Oxenfree

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 11/26/2020
Posted in: Android, iOS, Mac, Microsoft Consoles, Mobile Reviews, Nintendo Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 4, Sony Consoles, Switch, Xbox One. Leave a comment

Publisher: Night School Studio

Developer: Night School Studio

Release Date: 01/14/2016

Rating: Teen

MSRP: $9.99

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Oxenfree is all about horror and mystery. It starts out with five students in their early 20’s arriving at a small town in the Pacific Northwest to discover some sort of weird thing that goes on in the caves there when you tune a radio to a certain frequency. After a good amount of dialog and plot and character development, you tune your radio and discover a rift in time and discover the island is actually haunted and you are trying to free the ghosts within. Why, how, and what they are in the mystery that I won’t spoil.

The horror elements are mostly audio-related and are something I have not really heard in a game before. The game uses the eerieness of radio static, and voices. Have you ever gone down a scary YouTube rabbit hole and watched “Top 10 scariest sounds” or something like that? Well, if you ever heard one that is about strange radio call signs that were used in the Cold War then you know what you will hear in this game. It made the hair on my neck stand up and was very chilling to hear. There are various stones you can find throughout the game that give you tidbits of stories about the island and these creepy radio calls are part of this. 

You wander around the island listening to the dialog as there are no puzzles in this game. It’s very much a “walking simulator”, but you walk and talk with the characters and choose from three different dialog options as they pop up in conversation. Some of these are story altering and some are not. These choices determine the ending you get which I found was a little too short and disappointing. I really got to like the characters here and the game is so short you can’t invest a lot of time into them. Every so often the game will bring you into a time loop and these are when a lot of important choices are made. Even for only a 4 hours game the story is done quite well and has a beginning, middle, and clear ending and you wind up exploring most of the island albeit at a snail’s pace. You can wander around further to collect letters and find these frequency stones, but I honestly didn’t find the story of the island as interesting as the characters.

The voice acting is actually really well done and I like that when you answer before someone finishes a sentence Alex, your character, will interrupt with a correct tone and inflection in her voice. The constant bantering between the characters is the most entertaining part of the game and I was always looking forward to hearing what they had to say. The game also looks really good with 2D backgrounds and 3D models. It’s a 2D side-scrolling adventure so it’s hard to get lost here. I found the game’s pacing was all over the place however, there would be sections where I felt I was progressing quickly only to get slowed down by too much backtracking or lots of cut scenes and dialog. You don’t have to really think to finish the game, and I felt collecting everything was too tedious due to the slow pace of the game.

Overall, Oxenfree is a great horror mystery game that while not being very memorable will entertain you for an afternoon and might be something you discuss with friends as the story does have a twist ending. It looks good, has great voice acting, and the characters are interesting, but the constant backtracking, slow pace, and almost zero gameplay may put some off.

Raji: An Ancient Epic

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 11/23/2020
Posted in: Microsoft Consoles, Nintendo Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 4, Sony Consoles, Switch, Xbox One. Leave a comment

Publisher: Super.com

Developer: Nodding Heads Games

Release Date: 08/18/2020

Rating: N/A

MSRP: $24.99

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Small indie games can usually bring some better content than large AAA budget games these days due to the smaller scope and less risk financially. Some of these games, still, rarely stand out and become huge massive success stories. Raji is a game I wish could become a success story that blows up like Journey, Braid, Limbo, or Inside, but it feels like it’s missing something to bring it to that level. For starters, the story is rather dull and uninteresting and mostly focuses on teaching the player about Asian-Indian mythology. You play as Raji who is determined to rescue her brother, Golu, from an evil demon. The story mostly focuses on mythology, but Raji and Golu aren’t very exciting characters. They feel very one-note.

The game’s main focus is combat and platforming. Combat is surprisingly deep with acrobatics and various moves that made it feel like Prince of Persia. Raji can do backflips off walls, pole spins, and each of the three weapons you acquire has a special attack, light, and heavy attack. You start out with a staff and this weapon is great for reach, the second weapon is a bow, and the third is a sword whip, and shield. You will end up switching weapons based on what enemies you are fighting. The enemy designs represent Asian-Indian mythology and look cool and are a challenge to fight. The game might seem easy at first, but there were sections where I did numerous times and the boss fights are a great deal difficult as well. However, there are difficulty spikes throughout the game. You will breeze through a few fights and then keep dying on just one that either has an unfair amount of enemies or multiple waves. You can heal by doing finishing moves, but that’s the only way in combat.

