I had a chance to capture some of the new single player Situations mode that is going to be a part of Rainbow Six Siege. Here, I played as IQ who has a wrist-mounted device that can track electronic signals. Rainbow Six Siege will be available on December 1 for Xbox One, PS4, and PC.
Tag Archive: ray carsillo
I don’t think this was the baseball news most expected to come out of Boston this off-season.
I am apt to scouring the Hot Stove reports to see what new moves had been made, if any, when baseball free agency starts (always during my lunch break, of course). Imagine my shock when David Ortiz’s name came up, though, in my feeds. But it hadn’t been because the infamous Red Sox slugger had been shipped from Beantown. Instead, he was still entrenched in Fenway Park—200 years from now.
Richie Branson, an independent game developer out of San Antonio, Texas, decided he wanted to put his skills to good use and make the post-apocalyptic Boston setting of Fallout 4 feel a little more authentic. Fenway Park was already a central part of the game—its ruins house one of the largest survivor settlements in Fallout 4—but Branson felt it was missing something. So, like many fans do with immensely popular games, he created a mod.
In this case, his mod inserted Boston Red Sox uniforms into the game, allowed players to dress up like Big Papi, and he could swing a massive baseball bat to defend himself from the dangers of the Wasteland. Maybe it was a bit of virtual karma for Ortiz, who now could be attacked by big green monsters after spending the better part of his career pelting a Big Green Monster with line drives (and yes, I understand that most of Ortiz’s batted balls actually go to right field because he’s a power-hitting lefty, but you get the idea). It was a fun little add-on, given to the gaming community for free by Branson, to be enjoyed by all, and which you can see in action in the video at the bottom of this article.
As reported originally by Steve Annear of the Boston Globe, however, not everyone did enjoy the mod—specifically, Major League Baseball. “The use of these marks is an infringement of our rights. We plan to enforce those rights,” a MLB spokesman said in an e-mail Thursday in a curt statement to the Globe.
This shocked Branson, as it would any sane person.
“I’m not trying to sell this counterfeit Red Sox jersey. I’m putting a free Red Sox graphic into a game that already insinuates the Red Sox are in the game, at Fenway Park,” Branson told the Globe.
Major League Baseball would not elaborate further on what action it would take, but frequently in cases like this, cease-and-desist orders are issued, and as Branson admits, he’d begrudgingly have to comply. Thus denying everyone Branson’s hard work.
It is the opinion of this gamer that if Major League Baseball knew what was good for them, they’d reconsider any action against Branson. Not only does this come off as another overly sensitive knee-jerk reaction that has become commonplace nowadays, but it further perpetuates the idea of how out of touch baseball is with the world around them.
As revealed earlier today, Fallout 4 had not only the best launch for a game in publisher Bethesda’s history, but one of the best overall launches in history, making $750 million dollars in just a couple of days, and shipping around 12 million copies worldwide. Instead of embracing this pop culture phenomenon, especially amongst a demographic that baseball is slowly aging out of as it continues to find it difficult to connect with young potential fans, MLB is trying to bully someone for having fun. Great way to show you’re exactly what people want to sign up for and be a part of, Baseball. Then again, this is the sport that still vilifies gambling more than drug abuse. Someone should let baseball know that it’s 2015, not 1915.
Fallout 4 is available now for PS4, Xbox One, and PC. But if the numbers above are any indicator, you probably knew that, and are unlikely to be a part of Major League Baseball.
Clipped wings
At this point, Yuji Naka’s place in video game history is secure. As one of the key figures behind all the early Sonic the Hedgehog titles, and later Nights into Dreams on Sega Saturn, Naka has brought gamers countless hours of high-speed fun. But many also lament what is most likely Naka’s greatest failing—the inability to recapture many of those feelings we had from his 2D Sonic games in his 3D ones. Sonic’s failed transition away from side-scrollers partly led to Naka’s departure from Sonic Team in 2006, driving him to create his own studio, Prope, which has seen moderate success in the mobile realm. Unfortunately, like a pro athlete who refuses to admit the best days of his career are behind him, it seems that Naka still wants to find a way to bring the mechanics that made him a success in the 90s to modern audiences. As Rodea the Sky Soldier proves, however, knowing when to move on is sometimes more noble than never letting go.
Rodea the Sky Soldier begins by explaining that, every millennium, a cross-rift between two dimensions opens. One dimension is driven more by organics and nature; the other, more mechanical and industrial. King Geardo, monarch of the industrial dimension, wants to use the cross-rift as an opportunity to rule over both. His daughter, however, is tired of her father’s dreams of conquest, so she programs her android bodyguard Rodea to stop the king and his robotic army at all costs. It sounds more like the plot of a JRPG than an action game, but it does its job in setting the stage as to why the organic world you fight in is overrun with mechanical enemies. Meanwhile, from a design standpoint, Rodea looks like a cross between a Sonic game and a Nights game. Item boxes, enemies, even world layout, although simple, has the feel of Naka’s later failed works at SEGA.
Before we continue any further, it needs to be said that Rodea the Sky Soldier was never intended as a Wii U game. In fact, it sat in development purgatory for four years, originally planned on being released on the Wii back in 2011. Why the game was delayed so long is beyond me, but it looks like nothing has been done with all that extra time—causing a lot of rust to collect on Rodea’s visuals and gameplay.
Graphically, the game is a mess—it would look bad even as a last-gen title. Barely populated worlds, wide stretches of land painted in the same bland color, and even large segments of a stage flickering in and out of existence as rendering fails to keep up when Rodea reaches a decent speed mar the the experience. All this makes Rodea easily one of the ugliest games I’ve played in a long time.
Rodea is also a joke in terms of gameplay, seemingly taking all the worst elements from Naka’s previous games and mashing them together. Rodea can fly around a level or run around the ground, moving his fastest when he’s in the air. He has only a limited meter once he takes flight, though, so Rodea will need to find a solid piece of land to settle on to let the meter quickly refill—sans grabbing certain items mid-flight that refresh his flight power. This actually provides a nice challenge in stages where lots of bottomless drops abound, forcing you to balance how you get to the end of each level.
The flying could have been so much more fluid and fun had the game’s controls not turned out completely unintuitive. Instead of allowing you to just fly around using the control stick, you have to aim at where you want Rodea to fly, then press a button to set a marker on a safe spot. Once you’ve done that, Rodea will move along the path toward the marker you’ve placed. If you want to course correct, attack an enemy, or deviate in any way from the original path, the entire concept falls apart. I could see where, if you had to use the original Wiimote, pointing at the screen constantly, this might not have been as bad as it is. But using the Wii U gamepad’s control stick to aim instead caused rerouting Rodea in mid-air to become a chore, especially with the overly sensitive camera swinging around trying to correct itself. Never before has flying in a game ever felt so restrictive.
