Lovely Planet - Review (PC game)

Who said twitch shooters had to be set in grisly wartime settings or cerulean alien worlds? Lovely Planet may look incredibly sweet in its 'Katamari', chibi style dressings but underneath it all is a game that will beat you mercilessly into the ground with its rainbow encrusted, spiked, bouncing apple type, addictive thing that will quite literally drive you to madness. Let’s try this again. Lovely Planet is an FPS that’s set in a rather cute looking world where you must have a stunning set of reactions and the ability to memorize pathways to perfection in order to get through the extremely challenging levels. Sounds easy? It’s not, it’s far from it, it’s quite possibly the first twitch based FPS that’s genuinely addictive and also so punishing and cruel that it doesn’t mind coming across as a bit airy fairy and cutesy because it knows it could totally have you if it wanted to. You will lose at this game, many many times, you will become so familiar with the game over screen that you’ll be able to recite it from memory years after putting away this game for good. Quite simply, this game is a lying bastard that tries to convince you it’s totally approachable and easy to get into then floors you with the first punch. Now that you know how difficult it is, let’s examine it in a bit more detail. 

Developer: QUICKTEQUILA 
Publisher: tinyBuild
Genre: First-Person Shooter, Action
Release date: 31st July 2014
Platforms: Windows, Linux and Mac
ESRB: Unrated (involves shooting enemies but the bullets are cubes)

Lovely Planet is a first person shooter where you must complete a series of short levels that are no longer than one minute long and which typically last about 30 seconds. There are initially over 80 levels but there are more once you complete all of them; typically this serves as an additional stab to the side considering how long it takes to complete those ones in the first place. In order to complete each short level you must navigate platforms, avoid hazards and defeat all of the enemies presented to you and by missing just one you will have to restart that level. The courses are extremely challenging and this is partially due to the constraint of having to hit certain things before you hit the ground which results in a great deal of trying and failing to aim in mid-air. Thankfully you’re granted an infinite number of ‘bullets’ with your one and only weapon but there’s little use just spraying the screen with the purple cubes that you shoot. The key to mastering this game is to know the course by heart and to act with speed and precision which is not an easy task due to the sheer number of levels and the seemingly impossible situations the game puts you in. The slightest mistake will kill you whether that’s being hit by a single bullet, falling out of the world or touching anything that’s red there are so many ways to end up restarting the level. It’s basically one of those games where you master a small part of it, then get stuck on another bit, then creep a bit further along as you overcome that particular challenge, and then get stuck on another bit… and so on. 

To ramp up the pressure the game encourages a healthy dose of competitiveness among its players through leaderboards and record times which serve to constantly remind you at how much you suck compared to the rest of the world. Not that that’s a bad thing, in fact it’s a very appropriate feature because part of what makes this game so addictive is seeing yourself improve, whether that’s in comparison to others or not. Critically, the controls of the game can sometimes be a little ‘off’ where inputs aren’t always recognized but this is a fairly rare occurrence and is not frequent enough to impact on the overall game. Strangely there’s no actual aiming cross-hair either so firing shots is harder than in a usual FPS game but, after some practice, you’ll find yourself firing with accuracy you didn’t even know you could manage as everything becomes almost instinctual. Besides, at a mere £3.50 you can excuse a couple of blips on what is otherwise a fantastic game. 

Considering I don’t usually enjoy anything of an FPS nature this is genuinely a fun, albeit frustrating, little game that may attract all sorts of gamers to try it out either for a quick blast about or for some seriously dedicated gaming to get through all of the courses. Either way, it looks and sounds great, with adjustable sensitivity in the controls and plenty of features to keep you occupied for hours. Whilst the sound effects aren't exactly the best they're overwhelmed by a very upbeat music track that reminds you that everything's going to be ok, even when you die for the 100th time. If you fancy a challenge, check this game out now by purchasing it on Steam here.

The Good: 

• Fast and crazy funtimes
• Good for those who enjoy a challenge
• Nice escalating level of difficulty
• Unique art style for this genre
• Decent soundtrack that's surprisingly not annoying
• Simple mechanics

The Bad:

• Lacks some variety in terms of gameplay
• Occasional lag with the controls
• Incredibly frustrating game that may put off many people
• Unable to compare yourself directly to friends is disappointing
• Sound effects aren't very good particularly enemies 'dying' noise

The Score: 8/10

Final thoughts: "I suck so much at this genre of games that I'll likely never get to see the ending or the later levels. I tried, I failed, I moved on with my life. That doesn't stop it from being an amazing game, I'm just awful at rote memorization of levels." 

5 Most Disappointing Games of 2014 (So far) - #1: Watch Dogs

Watching the release trailer for ‘Watch Dogs’ was exciting, I had remembered its reveal at E3 2012 and that futuristic characterization of Chicago looked and sounded stunning, imaginative, game changing. As the release date crept closer the hype didn't die down; it intensified and I too was excited, I was expecting something along the lines of 'Deus Ex: Human Revolution' I guess but with a bit more 'Grand Theft Auto' thrown in for good measure. There was to be an open world; that part was important. Open world settings all the rage right now and if your game lacks one then prepare for criticism as its such a commonplace practice now in this genre of games that there's simply no reason not to. The hacking spin was, of course, extremely important as well as there's simply not enough good quality, intelligent futuristic games out there on the market right now so 'Watch Dogs' proved to be a valuable addition to the genre. So, did it live up to the hype? Unsurprisingly, no. In typical modern AAA game fashion it was little more than a huge wave of anticipation followed by the sound of lots of games clicking into consoles, boot screens, updates, some silence as players had a little whirl in their new playground followed by a gradual feeling of, 'well this is a mediocre experience' coupled with an intense desire to find something positive to defend their pre-ordering decision. Why is this? So many reasons, none of which make this a bad game (I cannot stress that enough for these posts) but plenty of which make it a disappointing game.

