Let's Talk... Hotline Miami

It's 1989, Miami, Florida, three mysterious strangers wearing colourful yet sinister animal masks are sitting in front of you. These three strange men inform you that you will be killing people, lots of people. You awake in your apartment, the phone rings and you answer to be given seemingly innocent instructions. Little do you know there are dark intentions behind these cookie deliveries...

Hotline Miami is an excessively bloody game whose soundtrack and visuals have been heavily influenced by '80's culture. During the several hours it takes to play through Hotline Miami you'll have killed a stupid number of identical thugs, and the aim of the game is basically to find out why. Throughout the game you'll be given cryptic messages that will give you various locations and names, they may clear up some of the fog but don't expect to understand what on earth is going on by the end of your first playthrough. Besides, you need to have found all of the game's puzzles to unlock the so-called 'real' that supposedly explains everything.

Hotline Miami's excessive gore-fest is what gives it it's pixelated charm

Hotline Miami's gameplay is both incredibly simple and incredibly addictive, with some extreme violence sprinkled on top. Hotline Miami will appeal to anyone who's a fan of twitch gameplay as the game's speed and difficulty should feed their lust to die over and over and over... You'll need to plan extensively if you want to succeed, you'll need to thoroughly scan the area before you pounce and you'll have to be quick about it. You die pretty much instantly, so don't count on sponging more than one bullet at a time. However, the game rarely feels frustrating or inherently unfair and you can instantly dive straight back into the action when you die. Regardless, finishing each room in a stage is extremely satisfying and there is nothing better than drilling right through a mobster's skull and hearing the squish. There's a large variety of melee weapons and guns to endlessly kill with, all of which have a very unique feel to them which keeps thing fresh. The gameplay is a great mix of stealth, planning, and fast-paced twitchy action.

The game features vividly coloured rooms and a psychedelic soundtrack that do a great job of utterly contrasting the extreme violence and the dark undertone of the game's story, which really adds to the surrealism of the game's storytelling. The story is weird but interesting, because of its broken order and unreliable narration its very much open for you to figure it out for yourself, even with the 'full ending'. No spoilers but the 'incomplete' ending is extremely simplistic and doesn't explain anything, so you may want to go back and unlock the full ending. However, the gameplay is easily fun enough to merit endless hours of mindless violence so you shouldn't mind having to 'unlock' the real ending.

All 26 of the game's masks, from horse to bat..?

At the end of every chapter you are rated on your performance and given a grade, these points go towards various weapon and mask unlocks. These weapons vary from drills to samurai swords, and all have a pretty unique feel to them. You are rewarded for taking risks and being downright ballsy in your play, using a variety of weapons, racking up combos, or even just efficient killing. Hotline Miami has a large variety of masks to unlock, which the player a wide range of cool abilities and tweaks to gameplay. Such as Don Juan, the horse, who causes door slams to be lethal rather than just incapacitating enemies, or Phil, the fish, who translates the game into French. I see what you did there, Dennaton... At the beginning of every chapter the player is given the choice of which mask they want to use and can only use one at a time. There are nearly 30 masks in the game, so that adds a nice replayability factor if you want them all.

Strengths:
       -Extremely fun and satisfying gameplay
       -Challenging twitch gameplay
       -Excessive levels of gore and violence make for hilariously over the top gameplay
       -Weapon and mask unlocks add variation to potential playstyles
       -Unique and interesting storytelling technique
       -Fun disco-synth soundtrack

Weaknesses:
      -Simplistic control layout can actually make the game quite difficult
      -Lacklustre boss fights
      -Difficulty can spike at times and randomness may seem unfair

Let's Talk... Mark of the Ninja

Stealth is an overused mechanic in modern action games, but occasionally an amazing pure stealth game will come out to remind us why we love the shadows. This time the spotlight is on a very rarely done 2D stealth game called Mark of the Ninja. Mark of the Ninja is heavily stylized with hand-drawn environments, similar to Shank 2's art style. The game's story is set in the present day and essentially follows the conflict between a very traditional ninja organisation and modern military technology. There aren't enough 2D stealth titles and I hope MotN acts as inspiration for many more to come.