You can acquire skill points to add various elements that can damage enemies passively. These are mostly hidden in the game and require venturing off on different paths, but I didn’t make too much of an effort as the game is so short with only three large levels. Platforming is actually the most enjoyable part of the game, but the game focuses more on combat. While combat looks good and controls well, it just doesn’t have that oomph that other games like this have like Prince of Persia or even God of War. It feels like there’s no response from enemies when you hit them, there’s no weight to her movements. There’s momentum, but no feeling behind her which I feel would have taken the already detailed combat one step further. Platforming works well with wall runs, double jumps, shimmying and hopping across poles.

The game adds puzzles if you can call them that, as they aren’t really puzzles. You have to spin things to match them up, but it’s not like a typical puzzle. You can just rotate the rings until everything matches up. No puzzles here really. This is probably the weakest part about the game including the areas in level two where you have to throw out lilypads in the water to hop across. What’s the point? This doesn’t add a challenge to the game but just feels like a useless element that took focus away from something else. At least the game looks amazing with epic vistas, good lighting effects, and lots of detail. It’s clear a lot of care went into the game, but it needed more time for some polishing. I even ran into some game-breaking bugs with enemies disappearing or not appearing, and getting stuck on ledges.

Overall, Raji is a great action platformer that has some faults. It focuses too much on mythology and less on our heroine, combat controls well and looks fancy, but has no weight or feel behind it, and platforming is the best part is focused on less over combat. The puzzles aren’t even puzzles and the overall experience is only a few hours long. I haven’t played an indie game quite this fun in ages, and even with huge difficulty spikes, the game has a lot to offer.

Pumpkin Jack

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 11/22/2020
Posted in: Microsoft Consoles, Nintendo Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 4, Sony Consoles, Switch, Xbox One. Leave a comment

Publisher: Headup Games

Developer: Nicolas Meyssonnier

Release Date: 10/23/2020

Rating: N/A

MSRP: $29.99

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Small indie platformers are something I like paying attention to. Pumpkin Jack caught my eye as it looks and feels like a PS2 era platformer that would have fit in at that time, but has more polished gameplay than most did in that same time period. You play as a demon named Jack who is sent by the Devil to stop an evil wizard from taking over the world. It’s a very paper-thin story, but the game is so short that anything else couldn’t really flourish. This is also akin to PS2 era platformers as most of their stories were pretty basic and uninteresting due to the length and budgets. You have a crow companion that spews hints and dialog at you, but that’s it story-wise. The cinematics are nice and the presentation for the story is fantastic, but the content is really lacking.

This goes for most of the game honestly. While what is here is really solid it’s very elementary and basic. Combat consists of one button mashing over and over with an aerial attack. You can send your crow out for a quick hit from afar, but the main attraction is the various weapons you acquire at the end of each level. Ranging from shovels, scythes, magic orbs, and a shotgun. The arsenal is quite fun and keeps things mixed up, and so do the enemies. The enemies are well designed and one of the strongest points in the game. While you can button mash you must also dodge as dying is quick if you aren’t on top of your moves. Some enemies require being stunned first, some will spawn until you destroy their spawn point, some are strong, some are weak, and each enemy needs a certain approach to them.

The main focus outside of combat is platforming. You will be pressing the jump button at least once every 2-3 seconds without a break. Tons of platforming that can get a bit tricky, but the momentum and physics of Jack feel just right and the double jump helps quite a bit too. This would be a pretty monotonous game if there were just platforming and one button combat. To break this up there are some mini-games you can play with some using only Jack’s head that have you doing Simon Says, guiding bombs, memory games, etc. There are also on-rails sections in each level that require dodging and shooting down enemies. It’s quite fun, but you realize there is a formula in each level and while these are different such as riding in a minecart versus being carried by a giant bird they are essentially the same mini-games with different skins. At least the amount you do these is varied with some levels having a lot and some having only a couple.

The only thing you collect in the game is crow skulls used to unlock costumes, which feels pointless as the game is about 4 hours long and there’s no replay value. You see everything the game has in the first playthrough and due to its repetition and overall basic gameplay I have no desire to go back through. It’s fun while it lasts, and can offer a decent challenge, but it’s very formulaic when you step back and look at the game as a whole. The level design is great with various spooky themes like mines, graveyards, swamps, forests, and a neat Christmas level, but again, this is a PS2 era designed game with 2020 flair. The boss fights are probably the most unique things in the game, but I can say if this game came out 15 years ago it would have been a smash hit.

