5 Most Disappointing Games of 2014 (So far) - #4: The Elder Scrolls Online

Continuing on from #5: Destiny the next most disappointing game that I experienced is 'Elder Scrolls Online'; Bethesda's first attempt at making its historically single player game into an MMORPG experience. Admittedly it was always kind of expected that this game wouldn't be very good but, nevertheless, it was one of those games where I jumped straight onto the hype train. Whilst I hoped and prayed that it may not be as bad as what everybody was expecting it to be and gleefully anticipated the opportunity to play Elder Scrolls with friends, I was disappointed, though not surprised.

#4. Elder Scrolls Online

Developer: ZeniMax Online Studios

Genre: MMORPG

Release date: April 4th 2014

Platforms: PC, (Early 2015/Late 2014: PlayStation 4 and Xbox One)

ESRB: M - Mature

This game was a knife to my heart though admittedly I would probably still go on to buy it on console when it comes out since there are supposedly going to be several changes to improve it. As a lover of Elder Scrolls and a ‘frequent flyer’ when it comes to MMOs I eagerly anticipated the return to Tamriel and, although I enjoyed myself to some degree, the game was disappointing. It was perhaps naively optimistic to hope that the joining of a famously single player game with some multiplayer aspects would result in something beautiful but instead the two parts clash constantly. Whilst quests can be completed together the narrative focuses on you as an individual and any immersion acquired within the quest is quickly demolished by the sight of several other people performing the same ‘individualized’ quest. In quests leading to you making a decision that affects the world around you you can quickly find an incompatibility between your decisions and the decisions of your friends leading you to see two separate worlds and the inability to interact with your friend’s world. You may see enemies that you friends don’t, meaning they cannot jump in to help you as is standard in multiplayer gaming and sometimes you friend may turn invisible such as during the main questline, guild quests and when you’ve made different decisions in certain areas. 

But it’s not just these two halves of a game that won’t fit together; the combat’s targeting system is irritating and the combat itself is clunky with the lag and bugs making it unpredictable. For fans of the Elder Scrolls series you’ll be disappointed at the lack of personality in NPCs, your inability to commit crimes and the complete lack of immersion in that you cannot interact with bodies or objects, fast travel is unrestricted and everything tends to appear out of thin air from fishing rods to horses. This game is infamously buggy and with shed loads of lag but those are likely to be fixed for the console release, if they’re not then there’s a serious problem going on with Bethesda, so I’ll try to ignore those downsides. If you enjoy the Elder Scrolls so much you’ll take anything that returns you to the world of Tamriel then you may get some fun out of it, I enjoy the idea of being able to play co-op and can generally overlook a LOT of negative points as long as I get mine but, still, it’s a very disappointing turnout for what could have been a fantastic edition to the series. 

The Good:

• Decent crafting system
• Environments quite nice
• Nice variation of creatures and enemies
• 'Skyrim' with friends a nice experience
• Very good voice acting
• PVP is acceptable
• Skills trees are very good though not restricting on your play style
• Character customization is good for an MMO
• Lovely music and audio
  

The Bad:

• Dodgy co-op questing experience
• Very little teamwork
• Quite an empty game world for an MMO
• Limited interaction with the game world 
• Repetitive, clichéd quests
• Not many voice actors, bad writing in places
• PVE is poor, unbalanced at times, boring the rest of the time
• Very laggy and bugged in its current form
  

The Score: 6/10 

Final thoughts: "Despite my reservations I'd probably continue playing this, provided more content is included. As a diehard fan of the series I'll probably take anything that's thrown to me purely so I can play it with my partner, but that doesn't mean it's a good game." 

