Star Wars: The Force Awakens - Movie Review

Star Wars: The Force Awakens Review

For 30 solid years, people have been waiting for this movie. This movie certainly did have a lot of high expectations, as it has a high bar set by the original Star Wars movies. The most important part of this movie experience for me was coming out of the theater satisfied, and there wasn't any trouble there. J. J. Abrams, as it turns out, is really great at making Star Wars as close as possible to the original movies. This was a good and bad thing at the same time.

This movie gets a ton of things right. J. J. Abrams brings back the cast members from the original trilogy. All of these characters were fantastic, and Han Solo aged the best out of all of them. Upon Han Solo's first appearance in the movie, audible cheering could be heard in the movie theater. Leia - Carrie Fisher - on the other hand sounded like she had been smoking a pack of cigarettes a day in between The Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens. The old cast members did bring back some nostalgia, and made the movie more fun for returning fans. The fun Star Wars feel from the originals is still in this movie, though considerably less cheesy. The movie felt more serious, but struck a balance between being a serious movie and a fun movie at the same time. The originals, I felt, had a certain childish cheesiness to them, which is all good with me, I just didn't necessarily miss it in this movie. I liked how it was less cheesy, as it allowed Star Wars to branch out and appeal to more people, while still maintaining  focus  and have a fun feel to the movie.

There are a bunch of new characters in this movie, all of which are very likable. There is Finn, who is an ex-stormtrooper, and Rey, a female lead who feels way more interesting, in depth and just more bad-ass than Princess Leia ever was. I was actually really glad to see a female lead kick a lot of butt in a Star Wars movie. Leia was similar in a couple ways, but Rey feels more relatable and interesting. Han Solo definitely made the movie feel as 'Star Warsy' as the movie could, but I was perfectly happy just watching Rey on screen. A new bad guy, Kylo Ren takes the stage in this movie. Kylo Ren appears to be just a Vader clone, but he feels more humanoid and less of a killer. He has motivations to do bad things, but his intentions are unclear. In the next movies I hope they go more in depth with his character, since he is quite interesting. There was a more Nazi-like feel to the army of Stormtroopers, where they are coordinated methodically in to battle with ease, and they seem like more of a threat. I loved seeing Kylo Ren on screen, as I found myself just wanting to learn more about him, and his relations with the other characters.

This movie did recycle a bunch of stuff from the old movies, more specifically A New Hope. There are a lot of things similar in this movie to A New Hope, and it's kind of shown off in an obvious fashion in the movie, as if trying to say "Hey look, I'm exactly like a good Star Wars movie, I have everything from the original movie to totally convince you that I'm a good Star Wars movie!". I wasn't too worried about this, but it did impact the predictability of the plot.  It foreshadowed things in the movie that made the twists way easier to see coming. This movie told a great new story, and made a new Star Wars updated for the new generation, while still staying true to the classics. This is great, as it makes this movie eligible to be appreciated by older and familiar audience members at the same time as younger, newer audience members.

Most everything in this movie was updated for a new generation. The cheesiness was ridden from it. The lightsaber battles were great, and were much more gritty and like a street fight, and less choreographed. There are some great shots of action with the spacecrafts all going at each other, where the shot smoothly transitions to the next and the next and the next. This achieves a tremendous level of immersion in the action, which I found that even the older Star wars movies didn't accomplish as well as J. J. Abrams. I have found that J. J. Abrams is great at action scenes in movies, where each shot is carefully planned and edited down to make tight and fluid action scenes that are incredible to watch, and I was enthralled to see it in this movie. The special effects were great, and the story was good at quickly drawing you in and give intrigue. There was actually comedy in this movie that landed, which was not in any of the other Star Wars movies. This didn't derive from the Star Wars experience, more like added to it. The 'Star Wars experience' was shaken up a little bit. I was glad to see that they made the movie not too confusing for people who haven't see a Star Wars movie in their life.

Overall, this was an extremely entertaining movie, and I can tell a lot of thought and effort went in to making this movie. J. J. Abrams, interestingly enough, tried to break apart the original trilogy, and piece together the aspects that made those movies great in to his own movie. He even got the same script writer and composer from the original trilogy. I can empathize with J. J. Abrams completely, since recreating a huge movie franchise for a modern and old timer audience, whilst keeping true to the originals and leaving your own mark on the saga, is no daily task. 'The Star Wars experience' would be completely boring if was the same experience every time, and J. J. Abrams helped to recreate this with his own fantastic movie, keeping very clearly in mind what the other movies did well. One of my favorite movie franchises, with arguably one of my favorite movies in the franchise is well worth a watch.

+ Updated Star Wars feel                               - Some material recycled too much

+ 'Star wars experience' is altered                  - Often predictable

+ Expanded for new audience

+ New adventure, with a huge homage

8.8/10

The Evil Within - Game Review

The Evil Within Review

 

The problem with most games these days (with a few exceptions) is that the story the game is trying to tell is out of balance with the actual gameplay. The Evil Within is no exception, sadly. Even if it's gameplay is pretty amazing.

It seems to me that The Evil Within does almost everything right gameplay wise, and almost everything wrong story wise. I do have to give credit to the creative horror and oddly charming style that Japanese games carry with them, especially this one. To give context to the story, The Evil Within is about Detective Castellanos and his detective crew Josef and Juli Kidman. The game starts out with the 3 people investigating a mass murder at a mental hospital. After looking around shortly, Detective Castellanos gets knocked unconscious and after waking realizing that he's in a nightmarish place with horrifying creatures that act like zombies. The Evil Within is innovative, but the story is not all completely there. There were often times when something in the story was left unexpanded upon and pointless. Because of this you're left confused about the story almost all the time. A story in a game should give you motivation to fight for the main character's cause. In The Evil Within, there just isn't any motivation, or really any cause in the first place.

 There was ONE cool plot twist in the middle of the game, but they barely expanded on it, which was just so disappointing. There are also journal entries written by the main character Sebastian Castellanos, that the game will occasionally force you to read. These journal entries are all very interesting, and I would have rather seen them made in to a cutscene, giving players a visual since most people these days would just out and not read any of it. People don't want to read while playing a videogame!

To top off the bare and dry story, are the voice actors. Oh my god, the voice actors. They sounded calm and cool all the time, like they were having a casual conversation no matter what was happening. It reached an extent where it was entertaining only because it was funny, and not immersive. There wasn't any motion capture, so I imagine it was difficult enough to give credible facial expressions to the character models anyway. I would always laugh every time Detective Castellanos dropped an emotionless one liner like, "Tell me, am I going crazy?". The animations seem whacky sometimes too. Either the animation would make the character models move too fast, or too jerky and it made it look weird. There were also a couple of instances where the lip syncing was off when the characters were speaking.

Besides the story being bland, the gameplay is pretty great. The level design in this game is really well laid out. You fight lots of zombie creature and boss fights are also plentiful and fun. The boss fights I liked particularly because they usually took advantage of the level design in a cool way. They're also extremely hard. The character models for the zombies and the bosses are all horrifying and weird, with things like barbed wire wrapped around their bodies, or a spear or a knife in their heads.

To fight all these cool enemies, you'll pick up guns along the course of the game. There is also a pretty nice upgrade system that you can use at checkpoints to upgrade your guns, or your health and ammo. This game does deliver spectacularly when it comes to immersion. It's always so atmospheric at all times, with creepy background music and brutal sound effects that are nice to listen to. This game is really hard. One of the hardest I've actually played in quite a while, which makes defeating bosses and clearing levels so much more satisfying. There are actually a lot of creative enemies, like invisible enemies that only appear when hit, and the game just stops using them all of a sudden. It was a good and clever idea, but it was just used only a few times.

