Let's Talk... Splinter Cell: Blacklist

The faster pace and increased emphasis on fast-shooting over stealth in both Splinter Cell: Conviction and Blacklist make the latest iterations of Splinter Cell almost unrecognisable from Sam Fisher’s debut in 2002. Like the rest of Ubisoft’s seemingly infinite IPs (notably Farcry and Assassin’s Creed), Blacklist has been so far removed from it’s origins that it seems to belong to a completely different franchise. Whilst Blacklist is a very different game to its predecessors, it’s still incredibly well made and extremely satisfying when done right.

The story of Blacklist has Sam Fisher and the team (now the “fourth echelon”) must stop terrorists known as “the Engineers” before they attack major US assets with their program known as “the Blacklist”. It’s all very 24-esque with plenty of high octane action and over-the-top action movie nonsense to keep it going. It attempts to approach controversial topics on more than one occasion but it never seems to have the balls to actually explore any of them in any real detail, maybe that’s for the best as these are some really controversial things. For example, there’s one mission set in Guantanamo Bay but it only really seems to be there as a point of reference or like a “look how gritty we can be!” sort of thing. The story is very much relevant to recent events and tragedies which the game haplessly references purely on a named basis. It would have been interesting to see them explore these topics a bit more but I guess it isn’t really appropriate at this time.

The game's central hub: Paladin, the plane that never lands

The gameplay in Blacklist is easily one of the game’s high points; it’s incredibly fun and satisfying when you can actually pull it off. The rather punishing and very static stealth of the earlier SC titles is all but gone. The frustrating “game over if you’re spotted” concept is scrapped for the vast majority of the game, and the non-stealth approach is now a viable option. I think it’s fair to say that Blacklist’s gameplay has been very much modernized, and I welcome the vastly improved fluidity of combat. The main focal point of Blacklist’s gameplay is freedom to execute situations however you see fit, allowing you to choose between the silent non-lethal “Ghost”, silent but deadly “Panther”, or the all-out balls to the wall “Assault”. Each playstyle is equally viable and equally satisfying in its own way and the ability to switch between them really diversifies the gameplay. Stealth feels more refined than ever whilst lethal combat has been greatly improved.

For all its emphasis on player choice and variety Blacklist sure has a nasty habit of forcing you to play a particular way every now and then, which can be a little frustrating when you’re kitted out for pure stealth and they force you to fight. It seems that Blacklist feels the need to be on par with every other modern action game by having UAV missile sections and even a mission where you play in first person (thankfully it isn't a long mission as the gunplay in first person is pretty weak).

Sam Fisher may have gone through some aesthetic changes but he also seems to have taken more than a few yoga classes since we last saw him. Fisher is faster and more agile than ever, adding a layer of satisfying fluidity to Blacklist that definitely wasn’t felt in previous, much slower titles. Along with some very Assassin’s Creed risk-free climbing sections and vastly increased movement speed when climbing up pipes and rails, the increased speed of the game makes escaping sticky situations in one piece that bit easier. Whilst I personally love the increased pace, I imagine die hard fans of the older SC titles might not appreciate the action-packed approach that Blacklist takes. It’s a lot of fun, but it’s just another reason for me to feel that Splinter Cell has truly lost its identity in an attempt to become more modern. I quite like the new approach (I never really liked the slow pace of previous SC games), but it will certainly put off some players.

Fisher is back and deadlier than ever

You earn money through your mission score and snagging optional objectives which can be spent on either upgrading the Norman- sorry, the “Paladin”- or upgrading your gear (yes, Splinter Cell now has gear, who would have thought?). Although this may sound like some half-assed RPG mechanics thrown in for good measure, the gear system is surprisingly deep. Gear will modify a variety of stats from weapon accuracy to armour whilst the huge variety of weapons can be upgraded with an impressive selection of attachments. For the most part gear is split into either stealthy gear or assault gear, with the choice to upgrade your stealth or armour. Gear plays a pivotal role in the success of your missions and a pistol with pinpoint accuracy can be a necessary requirement for a clean run. I actually found myself actively grinding out money from side missions to earn money to gear up Fisher to make my stealthy endeavours easier.

Co-op missions spice up the game a bit and sure are fun if you play with a friend. Some side missions are restricted to co-op and every side mission gives you the option to play it in co-op. The classic Splinter Cell multiplayer fan hit “Spies vs. Mercs” makes a nice comeback and is surprisingly the star of the show. With plenty of tweaks to the original formula, SvM is an extremely fun game mode for those looking for a really unique multiplayer experience. For those who don’t know, SvM pits a team of Spies, who must complete certain hacking objectives whilst playing in classic SC third-person stealth, against a team of Mercenaries, who are heavily armed and played in first person. The multiplayer is a ton of fun and is definitely worth checking out if you want to get the whole SC:B experience. Blacklist also has some interesting daily challenges that offer various rewards and can be played competitively through online leaderboards. At the end of the day the multiplayer in Blacklist is a surprisingly

The game will take you to countless beautiful environments

 Visually the game is stunning; the wonderfully varied environments look beautiful and the level of detail on characters is truly impressive. Level design is intricate and variation in locale is just amazing, all the way from snowy Russia to the scorching plains of Saharan Africa. Level design also encourages players to play however they want, with numerous infiltration spots to every building and various ways to traverse levels. The sound design is also pretty great; weapons sound alright, voice acting is top notch (the new voice of Sam Fisher still sounds great despite what your nostalgia tells you!), and there are cool little audio prompts that warn you of imminent detection.