Hanging guards from lamp posts never gets old

The game's biggest strength is the fact that it's only a 2D game, which adds an extra layer of fluidity. A 3D stealth game wouldn't allow you to be as nimble as you are in Mark of the Ninja, and therefore it wouldn't allow you to feel like a true ninja. The game's 2D world allows you to scale walls, navigate ceilings, and dart in and out of vents at such a thrilling pace that creates a great feeling of gratification when you successfully clear a room of enemies in such an elegant manner. Personally I get extremely OCD when it comes to remaining undetected in stealth games, to the point where I'll spend the best part of an hour restarting a single room until I get it right. So when a game's wonderful level design allows me to remain undetected for an entire mission it feels really satisfying to have such mastery over the mechanics, and not feel the all too common frustrations I usually feel with most stealth games.

That isn't to say that Mark of the Ninja is easy, not by a long shot. The game is in fact pretty punishing, and enemies will one-shot you as soon as they spot you. On the note of difficulty, once the game has been completed on normal mode you unlock new game+, where all your upgrades carry over to a new game. New game+ is somewhat more 'hardcore' than normal mode and certainly provides a greater challenge. With the most obvious changes being more alert AI and the inability to actually see behind your character.

Spike traps make a great sound when they impale guards

The gameplay is infinitely fun and you're consistently given more tools to play around with, which combine together to give a nice variety of ways to play. You have an array of distraction tools, which range from smoke bombs to distraction flares. Then there's a category for offensive items, which include spike traps and plagues of flesh-eating insects. To go with all these different items, you can also unlock a wide variety of different skins that will give you varying trade-offs to mix up your gameplay (examples of these are speeding up the process of a stealth kill, but you're only able to carry two attack items and no distraction items, without the ability to restock mid-level).

The game rewards you in numerous ways, mainly through the game's scoring system, which rewards both complete stealth and killing everything that moves. The scoring system grants you points for pretty much everything you do, with more points granted for doing it with a light dose of elegance. These points round up into an overall score for each level, for which there are tiered score objectives. Whilst the first two of these you will likely get regardless, the third high score requires a bit more patience. On top of these three score objectives, each level contains three hidden haiku poems to find, one of these in every level requires you to complete a small puzzle segment. These puzzles are actually both challenging and fun, without feeling completely out of place. 

There are a nice variety of skills and items to unlock

Finally, each mission includes three mission-specific challenges that hinge heavily on the game's stealth mechanics, some of which can actually be quite complex. It's a great way to show you some of the game's various killing techniques that you otherwise wouldn't find. My personal favourite: performing a stealth kill whilst hanging from a lamp post and hanging them from the light to then terrorize the poor guard who sees it into shooting another guard... Pretty twisted stuff. Everytime you complete any of these challenges or find any of the hidden poems, you gain 'honor' which can be used to upgrade your abilities and items, giving you a real sense of reward for completing optional content.

I have very few issues with this great title, that being the writing and the Farsight ability. Just like the writing in Shank 2, Mark of the Ninja's writing can seem a little too serious for the game's art style, which can mess with the game's tone at times. Secondly, the Farsight ability grants you a thermal-like look through walls and doors that highlights enemies, breakable objects, and collectible items. Personally, I didn't use the ability much as I felt that it ruined the first-hand discovery element I enjoyed so much, but when I did use it I felt like it interrupted the game's pacing significantly, as it has you stand still whilst using it.

The game's sound design makes slicing up unsuspecting guards and dumping their decimated remains into the nearest dumpster even more satisfying than it already was. Whether you're running across a metal floor or grappling between vents the game sounds great.  Much of the game's audio is accompanied with visual prompts that illustrate how much noise you make when you're running or when a flock of birds flies away. The controls feel tight, and add to the fluidity of the gameplay. The games visuals, sounds, and gameplay all compliment each other in a way that creates a thoroughly enjoyable and memorable experience for only $15. This incredible game is well worth your time if you're looking for a solid stealth experience.