5 Most Disappointing Games of 2014 (So far)

• #5: Destiny 
• #4: Elder Scrolls Online 
• #3: The Sims 4 
• #2: Thief 
• #1: Watch Dogs

5 Most Disappointing Games of 2014 (So far) - #5: Destiny

2014 was set to be a year of fantastic, next gen games to celebrate the release of the Xbox One and the PlayStation 4 and whilst there are plenty of new additions that are worth wasting your weekends on, there are plenty that failed to live up to expectations. In this countdown of the 5 Most Disappointing Games of 2014 so far I spell out the drawbacks, point out the restrictions and remind us all that with big budgets and fantastic advertising there's still plenty of opportunity for hyped up games to fall short of their target. Consider these 5 short reviews, released individually, of some of the biggest games to hit in 2014 that simply weren't as good as everyone was expecting them to be, starting with one of the most advertised and hyped up games we've seen for a long time; 'Destiny'. 

#5. Destiny
 
Developer: Bungie
Genre: First Person Shooter, Action, RPG
Release date: September 9th 2014
Platforms: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Xbox One, Xbox 360
ESRB: T - Teen

Whilst Destiny is by no means a terrible game it still did not manage to live up to the expectations that players expected of a game with a $500M budget and the most prolific video game advertising of the year. As the release date snuck closer and closer everybody descended into a full scale, frenzied hype that this was the game that would define a next gen console and, when it was released, you could almost hear the sighs of disillusionment sweep across the country. I was expecting a game that was something a lot deeper and more fulfilling than Destiny turned out to be and, even with its non-existent storyline, you would expect its actual gameplay features to be well thought out. As it turns out, Destiny’s primary redeeming factors is it looks pretty and has a nicely implemented co-op experience in that there are plenty of dungeons, patrols and raids that you can experience with your friends. On the other hand, the deathmatch multiplayer mode feels suspiciously similar to ‘Halo 4’s version of PVP with very little chance to employ strategies and, due to everybody having their own guns and power ups, it’s unbalanced and unfair from the very start of the match. What with this and the reliance on good old twitch shooting but with controls that are significantly more sluggish than better games such as ‘Titanfall’ you’re unlikely to stick it out long enough to get good at it. Quite simply, there are better games with better PVP features and there’s nothing about this mode to make you rely on Destiny for your shooter fix. You really begin to notice Destiny’s drawbacks the more time you spend in the game and whilst the initial experience is overwhelming you quickly realize that everything feels very constricted, repetitive and shallow in its underlying features. You will never want to actively seek out missions after the first few as they are all very much a rehash of the same basic structure where, ‘go to planet, kill things down linear pathways, deploy robot at station, kill more things, kill boss, go home’ is all you have to look forward to. Except these incredibly dull missions there is very little filler in the game and whilst I was expecting a thriving world full of things to do, the game world itself feels very empty and underdeveloped. Having become used to the thriving worlds of Borderlands there is simply not enough going on around you as you travel from one side of the map to the other and with very little loot to grab there’s not much reason to explore anyway. Worse still, the game world is not as open world as I expected it to be and instead feels like a compilation of seperate areas rather than new and interesting planets to explore. This is also combined with agonizingly long loading screens between areas where you are forced to tackle this feeling of disappointment on a frequent basis, having nothing else to do during these periods of inactivity.

Though characters and storyline may not be a genre of some fans of the FPS genre it’s a concern for me and the utterly non-existent storyline is something that continues to grate on me as the game wears on. Worse, the aliens have absolutely no personality and are essentially just there to be killed whereas I prefer to have enemies that aren’t little more than cannon-fodder. Strangely, the AI of your opponents is significantly lacking and it's most notable when you're fighting a boss whose sole 'tactic' is to just, well, shoot you. They have no special moves and you require very little strategy to take them down and, without any unique battle features, you may as well be fighting the same boss over and over again. The lack of customization options is also rather irritating where many similar games have a treasure trove worth of guns and vehicles but Destiny is very limited in what it can give to you so there’s very little chance to play about with different configurations. The levelling system is very grindy which would be alright if all the other problems in the game didn’t exist and the missions were worth pursuing to gains some experience but, since they’re not, it feels a great deal like an all work, no reward kind of set up. If you’re looking for another Halo style game from Bungie you’ll be disappointed; the aliens you encounter have no personality and are essentially just there to die, there’s little variety in vehicles and weapons, the storyline is basically non-existent and the missions are repetitive. Whilst there are many positives it’s simply not enough to elevate the game to its pre-supposed status as the next 10/10, 5 star, it’s so amazing, game so I’ll end it by saying this; people compare this game to 'Halo' constantly and whilst there’s a lot of back and forth about how they’re similar or dissimilar all you need to know is this; 'Halo' is better.  