The visuals are also very dated looking a couple of generations old despite using DirectX 12 and even having ray-tracing and DLSS support. The textures are just muddy and low-resolution and they’re meant to look like an older platformer, and the game had a low budget, but it still needs mentioning. However, with the tight controls, great platforming, decent challenge, and unique enemies and bosses, the game is just good enough to recommend for a one-time playthrough. The story is paper-thin and uninteresting, the combat is simple, but there are five different weapons to use, interesting level design, and there’s an actual challenge.

Doom Eternal: The Ancient Gods Part 1

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 11/18/2020
Posted in: Microsoft Consoles, Nintendo Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 4, Sony Consoles, Switch, Xbox One. Leave a comment

Publisher: Bethesda Softworks

Developer: id Software

Release Date: 10/20/2020

MSRP: $19.99

Rating: Mature

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At the end of Doom Eternal, I was left with a bit of disappointment. Too many things were forced into the game and it got tiresome towards the end. New enemies were uninteresting and slowed the pace down some, too much platforming, and the difficulty was all over the place no matter what difficulty setting you were on. The Ancient Gods, sadly, exacerbates this by adding a new enemy that, once again, slows the pace down and is just an excuse to use a certain weapon mod. There are no new weapons, just three newish levels. I say newish as the third level – The Holt – is a recycled Urdak level. It’s boring and uninteresting, yet the first level, UAC Atlantic, is just a giant science center in the ocean. The Swamps, the second level, was the most interesting of the three, but they aren’t amazing overall. 

The story takes place right after the ending of Eternal with Doomguy trying to kill the one true Seraphim God to end all demons. It’s mostly just dialog over intercom here and there and just barely advances the already silly Doom Eternal story. Outside of a few codex pages, there’s not much else to the story here. In fact, there are even fewer secrets to find. Just 1ups, BFG ammo, codex pages, and there are six Gore Nests and three Slayer Gates. The Gates will give you an extra perk that has been added, which aren’t very useful, and the Gore Nests reward new Slayer Skins. That’s pretty much it for secrets, but the levels are very long and incredibly difficult. Combat arenas are tougher and longer and I died numerous times in each level even on the lowest difficulty. This is my biggest issue with Doom Eternal. Doom 2016’s areas felt hand-tailored, but Eternal’s feel randomized. Even the final boss is insanely difficult with too much jumping and worrying about obstacles rather than just shooting. 

The Ancient Gods feels mostly like stuff from the cutting room floor rather than an actual expansion. There’s almost nothing new here outside of 2.5 new levels and a few perks and two irritating enemies. Yes, like Maurader and Maykyr Drone, these enemies just slow the pace down. We get another Maykr Drone that has a shield and is only vulnerable when it’s down, and then there are the Spirits. These possess demons and make them stronger and the only way to kill them is to use the Microwave Beam or kill all the enemies in the area so it disappears. Super annoying, not any fun at all, and just slows things down. I would have liked to see a new weapon or a new actual demon.

Overall, The Ancient Gods are still fast-paced and fun Eternal combat, but it’s just not enough new to be considered anything more than some lost levels. Fewer secrets, new annoying enemies, insanely pumped up the difficulty, longer and less interesting levels, and only three new perks. It’s still plenty of fun and if you finished Eternal early on then this will give you a few hours of mayhem to get another taste, but it’s nothing to write home about.

Samsung Galaxy Note20 Ultra 5G

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 11/15/2020
Posted in: Android, Editor's Choice, Hardware, Mobile Reviews. Leave a comment

Smart phones have hit a plateau in the last five or six years if you haven’t noticed. We went from huge leaps and bounds in software and hardware to arguing over megapixels, keyholes, and camera bumps. Phones have gotten to a point where even lower end phones are no longer slow and can pretty much do whatever you need. The gap between a premium phone and a low -end phone is shrinking and it’s getting harder to justify the huge price hike in premium flagship phones because of this. Samsung is one of the largest perpetrators of this issue. The Note series was their bread and butter and was easily miles ahead of the iPhone and many other popular phones and continued to innovate with every iteration. Once the Note 8 released I was pretty much over it all. I switched to OnePlus and never really looked back as it offered most of what Samsung could for over half the price.