The combat is also a sad state of affairs. When targeting an enemy, you can lock onto them like you would in one of the 3D Sonic games, with Rodea even spinning around to gear up for the attack. If enemies are grouped together, though, the inability to easily link attacks was a sad realization. I often had to individually target them—which, admittedly, was still easier than flying—but I lacked the speed or rush that even the worst 3D Sonic games were able to produce.
The weakest element of combat, though, is easily something I thought I’d never see again in a game like this: guns. Channeling his inner Shadow the Hedgehog, Rodea has machine guns and other firearms that he can earn over time, allowing him to slowly aim and take pot shots at the enemies around each world. It was at this point that I nearly threw the Wii U controller out of sheer frustration because, while the gun mechanics work, they destroyed any semblance of pacing that the game was trying to achieve.
Rodea isn’t a complete letdown, though. Showing at least a semblance of evolution from the projects of a decade ago, the game features a fleshed-out upgrade system for the titular hero. Killing enemies rewards Rodea with spare parts that he can then use to upgrade his armor, attack, speed, and other attributes between stages. He can also unlock new moves and better weapons—should the whole machine gun mechanic not bother you as much as it did me.
Surprisingly, the game’s boss battles are also a fair amount of fun. Since most of them are mammoth in size, set in the game’s larger arenas, it’s easier to target their weak points and bring them to their knees—even if many fall into the classic “three hits and you’re dead” gaming trope. It’s such a shame that getting to the bosses is such a grind, leaving them feeling like a brief respite instead of the culmination of a well-designed level.
It’s sad that Rodea the Sky Soldier stayed buried for so long. Had it released in 2011 like originally intended for the Wii, this might’ve been a much better handling game to play, and wouldn’t have looked nearly as bad as it does next to the Wii U contemporaries it now has to contend with. The saddest part, though, is that Yuji Naka doesn’t seem willing to completely let go of his past—and, if anything, accidentally makes the case for why the beloved characters and gameplay he created in his early game design days no longer fit in the modern gaming realm.
| Developer: Kadokawa Games/Prope • Publisher: NIS America • ESRB: E10+ – Everyone 10 and up • Release Date: 11.10.15 | |
|
4.0
|
Horrid visuals and unintuitive gameplay make Rodea the Sky Soldier one of the worst action games I’ve played in a long time.
|
| The Good | Massive boss battles, deep character upgrade system. |
| The Bad | Difficult to control Rodea in flight, last-gen graphics, lots of glitches. |
| The Ugly | Didn’t we learn anything from the disaster that was Shadow the Hedgehog? |
| Rodea the Sky Soldier is available on Wii U, Wii, and 3DS. Primary version reviewed was for Wii U. Review code was provided by NIS America for the benefit of this review. | |
A bigger, blacker CoD
Call of Duty has come a long way over the years. Every subsequent release, though, has the ever-increasing challenge of upping the ante, especially as the fiction has crossed from the historical, to the modern, and, most recently, to the future. But just when you think there is nowhere left for it to go, Treyarch finds a way to push each mode to new heights and tie it all together in its most cohesive package yet with Black Ops III.
Set in 2065, Black Ops III’s world has actually taken a step backwards in some ways when it comes to how it wages war. Due to the setup of an air-defense grid after the attacks of Raul Menendez’s hacked drones 40 years earlier, warfare has once again gotten down and dirty, with foot soldiers serving as the difference makers in combat. But mixing with the blood, sweat, and tears out on the battlefield are the oil, rust, and frayed wires of robot soldiers and augmented humans looking for that extra edge in conflicts around the world.
It is here where Black Ops III begins, when your character is critically wounded on an op that goes sideways, and forced to replace several body parts in order to survive and continue operating for the United States government. As the story progresses through the eyes of your now-supersoldier, back in the field with robotic limbs and unfathomable abilities, you and your team uncover a secret that could turn the world on its head. Worse yet, you realize you weren’t the only ones to recently find out the truth.
Black Ops III’s campaign is easily the series’ most ambitious yet from a storytelling, gameplay, and design point of view. Each chapter is longer and larger than any we’ve seen in the past, with multiple paths to objectives available to players if they are willing to explore. These massive levels substantially lengthen the campaign, pushing my first playthrough to the 10-hour mark.
The wide maps and different routes are also ideal for the return of four-player campaign co-op. For the first time since World at War, you and some buddies can tackle the campaign together, with the difficulty ramping up dynamically depending on how many players have joined you. This also adds an element of potential planning and group tactics, as you can choose to be a team that moves as one, picking off enemies as you go, or branches off and tackles objectives from multiple angles. I personally found the multiple angles suited my team’s playstyle best, especially in the campaign’s handful of traditional boss fights—which were a surprising, but not necessarily unwelcome addition for a series known for its bombastic action filled set pieces.
The most significant addition to gameplay, though, is likely the new Cyber Cores. These are the different cybernetic abilities you can take out into the field with you. Grouped into three sets of six, each individual power can be upgraded as your character progresses.
Yes, one of the ways that Black Ops III more seamlessly brings the Call of Duty experience together is that progressing your character isn’t just limited to multiplayer. You can level up in all three modes of play, giving you specific unlocks in each one. In campaign, you not only customize your character’s armor, face, and guns, but their Cyber Cores, too.
This is done in-between levels, where you can visit a safe house that allows you to mess with your character depending on what chapter you’re going to tackle, while providing a nice respite from bullets whizzing by your ears. If you would like to be an offensive powerhouse, for example, you might want the Chaos Cyber Core that lets you shoot sonics out of your hands, debilitating all human enemies within range, or release nanobots that will swarm enemies and ignite them in flames. In the safe house you can also play a special simulation that acts as a Horde mode—which also features four-player co-op—within the campaign to test your loadouts before heading back into the story.
One of the most interesting aspects of the future setting, though, is that some of the levels are set in the virtual realm. While you can still die and have to restart from a checkpoint, these virtual levels make it so that nearly anything and everything are possible, like the inclusion of zombies for the first time in a main campaign, and even a return to Treyarch’s roots a bit with a World War II simulation that will blow your mind, all while still finding a way to progress the story.
That story, however, might be the one aspect of the campaign where things stumble a bit. Although the gameplay is phenomenal, and does a great job of really allowing you to play it however you want, Treyarch ran into the issue of having to essentially establish a brand-new world due to the 40-year jump in their continuity. Part of this takes place in the aforementioned safe houses, where people who want to dig deep into a small computer terminal will find fun articles ranging from fictional reports on major world events to fun little Easter eggs, like a failed military experiment that tried to weaponize cows.