Up Next: #4: The Elder Scrolls Online

The Good:

• Decent co-op experience
• Beautiful graphics
• Amazing music
• Can be fun, if you're easily amused
• Fun if you enjoy multiplayer shooting stuff with no other content to enjoy
• Potential to be updated later down the line.

The Bad:

• Poor AI, enemies have zero personality, lack of enemy diversity
• Bosses are predictable with no special moves
• Not really an open world experience - lots of loading screens
• Repetitive missions are extremely boring
• Game world feels empty, bleak and desolate
• Non-existent storyline
• So much grinding
• Lack of single player offline experience
• Multiplayer PVP unbalanced and offers little opportunity for strategy
• No personality

The Score: 5/10 

Final thoughts: "Very undeveloped, feels empty, not sure what the point is in playing this game over every other FPS ever as there's very little originality, if any at all."

5 Most Disappointing Games of 2014 (So far)

• #5: Destiny 
• #4: Elder Scrolls Online 
• #3: The Sims 4 
• #2: Thief 
• #1: Watch Dogs

5 Unusual But Memorable Escape Games (Free browser games)

There are quite literally hundreds of room escape games out there on the internetz but many of them are nothing but bland, unoriginal pixel hunts through plain, 3D rendered rooms with no semblance of story or purpose. Now, after a while of trekking through the same sort of scenario; you’re in a room for some unknown reason, find a way out of it, I had completely fallen out of love with the genre so decided to look for something a bit different. As it turns out you can still find that addictive escape centered gameplay but without the constraints limiting it to just one or two rooms. Here I’ve compiled 5 escape games, rooms or otherwise, that set themselves apart from that ocean of key hunting, door handle wrestling and keycode hunting so you can experience something that’s a bit different, creepy, funny or just downright weird. 
 

Loom Dawn

You begin this game in a completely dark room and your main objective is to illuminate this space, piece by piece, uncovering more and more of your surroundings as you advance. For much of the game you’re unable to see where exactly you’re trapped and this element of the unknown adds a slightly spooky atmosphere to the game as you find another little light source here, uncover a small area there, and the absolute silence generated by a lack of music is all the more unnerving. As you light up pieces of the room you’ll uncover puzzles and these are most definitely not easy ones to the point where you may find that you spend a good hour or so fumbling about in the dark though, thankfully, you can save your game should you want to come back to it later. Loom Dawn’s challenging nature borders on the frustrating but it really is an exceptionally well crafted game that offers up a very satisfying feeling as you solve each little puzzle and get a little closer to finding out its intriguing secrets. If you fancy a challenge and something that’s more like your traditional ‘room escape’ game then Loom Dawn, part of a large series of ‘Loom’ escape games, is something you certainly cannot go wrong with. Just remember to settle down with some kind of caffeinated drink and sustenance as you’ll be stuck here in the dark for quite a while. Try playing the game on its original website here.
 

Samsara Room

Samsara Room is Eastern in its philosophy as Samsara tends to refer to the endless cycle of reincarnation and, with this in mind, Samsara Room is about breaking this cycle, escaping the room and achieving enlightenment. What this translates into is a very surreal and disorientating game where you must travel through the same room but in different perspectives, solving a puzzle here and there in the form of collecting things and using them in the appropriate ways. The game is not particularly challenging once you understand the logic of the game but it may start out being rather confusing as everything is just so unusual. There are some very unexpected moments and you’ll find the whole experience rather dreamlike but with a definite, logical pattern to the way in which you do things so it’s not unapproachable. Overall I loved the stylish simplicity of this unusual game and as room escapes go this is definitely a memorable one. Try it out by following this link here.
 