Strengths:

       -Extremely satisfying stealth gameplay, executed brilliantly in 2D
       -Unique hand drawn art style 

       -Good controls add to the fluidity of gameplay

       -Wide range of items, abilities, and skins offer a variety of ways to play

       -Well-implemented scoring system

       -Gameplay feels fluid, dynamic, and makes you feel like a bonafide badass

Weaknesses:

       -Farsight ability interrupts the flow of the game

Let's Talk... Deus Ex: Human Revolution

Deus Ex: Human Revolution is a reboot of the 2000 hit Deus Ex, excluding the infamously bad Deus Ex: Invisible War, and has opted to go down the prequel route. As far as reboots go, Deus Ex: Human Revolution isn't convoluted rubbish and is actually a deeply crafted stealth-action experience that lives up to the high standards of the original Deus Ex. Unfortunately, its a few minor issues that prevent this great title from being a classic.

The story follows ex-cop Adam Jensen, who's gruffly voice just sounds ridiculous, the newly hired security director at Sarif Industries, the market leader in cybernetic augmentations. At the beginning of the game Jensen is mortally wounded and undergoes a series of radical life-saving surgeries that replace many parts of his body with 'augmented' limbs. These augmentations play heavily in the story of Human Revolution, which sees the player get heavily involved in the philosophical and class-based conflict regarding biotechnology.

These augmentations act as a deep skill tree for you to navigate at your own leisure, and they add some nice variety to the gameplay. The player is given the choice of a range of skills that are all associated with particular areas of the body (eg. Augmenting your eyes mostly effects your HUD, whilst your arms dictate whether you can lift heavy objects). The variety of these augmentations opens up numerous routes you can take to complete your objective, which may include from hacking security systems using the engaging hacking mechanic or exploring the area to find a ventilation shaft to crawl through. I suppose this may add some level of replayablity to Human Revolution, if you really want to experience every method of infiltration available.

Augmentations are varied and refreshing

These augmentations are a refreshing way to develop your character that stems away from the specialisations that tend to force you down one particular style of gameplay or limits the variation of gameplay, such as those found in popular RPGs like World of Warcraft or Borderlands. Most of the augmentations are fun and useful, such as reducing the amount of damage Jensen takes or the ability to turn completely invisible for a limited time. However, some feel a little worthless, such as an indication as to when the enemies are searching for you, which is pretty redundant considering enemies will usually shout 'WHERE IS HE?' until they found you anyway. Despite the odd pointless augmentation, the majority are fresh and fun to use.

One of the biggest strengths of this game is the depth of the social interaction between characters. For example, early in the story you are required to verbally defuse a very volatile situation (no spoilers) that can be resolved in completely different ways depending on your allocated skills and choice of words. The social mechanics allow you to control how you say things rather than just what you say to get a much more authentic social experience. This allows the player to take advantage of your opponent's weakness and intelligently manipulate them for better results. Whilst the consequence of your choices and words is something that's extremely common amongst RPGs, the way that Human Revolution handles it adds a very original level of depth.

 Of course, this is all accompanied with a few interesting characters and a rich, gritty world torn by class conflict, and during your exploits you'll visit international locations, including Detroit  Montreal, and Shanghai. Conversations you overhear, reading the incredibly detailed emails and pocket secretaries, and consistently pressing people give you more than enough information about the world and the ongoing war between the "purists" and the augmented. Although ethics and morals seem to be emphasised throughout the world, you don't really get a lot of sway over the game's proceedings. You can shake down people for extra rewards for side missions you take on and take on some questionable missions, but there isn't really a "good ending" and a "bad ending".   

The player is given an analysis of the personality of certain characters

The visuals do a great job of setting the dark tone that comes with such widespread unrest and deliver a truly memorable setting. The game is well-optimised and runs pretty well on low-to-medium gaming-rigs. The soundtrack of Deus Ex: Human Revolution is really top notch, and blends in perfectly with the cyberpunk setting.