What made me go back? Especially since Note phones run over $1,200 these days. The Note series has evolved enough since the Note 8 to catch my eye. The phone may not be super special to anyone who upgrades yearly, but for a jump from three generations back it’s a beautiful piece of hardware. The evolution of the Note is still subtle, but in many ways. From the pretty much edgeless display to the return of an aluminum back and expandable storage. The series feels like it went back to its roots compared to older generations. Outside of lightning fast response times and fantastic game performance, those are a given. I came back for the little things.

The unboxing is rather humble and minimal. Just a plain box with the S-Pen on front and a big N20. It’s screams, “Yeah, we don’t need to say much.” Just a charger and a phone without all those crazy adapters that the Note phones started getting since the Note7. When you pick up the phone the first thing you notice is humongous camera bump. Like holy hell this thing has a growth! These things are getting so big and silly, but it doesn’t detract from the phone’s looks. The series finally feels premium again. Glass doesn’t make a phone feel premium – it makes it feel delicate and fragile. I never liked glass backed phones and I’m glad aluminum is back in. The brushed bronze color is gorgeous and it continues on the top and bottom with only the front being glass like it used to be since the Note4. There’s also a lack of a headphone jack, but loo, it’s over. Headphone jacks are bulky and you’re fighting for room inside the phones. You also can’t make a phone thinner than 3.5mm if you keep this.

The software is a rather familiar experience, but I jumped off the Samsung train before the Galaxy One UI ecosystem was created. It feels familiar, but very much evolved and there are subtle things I like. The Note20 has some of the most in depth options for a phone I’ve ever seen and it’s incredibly customizable down to theming. The S-Pen is pretty much the same, but has minor changes, but the biggest one being an internal battery and being able to use it for air gestures away from the phone. The phone also has lost it’s weird quirkiness of slowing down over time and being sluggish which was the main problem I always had with Samsung phones, but it seems the 12GB for much faster processing has helped that.

Gaming on the phone is amazing and it will run any game out there with no issues. Using various controllers and clips of your favorite configuration as well as emulating systems like the GameCube worked really well with not many issues outside of just typical emulator compatibility issues. The phone does get hot, but Samsung’s Game Launcher has evolved to allowed performance plugins to monitor framerate, temps, and CPU and GPU utilization. It’s great that Samsung has embraced the hardware demographic as these are the phones power users reach for.

I do have to talk about the S-Pen and it’s functionality. This is a gimmick still to anyone who doesn’t need to write notes or do art. My previous job found this phone useful as I was always needing to take notes on the fly, but the various software added feels more and more like there’s less of a reason to use the pen. AR Gestures, Live Messages, and various other apps like these are pure fun and gimmicky and there’s no reason why Samsung hasn’t really advanced the Pen’s software suite much in almost a decade. The air gestures are great for presentations or something, but unless you actually need a pen on your phone you probably will never use it outside of satisfyingly clicking the pen in and out. I love the S-Pen and there’s no other phone like it on the market that has something like this.

Overall, Samsung has created the most premium Android ecosystem on the market and the Note20 reigns supreme. With a 108MP camera, themes, always-on display, tons of battery saving measures and options, the best OLED phone display on the market, Dolby Atmos speakers, 120hz refresh rate, true edge-to-edge display, and the return of the aluminum back, the Note20 feels like the Note has returned from a long run of being a copycat instead of staying true to form.

Doom Eternal

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 10/27/2020
Posted in: Microsoft Consoles, Nintendo Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 4, Sony Consoles, Switch, Xbox One. Leave a comment

Publisher: Bethesda Softworks

Developer: id Software

Release Date: 03/19/2020

Rating: Mature

MSRP: $59.99

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Doom (2016) helped resurrect the aging and dying franchise. Doom 3 was scary and atmospheric but lost the fast-paced action of the original games. Doom bought this back in 2016 with a rocking soundtrack, fantastic visuals, fast-paced shooting, and what felt like Doom brought into the future, it was nearly perfect. Eternal follows in the footsteps of Doom 2016 by trying to expand the lore, story, and combat altogether. It does a great job doing this, but it does bring about some problems that didn’t exist in the first game. 