You Find Yourself In A Room

The title may sound simple but this is anything but, to begin with you interact with the game by typing in the commands you want to perform similar to the old text parser games from the 80s. Unlike most other room escape games this one has no graphics and instead everything is done through text on an otherwise blank black screen. This may sound boring but the draw of this game is that the game itself is self-aware and doesn’t really like you. What starts out as the passive-aggressive chiding of a game descends into a full scale aggressive onslaught on your feeble puzzle solving abilities and generally inferior existence as a human being. It’s absolutely hilarious and most definitely not for minors but this is a rather unforgettable, utterly unique game that will change your outlook on the genres of not just text games but room escape games too. The game takes not much longer than 5 minutes but it’s a 5 minutes well spent and can happily be played by following this link here. 

Mystery of Time and Space

Fondly known as MOTAS this is the room escape that will truly challenge your puzzle solving abilities and is, for those unfamiliar with room escape games, supposedly the original in this genre. What sets this game apart from the others is not only its function as a blueprint for future generations but for its intelligent, logical puzzle system that doesn’t degenerate into a pixel hunt where you click in every conceivable portion of the screen. There are over 20 levels with a variety of different puzzles that pleasantly follow an intriguing story about parallel universes and unlocking the mysteries of time and space. Whilst the ‘storyline’ of a room escape game tends to focus around some sort of hazy back story MOTAS’ story evolves as you play and keeps you wanting more. The puzzles all vary in their style and difficulty level so whilst in some cases you’ll be using lateral thinking to advance you’ll find that, in later levels, you must travel back in time to earlier levels to acquire the items needed to continue in the present. The game boasts quite a few features you don’t normally see in flash games; you can save your game, which is a brilliant feature as the game is so long and difficult, switch to full screen mode and chat to others in the online forum it supports. MOTAS is possibly my favourite of all the room escape games and is a definite recommendation for those new to point and click escape games and hardcore puzzling veterans alike. You can play it here via the developer’s website. 

Daymare Town

Daymare Town actually consists of a series of four ‘room escape’ type games with three spin-off titles and rather than escaping a room you’re trying to escape from Daymare Town, a place that’s both haunting and fascinating. Daymare Town appears to be deserted and you’ll go through the usual motions of finding items, piecing together puzzles and clicking around the place in an effort to escape this eerie, black and white sketched town. The atmosphere is perhaps its most notable feature and there were a few times where I was genuinely creeped out and jumped a few times which I found to be unusual, in a good way, for this genre. Whilst room escapes tend to have a subtle ‘how did you get here’ vibe there’s usually nothing creepier than a pool of blood or a bit of knocking on a door but Daymare Town ranks it up a notch and there were several times I was genuinely convinced I could die if I lingered too long. The puzzles are, in my opinion, pretty damn difficult especially when compared to the creator’s, also excellent, Submachine series and I struggled to get through it without a walkthrough. Everything tends to be very well hidden with very specific locations you must click on that can be easily missed especially considering the art style of the game. Whilst the Daymare Town series is no pixel hunt there’s still a definite need to scour every area thoroughly before moving on. As an added bonus, you can pay a small fee and get any of the Daymare Town games in fullscreen mode with HD graphics, enhanced sound effects and a sneaky hidden extra. Of course you can always play any of the free versions online by following this link. 
 