Strengths:

       -Beautiful and varied environments

       -Refined stealth with viable combat options

       -Surprisingly deep system for purchasing and upgrades gear

       -Spies v. Mercs multiplayer mode make a comeback

       -Optional co-op missions make for a fun change of pace

       -Fisher is more agile and nimble than ever, making traversing the world

       Quicker and easier

       -Gameplay is faster and much more fluid than in previous SC games

      

Weaknesses:

       -Splinter Cell has definitely lost its identity as a master of stealth

       -Certain playstyles are often forced upon you (pure stealth or combat)

Let's Talk... The Bureau: XCOM Declassified

Whenever a game’s development cycle is so lengthy that the original game gets completely scrapped, it’s safe to assume that the game won’t bust any sales charts. Unfortunately, the Bureau: XCOM Declassified isn't an exception to this rule and I think it’s fair to say that the troublesome development is what ruined this potentially good game. The Bureau plays around with some interesting ideas but fails to successfully execute them, making it a pretty huge disappointment for fans of the XCOM series.

The art style does a great job of capturing the '60's setting

The Bureau aims to explain the origins of the alien ass-kicking XCOM program by tracing it back to its Cold War roots. It reveals that the XCOM program was already in place as a back up plan to defend against the Russians, but aliens invaded Earth their priorities changed. The story does a pretty poor job of actually explaining the origins of XCOM, however, as it skips many details (such as where the name XCOM comes from) and many of the details that are revealed are lazily explained. The Bureau’s story is nothing to get excited about and eventually falls off into unbelievable nonsense later on. Most of the characters are just boring clichés especially William Carter (that’s you) who’s nothing more than your average hardened war vet with a tragic past called back to duty for some catastrophic event (in this case its aliens).

For some reason, the Bureau isn't happy with just being a tactical third-person shooter and so decides to throw in a dialogue wheel ripped straight out of Mass Effect. The dialogue wheel acts as nothing more than a filler in-between each mission; it feels completely out of place and unnecessary, with most the dialogue being far too boring to listen to anyway. Much like the clichéd characters and lacklustre story, the writing in this game is pretty poor with some corny sprinkled on top so that the wartime clichés don’t get lonely. The out of place dialogue wheel would be bad enough if it wasn't for the disappointingly mundane world. The lack of exploration in missions, bad writing, and boring dialogue make the game too unengaging to actually want to find out more.

Combat features an intuitive tactical wheel that allows you to fire off various abilities

The main thing that 2k Marin were hyping up about this game was the tactical combat that would supposedly blend with the 3^rd person shooting to make some great combat, and to be fair to them the combat is best part of XCOM Declassified. When you’re not shooting spaceman with your depressingly underpowered rifles you’ll spend the rest of combat in the “tactical wheel” (it’s actually more of a tactical action bar if you’re playing on PC) issuing commands to your brainless companions. Much like in Enemy Unknown everybody has an assigned class that will determine what abilities they can unlock, but unfortunately that’s pretty much where the similarities between the two games end. There’s a very limited progression system where you allocate skill points, but characters can only level 5 times and the skills lack the depth that made Enemy Unknown’s skill points so much more interesting. 

Using the tactical wheel is, for the most part, fairly responsive and you really can’t get through the game by just shooting everything. Combat can get quite frustrating at times, however, because you can still be shot when using tactical mode and friendly AI will immediately fire off abilities instead of allowing you to queue them up with other abilities. In the heat of combat trying to use abilities becomes a desperate scramble to fire off as many as possible before getting shredded by alien lasers. One of my main frustrations with the combat is that when you deploy a turret or want to throw down some combat stims in a specific area you have to actually manoeuvre up stairs and around walls, which can cause it to get stuck on barriers and completely ruins the flow of combat.

The story has the potential to be quite interesting but ends up being dull and unengaging

XCOM, I almost feel guilty calling this an XCOM game, has quite a colourful aesthetic that does a great job of capturing the 60’s setting of the game. Level design is often quite bland with many areas being repeated throughout the game. The game generally looks okay and on PC it runs pretty well on medium to high settings with some major FPS drops when screen reflections are enabled. The sound design is generally pretty good: voice acting is poor in most areas, but Lee from Telltale’s The Walking Dead makes a quick cameo to up the standard a bit before it goes back to being bland and boring. Weapons sound okayish and certainly pack a nice kick and the soundtrack is the usual over-the-top high octane action movie noise.

Overall, The Bureau: XCOM Declassified only manages to declassify how not to do the story, progression, exploration, writing, and pretty much everything else in a video game. The combat is the only half-decent thing in this game and even that is riddled with frustrating issues.