The rest of the world-building begins in the middle of the narrative, derailing critical character development for the sake of establishing the backstory for your impending conflicts. One of the qualities that have made the Black Ops arc so great is that the conflict traditionally serves only as background noise for the characters that we get to know and love. David and Alex Mason, Woods, and Hudson were memorable characters that I adored. Black Ops III starts out similarly with this unfamiliar squad of undercover badasses, but then about a third of the way through, starts leading you down a rabbit hole around the conspiracy that you happen upon and forgets about making me want to care about any of the characters.
Although critical to the twist at the end of the campaign that will have players arguing on forums as much as Zombies enthusiasts do about that mode’s secrets, the campaign feels like it takes a break from the character development during that time to beat us over the head with themes like “Where do we draw the line with our dependence on technology” and “Americans messing with things they shouldn’t just creates more enemies.” This disrupted the narrative flow, and that became more evident just before the end when a romance subplot comes out of nowhere and the villain’s presence, predictably, is revealed to be with us since near the start of the story. I still enjoyed the campaign’s story as a whole, but I wish the conspiracy could’ve been better woven in with the characters so that the flow of everything didn’t feel so disjointed.
While on the subject of twists at the end of the campaign, the one that made me drop my controller was the reveal of a second campaign at the end of the first one. Dubbed “Nightmare,” this second campaign remixes the level order of the main campaign, but does so while providing a new protagonist, a new narrative, and new enemies.
The Nightmare campaign is a what-if version of the main campaign where all the enemies were zombies. You can’t personalize your loadout here, though. Instead, you have to rely on random magic boxes and drops from enemies in order to power up. The lack of control after having the keys to the customizable kingdom in the main campaign adds to an overall increase in difficulty considering how, even in the widest maps, the zombies will swarm you before you know what hit you. The Nightmare campaign provides a fun alternate narrative that might be stronger than the original and is also playable in four-player co-op.
But for all you Zombies fanatics out there, never fear. A more traditional Zombies experience called “Shadows of Evil”, themed on classic film noir, is also available. As that story goes, the four main characters, played by Ron Perlman, Jeff Goldblum, Heather Graham, and Neal McDonough, have each committed some horrible evil that is allowing zombies to enter their world. By working together, they’ll have to uncover the secret that supposedly somehow ties into previous Zombies entries and might save their damned souls.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get as far as I’d normally like in Zombies, but I did get plenty of time to experiment with two major additions to the mode’s gameplay. The first is the new Gobblegum system. Each player can customize a set of five gumballs they want attributed to their person, with each gumball offering a different ability. When you find a Gobblegum machine, you can spend some of the cash you’d normally use on guns or other power-ups to get one of the five gumballs in your set at random. And just like in single-player, there is a progression here that will unlock better gumballs as you level up.
The second element is the purple flame, which can be found at different locations throughout Morg City. For a limited time, this turns players into a lightning quick plant monster with tentacles (think Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors) called “The Beast” that lets you open special doors, break boxes, and unlock the paths necessary to find all of Morg City’s secrets. There are few things more satisfying than finding new secrets and special narrative clues while killing the undead, so when combined with the hysterical dialogue that each character randomly spews, this year’s Zombies mode might be the best yet.
As great as Campaign and Zombies are, multiplayer is really Call of Duty’s bread-and-butter. Never to be outdone, the multiplayer has taken the futuristic ideas of the campaign and turned them into the slickest multiplayer suite yet.
Before you build your first loadout, though, you should check out Freerun. This short series of four time trials are a great way to teach you how best to use your wall-running abilities in multiplayer and get used to the idea of the maps’ new sense of verticality. Ramping up steadily, Freerun will show you moves you never thought possible, like running up columns or wall-jumping down narrow corridors, all while stoking your competitive fire by sticking a clock on you and daring you to get the best time.
Once your cybernetic legs are all warmed up, then you can jump into the largest selection of multiplayer modes yet. I was able to play on live servers pre-launch, and while there weren’t nearly as many people online as there will be on launch day, everything worked fine. You never know what might happen when the servers are flooded by millions of gamers, though. Multiplayer touts a bevy of returning favorites like Capture the Flag, Kill Confirmed, Team Deathmatch, Hardpoint, and many more, but Black Ops III also touts a new mode called Safeguard.
Safeguard tasks you with defending a bomb strapped to a robot as it heads to a designated point on the map. The robot only moves when members of your team are near it, and the enemy team can slow the robot down by shooting it repeatedly. If time runs out before the robot reaches its destination, the defenders win, and if the robot makes it, the attackers win. I found the mode to be immensely difficult because standing next to the robot makes you a sitting duck, so it really requires one person to act as a direct escort, and the rest of your team to keep the enemies off your back. In that regard it has elements of CTF in it, and requires monumental amounts of teamwork whether you’re an attacker or defender.
The beauty of multiplayer now, though, centers on the chain-based fluid movement system. After a little practice, I was stringing together wall-running and double jumps so effortlessly I felt like I could single-handedly change any battle. With each map and mode having their own special nuances to cater to this movement style, surprising my opponent meant a lot more than flanking them. Knocking that sniper off the high ground wasn’t nearly as impossible anymore. And springing up out of water with assault rifle blazing added even more depth to what are some of the best-designed maps you’ll see in any Call of Duty.
The other major change we see in Black Ops III’s multiplayer is the Specialists. Sure, you can still customize and choose whatever guns or weapons you want to bring into battle, especially with the return of the beloved Pick 10 system offering another layer of balance that I feel the past two Call of Duty games have lacked. But the Specialist a player chooses gives them more of an identity online than in previous Call of Duty games, from who the player selects, to how they define their look, and finally which of their Specialist’s two special abilities they pick.
Knowing what each Specialist does and what situations their powers are best used in could turn the tide of a battle on their own, and offer yet another strategy for players to think for, and potentially plan against. For example, I played with Ruin a lot. His two abilities are Gravity Spikes, which allows him to kill everyone close to him with a shockwave when he slams the spikes into the ground, and a supercharged sprint called Overdrive. In TDM, racking up that kill count is critical so the spikes were great. But in something like CTF, grabbing the flag and then hitting Overdrive with that enhanced sprint means I can get a point for my team a lot more easily, covering half the map in a fraction of the time I used to. Considering there are nine Specialists to play around with (four to start, with others unlocked via progression), I can only imagine the strategies players will come up with.
