Tag Archives: Video Games

iReview – BATMAN ARKHAM KNIGHT

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BATMAN – ARKHAM KNIGHT

Publisher: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
Developer: Rocksteady Studios
Platform: Xbox One
Availability: Xbox One, PS4, Windows

Batman Arkham Knight, possibly the final game in Rocksteady’s amazing trilogy, once again brings Batman out for one long night. The main villains this time around are Scarecrow (again), threatening to release his Fear gas across the whole city, and the Arkham Knight, a new villain, who is trying to take out Batman with his not-so-small army of tanks and drones.

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Some of the series’ standard villains return: Poison Ivy, Penguin, Two-Face, Riddler, and Harley Quinn. Some of the lesser, side-mission villains include: Firefly, Man-Bat, Deathstroke, Professor Pyg, Deacon Blackfire, and Hush.

The game takes place in Gotham City, and on Halloween, one year after the death of the Joker. Scarecrow has made threats against the city. He’s planning on releasing his Fear toxin by means of explosive devices littered around town. The city has since been evacuated, and all that’s left is the bad guys.

After a brief boss battle with Scarecrow early on, Batman finds himself trapped, trying to disable the Fear gas bombs in an enclosed chamber. He does this, knowingly risking his own health, and against the better judgment of dear ol’ Alfred. As a result of this event, Batman has directly exposed himself to the Scarecrow’s Fear toxin, and for the remainder of the game we now have our long-lost friend The Joker, in our brain. The story is that the Joker, before he died, injected Batman (and a few others) with his own blood. This, combined with the Scarecrow Fear toxins, has fully revived the Joker, but only in Batman’s head. This is the best part of the game. When continuing along with the rest of the story, it seems that whenever you turn around, Joker is waiting for you, and talking away. You can turn and face the other way, and he’ll follow.

The idea and technology behind this mechanic is awesome, as the Joker always seems to appear out of nowhere, and more than once startled me with his presence.

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Like the previous Arkham games, the city is wide open. In this version of Gotham, the city is split into 3 islands. By wing, you can coast and fly to each one, but you’ll have to progress through the story to lower the bridges, so that the Batmobile can follow. As well, the story progression will see you come up against the main supervillains and the Arkham Knight himself, but there are plenty of other side missions to complete along the way. Each mission requiring a certain number of completed tasks before coming up against that specific side boss directly. With Firefly, you’ll need to extinguish burning buildings and rescue firefighters, Two-face is robbing banks, Penguin has bomb stashes that need to be destroyed, etc.

The Gotham City Police Department building plays a bigger role in this game as well. You’ll find yourself driving here a lot to meet with the Commissioner or other story characters. The interesting, and very cool part of this building is whenever you enter, you first have to walk through the convict holding cells, and as the night progress, watch them slowly fill up with the villains you capture. It’s just the nice little touches that Rocksteady adds to the game that make it amazing.

The Riddler is always around, this time with 250+ trophies littered around. Additionally, this time, he’s captured Catwoman, and you need to complete a number of races involving the Batmobile, and fight off waves of enemies to save her life.

This brings me to the two big additions to the game: the Batmobile, and Co-op fights.

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The Batmobile is the best addition to the series. Bar none. This game was exclusively released for the next gen consoles, and PC in mind, with an upgraded engine and visuals. The map is big enough to justify the Batmobile, and it’s a blast to drive. It’s beefy, and can drive through walls or pillars, so when speeding down the seedy Gotham streets, not much will stop you. It can be called to your location on a whim, and it is spectacular to watch it drift into view, filling the game camera, highlighting the intricacies and sheer detail of the design as Batman leaps in. Furthermore, Batman can eject himself out of the seat and into full speed wing mode. The Batmobile has a tether cable to hold on to contextual object, or pull down walls or pull itself up walls, and it has a dual function Tank mode. In Tank mode, it can drive in any direction and has beefy artillery with a 360 degree view.  The Arkham Knight has an army of tanks at his disposal, so throughout the game, you’ll find yourself in these wars, completely outnumbered, but luckily not out-gunned. The Batmobile can also be controlled remotely, when within range, guns and all.

The second big addition to the series is the co-op combat fighting. Throughout the game you’ll be paired up with Robin, Nightwing, or Catwoman, to fight again a large group, or multiple waves of enemies. Both heroes are fighting simultaneously and it’s incredible to watch it play out so seamlessly. But, at any time, you can switch perspective to the other hero, and take full control as them. This also allows for two-on-one beat downs or co-op maneuver. You almost feel sorry for the bad guys at the end of the fight, as the moves are so perfectly brutal.