Strengths:

       -Combat is generally fun and reasonably fluid

       -Colourful art style captures the 60’s setting

       -Lee from The Walking Dead makes a cameo!

Weaknesses:

       -Using the tactical wheel isn't as fluid as it should be

       -Story is bland and boring

       -Mission structure is predictable and repetitive (fight aliens, retrieve

       something/someone, return home)

       -Most weapons feel wholly underpowered

       -Progression system is limited and lacks any real depth

       -Very little weapon variety

       -Level design is generally quite boring and is often repeated

       -Out of place dialogue wheel feels unnecessary, with bland dialogue to go

       with it

Let's Talk... Shadowrun Returns

The idea of crowd sourcing the funding for games is still a fairly new concept that hasn't managed to escape the scepticism of some people just yet. Many of the games pitched on Kickstarter are often seen as little more than hopeful promises, but Shadowrun Returns is a recent title that can hopefully change that perception. Shadowrun Returns is also a shining example of how to successfully get an appropriate balance of classic and modern, it's a CRPG that reboots the classic cyberpunk-Tolkien themed table-top RPG Shadowrun and the subsequent video game series. Shadowrun Returns blends a unique mix of cyberpunk and fantasy to create a truly amazing world that’s deep enough to hook you.

The story of Shadowrun Returns follows the story of a Shadowrunner, an elite group of criminal mercenaries, who has fallen on hard times. Without spoiling too much, your general quest is to uncover the suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of a fellow Shadowrunner. The story may be a little on the short side but it’s excellently written and has plenty of twists to keep it interesting to the very end, even if it does get a little farfetched later on. The story is told almost exclusively through text that narrates and describes everything that occurs, very much in the style of classic CRPGs like Fallout or Baldur’s Gate 2. Although the writing is consistently excellent throughout the game, there is a lot of writing and it can get tiresome to read large paragraphs on everything that happens. But that’s me just being lazy. The storytelling in Shadowrun Returns is very much like reading a book, and although you are given some visual context, the text paints a vivid image of every person, building, and gruesome encounter. Fans of classic CRPGs will appreciate the genre’s revitalising, and it makes a refreshing change from endlessly watching pre-rendered cutscenes.

Text is often thick, but excellently written and hugely detailed

As with any good CRPG, the majority of gameplay will be spent talking to the many interesting inhabitants of the Shadowrun universe (the good and the bad) and generally doing stuff in the typical RPG way. This is easily when Shadowrun is at its best and certainly it’s most enjoyable. Exploring the unfortunately linear world is fun and reasonably rewarding, and whilst there’s usually something hidden off the beaten path the problem is often that simply isn't anywhere to to veer off to most of the time. The game is very linear, which may frustrate some people as the world has the potential to be much more open, but I'm going to put that down to a matter of budget. However, this doesn't actually subtract from the conversational experience the game has to offer since the game’s main hub is packed full with a nice variety of characters that would otherwise be more spread out in more open RPGs. You don’t really feel like you’re missing out on the whole meeting new characters bit, but rather you feel as though you’re missing out on exploration of a potentially fascinating world.

Shadowrun Return’s combat is extremely simple, but what it lacks in depth it certainly makes up for in tactical tension and an intuitive interface. At first glance the combat UI may seem like a confusing mess, with your weapons, spells, items, and your own health bar tucked onto a single bar at the bottom of the screen. However, you quickly get accustomed to the snappy nature of the UI and it makes combat go somewhat quicker, even if animations and movement do drag on a bit.  The turn-based combat is very reminiscent of the recent XCOM: Enemy Unknown: movement is based on two-movement system, shots and abilities are all determined by bullshit RNG that can’t tell the fucking difference between 30% and 90%, and grenades are aimed in the same manner. Fans of Enemy Unknown will immediately notice the likeness and should be quick to accustom. Unfortunately, the combat doesn’t quite have the same nail biting tension that every shot in Enemy Unknown harboured, and for the majority of the game the combat feels way too easy and far too unengaging. Towards the end of the game combat becomes spontaneously difficult in a frustrating way that feels unfair and far too sudden. What makes this suddenly difficult combat even more frustrating is the game’s poor save system (or lack thereof). The game works on a checkpoint system that saves once per level (a level is only a single floor or set of rooms) and there’s no way to manually save the game, making the later end of the story feel really frustrating.

Stats are split into more specific sub-categories, offering lot of choice for level-ups

Character customisation is a pretty detailed part of Shadowrun Returns; it allows you to choose the gender, appearance, and race of your character (the standard fantasy affair of Humans and Elves etc.). You choose from one of six classes, all of which focus on varying aspects of combat and non-combat features (hacking, speech etc.). As the story progresses, you earn Karma to spend freely on a wide range of basic stats (Intelligence, strength etc.) which all breakdown into more focused sub-categories such as Rifle specialisation or the effectiveness of first aid kits. These basically spilt into melee, ranged, spellcaster, and non-combat skills, which potentially opens up the door for multiple runs using varying combat methods and classes. However, as you get further into the story you begin to realise that the potential isn't much of an option unless you’re happy to play through a fairly short and extremely linear campaign again. Plus the combat is so basic that it’s almost exactly the same regardless of whether you’re melee, ranged, or a mage of sorts.