This game just didn't have the right balance of story and gameplay. This game is on the cusp of greatness, it just wasn't as good as it could have potentially been. The gameplay is some of the most innovative I've played in a while, and it was fun to play overall.

+ Creative and fun combat                        - Story goes nowhere
+ Horrifying and brutal                             - Lego Star Wars had better voice acting
+ Atmospheric and immersive                  - Sometimes awkward animations
7.8/10                                               - No motivation to fight for the main character

Whiplash - Movie Review

Whiplash Review

 

The Oscar-nominated film, and personally one of my favorite movies, Whiplash stars Miles Teller  and J.K. Simmons. This is no High school musical.

So Whiplash is about a 19-year-old Jazz drummer Andrew Neuman, trying to get into the best Jazz band in his college. He eventually does get in, but not without being constantly hounded with verbal and physical abuse from his instructor. Andrew yearns dearly to become a successful musician, and must peruse his goal, even if it prevents him from having a social life. He must trudge through his instructor's cruel teaching methods for success.

There are a couple scenes that are sick, and this movie is intended to be dark. It's even reflected in the cinematography, as it's always night time, or it's cloudy when it's day time. Shadows are cast with the camera lighting that appears tinged green or a warm, haunting orange. There are absolutely no bright, happy colors in this movie. I like that people are still remembering to use the camera to their advantage, by giving the movie a subtle undertone.

The acting in this movie is phenomenal. The talents of Miles Teller and J.K. Simmons were just popping on screen. J.K. Simmons is the menacing guy that everyone hates. The person that makes everyone suck in their breath when he walks into a room. Miles Teller was also great at being the antisocial person, he will drag himself through personal hell to achieve his goals.

This movie has the best intensity in a movie I've ever seen. It was so thrilling that I actually started sweating during one or two scenes. The emotional and psychological hell that his teacher puts him through just winds up like a jack-in-the-box until you're on the edge of your seat. The story is paced well, and the connections you can draw to this movie is insane. There is at least one relatable thing in this movie where you can say 'I know what that feels like' or 'I've been there.'

I have to say though, the only flaw in this movie is... that there are no flaws whatsoever. This movie gets a check for everything you need to look for and find in a movie. The cinematography was taken advantage of, the tone was implemented well, the acting was superb and it was the most intense movie I've ever seen. Like, Jaws level of intensity. The musical score was good, the Jazz theme was used well and it was super relatable.

10/10

Mad Max: Fury Road - Movie Review

Mad Max: Fury Road Review

 

I had not seen any previous Mad Max movies before this one, so I didn't know what to expect. Turns out it was actually a well paced movie, with colorful thrills and an abundance of action.

Mad Max: Fury Road doesn't necessarily require suspension of disbelief per say, but rather suspension of reason. There are a lot of things in this movie that make you ask "Why?" instead of "How?". This movie does take place in a bizarre world, with a lot of bizarre people. It's only habitants left fight for resources in gangs and groups. In this world, everywhere is a desert wasteland dystopia. Max rides solo, until he's captured by one of the groups. The 'War boys' in the group are all part of a cult started by their leader, and are also all deathly sick. They use Max's blood to get stronger. I won't spoil how exactly, but Max ends up with Furiosa, an imperator trying to smuggle the leader's unhappy wives out of the group. The rest of the movie is them being pursued by the leader and other different war parties.

Mad Max: Fury Road's Story is very easy to follow and laid back. Perhaps a little too laid back. There are no gigantic game changing plot twists that weren't predictable. The what little story there is, is told well and it sends the message it tries to send. Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron killed it on screen, both portraying characters the audience wants to learn more about. Unfortunately, they never really go anywhere with the characters past, which was disappointing at times.

The Visual effects in this movie are amazing. George Miller somehow took a barren dystopia and made it colorful and interesting. There is also a ton of action in this movie, usually with people in cars, which is kind of thematic to Mad Max. The action is super entertaining, and there weren't jump cuts every half a second ( a la Taken 3). Like I said, this movie is odd and bizarre, which can sometimes be good. There are a few odd things that are nice touches, like an electric guitarist who plays every time there's an action scene. About halfway through this movie, I did start to feel like I was watching a two hour action sequence, and I kind of wanted some dialogue.

Mad Max: Fury Road was pretty easy to review. It has a little bit too simplistic of a plot, but it does have great action. I would have liked to have seen more character development worked in to it though.

                                                 -Character development non existent

+ Great action                           - Action scenes occasionally drag on

+ Eye popping visuals

9.2/10



The Visit - Movie Review

The Visit Review

 

The Visit is the latest movie from M. Night Shyamalan. Now, if The Visit was a horror/comedy like Scary movie, I would give it a 10/10. But... it's not.

The Visit is a fairly simplistic movie about these kids visiting their creepy grandparents for the first time in Pennsylvania. I had a great time with this movie, don't get me wrong. But that is an entirely different story from being well made. The Visit, with its advertisements plastered all over Google and YouTube, is entirely marketed as a horror movie. For an hour and 45 minute movie, I was only truly scared about 5. If I'm being modest. And that was only towards the end of the movie. The other 100 minutes are utterly hilarious.

This movie is absurd, but it works. I'm never really a fan of the whole 'found footage' shebang, but it makes more sense in this movie than other movies. The entire time I was watching this movie, I couldn't stop thinking about the tonal confliction. There were funny parts where I wasn't sure if I was meant to be scared or not. It's like going to a restaurant and ordering a medium rare steak, but getting a medium steak. I mean, it could very well taste good but it's not what you ordered. This movie was probably made with a razor thin budget, so it is going to make a few bucks no matter what. The entire cast mainly consists of two child actors and two elder actors, which is a ballsy move for any movie. I didn't have too many problems with them, they all did their part and convinced me of their role.

However, the 13 year old boy actor further enhanced the tonal confliction in this movie all the time. In a creepy moment, he would often drop a one-liner and ruin the moment by making it sort of funny. I can tell that the boy is meant to be used as comic relief, but there are way too many times he 'relieves' the audience. The movie isn't scary enough for him to be adding all these funny comments anyway. The 15 year old girl actress sounded like Thelma from Scooby Doo, or the annoying girl from The Magic School Bus who's tagline is "According to my research...". Whenever she talked she sounded like a know it all, which did get annoying by the end of the movie. I will give credit to the climax of the movie, the only part that was genuinely creepy. There was even a plot twist that I was so not expecting. Mainly due to the fact that the movie had already from the start lowered the bar in terms of plot development.

Overall, I did have a blast with this movie. I also had a good time watching Robocroc and Sharktopus 2. To sum it up, The Visit did display the characters thoughts and feelings well, It just didn't give the audience the emotions they were probably intended to feel.

+ Hilarious!                                  - Tonal confliction

+ Good plot twist/climax             - Plot needed to pick up pace

+ Realistic premise is creepy

6.9/10





Infamous: Second Son - Game Review

Infamous: Second Son Review

Infamous: Second Son was one of the launching titles for the PlayStation 4, and I still have yet to review it. In all honesty, if I could sum this game up in one sentence it would be: I've seen better, and I've seen worse. If I had to sum it up in one word it would be repetitive. If I had to sum it up in two words it would be missed opportunity.

