awesome battle arena gameplay to show us!
The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt: Now that we know that this beast of a game will be released on February the 24th of next year, it is unlikely we will be seeing any more of this game during the period of E3, however there is a possibility that we will get another trailer, or maybe even a gameplay walkthrough! This game probably won't be appearing at any of the conferences, so keep your eye of any videos coming from CD Projeckt RED's doors.
Dragon Age Inquisition: I must admit to never having played a Dragon Age game, but ever since Mass Effect 3 changed my perspective on how a game can tell its story, I have been eager to play any other games from Bioware. I would really like to see some more gameplay for this game. When the game is being released in October it wouldn't be too much to expect to see a sizable chunk of gameplay shown off at EA's conference.
Evolve: This is one of the few games that I have gone from very little excitement to one of my top 3 games coming this year. The scope of the game is truely asstonishing, and I can't wait to get my hands on it. I have never played games similar to Left for Dead so this game will be an introduction into a new genre of games, and I am waiting with baited breath for the game to hit our shelves. No matter how good the game will be I expect to see this game making an appearance at E3, maybe we will see it at one of the 2 main conferences(Microsoft and Playstation) but we may just get some over the shoulder gameplay taken from a demo on the show floor, though we don't even know if we will be getting our hands on that!
So that brings me to the end of my run up to E3 2014, as always the star of the show will be the games that we haven't yet seen at all, so no matter your console preference you really should tune into all of the conferences, I know I will be!
On one last note, I would like to list the games that I hope will be at E3, but we don't know a single damn thing about them, Mass Effect 4, Bioshock 4, Elder Scrolls VI, Fallout 4 and The Next XCOM Game.
Thank you very much for reading if you are planning to be vocal about your thought through out E3 please bear in mind that this expo is for gamers all together, not just fanboys and fangirls of one console.
Ed
What games are you looking forward to seeing? Let me know if the comments!
The time is nearly upon us, the time when all players unite under the banner of proud gamers. I'm sure you are aware that I am talking about E3, the global trade show where we are treated to an insight of what we will all be playing later this year in into the next! So I thought I would give all you internetians a run down of the games we know will be at E3, and the ones I suspect will be there. Without further ado let the predictions commence:
So that brings me to the end of my run up to E3 2014, as always the star of the show will be the games that we haven't yet seen at all, so no matter your console preference you really should tune into all of the conferences, I know I will be!
On one last note, I would like to list the games that I hope will be at E3, but we don't know a single damn thing about them, Mass Effect 4, Bioshock 4, Elder Scrolls VI, Fallout 4 and The Next XCOM Game.
Thank you very much for reading if you are planning to be vocal about your thought through out E3 please bear in mind that this expo is for gamers all together, not just fanboys and fangirls of one console.
Ed
What games are you looking forward to seeing? Let me know if the comments!
Thursday 29 May 2014
Battlefield Hardline
Hi guys,
Unless you have had your head stuck in the sand the last couple of days, you will know that a lot of Battlefiled Hardline details have been leaked. If you didn't know Battlefield Hardline is the next instalment in the Battlefield franchise, and will be coming to PS4, PS3, Xbox One, Xbox 360 and PC later this year. The game is based around the principle of cops v robbers, but I assure you, this game will take that theory further than any other game has done before! The game is being made by Visceral, a developer owned by EA, and this game will mark the first in the franchise not to be made by DICE. There are rumours circulating at the moment that only the single player is being made by Visceral whilst the multiplayer is being made by DICE, this is unconfirmed and personally I find it hard to belive, especially as DICE should still be hard at work on BF4s DLC and working of the CTE(Community Test Environment). There has been a 7 minute trailer that has been leaked which was supposed to be shown at E3(and still will) at EA's conference, EA are doing their best to keep the leak at bay, but all you have to do is search Battlefield Hardline Gameplay in You Tube and you should find it pretty quickly.
Some of the things mentioned in the trailer are: Stun guns, batons, grappling guns, various new game modes and more!
You really should go and check it out, in one of the briefer scenes we get a look at some of the guns that are in the current build of the game and they are: Famas, AEK, M416, CZ-805, SAR-21, AUG-A3 and the QBZ-95-1, they are some of the guns listed, but the images for the weapons aren't where they should be. So we have the MP7 and the P90 is pictures, these are all popular guns in BF4 so it wasn't a long shot to say they would be in Hardline, but it is nice to get confirmation! Stats in the game will be shown on a wheel, where the more the bar is filled the higher that stat. We can see stats for fire rate, accuracy and damage, each of which has green and red bars for if it is affected by an attachment! It is unclear what attachment is causing this but something is increasing the fire rate dramatically, could we see the introduction of a rapid fire attachment?
The trailer also says that we will be seeing an episodic style campaign, you will still get all of the episodes on the disk, but the story will be broken down into episode style segments, complete with cliff hangers and anything else you might expect from a hit detective programme!
I am very excited for Hardline, not least because it is very different from BF4, so you won't have 2 games that are clashing for the same style of game! I am really looking forward to officially seeing this trailer at E3 in a couple of weeks, and I hope there will be more coverage of the game during E3!
That's all for now, thank you all for reading
Ed
Don't forget to also check out my website to keep up to date with all my new posts:
www.thegamescritic,com
Unless you have had your head stuck in the sand the last couple of days, you will know that a lot of Battlefiled Hardline details have been leaked. If you didn't know Battlefield Hardline is the next instalment in the Battlefield franchise, and will be coming to PS4, PS3, Xbox One, Xbox 360 and PC later this year. The game is based around the principle of cops v robbers, but I assure you, this game will take that theory further than any other game has done before! The game is being made by Visceral, a developer owned by EA, and this game will mark the first in the franchise not to be made by DICE. There are rumours circulating at the moment that only the single player is being made by Visceral whilst the multiplayer is being made by DICE, this is unconfirmed and personally I find it hard to belive, especially as DICE should still be hard at work on BF4s DLC and working of the CTE(Community Test Environment). There has been a 7 minute trailer that has been leaked which was supposed to be shown at E3(and still will) at EA's conference, EA are doing their best to keep the leak at bay, but all you have to do is search Battlefield Hardline Gameplay in You Tube and you should find it pretty quickly.