It’s never easy to continually one-up yourself, but Treyarch seems just fine rising up to the challenge each time its turn comes up to put out a Call of Duty game. By adding progression and co-op to each mode, players have new reasons to go back and play each one more, while also providing a common thread through each part to help pull it all together. Multiplayer and Zombies are more robust than ever, and although Campaign’s story might not have been the strongest we’ve seen from series, it’s still a high-quality thrill a minute ride with a twist that will keep players talking until the series’ next installment. Simply put, Black Ops III is the deepest experience the franchise has seen thus far.
| Developer: Treyarch • Publisher: Activision • ESRB: M – Mature • Release Date: 11.06.15 | |
|
9.5
|
Black Ops III is the deepest Call of Duty experience to date. With not one, but two campaigns, new multiplayer modes and more robust customization, and a Zombies mode that will suck in even the most casual of players, Treyarch has once again found a way to raise the bar.
|
| The Good | More quality content than ever before crammed into a Call of Duty game. |
| The Bad | Character development in campaign has a sharp drop off. |
| The Ugly | Why hasn’t Activision announced a Call of Duty starring Jeff Goldblum yet? |
| Call of Duty: Black Ops III is available on PS4, Xbox One, PS3, Xbox 360, and PC. Primary version reviewed was for PS4. Activision provided travel to and accommodation at a review event for the benefit of this review. | |
A mid-card contender
The Attitude Era, a time period that engulfed wrestling in the late 90s through early 2000s, is widely considered to be the pinnacle of modern sports entertainment. Never before had WWE’s brand reached such a wide audience, and many of the television ratings records set back then remain standing today. So, it is no wonder that when wrestling video games need a pick-me-up, they look back to that era for inspiration to put themselves back on track—and WWE 2K16 is no exception.
After a down debut on current-gen consoles last year, the annual WWE 2K franchise looked to one of the greatest faces of the Attitude Era—Stone Cold Steve Austin—as a reason to inject some much-needed edge back into the series. The Texas Rattlesnake was a beast for WWE starting with his meteoric rise in 1997 through to his retirement in 2003, so it’s no surprise that they’d model this year’s 2K Showcase mode after him.
Letting players relive many of Austin’s best matches from his time with WWE is a concentrated shot of nostalgia that any child of the Attitude Era can’t help but enjoy, as classic footage is spliced with recreated in-game cutscenes. Making things even more enticing are Bonus Matches. After completing certain bouts, some of Stone Cold’s best pre-WWE moments—like when he was “Stunning” Steve Austin in WCW—are unlocked, letting you take on the likes of Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat and many others.
While the 2K Showcase mode is great for a walk down memory lane, where the WWE 2K series usually shines is when it lets gamers play wrestling god and create different matches, wrestlers, arenas, and more to satiate whatever their heart may desire to see inside the squared circle. Or, if they’d prefer, they can walk the path of a superstar themselves and see what it takes to win major gold in the world’s premiere wrestling promotion.
For those micromanagers out there, WWE Universe returns, letting players pit their favorite wrestlers of the past and present from the WWE series’ largest roster yet (120 superstars and divas combined) against each other. If you want, you can create major wrestling shows for every day of the week, cultivating made-up arenas with the returning Create-an-Arena feature, and then watch as matches play out. You can also step in, if you’d prefer, and influence the direction of your WWE over the course of several years on the calendar. There are even adjustable sliders that can affect a wrestler’s personality this year, influencing how they will or won’t act in the ring, and injuries can now occur, drastically shifting storylines at times just like the real-world WWE. The only knock against WWE Universe is the inability to create more detailed storylines, but seeing as how much you are able to customize here, filling in the gaps for the usually impressive AI isn’t the worst thing in the world.
Sometimes the best part of the WWE games aren’t just playing as your favorite wrestlers from TV, but inserting yourself, or some crazy cockamamie monstrosity, into the action. Create-a-Wrestler is far deeper than it was last year, bolstered by the fact that you can upload your own personal designs quickly and easily via the WWE 2K16 website to put on your wrestler or their clothes. You can even upload your own face—like I did to create super-journalist Murrow Thompson—and really feel like you’re getting into the game (quality of results will vary).
You can also customize your wrestler’s moveset, with thousands of attacks and abilities available to you. My only disappointment here is the lack of Create-a-Finisher, as nothing makes your wrestler feel more like your own than piecing together a finishing move that no one else in the world has, even if it borrows parts from already existing moves. I think a pop-up DDT would’ve been just what Murrow needed to enlighten the masses; instead I settled for Dean Ambrose’s Dirty Deeds.
Once you have a created wrestler, you can then import them (or a different superstar made from scratch) and enter the revamped MyCareer mode. Looking to add a stronger sports simulation aspect to the traditionally arcade-inspired WWE series, last year’s MyCareer mode was the worst kind of grind that culminated in a single Wrestlemania match. This year is different.
Starting off in NXT, your mission is to one day make the WWE Hall of Fame. By wrestling in highly regarded matches, you can build your character up to more easily achieve a series of possible career goals that will lead to guaranteed enshrinement. What goals you pursue are entirely up to you, however. You can dominate at the mid-card level, winning the US and Intercontinental titles multiple times. Or, if you’d prefer, you can try to hold every title once and get the career Grand Slam. Wrestling in certain kinds of matches at certain venues as well as a multitude of other paths can also catapult you to the desired stardom you require. Although, I will warn that if you choose to focus on tag team gold, the AI for your partner may make you want to go the way of The Rockers sooner rather later. You also get to actually play an entire career, instead of flash forwarding to your retirement match upon completion of certain objectives (unless you choose to retire, which is entirely up to you)—giving the mode much needed longevity and replayability.
There are also more ways to play to the crowd and develop your wrestler’s personality. By participating in Extreme Rules matches and the like, and using weapons and tables, your aggression and other personality traits will adjust. The most important personality factor, however, comes from your post-match interview with Renee Young. From here, depending on your answers, you can start rivalries, change alliance, or turn face or heel. What decisions you make there can in turn gives you more options, like participating in a new feature that allows you to interfere with your rival’s matches.
The biggest addition to MyCareer mode is the in-match feedback on how your match is going. Move variety, hitting signature and finishing moves, and sprinkling in some “OMG! Moments” will help result in a 5-star match. Repeating moves, never countering, or quick matches will result in lower stars and less progress for your character. This emphasis on move variety helps each and every match feel genuinely like something you’d see from the real life WWE.
Even with all these modes and the additions made to them, though, it would all be for naught if the in-ring product did not make advancements from last year’s game—and in a fair amount of ways it did. A slew of new mechanics have been added to WWE 2K16’s gameplay, and most of them work very well. A new, slowly refilling reversal meter finally nerfs players who know how to perfectly time every move, with each wrestler only having three-to-five reversals to start a match, and you’re never allowed to hold more than whatever you started with. You can also now slow the pace of matches down with Working Holds. Just like in real life, these allow wrestlers to catch their breath while also draining the stamina of their opponents. These two changes alone greatly expand the strategic depth you now carry into the ring, especially when combined with the chain wrestling and stamina meters added last year.
One gameplay addition misses the mark, though, and that’s the new submission system. The button mashing minigame of yesterday is thankfully dead, but in its place is an overlay system where you must try to get your bar to consistently overlap an opposing wrestler’s. The more tired they are—or if it’s a finishing submission like a Sharpshooter—the easier it will be to make them tap, but controlling the bar makes it feel like you’re wrestling the controller as much as your opponent.
