Blizzard’s still got its game.

Blizzard Entertainment, the company that’s arguably responsible for bringing E-Sports into popularity is not fading out in the slightest. With a slew of gigantic games such as the Diablo Series, Warcraft Universe and the infamous Starcraft series, it poses itself up there at the top of the gaming development food chain. What separates Blizzard from most studios, however, is their loyalty toward their specific Intellectual Property(IP). Blizzard takes utmost care of the universes they create and continually expand upon the lore of their games to epic proportions.

One of the most striking successes of the company is having two games that dominated different halves of the hemisphere. Diablo II was famous on the west for the multiplayer features that predate MMORPGs that it had and in the East, Starcraft dominated via the skill-based Real-Time Strategy(RTS) matches that allowed gamers getting pitted against each other in massive tournaments.

Though Diablo is a marvel all on itself, and not to mention the later success of World of Warcraft, here in this article we review Starcraft II, and the future that the series that started RTS E-Sports settled in after its reign.

Starcraft. Or Brood War. For some 90’s kids it might ring a bell. The Starcraft series allegedly started as a Dawn of War game(look that up) that failed to get rights to the IP. You might notice the similarity of the DoW Space Marines and the Starcraft Marine and I’m not one to judge the possibilities of copying ideas.

With a compelling storyline, great graphics(for a 90’s game) and strictly no luck based gameplay that is both fun and balanced, Starcraft made a breakthrough in gaming history as both a single player game, but mostly as a competitive multiplayer arena.

The original Starcraft game became especially popular in South Korea and gone on to become a leader in pro-gaming. Being often heralded as the greatest RTS game ever made, is there even a chance for the sequel to come up to expectations of its legacy?

Well to me, the answer is a resounding yes.  12 long years after the release of the first installment, Starcraft II gives honor to the things that made the original a world changer. The market has been riddled here and there and hundreds of RTS games have been released in those 12 years. But this is one different among all else, mostly because it’s the same.

Starcraft II fills old players of Brood War with a feeling of foreignness and wonder at the amazingly great graphics that would come on par to other games developed years after, but also with nostalgia when the HUD gets into the screen and you’re taken in charge of the base.

What makes it great is that it’s not too much a deviation. Say you are a pilot of an old plane and have been presented by a new, sparkling F-16 Fighter Jet. There you are, at the cockpit, looking at all the new knobs and switches and displays that presented you with information never before available. But then you start up the engine, clutch the controls and realize it’s still just a plane, it’s faster, better, stronger, but still just a plane. You think of the things you can do, and give a short devious snicker.

Gameplay:

Starcraft II is an RTS. It hosts a gameplay similar to Warcraft, Command and Conquer Series, Age of Empires and Stronghold. If you know those games, you won’t get lost.

Players take control of units that can move and attack other enemy units, gather resources to build structures that enable the creation of new units that enhance the strength of you army, and many other possible things.

You get to choose between the three ever popular factions of Starcraft to do battle in multiplayer, namely, Terran, Protoss, and Zerg. Each has different units and structures unique to them that you can use to defeat your enemies. With different factions come different ways they build their army, when to build which units, and how to go about controlling your units. With a colossal amount of possibilities to defeat each other and win the game, it’s defining for Starcraft to make gameplay wherein there’s no one greatest strategy to win. No faction is the strongest.

Blizzard’s painstaking attention to balance is what makes it all so fun to play again and again and again.

During the single player campaign of both Wings of Liberty, Heart of the Swarm, and the upcoming Legacy of the Void, you get access to many different ways to augment your forces you couldn’t do in multiplayer. There are units that are not available otherwise including the ever popular characters including Jim Raynor, Sarah Kerrigan and Zeratul that not only help you get though the levels easier, but fill the game with lots more fun things to do  that you otherwise can’t in multiplayer.

A lot of the original Starcraft: Brood War units come back in Starcraft II, but there are some that are removed or changed. Most of these units come back in the Single player campaign, and with it, a rush of nostalgia old players would love to experience. Furthermore, each mission in the campaign presents objectives that are unique to it such as using a giant drill to burn a hole through an ancient temple.

Story:

Starcraft hosts one of the largest and most intricate plots in the history of gaming, the sheer scale of warfare is reminiscent of the Dawn of War IP it allegedly was supposed to have. Now players may find themselves comparing the two worlds together, but with the coming of Starcraft II, it has established itself as clearly different.