Some of the things mentioned in the trailer are: Stun guns, batons, grappling guns, various new game modes and more!
The trailer also says that we will be seeing an episodic style campaign, you will still get all of the episodes on the disk, but the story will be broken down into episode style segments, complete with cliff hangers and anything else you might expect from a hit detective programme!
I am very excited for Hardline, not least because it is very different from BF4, so you won't have 2 games that are clashing for the same style of game! I am really looking forward to officially seeing this trailer at E3 in a couple of weeks, and I hope there will be more coverage of the game during E3!
That's all for now, thank you all for reading
Ed
Don't forget to also check out my website to keep up to date with all my new posts:
www.thegamescritic,com
Saturday 26 April 2014
Trials Fusion: Review
A hearty hello to each and every one of you out there in the ether reading this post,
Today I will be portraying my view of Trials Fusion for your enjoyment! Without another beat of the proverbial bush let's get straight into it.
This was the first Trials game I have played, going into the first level I was cautiously excited, that caution was put to the wind as soon as I caught my first huge jump(a mear 10 seconds into the track!). As the hours of game time flew past me I never stopped to think, what will happen when the game ends? Well luckily for me it never will, if you didn't already know Trials Fusion boasts the deepest user creation tools I have seen in any game I have played. The developers have even given us the lofty expectation that all of the game could be made in the level creator. As soon as you take your first steps into the level creation you will see that it wasn't an understatement, the tools you have at your finger tips would make even the hardiest of gamers weep at the thought of the possibility's. That being said, the creator does have some down sides, firstly it isn't all that user friendly, or it gives of that impression until you start getting to grips with it, then it is considerably more manageable! The other down side to the creation tools, is the way in which they can be overloaded. This won't be a large problem for most people, but yesterday I started a new track and somewhat spammed the lighting effects. In my head it would have been somewhere between the scope of Game of Thrones and the lighting effects of a neon planet! Now you have that magnificent image in your head, lets take a look at the final product:
Today I will be portraying my view of Trials Fusion for your enjoyment! Without another beat of the proverbial bush let's get straight into it.
This was the first Trials game I have played, going into the first level I was cautiously excited, that caution was put to the wind as soon as I caught my first huge jump(a mear 10 seconds into the track!). As the hours of game time flew past me I never stopped to think, what will happen when the game ends? Well luckily for me it never will, if you didn't already know Trials Fusion boasts the deepest user creation tools I have seen in any game I have played. The developers have even given us the lofty expectation that all of the game could be made in the level creator. As soon as you take your first steps into the level creation you will see that it wasn't an understatement, the tools you have at your finger tips would make even the hardiest of gamers weep at the thought of the possibility's. That being said, the creator does have some down sides, firstly it isn't all that user friendly, or it gives of that impression until you start getting to grips with it, then it is considerably more manageable! The other down side to the creation tools, is the way in which they can be overloaded. This won't be a large problem for most people, but yesterday I started a new track and somewhat spammed the lighting effects. In my head it would have been somewhere between the scope of Game of Thrones and the lighting effects of a neon planet! Now you have that magnificent image in your head, lets take a look at the final product:
For the sake of clarification all of those green and orange flames should be constantly on, but due to how many of them there are the game can't keep them all going, thus they all flicker inconsistently!
However if your interest will largely stay within the bracket of the "campaign" then you are in for a treat, each track has 3 medals and 3 challenges to complete. If you think that sounds easy then you are sadly mistaken, the challenges range from hard to harder. Also a nice handful of the challenges are very cryptic, such as Win a game of tennis. You might think, how do you play a game of tennis in a motorbiking game? Spoilers, that why! All of the medals and challenges give you XP, which will contribute to your level, which in turn will slowly unlock new outfits for your biker. Over all the amount of content in this game is staggering. At the time of writing this review there are just over 4,000 track made by you the gaming community. I am pretty sure however that the tracks you upload are locked to that console, so you can't play a track which has been uploaded from the Xbox One on the PS4! Seeing as the game has only been out less than 2 weeks the quality of some of the tracks is quite astonishing and I can't wait to see the direction the community will take!
Alas the game is not perfect and it does have a couple of flaws, the largest in my opinion is the voice overs, they themselves are actually really good, but the line of dialogue they are saying will be cut if you have to restart back to the last checkpoint. You will then never hear that line of dialogue again unless you play the track again. So that means that what story there is in the game was largely lost on me because so much of what they were saying was cut. I would have liked to see either the ability to replay the voice overs from the pause menu or the voices continue no matter how many times you restart. If you were wondering, none of what the voice overs say specifically ties into that part of the track. My other gripe with the game is the check points, now they themselves have been placed just frequently enough to stop you pulling your hair out, but far enough away to feel like you have achieved something when you get to one. No it isn't that, my problem is momentum, an irritating number of the jumps are much, much harder to achieve when you retry and then have no momentum behind you. I don't know whether to some people this adds to the challenge of the tracks, but for me I find it quite irritating!
There you go, they are all of my opinions of Trials Fusion, all in all it is a brilliant game which I wouldn't hesitate to recommend you buy. Now time for the score!