Shadowrun Returns’ visual aesthetic is pretty nice, especially considering the game’s tight budget, and the game sports a simple yet colourful appearance. The world is very simplistic and lacking in any real detail, all detail of any visuals is found within the game’s textual narrative. Although extremely basic, the visuals do a great job of conveying the very bleak and desperate nature of the almost dystopian world. Shadowrun’s sound design is also pretty basic but at the same time sleek and effective, weapons and spells sound pretty average (not terrible but certainly not good) and the soundtrack is limited but oddly fitting. I say fitting because the very basic sound design and lack of voice acting give the game a very bleak atmosphere that goes well with the rundown alleys and wandering homeless.

Visuals are simplistic, yet colourful

Overall, Shadowrun Returns is an excellent reboot of a classic franchise and a dying genre. It isn't overly ambitious and knows what it wants to be, and certainly knows what it can’t afford to be. The game is lacking in some areas, but that’s largely down to the lack of funding. For $20 this is a great experience for fans of CRPGs, fans of Shadowrun, or anyone looking for a succinct journey through a very unique world.

Strengths:

       -Excellent writing throughout and there is tons of it

       -Character customisation is deep and allows for free mix and matching of skills

       -Rich world with lots of interesting characters

       -Combat UI is intuitive and works well without filling up the screen

       -Storytelling is interesting; a refreshing break from the modern way

       -Great story, with plenty of twists and surprises

Weaknesses:

       -Punishing save system becomes increasingly frustrating as you progress

       -Combat is extremely basic and the random nature may feel unfair at times

       -The game is extremely linear and pretty short, offering no real replay value

Let's Talk... Dark

Vampires and stealth go together brilliantly on paper, the idea of skulking around in the shadows feeding off the blood of those pathetic mortals could make a really great game. It’s just a shame that Dark is about as interesting as it’s title, and makes blood sucking a boring chore. Dark has some nice ideas and potentially fun gameplay, but the endless bugs, horribly bad AI, and animations that look like they were made by a four year old make the execution of this concept extremely messy. Dark is not just a terrible stealth game but is also a completely uninspired story. So much of Dark is terribly executed that it’s difficult to find what’s the most infuriating. From the extremely dull characters to some of the laughably bad animations, Dark seems like something that a High School student lazily put together the night before it was due.

The cliché-ridden story follows Eric Bane (really?), a newly turned vampire suffering from amnesia who must drink the blood of the vampire that turned him in order to avoid being turned into a mindless ghoul (frankly, it seems a little late for that). Despite there being little-to-no character building for Eric or any of the other boring characters, there’s more than enough to see that everybody is just a monotonous drone. You can get some context of the world with the very Mass Effect-esque conversation wheel, but chat options are limited and the answers you get are often pointlessly vague or just purely contradicting (for example, one of the “head” vampires will tell you that there is no vampire society and then follow it up by saying “I wouldn’t expect a half-blood to understand” …What?). Dark fails to deliver anything new to vampire fiction and many ideas are clearly ripped off more successful vampire fiction, such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Dracula.

Level design can sometimes be colourful, but is generally quite boring and feels unfair

Stealth is the name of game, but the stealth is skewered to the point where it more accurately resembles a mushy mess. You are given a small handful of abilities to unlock and upgrade through experience, such as a short range teleport blink (ripped straight out of Dishonored), and the ability to instant kill guards when you have the “blood” (similar to Deus Ex’s energy system that allowed you perform takedowns but required energy). Every ability can be upgraded a couple of times each, but the upgrades are incredibly boring and pretty much just make your abilities quieter, or just reduces its cooldown. You require “blood” to perform these abilities, which is acquired by performing a noisy blood-sucking takedown that takes forever. Whilst it may sound like your average upgrade system for a game with some crammed in RPG elements, but there’s some serious imbalance in the cost and effect of some skills. For example, it costs the same amount of blood to distract a guard than it does to kill a guard, which certainly makes distracting them seem pretty useless. On top of that, your abilities are underwhelming and have some terrible animations. Like really terrible.

The AI are laughably bad for the most part

Dark’s gameplay would be frustrating enough with just that, but the horrible AI and unfair level design make this game incredibly painful to play. The AI tends to have unpredictably good vision, but their behaviour is so stupid that it makes avoiding detection far too easy. Once they spot you, guards will endlessly shoot where you last were (kind of like the way guards in Splinter Cell: Conviction would, only they are must less intelligent about it) and statically stare exactly where they saw you, allowing you easily shadow leap away and take the dumb guards out from behind. Laughably bad AI would be bad enough without the level design being so unfair; the levels will regularly dump you into a brightly lit room with 20+ guards and expects you to complete the level with nothing but relentless trial and error. The level design is also boring, repetitive, and uninspired.