#1 Watch Dogs

Developer: Ubisoft Montreal
Genre: Action/Adventure 
Release date: 27th May 2014
Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Windows, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
ESRB: M - Mature

So after all that disk tray clicking and riding the hype train for two solid years what I ended up getting was something that looked pretty, though unworthy of a 'next gen' console, but which was weighed down by a predictable storyline, bland characters and a half-assed attempt at integrating hacking into a traditional action game. You play as Aiden Pearce, who turns out to be the most boring character ever to be conceived, who is doing all of this illegal stuff as a revenge mission because his niece was killed and sister kidnapped. In terms of storyline, that’s about it. It’s all extremely generic and clichéd and despite the rather disasterous situation poor Aiden's been put in somehow remains  completely unemotional. Perhaps it's the diabolical awful voice acting that's most noticeable in Aiden as his droning, stereotypically hoarse 'tough-guy' voice is simply a chore to listen to and does very little to offer him any character or emotional development. 

Voice acting aside, Aiden himself is a relatively poor protagonist and whilst I'm not getting into the debate of 'he's like Batman because he's on a revenge mission and is a criminal to stop criminals, and has a hoarse voice' I will point out that he has no redeeming qualities. He's an incredibly inconsistent character and never owns up to or accepts the terrible things he's actually doing to people resulting in a you having to play as someone who is formally known as a 'dickhead'. Whilst I accept that sandbox games tend to leave moral choices to the player this is no 'Skyrim' or 'Dragon Age' type game; Aiden Pearce is a character already conceived with scripted sequences and set choices, he has a backstory, sort of, a motive for his actions, in a sense, and a personality, if you can call it that. Games like Uncharted dealt with the moral inconsistency in a pretty simple way; they ignored the rising kill count and just gunned on with the storyline as though you'd never mowed down those hundreds of innocents. I don't like that, but you know, fair enough, you can't control a player's actions. Some games like 'GTA' and 'Saints Row' just let you loose on the world and don't apologize for how much of a sociopath you are; that's also fair enough, they leash those psychotic actions in and make them their own and that's kind of what I wanted 'Watch Dogs' to do, but it didn't; it copped out of it. So whilst you're running around as a vigilante, becoming more of a mass murdering monster hacker rather than a force for good, the game spends the rest of its time playing catch up and trying to account for why you're doing all these things. If I was supposed to pity Aiden for bad things happening around him, I didn't. He's pretty much impossible to love and even though his actions often turn out justified you only tend to find that out after you've already killed someone making it conveniently ok now. Well, that's not good enough really, nobody goes around just murdering people based on hearsay and scant details, nobody except Aiden and, for a vigilante, that makes him a pretty unprofessional one. Worse still, the guy doesn't even enjoy himself when he was doing all of these bad things so you can't pass him off as a regular video game sociopath and, whilst he doesn't enjoy it, he doesn't hate it either. When I said Aiden Pearce was the most boring video character I meant it; he has no personality, not even a negative one, there's just nothing going on in that little head of his except a serious revenge plot that never comes up for a breather.

That's another thing; this is a serious, serious game. So serious it's boring and whilst I understand it's a serious topic with serious consequences and serious things going on... there's a reason why, in the 'Assassins Creed' series, nobody liked Altair and everybody loved Ezio; he had a goddamned personality and a sense of humour to boot. I'm going to leave Aiden alone for a bit because he's had enough stick from me and instead I'll focus on the 'glued together with string and cheap sellotape' storyline. 'Watch Dogs' is a game that takes itself too seriously and the very least I was expecting from it was some substance that justified the setting and premise the developers had been cawing about this whole time, but no. Maybe I was being naive or expecting too much but I was genuinely looking forward to a game that grabbed an extremely important political issue by the horns and tackled it in a way that was well written, well thought out and well researched. Mass surveillance and living inside a society that is terrified of being observed, especially with the frequency of hacking scares and institutes like Anonymous should have been enough fodder for a fantastic and insightful game. If you want it to be an action/adventure game with a shit tonne of shooting and driving then fine, that's ok, you can have you fun with it but remember what makes a game memorable and stand apart from the competition. If you're having trouble remembering I'll give you a hint; it's not six shirts all layered on top of one another,  and constantly being on your mobile phone, even in the presence of friends and family. 