Tracks: All superbly crafted, make replayability an extreme pleasure! 10/10
Graphics: Looks really good, but you are mainly focusing of the bike so everything else doesn't matter! 10/10
Challenge: Just the right amount of challenge to keep you coming back! 10/10
Gripes: Cut out voice overs and momentum problems! 5/10
Enjoyability: An extremely enjoyable game that will keep me coming back for a very long time! 10/10
Which brings me to the grand total of :
9.0/10
I hope you enjoyed my review of Trials Fusion, and I hope it made you want to play this biking masterpiece.
Signing out, but not for long.
Ed
Saturday 5 April 2014
Battlefield 4 Diary: Aqua Domination
Hi guys Rick here reporting to you from inside the battlefield,
07:00: The time that we all wake up every day, I nearly always train in the morning and then go out and shed blood for which every country I am serving now, and this day was no different. We usually do 10 laps of the Aircraft Carrier we live on and also serves as a mobile deployment station for where ever we are needed.
09:00: At this time a couple of us have usually been deployed but most of us are sat around twiddling our thumbs until the afternoon.
13:06: My lunch was cut short when I was told that I was being deployed, my orders from up high were to scout a plane crash in an attack boat. Thinking back that was one of the best tuna sandwiches I had eaten in quite a while!
13:12: That was one of the quickest times that I had got from the mess to the lower deck in a long time, but this was a special day, I am usually deployed on foot, so to be entrusted with a huge boat with even bigger guns was quite a spectacle.
13:17: By this time I had reached the crashed plane, but I could feel that something wasn't right, it was too quiet, there was no body any where near the crashed plane, the whole place was totally deserted. Just as I was about to radio back to the Carrier to report, I saw them. I saw the enemy, and they were plentiful, I managed to take down one of their attack boats and a couple of infantry before I my self was killed.
13:19: Expecting to go into the nether, I was very surprised when I suddenly woke up in an identical attack boat! This time before I left the Carrier I made a few upgrades to the boat, this time I would be going out with a new kind of ammo which I was assured by my quarter master would deal with enemy boats with greater ease. He was right.
13: 25: This day was turning out to be a very, very good one I had already dispatched 2 enemy boats and I was bearing down on my third. Every thing was going brilliantly, but it would seem with hindsight that the enemy saw what I was doing and dispatched a jet to take care of me. As you may be able to imagine, it didn't take long before I was waiting to wake up again.
13: 33: I felt like I was within spitting distance of something very important, I just couldn't put my finger of what! This time when I woke up there was someone else driving the big boat and I was precariously stood on the back of it with a rather large chain gun.
13:37: This was going brilliantly, it turned out that the guns on the side of the boat were highly affective against most things that floated. Alas my reign of aqua dominance could only last so long. This time it was someone from the shore line who was pointing a rather large gun at me which he rested on his shoulder.
13:54: After several more escapades in the attack boat I got a radio buzz from my quarter master, who told me that I was now a good enough boat driver to be entrusted with a very new gadget which had been nicknamed "TV Missiles", as soon as I used one for the first time I could see why, using a screen in my boat no bigger than a laptop, I could wirelessly control very explosive missiles, and send them all the way across the map!
14:35: After a little while longer experimenting with this new gadget I was told that I had played my part for the day and that I was being brought back to the Carrier. I was quite disappointed because I was having more fun in the boats that I undoubtedly would doing laps of the Carrier. Alas I would be able to take to the seas once more tommorow!
Thanks for reading,
Ed
Just as a quick note on the end, Rick is a totally fictional character and the diary is written from his perspective of one of the players in Battlefield 4.
Friday 7 March 2014
inFamous Secons Sons run down!
Super Powers, Choice, Smoke
Hi guys,
Just a quick note before I get into the main post, from now on most of my posts will be starting with 3 words the I feel represent the game the best from what I am played/seen of it!
Ever since I saw the credits role over my journey through inFamous 2 I have been on tender hooks waiting for any word of the next game. So when Second Sons was announced last year Sucker Punch had my undivided attention. Fast forward and after numerous trailers and tibits of information I am very excited that the release of this game is only 2 weeks away! If you aren't totally aware of the premise of Second Sons then let me fill you in, you will play as Delsin who is a Conduit(in other words someone with supernatural powers) and who lives in a society of people who don't like conduits(or as they call them Bio Terrorists). You will enact your adventure within the confines of a beautifully recreated Seattle. That is one of the things I am really excited about in Second Sons, the level of detail that Sucker Punch appear to have put into portraying a realistic recreation of Seattle.
During the time we will spend with Deslin we will be trying to rid the city of the apparent plague of the DOP, the people who want to cleanse all Bio Terrorists from Seattle. In the time we will be traversing E-Seattle we will be coming in contact other Conduits that also want freedom within their own city, so far we only know of is a woman who has alluring name of Fetch! Fetch has remained quite elusive to us so far and all we know is that she has control over neon, being able to shoot neon balls out of her hand. We also know that Deslin and Fetch collide at quite some speed and then Delsin is able to drain neon from any near by sources, this raises the tantalising question of what other powers will we be able to commandeer from other conduits? It has been confirmed that there will be multiple powers Delsin will be able to control, but Sucker Punch have kept their lips very tightly sealed about what they could be! If would be quite nice if we will be able to utilise the power of electricity like Cole could in inFamous 2!
That brings me to the end of my run down of inFamous Second Sons, the only last piece of information I can dangle in front of you is the release date on March 21st! Only 2 weeks to the day from when this post first went live!
Thanks for reading and stop reading and start playing!
Ed
Website
Twitter
Hi guys,
Just a quick note before I get into the main post, from now on most of my posts will be starting with 3 words the I feel represent the game the best from what I am played/seen of it!
