OnlySP's Reviews
One of the most amazing moments is coming around a bend or emerging through a tunnel into a large open area with buildings and more sea life as far as the eye can see. The music swells to an apex, climbing from a happy urgency to a grand revelation.
Each nod to a title of JRPG yore is an acknowledgment of sampling from something fantastic. I am Setsuna is the sampler platter at your favorite restaurant. Not the one that gives you three tiny mozzarella sticks and a soggy onion ring – no, the place that puts a heaping of one of your favorite dishes in the center and surrounds them with generous quantities of the best of the menu. You know, the $20 appetizer tray that everyone can eat from. It’s not the full meal, but you can experience a taste of everything fantastic the chef has to offer.
If you want a nonsensical story with a serious focus on terminal-based gameplay, you’re going to find yourself pleasantly surprised with Quadrilateral Cowboy.
You’ll navigate your way through twisted hallways of heavy machinery, elevators, and a few monsters and monstrosities. What little glimpses you get of the world above, they are nothing more than big teases. You want out? Nope, sorry. You’re stuck in a quarry. Oh, you really want out? We’re going to lock every single exit to the surface. It would be appropriate to place a placard at the entrance to the mine that read “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”
When it comes story-driven experiences such as this, gameplay is often a secondary concern. Puzzles and mechanics are often uncomplicated, going so far as to become simply linear interactive experiences colloquially known as “walking simulators.” Bound’s approach is a beautiful and fluid one, as all of the movement and combat — if it can be called that — are carried out through dance. You’ll forgive me if I lack the collective dance terminology to correctly ascribe to the movements, but the characters leaps, twirls and slides through with a casual grace, and mostly with a feathery weight. It’s gorgeous, and the transitions are flawless, though sometimes slow.
Despite its somewhat abrupt ending and sodding micro transactions, Mankind Divided is still a marvelous addition to the series with a well written narrative, tons of gameplay options, and hours of fantastic optional content. Though not quite the revolution that its predecessor was, the fact remains that Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is one of the few rare cases where basically being more of the same is the highest praise I could give a game.
For a 2D puzzle-platformer, the levels are naturally integrated into the environment – and one of the most naturally integrated that I have ever seen in any game of the same genre. Utilizing the changing seasons to its advantage, Seasons After Fall feels less like a traditional platformer and more like an innovation, jumping from tree branch to vine, frozen geyser to snowball, all the while bending the seasons to your command. The narrative and setting aren’t built around the level design, but rather the design enhances the narrative and setting, allowing for a gorgeous and immersive experience.
The overzealous difficulty of Fallout 4′s DLCs is no exception this time around; the Nuka World radio signal won’t auto-trigger until you are at least level 30. Don’t start at level 30. Just don’t. If you haven’t hit at least level 50 by now, take the time to get there; the unbalanced level-scaling that gave Automatron and Far Harbor their “quirks” is back to kill your stash of stimpacks and ammo. Combine that with a narrative that lacks depth and meaningful decisions, Nuka World might fall below your expectations, but still provides many hours of game play to unlock a plethora of secrets and rewards.
Virginia is a Rubik’s cube for your senses. The game masterfully provides you with a constant desire to explore and investigate, but can make you feel claustrophobic with its imposing soundtrack and jarring jump cuts. This is a game that takes its potentially biggest weakness and turns it into its greatest strength.
But your immediate problem is not an angry client who did not receive his plasma cutter on time; a ship crash lands on your property. Inside is one broken robot and two surprises that throw your entire view of the world into chaos. Police immediately surround the area and close in to disintegrate you — you have seen too much. An EVP grenade falls from… you’re not sure where, overloading the circuits of the police and yourself. What follows is a surprising turn of events that sends you on an impromptu investigation to explore different parts of the city to help a small band of rebel robots whose primary function is to discover “the truth.”
The Coaltion has a bright future ahead of itself with the Gears of War franchise.
As for the extras, players are most likely to run through ‘Blood Ties’ only once or twice, (depending on whether you have a shiny new PSVR), while ‘Lara’s Nightmare’ has limited appeal, and co-op Endurance mode, while great, may force you reconsider some long-standing friendships if you play it for too long. However, this all just icing…Wait, no, the DLC is the icing. This 20 Year Celebration is the cherry on an already delicious birthday cake for one of gaming’s most iconic, enduring, and beloved series. Happy Birthday, Lara! Here’s hoping you don’t have to reinvent yourself again for your 30th anniversary!