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Rocksteady has done an amazing job of seeing this Batman trilogy through to a satisfying conclusion. This final effort is a beautiful game, and nearly perfect in every aspect. The standard villains are there sure, but this time around, some new faces get a shot in the spotlight. The addition of Harley Quinn as a main player in the story is also a huge boon for me, and the mind-job the Joker causes during the playthrough is still memorable.

As far as Batman games go, I don’t think this one can be topped.

–Good for those that like all things Batman, Bats, Punching Bad Guys and Tanks

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Achievement department has the standard affair: story related, completing all the necessary tasks for each side villain, collect the Joker trophies (nope!), AR challenges, and Tank battles. Nothing truly memorable though.

Notable Achievement:

The Real Deal (Takedown 20 moving cars without using the Batmobile) – 5G

-iRogan
 

WHAT i’M PLAYING – Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Halo 5, and WHAT i’M DRAWING

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Over the weekend I started playing through Deus Ex Human Revolution again, to get caught up with the story before I pick up Deus Ex Mankind Divided this week.

I last played the game in 2011, and when I was going through the achievement list, I realized there were quite a few story related ones that I had missed the first time around, so I’m focusing on those this time.

Graphically the game still holds up – the faces are a bit polygonal and the facial animation is a bit off, but that could be choked up to the Xbox 360 emulation on the Xbox One.

I’m also playing through the original, and not the director’s cut. I had heard the DC adds the DLC and changes the boss fights dramatically, but I opted to not purchase the game again, since I’m just running through the story again. I’m also playing through it a bit quicker now; more of a run and gun play through, and less on the stealth side. Pistol and Tazer only though. See how this strategy holds up against the bosses.

Interesting things I’ve notices during this play through:

  • A lot of the time you’re climbing through vents to access closed off areas. These vents are kept very clean. Like, immaculate.
  • Many vehicles are parked on the side of the road, and in some of the dilapidated areas they are on fire. At no point is anyone driving these cars.
  • Nobody questions you when you move the man-hole cover and climb into the sewers, or when you are witnessed climbing scaffolding and jumping on air-conditioning vents to access the rooftops.
  • Turrets can still see you when you cross their line-of-sight, even when you’re squatting, carrying a crate to hide behind.
  • In The Hive night club in Shanghai, the bouncer won’t let you in, but you can access the building from the vent in the back. You exit the vent into the Women’s washroom. No one cares the slightest when you enter the club this way.
  • Also on this note, you can exit the club through the front door, and the bouncer doesn’t seem to notice, nor question how you got in the club in the first place.

More impressions as I progress further. I’m hoping to wrap up the game this week and pick up DE: Mankind Divided as soon as possible.

Last week I wrapped up Halo 5, which was a fun play through with ILLESTRADER. I’ll write more about that when I find the time.

I’m also trying to keep up with my drawing as much as possible, which limits my time for writing sadly. Hard to find time for 3 separate hobbies.

I recently completed a drawing of Widowmaker from the game Overwatch. She’s a sniper and I really liked her Noire skin, with the crazy techno dreadlocks. I haven’t played Overwatch. It’s an online only game with limited game modes, but lots of character types. I really like the character designs, so I’m going to make an attempt to draw a few more of the characters before moving on to new subjects.

I wasn’t entirely happy with the final product.  I initially only wanted to do black and white, but because her Noire suit is primarily black, so there wouldn’t be a lot of definition. So I decided to add some colour, but didn’t really want to spend a lot of time colouring and shading. So I stuck with the cross hatch black and white, with flat colours. Quickly dumped in a crappy background as well so the gun wasn’t floating, and voila.

I might go back and actually do a proper colouring job on this one. I know I can do better. And going forward, my goal is to try harder on backgrounds. I usually never do them, and with my comic book aspirations, they’d look pretty weird without backgrounds.

I had fun drawing her name though, with all the spider webs. 😉

You can check out more of my drawings in the arts page.

-iRogan

WHAT i’M PLAYING – Just Cause 3, Homefront The Revolution, and More

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It’s been a little while since I’ve done a breakdown of what I’m currently grinding through…

Homefront: The Revolution

I pop into this game a couple hours a week just to continue the progress. Homefront has been a pretty tedious grind. There are some sections that rely on stealthy incursions, and because stealth is so inherently broken in this title, these sections are hard. You basically have to avoid all enemies entirely as any sort of takedowns or combat will most likely get you seen. Lately I’ve gone with the mindset of “perfection through repetition”. Attack this route, and if it doesn’t work, die, and try again from a different angle. I rarely use the limited health packs unless I successfully advance. Your health takes a hit so hard from the smallest attack and health packs can only be purchased from the bases at a price, or found. The guerrilla warfare mechanics works pretty well, unless the whole area is on alert from the Overwatch ships above, and then really, no matter where you run, you’ll find enemies.

