http://playertheory.com/review en jeff@playertheory.com Copyright 2017 2017-07-30T04:23:05+00:00 //playertheory.com/reviews/this-is-the-police //playertheory.com/reviews/this-is-the-police#When:04:23:05Z That circle of mutuality is the gist of “This Is The Police.”
“This Is The Police” is a part visual novel, part management simulation game developed by Weappy and published by THQ Nordic and EuroVideo Medien. Players take control of Jack Boyd, Freeburg’s chief of police who is voiced excellently by Jon St. John. In this game, Boyd is being forced to retire and has 180 days to amass $500,000 for his retirement funds. Throw in the mafia into the mix, and we end up with a conundrum on our hands.
The game’s narrative is dark and gritty, presented in a series of visually-pleasing panels reminiscent of a comic book. Nobody has a face but everybody has a voice. Every now and then, players are asked to make choices during a conversation, the consequences of which are non-existent. In between cutscenes are swaths of management gameplay.
Managing your police force is really the foundation of this game. As the city’s police chief, you take care of assigning your squad to respond to various situations, ranging from a simple domestic disturbance to a complex bank robbery situation. Sometimes you also have to tell your squad how to handle the situation, which could result in either a successful apprehension or some downed officers. The juggling of various responsibilities and obligations become apparent very early on, and it can shape your experience later down the line.
Running Freeburg’s finest also turns out to be the game’s Achilles heel. Story cutscenes are far and few in between, leaving players with long stretches of personnel management. Each day only lasts for a few minutes, but it drags on for too long. Even the clever option of being able to change your background music while working only helps for a bit. Each cutscene feels like you're looking at the finish line of a long and grueling marathon - it glimmers with hope and provides a moment of respite. Except you’re not really finished and you still have to keep going.
The other pain point for the management sim is that it provides so little options for you to feel as if you’re progressing, yet it throws so many Godzilla-sized monkey wrenches at you. Every week you have an option to ask City Hall to give you mundane human resource needs such as more personnel and salary, which helps a lot if you’re in the position to get approved. However, your employees are just as likely to either make a sob story to go home or just not show up at all. You do have the option of fattening them up by hosting a barbecue party for them, but that costs money. And depending on how the random number generator deities feel about you, you may end up managing a day with three officers and six robberies.
Perhaps the most pleasant experience during the management session is when your squad asks for your advice on what to do. There will be instances where they don't quite know how to approach the situation, and it's up to you to decide how to handle it. There's usually an options to either handle it peacefully or end the interaction violently, and depending on what you choose it could either help your reputation with the City Hall or end up losing personnel. It's usually the small moments like these that help make you feel as if you're truly making a change in Freeburg.
Additionally, players also don’t have to do the entire 180 days to finish the game. There are quite a few instances where the game skips a certain number of days because of story-related reasons. This is more apparent near the end of the game, where cutscenes are more common and choices start to matter . . . or does it?
And herein lies the game’s biggest flaw: its story pretends to give you choices when in reality, it doesn’t. Some players have faced game overs because they did not take the prescribed path. It would have been perfectly acceptable if this path actually mattered in the entire plot or showed an alternate ending, but it didn’t. It was swept under the rug for the latter half of the game, never to be mentioned again. And the game’s actual ending? It was a bittersweet one that neither satisfies nor infuriates. It leaves too many questions unanswered while also making you feel as if you saw it coming.
Ignoring the social parallels, “This Is The Police” is a game that had great production but not so great execution. It far exceeds its welcome with a management simulation that asks you for more than it gives. The voice acting might be great, especially Jon St. John’s performance, but it falls just a wee bit short in making up for the game’s flaws. If you truly want to play the game, be sure to take breaks. “This Is The Police” might break you, just like how Freeburg broke Jack.
]]> 2017-07-30T04:23:05+00:00 //playertheory.com/reviews/the-final-station //playertheory.com/reviews/the-final-station#When:03:11:37Z The game places you in the shoes of a train engineer, with the daunting task of delivering cargo that could provide for the survival of the human race. Between cities, you are on the train, and during each train scene a piece of your train will inevitably start malfunctioning and need you to attend to it. Failure to do so forces your train grind to a stop until you've figured out how to keep that piece of the train functioning.
Each city presents you with the same challenge: find the blocker code so you can continue on your journey. Train travel is very restricted in this world, and even though you are tasked by the very government you are trying to save save, no exceptions can be made. These codes are delivered in advance to the station manager or another official in charge of the train station where you are arriving. Problems arise when these people need to wander off while waiting for you, and, typically, they are not just a quick jaunt away. At most stations, you start off very close to where the code is written on a piece of paper taped to the wall - though it is always behind a locked door or something which you cannot access.
Once you've retrieved the blockers code, you need to return to the train and climb aboard to continue. As the trains starts up again, you will be faced with those same malfunctions and, often, you will have passengers you need to attend to as well. They will require food and medical attention, which is provided to you through dispensers in the front of the train. Supplies that you find out in the cities will populate these dispensers, though you do have some ability to create items in the train, as well. If you fail to attend to any passenger that bottoms out on food or health, they will die (and you won't get the reward from ferrying them to their destination). On the plus side, however, you can fish through their pockets for any valuables they might have. Goody!
The atmosphere that the game provides is engaging, and I found myself interested in where the story was going; mostly wanting to see this "guardian" everyone was talking about. Each level is laid out by the games designers, leading to a very limited replay factor. Each stop is a repeat of the last - show up, find the blockers code, gather resources/survivors, kill monster things, return to the train and leave. Rinse and repeat. Many games have similar mechanics that follow a repeating pattern, but perhaps the limited scope of this game makes it seem more apparent. I didn't find it to be a huge bother, and was able to complete the game in short order.
The only complaint I have about this game is that often times you will get stuck in a situation that is not passable (60 tries to get through a set of enemies is more than enough, I think), and the checkpoint-ing system seems to kick in at random intervals. You might find yourself right outside the room you need to pass, or it might be down the street; forcing you to battle through a bunch of stuff you've passed already. Fortunately, exiting the game and re-entering provides you with a fresh start to the level; something I had to exercise a few times.
