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:

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

Assassin's Creed Black Flag 101 Trailer Breakdown

Hi guys,
 With the new story trailer being released for Black Flag today, you may have missed the new trailer(if you can call it that) that Assassin's Creed's You Tube channel uploaded. You can check out the full 101 trailer out below, then I will dissect it for you, as it holds some hidden gems for us!

Right let's get into the dissection!    

A look at the Grand Master of the Templars!

The seas will be a treacherous place, and will include scenes like this; tornadoes.

 The fleet of ships Edward will be facing.

 One of the many animals Edward will be able to hunt and use the parts to craft weapons and more!

 A view of what I believe is Nassau, and this is one of the 3 main cites in the game along with Kingston, and Havana.

 Another look at the beautiful world we will be living it.

 A cinematic look at the protagonist of the game; Edward.

 Another cinematic look(get used to them) at one of the pirates who will be able to help you and probably give you missions.

 The one major female pirate of the age, she looks to be the possible love interest in the game. Let's hope Ubisoft don't go down the route of Rockstar and demean all women!

 Not masses to say other than the fact that he makes a rather humorous remark in the trailer, he looks to have a good sense of humour upon his shoulders.

 The most famous pirate possibly of all time Black Beard, he also seems to be a close friend of Edwards, so he may be the character who gives us the naval tutorial!

 Not all people in Black Flag are as nice as those above, Woodes Rogers has been sent by the King to dispatch of pirates! We don't know yet if he has any connections to the Templars.

 A shot of what seems to be the main room on the Jackdaw, doubtlessly there will be many a cut scene with in these walls.

 The first screen you will be met when you want to tinker with your ship.

 Some of the weapon options for the Jackdaw. The Mortar sounds like it will devastate opponents.

 One of my favourite shots, this shows the aesthetic customisation options for the Jackdaw(truly the second protagonist of the game). I can't wait to make the ship my own.

 A look at some of the tropical locations in the world!

 Again I believe this is Nassau just from a much higher vantage point, don't forget all synchronisation points now act as fast travel stations.

 A look at some of the caverns we will be able to discover in the game.

 An in game shot of what it is like to swim the depths of the oceans!

 I chose this shot because of how barbaric I find it, I personally will not be taking part in such activity's despite the rewards for doing so.

 Some of the smaller upgrades you can make to the Jackdaw/hunting.

 A close look at the iconic weapon of the assassins, the hidden blades.

 A look at the weapons you will be able to buy/make in the game, note the second and third options! Yes both Altair's and Ezio's swords will be available to purchase, no Connor though as his time period hasn't occurred yet!

Another look at the long range weapons that will be available to purchase, as above note the damage stats are laid out much clearer than previous instalments!

 

That brings us to and end of my breakdown, I hope you stuck with me to the end, and found something useful within this post. If you could also spair a second to like my Facebook Page, and follow me on Twitter.

 

Thanks for reading,

Ed



 

Assassins Creed 4: Black Flag Release Date for Next Gen

Hi guys,

 I come to you will some sad news, that is if you live in America and are getting a PS4 at launch. The hit title from Ubisoft Assassins Creed 4: Black Flag will be releasing world wide on November 22nd, so if you wanted to get Black Flag at launch with your copy of your PS4 you can't. Because the game won't be releasing until a week after the PS4 is released in the USA! I find it quite odd that Ubisoft aren't making their game available to next gen consoles at the time the PS4 is released in America, I wouldn't have thought that week would be much use to anyone! Anyway there is also a new trailer for Black Flag, called Pirate Heist which you can feast your eyes on below!

I would like to stress that the current gen versions of this game will still be launching on November 1st, so you can still play it then.
Thanks for reading
Ed

Assassins Creed IV: A Pirate's Life at Sea Trailer

Hi guys
 Just a quick one to tell you all that there has been a new trailer for Assassins Creed Black Flag, the trailer is 2 minutes 38 seconds, and it shows the life of a pirate.... at sea! This trailer focuses totally on the naval side of the game, but it is really looking like an epic edition to the series. Black Flag is being released on November 1st, and Q4 for next gen consoles.

Thanks for reading
Ed

Assassins Creed IV Black Flag Pirate Experience Trailer: Breakdown

Hi guys
You may have seen there has been a new Black Flag trailer released by Ubisoft, before I breakdown what I saw in the trailer you can firstly watch it here!