The biggest problem with Infamous: Second Son is all the attention given to the gameplay mechanics and little to no attention given to the story. The narrative is all over the place in this game. There's only a couple of characters in the story, and not one of them intrigued me. We have the main character Delsin, a punk graffiti artist who's snarky and sarcastic all the time. You have Reggie, his older brother who is a cop. Along the journey you will meet Augustine the antagonist. Then Fetch, a former drug addict. And then Eugene, the antisocial videogame nerd. The actual ground premise is pretty original, I'll give it that. In this world, there are a handful of people called bio-terrorists, and each of them have the ability to control a different form of matter, like concrete or smoke. Delsin somehow gains smoke powers and is questioned by Augustine, head of the D.U.P. (they're the bad guys). Delsin refuses to talk, and Augustine sends concrete shards in to every person Delsin cares about. The rest of the story is Delsin trying to find a way to save his friends.

The thing that kind of bugged me for the entire duration of the game was that I was always on the fence with how I felt about Delsin. He was funny when he was sarcastic but most of the time he was being a douchebag and was annoying to play as. The game didn't really give you any motivation to fight for Delsin's cause. All the other characters seem a little too cliché and vanilla for my liking, and I never really shared any emotions with them or had any pity for them. A big part of the game was choosing paths for the story. You can choose to be evil or choose to be a hero. A couple of times during the story you will be given a choice to take the evil path or heroic path. These paths give or deduct points based on what side you have done the most of so far [heros doing evil things deduct points, heros doing good things earn points, vice versa]. Other than giving/deducting points, these are pretty pointless to the outcome of the story. The next few missions are only slightly different than it would be if you had chosen the other path and the ending stays the same. You would think that with all these different choices and paths you can take, you would be given an ending specifically based off of every choice you make, but that never happens. There are only two alternate endings, and they are only based on whether you have more evil points or whether you have more heroic points. What's more, one of the two endings is horrible depending on which ending you have. Each different path doesn't really give you any unique upgrades or abilities, they're all pretty similar.

Apart from the fact that the different choices you make affects the enjoyability of the ending, the gameplay mechanics are pretty solid. When you are traversing around the fairly big city of Seattle, smoke powers are very annoying. You gain other powers throughout the game, to make traversal easier, but scaling up building pressing the jump button over and over again is so aggravating. In this big city there are a lot of citizens. These citizens have the worst A.I. I have seen in a while. It's ten times worse than the combat A.I. The combat A.I. is decent enough and serves a challenge, but it isn't entirely perfect.

Fighting enemies with all these unique powers is so much fun. When you are fighting enemies, you can shoot dodge and melee in a city with a lot of buildings. The landscape of the city does make for some fun battles at times. There are lot's of different enemies and the controls are never that complicated. While the combat is pretty decent, all the boss battles feel lackluster. There's nothing innovative about them, they're usually too easy but take a long time and just drag on.  The graphics in this game are amazing, and all the particle effects on screen at once look beautiful. Too bad they can't make the realistic looking character models feel life like. This game feels like it has been rushed. There is a lot of repetition in this game, especially in the side missions. A lot of the side missions feel too similar to each other and uncreative.

+ Amazing graphics       - Terrible/OK A.I.
+ Good combat               - Characters are transparent and vanilla
                                        - Plot underdeveloped
   6.4/10                  - Side missions all too similar
                                       - unnecessary  path choosing mechanic

The Gift - Movie Review

The Gift Review

The Gift is a movie about a couple moving back to the husbands home town and getting stalked by the husbands former classmate. In a nutshell. Now, I love when movies or games can take a simplistic or odd (or both) idea and make it work brilliantly. And that's exactly what The Gift does.

So the movie starts with the couple moving in to their new house ( a general rule it seems for horror/thrillers). While out shopping, they run in to Gordo, the husband's old classmate and things go downhill from there. Gordo tries to force their friendship and when they don't reciprocate the main conflict arises. It's hard to go into depth with this movie without spoiling it, since the story is so essential. First off, let me start with the acting. Joel Edgerton is the writer and director for this movie, whilst playing the ever so creepy Gordo. He nails being the socially awkward, twitchy guy that everyone dreads running in to. Jason Bateman plays the husband, in probably his first ever serious role and does a great job of it. It's always cool to see comedy actors or action stars experiment with new genres and doing their roles justice on the first attempt. In fact, the acting all around is fantastic in this movie.

I love the way the movie is shot and the undertone to it as well. The house the couple moves in to is a fairly large flat, with a LOT of windows and glass walls. It gives it the sense of no privacy whatsoever. And it's always uncomfortable to see people, even if it's just a movie, pry in to other people's lives and ask intrusive questions to the point where it's eerie. Now, The Gift is a psychological thriller. If you watch all the Paranormal Activity movies to get pumped for this one, it won't have the same elements that make it scary or suspenseful. The premise is so simple, that if anyone tried hard enough, the events in this movie could actually happen to you, yet it still works. Granted, the pace of this movie isn't always fast or even moderately fast. There are some pointless scenes in the movie, possibly to add more screen time, but the story never loses it's grip on you.

All the lead characters are interesting so you never feel bored, even if the movie isn't going as fast as you would like it to. The story is full of secrets and twists and turns so that once your set on a theory or belief, most of the time it whisks you away from it. This movie personally also had some of the best suspense I've ever felt. It was so atmospheric and I couldn't help grinning in the theater when my stomach knotted up. There isn't any thematic music that keeps on playing over and over ( a la Jaws) but the sound effects are great. Every small noise is magnified when everything is dead silent, like a creaky door, and it all works perfectly. There is no slashing or stabbing to anticipate at anytime. Gordo is unpredictable which kind of fuels the creepiness factor and makes it more interesting. The suspense is more about one strange man taking ahold of a couple and ruining their lives making them paranoid.

Joel Edgerton must be a mastermind, because he somehow incorporated the feeling one has when they feel like someone's watching them in to this movie. That was probably the most enjoyable aspect of the movie for me. Throughout the entire movie there is this sinking gut feeling that things are not going to end well and the build up is incredible. Gordo is unpredictable, so there's really no guessing as to what he's going to do. The build up for the movie is great, however the actual reveal is not so great. It's just not all completely there and underdeveloped. There isn't much of a resolution either, the twist ending is left up to your interpretation. Sometimes that can be frustrating with movies, and sometimes it's fun to peel the layers away and digest it for a while. I ended up deciding that the ending was good, just underdeveloped and I liked digesting this movie and pondering about it.

-Underdeveloped end          + Incredible suspense

-Slow paced at times           + Superb acting

                                             + Great story with twists and turns

                                             + Simple and realistic premise

8.3/10

Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation - Movie Review

Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation Review

Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation is the 5th Mission Impossible Movie. This movie has a lot to live up to, considering the success of Mission Impossible 3 and 4. Mission Impossible 4 lacked a good villain that was convincing and brutal, like Philip Seymour Hoffman's performance in the third movie. Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation has a good villain, which is... good. The quiet yet intimidating Sean Harris delivered his lines in a creepy almost Alan Rickman way, which I liked a lot.

The plot follows Tom Cruise trying to take down an anti-IMF, a terrorist group led by Sean Harris called the Syndicate. The story is pretty gripping at times, and the dialogue is delivered extremely well. That's not say that the dialogue is great at all times. There were a couple laughable one-liners, but other seemingly cheesy lines sounded fine when Tom Cruise said them. The supporting cast is great, and there are a couple funny moments with them. It's a shame, since you don't really get to see much of the supporting cast throughout the movie. Simon Pegg probably has the most screen time apart from Tom Cruise. Jeremy Renner is kind of at the sidelines, and is not really as interesting as he was in the 4th movie.