Overall I found this game to be delightful, and a welcome addition to my already massive steam library (unlike 1953 - KGB Unleashed, but that is a story for another day). The Final Station is available now on Steam for $14.99 at the time of this writing. It is well worth the money, especially factoring in the two person team that created it. I give it a hearty thumbs up!
]]> 2016-09-01T03:11:37+00:00 //playertheory.com/reviews/turnon //playertheory.com/reviews/turnon#When:03:27:30Z Platformer. A word that usually evokes thoughts of skillful jumps, falling into a rhythm, and barely avoiding deadly spikes. A type of game that is usually accompanied with held breaths, hushed anticipation, and clenched buttcheeks. A tooth and nail battle between the player and the game’s obstacles.
Relaxation is probably not in that list.
“TurnOn” is an interesting platformer involving slack electrical wires and slightly leaning electric poles. The product of a four-man team, Russian-based Brainy Studios, “TurnOn” features an electrical alien creature of the same name. Players control this creature as they journey to bring power back to a blackout city.
Other than having wires as platforms instead of rigid, straight planes, the game’s penchant for relaxing players lies behind its lack of dialogue and soothing soundtrack. Sound effects are limited, but for a good cause - they keep the experience free of distractions as much as possible. They easily blend in with the background, save for a few manufactured shrieks and grunts for the humans. Cutscenes are presented in a comic-book style, allowing for an easy-in-easy-out process while saving space in order to show the most number of panels.
The soundtrack, on the other hand, range from jazz-like tracks to easy-listen instrumentals. They match each stage perfectly - peaceful stages are accompanied by the soft, hushed tracks, while the slightly more stressful stages are more upbeat. Even the most touching cutscenes elicit just the right amount of emotion.
As for the gameplay itself, “TurnOn” boasts two kinds of platforming: free roam and autoscroller. Free roam stages usually require the player to fulfill some kind of small mission, ranging from helping light up the environment for a date to saving kids from a horribly failing ferris wheel. Collectibles come in the form of blue bolts and are half the requirement for getting a perfect rating for the stage. The other half involves giving power to lamps and air conditioning units strewn around the map. These two tasks provide points, which are tallied at the end of each stage and are assigned a one, two, or three light bulb rating.
One of the more interesting concepts of the free roam stages is the way the focus shifts from foreground to background as needed. Seemingly higher and unreachable wires are usually reached by a slight leap of faith and a sudden shift of focus planes. It’s a little scary at times, especially when making a significant jump from a high plane to low plane. It’s also slightly startling at the beginning, but throughout the game it becomes second nature.
Free roam stages also does not penalize the player for making a mistake. While it’s possible to fall off the platform, the only penalty is that the player is sent back to the last checkpoint. This means having to collect the blue bolts again as well as turning appliances on. It’s not so much of a penalty, considering that a player can fall off over and over again without any other repercussions. There are no lives to keep track of and no health points to keep an eye on. Exploration is encouraged - should you fall, simply try again.
The other kind of stages come in the form of autoscrolling levels. Given its nature, the path is more straightforward and there are only a set number of platforms to worry about. The goal is the same: collect all blue bolts and reach the end of the stage.
The main difference lies in the sudden difficulty spike. It is during these stages that players must summon some quick reactions in order to quickly change platforms. The speed is never the same - they slow down and speed up according to the accompanying soundtrack. Don’t be fooled, however. Even though the jumps seem like they are in tune with the soundtrack’s rhythm, they quickly go out of sync with the music. This makes for an awkward transition from enjoying the track to quickly ignoring it in order to keep going.
Aside from the lack of rhythm even though it sometimes sounds like there is, players need to make sure that their jumps are made at a specific spot. Aside from the obvious reasoning that jumping too early will cause you to miss and fall, the character TurnOn’s animation causes a split second delay when jumping right at the end of a wire. Thankfully, the developers have been diligent in adjusting these, so it’s possible that the game will no longer have this problem in the future.
Players must also avoid the red bolts which take away one of three energies available. Green bolts replenish lost energy one at a time, but losing all three of them leads to death. There are usually more red bolts falling at a much faster pace than green bolts, and some of the red ones even take away energy before they officially appear on screen. While not completely maddening, there will be times when stages will have to be restarted grumpily because three red bolts took away all of your energy in succession.
The last problem of these autoscrolling stages is the near-rote memorization requirement. As mentioned earlier, the speed of the scrolling is never the same. This means that you must be able to react quickly in order to get the most blue bolts. There are spots throughout these stages where they practically trap a player into catching a red bolt or dying. There will be times where it’s simply too late to swerve back to safety. Even with the cleverly hidden, yet automatically occurring checkpoints throughout the stage, it’s annoying to stare TurnOn’s doom in the face and not be able to do anything about it.
Thankfully, the graphics in “TurnOn” also contribute to the relaxing factor of the game. Considering the nature of the game - to bring light back to a blackout city - the game takes place during the night. All stages start with dimmed colors that are never dull or creepy enough to cause uneasiness. The town itself perfectly evokes a hometown feeling, what with its electric poles, houses close to each other, and townsfolk simply enjoying the nighttime.
It’s easy to just sit back, soak in the music, and take in the environment, but it gets even better when power is restored. The previously dim town suddenly regains its life back, bringing even more beauty to the night. Lights are bright, colorful, and familiar, making even the most questionable alleyway seem welcoming to its residents. It’s very satisfying to see the town light up again, thanks to your tireless efforts to hunt down every single lamp and electric poles. Pun notwithstanding, the difference between the two environments is akin to night and day.
Perhaps the most important facet of this game’s existence lies in the fact that this game is actually conveying a message about energy conservation. Even if the message is not presented right in front of your face, it’s easy to start feeling some sympathy for households without power, or to those who are unable to get food because the grocery store ran out of power. It’s no wonder that Brainy Studios, through this game, won the Games category of the 2014 Imagine Cup World Finals. It’s also no wonder that “TurnOn” won me over.