Ever since I saw the credits role over my journey through inFamous 2 I have been on tender hooks waiting for any word of the next game. So when Second Sons was announced last year Sucker Punch had my undivided attention. Fast forward and after numerous trailers and tibits of information I am very excited that the release of this game is only 2 weeks away! If you aren't totally aware of the premise of Second Sons then let me fill you in, you will play as Delsin who is a Conduit(in other words someone with supernatural powers) and who lives in a society of people who don't like conduits(or as they call them Bio Terrorists). You will enact your adventure within the confines of a beautifully recreated Seattle. That is one of the things I am really excited about in Second Sons, the level of detail that Sucker Punch appear to have put into portraying a realistic recreation of Seattle.
During the time we will spend with Deslin we will be trying to rid the city of the apparent plague of the DOP, the people who want to cleanse all Bio Terrorists from Seattle. In the time we will be traversing E-Seattle we will be coming in contact other Conduits that also want freedom within their own city, so far we only know of is a woman who has alluring name of Fetch! Fetch has remained quite elusive to us so far and all we know is that she has control over neon, being able to shoot neon balls out of her hand. We also know that Deslin and Fetch collide at quite some speed and then Delsin is able to drain neon from any near by sources, this raises the tantalising question of what other powers will we be able to commandeer from other conduits? It has been confirmed that there will be multiple powers Delsin will be able to control, but Sucker Punch have kept their lips very tightly sealed about what they could be! If would be quite nice if we will be able to utilise the power of electricity like Cole could in inFamous 2!
That brings me to the end of my run down of inFamous Second Sons, the only last piece of information I can dangle in front of you is the release date on March 21st! Only 2 weeks to the day from when this post first went live!
Thanks for reading and stop reading and start playing!
Ed
Website
Friday 7 February 2014
Battlefield 4: ACE-23 Gun Review
Hi guys,
I decided that seeing as I am loving Battlefield 4 so much, I would bring you a review of one of the guns/classes I like to use! If you already have BF4 you have doubtlessly heard of or used the ACE-23, despite BF4 being a much more balanced game(gun wise) there are still guns that the masses will crowd towards. In BF4 the ACE-23 is just such a weapon. The biggest problem with this weapon is actually unlocking it, it is unlike most other Assault Rifles as you need to complete 3 assignments to be able to unlock it! Let's break down the three assignments:
First you will have to complete Assault Basic, which will require 7 kills with any Assault Rifle and 11 heals, but most importantly you will need to be at least rank 10 which shouldn't take you to long to do. I believe this is to keep this very powerful weapon out of the hands of people who have just picked up the game. The heals can be obtained either with the Med Kit or the Med Bag. You will then be awarded with the Assault Basic dog tag.
Next there will be the Assault Veteran assignment, you will needed to have completed Assault Basic to unlock Assault Veteran, for this you will need to get 8 kills with any Assault Rifle an 12 total heals. Much like Assault Basic this will be very easy to complete, though if you are having trouble with the heals play some Operation Locker pop one down and the heals will come quickly! The nice thing about this assignment is that you get a new camo for all weapons and vehicles for completing it.
So far the assignments have been a walk in the park and you should get them within a few matches, the biggest problem is Assault Expert, which firstly requires you to have competed the two above assignments and then you will need 50 Medkit Ribbons, 200 kills with any AR and 10 AR Ribbons. Despite it sounding quite daunting this one assignment only took me about 4 hours to complete. The 50 Medkit ribbons: to earn one Medkit ribbon you have to earn 8 heals in one round. For this I would recommend you having the Medbag but it isn't essential, this will also mean that you will get a Medkit medal. The 200 AR kills and the 10 AR Ribbons both will be earned together, the ribbon requires you to earn 6 AR kills in one round, you will earn this before you get your 200 AR kills. As for the 200 AR kills it isn't that hard, just quite time consuming. Once you have completed all of this you will earn yourself the ACE-23.
Right now you have unlocked it let's talk about how it handles, this is a very good overall weapon, it can handle itself up close and further away(though you will need to tap fire for long range shots) and that is the main reason it is good. Anyone can pick it up and do well, you don't need to chose a compromise you just have to pick up the weapon. Let's talk about the attachments:
I decided that seeing as I am loving Battlefield 4 so much, I would bring you a review of one of the guns/classes I like to use! If you already have BF4 you have doubtlessly heard of or used the ACE-23, despite BF4 being a much more balanced game(gun wise) there are still guns that the masses will crowd towards. In BF4 the ACE-23 is just such a weapon. The biggest problem with this weapon is actually unlocking it, it is unlike most other Assault Rifles as you need to complete 3 assignments to be able to unlock it! Let's break down the three assignments:
Next there will be the Assault Veteran assignment, you will needed to have completed Assault Basic to unlock Assault Veteran, for this you will need to get 8 kills with any Assault Rifle an 12 total heals. Much like Assault Basic this will be very easy to complete, though if you are having trouble with the heals play some Operation Locker pop one down and the heals will come quickly! The nice thing about this assignment is that you get a new camo for all weapons and vehicles for completing it.
To be honest the optic is really down you how you want to play with this gun, but if you are going to be close to medium range then I would recommend either the Coyote RDS or the Kobra RDS. I find the laser sight is invaluable as you will be running into people unexpectedly so you want to be able to hip fire and still have a fighting chance. I haven't unlocked it yet but I would recommend the green laser sight as it is the hardest see at a distance.
If you didn't know, in BF4 you can equip a suppressor with out it effecting you damage stats, as it did in BF3. Instead it only slows the flight of your bullets, this makes it an essential for any guy(when you unlock it).
