Releases for November

Hi folks

After much debate I have decided to bring back my release of the month posts but will not be continuing the calendar.

Games:

The Quiet Man PS4, PC November 1
Diablo III: Eternal Collection Switch November 2
Déraciné PSVR November 6
Overkill’s The Walking Dead PS4, Xbox One, PC November 6
World of Final Fantasy Maxima Xbox One, Switch November 6
Ride 3 PS4, Xbox One, PC November 8
Hitman 2 PS4, Xbox One, PC November 13
SNK 40th Anniversary Collection Switch November 13
Spyro Reignited Trilogy PS4, Xbox One November 13
Fallout 76 PS4, Xbox One, PC November 14
Underworld Ascendant PC November 15
Civilization VI Switch November 16
Pokémon Let’s Go Pikachu/Let’s Go Eevee Switch November 16
Battlefield V PS4, Xbox One, PC November 20
Warframe Switch November 20
Wreckfest PS4, Xbox One November 20
Darksiders 3 PS4, Xbox One, PC November 27
Artifact PC November 28
Katamari Damacy Reroll Switch, PC November 30

Review: Marvel’s Spider-Man

Marvel's Spider-ManAfter sometime I’ve finally finished Insomniac’s Spider-Man game and I know its a rather popular opinion that you’ve all heard before but it really is a great game. That being said it does have some issues with it as most games do, and I’m a bit bias towards the style of game it is but its still good.

The core issue with a Spider-Man game is trying to make you feel like Spider-Man which is no easy task, you have to be able to move a react at superhuman speeds and not to mention there has to be a satisfying web swing system. With that in mind Insomniac ticked all the boxes, just swinging around the city fighting the occasional crime that pops up is so much fun. The speed at which you fight and mixing it up with different gadgets makes you truly feel like an experience crime fighting Spider-Man. The story was really good for at least the first two acts, act three feels shorter than the other and just dumps stuff on you rather than trickling out, with plenty of teases and hints towards later developments. I won’t go into too much detail with the story as you really need to go in blind for the full experience.

Here is where I’ll admit though I’m a huge fan of the Arkham series by Rocksteady and can’t help but compare the two. The fact that Spider-Man draws so heavily on the Arkham series is the reason I enjoy the game, but I do emphasis that it does draws on the and doesn’t just copy for better or worse. The combat is very similar to Arkham but simplified making the combat flow well for the more fast paced combat in Spider-Man. However what it does poorly is stealth and I wished they had taken more notes from Arkham. The stealth is not user friendly to put it kindly, you have to rely on the environmental scanner to determine whether you can take someone down or not which means you are constantly having to trigger the scans as it doesn’t stay active. Another issue it has is it constantly changes whether it encourages the use of gadgets or physical takedowns, as a someone who plays heavily with gadgets this annoyed me. My absolutely biggest grievance with the stealth system is how useless it is in the base raids as after taking out the first wave everyone from wave two on wards suddenly is alerted to your position making it pointless to be quiet.

That aside I enjoyed the rest of the games various challenges and gimmicks. The challenges given to you by a certain masked villain are the perfect level of challenging for me that took a couple attempts for a good amount of them. The various crimes that pop up are varied enough to be enjoyable, and different styles are trickled out throughout most of the game. The sections in which you play as the “Spider Friends” are interesting a few enough to be interesting and not tiresome.

My biggest recommendation though is just play it for yourself there’ll be something for practically everyone to enjoy and I’m really looking forward to the DLC that’s coming out as I’ve been told it’s going to add another ten hours of game play.

Question for all you folks who’ve played the game, what’s your favorite suit? I’m torn between the Iron Spider and the Noir suit.

 

God of War (2018): New Game +

GOW Splash page

So God of War’s new game plus came out last month and after finally getting around to it I have some mixed feelings. The new mode supposedly increases enemy difficulty and changing some attack patterns, whilst allowing you to keep your old skills abilities and gear, adding stronger versions of old gear plus all new “Perfect” tier gear and materials. There may be some spoilers in from this point on wards and I’ll try and keep them to a minimum but as this is a post game unlock I’ll assume most people reading this have played it at least once.

What I do like about the game is the addition of the new gear for both Kratos and Atreus. I’m not going to list all of them as the list is longer than I expected but the two that caught my eye is Traveller + set, which gives a slowly regenerating shield that takes one hit as well as a buff to bare-handed attacks. The other set, and my current goal for this play through is the Cod of War set, from what I understand this is a reoccurring joke in the God of War series, which adds various bonuses to collecting health and rage stones. A nice feature they added solves an issue I had with finishing the game, excess Exp. Exp can now be converted into hacksilver at one of the stores.