A very amazing strategy that Blizzard used is that each installment came within years from each other even though the engine did not change from each of them. This meant that most of the work done is not on the engineering side, but on the art, story and gameplay. It’s amazing to say that each wait between installments leave players with just the right combination of wonder of what will happen in the next one and satisfaction of what happened in the last that convince them that the next installment’s going to be worth even after a few years wait.

Another thing that’s unique about Starcraft II is that even though the scale of the story is gigantic, the storylines are quite personal, revolving around the frustrated love of Raynor and Kerrigan, the vengeance against Mengsk and the coming of an evil even greater than the conflict of the three races and how Kerrigan’s going to be the key to facing it. This is one of the more controversial changes in Starcraft II since the first game was quite on an impersonal viewpoint at all times and emphasized the world more than the second.

There are also a lot of other content that reinforces Starcraft II’s storyline. Those include games released between the two main games, a plethora of small stories at the official website, and some literature the company released.

From the origins of different Zerg species, to an individual Siege Tank pilot who had the lowdown with the Protoss. Starcraft found ways to interpret their gigantic world through the eyes of people that lived in their world.

Graphics:

Needless to say, if a game releases with graphics that are relevant even after 5 long years, it’s good. For a 2015 game, sure, it might not be THAT of a powerhouse anymore, but set it to ultra and it’ll burn off some mid-range graphics cards.
But in terms of theme and aesthetic value, Starcraft achieves superiority over competition by presenting 3 different factions with themes that are so pronounced for itself and there is almost no overlap of styles between the Zerg, Terran, and Protoss.

The Terrans sport blocky shapes and grayish metallic styles that are reminiscent of 90’s movies like Total Recall and the original RoboCop. The Protoss are clad in regal gold and gigantic arches that shine like stars, and glow with the light blue electricity and magic. Lastly, the Zerg are masses of writhing flesh and and corrupted fauna that seek to evolve itself ever continuously.

Blizzard’s ability to create such defined characteristics and merge them all together in amazing fashion is truly outstanding.

Other notes:

Starcraft II brings competitive to a new level. Starcraft II not only has built in support, but instead has its own tools for things such as voice chat and IM inside the game. It not only houses a game, but also a client and a massive system to keep its players managed and matches systematically made.

Another thing of note in Starcraft II is the upgrading of the replay system. No other game in the world houses a replay system that compares to Starcraft II. The replay system records all your actions, down to your individual clicks and camera panning, and can show important data such as Actions Per Minute(APM), build order, and various graphs of your army growth.

The famous Map Editor has also come back with Starcraft II, and if in some way you are still not satisfied with the gigantic offering that comes out of the box, Starcraft II gives modders and content creators countless ways to bring different ideas for games and maps in Starcraft II much similar to Warcraft III. Remember, with Warcraft III’s world editor tools came DotA and arguably the whole Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) genre, and with the new tools that Starcraft II offers up with their souped up Mar Editor, there are a multitude of games you can play with Starcraft, including an indie MOBA of their own.

Pros:
+ Three races, all as balanced as they get

+Great community

+Single player and Multiplayer are largely different and offer different gameplay

+Same formula as the first game, but hugely upgraded

+Great graphics

+Powerful and intricate replay system

+Map Editor and tons of maps to play in custom games

+Amazing sci-fi story with a scale and detail few could compare to

+Game has amazingly high skill cap

Cons:

-Players on Battle.net are on a very high skill range, consider practicing before pitting yourself against the good players there.

-Non-hardcore gamers will find the concept of playing match after match to hone your skills may find it repetitive

-There is a lot to learn to play even on a mediocre level online or against the AI in multiplayer style games

-Not so much humor in the game, very serious plot

-Doesn’t innovate much compared to the first game, just a refinement. Not for those looking for a fresh new RTS

Conclusion:

Starcraft II is a great game, and with the completion of the trilogy comes the fruition of the narrative and the completeness that hardcore fans were anticipating for around 20 years. Starcraft II is not that easy to pick up, and it stands by with prioritizing its loyal fan base. Down to the starting narratives of Wings of Liberty to the hectic multiplayer gameplay, to the expansive controls and features, Starcraft II doesn’t hold your hand across its universe or the RTS genre, rather, it welcomes hardened veterans of the Brood War into new frontiers.

So to me, Starcraft II is exactly the way it should be. Sure, it’s not perfect in all senses, but it couldn’t have gone better in my opinion.

I give it 4/5.

Ever heard of vampire’s and werewolves around London? If you haven’t,in this game The Order: 1886 has bad ass setting of an alternate history of London. This game was released last February 20, 2015, Published by Sony Computer Entertainment and Developed by Ready at Dawn SCE Santa Monica Studio.