There is a lot of action though in this movie, and a LOT of intense moments that I loved the Mission Impossible series for. I won't spoil them, but there are moments that make you clutch the seat. There is a teeny bit of suspension of disbelief required in these moments, but Tom Cruise plays it off so well. There is a little bit of Character development, but not as much as I'd like. The first Mission Impossible had the most character development, since it didn't really have to worry about the supporting cast as much. The movie brings in some unneeded cast members, like the black guy from Mission Impossible 3. All he did was add a couple of extra seconds to the running time. Maybe if they cut down the cast then it would be a lot easier to focus on the characters people want to see.

The action in this movie is still great, with the occasional car chase and such. The cool thing about this is there are 4 movies like this one already, yet they still manage to shake it up and it still works! Some sub plots were unnecessary, but for every unnecessary sub plot there was a heart pounding intense action scene.

+ Great action and suspense                              - Supporting cast not all needed

+ Tom Cruise delivers dialogue well               - Not enough character development  

8/10

Ant-Man - Movie Review

Ant-Man Review

Ant-Man is the last movie of Phase 2 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and it's going out with a bang. Ant-Man delivers the same thrills that we got from The Avengers, with a little more humor. Paul Rudd immediately convinces the audience that he is the perfect casting choice, and is probably the most relatable superhero I've seen.

 Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) comes right out of prison at the start of the movie, and is motivated to start becoming part of his daughters life. His hilarious criminal roommates try to persuade him to go back to crime, but he doesn't budge. Finally, he does, and it turns out that Hank Pym, the creator of the Pym particle and the Ant-Man suit has set the task up for him, to give him a chance to prove himself. He then dons the suit, after taking it for a test and then trains to take down the main bad guy, Darren Cross. Darren Cross is trying to figure out how to replicate the Pym particle, and ends up going crazy in the midst of doing so. Once he finally figures out how to replicate it, he becomes the Yellowjacket. His motivations for doing this are pretty unclear, and he makes for a pretty transparent villain that's not fleshed out enough. When Ant-Man shrinks down to ant size, it makes the entire world around him colossal, and the CGI makes it look like this entirely different world.

The dialogue in Ant-Man is by far the funniest in any Marvel movie to date, and the script fits Paul Rudd perfectly. The action is very clever and unique, with Ant-Man shrinking and then growing back to full size in swift movements to take his enemies down, which was really entertaining to watch. There is also a couple of nods and references to other Marvel movies, which is always fun.

Ant-Man is action packed, and pretty loosely scripted, but it's one of the more fun superhero movies. It's nice and refreshing to have a solo superhero movie fresh off of the Avengers, that is nearly as thrilling.

8.4/10

Batman: Arkham Knight - Game Review

Batman: Arkham Knight Review

Batman: Arkham Knight is the final installment in the Batman: Arkham series, one of my favorite game series ever. Batman is back for the last time to save Gotham from Scarecrow covering all of Gotham City in a huge fear gas cloud. I thought that I had already seen that plotline similar in Batman Begins, so that was something that sort of bothered me. This game has been delayed so many times. So many, that I wonder if the only reason was to build up more hype. But, does Batman: Arkham Knight live up to the hype? The short answer, absolutely NOT. 

I'm not entirely sure, but I'm pretty sure that Rocksteady had the same screenwriters for Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City, but different writers for Batman: Arkham Knight. This is mostly where Arkham Knight let me down. As you progress through the story, you don't really see any of the any of the evolution to the characters or plot that you did in Asylum and City. Asylum and City were amazing examples of games that had excellent gameplay and exploration of the map, while still maintaining focus and a tightly scripted plot. Batman: Arkham Knight suffers from a narrative that is way too loose. Much like Arkham Origins, Arkham Knight carries the burden of shoving so many characters and villains into one game, and pushing them into side missions that have no relevance to the story. I came into this game expecting to see how all the villains would tie in with Scarecrow and The Arkham Knight, who are the main villains in the game.

Another big thing that let me down were the characters. They were the second biggest disappointment in regards to the other games. In Arkham Asylum and City, the main villains and Batman himself are so life-like and well acted, and the script just enhanced the voice actors talents. In this game, the script just doesn't do that for me and doesn't have that same feel. Kevin Conroy (Batman), Johnathan Banks (Commissioner Gordon) and John Noble (Scarecrow) all stole the show at once and suited their corresponding characters perfectly. It's just that there's nothing all that new brought to the table for them. The Scarecrow is an awesome villain and isn't seen enough. The Arkham Knight is a whiny brat who has a grudge against Batman for whatever reason and is seen TOO much. The Arkham Knight never felt menacing or scary at all, he just seemed like an annoyance to Batman that needed to be taken care of.

There are a couple [meaning exactly 2] of new things introduced to the plot that I had not really seen before, which I enjoyed a lot. The Arkham Knight's real identity is a mystery, but all you know is that he has a big grudge against Batman. Trying to piece his identity together with everything he says, trying to look for hints to his past and personality when he talks to Batman was so much fun. But then, around halfway through the game, they start throwing not-so-subtle clues and hints to his identity, just in case there were people out there who didn't have any clue up to that point. It made it all too easy to guess his identity, and when his identity was revealed to me it was no surprise at all. Rocksteady had the perfect opportunity to surprise us with this plotline and ruined it for me. Another thing that was new is the psychological trauma that Batman goes through the entire game. Batman has hallucinations and sees things that aren't there, but are much scaled down than the Scarecrow's nightmare stages in Arkham Asylum, but hallucinations nonetheless. This made Batman a more vulnerable and interesting protagonist, as you get to see his greatest fears and play them out for him. But that was the peak of the story for me, along with the end. There's not enough twists and turns that dramatically change the end goal or plot like in Arkham City, which was  a major step backward.

Playing as Batman is a whole different story. New things have been added and tweaked in the combat and stealth to add more variety. The freeflow combat in Arkham Knight is the best in the entire series, with a bunch of cool new moves and animations. However, the stealth has been tweaked too much. All these new gadgets that are introduced to you make stealth too easy. One of the biggest problems with the stealth was the newest fear multi-takedown, which then allow you to take out multiple people at once, making it unchallenging. Arkham City had much more challenge to the stealth, giving you fewer opportunities to put your gadgets to use. The stealth sections/areas are also way too big and open, whereas Arkham Asylum was all about being in a confined space with your enemies, and the claustrophobia involved in that. In addition to this, there are no boss battles! Awesome boss battles from Asylum and City are not present in this game, and the only thing close to being called boss battles are involved with the batmobile.

I didn't have hopes that high for the batmobile, so it wasn't as much of a disappointment as the underdeveloped plot. Granted, it does handle very well and is pretty fun to drive, but if you want to explore the huge open city of Gotham, you're better off gliding over rooftops, as it is MUCH faster. The batmobile was used in every single way I hoped it wouldn't. Rocksteady obviously wanted to show it off as much as possible, so they gave the batmobile a tank mode. What then follows is hours of tank battles, where you fight other tank drones in repetitive and boring fashion. I was hoping for awesome villains being fleshed out in this game, and instead, I'm left with tons of insanely tedious batmobile missions, which include, batmobile car chases, tank battles, batmobile PLATFORMING (Yes, I'm serious) and racetracks the Riddler made for you. Later in the game, they introduce tank stealth missions to you. As if the list wasn't bad enough. The tank stealth missions are incredibly boring and annoying, so much so that they make you want to scream. You know, maybe I wouldn't care so much if it didn't absorb over half the actual gameplay. So now I guess the core gameplay of Batman: Arkham is the batmobile. And the batmobile sucks, by the way. What a bitter way to end a great trilogy, with the coolest vehicle in the DC universe.