Hopefully you enjoyed this post of my 5 top escape games, be sure to +1 and comment if you did, feedback is always appreciated! Happy gaming and watch this space for more of my Top 5 lists :)

Five Nights At Freddy's - Quick Review (PC and Android game)

If there’s one thing that’s going to effectively terrify me it’s those things that are supposed to be innocent, but aren’t. You know what I’m talking about; clowns, dummies, children’s toys, giant humanoid animal costumes, the horror genre has been drawing on the things from our childhoods and turning them into our greatest nightmares long before the arrival of ‘Child's Play’ or ‘Killer Clowns from Outer Space’ so it’s no great surprise to see them in horror games as well. ‘Five Nights at Freddy’s’ is set during the hours of midnight and 6am as you, the new night watchman at Freddy's pizza place, must attempt to survive with limited defences against some horrifyingly deadly mascots. This is a game where your own paranoia and attempt at protecting yourself will push you closer to sealing your own twisted fate as each and every nervous twitch lowers your resources and, ultimately, your chances of survival.

Developer: Scott Cawthon
Genre: Survival Horror, Point and Click
Release date: August 8th 2014 (August 27th for Android)
Platforms: PC and Android
ESRB: M - Mature

‘Five Nights at Freddy’s’ works its way deep into my own insecurities and draws out of me a fear I didn’t even know I had until this game. The enemies you’ll encounter are anamatronic animals that sing and dance for children during the day, annnnd attempt to stuff the new night guard into a suit filled with cross beams and metal bits during the night. Needless to say, this action would kill you so it’s your new priority to survive five nights as the new security guard because presumably he really, really needs the money and values his life less than this. It sounds crazy but who am I to judge, finding work is difficult these days and the fact that you’d have to physically nail me to the chair to get me to stay there is no bearing on what this guy would do, apparently.  As an added extra you can define the AI of each individual enemy for two additional nights where, upon completing all five nights, you'll notice a night six is suddenly available. The reward for completing the seventh night is not just bragging rights at your own stubborn survival but in valuable storyline explanations where you finally learn the dark secrets behind the deadly mascots.

In order to survive five nights at this disturbing pizza place you must carefully manage your power supply whilst monitoring a bunch of CCTV cameras to watch where those dastardly murdering critters are going. They only move when you’re not watching them, reminiscent of the Weeping Angles from ‘Doctor Who’ which can only spell trouble, so by ignoring the cameras they’ll just walk on over to where you’re sitting and tear your face off. The building’s power percentage is tracked in a corner and every time you use a camera, flicker the light just outside either of the two doors to your security room or close the doors to protect yourself it’ll drop how much power is left, significantly so. There’s quite a few cameras and unfortunately a couple of them only have audio feeds so you can only listen to the ominous grinding of their motors as they shuffle down a corridor, worse still, there are plenty of blind spots. Cruelly, those blind spots are mostly right outside the two doors that lead to your little security room so you won’t know they’re in there until they’re either grinning at you around the doorframe or if you manage to hear their, fairly stealthy, movements. 

 
Whilst a lot of survival horror games utilize a player’s fear of being helpless, ‘Five Nights at Freddy’s’ cranks it up another notch by adding in the complete inability to move. So basically you’re stuck in a tiny room, unable to move and quite possibly nailed to that chair I mentioned now that I think about it, maybe the owners had to resort to brute force with their staff, who knows. Your only line of defence is closing the doors and even then, there are two of them on opposite sides from one another and they use up a lot of power so you can only close them very briefly. You have to survive from midnight to 6am in the morning which takes just less than 10 minutes of your life but at least three years off your life due to the stress it causes. Every night is harder than the last and whilst you’ll quickly adjust to the manner in which you must organize yourself the difficulty intensifies dramatically for the final two nights. The AI of the creatures can vary and they’re fairly unpredictable but generally they’re a lot faster and a lot more intelligent as you progress through the nights. Initially they’ll stay still backstage for the start of the night but, come Night 5, they’ll have mysteriously vanished from their usual spot as soon as your shift starts leaving you to switch between cameras manically, trying to pin point their location. 