Finally you have you under barrel attachment, I have gone for the potato grip as it decreases your bullet spread when you shoot!
Thank brings me to the end of this review for the ACE-23 in Battlefield 4, all in all I would give it 10/10, a flawless gun that can be used at nearly all ranges with few guns to out shoot it. I know this has been a bit of a weird post but I am playing very little else at the moment, so I wanted to post about it. Please do tell me if you want to see more of these BF4 gun reviews either by Tweeting me, or leaving a comment down bellow!
As always thanks for reading,
Ed
Don't forget you can read this and much more on my new Website!
Friday 31 January 2014
100th Post Extravaganza
Hi guys,
I have been looking forward to bringing you all this post for a very long time, my 100th post. I am going to cut to the chase and tell you that after many months of work I am very pleased to announce to you all that I have launched a website! This website will feature posts from this blog, and in the future will get posts that will not be on this blog! I would really appreciate it if you would go and check it out and tell me what you think, you can tweet me any of your thoughts or ideas here.
Go now and read the future of The Games Critic: thegamescritic.com
If you would like to tweet about my new website click here! This just helps to get the word out about the new site.
That is all for now, thank you all very much for reading and I can't really thank you all enough for the support you have shown me over the last couple of months.
Ed
I have been looking forward to bringing you all this post for a very long time, my 100th post. I am going to cut to the chase and tell you that after many months of work I am very pleased to announce to you all that I have launched a website! This website will feature posts from this blog, and in the future will get posts that will not be on this blog! I would really appreciate it if you would go and check it out and tell me what you think, you can tweet me any of your thoughts or ideas here.
Go now and read the future of The Games Critic: thegamescritic.com
If you would like to tweet about my new website click here! This just helps to get the word out about the new site.
That is all for now, thank you all very much for reading and I can't really thank you all enough for the support you have shown me over the last couple of months.
Ed
Monday 20 January 2014
Playstation 4 Review
Hi guys,
Just before I start this post I would just like to say that this is my 99th post on this blog. Within the next week you can expect my 100th post. The 100th post is going to be huge, it will change the whole format of my blog and I am really excited to bring it to you all. I have been working behind the scenes on this project for a few months now so it will be very nice to finally see it released. If you follow me on Twitter then you will have seen some tweets in-directly about it. That is the only hint you will get! Right after that intro I have an equally awesome post for you, my full review of the Playstation 4. Now this will be the first console I have reviewed so I hope I cover all of the relevant points.
DESIGN: Let's start with the design of the console, this console is a really stunner, if there was a bar where all of the games consoles hung out, when the PS4 enters the room she(I have given my PS4 a girls name, as should you!) would turn many heads. Moving on from that slightly weird analogy, seriously though she does look gorgeous, if you are a hermit at haven't seen what the PS4 looks like here she is:
CONTROLLER: That is the other major change with the PS4 the Dualshock 4, I can't stress enough how bigger difference you can feel just by holding the controller. When I first picked up the controller back in September at Eurogamer, I wasn't particularly infatuated with it and that gave me cause for concern. However as soon as I picked it up with my own PS4 I just fell in love with it, I think the first thing that will hit you is the size of it. This is considerably bigger than the Dualshock 3, and I personally think it is better because of it! It will take you a while to get used to it, but when you do it is simply a joy to use.
As you may know the start and select buttons from the Dualshock 3 have been replaced with the options and share buttons, and touch pad. As it sounds the share does nothing but takes screen shots/videos. The options and touch pad are the new start and select, with the touch pad usually taking the place of select and the options button taking the place of start. In the future I would like to see more games take more advantage of the touch pad. I can see it being a feature that will maily be used in first party games. I know for a fact that there are sections of inFamous Second Sons that will feature the touch pad, I can't wait to see what Naughty Dog can do with it! All in all I think it is one of if not the biggest improvement between Dualshock 3 and 4!
GRAPHICAL CAPABILITY: The difference between the PS3 and 4 graphically is staggering, if you look at a game like Battlefield 4(single player) and then you look at something like Uncharted 3, the difference is huge. Now I know you want a difference that big, but this is just the beginning of the consoles life span, the graphics/size of games is only grow the longer the console is out there! Lip syncing has also been greatly improved between the generations, I know it is some what down to the game engine/developer but the console itself gives them the opportunity to do so much more than they could before.Most of the games you will play with be 1080p and 60fps, if you don't know what that means, it is going to look gorgeous and run very very smoothly!
THE BAD THINGS WITH THE CONSOLE: Yes it is a shame that a few things are done wrong with this console, but non of them are huge and shouldn't get in the way of your day-to-day gaming experience. The first thing is actually the share button, when you take a screen shot(by pressing the share button once depending on what you have set it to in the settings) it will take a screen shot. When ever you want to upload that screen shot, you press and hold the share button and it gives you the option to either tweet the shot, or post it on Facebook. I would have really liked to see an option where by you can email it to yourself or others. This wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the fact that you can only access your photos through the PS4, not through the Playstation website or something like that, I feel it was a big missed opportunity with the PS4.
My second problem with the PS4 is the downloads system, when ever something is automatically downloaded or you start something downloading, you have no ability what so ever to pause that download. This may not be a huge problem for many people but for me with a 1.8mb/s Internet speed any kind of download in the background means that I then can't play any multiplayer games. This is a huge pain especially as games for the PS4(Warframe for example is 50GB) are so big.
This brings me onto my third problem with the PS4, the memory. Now I know that in time there will be much bigger options available for the PS4, but to only have one 500GB(the size that was available on the PS3 at the end of it's life cycle) option at launch I feel was a wasted opportunity. I have already filled half of my hard drive with 4 disk games and 3 digital games. I have no films and no media other than the screen shots that I have taken.