WWE 2K16’s in-ring product has also seen its fair share of polishing. While the occasional glitch still pops up, it’s nowhere as bad as last year. Many character models also look much better—especially impressive considering the 120-person roster—but there are still a few examples where wrestlers look like they were being pulled from games that are two or three years older than this. While she never steps in the ring, I feel it necessary to point out the aforementioned Renee Young looks particularly stiff and frightening during your MyCareer interview segments.
It also needs to be said that, unlike the look of the game, the commentary has not come very far. Some new lines have thankfully been recorded to avoid as much repetition as last year, but too often Michael Cole and Jerry Lawler talk about subjects irrelevant to the match, making you think at times the dialogue has glitched. Oh, and it sounded like JBL, who was added to mark the first time we have a three-man commentary team in the game, had a cold when he recorded his lines.
Some minor annoyances aside, WWE 2K16 has taken a step largely in the right direction. Many, but not all, features missing from last year’s game return. Online functionality was questionable on the first day of launch, but seems to have stabilized over the weekend from what I’ve seen. A fully realized MyCareer mode and reliving the glory days of Stone Cold Steve Austin highlight an improved in-ring experience and the largest roster in the series’ history. While not ready to hog the spotlight like a main eventer, WWE 2K16 should find a nice spot on any wrestling fans’ roster of fall games.
| Developer: Yuke’s/Visual Concepts • Publisher: 2K Sports • ESRB: T – Teen • Release Date: 10.27.15 | |
|
8.0
|
A big step forward for the series, WWE 2K16 is still some polishing and a new submission system away from being Hall of Fame material, but should make a nice living as a stop gap in your library before hopefully bridging the gap to a bigger and better game next year.
|
| The Good | The fleshing out of MyCareer. Reliving Stone Cold Steve Austin’s glory days. The long-awaited balancing of reversals. Return of many match variations. |
| The Bad | Submission system still misses the mark. I miss Create-a-Finisher. Tag team AI needs work. Awful announcing. |
| The Ugly | The haunting robot that claims to be Renee Young when it comes time for your MyCareer interviews. |
| WWE 2K16 is available on Xbox One, PS4, Xbox 360, and PS3. Primary version reviewed was for Xbox One. Review code was provided by 2K Sports for the benefit of this review. | |
A jolly good time
Assassin’s Creed is one of gaming’s constants. Like a sports title or Call of Duty, the Assassin’s Creed series has maintained a high-level of quality on an annual basis for a long time now (since 2009) and has turned into a solid go-to for everyone who needs a regular action-adventure fix. Until last year.
Assassin’s Creed Unity dropped the ball in terms of what people expect from the series in terms of gameplay, narrative, and general design, putting an unusual amount of pressure on 2015’s annual entry to right the course—or risk potential ruin for Ubisoft’s crown jewel. Luckily, Assassin’s Creed Syndicate does indeed strike true with its hidden blade, plunging the series back into the conversation for favorite fall games after jettisoning multiplayer and focusing on trying to put together the best single-player experience possible.
Once again, players assume the role of an Initiate, using their hacked Helix—a home entertainment version of the Animus that allowed you to relive ancestral history in the franchise’s early games—to help the Assassin Brotherhood in their search for Pieces of Eden that can turn the tide of their struggle against the Templars back in their favor. This time, you are sent to Victorian Era London, and for the first time in the series, you can freely switch between two protagonists as you step into the boots of the young, brash, yet highly effective Jacob and Evie Frye.
If nothing else, this is one of the more memorable narratives the series has seen yet. Jacob and Evie not only have a great rapport with each other, but each has their own separate arcs that watch them grow and change in different and compelling ways. Jacob’s brashness and charm sometimes goes too far, and Evie’s single-minded approach to things costs her in ways she doesn’t necessarily realize in the moment. Each of their respective decisions has consequences on their lives—as well as the lives of those they’ve sworn to protect in London—and will keep you entertained throughout. The siblings even play differently, with Jacob being a plodding bruiser, and Evie the truer, stealthy assassin, with many side missions offering you a choice of who to play as.
Upon arriving in London, Evie and Jacob have a singular purpose: to bring down Templar Grandmaster Crawford Starrick. His crippling grip on London’s infrastructure has made the Templars strong, so the goal of breaking it makes playing the game far more interesting—especially when the Frye twins handle Starrick in their own one-of-a-kind ways. A strong, clear counterpoint to our respective heroes is something the series has lacked since the Borgias butted heads with Ezio and the narrative flows more smoothly from it.
The only point where the narrative stumbles at all is in the present day aspect of the series. Your Initiate character again remains chained to the Helix for the entirety of the game. While you do get a larger glimpse into the present day, meeting new assassins and seeing old friendly faces like Shaun and Rebecca from the Desmond days, things unfold as little more than long cutscenes.
Playing around in the present day—last available to us in Black Flag—was beneficial in that it afforded a brief respite from the intense situations of the main game, with puzzles and conversations giving players the chance to catch their breath and let what just happened to them sink in more. It also aided the pacing of the game, allowing for drastic movement in time in a more cinematic way. Because we don’t have that here, we really see all of Syndicate play out in what feels like a few days, and at that point, why even bother with the idea of breaking up story beats into “sequences” besides as a cute reference to early titles in the series?
And since I mentioned puzzles, I do wish those would return to Assassin’s Creed. There is one puzzle in all of Syndicate, and another scavenger hunt for legendary armor. At the very least, in order to mix up the gameplay a bit, there is a special sequence that unlocks about halfway through the narrative that fast-forwards us in time to a World War I London about one-third the size of the Victorian Era one. It’s an extremely fun twist that doubles as a critical chance for moving the present-day story forward—unlike the weird, minigame-esque time jumps we saw in last year’s Unity.
And speaking of Unity again, I do have to mention there are some major, welcome differences between Syndicate and its predecessor that are clear indicators of the series being back on track. One of those is the setting, but I’m not just talking time or geography-wise. 1868 London feels more alive, more vibrant, and more like its own character than late-18th century Paris ever did. NPCs call out to Jacob and Evie with unique dialogue as the duo runs around town. Train stations are bristling with life as people rush to the platform to get on trains that actual speed around London. And, the addition of horse-drawn carriages mingling with pedestrians on city streets gives the illusion of authentic hustle and bustle that you’d expect from the heart of the civilized world.
The most impressive aspect of this digital London, however, is how each section of town feels truly inimitable. Whether slumming it near the asylum in Lambeth, or sipping tea at 10 Downing in Westminster, London’s districts give off a specific tone that makes it easier to navigate and, again, feels more authentic and alive.