]]> 2016-08-24T03:27:30+00:00 //playertheory.com/reviews/ticks-tales-up-all-knight //playertheory.com/reviews/ticks-tales-up-all-knight#When:02:44:04Z aplenty. From horror stories to mystery-sniffing detectives to just a humorous jaunt down some lane, there’s always something available to cover this type of game. Yet Bryce Covert, the one-man team from Digital Bounce House, wanted something different. Something that goes against the norm of uber-heroic, super adventurous, ultra nail biting, and highly noble adventures. His response: “Tick’s Tales: Up All Knight.”
“Tick’s Tales” is an adventure point-and-click game sporting retro-style graphics and a narrative that doesn’t cater to the usual. Our titular character, Tick, is everything a hero is not: weak, easily scared, mischievous, and selfish. He really just wants to win the heart of the town beauty, Georgia McGorgeous.
Pulling out the Sword of Blergh wouldn’t hurt either.
The game starts you up in a dream sequence where it holds no punches back in showing its humor. It also serves as a tutorial of sorts, showing players how to use key items and manage their inventory. Everything is straightforward even though there are multiple choices for dialogue - the other choices are there simply to deliver humor. Once we’re awake, we are thrust smack-dab in the middle of town where we get our first quest. Loaded with that information, off to our adventure we go.
“Tick’s Tales” is a small game with only nine screens to travel through for the first half of the game. It’s also a testament to the game’s length - it can be finished in a few hours if you don’t get stuck in any of the puzzles. The meat of the game happens during daytime,where we get three quests simultaneously. There’s no required sequence to complete the quests, but their completion depends on when you get the necessary items. You also have a few more puzzles to be completed one at a time during the night.
The puzzles for this game are simple for the most part, but some players may find themselves unable to progress on a few of them. It’s not that the puzzles are hard and obscure, it’s simply because the solutions are very linear. Any alternatives you might think of will not work, such as using a balloon’s string for string instead of wool, or chopping open a teddy bear to get its white stuffing out because you can’t get the sheep to move closer to you.
In the grand scheme of things, the proper solutions make more sense. I knew I had to get wool but the sheep was too far away. Feeding it with carrots did not work (apparently, I had to click the ground with the carrot instead of clicking directly on the sheep) so I explored other options. I like that point-and-click games such as “Tick’s Tales” encourages creative thinking when needed, but it’s not fun when the difference between solving a puzzle and going nowhere is not clicking on that pixel perfect spot.
The humor is also good. I broke a smile here and there for some of the jokes that I found funny, while some of them were simply too obvious for me. Thankfully, the game was short so I never had to feel as if the humor was over-staying its welcome. The developer seemed to acknowledge this as well when he wrote one of the jokes to go on longer as intended, only to have Tick cut it short for us. The typical key-on-lock puzzle was also made fun of before actually making you perform that solution yourself.
And just like how this review is suddenly ending, I reached the game’s conclusion so suddenly that I was speechless for a few seconds. I’m not saying that to disparage the game in any way, especially if you consider the wordplay in the game’s title. I was simply taken aback when the game ended; I was just getting warmed up for more pointing and clicking! All loose ends were tied up and everything ended happily ever after. “Tick’s Tales: Up All Knight” is definitely a fun and quick nod to the adventure games of yesteryear.
]]> 2016-07-28T02:44:04+00:00 //playertheory.com/reviews/hearts-of-iron-iv //playertheory.com/reviews/hearts-of-iron-iv#When:02:31:46Z That’s the magic of “Hearts of Iron IV,” Paradox Interactive’s latest entry in their World War II grand strategy games. This time, players must choose whether to start during 1936, in order to have more time to prepare for war, or 1939, when the war is already ongoing. Players can also choose to play as any country they want. Want to conquer the world as Estonia, stopping both the Soviets’ advance and the German Reich’s march? Go right ahead. Want to take over the entire South American continent instead? You can do that too.
For my playthrough, I picked an obvious choice and played as the Soviet Union. I started my campaign in 1936, with the goal of taking over the world while channeling my inner M. Bison (“Of course!”) After all, Soviet Union boasts a huge landmass, not to mention its strategic view of Europe and Asia. What could go wrong, right?
Well apparently, everything.
Before I could even wage war with the world, I had to fight my own battles first with the game’s interface. I took my time to read the 27-page beginner’s guide and took notes on what I needed to do as an aspiring military genius. I revisited the document several times, and by the time I finished my third reading, I decided I was ready. I booted up the game and quietly admired the images shown to me while it was loading.
I picked my country (Soviet Union) and year (1936), and was immediately overwhelmed by the amount of buttons presented to me. My mind raced with thoughts of “What does that one do?” and “I didn’t mean to click that.” I knew I needed to build factories and improve infrastructures. I also wanted to make sure that the troops were properly armed, and that my researchers were working on improving technology. I only have three years before the Germans start moving, but for Comrade Pete’s sake, someone tell me what to click!
After taking a few hours of break because I simply was too overwhelmed with the bloated interface, I took to the beginner’s guide for the fourth time. Things started making more sense to me as I recognized the contents better. I took control of my country’s construction and recruited troops for training. I assigned researchers to work on various sciences while I enlisted generals to lead my fighters. Eventually, I started planning out my first invasion while keeping an eye on Central Europe.
Yet even though I was progressing as intended, I found it unfortunate that I still needed my internet browser open at all times simply because there were still too many things left unexplained. The game’s dedicated wiki page and the Paradox Interactive forums were both very helpful, especially when I couldn’t figure out how to send out my air fleet. I clicked where I was told to click, but I still wasn’t sure if it even did anything.
Thankfully, the Soviet Union’s size allowed for massive army recruitment. I compensated for my lack of understanding of air and naval deployment with large ground troops. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania all fell to my hands easily. Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Saudi Arabia were taken over with no sweat. I was poised to take Greece and Turkey. All while avoiding the large swaths of British and French territory in Africa.
By the time the 1950s rolled around, the world was vastly different than what history books portrayed. I staged coups in US, Great Britain, Poland, Sweden, and Germany. Taking smaller countries to slowly expand my influence became harder with each American and British occupation, so I adopted a more sinister plan: stage a coup and implement a communist regime if you can’t take the country by force. I suppose the plan somewhat worked, because I ended up with the US being completely communist and I saw the rise of Union of Britain and Communist Germany.