My fourth and final problem is the on/off button. For some reason I can't make my PS4 turn of just my pressing the off button(or pressing and holding), which puts it into standby mode, but I want to turn my PS4 totally off. So instead of actually using the power button I have to go through the menus of the PS4(which sounds worse than it is)to turn my PS4 off. This isn't a huge thing but it is a bit annoying.
Anyway that brings me to the end of my review for the PS4 as a whole, if there are any points you think I have missed you can either leave your ideas in the comments or Tweet me or hit me up on Facebook.
All in all I absolutely love the PS4, and the bad things I have mentioned have little to no impact on your day-to-day gaming, they just would have been nice to see.
I feel as though it wouldn't be right to give a whole console a score, so I will leave you with this. No matter what your console preferences you should definitely pick up a next(now current?) gen console. They are a master piece in gaming design and I am very very excited to see what this next year will bring us. If you are a gamer, you had better strap yourself in because what is to come, will be know for years to come, as the best time to be a gamer.
As always thank you for reading,
Ed
Twitter
Facebook
Just before I start this post I would just like to say that this is my 99th post on this blog. Within the next week you can expect my 100th post. The 100th post is going to be huge, it will change the whole format of my blog and I am really excited to bring it to you all. I have been working behind the scenes on this project for a few months now so it will be very nice to finally see it released. If you follow me on Twitter then you will have seen some tweets in-directly about it. That is the only hint you will get! Right after that intro I have an equally awesome post for you, my full review of the Playstation 4. Now this will be the first console I have reviewed so I hope I cover all of the relevant points.
DESIGN: Let's start with the design of the console, this console is a really stunner, if there was a bar where all of the games consoles hung out, when the PS4 enters the room she(I have given my PS4 a girls name, as should you!) would turn many heads. Moving on from that slightly weird analogy, seriously though she does look gorgeous, if you are a hermit at haven't seen what the PS4 looks like here she is:
As you may know the start and select buttons from the Dualshock 3 have been replaced with the options and share buttons, and touch pad. As it sounds the share does nothing but takes screen shots/videos. The options and touch pad are the new start and select, with the touch pad usually taking the place of select and the options button taking the place of start. In the future I would like to see more games take more advantage of the touch pad. I can see it being a feature that will maily be used in first party games. I know for a fact that there are sections of inFamous Second Sons that will feature the touch pad, I can't wait to see what Naughty Dog can do with it! All in all I think it is one of if not the biggest improvement between Dualshock 3 and 4!
GRAPHICAL CAPABILITY: The difference between the PS3 and 4 graphically is staggering, if you look at a game like Battlefield 4(single player) and then you look at something like Uncharted 3, the difference is huge. Now I know you want a difference that big, but this is just the beginning of the consoles life span, the graphics/size of games is only grow the longer the console is out there! Lip syncing has also been greatly improved between the generations, I know it is some what down to the game engine/developer but the console itself gives them the opportunity to do so much more than they could before.Most of the games you will play with be 1080p and 60fps, if you don't know what that means, it is going to look gorgeous and run very very smoothly!
THE BAD THINGS WITH THE CONSOLE: Yes it is a shame that a few things are done wrong with this console, but non of them are huge and shouldn't get in the way of your day-to-day gaming experience. The first thing is actually the share button, when you take a screen shot(by pressing the share button once depending on what you have set it to in the settings) it will take a screen shot. When ever you want to upload that screen shot, you press and hold the share button and it gives you the option to either tweet the shot, or post it on Facebook. I would have really liked to see an option where by you can email it to yourself or others. This wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the fact that you can only access your photos through the PS4, not through the Playstation website or something like that, I feel it was a big missed opportunity with the PS4.
My second problem with the PS4 is the downloads system, when ever something is automatically downloaded or you start something downloading, you have no ability what so ever to pause that download. This may not be a huge problem for many people but for me with a 1.8mb/s Internet speed any kind of download in the background means that I then can't play any multiplayer games. This is a huge pain especially as games for the PS4(Warframe for example is 50GB) are so big.
This brings me onto my third problem with the PS4, the memory. Now I know that in time there will be much bigger options available for the PS4, but to only have one 500GB(the size that was available on the PS3 at the end of it's life cycle) option at launch I feel was a wasted opportunity. I have already filled half of my hard drive with 4 disk games and 3 digital games. I have no films and no media other than the screen shots that I have taken.
My fourth and final problem is the on/off button. For some reason I can't make my PS4 turn of just my pressing the off button(or pressing and holding), which puts it into standby mode, but I want to turn my PS4 totally off. So instead of actually using the power button I have to go through the menus of the PS4(which sounds worse than it is)to turn my PS4 off. This isn't a huge thing but it is a bit annoying.
Anyway that brings me to the end of my review for the PS4 as a whole, if there are any points you think I have missed you can either leave your ideas in the comments or Tweet me or hit me up on Facebook.
All in all I absolutely love the PS4, and the bad things I have mentioned have little to no impact on your day-to-day gaming, they just would have been nice to see.
I feel as though it wouldn't be right to give a whole console a score, so I will leave you with this. No matter what your console preferences you should definitely pick up a next(now current?) gen console. They are a master piece in gaming design and I am very very excited to see what this next year will bring us. If you are a gamer, you had better strap yourself in because what is to come, will be know for years to come, as the best time to be a gamer.
As always thank you for reading,
Ed
Saturday 18 January 2014
Contrast: First Impressions
Hi guys,
A game that sees you playing as an imaginary friend of a young girl who hasn't seen her farther in years. Also this friend has the ability to turn into a shadow. So just you average game then! This is a game that in principle should be really good and enjoyable to play, I say in principle because it isn't. I know I haven't beaten about the bush, this is a game that should play well, but is help back by the plethora of glitches and bugs in the game.