Besides that, the ridiculous loading times, and game saving lags still irritate me, so I’ve been limited my play time. I’ll get through it sooner or later.

Just Cause 3

Another title that I’m putting little bits of time into when I can find them. My main issue with Just Cause games is their overall lack of narrative and direction. The main reason to stay is for the gameplay, I understand this, and appreciate it. But in cases like these, that alone doesn’t hold my attention for long. So far #3 has been the best one of the bunch in both departments, but I’m finding that I’m easily distracted by the challenged, and then don’t advance.

DIRT Rally

Here’s a game I accidentally did dump a bucket load of time into over the weekend. I had a 4 hour Twitch stream going last Friday afternoon which was fun. And I think I’m slowly starting to get the hang of the game’s difficulty and car handling.

The campaign is broken up into tiers: Open, Clubman, Professional, etc, and it promotes the top 3 places at the end of each 6-day set. I’ve made it up to Professional, and have been able to purchase a few cars, and put in enough time to have them upgraded. So now I’ve decreased my rank back to Clubman to try again, and to try and get some first place wins. For the achievements of course. ;). The career also supports online races where you race against the online times of others. It hosts daily races, weekly, and monthly.

Inside

I picked up Inside during the Xbox Summer Game Sale (it wasn’t on sale, it just happened to be released that week) and beat it in one sitting (approx 4 hours) and 100%’d the achievements. I haven’t gone back yet to complete the other “meta” ending. But maybe one day. Or when I play through it again during my Extra Life Marathon (November).

The game was pretty incredible, and I’ll put up a review for it some time this month. The game is dark and ominous, and really gorgeous to look at and watch. It’s basically all black and white with little hints of colour. The subtle brilliant animations of the player’s character are a wonder to behold, and so technically perfect.

Play it if you get the chance.

HALO 5

Finally, after many months, I’m getting the opportunity to play through Halo 5 in co-op. The game is pretty impressive so far, but it does have it’s notable problems. The scale of the levels and visuals are both really impressive. With Halo 5, the 343 team implemented new technology that allows the game to run seamlessly at 60fps but has a texture optimization system that will adjust the resolution on the screen to ensure that in the larger areas with a lot going on, its still looks good, and plays smooth. I haven’t noticed any blatant drop in resolution or textures.

Gameplay is just as good as always, although it feels a bit like Call of Duty now, where you run into an area, fight waves of enemies, and then move to the next area only to fight more waves of enemies. A little bit repetitive and only broken up by a vehicle section. One of the downsides of the huge open maps I guess. They’ve lost out on the variations of small close quarter combat of past Halo’s, sneaky hallway gunplay, and sleeping grunts, as the maps keep getting bigger and more open.

Another gripe is the two teams. Spartan Locke has a fleshed out team, with Buck and a few others. Chief has 3 other Spartans of his own, but they have bland names and just masks on.

Song of the Deep

Lastly, when the Xbox Summer Games Sale was underway, I also picked up Song of the Deep, and Transformers (Which I haven’t tried yet). Song of the Deep and is an underwater submarine game. 2D platforming type game with a little bit of submarine-on-fish combat. It’s also developed by Insomniac Games, which initially drew me.

It’s quite a lengthy game for an indie-like title, and took me about 9 hours to complete, so I guess this would fit under the “what I’ve Played” category if I had one. Review section would be more appropriate. Its a game with a lot of little collectibles that earn you currency to upgrade your ship, and as you progress through the story, you unlock different abilities for your ship that allow you to progress further into the map, but also encourages you to go back and reveal some of those treasures that were once locked away.

The map is quite big and with not enough fast travel portals. All the hidden objects come in 3, so you’re forced to navigate the whole map quite often, unlocking new areas each time.

Its a thoughtful game with an easy story and a feel good ending. A nice little break from the norm.

On that note, I’m still in vacation mode for the better part of August, and then things should swing back around to the normal side. Added a few new drawings to the art section (Harley, Jessica Jones, and Rico from Just Cause 3) and will be working on more when I return.

Still plugging away at my long list of reviews, and I’m getting excited for some of the new games coming out (Dues Ex, ReCore, Forza Horizon 3, Mafia 3, Battlefield 1, Titanfall 2, Dishonored 2, Watch Dogs 2… to name a few haha). PAX WEST 2016 is around the corner in September, and then Extra Life 2016 (as mentioned above) is in November. That’s my year ahead.