However, Dark does do a pretty good job of conveying the dark, gritty world of a pledging vampire with its cel shaded aesthetic that looks heavily inspired by The Darkness 2’s very cartoon-like appearance and overuse of purple colours. Whilst the cel shaded effects feel appropriate, they don’t make up for the world being bland and darn ugly. The world is sometimes a little too dark, making it difficult to tell when you’re visible and thankfully hiding the visually world. Sound design is about as below average as everything else in this title, voice acting isn’t that bad but every character seems to share the same level of utterly apathetic monotone (especially Eric). Guns sound really wrong, punching guards sounds flat and unsatisfying, and more than one occasion the sound just abruptly cut out for no apparent reason.

Dark has an appropriate cel shaded look

 The few neat ideas Dark has to offer are all completely shunted by their poor execution. This 5 hour mess fails to deliver on what it tries to offer, and there are more than enough reasons to completely avoid this title. Fans of either stealth games or vampire fiction will be nothing but disappointed here.

Strengths:

       -Cel shaded visuals capture the tone of the game quite well

       -Having to perform special takedowns to power your skills makes your abilities

       feel more valuable and makes the game feel tense at times

Weaknesses:

       - Some good concepts that are let down by their flawed execution

       -Stealth is ruined by the horrifyingly bad AI

       -Level design pushes you towards trial and error rather than genuine success

       -Upgrade tree and skills are basic and pretty boring

       -Full of visual bugs and audio bugs

       -Voice acting is unbearably monotone

       -Characters are dull and character development is very limited

       -Clunky and laughably bad animations

       -No original ideas, most gameplay elements have been ripped from some other

       Title (i.e. Shadow leap is a much less fun version of Blink from Dishonored
       -$50 for 5 hour long story

Let's Talk... Cloudberry Kingdom

If you thought Cloudberry Kingdom was going to be anywhere near as cute as it sounds then you were sadly mistaken. This game is evil and desperately wants to kill. Although it sounds like something from an Animal Crossing game, Cloudberry Kingdom is a torture platformer with a huge emphasis on the torture aspect. Fans of Super Meat Boy will likely be attracted to the game's punishing madness, but may also be put off by the game's much slower pace. The premise to Cloudberry Kingdom's madness is that you are Bob, the generic determined hero, and you must rescue the generic helpless princess from the generic evil bad guy. Sounds simple, right? You couldn't be more wrong.

Cutscenes have a cool paper-craft aesthetic 

The story opens with an excellent paper-craft cutscene that immediately sets the tone of the game with its bad puns and clichéd adventure set-up. Outside of the story, your general aim in Cloudberry Kingdom is simply to get past the endless spinning maces, spiky death traps, and that bastard gravity to reach the end of the level. What makes Cloudberry Kingdom unique, however, is that every level is randomly generated. As you'd imagine, this adds a huge replay value and certainly spices up the gameplay, but makes the level design feel pretty weak and you don't get the feeling that each level was meticulously crafted as you do with Super Meat Boy, or any other platformer for that matter. However, it's what's in the level and trying to kill you that matters in this game.

For the most part the controls feel pretty tight and the platforming is pretty solid. As you progress through the game, you'll be unlock varying abilities that change the way Bob behaves. Ranging from Tiny Bob to Jetman (Bob flies around on a jetpack of course, what else?) these abilities keep the gameplay from getting stale too quickly and every level is designed around your current ability. Most of these abilities tweak the gameplay in pretty minor ways (for example, you're smaller or can jump twice) but they do a great job of keeping the gameplay fun and engaging enough to keep playing. The story mode has a nice steady difficulty curve at the beginning as the levels introduce new features and you unlock new abilities, but then the game just sort of reaches a point of utter madness and every level is just packed full of insane stuff trying to kill you. This insane difficulty may put off players who are new to difficult platforming, but seasoned platforming veterans may really enjoy the madness.

One of the more crazier levels.

Cloudberry Kingdom is quite colourful but is mostly pretty darn ugly. There are a handful of very basic backgrounds that the game cycles through, enemies and traps look really simple, and Bob looks incredibly bland. Visuals aren't exactly a strong point, but the soundtrack is great and almost as crazy as some of the levels. Cloudberry Kingdom recognises its competitive nature with its fun co-op mode and global leaderboards, which the more competitive players may appreciate. Co-op mode is a great time sink that allows you to tweak the difficulty and the ability that everyone shares. Along with story mode and co-op, there's an arcade mode where players can strive for high scores or attempt time trials and a free-play mode, where players can create their own crazy levels to punish their friends or get some much needed training for the madness of story mode.

Overall, Cloudberry Kingdom is a well-executed torture platformer that may attract players who enjoy the more difficult side of platforming that is matched only by Super Meat Boy. It doesn't quite live up to the height of its competition but its well worth the $10 price tag if you're looking for a new platformer to punish you.