Yet despite my attempts to distract the Allied countries, they still hated my Middle Eastern expansionism. They probably calculated that by taking away Sinkiang from me, I would be unnerved and start panicking. I tried to take Sinkiang back with my newfound nuclear weapons, but everyone turned their backs on me and declared war instead. Leningrad was quickly lost and my oil fields were being taken over by British troops deployed from British Raj. Falangist Poland made a new coalition with Communist Sweden and Communist Germany, and proceeded to declare war against me too.
My downfall came swiftly after.
My narrative may have ended in the late ‘50s, but my struggle with AI decisions and the interface never ended. Many a restart was done because the country I was currently invading at the time would suddenly join the Allies, prompting 30 or so nations to simultaneously declare war on me. They would mobilize their troops quicker than The Flash, and my goodwill of granting military access to some of them quickly became a way for them to attack from the inside.
And while I admit that my planning was that of a 1-year-old kid trying to play “Minecraft,” I still cannot deny the handicap that “Hearts of Iron IV” has given me as a beginner. The barrier to entry for beginners is extremely high, and it’s clear that each game in the “Hearts of Iron” series caters more to series veterans, as evidenced by longtime players saying that this game’s interface is actually easier to navigate. I’m sure any dedicated beginner can conquer this game, but they have an uphill battle ahead of them.
Don’t get me wrong, “Hearts of Iron IV” is not a bad game by any means. The music is beautiful and the world map looks fantastic. It’s fun to implement your strategies and see them to fruition. It’s satisfying to see your current scenario completely deviate from what is considered as historically accurate. Perhaps I will give the game another try in the future. Armed with what I learned from this playthrough, I should be able to fare better. But for now…
“Hearts of Iron IV” interface: 1. Me: 0.
]]> 2016-07-14T02:31:46+00:00 //playertheory.com/reviews/inside //playertheory.com/reviews/inside#When:03:02:20Z In an overdramatic sense that’s kind of the predicament I’m in. Game reviews are supposed to evaluate a game’s artistic contributions, and maybe inform consumers along the way. The problem here is that "Inside’s" best moments are its left turns that are best experienced, not discussed. Throughout the three-hour-ish campaign, it was these points that have burned into my brain as some of my favourite gaming experiences in recent memory, and I’d be doing you a disservice to simply explain them. Unfortunately, while these highs were enjoyable landmarks on the journey, the road between rarely elevated above a very good platformer.
The DNA of developer Playdead’s previous game, "Limbo," is on full display in Inside’s storytelling. "Inside’s" first chapters feel remarkably similar to its predecessor. "Limbo" told the tale of a lonely boy navigating physics-based puzzles presented entirely in greyscale. Never ones to play it safe, Playdead’s follow-up tells the tale of a lonely boy navigating physics-based puzzles presented with some desaturated colour.
While that’s an oversimplification, the point stands that if you didn’t enjoy the subtle allusions to story in "Limbo", you won’t find much reward in Inside. The first chapter drops you into a forest and has you running across the screen past shadowy figures hell-bent on catching you because…well, I’m not really sure. Much of the world-building and story beats are rendered in the background of platforming sequences, and force you to read between the lines and to infer your own meaning. Personally, the mystery of why I was running from these people lost its lustre when I realized I wouldn’t be getting any real answers.
To its credit, "Inside" is unwavering it is commitment to tell a vague story through the campaign’s end. It’s one of those points that’s hard to explain without ruining it, but the final act is a bold statement on whatever the game’s message is. I think no matter your take on its subtle storytelling, it’s certainly worth seeing through to experience the final chapter. It’s definitely one of those moments that will continue to be discussed in gaming circles for many years on.
I’d have more problems with "Inside’s" passive storytelling if it wasn’t so beautifully imagined. If you had any question as to why a three-hour game took six years to produce, the proof is in its painstakingly realized world. All the sprawling backgrounds and character models feel handcrafted in a way that is unmatched by any other game. While being a platformer relegates the action to two dimensions, I was awestruck by the depth every landscaped incorporated.
In motion, I was consistently surprised by the breadth and quality of animations they programmed into making your character respond to every conceivable action. Press up against a door and he’ll place his hands accordingly, or fall from a great height and he’ll catch his balance in step with your analog direction. These minor animation flourishes go a long way in feeling in control of the character.
If there’s one quality that stood out in 2010’s "Limbo," it was the gruesome death animations. Over the course of the game, the poor boy was fed to spiders, mashed by metal presses, and ripped apart in just about every conceivable way. In "Limbo," death was the language that told you whatever approach you were solving the puzzle with, wasn’t working. While serving a similar purpose in "Inside," half the fun is watching these animations play out and the sense of dread you feel when you sense the next one coming.
Just as "Inside" iterated on the visual stylings of its predecessor, the gameplay has also remained intact with minor quality of life improvements. If you’ve played a platformer in the last five years, there’s nothing here that will shock you; the boy’s journey has him sliding crates, ascending ropes and stomping door switches. Thankfully, I noted a reduced emphasis on the trial-and-error component that was essential in "Limbo." The noteworthy added mechanic revolves around taking control of zombie-like NPCs to aid your puzzle solving, either pushing heavier crates or literally throwing your character to new heights. These sequences paired well with the game’s macabre tone and added a new layer of depth to the puzzles.
Everything told, the mileage you’ll get out of "Inside" will depend entirely on your personal preferences. Much of the gameplay isn’t terribly difficult, and the story places a lot of breadcrumbs that don’t really go anywhere, so temper your expectations accordingly. After finishing it, I see the game more as a tour through a beautifully imagined environment rather than a trial of your platforming ability. That said, a small asking price and runtime of no more than four hours means "Inside" doesn’t demand a whole lot from you, and for that reason I think it’s certainly worth checking out.
]]> 2016-07-12T03:02:20+00:00 //playertheory.com/reviews/doom //playertheory.com/reviews/doom#When:02:50:36Z 2016. In 1993, the original Doom blazed trails for the FPS genre and is universally regarded as a watershed moment for gaming’s lurch into mainstream culture. Challenging Id for a remake that honours the original while still standing out from the wave of shooters released since is no small ask. Thankfully, Id has brushed aside all expectations to deliver an uncompromising vision of exactly what a "Doom" game should be in 2016.