Despite its few rather minor flaws, For Honor provides a new experience for both experienced gamers and those new to the genre. With exceptional graphics and mostly-superior audio quality wedded to an immersive and dynamic gameplay experience, Ubisoft Montreal’s recent fighting game with hack-and-slash elements grants hours of addictive virtual warfare. Whether looking to sit back and relax with a few friends or play it solo, For Honor is a bloody and thrilling addition to Ubisoft’s repertoire.
A game that received quite a bit of hype before its release, Ghost Recon: Wildlands may be the jewel Ubisoft needs to reignite the passion fans of the company feel towards its products. After some grumbling caused by the deteriorating quality of the Assassin's Creed games, Ubisoft needs a little more buzz surrounding it, and if the company keeps producing games as decent and immersive as Wildlands, a chance exists for them to regain their home run status. With high quality graphics and audio, a passable story, and smooth gameplay, it may be safe to assume Ubisoft is going back to producing quality over quantity.
Mass Effect: Andromeda succeeds in realizing BioWare's vision to make players feel like a Pathfinder making their way through the unknown. From the characters and plot, to the galaxy map and open planets, the studio uses a familiar set of ingredients to craft a new adventure that still bears the flavor of Commander Shepard and the Normandy. This game is an instance where, more than ever, the game genuinely gets better the more one plays. While not a perfect sequel, with issues that need to be addressed, both technically in the now and narratively in the future, BioWare has created a strong opening to a new story that is worthy of the Mass Effect mantle, while also forging a fresh path through the shadows of legend.
From OnlySP’s first impressions of the demo, Prey stood out as, perhaps, one of the best games of the year. Though the title does contain glitches that should not be expected after release and the progressive values of the narrative may unintentionally complicate the message the game espouses, Prey stands up to scrutiny. The stellar aspects of the game outweigh the negatives by a large margin. Fantastic writing, intelligent casting, comfortably difficult combat, and several bits of innovative game development make Prey thoroughly enjoyable and, undoubtedly, one of the better games that 2017 has produced thus far.
All-in-all, Injustice 2 is a polished experience, one that highlights the professional and well-practiced craft of NetherRealm Studios. The developer takes their Mortal Kombat experience and gives Injustice 2 all they have in their arsenal. Astonishing graphics, flexible mechanics, quality story, and fitting audio make Injustice 2 riveting and addicting. If NetherRealm continues to put forth this much effort into future titles, such as any possible upcoming Mortal Kombat installments, the company will achieve heights far greater than they already have. Players who love fighting games and DC Comics fans will find coming across a better game almost impossible. The game’s well-rounded roster and fresh Gear System cater to different playstyles, and the ever-changing Multiverse, along with upcoming DLC, will keep Injustice 2’s heart beating for quite some time.
The strong choice-based interactive narrative, clever writing, comic-grungy art style, and haunting/setting-and-situation-appropriate music culminate in a masterpiece of a season worth every penny of the admission fee. Every choice and the consequences they have on each character, particularly Clementine, is laid out to players at the end of the season finale in a beautiful tribute to those lost, those still alive, and those still needing to be found that should not be missed. Telltale has truly embarked on a new frontier in the gaming industry with this remarkable third season.
The game is lifeless, with anime stereotypes coming and going without any impact. The effete princess. The stoic soldier. The spunky one. A conflicted villain whose arc doubly disappoints by taking the entire course of the game to play out a single face turn. After all, if he had left the axis of evil sooner, the game could not recycle his boss fight three times. Honestly, criticising Revolution for resorting to overused cliches is an insult to better JRPGs that use anime stereotypes wonderfully. So much is worth commenting on as a lesson of what-not-to-do, but the above critique is more than enough. Valkyria Revolution is a dull action game, a wafer-thin war story, and a mishandling of the franchise: disappointing whether one played the previous games or not. Gamers know that Sega has so much more to offer, even if the series might now be buried for good thanks to this spin-off. Instead of revitalising a beloved property, Revolution is a snafu.
Despite the lack of cohesion between these elements, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice is a grand achievement. The game development community will surely look to the performance of the game’s sales to decide whether the shorter, lower-budget Triple A game is a viable proposition. However, the game’s quality provides a solid case for Ninja Theory’s experiment being a success.