Strengths:
       -Solid platforming with tight controls
       -Procedurally generated levels add huge replay value
       -Variety of power-ups and abilities keep gameplay fresh
       -Great soundtrack that adds to the madness
       -Global leaderboards and co-op add a nice competitive element
       -The game can be super rewarding at times

Weaknesses:
       -Ugly visuals
       -Doesn't have the fast pace that makes SMB feel awesome to play
       -Can be super punishing at times

Let's Talk... Metro Last Light

Metro: Last Light brings back the incredible atmosphere and impressive visuals that made Metro 2033 such an enthralling experience, whilst vastly improving the game's weak combat. The metro is more immersive, the characters are more interesting, and the surface is more beautiful and much more deadly; every aspect of Metro: Last Light is greatly improved from its predecessor. Whilst I could never really hang on long enough to see 2033 conclude, I was sad that Last Light ever finished.

The surface is beautiful but extremely hazardous

The end of Metro 2033 saw silent protagonist Artyom launching a barrage of missiles against the Dark Ones, a race of supernatural monsters with telepathic capability threatening the remaining human survivors. Since the destruction of the Dark Ones, the Metro's opposing factions have been struggling to survive in this post-apocalyptic wasteland and tensions are rising over who controls the mysterious D6 vault. Factions in the metro include the Rangers, this is you and your friends” the Communists, and the Nazis. During your time in the metro, you'll encounter all three of these factions and you can make your own mind up about them. Metro: Last Light's story follows Artyom on his quest to find the last surviving Dark One in order to find their true nature.

Personally, I found that as great as the atmosphere was in Metro 2033 the immersive that it created was ruined by the game's shoddy gunplay, which felt weak and distracted from the excellent atmosphere. Fortunately, Last Light greatly improves on that front and the gameplay is now an excellently crafted blend of stealth and exciting action. The stealth can be an easy way out of any situation, however, considering the AI are all deaf, dumb, and blind. You pretty much have to be standing directly in front of them to make them notice you, and enemies will instantly forget where you are as soon as they lose sight, which can make stealth sequences a little too easy. The game's action, however, is always tense and exciting with all the weapons in the metro sharing the same homemade feel they had in Metro 2033. Each weapon is sloppily held together by nothing more than nuts, bolts, and scrap metal, which gives the weapons a great dsytopian look that truly reflects the desperate and very hopeless setting. Some of the game's “pneumatic” weapons need to be pumped as well as reloaded during combat, often leaving you scrambling to correctly charge your gun which makes the combat feel tense and immersive. Gameplay alternates between sneaking around the dark, dank underground, and roaming the terrifying surface shooting anything that moves.

The dark, dank tunnels provide a chilling atmosphere

The gameplay is fun and acts as a great filler for the best part of the game, which comes in the form of freely exploring the metro and roaming the surface. It is these moments that the atmosphere in Last Light is by far at its best, the metro has such a haunting atmosphere of suffering and despair that will stick with you long after you finish this decently long adventure. Last Light's lighting provides some of the most fantastic lighting seen in any game, from the light reflecting off the rain on your gas mask to the trickles of light descending down from the surface the lighting is truly excellent. The kind of excellent that will make you stop and stare in wonder. They aren't just there to look pretty, however, and they serve to make the game's atmosphere even more incredible as shadows and flickers mess with your imagination. When you're not engaged in tense action, you'll pass through some civilian settlements which show how the human race continues to survive through the nuclear devastation that plagues the lands. As you make your way through these settlements, you'll overhear conversations from scared and confused families as they try to make sense of this terrifying.

Overhearing scared families desperate to survive is just one of the many small details in Metro: Last Light that you'll really appreciate. It's having to put your gun away to charge your flashlight's battery. It's pumping your pneumatic weapons and desperately avoiding over-pumping it. It's the tense sound your watch makes when you get spotted and the wonderful musical note that plays when you do get detected. It's pumping a raging beast full of lead and having to actually wipe the blood off your gas mask with it's own unique button (yes, there's actually a button for just wiping your gas mask). These are the things that you'll notice when playing Last Light, and these are the things that make Last Light such an immersive joy to play.

Gunplay in the metro is tense, exciting, and greatly improved from Metro 2033

As with Metro 2033, Last Light looks truly incredible and will certainly test your computer's capability, if you do play this on PC. As previously mentioned, the lighting effects in this game are really something special. Metro's sound design is really excellent, too, with guns that sound and feel awesome to use. The game's soundtrack is great and adds more to the already amazing atmosphere, whilst the only issue is the poor voice acting that features in this game. It certainly doesn't ruin the experience, but some of the cringe-worthy attempts at Russian accents in this game are sometimes laughable. The controls feel really tight on both a controller and mouse and keyboard, which helps the gameplay to flow smoothly.

Strengths:

       -Amazing chilling atmosphere

       -Combat is greatly improved from Metro 2033, and is now much more satisfying

       -Great visuals with excellent lighting effects

       -The metro is teeming with little things that really add to the experience, such as wiping   
        blood from your mask

       -Gripping story with some interesting characters

       -Surface is beautiful and dangerous, with some rewarding exploration

Weaknesses: 

       -Weak voice acting with some poor Russian accents

       -Some minor graphical glitches

Let's Talk... Deadpool

Deadpool might be a popular Marvel anti-hero, but he’s never had his own place in the spotlight until now. So Deadpool fans should be happy to know that Deadpool makes his transition from comics to video games unscathed, with High Moon Studios faithfully capturing his in-your-face quirk quite nicely. Unfortunately, Deadpool's biggest strength is also one of its biggest weaknesses, whilst his wacky character has been well captured in this title, his persistently terrible jokes, tiresome self-awareness, and the inability to keep the fourth wall intact may well put a lot of players off.