To Hell and Back Again
"Doom"’s cold open is your first indication that this isn’t just another corridor shooter. Our hero (aptly named “The Doom Slayer”) emerges from a stone sarcophagus with orders to close a portal from hell that scientists mistakenly opened to solve an energy crisis. Yeah... it’s not a terribly engaging hook but Doom’s subversive storytelling makes it clear that it’s not supposed to be. Within minutes, Doom Slayer is smashing audio logs and disregarding any specific directions barked from your guide. The way "Doom" constantly alludes to these genre staples then sidesteps them completely is refreshing and empowering as a player.
Over the course of the game, your travels between intergalactic space stations and the depths of Hell are punctuated by beautifully-realized worlds. Id deftly captures feelings of isolation and you-against-the-world mentality in Mars’ research facilities, and the spires of Hell capture a neo-gothic feel that hasn’t been matched since 1993’s original. References to the original "Doom" are abound in the form of hidden tokens and secret passages complete with a glitch-metal soundtrack. The way the music ratchets up on each kill and adds guitar riff flourishes to glory kills keeps you pumped. And for those wanting to dive deeper, there’s plenty of lore to uncover via the detailed codex library, just don’t expect any extended cutscenes to develop character or plot.
What’s a Reload Button?
Perhaps most telling of "Doom’s" respect for its predecessors, the gameplay really takes centre stage here. Generally speaking, the minute-to-minute is very simple: kill enemies, move onto the next room, repeat, but the constantly evolving encounter design keeps things fresh and exciting through the campaign.
The arenas are exquisitely crafted, making great use of vertical and horizontal space, with character and enemy movement responding accordingly. Doom Slayer has a generous clamber ability that allows him to chase down or kite enemies that deftly wind their way through the varied environments. The most interesting addition to the series is the “glory kills.” Whittle down an enemy’s health to near-zero and you’re rewarded with the opportunity to dispose of them with a gory animation and bonus health pickups. The kills are not only incredibly satisfying, but add a whole layer of complexity to gun-play strategy.
Alright, enough about systems and platforming. We know what you came to "Doom" for: an arsenal of weapons and frenzied combat. Thankfully, those staples have arrived perfectly intact. The drip feed of new weapons and upgrades is paced throughout the campaign so that you never quite feel comfortable. These upgrades are added instep with new enemy types, forcing you to constantly adapt your play-style on the fly. You’re regularly scoping health/armor and ammo pickups as you enter each new area, as you’ll find yourself starving for both on a regular basis. Aside from a few moments where the path to the next objective wasn’t entirely apparent, "Doom’s" gameplay proves Id learned the most important lessons from the original.
Big Fucking Game
For as amazing each of the game’s components are, Id’s efforts are truly greater than the whole. "Doom" demands an aggressive play-style, constantly swapping weapons and charging enemies with the fires of hell at your back. This destructive gameplay is echoed throughout all elements of the game’s presentation, from the ghoulish tone to the screaming soundtrack. The series that pioneered a genre has done the near-impossible in once again pushing shooters forward in a meaningful way.
]]> 2016-07-12T02:50:36+00:00 //playertheory.com/reviews/wanda-a-beautiful-apocalypse //playertheory.com/reviews/wanda-a-beautiful-apocalypse#When:01:12:34Z And then there’s “Wanda.”
Myanmar-based Kodots Games describes “Wanda” as a “tale of … finding companionship, love and hope in a wasteland.” The game introduces itself through a blue robot that somehow avoided damage, emerging out of its pod before starting its journey in search of anything that responds. About a third of the way through, we meet another robot, this time red, and our small band of robots continue their journey in search of… anything.
“Wanda” prides itself in being a “minimalist story-rich puzzle,” and rightly so. This game has no dialogues at all, only running with a series of robotic sounds and unknown symbols. Paired with the game’s soundtrack and a few bits of sound effects, the players are left on their own to observe and draw the story out for themselves. But is it really effective?
I have to admit, there’s something inherently sad about a robot repeatedly making the same sound more than 50 times, which I assumed meant “Hello,” only to get no response. The beautiful artwork accentuates the feeling of sadness, leaving you to wonder what really happened in that world. It’s clever, really, to make the player feel a sense of tragedy with everything that’s broken on the ground, only to juxtapose the scene with the beauty of the starry night sky. It’s a conflicting feeling, to say the least.
However, I’d be lying if I said that “Wanda” hit me in my emotional sweet spot. Yes, I felt bad for our blue robot, cheered for him when he met the red robot, and felt bad for them when they’re being scared by thunderstorms, but I never quite connected with them as much. Their journey did not feel normal to me - it felt controlled and contrived. It felt as if their travels were simply a means to move the story along.
The big plot reveal near the end did nothing to help this feeling, but instead magnified it. What could have been broken down into little intriguing morsels of information, to be scattered around as we journeyed through the world, was instead dumped on us at the last minute. There was a lot to be learned from that revelation and it answered a lot of questions I had, but the way it was presented was very uncharacteristic for the game. It was nice to finally learn of its overarching story, but I wish it wasn’t at the expense of my small connection to the robots.
Perhaps I could also blame the placement and nature of the puzzles for my slight inability to completely connect to the story. You see, “Wanda” has an established cycle of narration-control-puzzle. In narration mode, we see a series of scenes showing our robots interacting and travelling. We have no control during this time. At the end of this phase, we are suddenly given the ability to move in order to reach the next area where a puzzle awaits us.
The problem with this cycle lies first on the transition from narration to player control, and the nature of the puzzle second. Narrations vastly outnumber the opportunities for us to control the robots, so most of the time we are simply watching the scenes roll by. It’s great for immersion, but it’s immediately broken when the game hands the controls to us. There’s no clear indication that it’s our turn. The robots simply stop moving and the scene ceases to advance. More often than not, I found myself saying, “Oh, I guess I gotta move now.”