The exploration is pretty good though. Riddler is at it again, scattering around a bunch of trophies for you to collect, and rage inducing, god awful underground batmobile racetracks. I want to find the person who thought that would be a good idea and give him a good smack on the face. Seriously, Riddler racetracks don't really count as riddles. The Riddler trophies though, are not as fun as they once used to be, as most of them don't require puzzle solving and are just hidden, while some require the batmobile to solve. The side missions are great though. I loved seeing all the villains, even though I was under the impression they would play bigger roles than just being in side missions. I loved solving mysteries and scanning dead bodies for clues and all that kind of stuff. To unlock the full ending to the game, you actually have to complete all the side missions and collect all of the Riddler trophies. I already had completed all the side missions, and I didn't think that gliding around, looking for the 200+ Riddler trophies was worth my time, so I ended up just watching it on YouTube.

Overall, Batman: Arkham Knight was more disappointing than I ever wanted it to be. I had enormous expectations for this game. I thought it was so not cool to make the batmobile the core gameplay, and force it into every single aspect of the game. If only they just toned down the batmobile and put a little more thought into the script, this could have been the best Batman: Arkham game.

+ Biggest game yet with most content                 - Not enough twists and turns

+ Great variety added to combat/stealth              - No boss battles!

                                                                             - Stealth is too easy

                                                                             -Not enough evolution to characters/plot

                                                                              - Batmobile crammed into EVERYTHING

6.7/10                             



The Last of Us Remastered - Game Review

The Last of Us Remastered Review

The Last of Us Remastered is a port of the original PS3 exclusive to the PS4. Nothing too outstanding was added to the re-release, which is absolutely fine. Nothing needed to be added anyway. The last of us is the perfect example of what every great story-driven action game should be. Everything is executed with so much thought behind it, to create the most immersive experience you can get.  

The Last of Us hooks and reels you in with it's well scripted plot, and all-star voice cast. No other game has made me care so much about these characters I hardly even know. The amazing graphics (probably the best on console games to date) and motion capture bring out the raw emotions in the protagonists. You go on an emotional journey with Joel, as he travels the post-apocalyptic U.S. with a disgruntled and curious teenager named Ellie. They gradually bond, even though they have almost alternate personalities. The protagonists are so interesting, and there's so much to learn about them, which actually gives you some motivation to keep them alive.

You will have two main enemies in this game, humans and infected zombie-like mutant humans. To fight these enemies you will pick up weapons throughout the course of the game, which in turn will let you upgrade them by scavenging for supplies. You can craft things with supplies too, in a fairly basic crafting system. Scavenging for supplies feels so rewarding, and sometimes supplies will be thinly spread throughout the map, forcing you to make choices on what you craft and what you don't. The level design is also phenomenal, and everything placed in the map works so well with the combat and stealth to make it feel organic.

This game can get pretty intense at times, and the tension that builds up makes it feel so atmospheric. There can be large stealth sections with infected humans that makes your stomach knot into a ball. There's actually a unique twist on the stealth, which was a great idea. Some of the infected (Clickers) use echolocation to see around them. So you have to be quiet around them, even if they can't see you. They could comically walk right past you if you didn't move. You usually have the option to go stealthily or guns ablaze. Sometimes combat will be forced unexpectedly on you and catch you off guard. Some of the best moments of the game wait, and when everything seems calm they spring it on you. The combat works very well and the controls are extremely responsive. Unlike Call of Duty, where ammunition is infinite, you will be forced to use your bullets wisely. The stealth is the way to go if your low on bullets, and mastering stealth is so satisfying. Something that can occasionally bring the combat/stealth down is the buggy and very stupid A.I. Sometimes reactions from the A.I. were bad enough to make me laugh. Sometimes enemies can be caught in endless loops of running around in circles until you do something like throw a brick to cut it off. These occasions definitely get rid of the immersion that the Last of Us tries so hard to build. Thankfully these were only limited and they didn't hinder my experience.

Another unimpressive aspect was the multiplayer. It was kind of unnecessary in a very heavily story driven game. It works well and all, but it has nothing unique to it and feels kind of crammed in there.

The Last of Us is everything I want from an action game and more. It gives you a reason to fight and leaves you with satisfying gameplay with some pretty intense and hectic moments. This is a pretty short review, but I have nothing that negative to say about this game, and if I gave away any more of the story I would probably spoil it. This is one of the best games out there.

-Buggy A.I.                                       +Core Gameplay fantastic
-Multiplayer's nothing special           + Satisfying on every level
                                                           + Great story and characters
9.8/10

Mortal Kombat X - Game Review

Mortal Kombat X Review

 Mortal Kombat X is the latest installment of the Mortal Kombat franchise and is now on next generation consoles, just to help you identify all of the internal organs inside a human body in excruciating detail. I can now say that I am fully desensitized from playing this game. Mortal Kombat X is a gruesome fighter made by Netherrealm Studios and produced by WB games. I'm not going to lie, Mortal Kombat X left bad impressions on me from when I started playing, but I eventually came to enjoy it's combat, for what it is.

Mortal Kombat X has a lot to offer once you get into the game. There are various modes to try out but I want to start with the story mode. First of all, you can't even play the story mode. Instead, the game forces you to play a tutorial with a lot to it. The tutorial is too overwhelming with things to remember, and it just goes on for too long. People aren't going to want to sit through it. There was even a point in the tutorial which was so impossible that I just quit it. Once you do at least one section of the tutorial, you will be granted access to the story mode. Right when you start, there is a very long cutscene showing a war between these demon monsters and soldiers from earth or whatever they are. I have a lot of problems with the way the story starts. The game throws you into this world where a lot, and I mean a lot, of background knowledge is assumed. The game does it's best to summarize the entire backstory in 2 minutes, but really, only dedicated Mortal Kombat fans will know what is going on.

Another problem is the cutscenes. Now, the cutscenes look top notch being on next gen, I'll give it that. But for a fighting game with only around a 5 hour story mode, they're just way too long. I would be a bit more forgiving if more content was added to the story. For the record, I hate quick time events in almost, if not pretty much every game. The only game I've played that has achieved good quick time events was Tomb Raider (2013) because they added more intensity to the game instead of dulling it down. In some in some sequences in Mortal Kombat X, they will occasionally give you boring quick time events during long cutscenes just so you have a reason to pick up the controller. They're not even engaging anyway. Missing a QTE doesn't hinder the gameplay at all or give you any disadvantages, the cutscene just resumes playing. Just to be clear, there is no character development at all in Mortal Kombat X, and it's a shame since there are some really cool characters that I would have liked to learn more about. Some characters, like Liu Kang and Raiden, feel like they're in the story just because they have to be. The characters that are like that feel like they're squeezed into the game as if there was barely enough room for them anyway. I do have to cut some slack, as I imagine it is pretty hard for Netherrealm to keep all of these trademarks of Mortal Kombat to feel relevant in a universe with so many characters.

The fighting in Mortal Kombat X is the best I've seen in a fighting game. It stands out as its own game and not just another Mortal Kombat game. There is a 24 player roster, and also some really expensive add-on characters, which is kind of dirty of Netherrealm to be doing for a fighting game. There are some characters that I liked playing as in previous Mortal Kombat games, but they sadly are not present. One of the biggest ones for me was Baraka, he was the coolest Mortal Kombat character in my opinion. There is actually a part where you fight Baraka in the story, but you still can't play as him, which is pretty lazy. So instead of having a large number of characters, Netherrealm has added 3 fighting variations to each character. I felt like these fighting variations were not much better than the other 2 variations to choose from, which is good. They each give the fighter a unique fighting style, so it's easier to find a character you like if you don't like one of the variations. That being said, Mortal Kombat, and just other fighting games in general have been infamous for having that one overpowered character that everybody plays as, but I'm glad to say that there is no character that feels more overpowered than the other.