The story follows Deadpool's through the making of his video game produced by High Moon Studios... No, no, not the game you're playing, the game that Deadpool is actually making... Yes, it is that "meta". The story is no more than a 5 hour spectacle of stupidity and excessive violence with the odd X-men character popping in to make a quick cameo before being humiliated by Deadpool and leaving. The story is packed full of stupid, over-the-top humour that’s practically all misogynistic and utterly cringe-worthy. It isn't all bad though and the game does provide some laughs, but those rare moments are completely overshadowed by the endless boob jokes. Deadpool’s story does feature a couple of pretty funny moments where you’re forced to temporarily play the game in 8-bit because you apparently “blew the budget” on the last high-octane action sequence, which also varies the gameplay from time to time.

The gameplay in Deadpool consists largely of some pretty basic hack ‘n’ slash combat where you rack up combos using a simplistic mixture of light and heavy attacks. There are only three melee weapons that you can use and all they do is give you the option between slow, medium, and fast attack speeds. Deadpool is a known proprietor of anything that can shoot bullets, so there is some ranged combat in Deadpool but its pretty basic and isn't the main focal point of combat. Through combat, and what little exploration there is to do in this linear game, you gain money to spend on upgrading Deadpool and purchasing new weapons and equipment. The variety of upgrades may feel pretty broad at first, but it soon becomes clear that the majority of your upgrades are the same upgrades just used on all your weapons. Upgrading Deadpool himself is possible and there are some cool upgrades available, such as every 10th hit gives you back health, but most are quite basic and pretty boring. Although combat is extremely simple, it can be quite fun to rack up combos, chaining melee and ranged attacks together to create devastating results. Ranged weapons lack any sort of real kick and aiming is a little fiddly, but melee weapons are pretty fun to use.

Some of the game's crude humour... yes, you are taking a piss in between two bad guys...

Deadpool’s story is little more than 5 hours and offers no real challenge, even on the highest difficulty. The only way that Deadpool is able to increase the difficulty is just by adding more enemies, since there are about three different types of enemies in this game and you’re hardly ever introduced to a new enemy type. Boss fights are tedious and far too easy, with one boss requiring you to press B when he charges at you and then beat the crap out of him. Once you've completed the pitifully short campaign there’s a challenge mode that pits you against the exact same three enemies found throughout the campaign in some of the campaigns stages. Challenge mode may add a few more hours of gameplay if you enjoyed the combat enough, but overall Deadpool is severely lacking in content for a $60 game and if you’re a huge Deadpool fan then I suggest you wait for the price to drop before seeing this masked menace in action.

Deadpool does run pretty well (I was running at a smooth 60 fps on high settings), but that’s because the game looks pretty horrible. Textures are muddy and environment design is boring and incredibly lacking. The game’s only locations are sewers, ruined buildings, and industrial areas, with so much brown and grey that you'll want to tear your hair out just to add something more interesting to the painfully boring colour pallet. The game generally sounds okay, the soundtrack is nothing special and voice acting is pretty average (like everything in this game…) Most weapons sound okay, but the hammer packs no real audible punch and the SMG sounds so bad that I couldn't even stand to use it. The default controls for mouse and keyboard were so horrible that I just couldn't use them and resorted to using a 360 controller. Also, I experienced a couple of crashes and a major graphical glitch that continued for the majority of the game, where my screen would become completely covered by all sorts of crazy nonsense whenever my health got to a low enough state rendering it utterly unplayable until my health come back.

Wolverine makes a quick cameo, but only so you can bitch slap him endlessly.

Overall, this a pretty poor debut solo appearance for Deadpool and his wacky personality has been captured quite well here. Unfortunately, its the game's boring level design, 5 hour length, relentless attempts to make the player laugh with rude and often sexist jokes, and combat that offers no real challenge that makes Deadpool fail to live up to his potential here, and I'd love to see what a Deadpool game can offer when done right. If you're a die hard fan of the kooky masked menace then I'd avoid this title, or at least give it a while.

Strengths:

       -Combat is quite fun and the game has a nice combo system
       -Deadpool's kooky character is captured excellently
       -Cameos made by variety of Marvel characters, who are all captured accurately

Weaknesses:

      -Combat is easy, and offers no real challenge

      -Tedious boss fights

      -Extremely crude and poorly timed humour that gets tiresome after an hour

      -Lacking enemy variety      

      -Ranged combat is fiddly and a poor alternative to melee

      -Level design is boring and repeated throughout the game

      -$50 full price for a 5 hour experience

Let's Talk... Rise of the Triad

If you miss the retro style of shooters that encouraged exploration, didn't care about who could have the grittiest storyline, and didn't limit you to a two weapon system, then Interceptor Entertainment's reboot of the 1994 classic Rise of the Triad may well be what you've been searching for. The days of rocket jumping through interesting level design seem to have, at the very least, stagnated in recent years, making this title really stand out from the modern way of doing things. Apogee Software's original Rise of the Triad: Dark War has a reputation for its insane weapons, crazy power-ups, and wacky level design. Unfortunately, the reboot has numerous issues that prevent it from living up to name of the original.