Watch Dogs never quite gets to where its going, it has a good idea but the writing is terribly weak and unfounded in reality, its one of those games where it's really fun as long as you're not looking for anything with meaning or personality. There are plenty of minor irritants in the game such as a lack of jumping, no, really and the inability to shoot whilst in a vehicle, although considering how difficult it is to effectively drive what feels like a metal skip on roads covered in black ice it probably would be impossible to shoot and drive at the same time anyway. Strangely, you also cannot attack pedestrians with melee attacks except a scripted animation of a takedown where you tackle someone, this would be reasonable if you couldn’t due this due to a ‘don’t beat up innocents’ rule but you can shoot them to death and with almost no consequence as police presence is extremely limited. Strangely, the police AI is also something to be wary of as they'll always turn up with a shoot to kill mentality and will never attempt to arrest you and, if you happen to see a civilian commit a crime, they'll never bother attempting to do anything about it. Frustratingly, whilst the police have absolutely no way of entering the water they do have the ability to locate you even when you're neatly tucked away behind several walls in what was, presumably, an impenetrable hiding fortress. 

Now, whilst the game is by no means short it may as well be because after a few hours you’ll have seen everything there is to be seen in terms of gameplay and missions. As if that's not bad enough there are no more skills to utilize and you're left to trek diligently onwards through a deplorable storyline as you're left with very little reason to continue playing unless you're a completionist. What this necessarily results in is a game which is extremely easy as, having unlocked all of your potential abilities, you’re now incredibly overpowered and fighting against easy enemies for the rest of the game. In order to upgrade your equipment you must procure yourself some money but that too is extremely simplistic as you can hack approximately 25% of all NPCs and quickly acquire masses of wealth with nothing to spend it on. Similarly, whilst I was expecting a glorious, sprawling open world of future day Chicago where I could go anywhere, do anything, hack everyone, what I was left with were very few and limited opportunities to actually be the magnificent hacker I supposedly was and whilst the city is certainly an open world experience, it’s not a very interesting one due to the lack of interaction. 

Watch Dogs is essentially only successful because it's a laugh. There's not much depth to it, the side missions are extremely irritating and repetitive though are essential for leveling up so you just kind of have to put up with it. There are some pretty annoying mini-games that are surprisingly frequent but tolerable but overall the game is lacking in personality, originality and intelligence. It feels as though 'Watch Dogs' has picked up loads of gameplay elements from a lot of other games, mashed them all together in a new setting, put in some awful driving mechanics and thrown in a lazy explanation for why you're on a hell sent vengeance mission where you can do whatever the hell you want. On a positive note, the game is sort of fun if you can get beyond all of its negative points and if you enjoy messing about and don't care about the substance behind it all then it's a good game for that purpose. But for a game that’s supposedly digging at the political issue of living in a surveillance state it comes across from the point of view of a child who only understands it as a way of reading bits of information about people and stealing their money. All in all, the writers appeared to have either played safe to the point of boring or they cobbled together something at the last minute and given this game was announced two years ago and was pushed back a further 6/7 months that seems fairly unlikely. What this game boils down to is your usual sub-standard action game that's all bark and no bite; nothing really grabbed me, nothing made it stand out and whilst I would play it if I was really tired and just wanted to dick about for a bit I would never sit down, engage with it, and love it to the end. It's just not that good of a game. 

The Good:

• Some fun gameplay elements
• Nice setting; futuristic Chicago is very cool
• The open world setting is good, though didn't take advantage of its setting
• Graphics are decent, could have been better for PS4/Xbox One though
• Nice mission variety
• Good stealth elements
• Understated but effective skill tree
• Very good animations
• Fantastic soundtrack
• Enemy randomization offers up new experiences

The Bad:

• Aiden Pearce
• Money is far too easy to obtain and becomes meaningless
• The driving is awful, unable to shoot from a vehicle
• No storyline, diaboloical writing, flimsy
• Terrible voice acting
• Side missions are irritating
• The game is both far too serious yet unintelligent
• Morality is ignored then scraped back to no avail
• The hacking is quite tedious and not very dynamic
• Police AI is irrational
• Gunplay overshadows the hacking aspects
• Dodgy checkpoints, a lot of mission restarts, lots of insta-fail missions.

The Score: 7/10

Final thoughts: "It's surprisingly average for an action game but seems to think it's better than it is, that's probably the advertising budget right there. Aiden is a chore to work with, I have never hated a character as much as this guy, apart from that guy from Soul Suspect... Simply, this feels like a game that any developer could make, change a few elements and re-release it as the next big thing. Sadly, this game just doesn't impact on me in the slightest."

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) #2: Thief

The game that has so far proven to be the second most disappointing game of the year was 'Thief', a much anticipated revamp of the cult classic series that was kicking about in the late 90s and early 2000s. Whilst some praised its stealth gameplay and graphics, not all were as easily impressed and fans of the original series were unsurprisingly unsatisfied with initial details such as the replacement of the protagonists voice actor and an unimaginative storyline. Here I'll look into what made this game so disappointing and what has rendered this game worthy of this placement in this list. 
 

#2: Thief

Developer: Eidos Montreal
Genre: Stealth
Release date: February 25h 2014
Platforms: Windows, Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3.
ESRB: M - Mature

In the end, 'Thief' turned out to be a watered down clone of 'Dishonoured' that insulted fans of the original series and bored those new to the game. I’m of the latter group; I never played the original Thief but knew of it and knew how much beloved it was but, without playing it, I can only talk about this 2014 revamp from my direct experience. To begin with, it doesn’t feel particularly up to date as everything is extremely linear and limited whilst I was expecting a more fluid, open world environment with some minor limitations. Worse still, the environments you’re limited to are extremely bland with hardly anything to interact with and without much room for experimentation leaving you very little point in trying to be creative about the way in which you go about things. Garrett, a character with very little personality and shoddy voice acting, is supposed to have a huge variety of gadgets and tools that you may select from and let loose upon the world but there’s very little opportunity to use them to their full potential. Almost every single gadget may only be used in one particular way so, again, your creativity is squashed and your game experience forced through a narrow tunnel of ‘the way it’s supposed to be done’. This claustrophobic feeling of restriction extends into the main missions where everything is rigid, linear and scripted which is strangely at odds with the more flexible and ‘thank god I can breathe for a moment’ style of the side missions. The side missions, though better than the main ones, still are by no means perfect as everything is split into segments due to the huge amount of loading screens you’ll encounter that totally destroys any illusion of an open world game. 
 