Speaking of navigation, Syndicate adds a lot on this front. The previously talked about carriages are hijackable and everywhere in London. The map may be massive, but who knew two-horsepower could get you across it so quickly. The handling of the carriages does take some time to get used to due to their wobbly nature, but with enough practice, you’ll be racing down London’s streets in no time and covering distance faster than in any Assassin’s Creed game to date.
Not every situation, or space for that matter, is ideal for a horse drawn carriage. This means that the series’ traditional parkour returns, and feels as smooth as ever. The addition of tapping the left-bumper to hop in windows, combined with what feels like more intuitive transitions between last year’s up and down movements, means scaling buildings has never felt better.
The biggest upgrade to traversal, though, may be the much talked-about rope launcher. London’s most famous towers and buildings now can be scaled in a fraction of the time when you get close to their base, or you can swing across the city’s wide avenues when firing the rope launcher from rooftop to rooftop. Unlike the carriages and traditional parkour, I thought this new piece of equipment needed a bit more work, though.
For starters, the rope launcher has no aiming reticle, so you often lack the precision you’re looking for when using it, especially when moving horizontally. Also, there’s no clear definition of how far you can fire the rope launcher, or what edges you can latch onto with it and which ones you can’t. Just “eyeing it up” gets tiresome, especially if trying to make a quick escape—so the rope launcher definitely needed to either latch onto anything, or be something that should have offered clearer working parameters. The in-between ground the device found is okay, and when it works it works well, but you’ll be on top of a church asking yourself why you can’t just launch down to a building below way too often.
The rope launcher isn’t just for navigation, however. While it doesn’t come into play in direct combat, it’s great for creating stealth opportunities when looking to assassinate someone via the air. By creating a zipline between buildings or across a courtyard, Jacob and Evie can position themselves directly above their targets and drop, blades drawn, onto their unsuspecting victims. A new “kidnap” mechanic also helps players be stealthy. By slowly approaching an enemy from behind, our heroes can wrench their prey’s arm and guide them around guard patrols, using them to make it seem like they actually belong and not drawing the ire of nearby foes. If you wander too close to an enemy, however, the ruse is lost. These are just a couple of new ways you can infiltrate enemy spaces and minimize your risk of being detected, and more options are always a good thing when trying to be sneaky.
Combat has also seen a marked improvement in Syndicate. New offensive weapons like the “Voltaic” stun bombs and hallucinogenic darts—which make enemies temporarily fight on your side—allows you to whittle down enemy numbers before a full-blown fight erupts. Once melees do ensue, taking on a horde of guards at once can still prove difficult, but combat isn’t nearly as punishing as it was in Unity thanks to the return of the counter. Even better, a much clearer counter window allows Jacob and Evie to pull off some spectacular combinations that lead to supremely cinematic, bone-crushing multi-kills when several opponents are all near death.
Whether the gameplay is new or old, one thing Syndicate also does well is ease players into its mechanics. Side activities like fight clubs and carriage races are great opportunities to practice driving and fighting, while the Gang War missions—Jacob Frye’s one-man march towards unifying the underworld of London under his banner—freshens you up on old techniques, even if they have new twists or if your hidden blade happens to be a bit rusty.
The Gang War side content also acts as a great way for players to clearly follow their progression in the game. A bit like an RPG, Evie and Jacob level up as they unlock and learn new assassination abilities, weapons, and armor, including some specific to each character. As they grow, they can more easily handle enemies of higher difficulty. While it’s not impossible for a level five Evie to stealthily assassinate a level eight Templar, should the hit be botched, she’s more likely to walk away from that encounter if they are closer in level.
With that in mind, the sections of London are similarly labeled, usually housing enemies of a level equal to the location, ranging from Whitechapel’s two up to Westminster’s nine. By freeing London borough by borough from Crawford Starrick’s gangs, both characters level up. Jacob and Evie each max out at level 10, and thankfully, they’ll both earn points toward reaching that goal no matter who you’re playing as. This paves the way for an easier time in the story, while also providing that satisfying feeling of accomplishment that comes from freeing the entire city from Templar control and snagging a couple hundred collectibles along the way—and which Unity made nearly impossible with its cluttered map and unclear progression system.
As good as Assassin’s Creed Syndicate is, it does share one familiar trait with Unity, however: there are a fair amount of bugs in the game. Syndicate froze up on me several times, mission objectives would glitch (forcing me to reload checkpoints), and both Jacob and Evie fell through the world or got stuck in walls far too frequently. It makes one wonder if the yearly Assassins Creed cycle is just too much for Ubisoft to handle, because—while not nearly as bad as Unity—this is back to back years where my gameplay was noticeably hindered at times due to technical issues.
Assassin’s Creed Syndicate is a return to form for the most part for Assassin’s Creed. Sure, the removal of all multiplayer might ding the replayability of the title, but I’d rather have an awesome 30-40 hour experience that I’ll one-hundred percent once and be done with—which is what Syndicate is—than the feeling of being forced into online play to try and squeeze a few more hours out of it. Syndicate features a compelling story with great protagonists, some terrific gameplay, and a beautiful new world and time period to explore, which remains Assassin’s Creed’s calling card. If Ubisoft can just work out those last few kinks, Assassin’s Creed would be ready to truly take new-gen by storm. As is, Syndicate is a strong addition to the series’ ever-expanding timeline that should reassure fans who were questioning its viability after last year.
| Developer: Ubisoft Quebec • Publisher: Ubisoft • ESRB: M – Mature • Release Date: 10.23.15 | |
|
8.5
|
A fair amount of bugs and lack of a present-day scenario detract from what is otherwise a strong return to form for Assassin’s Creed. Syndicate touts not one, but two great protagonists, strong gameplay, and Victorian Era London is neck and neck with Renaissance Italy as the best place the series has been to. |
| The Good | London may be the most impressive setting for the series yet. Strong narrative and gameplay. |
| The Bad | Glitches galore. Lack of present-day scenario. Rope launcher could use some work. |
| The Ugly | I wonder if PETA will come after Ubisoft for all the horses I killed during high-speed carriage chases. |
| Assassin’s Creed Syndicate is available on Xbox One and PS4 and is coming later to PC. Primary version reviewed was for Xbox One. Review code was provided by Ubisoft for the benefit of this review. | |
I had a chance to get my hands on a pair of new modes that have just been announced will be part of Rainbow Six Siege’s lineup.
The first mode is a single-player training mode code Situations. This mode allows players basically to play Terrohunt by themselves against a varying number of enemies. There are a multitude of game scenarios to cover, though, and so each one makes you play as a different operator. This means before you jump online you can have had some practice with the game’s 20 operators to find out who best fits your play style, as well as learn the game’s maps. Check out my time as Glaz and Kapkan in the video below.