Taking the stealth approach seems to be the most satisfying here, as flat out action can feel a little dry as the weapons in Human Revolution feel weak and lack any sort of real punch. However, knocking out an enemy with one of the game's great takedowns or sniping them with your tranquilliser sniper rifle and then dragging their bodies into the nearest ventilation shaft has a satisfying feeling of cleaning out the area. Stacking bodies into one vent is pretty funny, but makes looting the bodies quite a chore. Getting caught isn't the end of the world, however, as whilst shooting from cover isn't great it is in fact easy enough to evade enemies.

Unfortunately, Human Revolution's boss encounters are unengaging, and feel just a little too forced. The tedious encounters feel quite unnecessary and take the player away from the interesting world and force the player into a tiny room to just empty clip after clip into the boss until he/she goes down. Bosses can actually prove quite difficult for players who opt into a stealth approach (as I did first time), as they are likely to have few lethal weapons and skills that are effectively aimed at avoiding direct combat. The game gives you no indication as to how much damage you are actually inflicting on the boss, too, which can feel a little frustrating. Also, the enemy AI can seem very dim-witted at times, seeming to only have the ability to backwards or forwards whilst shooting at where they think you are and simply refusing to shoot through breakable glass, for some reason.

If you can get past the minor issues, the world of Deus Ex: Human Revolution is well worth exploring, and you should be able to get past the game's low points to find the next hackable terminal or well-written dialogue.

Strengths:

       -Deep and varied skill tree

         -Fun and satisfying stealth gameplay
         -Deep and open world full of lore and background information
         -Solid Deus Ex reboot
         -Fairly long game that invites replay
         -Great futuristic setting with evocative atmosphere

Weaknesses:

       -Tedious boss encounters that feel unnecessary and don't feel very engaging 

       -Enemy AI are pretty stupid when in combat

Let's Talk... Far Cry 3

Far Cry 3 moves away from the Saharan setting, and has relocated to a beautiful tropical island inhabited by what seems to be every single species on the planet. The game has two huge islands with sheer depth found in both, which will keep you going for endless hours. From the authentic wildlife to the ruthless pirates Far Cry 3 is so meticulously crafted you'll be amazed. Far Cry 3 has ditched the painfully punishing realism that made its predecessor such a chore and has replaced it with a gorgeous Pacific setting and a gripping, yet a cliche-ridden, story.

You play as Jason Brody, an innocent everyman that gets captured by evil, murdering, smuggling pirates whilst on vacation with his friends and two brothers. After his older brother is killed and his friends get scattered, Jason must join forces with local rebels fighting for freedom in order to get them back. Although the story sounds extremely cliched, it's in fact full of twists, turns, and too many people with their heads screwed too loosely. Even though it may feel a bit silly that poor Jason can instantly be such a handy shot after never having used a gun, but the immersive way that you slowly work through the game's deep progression system makes it feel much less far-fetched.

One of the game's precarious radio towers

The game has 18 radio towers spread across the two islands that you must scale in order to highlight the surrounding area's objectives and points of interests and unlock new weapons for free. Each tower is a unique first-person climbing challenge that reveals a beautiful panoramic view before you fly down the zipline. For me, revealing the surrounding area was enough of an incentive to actually ascend the towers and I really didn't like the fact that the towers also made some weapons completely free.

Unlocking the weapons wouldn't be so bad, but do they really have to be made free? All this does is make your hard earned cash redundant as soon as you buy all the necessary attachments, which are pretty cheap anyway, and even though you can eventually carry $10,000 I still spent more than half of the game practically capped on that 10 grand. Maybe I just didn't find the best way to dump your money, but it made more sense to me to have some sort of optional side quest where you actually have to seize the shipment of weapons in order to make them free (as I believe that's why they become free). At least then I would feel like I had to work for my free weapons, or would have something to spend my money on.