I haven’t actually mentioned the entire point of the game yet and that’s being a Thief, shock horror surprise, so you’d expect a pretty robust thieving and looting system that would justify its position as a strong, substantial stealth game. Well prepare to be disappointed, some more, as Thief is less about being a professional thief and more about picking up any old shit you find lying around that may be of worth. It’s rather like Garrett has found a way to curb his uncontrollable kleptomania by taking it on as a profession as rather than saving up all his skills and energy for one big heist he tends to just grab anything within reach, particularly low valued items that nobody else would bother themselves with. Once again, the influence of ‘Dishonoured’ reared its head as whenever you pick something up its converted into money leaving you with grabbing bits worth 3 gold, 5 gold, 7 gold and so on. At this point, Thief’s lack of individual identity is becoming self-evident and you’re probably wondering what sets it apart from the crowd. Well, not much actually. The storyline is very longwinded and seems to just go on and on endlessly with no sign of stopping and, when it finally gets there, the ending is weak and unsatisfying. 

As a next gen console game it’s also graphically inferior with nothing particularly attractive or noteworthy and the overall appearance is simply bland, the controls are clunky and slow leaving you hobbling rather than sleuthing and the FPS is diabolical with long loading times and plenty of stuttering during cinematics and periods of lots of activity such as combat. Oh and by the way, the combat too is just like the rest of the game; slow, irritating, restrictive and clunky. It’s as though the developers attempted to put in some action game features and just ended up with something that was a mix of awkward button smashing, poorly animated takedowns and, due to the loading screens, almost no way to flee effectively from a situation. In fact, the only redeeming feature about the combat system in ‘Thief’ is that you can bypass it entirely and opt for sneaking around enemies instead of confronting them head on. Overall, Thief is unable to live up to the expectation of becoming the next big stealth game and just feels far too restrictive and uninspired. It’s boring, bland, slow and with very little to lift it up from a pit of poor storytelling, poor gameplay and a poor engine. If you are a diehard lover of this genre of game then I’m sure you’ll find some way of getting some fun out of it solely because it’s a new game but I’d recommend waiting until the price drops first as, in this form, it’s simply not worth your money. 

The Good:

• Some fairly entertaining moments
• Can be quite cinematic, when it wants to be. 
• It's a stealth game and the industry need more stealth games
• The graphics are ok, but not for a next-gen game.

The Bad:

• Substandard AI
• Set paths leaving you very room to move
• Awful voice acting and lip syncing
• Agonizingly boring storyline
• Clunky controls
• Very poor FPS especially during busy periods and cutscenes
• Weapons and gadgets offer little room for creativity
• Garrett is a pretty bad thief; more of a klepto than a professional
• Very little interaction in the environment
• Not actually an open world experience
• Spits on the name of the original series.

The Score: 3/10

Final thoughts: "Thief is a decidedly unworthy edition to the cult classic series of games and will disappoint not only long standing fans but those new to the series as well. Whilst it's a reasonably alright stealth game it's not a patch on 'Dishonoured' and lacks some core fundamentals of a good stealth game such as intelligent AI and flexibility in what you can do and where you can go."  

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

Beyond: Two Souls - Full Review (PlayStation 3 game)

If you’re looking for something that’s intense, cinematic and extremely immersive then 'Beyond: Two Souls' may be exactly what you are looking for. More like an interactive film than a game, 'Beyond: Two Souls' follows the life, jumping through random points in time, of a young woman called Jodie Holmes who has been connected to an invisible, mysterious entity since birth. This unknown entity is called Aiden and, in single player you control both characters whilst, in co-op one player plays Aiden and one plays Jodie. 

Developer: Quantic Dream 
Genre: Interactive drama, action adventure 
Release date: 8th October 2013 (EU: 11th October 2013, JP: 17th October 2013) 
Platforms: PlayStation 3 
ESRB: M - Mature

This beautifully unique game strongly emphasises player interaction and, in this sense, is considered to be an interactive drama game with some action elements. Whilst I usually hate quick time events in this game it works perfectly and, in a style similar to Heavy Rain, you’ll find yourself performing actions for everything you come across. Through the use of motion capture actress Ellen Page and actor Willem Dafoe star as Jodie Holmes and Nathan Dawkins respectively and, alongside their flawless voice acting, you’ll be hard pressed to find a game that’s more realistic than Beyond: Two Souls is. This is a beautifully crafted, extremely emotional and fantastically animated game that changes the face of gaming. 