You are still Doomguy or the Doomslayer trying to stop Hell from invading Earth. id Software did a great job expanding the lore via a codex that has some interesting reads on the backstory of the Doomslayer and his origins and what the world is that he’s trying to save and destroy. The locations are more varied this time around with more back and forth between Hell and a mix thereof. Combat is basically the same as well as the demons you encounter minus a few additions. A new shoulder blaster has been added that can shoot fire or ice bombs as well as a flame. I feel this was probably the most useless addition as it’s one more thing to remember while you’re furiously trying to kill enemies. The ice bomb can freeze a group of enemies if you’re backed into a corner and the firebomb does a decent amount of splash damage. The flamethrower though…what was the point? On the other hand, you have a new super punch ability which can be used to knock out some demons’ armor and open walls for secrets. You also get a new dash ability as well which is used for platforming.

That’s another thing that’s been added is more platforming. You can wall climb on some surfaces and jumping from platform to platform works well enough but feels wholly unnecessary. Secrets consist of numerous items from songs to unlock to play in the Fortress of Doom, codex pages, toys, and an all-new upgrade system for the Praetor Suit and weapons. Weapons get two mods each and can then be upgraded with weapon runes. There is also a mastery upgrade that requires certain requirements to be met or you can skip the challenge with a mastery token. You can also upgrade your health, armor, and ammo with certain passive benefits. There’s a lot of upgrading and acquiring and I feel this is an excuse to make the game feel artificially expanded. I preferred the simpler game of Doom 2016 with regular upgrades found. I feel Eternal is doing too much for a game that’s supposed to be very simple. I also feel the new reboot series has run its course at this point. There’s not much else the game can do really.

The combat itself feels fine and is incredibly challenging and mostly unbalanced towards the last few levels. There are 14 missions so it’s much longer than the last game running about 10-15 hours if you explore every nook and cranny. I found exploring for secrets quite enjoyable and fun as everything is on the map and you just need to figure out how to get there. There are also combat challenges such as timed gore nests, and crucible challenges that give you keys to unlock a hidden weapon. You can find sentinel batteries to unlock rooms in the Fortress of Doom which is the new hub area that also has upgrade items locked away. It’s fine enough, a pain to navigate, but an interesting idea. I again feel that Eternal strays a little too far from the traditional Doom path in favor of more modern methods to make the game feel bigger and expanded when in essence most people come to Doom for the visuals, gore, fast-paced shooting, and interesting levels.

Speaking of levels, the game does overstay its welcome around mission 10 and feels like it just drags as you chase the final boss around. Not only are they incredibly difficult and almost unfair, the levels end up being repeats of previous levels, and the Urdak level is boring to look at. I do like the first 8-10 areas as they are interesting to look at with demonic imagery, gore, and just overall interesting atmospheres. The demons are great to look at and fun to shoot and tear apart. The quick-time event animations are much faster this time around and more varied. Each demon has it’s own set of front, aerial, and rear animations. Blue for health and orange for more ammo. You also have your chainsaw with three fuel cans to get yourself a large number of orbs, but this also is one of my gripes with the game. You have to rely on using the chainsaw to acquire ammo and health from enemies more than you do picking them up around you. Instead of giving us larger ammo capacities, you have to constantly scrounge for ammo and it drives me insane. I understand you run out of ammo sometimes in Doom, but every 5 minutes? I would die sometimes because I ran out of ammo and chainsaw fuel so what do you do then? Use your super punch and hopefully have a weaker demon around for a scrap of ammo. This focus on ammo scrounging really needs to shift in the next game.

The multiplayer in Eternal is much better than Doom 2016 as PvP is out the window this time in favor of demons vs the Slayer. Two demons and AI bots versus one Slayer is kind of fun at first, but after about 3-4 hours in these modes, I was over it. It just doesn’t hold my interest like Unreal Tournament or Quake’s Deathmatches did. Doom was never really well known for multiplayer and while it’s much better here, I wish id would just focus on the single-player only. Overall, what we get is a great sequel to Doom 2016 with fantastic visuals, a rocking soundtrack, great weapons to shoot and demons to kill, and just amazing fast-paced shooting. The last few levels are boring and overly difficult and the added stuff to combat feels like filler and fluff to pad a game that was already great.