Now to my issues with it which are mainly to do with the difficulty. Now i play on the default difficulty because in my first play through that was the perfect setting for me, however it was a joke. I breezed through all the fights leading up to Tyr’s Island, my stopping point for this review, and honestly not even the Baldur fight was anything more than an inconvenience. I have read that the difficulty does get harder as you progress and my issues may be caused bu simply now the play style that works for me but I’ll have to play further to find out. To it’s credit though the exploding draugr where far more common this time around and where the main source of my grief.

Let me now in the comments what you guys thought of it. Was it just me play on too low of a difficulty or did you guys feel the same?

Next post is going to something spectacularly, amazing and was a real blast the whip through.

Releases for September

Hi everyone

On the first of every month I’ll be posting all of the game releases for the month and if you go and look over on the Calendar page all this information will be on a handy calendar for you.

 

Games:

Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age – PS4 – September 4th

Player Unknown’s Battleground (Full game release) – Xbox One – September 4th

Immortal: Unchained – PS4, Xbox One, PC – September 7th

NBA Live 19 – PS4, Xbox One – September 7th

SNK Heroines: Tag Team Frenzy – PS4, Switch – September 7th

Spider-Man – PS4 – September 7th

Yo-kai Watch Blasters: Red Cat Corp and White Dog Squad – 3DS – September 7th

NBA 2K19 – Ps4, Xbox One, PC, Switch – September 11th

Bastion – Switch – September 13th

Wasteland 2: Director’s Cut – Switch – September 13th

Shadow of the Tomb Raider – PS4, Xbox One, PC – September 14th

Light Fingers – Switch – September 14th

Valkyria Chronicles 4 – PS4, Xbox One, PC, Switch – September 25th

The Walking Dead: The Final Season Ep. 2 – PS4, Xbox One, PC – September 27th

Life IS Strange – Episode 1 – PS4, Xbox One, PC – September 27th

Towerfall – Switch – September 27th

Dragon Ball FighterZ – Switch – September 28th

FIFA 19 – PS4, PS3, Xbox One, Xbox 360, Switch, PC – September 28th

 

DLC:

Destiny 2 Forsaken – September 4th

Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna The Golden Country – Switch – September 21st

 

 

 

Review: Fallout 4

With all the news coming out about the latest installment in Bethesda’s Fallout series, Fallout 76, I decided to pick up my copy of Fallout 4, dusted off the rust and got started with a new play through.

For those that don’t know what the Fallout series is, its a post-apocalypse RPG set in an alternate world in which a Great War between Communist China and the United States of America. In 2077 the two countries traded nuclear bombardments causing the post-apocalyptic America that the game is renown for. In many of the installments you play a Vault Dweller, a descendant of one of the lucky few to seek shelter in the bomb shelters called Vaults, and you venture into the unknown civilisation that has grown in the centuries afterwards following. Fallout 4 is the second installment made by Bethesda since they acquired the IP in 2004.

Now that I’ve covered my bases there lets move on. When I first got the game I found that I would have a lot of fun for the first 8 or 9 hours of playing but after that progress would slow new locations, weapons, and characters would start getting samey till the point that I never got further than maybe a dozen quests into the main story line.

On this recent play through though I made two choices that made the game so much more enjoyable, first I decided that I’ll start using mods. Now PC users at this point would probably be saying “Duh, why wouldn’t you be.”, but for people like me who are mainly console users this was our first chance and boy does it make a difference. Mods like “Everyone’s Best Friend” by Valdacil which makes your dog companion always available to follow you no matter who else you have with you, or probably my personal favourite the “M2019 PKD Detective Special” by DOOMBASED which adds the iconic gun used my Harrison Ford’s character Deckard in the 1982 film Blade Runner. Honestly with just these two mods alone it added hours of game play to the game and there are so many more that I’ve added since.

The second thing did was decide to do a survival play through and it has added a whole new level of complexity to the game. It removes fast travel, lowers your carry weight quite a bit, you take and deal increase damage, you have to monitor your thirst, hunger, and tiredness, and you can become ill to name just a few things it adds. With all these new mechanics I’m having to plan before going trips from my settlements, I have to rethink my usual run and gun style fighting, and I can’t carry ha;f my house around with me anymore.

These two things have honestly made the game feel completely new and different than before and if Fallout 76 is anything like this, as it appears it might be, then I can’t wait for it to come out in November.