Far Cry 3 is incredibly beautiful and bursting with life

Story missions have you exploring caves or holding off enemies in a style typical of modern shooters, but the varied side quests will have you hunting and skinning wildlife, helping the local non-pirate population with pirate pests, and delivering supplies to villages. There are also challenges that make you hunt down pirates with just your knife, and challenges where your scored is compared to others via the online leaderboards. Far Cry 3's optional content feels more fun and much more focused than the side quests in Far Cry 2 ever did, and the great structure of these side quests makes them lead to one another seamlessly.

Some outposts house caged beasts that you can unleash

Across the two islands there are over 30 outposts for you to tactically capture, each of which opens up an abundance of extra content once captured. In the early stages of the game, taking over an outpost is pretty simple and usually requires you to kill a handful of pirates before the rebel flag is raised, but they slowly become more and more difficult. Eventually forcing you to carefully plan your attack and make sure you disable the alarms as bigger and better enemy types are added. Capturing these outposts has an effective difficulty curve that steadily progresses parallel to your own progression, and each one provides it own unique challenge. Far Cry 3 is truly in its element when you're capturing these outposts and this is where some of the game's best gameplay is found, as it perfectly mixes action and stealth that is extremely satisfying when pulled off without being detected.

Hunting the authentic and varied wildlife that inhabit these crazy islands isn't just for fun, the game's skinning mechanic is part of a much deeper crafting system available. Animal skins can be used to create bigger bags with more slots for Jason to carry more guns, more ammo, more money,  and more consumables. Crafting also allows you to create a variety of different recipes that all have varied effects, from four more bars of temporary health to increased fire resistance. Creating these drugs requires you to hunt down the correct plants and harvesting their leaves. The crafting system leads well into some of the game's side quests, as some require you to hunt down rare animals whose skins are needed for more advanced bags.

The free-form combat really encourages you to play
your own way

Navigating such huge islands will often require a vehicle (or utilising your fast travel points, unlocked from capturing outposts) and there are quite a nice variation of these throughout the game. You drive via a first person perspective, which really helps to make driving over the bumpy terrain feel authentic and vehicles do control pretty well with nice little steering animations to go with it. However, the inability to change to a third-person camera can seem a little stupid seeing as bumpy terrain in first-person can feel pretty nauseating at times, and it would probably be easier to tell when you're about to fly off a cliff rather than just going down a steep road.

Unfortunately, Far Cry 3 just falls short of being one of the best games of this generation because of how its story falls off towards the middle. The story is good, don't get me wrong, it employs some effective storytelling techniques, and has some really memorable characters, but the story is notoriously bad at explaining things. The game frequently turns to over-used dream sequences to avoid actually explaining later parts of the story, which leave you wondering "what the hell just happened?". They feel like a lazy way to explain major plot points, but some would argue that Ubisoft have purposely left major areas of the story ambiguous to leave the door open for future content or just for mystery's sake, but I feel like it was just a lazy way to bypass plot points that the whole game has been leading up to. Its a real shame, because the story is really great early on but quickly falls off and the ending will leave you with a sour taste in your mouth.

Alongside the single-player experience, there's a co-op sequence of missions that are independent of single-player and a multiplayer mode. Co-op features a very Left 4 Dead-like four player short story starring a set of cliched characters, including a Eastern European Mobster and a young Scottish who looks like he came straight out of Trainspotting. These missions are a linear progression of kill enemies until you complete X objective and then move on. There is none of the classic open-world exploration and freedom found in single-player, but the shooting is pretty fun and there is a complex levelling system. Through levelling you unlock weapons, attachments, and a variety of area-of-effect abilities that feel very MMO-like. This co-op is a very average feature that serves to do nothing but add to the single-player experience, and the levelling system is shared with multiplayer so they go nicely together. The multiplayer is a very standard set of competitive game modes (TDM, Domination etc.) with some degree of customisation. On top of that, there's a map editor that allows you to create your own map, but there are limitations to what you can publish that may dampen the fun a bit. Both of these multiplayer modes and map editor are great if you're looking to squeeze as much time out of Far Cry 3 as you can, but otherwise can all be given a miss.