To spice up the combat, there are also brutal x-ray moves and finishing moves called fatalities. The x-ray moves and fatalities are hands down the most brutal and gory things I have ever seen. Ever, not just in video games. The x-ray moves are special moves that any player can do once their super-meter is full. The x-ray moves show the character breaking bones or slicing organs with a full display of the action with the bones and organs being shown. The x-ray moves are so well animated and satisfying to watch, with gallons and gallons of blood and gore. Each character has two fatalities and only one x-ray, so I would have liked to see maybe one x-ray per character variation. The x-ray moves can be pretty sickening, but then there are fatalities. Once you have defeated your opponent, They will stand around dazed for about 10 seconds. Then, you have the opportunity to perform combo move on them. After the combo has been correctly orchestrated, you hear a familiar tune let you know you were successful. What then follows is an extremely brutal cutscene. Each character has two fatalities which may include dismemberment or decapitation or something equally gory. These fatalities are so over the top, and they dance on the thin line between sickening and humorous. There is so much shock factor to these fatalities, which I think is incredible after all the years Mortal Kombat has been around. The fatalities are the best part of the game. Alongside these fatalities are brutalities and faction kills that you can perform with each character. Each character has 6 brutalities and 2 faction kills. These brutalities/faction kills have certain requirements and are harder to do than fatalities. The faction kills and brutalities are kind of pointless, they're not that good to look at, they're pretty boring and bland and just not as creative as the fatalities.

Definitely, the weakest part of this game is it's 'Krypt.' The Krypt is Mortal Kombat's weird game inside another game. You will start out in this graveyard in first person, and you can walk up to graves to unlock things with in-game currency 'Koins.' You can earn small amounts of these Koins at a time by performing a successful combo move and things like that in the gameplay. I found the Krypt to be extremely annoying, as the weird first person controls just put me off of it right away. I hate the ideology behind it too, you have to buy brutalities/fatalities with these Koins, instead of the game just giving it to you at the start of the game. I'm sure the Krypt has a lot of depth to it, with all the bunch of areas there are, but I don't think anybody is going to want to explore it, there's just nothing special to it. Often times, you will pay a bunch of Koins for concept art, which is so useless and irrelevant to the game.

One thing that was noticeable right at the start of the game was the movement controls. The movement controls need serious improvement. In Injustice, I remember this being a big problem too. When I was playing the tutorial, I didn't use the D-pad, I used the analog stick.  Most of the time moving with the analog stick was very annoying. I noticed that most of the surface area (the direction of where you push the stick) either makes you jump or crouch. In a fighting game like Mortal Kombat X, strafing left and right with ease is very important. It was so frustrating that I switched to the D-pad and was relieved at how easy it was to move left and right, and put in combo moves. But after a while, the D-pad got pretty uncomfortable to use. So sometimes during fights I would switch back and forth between the analog stick and the D-pad; it was really awkward to do.

The actual fighting in this game is tons of fun. There is a cool feature now that lets you tag your moves so they can appear below your health bar, and it is nice to be able to glance at your moves during a fight and not pause to check combo moves every 30 seconds. However, one thing that I thought was just lazy was how you could only tag 5 moves at once, which really limits the combo moves you can see. There are different arenas, and each arena doesn't vary that much except for scenery and interactable objects. I wish they would have added a second section of the arena to fight in, like in Injustice. The fighting is very fluent for the most part, and there are only a few instances where I got caught being spammed by one button. Pulling off successful strings of combo moves and attacks just feels so satisfying, and it will keep people coming back again and again.

There are also a few other modes besides just the story mode. There is a 'Test your Luck' mode where you can have different gameplay modifiers for the match, like having super strength or being in slow motion, and it is a pretty good mode to play with others, and for a laugh. There is a 'Kustom Kombat' mode where you can choose the modifiers you want for the match instead of them being randomly chosen for you. And there is also a 'Test your might' mode, a completely unnecessary button mashing simulator that should not even be in the game and has no more depth to it other than karate chopping objects in half. Lastly, there are towers. In these towers you can face off against various opponents, climbing to the top of the tower. You can play the towers with any character and in any game mode. The towers are a lot of fun, and if you play the tower in the normal game mode and beat it, you get to see an alternate ending for the game with the character you beat it with, which is pretty cool.

You can take all of these fighting modes online, and there are a few other new modes like King of the Hill, where everyone in a lobby has to beat the last person to win a match. Online, it can feel like everyone is better than you. When you people are beating you badly and stringing all of these combo moves together seamlessly, you can't help but admire it. After a while, it just gets aggravating. There was some lag I noticed but not too much to ruin any matches I had. A new Mortal Kombat feature for online is the faction wars. Right from the start of the game, you are forced to choose which faction you want to be in. There is honestly nothing rewarding at all about factions, they don't make you feel like you are part of this huge clan, and they don't get you many Koins at all.

Overall, Mortal Kombat X is a pretty good fighting game. The fatalities and x-ray moves do set it apart from other games. Mortal Kombat X does bear a few unnecessary things that should not be in the game at all like Factions, brutalities, Test your might and the Krypt. The control scheme can be improved greatly as well. I have to say, it is not nearly as fun playing by yourself as it is with others, either online or locally. If you are only playing by yourself it will definitely derive from the experience.

+ Gruesome/awesome visuals                       - Not enough characters
+ Great fighting gameplay                             - Story mode is so empty
+ Playing with other is great fun                    - Cool characters aren't fleshed out
                                                                        - Awkward/annoying movement controls
                                                                        - Factions/Krypt/Brutalities/Test your might all pointless

7.3/10

Grand Theft Auto 5 - Game Review

Grand Theft Auto V Review

This game is everywhere. I waited for it to come out for PlayStation 4 because I thought I would have enjoyed it more. Now that I have played it, I honestly don't think that there is that big of a difference. But nonetheless, I understand now why this game is everywhere. It fits so many genres into one and nails it. For the most part, it will feel like you're playing as characters in a movie, one with a lot of dark and humorous dialogue that makes it all the more fun to play.

I have never come across a game that does storytelling like this one. You know, I imagine that it would be pretty hard to make someone care about three characters that take up theft and indiscriminate killing as a hobby/career, but somehow, Rockstar pulls it off. You learn the motivations and reasoning behind Michael, Franklin, and Trevor, the three main characters you get to play as. Michael is your fat American who loves watching movies and being rich. Franklin is your high school dropout gangster who just can't seem to be happy. And Trevor is your psychopathic killer with mommy issues. I love how Rockstar can take a psychotic person like Trevor and make him so likable and enjoyable. There are a handful of characters in this game, but you can separate each one apart easily, because they all feel distinct and different from each other, with their own story and personality.

I really don't like when characters in games feel all rinse and repeat like you've seen them before and Grand Theft Auto 5 suffers from none of that. The script in this game is hilarious, but also very, very dark at times. The script combined with all three of the wacky personalities you get to play as make up for some pretty awesome moments. To aid the story telling, you will get to see some of the most seamless transitions to cutscenes, with all of the cutscenes making you feel more involved in the story. The graphics in and out of the cutscenes are top notch, and the life-like movements of the character take motion capture to a whole new level.