Now as the title says these are my first impressions, so they may change by the time I review this game, but from what I have played you can barely play for 15 minutes before you will get a glitch. Now when I say glitch you will conjure an image of a table that defies gravity or a leg that bends the wrong way, if that was the case then you could put up with them. But when this game does glitches it DOES glitches, I'm talking about being a shadow and the camera can't cope with what you have just done, and thus will not move. Or when you as a shadow get squashed between something top and bottom, and what the game should do is pop you out the wall, but in some cases you don't do that and the then stuck in the wall with nothing to do!
When this game does work, it works really well, and is a puzzling game to play. You have to combine certain shadows in order to progress through the level, and though the puzzles are never very hard they do a good job of making you feel a sense of achievement for completing them. Also the story behind you and the little girl(which I won't spoil) is one that is both beautiful and haunting at the same time. I don't quite know how it does this but you really connect with this little girl and can't help but play as well as possible to help this poor little girl out!
That brings us to the end of my impressions of Contrast, if it can sort out the glitches then this could be a game to treasure playing, but until that is the case I can't recommend playing it as it will put you off playing the game once it has been fixed.
Many thanks for reading,
Ed
Twitter
Facebook
A game that sees you playing as an imaginary friend of a young girl who hasn't seen her farther in years. Also this friend has the ability to turn into a shadow. So just you average game then! This is a game that in principle should be really good and enjoyable to play, I say in principle because it isn't. I know I haven't beaten about the bush, this is a game that should play well, but is help back by the plethora of glitches and bugs in the game.
Now as the title says these are my first impressions, so they may change by the time I review this game, but from what I have played you can barely play for 15 minutes before you will get a glitch. Now when I say glitch you will conjure an image of a table that defies gravity or a leg that bends the wrong way, if that was the case then you could put up with them. But when this game does glitches it DOES glitches, I'm talking about being a shadow and the camera can't cope with what you have just done, and thus will not move. Or when you as a shadow get squashed between something top and bottom, and what the game should do is pop you out the wall, but in some cases you don't do that and the then stuck in the wall with nothing to do!
When this game does work, it works really well, and is a puzzling game to play. You have to combine certain shadows in order to progress through the level, and though the puzzles are never very hard they do a good job of making you feel a sense of achievement for completing them. Also the story behind you and the little girl(which I won't spoil) is one that is both beautiful and haunting at the same time. I don't quite know how it does this but you really connect with this little girl and can't help but play as well as possible to help this poor little girl out!
That brings us to the end of my impressions of Contrast, if it can sort out the glitches then this could be a game to treasure playing, but until that is the case I can't recommend playing it as it will put you off playing the game once it has been fixed.
Many thanks for reading,
Ed
Resogun review
Hi guys,
Armageddon, that is the word that fuels Resogun, this is a game like no other I have played(bear in mind I never played any of the super stardust games) and I personally think it is brilliant. If you are unaware of the concept of Resogun, you are put in a small space ship that is tasked with saving the last humans. You can move up, down, left and right and shoot left and right but not up and down. That is it really, Resogun is one of those games where you have to play it to know what everyone is talking about.
In any one level there are 10 humans to save, space ships called keepers come down from the top of the level and you have to shoot them all in order to release one of the humans from their cages. With me so far? I know it is quite complicated and the lack of any tutorials is a bit annoying for the first level, but after that you will know what to do well enough. The more enemy ships you defeat the higher you combo will get, the higher your difficulty the higher you combo can go, but also the faster your combo will disappear.
As far as the health of your space ship goes, well it has none, you can only take one hit from anything and you will die. Thankfully you get 3 lives per level, but rest assured you will be hard pressed every time you raise the difficulty. In terms of content in the game, at first there appears to be very little(you will beat all the levels in a few hours) but then you through in the difficulty option and the constant need to beat your/your friends high score and you have a game that you can play for a very long time. Resogun is currently free with Playstation +(which is required to play online on the PS4) so you have no reason not to play this game. Be warned though it will suck you in to its addictive levels and make you want to play it for hours on end!
Time for the scores!
Length: If you only want to play it once it will only take you 2 hours but it is very fun and it is only a PSN game. 7/10
Graphics: Not particularly noticeable but very smooth on the eye. 8/10
Multiplayer: Just multiplayer versions of all of the normal levels. 8/10
Sound: Satisfying as there is rarely a quite moment. 8/10
Gameplay: Really brilliant gameplay and is just a very fun game to play! 9/10
That gives us a total score of 8/10 a game I definitely recommend you play especially as it is currently free!
Thanks for reading,
Ed
Twitter
Facebook
Armageddon, that is the word that fuels Resogun, this is a game like no other I have played(bear in mind I never played any of the super stardust games) and I personally think it is brilliant. If you are unaware of the concept of Resogun, you are put in a small space ship that is tasked with saving the last humans. You can move up, down, left and right and shoot left and right but not up and down. That is it really, Resogun is one of those games where you have to play it to know what everyone is talking about.
In any one level there are 10 humans to save, space ships called keepers come down from the top of the level and you have to shoot them all in order to release one of the humans from their cages. With me so far? I know it is quite complicated and the lack of any tutorials is a bit annoying for the first level, but after that you will know what to do well enough. The more enemy ships you defeat the higher you combo will get, the higher your difficulty the higher you combo can go, but also the faster your combo will disappear.
Time for the scores!