What makes this game so effective at terrifying the living daylights out of you is how well it plays on your paranoia and nervous twitch reaction to check a camera or check the doorway, reducing your power in the progress. Whilst you need to constantly check where everyone has shuffled off to it’s difficult to reign this in and not flicker constantly, dooming yourself in the progress, and the feeling that it’s your own increasing OCD checking of everything that’s narrowing your chances of survival is very unsettling. What's particularly likeable about this game is it’s an extremely simple yet imaginative concept that breaks away from the current trend of ‘Slenderman’ or ‘Amnesia’ trend of snooping about houses, collecting up notes and newspaper clippings that many horror games are copying. Overall I found this game to be an imaginative addition to the survival horror genre and whilst the overall style and concept is extremely simple it's still a creepy venture into a nightmarish world of grinning, killer mascots and a gruesome story that you're gradually rewarded with.

The Good: 

• Simple, original and very effective concept
• You become your own worst enemy as you double check, triple check everything
• Decent jump scares keep you on your toes
• Disturbing character design
• Very atmospheric, feelings of isolation and helplessness predominant
• Looks and sounds great with very good voice acting
• Final two 'bonus levels' add in an element of freeplay
• Quite a brutal difficulty curve but the challenge is welcomed

The Bad:

• Although Night 2/3 offers up whole new gameplay feature, more variation would still be good.
• Tends to degenerate into careful time management which some may find boring.
  

The Score: 8/10

Final thoughts: “Some more variation in gameplay would have gone a long way, but this had me constantly jumping out of my skin as the AI are so unpredictable and it’s got such a disturbing atmosphere.”

Monster Rancher 2 - Full Review (PlayStation 1 game)

This is no ordinary virtual pet game and, despite comparisons to Pokémon, Monster Rancher has a defined identity with its own tantalizing hook; find your monsters by inputting your own CD disks into your console. Unlike typical ‘pet raising’ games you don’t buy them from shops or trek through jungles in search of powerful creatures. Instead you must put any audio or PS1 game disk into your PlayStation console and, depending on the disk, receive one of over 400 monsters with many of these only being acquired once you’ve earned the right to raise them.

Developer: Tecmo
Genre: Simulation
Release date: 2000
Platforms: PlayStation 1
ESRB: E –Everyone

‘Monster Rancher 2’ is arguably the most successful and popular game in the Monster Rancher series despite later editions boasting better graphics and additional features. Often compared to Pokémon, ‘Monster Rancher 2’, or simply ‘Monster Rancher’ if you have the European edition, puts you in the role of a certified monster breeder where your job is to train monsters to fight in arena style battles. This strangely enticing game has the potential to take up hours upon hours of your time and dozens upon dozens of your old CD disks as you try and unlock the hidden mysteries within your CD and PS1 game collection.

Gameplay and Story

After introducing yourself and taking a short personality test you’re thrown into the role of a certified monster breeder with your assistant, Colt, by your side. The story of Monster Rancher 2 is mostly non-linear with key events only occurring when you choose to engage in them or when you meet specific requirements. The game also never has to end if you don’t want it to as you can carry on playing even after watching the ‘end’ video so this is a fantastic game for the casual gamer. The general aim of the game however is to raise different monsters, unlocking rare breeds and rising through the 6 ranks by beating other monsters in tournaments and cups. 

Gameplay is split into different segments that mostly revolve around training your monster or battling other monsters. After finding and naming your monster, be that by purchasing one of the three available at the market or by finding one on any audio or PS1 games you happen to have, you take it back to the ranch with you. This unusual twist to the game is painfully addictive and you’ll find yourself rooting around the house for any old CDs that you still have but, in this new digital age, I personally lacked enough CDs to get a real variety. Frustratingly a lot of CDs contain a ‘rare monster’ that means you haven’t met the requirements to train it yet but, by playing the game and advancing through it, those rare monsters will be unlocked with enough time and dedication and if anything it gives you an incentive to continue playing. 