To accompany the amazing story, you have a massive open world to get lost in, with a city, desert, forest and mountain range all in one just for your amusement. The giant city of Los Santos feels like your own personal playground to wreak havoc in, and I love that. I also love how Los Santos clearly parodies Los Angeles with its layout and angry pedestrians everywhere, just looking for a fight. You can do pretty much anything in this world, from friendly tennis games to murderous rampages. You can even flip out your own phone and surf the game's internet parody. While you are exploring the map, dying can occur often, and your only respawn points will be at hospitals. There aren't many hospitals at all, only around three to four, so it's kind of a pain to get back to where you were previously.

To add to the traffic packed city, you will have a lot of pedestrians roaming around the place, and they all have very realistic AI. citizens will run away screaming if you aim a gun at them. Cars will speed up if they hear shots fired. The AI helps to immerse you even more into the already realistic world, and I like that. The physics in this game are perfectly tweaked so that they're not too unrealistic but are perfect for driving and flying. With that being said GTA 5 has an enormous range of cars and vehicles, with hundreds of different variations and ways to customize it. To make driving more difficult and still fun, there will always be cars on the road to slow you down, but it kind of thins out the amount of cars you see the farther you get away from the city. There is also a nice range of weather effects that look very crisp.

One thing that is noticeable, but not too annoying, is the load time when you start up the game. When you immediately start up the game, you will be presented with logos and disclaimers plus the loading screen, which will take you about 2 minutes to sit through. It's not too bad for a game of its size and is totally forgivable since there are no load times between missions or cutscenes.

Since there are so many things to do in this world, It seems like it would be hard to learn all the controls for everything. This isn't the case, as the controls for non-specific minigames like tennis or golf will always be displayed in the corner of the screen, and they come very naturally. The on-foot controls are pretty basic, you'll even have a button specifically for jacking vehicles. Some of the controls are not as well designed as the others, for instance, constantly tapping A/X to sprint is aggravating. Another thing that I didn't like were the helicopter controls. They just felt a bit too sloppy to have a lot of control over, and at times was really frustrating. Also shooting while driving is extremely tedious, as it requires the multitasking of driving and shooting, and there is no auto aim to help, and it can be quite difficult with shooting and driving both being a trigger and a shoulder button.

Probably one of the biggest highlights of this game is the combat, which is pretty much cover and shoot. You will have loads of guns to choose from in this game, and they all have a different feel to it, so it doesn't just play as though it's copy and paste. The best missions in GTA 5 are the heist missions, which see you and your crew preparing for a heist on a jewelry store or bank and many others. These are very long missions and brilliantly designed. The cover and shoot mechanics are really good, and the auto-assist aim does exactly that, it assists you without it feeling too easy and forgiving. To add to the frenzy, you will have cool sound effects from the guns, and explosions. The background soundtrack is pretty decent, but the majority of the music you will hear will come from the in-game radio when you enter a car. The radio doesn't have that many songs for each station and can get a little too repetitive.

Aside from the brilliant single-player mode, there is also an Online feature. I haven't played much of GTA online, but it is very well made. It's biggest issues are it's loading times, which can take from 15 seconds, up to 5 minutes, much more substantial than singleplayer. I don't think that you can make a private lobby, or I at least couldn't figure out how to make on, so I found that annoying if I just wanted to play with friends and not have some random person breathing heavily into his microphone. Which was also another issue, there wasn't that quick of a way to mute an annoying person in the lobby, which was a frequent issue. I do like how easy it is to play with friends, think of everything amplified from singleplayer now that you can play with friends. GTA online also limits which guns you can buy, so that you will play it more to unlock some guns. I found that pretty ok with some guns, but just annoying with others. The newest heists update is amazing, each heist is around 1 hour and 30 minutes, and they play out just as well as singleplayer, except with real people.

It is impossible to pinpoint the exact best features of this game because they are all blended so well. Driving, flying and combat combined with the non-stop humorous dialogue are thrown out for you in almost every mission. GTA 5 doesn't lean on any one of the gameplay aspects because they are all just as fun as the next. This game can put you in some pretty intense situations, that make you want to step off to the side and say "That was pretty freaking awesome." And I love when games do that too, it's why Tomb Raider (2013) was such an amazing game. The length of the story is very long, but it keeps you hooked the entire time. Grand Theft Auto 5 combines the best elements of storytelling with the best elements of gameplay, alongside great character development throughout the entire story. I've never played an Action-Adventure game quite like this, and it actually stands to be one of the best Action-Adventure games I've ever played. I only have minimal complaints, and there is no complaint which can not be squashed by everything else this game does right. That's why I'm giving Grand Theft Auto 5 a...

+ Every gameplay aspect used correctly and nailed

+ Huge open world with so much life to it

+ Storytelling that is not sacrificed with open world

+ Funny Dialogue

+ Memorable characters and story

10/10

Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor - Game Review

Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor Review

What can I say about this game that has not already been said? Almost every aspect of this game adds up to make it one of my favorite games ever, combining elements from all games I love. Shadow of Mordor sets itself up to be dark and grim themed, set in the lord of the rings universe. The graphics are great, and the character design and Orc design make the world so much more believable. There will plenty of inhabitants to find and kill if you wish. The attention to detail in this game is incredible, and there is plenty of Easter eggs and secrets for those big Lord of the Rings fans to enjoy.

Shadow of Mordor tells the story of Talion, a ranger from Gondolin who, along with his family, have been slain by the black hand in a pretty gruesome cutscene. The Black hand uses them for sacrificial purposes, thinking that an ancient elf spirit, once summoned, will possess him and make him more powerful, except that the elf spirit has other ideas and decides to merge with Talion to prevent him from ever dying, to avenge his family. This gives Talion some sick wraith-like powers to help you seek revenge upon the black hand and kill anybody who opposes him relentlessly. For the entirety of the game the people that oppose you will only be a few different types of creatures and Uruks. When you're fighting Uruks though, you'll be fighting them in what is the most fluent combat system I've ever played in a game before. The story, though, is a different matter.

Starting strong with an intro that says to you "How much more interesting can this get?", it kind of falls apart at the end of the game. Right before the end of the game is when the story gets very captivating with all of its characters keeping you listening intently. There's no boss battle or anything with the antagonist, which is kind of disappointing. The final battle before the concluding cutscenes is kind of a bleak and brief stealth mission with one of the black hand's minions. It isn't as satisfying as I hoped and in all honesty it did disappoint me greatly. Instead, you are left with a quick time event which is as follows: x, x, x, move right stick into circle and press random face button, repeat last step three times, mash square approximately seven times and you win, game over. A concise cutscene plays and then the game ends. Just a warning for anybody, you will be underwhelmed by the ending.

As for the gameplay, whoa. You just need a moment to soak it all in, it's that good. It's pretty hard to get tired of. The thing that makes it so good is that it wins you over by giving satisfaction from everything you do. Even for the small things, like the screechy sucking noise that is played from the controller when you perform a drain on an Uruk. The most satisfying out of all is the swordplay. It takes the freeflow combat from the Batman Arkham games and Assassin's creed games while putting unique twists on it. When you first start out the Uruks will be pretty easy to beat and you will have just enough abilities to put to good use in combat. As you progress along with the game, the Uruks will begin to gain their own new abilities as you do. In one case the Uruks started attacking me two at a time, forcing me to counter twice. New types of Uruk will even show up, like Berserkers, these specially trained bulky Uruks who need to be stunned before you can attack them, Or Defenders, larger Uruks who carry shields and need to be attacked from the rear. All these things and more shake up the combat nicely, making every fight entertaining while being different from the last.