Overall, Far Cry 3 is an incredible experience and one of the best games I've played in a long time. The superb blend of stealth, action, and freedom of exploration make this amazing title something that you'll want to come back to time and time again.

Strengths:
       -Beautiful, rich, and huge world to explore
       -Side quests and challenges provide plenty of extra content
       -Difficulty curve feels fair and gives a nice sense of momentum
       -Ditched painful realism from Far Cry 2
       -Large variation of weapons; 43 all together
       -Combat seamlessly switches between stealth and action
       -Intelligent AI makes the combat more authentic and more challenging
       -Some of the best characters in any video game
       -Realistic and believable animals that react convincingly

Weaknesses:
        -Solid story falls off pretty quick due to lazy writing and unexplained plot points
        -Free weapons leave you with far too much money and nothing to spend it on

Let's Talk... Call of Juarez: Gunslinger

Gunslinger is the 4^th game in Techland’s Call of Juarez series and arguably the best. The game follows the questionable tale of esteemed bounty hunter Silas Greaves as he regales his barbaric quest to avenge his two brothers, who were murdered by a so-called Roscoe “Bob” Bryant, to three patrons in a local saloon. The retrospective story becomes increasingly unbelievable as it continues, with Greaves claiming to have killed numerous legendary names in Old West History, including Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid, and Old Man Clanton.

One of Gunslinger’s main strengths is the unique storytelling style that it employs throughout the story. The story is told retrospectively and so is full of mistruths and hilarious hyperbole that can often confuse the events of the story. The initially awe-struck patrons will often interrupt Greaves to cast doubt over the credibility of what is actually being told, for example when Greaves claims to have killed Bob Ollinger the patrons will assert that it was Billy the Kid who really killed him. This unique storytelling device is a great way to take advantage of the shady and uncertain nature of much of Old West history and really reinforces the idea that nobody really knows what actually happened.

At various points in the story the player will be taken back to the beginning of a particular scene to re-enact the “real” scene. This will sometimes happen three or even four times for one scene and really makes the player wonder which of the different versions really happened. Complimenting the interesting story is some really excellent gameplay with a very arcade-like feel. The general gameplay is pretty basic but is extremely fun for a $15 game. Unfortunately, there is very little weapon variety (the weapons are pretty much limited to a rifle, two pistols, and two shotguns) so your weapons may feel a bit stale after a while. The gameplay consists of endless minions, numerous boss battles, and lots of QTEs. You are rewarded with points for your kills, with more points rewarded for acquiring headshots and racking up combos.

 An example of one of the three specs, this one focusing on dual-wielding pistols.

Your score is later converted into experience at the end of every level to earn level-ups, levelling up gives the player skill points to spend in any of the three specializations which favour long-range rifles, dual wielding pistols, and close-range shotguns. Each of the three specializations contains their own general purpose abilities and greatly improve the weapons at your disposal. When the player reaches the end of a specialization tree they will unlock a golden version of a weapon relative to the specialization, which vastly improve the weapon’s function. The point system and combos add a really enjoyable feel to the addictive gameplay, whilst the specs offer some nice variation to the way you can utilize your arsenal. Killing enemies earns the player “concentration” which can be unleashed to slow down the game.

Gunslinger has three game modes: story mode, duelling, and arcade mode. Duelling something that has been in previous Call of Juarez titles but it has been tweaked significantly in Gunslinger. Duelling requires you to maintain your character’s focus and hand speed by keeping your hand hovered over your holster and keeping the reticule focused on the enemy. The duels appear frequently in the story mode but can be essentially skipped as it allows you to win “dishonourably” by pulling your gun before he does and getting a free win; being able to skip duels is great as duels can actually be pretty difficult and sometimes feel frustrating. The final mode, Arcade Mode, is a timed score attack to get the best score possible in several of the games set pieces. Arcade mode is a fun way to add extra content and improve the replay ability of the game without adding some shoddy, half-assed multiplayer mode that would take away development time from the core experience.

One of the story mode’s duels, this one pits you against John Wesley Hardin.