So basically you fight as a human or a knight as a member of an old order against the half breeds mainly the werewolves or what they call the Lycans and some other humans that are known as rebels.

“Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, uhmmmmm Hi?”

This game is a hundred percent story based game that makes the combat times are lesser than usual third person action adventure games, which actually is a little bit boring in game play like every action you take follow’s up a cinematic effect with quick times, which means you have to be alert on what button you need to press so that the action may be executed successfully.

Quick time events are a little bit fast that is why this game also relies on a players reaction time.

Well compared to other games, object interaction is a little unique in this game, because not all objects are that dynamic and enough quality to be viewed closely.

“Hmmmm… what does this button do”.

You will also experience the steam punk theme of this game with variety of high end half breed blowing weapons researched and developed by your team of genius scientist or engineers.

Yes yes, the arc gun go and electrocute everyone.

The graphics in this game is superb, it doesn’t need another movie style for the cinematic, the in game environment can already handle it . Their physics so very impressive, if you will ever see the game play you will notice the hair and cloth details actually moves by motion or artificial wind blows.

As an overview, this game would be perfect if game play would be more balanced with the cinematic, cause it really feels like you are just watching a movie most of the time. Aesthetics are superb especially the environments , Story is quite interesting, combat system feels like a little bit nah. so i give it a 3/5.

A few years back, there was a big boom in the horror game genre. Games like outlast and Amnesia were famous, which led to the boom of certain youtube personalities. I’m sure you’ve atleast heard of the names PewDiePie or Markiplier or maybe even my personal favorite cryotic. These games had a certain formula which has a protagonist that usually cannot fight back and only runs away or hides.  I’m pretty sure some of you have played these kinds of games at some point. Later on though, the horror game genre would be changed into the jump-scare type games, which five nights at freddy’s is well known for. There was no more need for an elaborate storyline or any mystery. Just the use of darkness and quick moment screams.

Why am I explaining these things, you might ask. Well, that’s because Soma is trying to revive the old days of suspense horror games. Soma, often stylized in full caps as SOMA, is a science fiction survival horror game developed by frictional games, the same company who gave us Penumbra and Amnesia. It retains almost every element of gameplay that Amnesia has and improved it.

Unlike the relatively new kind of horror lately, which revolves only jump scares, Soma uses the old thrill of using the surroundings to induce a sense of fear and vulnerability. The fact that your protagonist has a sense of disconnect from his world and cannot fight back from his monsters also amplifies the experience.

Okay, I’ve said that the protagonist has a sense of disconnect from his world, right? Well, that’s part of the game’s story. To summarize while avoiding heavy spoilers, Soma is about a guy named Simon Jarrett who got into an accident prior to the game which caused him to have a severe brain damage and cranial bleeding. Yes, this guy literally has his brain bleeding constantly. I wonder how shitty that would feel. Anyway because of the severity of his predicament, he agrees to try an experimental brain scan, because we all know untested experiments will almost always lead to complete recovery. Jokes aside, he blacks out after that and wakes up in a completely desolate room. Later, he’ll realize that he’s not in 2015 anymore but somewhere a century or 2 later. How did he manage to travel time is something you should find out for yourself.

Soma has a rather simplistic gameplay, relying more on puzzles and stealth than actual mechanical skills. To progress through the story, you need to find clues about your current status, considering your protagonist starts out really confused. You’ll constantly have to solve puzzles while avoiding the monsters that lurk in the darkness. As boring as it might sound, it’s honestly better than just sitting in a chair and flicking switches.

As this game relies on inducing a sense of fear using its environment, the game has a lot of ambient noises you can frequently hear. The quality of the eerie sounds is appropriate enough to do its job and increase the player’s awareness of danger.

All in all, Soma presents the old elements of horror games that a few years back has gained popularity. It uses the same formula with improved graphics models and a new story. If you’re looking for something new, you’ll probably not find it, especially if you’re expecting more jump scares, but if you like mystery and story-based horror, then this game is up your alley. I give it a good 4 out of 5.

Lately, there’s been a boom of mobile games in the market. From simple games like flappy bird to complex ones like clash of clans, mobile games have steadily made their impact in
the gaming world, and yet a lot of people still don’t call mobile games as video games. I won’t go too in-depth into that regard as it’s merely a difference of opinion among people, but I will talk about a mobile game that I’ve had the chance to play.

Right now, in the anime fan community, there’s been only a few mobile games a buzz. One of them is the popular Love Live SIF which is mainly a rhythm game. The one other game gaining major popularity, albeit both positive and negative, is DelightWork’s Fate/Grand Order.