About an hour into the single-player I started to feel sick, not from how boring the campaign was but from the ridiculous speed at which the game plays. The insane movement speed that you move at makes combat feel extremely fast-paced and dizzying, which is fun for a bit but soon gets tiresome when all you're fighting is the same bland goons with clunky animations and dreadful voice acting. The game would be a lot more enjoyable if the game would just stick to its fast-paced madness, but the pacing is screwed over by the overused environmental puzzles. These puzzles are needlessly complicated, they take too long to figure out and take away significantly from the over-the-top brutal action that is supposed to be the whole point of the game. Most of the puzzles are platforming sections tauntingly placed over a leering pit of lava and death, which the game's punishing checkpoint system and inability to quicksave make all the more frustrating.

This has to be a joke, right?

ROTT replaces some conventions of modern shooters in favour of a retro approach. Instead of regenerating health you must walk over food to give you health, you aren't limited to a two weapon system, and firearms have unlimited ammo. You are given the ability to aim down your iron sights, but this is pretty redundant considering precision isn't really necessary in this game. These mechanics open the door to a really fun game, its just a shame that the game itself is extremely boring and frustratingly punishing. As you'd expect, there are plenty of bosses that offer a decent challenge that isn't particularly unfair and provide a nice break from the endless puzzle segments. The best way to play ROTT seems to be on one of the easier difficulties, simply because the game's stupidly over-the-top madness has flames flying at you from all directions, spike traps, collapsible floors and all manner of unfair ways to kill you that, which with the punishing checkpoint system makes the game near impossible on the higher difficulties. I guess the developers were aiming to capture the difficult nature of 90's shooters, but the poor execution makes ROTT feel frustrating and unfair.

The combat in ROTT doesn't feel all that great, whilst the game does have a nice variety of really fun heavy weapons, the basic firearms feel boring to use and have to no real kick. The firearms don't sound particularly great and the game makes no effort to make them appealing, with obvious favour towards the heavier side of your arsenal. I understand that Interceptor Entertainment wanted to keep faithful to the original game, and they did a great job of that, but they could've included more than just two firearms, maybe a shotgun or a some sort of sniper rifle? However, heavy weapons are pretty common and not too hard to find so long as you explore the map a bit and keep an eye out for secrets. You can actually use a dual wielded knife attack as melee in this game, but when you go to stab an enemy it lunges you forward in a horribly clunky way that often completely misses the enemy you were aiming for. If you do manage to connect your knives then you're rewarded with the enemy literally splitting apart, but the game makes an odd metallic sound when you hit enemies with your melee strike for some strange reason. I mean, are the enemies secretly robots? Overall, the combat feels clunky and the enemies suffer from a sheer lack of variety, robust animations, and some truly horrible voice acting.

There's a nice variety of wacky weapons to keep gameplay from
getting stale, just a shame that enemies aren't as varied...

The game has a good sense of humour and can be quite funny at times. ROTT is all too aware of how ridiculous it is and never takes itself too seriously, which is a refreshing break from the recent line of all too serious games. Although sometimes the game can get a little too tongue and cheek for it's own good. As a mocking narrator suggests that you should "go back to console gaming" or "switch to a controller", making the entire experience all the more frustrating. However, the game can be genuinely funny, with mission briefings basically telling you that "Lava is bad, avoid it", and the game's ludicrous levels of gore can be pretty hilariously over-the-top. The game's soundtrack is actually pretty badass, and can make the boring combat almost feel pretty epic at times.

Multiplayer is just as chaotic and brutal as the single-player and much more enjoyable. Multiplayer is likely going to be the main attraction for most players, and may justify the $15 price tag if you're looking for a retro experience reminiscent of Quake or Unreal Tournament. There are enough jump pads and secret rooms to keep you entertained for a while, but the limited pool of three game modes and five maps at launch (with the promise of community maps coming soon.) may be somewhat of a turn off. Frankly, this was a disappointing title let down by its repetitive puzzles, lack of enemy variety, punishing checkpoint system, and just plain boring single-player.

Strengths:
       -Nice variety of insane weapons
       -Nostalgic throwback to 90's shooters, and very faithful to the original ROTT
       -Pretty fun multiplayer, reminiscent of Quake and Unreal Tournament
        
Weaknesses:
       -Heavily over-used environmental puzzles
       -Lack of enemy variety quickly makes gameplay boring
       -Few multiplayer maps and modes
       -Frustratingly punishing checkpoint system
       -Poor optimisation makes the game run terribly even on decent PCs