For those who are looking forward to the possible eSports imprint Siege will have, the second new mode announced, Spectator, is perfect for up and coming shoutcasters. Spectator mode allows you to get an overview of an entire map to see where all 10 players are at once. You can also zoom in and switch between floors, or jump into the first-person perspective of any player on the fly to see the action. Check out the video below for the demo we were given of Spectator mode.
And finally, because it wouldn’t be a proper Rainbow Six Siege preview without showing off a bit more of the online modes, here are a couple of rounds of the 5v5 PvP that we snuck in between Situations.
Rainbow Six Siege will be available on Xbox One, PS4, and PC on December 1.
Fashion faux pas
When a new Legend of Zelda game comes out, it’s damned near impossible for me to stop playing it until I see the end credits roll. Ever since that first golden cartridge hit my NES when I was a little kid, those initial playthroughs spurred marathons that likely contribute to my insomnia today. While most of them were worth it, there have been a couple of misses along the way—and it seems that The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes falls into that category. While I hate to see most Zelda titles end, I couldn’t wait until Tri Force Heroes was mercifully over.
Tri Force Heroes does not take place in Hyrule, but instead the world of Hytopia, a land where all the people are fixated on fashion. When this realm’s Princess Styla, the most fashionable person in Hytopia, is stricken with a witch’s curse that traps her in a black body stocking, the king sends out a decree searching for heroes to strike down the witch and bring peace (and high fashion) back to his kingdom. And, according to Hytopian legend, three fated heroes who look alarmingly alike will have to come together to break this curse—with you destined to be one of those heroes.
Since Hytopia is such a fashion-obsessed society, a big element of Tri Force Heroes is that what Link wears plays a large part of being a hero there. After grinding for different crafting materials by repeatedly beating dungeons, he can have the local seamstress put together new costumes that give him subtle benefits while out battling in the Drablands—Hytopia’s fashionless equivalent to Hyrule’s Dark World and where most of the action in the game takes place. For example, the Kokiri Suit allows Link to fire three arrows from his bow in a spread formation, while the Big Bomb Suit increases the size and strength of your bombs.
As ridiculous as it all may sound, it’s not the first time the Zelda franchise has made it so that Link wasn’t saving Zelda, doing work in a realm outside Hyrule, or even teaming up with duplicates of himself. It’s also not the first time we’ve seen unique gameplay elements added to the series, with games even as recent as 2013’s A Link Between Worlds immediately coming to mind. So, while I may have been hesitant upon first hearing the premise, I put my misgivings aside and tried to look at Tri Force Heroes as I would any other Legend of Zelda title.
Surprisingly, I didn’t really have problems adjusting to life in Hytopia or the garb-centric gameplay. Instead, it was everything else involving gameplay that ended up preventing me from enjoying this experience.
The biggest disappointment with Tri Force Heroes is that there is no exploration in the game whatsoever. Hytopia acts as a small hub world before Link sets off in a linear adventure where he must beat four levels in each of eight different worlds, as Link looks to collect the parts of a dress that will allow him to break the princess’s curse. The levels are broken down into four mini-stages with each requiring you to solve a puzzle, usually oriented around the three heroes of the story working together.
In fact, the levels are so puzzle focused that Link doesn’t have an item inventory. After selecting your costume from your wardrobe, each area then starts you with the items you’ll need to beat each stage. For example, you never have to worry about finding the bow in a dungeon because it’s gifted to you in certain levels, but then taken away and replaced by the boomerang (or other classic Zelda item) in others, depending on the level design and puzzle parameters. It simplifies the gameplay to a point there is minimal challenge because there are so few variables when all you have is your sword and a single item. Plus, this removes the fun of discovery that most Legend of Zelda titles have, and only compounds the game’s linearity since there’s no opportunity to backtrack and unlock the secrets of an ever-expanding world. Unlike the magical garments that populate the game, what you see is what you get with Tri Force Heroes.
To try to replace some of this lost replayability, each level has three optional challenges that you can complete. Beating a level within a certain time limit or completing it without having used your sword are just a couple of the numerous challenge variations you’ll come across. This means that the 32 levels the game touts actually can turn into 128 if you are patient enough to try and beat each and every challenge. It works well, but it feels out of place being the sole focus for something in The Legend of Zelda series.
Another misstep for Tri Force Heroes comes in the form of the heavily touted co-op. As the title and plot imply, you can play with two friends and tackle the levels as a group, but the option to play with two people and with one AI is oddly missing outside of a tacked on versus mode. You can even play locally with only one cartridge per three 3DSs. And trust me, the local option is the preferred route. Although playing online with people over great distances is all well and good, the communication system in Tri Force Heroes is limited to eight emojis that translate to “Hello”, “Good Job”, “Go Over There” and other simple phrases that really handcuff your team when trying to solve the game’s puzzles—making the already limited core gameplay even more difficult to enjoy. Playing with people in the same room, whether with one or three cartridges, is really the only way to go because communication is key when working with others towards a common goal.
With so many of the puzzles revolving around three Links needing to solve them, the issue then arises of what do you do when playing by yourself. Luckily, much like The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures, players going it solo can control the trio of Links. Unfortunately, however, Tri Force Heroes’ system of control is far less efficient than that Gamecube classic.
Instead of allowing players to control all the Links at once and put them in formations like in Four Swords Adventures, you have to switch between each one manually. As the story goes, Link is actually traveling with two “doppels”— enchanted dolls that he can pass his soul between. This means that many times you’ll have to backtrack in order to drag the sometimes-left-behind doppels to the end of a stage after clearing the path, because you can only beat a stage when all three characters are on a Triforce symbol. (Which makes no sense, really, when you consider Hytopia is a world without Zelda, Ganon, the Triforce, etc.). This repetition only adds to the inherent grind the game already provides if you try to collect all the items necessary for the various outfits Link can wear.
All that being said, let me be clear, The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes isn’t a horrible game. Hytopia and its people are as charming as those found in any other Zelda title, and the fashion gimmick is an interesting gameplay twist. If you like the idea of solving simple puzzles with a Legend of Zelda flair, and small, quick levels for short bursts of gameplay, then this game delivers.
For those of us who have grown up with Zelda, and who can’t help but be sucked into nearly each and every one of Link’s subsequent adventures, though, I can’t get past the sense that this could’ve been any other adventure game minus the Legend of Zelda coat of paint. Tri Force Heroes just comes off as too one-dimensional in its focus for diehards of the series to get into it—but it might make a decent time sink for more casual fans who can chip away at the levels and their challenge variations on their daily commute.
| Developer: Grezzo, Nintendo • Publisher: Nintendo • ESRB: E – Everyone • Release Date: 10.23.15 | |
|
6.0
|
Tri Force Heroes is a Zelda game in name only. When you dig just past the surface, poor gameplay mechanics and key missing elements for a Zelda title tarnish what is otherwise a serviceable adventure game.
|
| The Good | Tons of content. Puzzles are good in short doses. |
| The Bad | The grind for unnecessary gear. Difficult to complete without friends who are in the same room as you. |
| The Ugly | Anyone who has wanted to see Link in a dress for an entire game can now get their wish. |
| The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes is a Nintendo 3DS exclusive. Review copies were provided by Nintendo for the benefit of this review. | |
With movies, TV, comics, and video games all being highlighted at the same time, New York ComicCon can easily bombard and even overload your senses. Even so, I was able to maintain my focus for just long enough to elbow my way through the massive crowds and get my hands on some awesome games—and here are my top five picks from this year’s show.