Gameplay and story

The game revolves around a woman called Jodie who is somehow physically connected to an invisible entity dubbed Aiden. The story flicks about between different times in Jodie’s life ranging from when she was a child to the shocking events we see in the prologue with the premise being that Jodie’s forgotten how she’s come to where she is. Whilst the story is primarily focused on Jodie there will be times when you control Aiden and see things through his ghostly perspective. The ending of the game varies on your decisions and throughout the ‘chapters’ that you play through there will be some room for manoeuvre and make your own decisions but, generally, the overall storyline is a fixed series of events.

The game is primarily designed to be some kind of interactive film and it is, in this sense, extremely cinematic. There’s basically no HUD aside from a white dot showing what can be interacted with and no map to guide you places. The camera moves very organically and tends to focus on what Jodie is looking at whether that’s somewhere she’s been ordered to go or something that’s just caught her attention. It won’t take you long to adjust to the mannerisms and personality of this game and you’ll almost immediately be sucked into the episodic telling of Jodie’s life. The great thing about dipping and diving between different times in Jodie’s life is the great variation in gameplay that this provides. Protagonists are usually presented ‘as is’ with the occasional reference to earlier events that helped shape them but with Jodie you live so much of her life from the simple times of playing in her bedroom as a young child, through troubled teenage years, to the moment she learned she was to leave everything she knew and join the C.I.A. You follow her through her initial training and, when real life interrupts this and Jodie’s forced to apply these newly acquired skills in desperate, life changing situations, you truly appreciate the depth and breadth of her character. If Jodie was constantly on the run and beating people up it would quickly become a boring, 2D interpretation of life as this is not how people live. Instead, by living through the very normal, domestic aspects of her life you see everything put into perspective. It’s not just watching a troubling childhood it’s living through that and then, when Jodie unleashes her revenge, it’s more than just petty violence but bitterness, hurt and frustration all balled together into an intense and dangerous explosion of emotion. 

But it’s not just Jodie who tugs you headlong into the immersive nature of the game; Aiden, too, is a fascinating subject though I found his connection with Jodie to be initially a little disturbing. After all, you know nothing about him and for all you know he’s utterly malevolent. However, as you view the tentative interactions between a little girl and this mysterious spirit as he pushes her on the swing, defends her when she’s wronged and protects her from harm you understand just how much they need each other. What’s great about Aiden is even though you never see him and only occasionally see the world through his eyes he still has a very distinctive personality. From the beginning its made clear how quickly things can go wrong due to the sheer power Aiden has but, unusually so, when you yourself are in control of Aiden you feel the exact same way. Aiden’s power and tendency to take things too far is quickly reflected in your own gameplay and sometimes you find yourself doing things that, usually, you’d never do. It’s very much a case of you can break windows, scare people half to death, set a building on fire, tear the world apart so you end up doing so because, God dammit, why shouldn’t you? 

I think what surprised me about this game was how absolutely terrifying it could make itself as initially the game came across as creepy, a little eerie but otherwise nothing particularly noteworthy, I was wrong about that. The intensity of encounters is very quickly elevated later on and there are some moments of absolute, genuine terror that I was simply not expecting. In particular, the reliance on the player to survive encounters by performing quick time events means that it’s your responsibility to get Jodie to safety and, when required to jump, duck or smash through something there’s almost zero on-screen help and instead you must accurately read what she intends to do by following the movement of her body with your controller. When you’re faced with an extremely pressured situation this can quickly deteriorate into a frenzied attempt to survive but, as you can imagine, shoving your controller every which way is one sure fire way of getting yourself killed. It’s not all fast paced action though as I alluded to earlier but that doesn’t mean you’re not involved in things. Almost everything Jodie does is guided by you from cutting up her dinner during meals, tidying her apartment before a date, training with the CIA to hitchhiking on the side of a road. When Jodie’s working hard, you’re working hard and the ties that this creates between protagonist and player is not just an added layer of immersion but an invaluable approach to ensuring you’re emotionally invested in the storyline and characters. 

As games go I tend to prefer ones which are open world and, despite this game not being this way it still manages to convince you that you could go anywhere at a moment’s notice. There’s almost always a set path or a few paths that you have to follow but these take place in large, sprawling environments that should not be explored anyway such as a desert landscape or a laboratory. Doors would be, quite naturally, locked in a laboratory where conditions are strictly monitored so it’s unlikely that a little girl would be allowed to go off wandering around as she pleased when she’s being escorted somewhere. So she can only go through one door, so what? That’s where she’s going anyway. What’s interesting is that it’s simply not in Jodie’s personality to run off in any random direction anyway because she’s a very straight down the middle, straight to the point sort of character. When she’s got a job to do by God, she’ll go and do that job and follow it through until the end. In this sense, even though the game’s path is constantly linear that doesn’t ruin the story in any way as even through you’re following this track there’s a fair bit of wiggle room where you can mooch off a little, change the story here and there and choose how you ultimately reach the end goal. Whilst the game didn’t have as much ‘change the story’ elements as I would have liked there’s options and different paths you can take; you can escape from certain scenarios in different ways, take things to far with Aiden or maybe leash him in a bit more, things like that. Either way all of the choices you make will be within the boundaries of what Jodie may or may not do and there are no outlandish choices that would break her character. For a game like this it’s important to remember that you’re not your own character such as in the Dragon Age series or Skyrim and you’re more like… Corvo from Dishonoured, there’s some breathing room in how you do stuff, but you still have to do things his way.