Visually the game is generally quite nice but there are some lacking textures in some areas, however the visuals do a nice job of setting the very light-hearted comic-like tone of the game. Whenever a boss is introduced the game shows some pretty cool comic strips of said boss with captions in a very Borderlands-esque style. The major problem with the visuals of this game is the extremely annoying and extremely obvious black borders that border the screen that cannot be removed (as seen above). I get that it creates a more cinematic experience, but it just obnoxiously covers up a significant chunk of the screen and Techland should have really implemented a way to remove it instead of just claiming that it’s a “key feature” to the art style.  The sound design for Gunslinger is really excellent: all the guns sound great and racking up endless headshots sounds extremely satisfying. The music does a great job of keeping up with the gameplay and sticking with the themes of the story.

Strengths:

-Unique storytelling device and interesting re-telling of numerous Old West incidents

-Fun and addictive gameplay

-Three solid game modes with no half-assed multiplayer

-Impressively polished for a $15 game

-Collectibles offer insight to Old West history, making them more rewarding

Weaknesses:

-Obnoxious black borders that can’t be removed

-Very linear game set in very open yet unexplorable places

-Limited weapon variation

Let's Talk... Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon

Whoever thought that Far Cry 3 needed a Terminator inspired standalone was actually kind of right... The game is set in a futuristic 2007 where the player is Sergeant Rex Powercolt- the latest model of heroically determined patriotic Cyber Commandos, voiced by Michael Biehn - as he faces his ex-Commander gone AWOL. The game brings more of the brilliant game-play that made Far Cry 3 such a great title and mixes in some comedy and neon lighting to make a really fun experience.

The opening scene sets the game’s tone perfectly, as you nonchalantly demolish helicopters and slaughter enemies with a mingun. Although Blood Dragon’s charm can be pretty funny at times, the consistent puns and cheesy quips can get a little tiresome after a while. For example, the opening tutorial has you stay in one spot and perform a series of mundane instructions whilst Rex curses indefinitely because he wants to just shoot stuff. It feels like the writers were just trying too hard and the game just feels a little too cute for its own good at times.

Blood Dragons can take quite a beating... oh, and they fire lasers out of their eyes!

The mostly solid writing lets itself down by trying to juggle 80’s action movie references and ridiculous set pieces with being some sort of social commentary on gaming that sneers at action games. Since the nostalgic nods towards the 80’s are likely going to be the main attraction to play Blood Dragon (seeing as the game-play is simply Far Cry 3 re-skinned with neon lighting), it would have made more sense for the writers to have focused solely on that.

The side missions, collectibles, and stronghold takeovers fill the gap between the handful of story missions pretty nicely, but outside rescuing hostages and hunting ‘robo animals’ there is very little to do. It took me a mere three hours to practically 100% the game, including all collectible items. Side missions unlock attachments for your weapons, so there’s good reason to complete them. There’s no doubt that Blood Dragon is lacking in content, but the quality of the content does redeem the game.

Whilst there isn't a great amount weapon variation in Blood Dragon, each has a ton of attachments.

Side missions include hunting and rescuing scientists that try just a little too hard to be ‘nerdy’ with their constant reference to DnD and Video Games, and taking over strongholds has a new added twist to it. Strongholds have so-called ‘mega shields’ that keep the Blood Dragons out, you can sneak into the base to deactivate these shields and watch as the Dragons disintegrate enemies, then you need to either kill them or kite them away using cyber-hearts (looted from humanoid enemies). Far Cry 3’s skill trees have been replaced by skills automatically unlocked through leveling up, and the game offers no real challenge throughout.

The game looks really nice and has a dark (sometimes a little too dark) red filter over everything as you see from the view of Rex. The game’s aesthetic has a scan line-laden look to it, which goes well with the cyberpunk theme. Weapons, vehicles, and people are all loaded with bright neon colouring, which give the game a pretty good retro-futuristic appearance. The soundtrack is also excellent and really captures the 80’s feel that the game desires. Overall, a succinct but thoroughly enjoyable experience that adds a much needed light-hearted addition to the Far Cry series.