 

Almost every aspect of your monster’s training regime can be controlled by you including choosing what food it will eat at the start of every month, all of which have different effects, which drills they engage in or when they should go on an ‘errantry’. All monsters have a collection of stats to be raised; Life, Power, Intelligence, Defence, Speed and Skill but monsters exceed at these in different ways, for example some monsters are intelligence based rather than power meaning rather than brute strength they adopt entirely different attacks that focus on not just damage but reducing the ‘guts’ of their opponent. ‘Guts’ is what you need to attack your opponent so by reducing them in the enemy it means they cannot physically attack you and allowing you to chip away at their health gradually until they either die or the match is up. Battles are won by having a greater percentage of health at the end of the battle, whether or not you K.O your opponent doesn’t tend to come into it as matches are fought on a time limit. 

The battles can, admittedly, be frustrating as luck tends to factor into it quite frequently and often you’ll be battling against your monster’s unwillingness to listen to you. How many opponents you face depends on what kind of tournament it is and there’s a nice round mixture of tournaments where sometimes you’ll be fighting for the most wins and sometimes where you’ll only be battling two or three other monsters who were the winners of previous fights. Whilst occasionally battles can become repetitive there’s a huge variety of opponents that are genuinely quite challenging and, when you enter a new grade or start with a new monster, verging on impossible. Due to the quite steep rise in difficulty level as you rise through the ranks the game is kept constantly challenging and rewarding so there’s no worry of out-levelling any of your opponents without some serious dedication to training. 

The amount of interaction you have with your monsters fighting and training regime is kind of variable as during battles you can choose to control it yourself or allow your monster to fight by themselves. You will always see how the fight plays out but this effects your ability to select the techniques, when to select them and whether you advance or retreat during matches. You cannot use items during battles which may seem a little odd at first but, provided you use them outside of battle, there are still plenty of items that can be used though with unusual effects. Generally however these items don’t affect the outcome of a battle as that depends entirely on how well you’ve trained your monster and how well you can play to their strengths during a match. 

Training your monster involves drills or errantry but you can also select whether to train using light drills or heavy drills. Each light drill will raise a single stat whereas heavy drills will raise two and decrease one as well as tire your monster out faster. When you select which drill your monster will perform it takes an entire week and, with only four weeks in a month, you can at most only get away with three training sessions a month and with one week to rest. During the drills themselves you can either watch the scene of your monster engaging in it, for instance swimming around a course or enduring the force of huge battering rams pounding into them, or you can just skip the cutscene and get straight to the results. Your monster is not just limited to failing or succeeding; they may also cheat or exceed and this often reflects how they are raised or their individual personalities. The way in which you can praise or scold your monster is an added dimension and a contributing factor in how loyal your monster is to you, as well as how spoilt they may be. Monsters that are frequently scolded, refused praise, pushed too hard during training sessions or doing their individual ‘dislike’ such as feeding them something they hate or forcing them to battle when they dislike it will ultimately stress your monster out. A stressed out monster means that they will die sooner, are more likely to fall ill and will frequently be tired and unable to fight properly. Monsters that are stressed out or neglected may even run away and this usually occurs when they dislike you but, on the other hand, a monster that likes you and that has more loyalty is more likely to listen to you during battle. Unlike many ‘virtual pet’ games, if this can be considered that, the fact that the way you raise and train your monster has a huge impact on the game makes it all the more absorbing as sometimes your personality and training regime will clash with a monster. What worked with your previous, precious monster now no longer works for your brand new one who needs to be brought up to speed. What this results in is you and your new monster both hating one another and either this poor partnership continues or you change your tactic and adjust to the new personality and style of this new, baby monster.