Graphics, animations and audio 
 
Nothing negative could be said about the graphics and animation of this game, they are utterly flawless and astoundingly realistic. 'Beyond: Two Souls' is more film-like than any other game I’ve ever played and this makes for a totally original experience. A complete lack of HUD adds to the immersion value and the only time you’ll encounter game like elements are when you’re prompted to make a decision in conversation or perform a quick time event. Everything looks stunningly realistic whether that’s water captured on skin or rust etched onto metal, there’s not one aspect of the game that’s not polished to perfection. The landscapes are vast and detailed as you explore a beautiful assortment of locations that range from the super modern such as shiny laboratories or 21st century offices to the totally rustic, somewhat dilapidated Native American farmlands and homeless squatting grounds. This is a game where you will genuinely struggle to find something that’s not flawlessly detailed and utterly realistic. 

The interesting application of CGI and motion capture for the faces and movements of characters is very effective. Each individual wrinkle, mole, hair, scar and pore is clearly visible adding to a huge range of emotions to be portrayed on a wide variety of individuals. No two people are the same, each NPC is their own person and rather than coming face to face with hundreds of similar looking people this game has opted for a few dozen of totally unique individuals. 

The animations are something to truly behold and you can instantly tell that this is something the developers should be extremely satisfied with. All of the animations are very organic and natural feeling, for example when carrying a bale of hay Jodie occasionally adjusted it but not in your usual sense; each adjustment was different, realistic, evolving. Tiny, subtle movements ripple throughout every interaction and you are constantly barraged with her conflicting emotions, her moments of feeling self-conscious, her pain or anger and by the time you’ve sunk into the game you realize that this is truly the most human of all game protagonists. It really is incredible to experience. This massive variety of animations whether that’s walking or idle ones and, having experienced a lot of impressive animations in my gaming time, I was taken aback by the sheer detail to the point where I literally made a new category to talk about this in this review. 

There’s not much that can be said about the audio of this game as, quite simply, it is flawless. The voice acting is perfect, emotional and extremely high quality. Everything, whether it’s gentle breathing or full on screaming is etched with emotion allowing you to truly understand the thoughts, feeling and experiences of the characters. The music isn’t particularly noticeable as its very subtle and only tends to come into its own when there’s a great deal of action on scream, at which point it rises in tempo and intensity to reflect the direction of events. All in all, there’s not a single fault with the aesthetical aspects of Beyond: Two Souls.

Overall

Quantic Dream have been in and out of my consoles for some time; I first played their game ‘Fahrenheit’ and for some unknown reason could never get into it, despite appreciating how original it was. I’d toyed with the idea of ‘Heavy Rain’ but again it passed me by and I still haven’t got very far into it. ‘Beyond: Two Souls’ changed my opinion of this genre of games entirely and I found it to be deeply emotional yet incredibly intense experience that merged full throttle action sequences with slower, more tentative gameplay. There are quite a few endings to this game depending on choices made in later sequences which is a fantastic way of rounding off a game that boasts how much the player affects the storyline. Nothing bad can be said about the way it looks, sounds and generally portrays itself as everything is a flawless representation of life however, there’s room for improvement. Critically I would say that there is not a huge number of alternatives when faced with encounters and that sometimes, ok, once, the game didn’t take into account how I’d responded to a scene. Despite this you will find yourself playing a slightly altered version of the game compared to your friends and, taking into account how fantastic the game otherwise is, I think that’s a pretty reasonable expectation.

The Good: 

• Looks flawless, very detailed, beautiful lighting
• Sounds fantastic, voice acting is superb
• Alternate endings for replayability
• Controlling Aiden is super fun
• Great variation in gameplay
• Something for everybody 
• Interesting storyline keeps you on your toes
• Immersive, passionate, emotional

The Bad: 

• More impact on storyline by doing things in different ways would be good
• The fact it's more like an interactive film than a game may put some off
• Bit of a slow starter

The Score: 9/10 

Final thoughts: "I hope there's a second one released for the PlayStation 4 but, how the hell would they intergrate all the possible endings? Maybe they'd do it in the same world but not following Jodie... Hmm..."

Orbitum - Quick Review (iOS game)

Never has the very real threat of falling into a black hole felt so calming. Orbitum is a strangely hypnotic game where every second counts in your struggle to stay alive by hopping from one orbital line to another. 

Developer: Happymagenta Ltd.
Genre: Action arcade
Release date: 2nd July 2014
Platforms: iOS (Ipad and Iphone)
ESRB: E - Everyone. 

Essentially you’re playing as a very bright, white planet that is being steadily dragged into a black hole by its extremely strong gravitational pull and, though you can hop away from this fatal void and take refuge on orbits that are farther away, these quickly decay beneath you. Despite the inevitable decay of the line you’ve, in the very least, bought yourself some time to consider the nature of your existence and perhaps the overall meaning of all of this. Though it’s tempting to just flee from the danger entirely you’ll find yourself trapped in by an, equally deadly, red barrier. This barrier that switches between being an unearthly mist or a solid red line prevents you from venturing too far out and leaves you stuck between a rock and a hard place. Between this fatal barrier and the deadly black hole suctioning you in there’s not much you can do except move between lines with lightning fast reflexes. The increasingly strong gravitational forces and the ever-present blockade of doom aside there’s even more threats to contend with; red, triangular obstacles are continually thrown in your general direction to keep you from lolling about too long on any particular line. 