Mirror’s Edge Catalyst
Developer: EA DICE • Publisher: EA
Developer: EA DICE • Publisher: EA
I wasn’t the biggest fan of the original Mirror’s Edge, and I think part of the reason was that while it had a lot of great ideas, some of them fell flat on their execution. My first time getting hands on with its reboot, however, has me as excited as fans who were head over heels for the original. While I only got 15-minutes of playtime, I’ve never felt more free while running through an open world as I did when controlling Faith. Dare I say, it even felt natural sliding through ventilation shafts, running up walls, and climbing over ledges in fluid, seamless motions that never took away my momentum?
The most telling part of how far the series has come since its original iteration, however, was combat. Having a full head of steam allowed me to pull off some insane one-hit takedowns on armed guards. The only time I had trouble was when I messed up a jump and slowed down my momentum. While I still closed the distance quickly between myself and my assailant—and proceeded to use punches and a spin kick finish to take them down—it took precious time that, had the individual not been alone, would’ve left me as a sitting duck. Situations like those further drive home the point that stopping likely means death in this new Mirror’s Edge, and flight is almost always a better option than fight.
Unravel
Developer: Coldwood Interactive • Publisher: EA
Developer: Coldwood Interactive • Publisher: EA
My penchant for puzzle-platformers means that Unravel and its unlikely protagonist Yarny have jumped towards the top of my most anticipated games list. It’s heart-warming story retelling an old woman’s life, and those she’s lost touch with, is your only motivation to guide Yarny through a world wrought with peril around every corner. Taking advantage of the fact that Yarny is made of—well, yarn—you can build makeshift bridges, lasso up to grapple points, and find inventive ways to traverse the wide-open world set before you.
In the demo I got to play, Yarny had to find its way through a forest and then past the ocean. The forest required careful precision as I leapt between small branches before finally tying Yarny to the end of a kite, using his weight to guide my unlikely vehicle down to the shoreline. There, the tide was my greatest foe, as timing momentum-driven jumps between the oncoming waves was far more difficult than it may sound. It was only a taste, but the more demos I play of Unravel, the more excited I become to see what other obstacles can be thrown in my path—and how I can overcome. If what we’ve so far is any indicator, Unravel will be a can’t-miss platformer next year.
Indivisible
Developer: Lab Zero Games • Publisher: 505 Games
Developer: Lab Zero Games • Publisher: 505 Games
I didn’t play Lab Zero’s first game, Skullgirls, choosing instead to appreciate its beautiful art-style from afar. Hearing how much fun folks in the office had with it, though, I resigned myself not to make that mistake twice when the studio recently announced its latest game, Indivisible. This adventure sees a young girl named Ajna seeking revenge on local warlords who have ravaged her rural country town. When she decides to go on this classic quest, however, Ajna finds she can absorb certain individuals into her being, and let them out to help her battle when she needs to (thus comprising your four-person party with Ajna always at the front).
I was able to play Indivisible up through its first major boss fight, and it reminded me in many ways of newer titles like Dust: An Elysian Tail and Child of Light. Its side-scrolling exploration and art design aren’t anything new to gaming, but require tight platforming from the beautifully drawn characters. And, should you contact an enemy, the world seamlessly transitions into combat, where Ajna and her crew have to each wait for their individual time meters to fill before they could attack—and, while doing so, also possibly interrupt the time meter of their opponents. Depending on the direction you’re holding when you attack, as well as how much meter you let accumulate, your characters can do a variety of different moves. Some focus on singular opponents, while other moves perform area of attack damage, which are great for crowd control.
Even with only having played Indivisible for a half-hour, I could see the depth the combat had, and I couldn’t put my controller down. If Ajna’s story is even half as compelling, it looks like Lab Zero has another hit on their hands—should they hit their Indiegogo target, that is.
The Guest
Developer: Team Gotham • Publisher: 505 Games
Developer: Team Gotham • Publisher: 505 Games
We’ve seen a lot of first-person exploration games recently, but Team Gotham’s The Guest creates a terrifying atmosphere that gets your heart racing and makes you question how much further you want to go from almost the very first puzzle. I was only able to explore a couple of rooms in my short demo, but hallucinations, ominous warnings, and evidence that your character isn’t the first person to become trapped in this foreboding hotel in the middle of nowhere were enough for my curiosity to power through my fear.
Relying on your wits, you’ll have to solve a slew of riddles on the way to piecing together the bigger picture of what is keeping you there. While those I saw in the demo were nothing more than finding the broken pieces of an item and putting them back together, or combining items to make something new, promises of more complex conundrums down the line have me excited to see what The Guest can do when finished. The only question now will be whether to experience The Guest in virtual reality, or with a keyboard and a mouse.
Rise of the Tomb Raider
Developer: Crystal Dynamics • Publisher: Square Enix
Developer: Crystal Dynamics • Publisher: Square Enix
With only weeks until Rise of the Tomb Raider releases on Xbox One, I still had yet to experience any of my dear Lara Croft’s newest adventure for myself. Demos and events had always seemed to conflict with other appointments, so I’ve been relatively in the dark when it comes to how Lara has changed since her recent reboot on the last-gen consoles. But, at NYCC, I was finally given a chance to play a small snippet of the game in a segment called “The Prophet’s Tomb.” Much like riding a bicycle, the new mechanics from the last game—and the familiar gameplay the series has long been known for—came flooding back to me.
Leaping away from collapsing floors, shooting out spike traps, and using levers to raise or lower the water level to obtain my encrypted prize has not only never felt so good, but also never looked better. The dynamic lighting of torches flickering against stones covered with a thin slime caused by the humid conditions of Lara’s environment was a sight to behold, and the slight nuances her expression would convey made her more lifelike than ever. My only disappointment was that, like many of the games I experienced at NYCC, my time with Rise of the Tomb Raider was short.
If you’d like more of a chance to experience Rise of the Tomb Raider, however, be sure to check out our own Emma Schaefer’s preview from a couple weeks ago, where she played an extended demo of the hands-on I got, as we all wait patiently for what is shaping up to be the best Tomb Raider game yet.
Here is the best cosplay I saw at New York ComicCon 2015 and in only 90 seconds!
RayCarsilloWrites.com 