Carrying over Type-moon’s popular franchise, the fate franchise, Fate/Grand Order brings many fate fans’ favorite character just a touchscreen away with its wide array of old and new servants. Servants are are Heroic Spirits and Divine Spirits summoned by the Holy Grail for the purpose of competing under Masters in the Holy Grail War. That said, I won’t go in too deep about Fate’s story because I’m nowhere near knowledgeable enough to properly explain it. Instead, I’ll just get right into the game.

Fate/Grand Order is a card collecting game in which you collect servant cards to create a party in order to clear maps. It’s kinda like an RPG of sorts. The gameplay is pretty unique in which your party’s attacks are made into cards and you get to choose which attack pattern you’d like to go for the turn. Your servants also have multiple types of skills that you can use to turn tides into your table. With that said, FGO plays much like pokemon with its turn based combat and strength-weakness type attributes. There are also things called “Craft Essences” which are basically equipment for your servants. They will improve a certain factor for your servant depending on what kind of CE you equip on them. There’s a lot of underlying factors to this game, which I find really useless, but I’ll just refer you to a game guide if you want specifics because explaining this game’s complexity would make it just another “how to play” guide.

Anyway let’s get underway with the story briefly. Fate/Grand order is a collection of “grand orders” where you, as the protagonist, with your servants go through each order to fix problems that could alter history. Each order is a location and era in which you have to progress through with your party members, aka your servant team. Everyone starts out with their lovely assistant shielder, also known as Mashu, who shockingly uses… a shield. Anyway let’s get down to opinions about this game.

Here’s the lowdown, FGO’s gameplay is honestly unique in which it took a lot of elements from different games and mashed them all together. Was it a good combination or was it a monster? That is purely subjective. I’ve seriously had a lot of time and wasted a good number of hours grinding away through the story line, but as with per norm on online mobage, this game has an energy system as well. In the first release of the game, it had a horrendous regen of 1 AP (energy point for this game) per 10 minutes which makes most players dump their energy on 1 huge dungeon and stop playing for an entire game. Now, the developers realized it was stupid to have a ridiculously long regen timer so they shaved it off in half, but that still doesn’t change the fact that this mobage is still energy dependent. No energy means no playing. I guess that’s just how it goes with Japanese mobage.

You can recharge your energy back to full but that would cost you a quarts gem. Quarts gem are stones that you gain through story quests, rewards, compensation gifts, or buying it with real money. That might sound good but quarts are used for trying to draw servants and essences through a system the community calls as “gacha” which comes from Japanese gachapons and this is what makes most players cry. The gacha’s drop rate is horrendously low with a 1% on getting a 5* servant.

Moving on from the limitations of the gameplay, the actual gameplay itself is pretty amusing. You use cards with three attributes as your attack, of which namely are Arts, Buster, and Quick. Each card has its own purpose that’s different from the other. Each servant has 5 cards and differ in card set, i.e some have BBBQA and some have QQQAB. Aside from that, servants also have “Noble Phantasms” which are a unique skill only available to them that has various effects per character. Combine all those complexities and you have an abundant number of possibilities to build your party, which is honestly one of the most fun things in this game.

While the game is pretty fun, it is fairly flawed. The combat system can be fun but the enemy AI is a bit underdeveloped and would use the same buff three times in a single turn while yours have cooldowns. There’s also the case where you can’t cancel your attacks if you wrongly order them. One of the bigger problem is that Delightworks seems to have a potato for a server whenever they finish a major maintenance, making the game unplayable for a couple of hours.

As for the visuals, this game is pretty good. I haven’t played much mobage to compare but it’s got decent effects which sometimes causes weak devices to actually crash. The cards for the servants were drawn by different artists so various art styles can be observed but all of them have their own charm. The music isn’t by far the best but its fine, I especially like the song when you go to myroom, and some servants have their own theme OST that plays when you use their noble phantasms. The voice acting for the servants as well is pretty good and sometimes I find myself wasting an hour just listening to the voices.

Despite all that, FGO is pretty fun. Whether you’re a type-moon fanboy waiting for his waifu to pop in gacha or just a random guy w/ plenty of time on his hands, this game can entertain you a lot. The major problem that I can find is, considering this is a mobile game, you need to spend to play nonstop. Despite its flaws and drawback I’ll still say the game is a good 3/5, but that might just be my inner fanboy. Whatever it is, everything is purely subjective so you might or might not enjoy it.