-iRogan

iReview: ASSASSIN’S CREED: UNITY – Another Year, Another Assassin

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ASSASSIN’S CREED: UNITY

Publisher: Ubisoft
Developer: Ubisoft Montreal
Platform: Xbox One
Availability: Xbox One, PS4, Windows

It’s a hot summer day in Paris, France. Its 1789, in the heat of the French Revolution, and Arno Dorian gingerly slips through the amassing crowds. The people are angry, hungry, and burning effigies. Guards canvas the area making sure that the protest doesn’t get out of hand. With his target in sight, Arno passes behind unaware guards, silently slipping the Assassin blade into their neck or back, leaving them wobbling, dying, before passing onto the next. His target is within sight, gesturing towards the throng of people, arms wide. Arno has the means and the tools for his escape at the ready. The roar of the crowd hides the immediate shock towards the dead guards. The distance nears, he vaults up the platform, and pounces on his victim, penetrating the beating heart with his hidden blade. The whole world shudders, colours dilute, and we see the history that lead us to this moment as our victim dies.

This is the setting of Assassin’s Creed: Unity, Ubisoft’s eighth major installment in the series. Like its many predecessors, Unity shares the common formula: target, Kill, Escape, Repeat.

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Unity is the first Assassins Creed title to usher in the new console generation, and with it came better visuals, larger crowds, heavily detailed buildings, and new navigational game play mechanics. Most notably: controlled descent.

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Before we ‘dive’ off into the game play, let’s break the story down a bit. We start Assassin’s Creed Unity as a game tester at Abstergo, using a new gaming device called a Helix. So now we’re playing a game within a game. Through this device we get to experience different genetic memories. The Assassin Brotherhood, always fearful that Abstergo is a bunch of Templars – that they’re using this new device to data mine the past for clues – hijacks the memory sequence, and implores the player to join them as an initiate. What follows is a story about love and heart-break, betrayal and time travel.

The featured Assassin this time around is Arno Dorian, and we join his memory already in progress, as a child, and he’s waiting for his father to conclude some meetings. As we wait patiently, innocently, a tricky young girl named Elise De La Serre happens upon us, and coerces us to steal away among the palace corridors, causing all the mischief only two kids can. When we return to our seat, we find the corridor filled with people, and our father, who was an Assassin, dead on the ground, murdered. The story skips ahead 13 years, and we’ve been adopted by Elise’s father, who is a Grand Master of the Templars. Arno has grown very fond of Elise. In the next mission, Elise’s father is found dead at a party, and we are mistaken to be the killer, and imprisoned in the Bastille. Escaping the Bastille with another Assassin, we get invited to be a part of the Brotherhood.

From here, the story moves at a quick pace, it takes place during the French Revolution and the mass revolts against the King of France, King Louis XVI, all somehow orchestrated by the Templars.

At key points during the story, the memories will breakdown, and the hackers in the real world will check in, trying to repair the glitches. These points have us traveling through time to certain parts of Paris’ history, especially the occupation by Nazi Germany during World War II. These parts are done very well, and mix up the game a bit, and even have the player scaling the Eiffel Tower and fighting off World War II fighter planes.

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The city of Paris itself is Unity’s best feature. It looks just gorgeous, behaves as you would hope, and there are a ton of people just strolling around, going about their lives. Because of the Revolution, certain parts of the city have different patrolling guard types, depending on their allegiance, and there’s areas walled up. Some of the key buildings will also have a mass of crowds around it, not so much rioting, but expressing themselves. They’ll have effigies burning, and they’ll be screaming, pressing up against the guards watching the gates. The only issue is this situation never changes unless something triggers it, like a sword fight perchance, or a smoke bomb. Then everyone scatters. It’s quite fun to watch.

The larger buildings are designed with immaculate attention to detail, and even on street level, a lot of the buildings have open doors or windows that allow you to enter, or run through when chasing someone.

With the updated engine, some of the game play has changed, with a few additions, but mostly omissions. Biggest addition would be to the navigation, and the controlled decent. No longer will our Assassin just vault off a building in the wrong direction just because the direction we wanted to go didn’t suit. Our Assassin is very agile, and can scale almost any building, or incline, with ease, and scale it down just as easy. With the same controls. It’s all very fluid, with realistic animations. We can also jump through windows or slide under desks or fences. The down side to this is its not perfect. When running, it is very easy to get caught up on objects like desks and chairs. And then you just look like a fool, squatting in a chair, with the other civilians just looking at you.

Choosing a different weapon has changed a bit, and gone are the non-lethal fist fights. At all times you’re equipped with either the hidden blade or a weapon of some kind. Stealth take-downs from behind are the only way to take someone out without killing them. Also gone is the ability to move bodies and dump them in hay carts.