As you can see it is a really, really good looking game, I can tell you that is was running on a PS4, which just shows that when the consoles are released it is going to look gorgeous! I noted a number of things that you may have missed whilst just watching the trailer! 

-     First thing was a "Stealth Swim"  as seen below, I don't recall ever having this feature being featured in any of the previous games, so it could be a highly useful feature! (The Stealth Swim is bound to the O button in the top right corner)

-In that very same photo, we see that on the screen there are water splashes, this gives an extra level of immersion to the game. However it won't be an irritating feature, as you only get the marks when you dive into the water, not when you just swim in. (As he does later in the trailer)

 -    Later we hear the Game Director Ashraf Ismail telling us that during storms on the high seas, we can sustain damage to our ship, and even lose crew members(though that is okay with another feature later in the post)!

-     As Edward(who has a wide range of tattoos on his body) enters a red zone on the map, the traditional WARNING RESTRICTED AREA warning come up on screen.

-    We later see that Animus Fragments will be returning to the game, I would suggest there will be around 150 fragments, as there are 50 locations with 2 each, and then the 3 main city's. For me the return of the fragments weigh heavy on my heart, I personally found them highly irritating to seek out and find. I would love to see loads of rewards for finding these fragments, like in the Batman games. At one point in the trailer we do see that the iron mortar required 16 blue prints, now this may be that was the 16th blue print they had collected. However it would be very nice to see some kind of reward to these fragments. As one last thought, make some multiplayer skins unlockable, along with some concept art etc.

-    This new feature that has been announced in that every synchronisation point, will now act as a fast travel station, this will greatly speed up the travelling between the individual islands!

-    As you can see above there is the option to bribe someone, we saw this person just after Edward got of the Jackdaw(your ship), so he could be the ports master of sorts. So if you are looking to go un-noticed in a certain location, you could bribe the ports master to not write you ship down as having arrived at that location. However if you do bribe him, you could just then pick pocket him to get you money back!

-    This is the map whilst Edward is in the new fisherman's villagers, as you can see there are a number of interesting icons on this map including the triangular object just down from the musical note, is the symbol for an animus fragment!(as shown in one of the pictures above.

-    Lastly I leave you with the main map from just PART of the world in which Edward and his crew will inhabit. This world looks a truly massive feat, and I can't wait to get my hand on this game on November 1st.

I hope you have found some or all the information helpful.

If you want to follow me on Twitter you can Here.
Or follow like me on Facebook here.

Thanks for reading

Ed

Run up to E3 2013: Part 1

Hi guys
 As I'm sure you are aware E3 is approaching, this I would say is the biggest gaming event of the whole year, and this year I thought I would make sure that going into E3 you would know what games you want to keep an eye on. In this first post on E3 I will be talking about Watch_Dogs, Assasssins Creed IV and Destiny, I will be covering some Xbox games as well in a future post, so be sure to check back soon.                                                                 

Watch_Dogs

First up is Watch_Dogs, this game is set in the city of Chicago which is all being controlled by a computer called the ctOS which you just happen to have access to. That will mean that you will be able to hack ATM machines, stop trains, raise bollards, and I'm sure much more. We know very little at the moment about what drove Adian Pearce(The main character) to do what he did, but that is I'm sure what we will be hearing about at E3. All we know now is that there is a family involved somewhere along the road. This is a game that will be launching November 22nd 2013, for current gen and PC, it could be the same date for the PS4 release, but for now we don't know.

Assassins Creed IV Black Flag

Next on in the spot light is Assassins Creed IV Black Flag, this is a game that I am very much looking forward to. It will see our totally new Assassin Edward sailing the seven seas in search of all the best pirate loot. We haven't seen any actual in game footage of this game, but we should be seeing some at E3. I am also very certain there will be a playable demo for any of you who are going. Those of you with a keen memory will remember that last year at Sonys press conference we saw the naval battles for the first time. I doubt it will be more Naval gameplay because we have seen it before. However I wouldn't write of there being some exclusive AC gameplay at Sonys press conference.

Destiny

Last up for today is Destiny, now this game we have see the least about. We saw a very short trailer at the announcement of the PS4 but since that we have seen nothing except a dev diary. I am very excited about this game, it is from the publisher of CoD and the developers of Halo, surely a recipe for success if ever there was one. This is almost certain to feature at Sony press conference this year, and I can't wait to hear more about it.

      That's it for now but I will be talking about other games in the lead up to E3, so do check back soon to read more.

Thanks for reading

Ed

If you want to follow me on Twitter you can here.