Length: If you only want to play it once it will only take you 2 hours but it is very fun and it is only a PSN game. 7/10
Graphics: Not particularly noticeable but very smooth on the eye. 8/10
Multiplayer: Just multiplayer versions of all of the normal levels. 8/10
Sound: Satisfying as there is rarely a quite moment. 8/10
Gameplay: Really brilliant gameplay and is just a very fun game to play! 9/10
That gives us a total score of 8/10 a game I definitely recommend you play especially as it is currently free!
Thanks for reading,
Ed
Saturday 11 January 2014
Battlefield 4 First Impressions
Hi guys,
You may have seen in most gaming news outlets that people are saying that Battlefield 4 is a broken game and you shouldn't buy/play it. Now to some extent this is true, there are quite a lot of things in the game that need to be fixed. However that doesn't mean it isn't worth playing, so far I have only played for about 13 hours, but I can assure you that time will increase dramatically.
This is a game that I can get lost in, a game that is worthy of many accolades, then the game crashes and you lose all your match progress(in my 13 hour play time my game has crashed about 12 times). This gets very irritating, though it takes about 30-60 seconds to get back into a match. From what I have played there hasn't been too much lag and when there has been it has been because I have been downloading a game in the background. To say that I only have 1.8 MB/s internet speed it is remarkable that I have had as little lag as I have!
My one problem with the game(when it works) is the levelling system, every time you level up you don't get anything, every 2-3 level ups you get what is called a battlepack. With a battlepack you get a certain number of random things, they could be XP boosts, attachments, camos, knives and more! Now the problem is when you only get these every 2-3 levels you begin to feel that they are quite a low incentive for levelling up.
The flip side to the poor levelling system is that everything is unlocked using it's own levelling system. So if you want to get a specific gun, say an assault rifle, then you have to get a certain amount of points with that section. I personally think this is a brilliant idea, as it is making me use my pistol and grenades more(to unlock more pistols and grenades). I feel this gives the game more diversity and the game is better because of it!
They are my initial thoughts on the games Multiplayer, I haven't played all that much of the single player but that will be included in my final review. Over all I am beyond loving this game, and I can't wait for the day when it preforms as it should. Unlike most of the gaming community I have faith in EA and DICE to fix Battlefield 4, and get it to the standard it so desperately deserves. The last thing I will say on this game is, if you are a Battlefield fan then you should pick this game as you will appreciate where it has come from. However if you are thinking of picking this game up from the point of view of someone who hasn't played any previous BF games, I would advise waiting for a few months until it is in a better state to be played.
That's all for now check back soon for more exciting PS4 content!
Ed
You may have seen in most gaming news outlets that people are saying that Battlefield 4 is a broken game and you shouldn't buy/play it. Now to some extent this is true, there are quite a lot of things in the game that need to be fixed. However that doesn't mean it isn't worth playing, so far I have only played for about 13 hours, but I can assure you that time will increase dramatically.
This is a game that I can get lost in, a game that is worthy of many accolades, then the game crashes and you lose all your match progress(in my 13 hour play time my game has crashed about 12 times). This gets very irritating, though it takes about 30-60 seconds to get back into a match. From what I have played there hasn't been too much lag and when there has been it has been because I have been downloading a game in the background. To say that I only have 1.8 MB/s internet speed it is remarkable that I have had as little lag as I have!
My one problem with the game(when it works) is the levelling system, every time you level up you don't get anything, every 2-3 level ups you get what is called a battlepack. With a battlepack you get a certain number of random things, they could be XP boosts, attachments, camos, knives and more! Now the problem is when you only get these every 2-3 levels you begin to feel that they are quite a low incentive for levelling up.
The flip side to the poor levelling system is that everything is unlocked using it's own levelling system. So if you want to get a specific gun, say an assault rifle, then you have to get a certain amount of points with that section. I personally think this is a brilliant idea, as it is making me use my pistol and grenades more(to unlock more pistols and grenades). I feel this gives the game more diversity and the game is better because of it!
They are my initial thoughts on the games Multiplayer, I haven't played all that much of the single player but that will be included in my final review. Over all I am beyond loving this game, and I can't wait for the day when it preforms as it should. Unlike most of the gaming community I have faith in EA and DICE to fix Battlefield 4, and get it to the standard it so desperately deserves. The last thing I will say on this game is, if you are a Battlefield fan then you should pick this game as you will appreciate where it has come from. However if you are thinking of picking this game up from the point of view of someone who hasn't played any previous BF games, I would advise waiting for a few months until it is in a better state to be played.
That's all for now check back soon for more exciting PS4 content!
Ed
Looking Ahead to 2014
Hi guys,
This is my first post in 2014, I know I have been away from your screens for some time, but I am back now and I am more passionate than ever to bring you awesome content that you will enjoy. As you may be aware over Christmas I was lucky enough to get a Playstation 4, so I am now part of the next generation. I currently have Battlefield 4, CoD Ghosts, AC IV: Black Flag and LEGO Marvel. I also have the 3 PS+ games available, Contrast, Resogun and now Don't Starve. You can expect coverage of all of these games in the coming weeks and months.
This was just a quick post to tell you what is coming your way, check back soon for more posts on all things Playstation.
For now,
Ed
This is my first post in 2014, I know I have been away from your screens for some time, but I am back now and I am more passionate than ever to bring you awesome content that you will enjoy. As you may be aware over Christmas I was lucky enough to get a Playstation 4, so I am now part of the next generation. I currently have Battlefield 4, CoD Ghosts, AC IV: Black Flag and LEGO Marvel. I also have the 3 PS+ games available, Contrast, Resogun and now Don't Starve. You can expect coverage of all of these games in the coming weeks and months.
This was just a quick post to tell you what is coming your way, check back soon for more posts on all things Playstation.
For now,
Ed
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