The other problem, as I mentioned earlier, is the nature of the puzzles. There’s only about five puzzles in the game, none of which are complete brain-twisters. A common staple for these puzzles is the energy system, which dictates how many moves we can do before have to replenish it. This system adds to the complexity of the puzzles and encourages strategic planning, which is great on one hand but not on the other.
The main weakness of the puzzles and the energy system is the fact that it requires you to be perfect in one go. Its unforgiving nature serves nothing but to add frustration to those who are still trying to learn the puzzle. Trial and error is severely punished - opportunities to replenish your energy bar are very limited. Creativity is also penalized because the puzzles are designed to be solved in a specific way, making use of every single drop of energy you have.
You will find yourself resetting the puzzles quite a few times, which would have been fine if it didn’t reset the entire puzzle sequence. Later puzzles have four or so parts to it, and having to reset the entire run because of a misstep is maddening. Rote memorization to solve multi-part puzzles is not fun. Would it really hurt to let us reset just that part of the puzzle instead of the entire run?
Those who no longer want to deal with one more puzzle reset eventually get the option of skipping the entire puzzle. While I think it’s unfortunate to have this option (almost as if the developers have little faith for us to solve the puzzles), it’s great for those who don’t want to get bogged down with more puzzle resets and to just move on with the story. I had to use this on the last puzzle because after several attempts, I refused to draw maps and memorize routes. It was no longer a challenging puzzle to me.
Despite all the complaints I have for “Wanda: A Beautiful Apocalypse,” I still commend the developers for all the efforts they poured into this game. The artwork is beautiful. The soundtrack, while it sounds inappropriately grand on some scenes, is wonderful. The story concept, despite all the hiccups in puzzles and pacing, is genuinely touching. At worst, “Wanda” probably would have been a better concept for an animated short, where we could watch the events unfold without having to interrupt itself. At best, “Wanda” is a game that succeeds in evoking deep thoughts and emotions without ever uttering a single comprehensible word. And I think that’s the magic of it.
]]> 2016-06-28T01:12:34+00:00 //playertheory.com/reviews/transocean-2-rivals //playertheory.com/reviews/transocean-2-rivals#When:00:18:14Z Though with our increasing reliance on “Made In China” products, those good stuff on trucks need to be shipped here first. If you were collecting amiibo in early 2015, then you’re familiar with the port strikes that affected the product’s supplies, as well as others. A multitude of megaships sat idly on the waters, waiting for their good stuff to be unloaded. For shipping companies, that was a nightmare.
If only I owned a shipping company…
“TransOcean 2: Rivals” is developer Deck13’s sequel to their shipping company simulation and economy management game, “TransOcean: The Shipping Company.” The “Rivals” part in the title hints mostly to the multiplayer aspect of the game, but it can also be considered a part of the story.
Didn’t think a shipping tycoon game could have a story? Neither did I.
The story for this game seems to pick up right where I assume the first game left off, which I haven’t played before. Our avatar is a former shipping magnate who has been reduced to bankruptcy, living life out in the boonies until a lady named Heather Witherspoon approaches us. She introduces herself as the sister of our former advisor, and she wants our help in raising money to pay for her brother’s exorbitant bail. In order to do so, she needs us to helm a shipping company again. With our reluctant agreement, the game’s story mode begins.
“TransOcean 2” does a great job in introducing game mechanics to newcomers. Within each chapter is a new mechanic, and by the time we reach the last chapter, we need to use everything we’ve learned in order to succeed. The tutorials are thorough and easy to learn, thanks to their step-by-step examples and hands-on opportunities. Continental regions are introduced gradually in order to give us a feeling of expansion, and to let us get acclimated with the increasing shipping demands. The map, where we will spend the majority of our time, has several viewing options to help us with what we need to do. Those who already know how to play can also opt to skip the tutorial.
The only problem with the tutorial is that you are forced to take time out of the chapter to satisfy the requirements. I found myself failing some missions because I lost valuable time and resources trying to follow the directions. Eventually, I just decided to go ahead and do the tutorials before restarting the chapter anew.
Considering that the mechanics are integral to your success, the tutorials should not have been designed to be executed at the cost of your mission time. The tutorials should have been a separate instance which closes as soon as you’re done. Imagine if your math teacher started teaching your class the basics of parabola on test day while time is ticking. You’d be hard-pressed to finish the test on time.
Once the tutorial is over, you can finally set sail and start conquering the seas. Each chapter has three assigned goals - you only need to fulfill one in order to unlock the next chapter. Fulfilling all three goals per chapter doesn’t really net you any bonus, other than bragging rights and a gold medal.
But before you even think of nabbing that gold medal, be prepared to click a lot. This game, which I lovingly called “Carpal Tunnel Click Fest” at one point, pits you against computer players that operate a little too perfectly. They’re not impossible to beat later on in each chapter, but they gain ground against you very quickly in the beginning.
This results in a mad dash to your micromanagement zen, this game’s true heart and soul. Each chapter, you are left to micromanage your growing fleet of ships in order to meet the minimum goal. You click through a lot of screens just to load your ships up. Even though you can disable some of the interfaces that pop up, there are still a lot of clicking to do when you’re managing 25 or so ships. You click to buy a ship. You click to pick a contract. You click to take that contract. You click on a destination to sail your ship in order to fulfill that contract. You click to fast-forward time because let’s face it, watching your ship sail slowly is gutwrenchingly boring. You click to check your ship’s gas and maintenance level. You get the idea.
An option to automate your ships does come up eventually, but even then, this option is really more trouble than it’s worth. Ignoring the nominal fee for automation, you can only assign up to four stops. Each automated ship picks up contracts at every assigned port and sails on to the next one. All is good until the ship reaches its last stop, where it simply sits there while waiting for you to automate it again.
While it does save a few clicks or so, the automation does not feel very automated at all. You still have to micromanage it, and unless you set it to go on longer routes, the ship will bug you every few minutes. It eventually gets to the point where it’s quicker to just pick the contracts yourself, which completely defeats the purpose. I get it, in real life you can’t just send a ship out and make it get contracts automatically, but there has to be an easier way than just sending out four stops to each unit before they have to contact you again. How about eight stops? Or even ten?