Syndicate was one of those games that defined a genre, one of shadowy corporations, corruption, intrigue and big brother conformity, Cyberpunk at its best. Satellite Reign has that potential realized in its rainy neon soaked streets. A beautiful massive city to explore at your convenience. It’s pretty well polished, has a few minor A.I issues, but nothing to ruin the atmosphere most of the time

.

Gameplay
The main thing i like about this game is that you can go stealth or loud. If you fail at the escape part of stealth it doesn’t matter too much as long as you get your people moving out quickly. If you are spotted, it is not the end of the world (something i enjoy allot), kill all the witnesses and you won’t have a problem.

Loud is a different story, it is harder than stealth and therefore not recommended but still fun to do. It is not a deathwish and i love that, firing a bullet wont send an army after you. As long as you stop them calling reinforcements (not too much of a problem if you are paying attention) you can survive the encounter without a sweat. Beware of nearby enemies though, if you shoot near a lot of bad guys you will pay for it. What you can do is create a bubble of silence, allowing you to kill in the area without a worry of other people noticing.

A thing that needs to be added is an overwatch ability, sometimes when stealthing into a base I will leave my teammates, what I would like is that they don’t just stand there and die. AI is a large problem in the game, one of the things that really breaks the fun. That said I am not having much of a problem with it. If your troops aren’t positioned right and cant have a LOS on the target you want them to shoot they will sometimes just shoot at a wall, wasting their bullets. Ammo is not a real problem in this game, I have never had a time where my units are all out of bullets and you have a slot for secondaries that has an infinite pool.

There is a way to slow time but it slows camera movement as well. Micromanagement is something you will have to learn if you want to play this game. Although the micro management is not particularly hard.

Whilst death feels like a failure the game doesn’t punish you much for it, something I enjoy allot. There is a minor loss of xp or money (your choice) but it is not the end of the world if your badasses get shot to bits on the field

This game is STUNNING, love the graphics, Nuff said.

In conclusion, the AI and lack of quality of life improvements are the only thing that I have a problem with in this game. This will not be for everybody though, I had to give it time at the start, little options at the start make it a bad intro to the game, this changes dramatically later with your characters gaining an individual skill type and role. I would recommend this to anyone who likes RTS and cyberpunk.  If you can ignore the games sins you will find a fun and rewarding experience. A solid 4 out of 5 for me.

To all robot lovers out there, i represent to you Gear Up’ a new vehicle combat arcade shooter with rockets, fire and a lots of explosions released this January 2015 on Steam PC and definitely not a created by Micheal Bay.

Anyways,lets discuss further more about this game . This game is similar to Robocraft except this game’s building mechanic is limited on the design phase which you can only design you mech with the given chassis and you just add up arsenals or change your movement mechanic, unlike Robocraft’s where you have the freedom to build your mech in anyway you want and creativity matters, if you know what i mean 😉 if you don’t you can look up weird and funny mech designs in Robocraft of “Creative” players.

Building your mech seems a little boring for me but the designs of parts really look nice

Today’s generation of new games looks more toonish or we could say toon-shaded games and i don’t know but its the current trend and it looks very nice and new, very refreshing to the eyes because most of it are like bubblegum paint job.

As i said there is bubblegum coat everywhere.

Okay lets talk about the combat system, and yes there is a lot of explosions but the game’s combat system are not that much far compared to Robocraft  or World of Tanks, what only differs here is you can stick to the walls like a spider and you good go like an undetected sniper or assault while you climb those walls, sounds fun right?. The hard part is you can get queued up on a match against experienced players as newbie and there you go getting destroyed like a tin can.

Forgot to mention you can fly, unintentionally.

Well that’s it folks, Now it is time for the game rating!

Game play: 7/10 (simple not much of a new mechanics, team oriented, strategy and skill based)

Graphics: 10/10 (Yes! Eye candy, bubblegum everywhere)

Sound Effects: 7/10 (explosions? not that much)

Environment: 7/10 (Game lobby, Ui, simplistic and maps are good enough)

Entertainment: 7/10 (customization well a little boring for me)

Playability: 8/10 (there is a little unfairness in queuing up against experienced players or high tier players)

Overall rating: 8/10

KABER RATED! CHICKEN APPROVES!

A very good game, that you will enjoy playing, and make you think in the process.

The game is not perfect, and becomes very easy once you understand its mechanics.
But playing it the first time was magical to me. I was stressed, cautious, sad. Some dilemmas really shattered me. It is a grand game.