Ok so perhaps lolling about isn’t the right term as the game generally feels like you’re running on a treadmill with some sadist at the front of it, turning up the dial to make you run faster and faster. All the while, there’s a life threatening pit behind you that, some kind of lava filled, shark infested, spike laden ditch that you’re not too keen on falling into. So you keep running, helplessly and hopelessly because there’s nowhere to go except not in the death-pit whilst your sadist buddy laughs and throws knives at you. Why you’d choose to partake in this masochistic game of ‘stay alive and stay fit at the same time’ is questionable but, there’s no doubt about it, Orbitum is somehow very good stress-relief. On a much needed positive note you’re also thrown helpful items like a shield or extra points that revolve around on the orbital lines, tempting you into making a premature jump so you can grab them. Green hexagons are the items that give you additional points to boost your high score whilst blue cubes will reward you with some kind of helpful item, such as the shield or a hyper-jump powerup. 

Underpinning all of this is an electronic female voice updating you with what you’ve just picked up, the new level you’re on and things of that sort. A weird, hypnotic electronic music track plays continually in the background and generally I found it both distracting and helpful though it did grate a little after just a few minutes of play. Despite the grating, the rhythmic beat from the music actually gave me something to time my jumps against and, in this sense, it acted as some kind of celestial, auditory anchor in a sea of… death. The learning curve of the game is spot on as whilst you only start with one or two of those red triangles and plenty of helpful items the pressure quickly increases as you become more familiar with the game. By the time you’re a couple of minutes into he game you’re battling against multiple triangles and working within a much larger space when the game switches its background colour to pale rather than dark. Overall the game is fairly addictive and very challenging, with its low price tag and clean cut, simplistic graphics its worth playing if you enjoy reflex based arcade games.

The Good:

• The challenging nature of later levels keeps you playing
• Hypnotic and mesmerising game draws your attention 
• The game design is clean cut and rather tasteful 
• Shifts in the colour scheme and associated gameplay changes adds depth 
• Simple to understand and easy to get into

The Bad:

• Music can be grating and distracting
• Not particularly original and brings nothing new to the table 
• Not the most addictive or fun of survival games

The Score: 5/10

Final thoughts: “That was weird, I have a headache, I don’t think lava filled shark spike pits are a thing, but they should be.”

Freaky Tup - Quick Review (Android app)

Freaky Tup is a simple but enjoyable free app for android devices that has been developed by indie company, FreakoutGames. Freaky Tup is their first mobile game and it's actually pretty decent. 

Developer: FreakoutGames
Genre: Action
Release date: May 23rd 2014
Platforms: Android
ESRB: Not rated

The game includes three different arcade minigames where the aim is to get high scores in fast paced levels where you tap to defeat the baddies who are, in this case, germs. It's very much a casual game but it's suprisingly addictive and well worth playing. 

Freaky Tup looks great with a vibrant, polished look that's really appealing for all ages and whilst the gameplay may be lacking a little in imagination that's not to say it's an awful game. It's an extremely accessible game with easy to learn controls and rules and is the sort of game that is perfect for dropping in and out of. When you've got some time to spare or you're having to wait for something it's exactly this sort of lighthearted, casual and fast paced arcade game that you can just flip open and get straight into. It's very addictive, very engrossing and is a great way to waste a bit of time in those gaps of life. Overall, I highly recommend it as a simple and fun android game whilst the fact it's from such a small indie company makes it all the more impressive as they're done a great job at developing their first mobile game.

The Good:

• Very user friendly.
• Polished, vibrant graphics
• Great for pick up and put down play

The Bad:

• Overly simplistic.
• Not a great deal of depth.
• Very little longetivity.

The Score: 4/10 

Last thoughts: "For a free android game, this is pretty good, but it's nothing special and it's not exactly an original idea."

Dead Island Riptide - Full Review (Xbox 360, PS3 and PC game)

This is a disappointing sequel to a game I sincerely enjoyed. Riptide starts where Dead Island started off; rescued on a military ship, conked out from sedatives after a medical examination. Things seem to be going well; you're on the way back to a civilization not dominated by inconveniently aggressive zombies until, boom. Monsoon. Zombie invasion. Two things which don't usually compliment one another are now two things you need to adjust to. Waking up from sedatives you find that the boat is infested with zombies and with some initially impressive waves, storm features and getting jerked about on an unsteady deck you end up getting thrown off the boat and onto another zombie inhabited island. Fantastic. Luckily, nobody's hurt and your new orange clad friend decides to come along for the ride. 

Good thing Xin's capable because the others couldn't give a stuff about what she's doing.

This new but vapid character is awkward and weak compared to the original four due to his focus being ‘hand to hand’ combat. Unless I can start kickboxing, judo throwing and tackling enemies like a champion martial arts instructor on steroids then I really don’t care that this new guy can punch harder than everybody else. It’s boring and his perks are all useless. Besides, I already have plenty of hammers, knives and kicking/punching ability in every other character, so thanks, but no thanks.

"Greetings! Turns out, I'm one of those incredibly rare, biologically immune, medical

anomalies that you've been hearing so much about. Who'd've guessed it." 