Every once in a while, you get a notification about a tugboat company going on strike at specific ports. If you’re affected, you have the option of driving the ship out of the port yourself or waiting it out. Choosing the former option pits you against a minigame, where you must steer the ship out of the dock and into the sea.
I found myself failing miserably at this because of the third person view. Ignoring the effects of water and the wide turning radius of ships, trying to steer a ship in top-down view is maddening. Yes, it gives you a view of your ship’s backside to make sure you don’t buttbump anything, but you don’t turn where you think you’re turning. A simple tap on the keyboard sends you swooshing away farther than expected, and before you know it, you’re now just focusing your energy trying to correct yourself. I’ve never seen such amount of oversteering until I tried this minigame. Perhaps I’m just not used to it, but I think I’ll go ahead and wait the day out.
When you’re not clicking furiously to keep your fleet moving or carefully maneuvering your megaship out of the dock, this game actually has an interesting learning curve. It starts out fairly hard, causing me to restart a mission three or four times because I either failed it or realized that I wouldn’t make it. It wasn’t until chapter three that it clicked on me: I had been focusing my efforts on the wrong type of ship. I started buying a specific type of ship en masse, and before I knew it I was steamrolling my computer opponents. It even got to the point where I had to play a chapter in two separate sessions because my success got really boring...And that’s something I never thought I would say.
The problem lies in the micromanaging aspect, the ineffectiveness of the automation process, and the double-edged pause option. While I already talked in detail about the first two, the pause option was actually something that was added separately in an update. In campaign mode, time is paused every time you’re picking contracts and destinations for your ship. This means that you can spend a minute or two loading up your huge fleet, fast forward time to actually progress (which only takes about four to seven seconds on 3x speed depending on the route), and do it all over again.
While it’s great to avoid fees and freeze your opponents’ actions while you’re deciding or taking a bite out of your ice cream, the pause option stops the game’s “time.” An entire day can take several minutes to finish, depending on how fast you click and how many ships you have. When you take into consideration that each chapter usually gives you about 180 or so days, this can easily translate to several hours of intense clicking. Not only does it get boring, but it also starts hurting the wrist.
Chapter six marks the end of the campaign mode. The chapter’s title alone is enough to send chills down your spine. Who knew a simulation/tycoon game could have such a menacing final boss? Unfortunately, the suspense ends right there. You know how in other games, the final boss usually has the strongest attacks or the trickiest set of attacks to avoid? Well in “TransOcean 2,” the final boss doesn’t fight back. He just sits there, doing his shipping business while you mercilessly beat his business down to a pulp. He doesn’t fight back and he doesn’t even try to give you a scare or two. You steamroll him to oblivion, and he doesn’t do a damn thing to stop it.
I’ve spent all this time talking about gameplay because the game’s story is actually barebones, and quite frankly, slightly unnecessary. It’s a great excuse to divide up each game mechanic and introduce it to the player every chapter, but the plot couldn’t be any simpler. It’s also an excuse to have cheesy, but not bad, voice acting.
Your advisor, which you eventually bail out of jail, is a cross between a plot device and a deus ex machina. He knows how exactly to move the plot along by discovering loopholes for your computer rivals, leaving it up to you to use your cash to fulfill his prophecies. You celebrate your success at the end of each chapter, rinse and repeat.
Once the story mode ended happily ever after, I decided to hop online to try out the multiplayer option. I figured it would be injustice to this game if I didn’t try that option, considering its name. Though I’m afraid I must bring disappointment because I never found anybody to play with online. There were no public, or even private, rooms to play in, it was barren and desolate.
Eventually I decided to set up a public room, with capacity set to the max of eight people. Even though nobody came, I got a feel for how the multiplayer option plays (or at least the beginning stages). Unlike in single player campaign where you always start off with two or three ships (seriously, where do my previous fleet of 25+ go?), you have to use your starting money to buy your very first ship. It takes a little while to get established financially, but I imagine this would definitely set up a competitive stage.
The sad thing, other than the lack of people to play with, is that you cannot pause time in multiplayer. While this makes sense (it would be weird to suddenly not be able to do anything because another player is picking out contracts), you immediately feel the effects of having time run even when you’re just paying for gas. You get hit with fees left and right before you even have a chance to give your wrist a break.
Obviously you also cannot fast-forward time in multiplayer..This means that you have to stare at your ships on the map and count sheeps until they reach their destinations. You can use this opportunity to take a break and stretch, but it’s really, really boring. Along with the inability to pause time, not being able to fast-forward gave me a weird, conflicting feeling. I felt bored waiting for my ships to reach port, but I felt stressed and rushed whenever I have to set the ship to its next destination.
There’s also a single-player endless mode available, but at this point I’m all out of steam. I suppose if I really liked watching my ships move around the beautifully-colored world map, listen to the four rotating tracks, and test the limits of how much cash you can hoard (I got up to 35 billion Euros in Chapter 6), I could hop in this mode and just let it roll. But with the stressful six-chapter clickmania and the barren lands of multiplayer, I found myself staring at my limit. Plank me, captain. My sea-legs no longer serve me.
]]> 2016-06-28T00:18:14+00:00 //playertheory.com/reviews/bravely-second //playertheory.com/reviews/bravely-second#When:22:23:24Z Just like its predecessor, “Bravely Second” takes place in Luxendarc, this time with four new towns to discover (one in each continent). The new towns, despite their beautiful hand-drawn backgrounds, were simply new dots on pre-existing continents. Only half of them had new dungeons for us to crawl through, while the other two simply acted either as a springboard between plot points or a pit stop between trips.
Of course, what good are new towns if we don’t have a main campaign to focus on? Our main character this time is a young man named Yew Geneolgia, leader of the Crystalguard’s “Three Cavaliers.” With the Orthodoxy’s newly anointed Pope Agnes Oblige abducted, it’s up to Yew and his friends to save her from the clutches of evil.
Those who were expecting Magnolia Arch to be the focus of this story is in for some serious disappointment. Magnolia gets relegated as a French-speaking secondary character whose story is, well, secondary. Despite her being the focus of the collector’s edition box art and the teaser trailer, her importance in the game is severely downplayed.