Divided into two phases essentially, players need to apply their resources and manage their survivors during the day, taking care of wounds, hunger and psychological hang-ups. During the night however, you’ll need to head out and find parts to cannibalize, while risking your own shelter being raided while you’re out. It’s a rather gripping aspect of the game, with your line of sight being obscured and danger only a mistimed footstep away from your fragile scavenger. You could run into a garage filled with electronic parts that is completely bereft of life, or try your luck at a supermarket that is under heavy occupied guard. Whatever your choice is, you have to move fast.

There’re quite a few such locations to explore, each with their own pros and cons. Schools, churches, hospitals and suburban housing settlements all unlock as each day ticks away. Personally, I found robbing looking for supplies in the suburban area quite helpful, as liberalism is no match for a knife attached to a hungry looter.

And that’s something that you’re going to have to come to grips with in This War Of Mine. You’re not the only survivor out there, as the war has had far-reaching consequences. You can be a saint, or be a right bastard like I was. But kicking children in the face and slamming a door on them when they beg for medicine for their sick mother, will have consequences. Consequences that resulted in most of my scavengers hanging themselves when they couldn’t stand to commit any more atrocities in order to survive, their mental defenses having buckled like a dam made out of cardboard in monsoon season.

And this is life in This War Of Mine, every single day. You’re not looking to get through an entire week. You’re trying to survive, day by day while you sleep on a bed made of rotten wood and mattresses that will glow like Casper the Friendly Ghost should a black light ever pass over them. You’re trying to decide if you need to burn that one book that brings you some joy in life just so that you can have a decent meal. Maybe you’d like to drink your troubles away with a homemade distillery that will ferment some moonshine, but you might need those parts to create weapons so that you can turn back home invaders.

A friendly neighbourhood scavenger will also come a’knockin’ on most days, but his prices will always be high and his goods sub-standard, as you spend the rest of the day getting to know your characters and catching up on their constantly updating auto-biographies.

And that makes for an oppressive game. The kind of game that This War Of Mine intends to be. Sometimes, you feel like achieving a simple goal such as rolling decent cigarettes feelsfeelks like an insurmountable task, while coming back from a nightly expedition only to find your colleagues wounded and your home ransacked makes it all feel like it wasn’t worth it in the end.

In fact, there is no winning. This War Of Mine is difficult, unrelenting and just waiting for the right moment to kick you down to the ground and curb-stomp your face as you try to survive just one more day. It’s the ugly side to the mega-popular big blockbuster side of warfare, the starving civilian to the super-soldier on the battlefield of tomorrow. It is quite simply one of the hardest games you’ll ever play, and not because micro-managing every aspect of it feels like a dark version of the Sims. But despite all that constant misery, you might just find that you do have a heart.

Conclusion
The reality of war, hammered home through stark visuals and tight resource management, in a game where just surviving another day is winning.

What can I say about “Darkest Dungeon”? For one thing, it’s freaking Amazing!!! The artwork for this game are really what set it off and pull the whole thing together. The artwork and animation really make this game come to life and pop off your screen and into your head. The narrator voicing the story is also truly great. Red Hook although a small indie dev but the work they bring to the table is all AAA quality material.

This game is kinda hardcore “side scrolling” RPG about dungeon adventuring, stress and heroic deeds. It’s really unlike anything you had recently chance to play, it’s dark experience exploiting flaws, venturing to deeps of human mental vulnerability. What’s the point of living through passage of blades when the paranoia and stress turns you mad or stop your heart?

This are the list they nailed correctly in this game
+ XCOM elements of party management
+ Light/stress factor affecting outcomes
+ Beautiful graphic, animated movies
+ Narrator
+ Dark atmosphere
+Difficulty

Darkest Dungeon is Difficult in an Insane level!!! It’s a RPG Roguelike and RNG, and try to remembers to get those lucky charms like rabbit foot or 4 leaf clovers cause you’ll be needing them. It’s the perfect balance between difficulty and enjoyment. You WILL lose heroes and even complete games after making significant progress. You WILL get frustrated. Keep at it however and you WILL Win. When you get a good run through a dungeon you really feel the triumph and like you earned it. You feel like you accomplished something worthwhile that was challenging. If you’re used to playing roguelikes then you should know how this feels and know it was worth it.

Roguelikes aren’t for everyone though. If you’re easily frustrated or have anger issues this might not be the game for you. I’ve yelled “WTF you Motherf*&%$er!!” more times in a bad dungeon than you can shake a really big stick at. So be ready for that, but don’t worry. It makes those good runs taste all the more sweeter when you pull them off.
So, do you think you’re ready? You think you know madness? You think you know insanity? Do you think you’ve seen the twisted horror that can break a man’s mind in the deepest reaches of his soul?
You don’t know Shit until you step into….The Darkest Dungeon.