The big selling point with Unity was the inclusion of its co-op elements. Many missions and side stories are relegated to this mode, and unfortunately I didn’t get to spend a lot of time testing it. The one mission I did successfully join had me start across the city from my co-op companion, and then the whole game subsequently froze. I didn’t bother trying the multiplayer again.

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When the game was originally released it suffered tremendously from bugs, glitches, online issues, and complaints towards its companion mobile app. To the extent that Ubisoft pulled its season pass, refunded players, and gave away the Dead Kings DLC for free. They also practically neutered the mobile app, and just ended up unlocked everything in-game instead of having the player continues to suffer.

Unity turned out to be a big learning lesson for Ubisoft. In what the player’s want and that maybe annual release aren’t the best plan without rigorous testing in place before. They released the next Assassin’s Creed, Syndicate, a year later (as the title was already well into its development), and have since taken a break to refocus. Maybe to re-energize, maybe because they realized there were big problems with their current model, or maybe it was to give a window for their movie. Who’s to say?

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In the achievement section, they are all very rudimentary: complete the chapters in the story, perform a specific number of take downs, collect collectibles, and there’s an unfortunate amount of co-op related achievements. I might have to try and load the multiplayer back up again.

Notable Achievements
Patron of the arts (Watch a play in the Caf) – 10G

-iRogan

Homefront – The Revolution: Further Impressions

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As I continue to put time into Homefront, I’m starting to recognize its difficulty curve. As the player, you have your health bar on the side of the HUD, and you’re equipped with injection-type health packs. These are limited to 5 on your person, and the animation takes about 4 seconds to pull off. Health packs can be found around the battlefield and in the rebellion stand-offs, or can be purchased from the equipment lockers for $50 at the rebellion strongholds.

I’ve noticed that your health diminishes very quickly when exposed to gunfire, and you can die almost instantly if you come across an enemy with a shotgun. Stealth is almost near impossible in the outset of the game as the combat areas are littered with enemies, and taking down any drone or camera will immediately signal the enemy of your position. The enemy is also very quick, take more than a few good bursts of gunfire to kill, and are usually accompanied by a patrolling vehicle. Couple that with a prolonged health pack animation, where you are not invincible, I find that I’m dead before I can get the health boost..

Now, that said, I understand that we play the part of the resistance. We are supposed to be out-gunned, and out-manned. The enemy is numerous and nubile, but when I’m attacking a point of entry, or come across a patrolling scout group, I find that I’m dying a frustrating amount, only to reload my progress back at the last stronghold. I might not even be on the same side of the map. The point of the game is guerrilla warfare. Attack, and retreat. But by this thinking, its hard to advance forward.

One saving grace is the ability to get assistance from the other rebellion participants. Anybody standing idly around a stronghold can be attached to your entourage. At the very least, they provide a valuable distraction for the enemy, which allows you to pick a few off.

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I’m still catching myself groaning at the checkpoint and save freezes. They’re not long, only a few seconds, but when you’re running into the enemy encampment around the corner, about to train your sights on the next enemy, and then the entire game hangs, it feels like a gut-punch. You just can’t breath while that like “checkpoint reached” save icon rotates.

The game supports a camera functionality. But it serves a purpose, or “job”. You can take pictures of your rebellion, or hacked signs, or enemy routes. These jobs unlock money and perks. It is not suited for in-game photography, which is a shame. No way of removing the HUD when taking photos.

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I’ll continue to plug through it though. Maybe it will get easier as I unlock new gear and equipment. There’s clothing that can be purchased that allows the played to become more camouflaged, which’ll be a nice perk. I tried the online Resistance mode only briefly, as the first couple attempts didn’t find anyone online, and my first successful attempt had the host leave after a few minutes, and I was booted during the host migration process. So I’m glad I didn’t spend any addition money on the Resistance DLC.

On a more positive note, the move is complete, so I should be able to start posting on a semi-daily basis again. Around this time last year I was putting out some short stories like the Far Cry one, Sniper, and Titanfall. So I’ll have to work on something new. I also posted a big Top 10 Xbox games. So I’ll have to think of a new project this summer.

I’m about wrapped up my Assassin’s Creed Unity Review, and I have quite the queue of games that I’ve completed this year, that need a review. This week was the Xbox Ultimate Summer Sale, and I picked up Inside (which actually just happened to come out this week, and wasn’t on sale, but I’m excited nonetheless), Just Cause 3 (which has been quite the blast to play this afternoon) and Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark.

My art table is also setup now in the new place so expect some new art stuff.

-iRogan