Meanwhile, we spend a good two-thirds of the game playing catch up to the Kaiser Oblivion, this game’s advertised villain, who flies around in his nifty little flying fortress known as the “Skyhold.” Along the way we meet the Kaiser’s supporters, each one holding the asterisks of the new jobs. We also meet Anne, the Kaiser’s gratingly loyal and schemingly brutal fairy.
While the story may sound straightforward for now, it doesn’t end with the Kaiser’s defeat. Fashioned after its predecessor, there’s another story beneath all the initial conflict. The only problem is that once you understand the scope of that underlying story, it all seems like an arbitrary way to provide a “twist” using the same old technique back in “Default.”
Instead of a cleverly crafted plot twist for end game purposes, we get a half-baked idea of a story that is forcefully shoehorned into the lore. It really becomes a bitter pill to swallow when the game forces us to accept that the story is really all about some people whom we had little connection to. “Bravely Second” forces us to care about characters that we haven’t even met, even going as far as creating the final boss around it.
All I can say is that I hope you like constellations.
Silicon Studio also brought back the same “Brave and Default” battle system from the first game but with some little tweaks here and there. Fans of this system will be glad to know that there are now chain battles, which occur whenever your party ends the battle within the opening turn. The chain battles progressively increase the amount of experience and money earned with an increasing multiplier, but at the risk of getting completely wiped out as you take more hits. This new feature makes leveling and earning money a lot easier, as well as completing journal entries for those who lean more towards the completionist side.
Another new helpful feature we got this time is the ability to control encounter rates. There are five settings: +100%, +50%, 0%, -50%, and -100%. Encounters are set to 0% by default, which does not mean that there are no encounters. The pluses and minuses are actually multipliers; +100% yields twice as much encounters, while -100% completely removes them.
The third new feature we have is the ability to repeat, and even save, certain actions within a turn so that we can repeat them over different battles. While obviously not advisable for boss battles, the new “Repeat Command” option gives autoplay more bang for its buck. We can store up to three commands to use on different occasions, and we are free to break out of it by the next turn with just a push of the Y button.
Yet despite all these improvements, Silicon Studio devised a way to artificially increase playtime. Our in-game journal still has the bestiary, but we now have to defeat each enemy several times before it is marked complete. This is no problem for common enemies, but for those with significantly lower encounter rates, it’s almost excruciating. Even with encounter rates at +100%, waiting for that rare enemy to appear is enough to put a bull to sleep. Some dungeons later in the game also disable the ability to change encounter rates, which makes the wait even longer. Though for what it’s worth, our main characters’ banter on the bestiary entries is mildly amusing, making bestiary completions feel slightly more rewarding.
Those wanting to take a break from the usual bloodbath have the option of dowsing for treasure instead. With the help of the Freelancer class skill “Divining Rod,” you can accurately track how many more items you have left to find. The downside? Every single map has hidden treasures which are not indicated by any glowing orb or red treasure chests. You find them by walking against walls and sniffing out hidden passages, and then wait for that special time when the “Inspect” option comes up. It’s easy enough to do on small rooms, but the fact that the overworld has a separate count of hidden treasure is insane. Considering the vast, mountainous lands and the small peppering of solitary islands around Luxendarc, trying to find every single hidden treasure in the overworld is asinine.
As far as music goes, “Bravely Second” seems to offer a mixed bag of goodies. Even those who have not played “Bravely Default” agree that Revo’s work in composing the soundtrack was phenomenal. Each track more or less portrayed its feelings perfectly, while character themes all had distinct sounds that differentiate them from one another. Which is why when it was announced that Supercell’s Ryo would take over the musical helm, “Bravely” veterans knew that he had big shoes to fill.
Perhaps those shoes proved to be a tad too big for Ryo. His tracks are hit or miss: at best, they rival some of Revo’s best tracks, at worst, they sound incredibly unremarkable. Take the typical cave music, for example. It’s hard to take in the environment seriously when the music immediately assumes a juvenile curiosity that descends onto a two-note crash:
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On the other hand, Ryo’s theme for Kaiser Oblivion is worthy of grandiose and excitement. Even if the Kaiser is your enemy, his theme simply commands a sense of awe:
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Yet it’s almost as if Silicon Studio could not decide which direction to take the game musically. Their decision to keep some of Revo’s tracks, juxtaposed with Ryo’s new tracks creates a jarring sound that makes the older tracks sound horribly dated and the newer tracks sound uninspired. Kudos to Ryo for agreeing to work on a video game soundtrack, but it’s clear that this is not his forte. His area of expertise is somewhere else and it shows.
Once you get past the music, you are faced with another insurmountable annoyance: the dialogue. “Bravely Second” relies too much on quirks and catchphrases to make characters seem remotely memorable. The Kaiser likes to deny, Magnolia keeps saying “Ah la vache!” and Yew likes gravy a lot. Even though these characters have their own motivations, it’s hard to remember them more as people and less as their catchphrases.
Though in the end, I cannot deny that I still somewhat enjoyed my playtime with “Bravely Second.” Chompcraft provided an adequate escape to the constant grind of the bestiary, while the completionist tasks gave me something more to look forward to. The additional features attached to the battle system also made leveling really easy (maybe a bit too easy). There were a few plot surprises here and there, and “Bravely Second” definitely did not seem afraid to break the fourth wall. It was charming in its own way.
But at the same time, I would be lying if I said that “Bravely Second” gave me a completely new experience as a sequel. If you don’t mind the story being only two years after “Default,” the plot for “Bravely Second” has the same exact structure as its predecessor. Our main villain is not well justified in their reasons. Character developments came through as cheesy catchphrases and romantic pair-ups. Older classes that survived the cut were overshadowed by their newer counterparts. Nothing looked and felt new. Just the same stuff from “Default” recycled into a sequel.
At the very least, “Bravely Second” is an okay follow-up for those who liked the first game. Apologies again to the newcomers who got the first game spoiled to them unceremoniously. Let’s hope that by the third game, if there is one, they don’t spend an entire chapter spoiling the first two games for us.
This is my coup de gravy. And this is Silicon Studio’s courage to try again.
]]> 2016-06-04T22:23:24+00:00