The graphics have not been improved since the first game and, whilst not terrible, there was definitely room for improvement. The game does water and tropical landscapes really well and the first game did truly look like paradise but the zombies and people in particular have a very strange, gluey appearance. Saying that, Riptide does a great, partially drowned jungle landscape that's fun to splash about it and explore. The game remains fairly open world but there's not a lot of point in exploring as the main and side quests take you everywhere you need to go, but at least it's not linear and the choice is there to explore as you will. The problem with this game is the lack of diverse environments. Whilst Dead Island had very clear cut areas; Beach Resort, City, Jungle and Laboratory and finally a prison the Panoi islands are extremely repetitive and just all a mash of beaches and tropical, flowery looking jungles. There's a couple of nice shanty town type villages that are all held up on stilts to keep out the water and, at one point, a quaint little town with a nice cinema that mixes it up a bit but apart from that there's not really much going on in Panoi that changes the way you play. Dead Island's progression from a fairly relaxed beach resort to an extremely challenging City area was notable but Panoi doesn't have tht 'let's crank it up a notch' environmental shift which I found disappointing.

A familiar feature that appears in Riptide is it's irritating and consistent glitchyness but this time, it's less endearing. By this point it's not so much; 'kick a beachball and you'll glitch into it and die! Ha ha ha!' And more, 'guys... come on, you didn't even try to listen to feedback did you?' The weather in particular is rather bugged and given that the whole, 'we warned you a monsoon was coming, now we're in it!' was an important and heavily advertised feature means that this buggy weather engine is pretty unacceptable. Good weather in a game can be a really enjoyable component especially if it changes the way we play but, unfortunatly, Riptide's weather is simply bipolar. One minute it’s all sunshine and good tidings and then, two steps forward later, it’s overcast and pissing it down with rain. This is most noticeable around one of your main basecamps where walking forward a little in one direction is guaranteed to dramatically change the blue skies to storm and rain with no natural transitions indicating it'll start raining soon. It’s a laughably annoying feature given the hype that revolved around the promise that we’d be trekking through chest high water, battling the unpredictable and dynamic weather of the tropical isles and relying only on teamwork to get us through this whole new threat. It all sounds great, if only whomever was responsible for marketing that idea hadn't got confused between the terms ‘dynamic weather’ and ‘buggy and poorly glued together weather transitions.’ Another irritating glitch includes zombies spawning directly behind you and, somehow, managing to one-hit kill you before you've had a chance to even turn around. This zombie spawning bug is extremely frustrating when it happens with the larger zombies like Floaters and Butchers who often re-spawn directly after you've killed them if you move away from the area a tiny bit. 

Gorgeous landscape, and I suppose the people look alright from a distance too.

Weather and glitches aside; Riptide lacks a lot of what made the first game fun. Zombie bashing is not something I usually seek out in a game due to my hatred of using guns in games but Dead Island always had a fun focus on melee weapons and the ability to target specific areas with knives and stuff, happy days. An entire game of that later though and it becomes boring so unless something changes, there’s not a lot to stick around for. Storyline, good characters, new perk abilities, more challenging combat and environments… all of these, even just one of these, would have been great. Unfortunately, 'Dead Island: Riptide' fails to deliver anything that’s an incentive to stick around for; the storyline is weak and uninspired, the characters are over levelled and whilst there are a couple of new perks they’re not interesting and just serve to overpower the character even more so. Unless there’s a degree of struggle with survival or a storyline that makes you want to find out what happens next then it’s not a game, it’s a chore. Upgrading your abilities is now pointless and there’s no element of choice any longer since you can basically have every available perk. That careful selecting of what to pick next from the three perk trees is gone, leaving you to just bang it on everything because you’ve already got what you need to bomb through hoards of zombies who are now more an irritation than a threat. 

A much needed positive comment about the game is the new zombies that are now present and all of them have some form of unique quality. You can now fight 'grenadiers' which spit a sort of toxic waste, acid type substance at you and screamers who deafen you with their high pitched wailing. The game also features a vast array of drowners who lay face down in the water, playing dead and finally the elusive wrestler who are monsterously huge, deformed zombies that knock you off the ground by smashing their meaty fists into it. 

Dead Island often pulls off visually appealing envionments for you to get frustrated in.

There’s a new system for upgrading the rest of your, unplayable, team which is nice as previously they didn’t even exist in game except for in the cutscenes. The ‘system’ is basically finding them special objects, giving them to them in return for a boatload of experience and then having them get a little stronger. It feels like progression but truly they’re only ever used for ‘hold the fort’ type missions which get quickly repetitive; an endless battle of putting fences in glowing locations and bashing any zombies that get through. 

The last new feature worth mentioning is the addition of boats. You now have access to these nippy little speed boats that are difficult to get used to but, once you do, are handy for zipping along the water like a champion martial arts instructor on steroids, piloting a boat. These sound great in principle since many areas are waterlogged and it's just unreasonable to wade everywhere since it's such a slow way of getting around. Unfortunantly, once you're in the boat you cannot see where the water ends and the surrounding islands begin as the HUD map just gives us total darkness with our little 'you are here' icon displayed. In single player this is irritating and in co-op it means I have to get my girlfriend to keep the main menu map up on the other tv so I can glance over and see which way doesn't have a river dead-end. I guess it encourages co-op play but, frankly, it’s just a pain in the ass as the both of us as, for the fifth time, she gets dragged into the water by a wet and pissed off zombie because her map blocks out what's going on in the background. Overall, I guess it’s better than nothing but it’s a shame it wasn’t… better. 

Score – 6/10