Then you begin to unlock new abilities which can make all the difference in combat, like a stun vault which allows you to vault over an Uruk while simultaneously stunning him, saving you the extra press of a button. And the combat is suited to everyone's needs, it can be as plain or as sophisticated as you like. You can easily win fights by vaulting, striking and countering only. There are, though, abilities which help win fights faster and essentially become a requirement later on in the game, the main ones being executions, drains, and wraith flashes.

Before I go any further, let me just say that the executions are the best part of the free-flowing combat, if not the best part of the game itself. The executions are 'executed' when your hit streak is charged, and a brief yet oh so satisfying animation plays where Talion brutally kills an Uruk in many creative ways. These range from around 10-15 gory animations, differing from Talion decapitating an Uruk, or slicing an Uruk halfway through the neck then slitting his leg joints. You get the point. All of these animations are played smoothly and in a fast paced motion, extending to around 1-2 seconds of jaw-dropping gore. You can easily lose track of time in the combat, it sucks you in like a vacuum.

Besides the sword, you'll also be granted a dagger and a bow. When you aim with the bow it goes into a slow motion mode, called Focus mode. The bow lets you see enemies highlighted in blue in the elf spirit's point of view. The bow mechanics are well designed and the bow is especially useful for making quick kills. You'll automatically switch to a dagger while in stealth, and you when you stealth kill an Uruk, and stealth kills are quick and gory, making stealth missions almost as fun as swordplay.

But the one thing that will keep people coming back to this game, again and again, is it's hierarchy system of Uruk Captains and Warchiefs called 'Sauron's army'. The hierarchy system shows a group of captains and 5 Warchiefs. All of these Captains and Warchiefs are randomly generated, each having their own unique strengths, weaknesses, and fears. All of this is found out by interrogating another captain or warchief, or by interrogating an Uruk marked green.  Captains/Warchiefs are plenty of fun to fight, as they add a lot of diversity to the combat and are pretty much like a randomly generated boss battle. The captain could be just strolling along before you pounce on him and gives the atmosphere a very eerie feel because they are everywhere and could catch you off guard.

For the first half of the game you will be stuck in a semi-medium sized map, and just when you want somewhere new to explore besides the ruined and dystopian Gondor, they give you a green and lush new map to explore, with even more hills and verticality. When you get the second map, you will almost instantly unlock the 'brand' ability, which allows you to mind control other Uruks whenever you drain them. This is an extremely helpful ability and was so useful for combat since the Uruks were getting harder. So much so that I was annoyed that the ability wasn't introduced sooner in the game.

One thing I didn't like about Shadow of Mordor is that there aren't many story missions, so the story is really short and I was really craving a few more side missions. The main thing that gives this game replay value is the randomly generated captains which never end. The thing I did like about these missions though is that they are never repetitive, and give you something new every time. I feel like most Action RPG's or open world games struggle with repetition, so that's something I was very glad about. Also, at the final boss battle, there's a cool looking area with red sand, and dust blowing everywhere. In the new small area, there's also a fort that looks all jagged and the sky is red, and it looked all hell-like. I really would have loved to see the new area expanded upon because it is very small and you can't revisit it once you finish the game. Which is a shame because it looked like it would make a good third map to explore. Overall,  Shadow of Mordor is a fanatical, fantastic game, taking the success and failure from similar games in the genre and learning from them.

+ Amazing combat/stealth              - unexplorable new area
+ Great attention to detail               - 'Brand' ability introduced late
+ Non-repetitive gameplay             - No boss battle with antagonist
+ Gory execution animations
+  Ridiculously helpful upgrades/abilities
9.6/10

Infamous: First Light DLC - Game Review

Infamous: First Light DLC review

 

Infamous: First Light is a DLC for the PS4 title Infamous: Second son. It's generally a fairly average DLC in length and dates back before the events in Infamous: Second Son. The story revolves around Fetch, an orphaned teenage girl living with her brother, Brent, on the streets. Fetch has superhuman abilities like a lot of other people in the game called 'Conduits'. Each one has the ability to control a unique form of matter, in her instance being neon light. It's safe to say that the story can be uninteresting at some times, but Infamous: First Light does a pretty good job of making you care about the characters for what a small game it is. Each one feels like they are real, having their own story to tell and what not. I have not played much of the Infamous: Second Son campaign, but Fetch is a far more likable character then Delsin. For the graphics, oh man, they're some of the best I've ever seen in a game before. The motion capture brings the characters to life beautifully, and the particle effects are downright gorgeous to look at, ranging from explosions to neon blasts. You can see every tiny little detail in every little pixel. And to top it all off, this game has crystal clear feed. I didn't see one bug or glitch or frame rate dip through the entire game.

For the gameplay, most of the things that Infamous: First Light can get away with is due to the fact that it's only a DLC. there are around 10-15 side missions, where you'll either be spray painting something or racing a little neon light ball. These are fun at first and then get a repetitive feel. When you're spray painting, you move the Dualshock 4 in a very clunky and sloppy manner, not that unsimilar to Wii remote controls. It's very awkward and time-consuming and is not really worth it. Then, halfway through the DLC, you'll unlock more side missions, and they're all the same thing as well. For these side missions, you will be tasked to hunt for a police drone and shoot it down in a specific area. I found myself getting frustrated with these missions because the 'specific' area they give you is actually pretty big, and it takes a long time to find those drones. Aside from side missions, you'll have scattered collectibles called 'Lumens' all over the map.

These side missions and collectibles will give you 1-2 skill points, which you can then obtain skills in the skill tree. At first, I found these skills really cool and was pretty satisfied with what there was to offer. But then, very near to the end of the game, they introduce two new sections to the skill tree, making it very difficult to upgrade them before the end of the game, and it almost overwhelms you. And right after you complete the final mission and the DLC ends, the game doesn't let you freely roam around the city anymore, and you can only play in these little arena minigames. Once more, they give you twice as many skills to unlock at the end of the game, and it all feels pointless because the only way you can get skill points is by playing the unnecessary and unwelcomed minigames that are just boring.

Besides the annoying skill system, the combat in Infamous: First Light is actually very fun. You'll blast and smash your way through enemies in glorious, fast-paced fashion. The amazing particle effects that occur when you shoot neon and the sound it makes just takes it to a different level of immersion. Some enemies will be stronger than others, and the D.U.Ps (the 'Conduit' police) will be able to even the playing fields with their power being able to control concrete, of all things.

One thing I really like about Infamous: First Light is that even when you're not in the frenzy of fighting D.U.Ps the world can still be fun to traverse. Your main source of transportation, or getting around the city is a 'neon dash', where you can run in a steady stream of hot pink neon along walls and pretty much any surface. Like I said before, everything in the game runs fluidly, so combat and just moving around in general flows like water, and it starts to feel natural very quickly.

My main problems with Infamous: First Light are in its story, not gameplay. The gameplay will pretty much be broken down into two parts, you'll either be free roaming in the city of Seattle while you tell your backstory in the custody of the D.U.P, or you'll be in the present time where you showcase your powers to the D.U.P where they study your every move in those boring arena minigames. Free roaming is the only one that is enjoyable while the arena minigames just seem lacking in creativity.

As soon as I assimilated the story, it started to grow weak and predictable. There are a lot of flaws in this game, and it's kind of made up for though with the amazing gameplay. Infamous: First Light feels like a demo to Infamous: Second Son by showcasing most of its cool aspects. I just hope that Infamous: Second Son solves most of the issues that Infamous: First Light creates.

                        
                          -Only one gameplay type fun

                          -Shoddy upgrading system                 + Fluid Gameplay

                          -Story conclusion weak/predictable   +Stellar Graphics                      

4/10