It lives up to its namesake! This game has a darkness about it. It will take you time to master, but if you enjoy a challenge and enjoy single player rpg dungeon crawls, You. Will. Love. This. GAME!

Let me start off with saying that this game is OVER THE TOP. Hilarious and exciting at the same time, Saint’s Row IV is a tidal wave of fun that’ll leave you playing it again and again.

The developers behind the game are Volition(also makers of the Red Faction franchise), and WAS under THQ( Dawn of War, Company of Heroes), until acquired by Koch Media and published under their brand, Deep Silver.

There those that find Saint’s Row: The Third quite similar to IV, and they are not wrong in the slightest. IV was supposedly a planned expansion to The Third, but with the idea being quite a rich foundation, they turned it into a full game, and that’s why it uses the same engine, graphical fidelity, and generally the same feel. Some might argue that it is too close to the old game, but that is a subjective matter.

Unlike the Saint’s Row franchises before that, this actually has a very valid reason for being over the top and such: It’s a simulation. This has a large implication on gameplay that’s quite different from the older brothers of the franchise.

Saint’s Row IV gives the player oodles of new ways to play Saint’s Row like never before. These things include running at super speed and lashing out mini tornadoes that flip things you pass through(even tanks),  hovering in mid-air and punching the ground in stylish fashion, sending alien scum across the street, and the Dubstep gun. Need I say more?

Gameplay:

If you’ve played some games from the Grand Theft Auto franchise, you won’t be alienated by Saint’s Row. Some people can actually say that they are quite similar. But if you played GTA with cheats and enjoyed it, then you’re going to love what Volition has to offer.

Saint’s Row IV plunges you into an open world with a massive map and the possibility of a gigantic free-roam experience. With the progression of the story comes the unlocking of many features such as powers, mini-games and allies.

Often you’ll come to finish tasks given by your allies through playing the mini-games scattered all throughout the map. These mini-games range from racing across the streets with your super-sprint, to wreaking as much havoc as you can in an alien tank to a purposedly throwing yourself ragdoll style across the city. The challenges are easy enough to complete on their own, but takes quite a lot of practice and determination to get a high rating on them, as you can achieve bronze, silver or gold medals from them.

These games are what give the game its size, but the story is its backbone. Advancing the story brings about unique game elements not seen when you’re roaming about completing mini-games, such as challenges without your powers and getting into places that you can’t otherwise. It gives the feeling that the story is not the only thing you’re missing if you don’t finish the playthrough.

There are multitudes of weapons to blast enemies with. You may choose to simply
headshot your way with a pistol, SMGs, rifles, to decimating their ranks with the infamous Dubstep Gun, bazookas, you could even spawn a black hole beside them! Along with powers like freeze blasts, telekinesis and super stomps, Saint’s Row is a truly liberating game.

The Dubstep Gun makes anyone shake their booty. To the melody of utter annihilation.

My qualm with the game is its difficulty. Some of these powers and weapons are downright crazy, and that can be forgiven or even be enjoyable, but they can be overpowered. You can cut a swath through enemies no problem. Heck, you can even melee your way across them and end with full health because all pedestrians drop health. In fact, upgrading your magazine for a weapon class will eventually give you infinite bullets.

The game is not really that challenging, but boy is it enjoyable, comedic elements line most of the moments, and the humor is legit.

There a LOT of customization options, from your clothes, to your physique, to your voice, specific taunts, gun appearances… You can also customize your cars, but with the inclusion of super sprints and air gliding, cars in this game are borderline useless. That is quite a shame actually.

As I said, a LOT of customization options.

The ability to record vehicles types and spawn them is a nice feature, along with repainting them and customizing their performance is great, but is just useless when you can traverse the map faster without them.

Sound:

Yes the music is great, the voice acting is top-notch, and the radio stations when inside cars are loaded with songs some would find familiar. (108 songs split into 7 stations)

The sounds don’t seem repetitive in the slightest, But riddled with amazing amounts of ambience that makes some things rather very familiar every time, such as the sound of powerups, alien stations or the super sprint kicking up wind in your wake. When you think about it, there are a lot of sounds you hear constantly, but the game makes a good way of not making it feel repetitive.

Suddenly the sound of air whooshing 60% of the time doesn’t feel out of place.

Voice acting is great, on-point and embodies emotion and it realistically fits into the characters and their persona. A lot of VO scripts are created, even for pedestrians and enemies and all the little things give the game a lot to listen to.