A huge part of the game and one I particularly enjoy is the feature of combining your monsters into new ones and unlocking more disk stones. Your monster won’t last forever and, depending on the type of monster, will have a lifespan that will decrease depending on how stressed or mistreated they are. There’s no actual way to view the lifespan of your monster so sometimes it can come as a bit of a shock when you wake up one morning, open the barn and find them motionless on the ground. Combining monsters is something of an art and it’s fairly confusing at first as it can be temperamental. The basic idea is that you raise two kinds of monster, the same breed or different ones, you can only have one at a time but you can ‘freeze’ them which is essentially putting them in a cryogenic freezer to be defrosted whenever you want to use them again. Once you’ve got two fine specimens you can then combine them for a flat fee, this merges their DNA to produce you one new monster that is supposed to have traits from its parents including stats, personality and any techniques the parents learnt. To help push your combining in the right direction you can use special items that you’ve picked up from expeditions, won from battles or found in other way. Items can include bits of a broken disk stone which is basically an essence of another, possibly rare, monster. Your new monster will always be back at the lowest grade for battles, level E, but this is doesn’t mean he’ll be lagging behind as the monsters you fight in battles do not raise their stats so, just as his parents did, your new monster can climb the grades and attempt to become a champion. 

Graphics and audio

As PlayStation 1 games go, Monster Rancher is reasonably attractive though not especially detailed. The sprite animations for the dialogue are particularly nice however and each character you encounter has an original look so there’s no rehashes of models. Everybody, including your monster, rae rather animated in their emotions and what’s especially nice to see is that your monster’s personality shows through the way they express themselves and move around. There’s also a noticeable growth in monsters as they age and visual indicators like this are always appreciated. Depending on the breed of monster and the sub-species that they may contain they all look different; colours, textures and features like horns or spines may be integrated into a base monster’s original appearance and this diversity is critical to making each monster feel like an individual. The environments too are pretty decent though the ranch is very unfurnished and mostly consists of just an empty expanse of rolling green hills. The weather is done particularly well in the game and you’ll notice the change in seasons is quite apparent due to the level of light and little things like the hue of the grass, how rainy or stormy it is and whether there’s snow or not. Finally, the battle arenas and town areas are fairly well drawn however, even though most of the buildings in the market do remind me of a bunch of disturbing faces, but overall I’d say the graphics for the game are of a decent level of quality. 

The music is something I particularly enjoy in the game as it’s very atmospheric and, the battle music in particular, changes depending on what kind of tournament you’re playing. It’s a very memorable soundtrack that after several sessions of playing is likely to be stuck in your head forever. There’s no verbal dialogue in the game as everything is done via text but your monsters will make noises that reflect their mood so I guess that’s something.

Overall

There’s a great potential to get hours and hours of gameplay out of Monster Rancher and still not quite understand how the complex calculation system of combing works, but it’s fun all the same. Whilst the graphics aren’t exactly the game’s strong point and gameplay can become repetitive and uneventful there’ s still this sense of achievement when you raise your monster’s rank or find a new, rare creature. The game is a nice level of challenging but is still very accessible and I particularly love how connected you can feel to your monster and how you develop favourites, I hate Pixie’s for example because I personally believe they’re a bunch of spoilt brats who never do what I say and who cheat all the time. Ahem. The game is definitely addictive and extremely time consuming, the original spin of finding your own monsters by using your own disks from home is always a draw for me and there’s a lot of replay value in the game due to how different the monsters are. This is one of those games where you can play it for the long haul or for a short stint but, I warn you, it’s a rare find and will cost you more money than your average PS1 game. If you can pick it up for less than £20 I advise you to buy it, immediately, because it won’t remain that cheap for long.

The Good: 

• Original premise of using your own CDs
• Lots of personality
• Huge selection and of monsters
• Nice difficulty curve
• Addictive gameplay
• Monster combination very fun to toy with
• Monsters are very interactive
• Lots of hidden features to unlock rare monsters
• Some nice quirky events to break things up such as birthdays and expeditions
  

The Bad:

• Can become repetetive and boring
• Training your monster takes a long time
• Graphics are a little grating
• Could use more features and places to go

The Score: 7/10

Final thoughts: "This is the golden age of Monster Rancher, it's really fun, super addictive and just has bags of originality. It's not like Pokémon, I swear."