The music is great, a lot of budget could have been put to license a lot of songs, including Aerosmith’s I Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing and What is Love by Haddaway.

Story:

The story is well crafted, but it’s not the kind of story that’s rich for expanding upon for fans of the franchise. The story isn’t the strongest point, but it has a great scale to it as well. Fortunately for newcomers to the series, the story is quite compressed and does not have too many elements that are exclusively understandable to veterans of the older games in the Saint’s Row line.

The continuity is fine, but the pacing is quite stretched out with a singular goal in mind all throughout the game, and most of the time used for getting a crew together and solving each their own personal problems. It isn’t as engaging as other games, especially when held in comparison.

That goal? Kill this guy.

Conclusion:

Pros:
+ Hell of a fun game

+Obnoxious humor

+Lots of customization

+Amazing amounts of freedom

+Great graphics but not that exceptional

+Lots of real life references

+Great music and soundtrack

+Lots of gameplay elements and mini-games

Cons:

-A little too easy

-Lack of intellectual gameplay elements

-Vehicles are essentially useless

-Humor is adult-rated, unsuitable for young children

-You use most of your time playing mini-games

-Mediocre storyline, big scale, but short-sighted

In this day and age where graphics and gameplay are clogging up the criteria for what a good game is, let’s take a step back from western traditions and move into the japanese’ guilty pleasure of visual novels where gameplay and graphics are traded off for story and character development.

With that said, I’m going to review Grisaia no Kajitsu but before I go into it, I’m going to explain what this game is. Grisaia no Kajitsu is a visual novel. A visual novel is a different genre of a game which solely relies on story and doesn’t have much gameplay to it except for choosing decisions. These decisions will dictate which character’s story or route you will progress through and will also dictate (in certain games) what the ending will be. If you’re not the reading person, then this game is honestly not for you. Really, the most you can have in even the best of visual novels are a few mini games here and there but most of them don’t even have anything like that. As such, I will be reviewing this game in terms of the remaining criteria which are: Story, Music, Art, and Characters.

Ok let’s get this started with the story. As with usual visual novels, Grisaia doesn’t have a static story. It has 5 stories that splits off with how you, the player, respond to certain situations. While I won’t give out any details regarding the story for this game, I will say that Grisaia has one of the better plot than most of the games I played, and I’ve played my fair share of visual novels. It has 5 very diverse, albeit some of them have clichéd themes or even a bit of morbid topics, different routes.

I also have to emphasize the common route of this game to be one of the funniest and the most fun dialogues I’ve read. There’s this specific English speaking dialogue two characters have which gets really twisted because of how bad their pronunciation is. Almost all of them have great conclusions and memorable scenes all emphasized by the music that sets up the mood, which leads me to the next criteria.

Grisaia has one of the better music collections I know. I personally like about 4 or 5 songs in their soundtrack and all their mood-inducing tracks are great at setting up the proper atmosphere of the scene you’re reading. It makes visualizing the entire dialogue easier and makes emotional scenes feel smoother. They have a variety of upbeat songs for simple scenes to emotional piano arranges for the dramatic parts. I myself love one of the heroine, Michiru’s, character ending song which is called skip because of its rhythmic beat and cute vocals.

Now we go to art. Illustrated by one of my favorite illustrators, Watanabe Akio, the CGs, which are illustrated scenes that would usually be added in a CG gallery, look crisp and clean. The character images also look their role which fits their personality and quirks. There’s nothing much to tell here as art tastes are purely subjective so I don’t want to go into this for too long.

Lastly, we go to the characters. Grisaia no Kajitsu has a wide variety of colorful characters in its cast. There are 5 heroines to choose your role, and while they seem stereotypical, they have hidden quirks that will only be observed in their specific story. The main character is a militaristic man who is stoic yet would have some of the most unexpectedly funny scenes. The side characters are funny and well developed as well. While, on their own, the characters progress the story well enough, the most important thing about this game is the character development the MC has with the heroines and they range from bland at times to really entertaining.

While Grisaia might not be those action packed games that would be featured in magazines or websites, it’s undeniable that it is entertaining by its own right. Despite some flawed logic being thrown for comic relief here and there, this game is pretty well written. With a good soundtrack and voice acting alongside it, I can give this game a good 8.5/10.

Currently, you can buy an english ported version of this game on steam but it has removed the adult content. You can buy the original japanese version but you’ll need to learn a little japanese or search the internet for a localization patch.

Well then, till next time I guess!