Mafia: Definitive Edition

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 10/19/2020
Posted in: Microsoft Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 4, Sony Consoles, Xbox One. Leave a comment

Publisher: 2K Games

Developer: Hangar 13

Release Date: 05/19/2020

Rating: Mature

MSRP: $39.99

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I remember Mafia back in the early days of the PS2 era. I also remember not really understanding it because I was 12 years old and probably shouldn’t have been playing a Mafia game. I also remember the game being hard as nails, but that’s about it. 18 years later, Mafia is a classic and a surprising choice for a full-on remake. The game takes you through a story of the 1930s mafia motif as you follow Don Salieri’s family, and particularly, the story of Tommy Angelo. A simple cab driver just happens to be in the right, or wrong, place at the right time and gets inducted into the family. You and your pals Sam and Paulie go through the ebb and flow of a Don losing turf in a fantastical Chicago, Lost Heaven, and trying to gain the turf back from a rival mafia family.

The story and characters are the best part about the game, and honestly, the only reason to stick around. While the game looks and feels like 2020 it’s structured like 2002 still. You see a cut scene, play out a mission, and that repeats about 15 times. The missions are at least varied somewhat from running on foot, long shoot outs, and being a getaway driver. Sometimes there’s stealth involved with sabotage, espionage, and subterfuge. I was entertained throughout the entire game, but I kept feeling like I was playing an old game with a new coat of pain. While the controls works, the animations are fine, the cover shooting is awesome, it just feels like an older game in the way it’s structured. I also felt the large open world of Lost Heaven was wasted as the game is linear in design despite this open city. There’s zero side missions or activities to complete and the open city just acts as a living breathing hub world for you to drive around in during missions. It’s honestly a huge waste as side missions could have been added in.

When it comes to driving the game feels great. There are simulation and arcade types modes with automatic and manual transmissions and you also must drive on the road and follow the rules or get pulled over and cited. This was a super awesome concept back in 2002, but today it feels pointless as you can speed if you don’t see a blue blip on your map nearby. Until I understood that I got pulled over only twice early on and used my speed limiter. Once you figure all of this out the whole “traffic law simulation” gimmick is completely out the window. You can get wanted rating stars and lose the cops like in any open-world crime game as well, but that’s literally it for the world. Shooting feels fine with a decent cover system and peeking over and blind fire all work well, but the shooting feels loose and ancient. It has this wonky feel to it that I can’t quite put my finger on, but it still retains the stench of a 2002 third-person shooter, and while not game-breaking by any means, it’s still noticeable and just feels a bit off. The PS2 era difficulty spikes are also present as more than a few shots will kill you. You can find pills laying around sometimes, but overall you have to use the cover and play whack-a-mole or you will die fast.

My biggest gripe is these difficulty spikes. I will play a few fun missions and then you get thrown a huge shootout level with wave after wave of enemies and I would die numerous times. The same goes for overly long chase scenes. One crash and I would lose my chase and have to start all over again. This is more of that 2002 stench that just lingers in the air around all the 2020 glitz and glamour. Sneaking is fine as well as you can perform takedown moves, and those missions weren’t insanely long and the levels were easy to navigate. This simple mission structure is also a piece of 2002 that Hanger 13 just couldn’t shake. I would have loved a whole new shooting system and some more stuff to do in Lost Heaven. See the issue here lies in absolutely zero reasons to go back. There’s a “free ride” mode but you just drive around doing nothing in the city. Again, that was fun and exciting in 2002 but today it’s a snooze fest. 

Overall, the visuals are fantastic with great lighting effects, animations, and terrific voice acting. Lost Heaven looks like a living breathing world, but you’re just shuffled from mission to mission unfolding a well-written story with likable characters only to have zero reason to go back afterward. With nothing to do inside the open world and having silly collectibles distract you from mission objectives, as well as lingering issues from the original game, there’s just too much 2002 mixing with the 2020 stuff that makes things connect weird. It’s a fun ride the first time around, but after that, there’s no reason to revisit.

Mirror’s Edge Catalyst

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 10/15/2020
Posted in: Microsoft Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 4, Sony Consoles, Xbox One. Leave a comment

Publisher: Electronic Arts

Developer: EA DICE

Release Date: 06/07/2016

Rating: Teen

MSRP: $59.99

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Mirror’s Edge is actually one of my favorite games of all time. It didn’t sell well, hence the near-decade hiatus, and a lot of gamers just didn’t get the game. It also had a lot of flaws such as linear level design, a paper-thin story, and awful combat. While Catalyst improves upon a lot of weaknesses from the first game it also never addresses some as well. EA DICE really tried pushing the story further by showing us more of Faith’s past and how she’s tied to the KrugerSec conglomerate that’s brainwashing the entire country. Faith, along with the help of friends, must stop this evil police state and try and free the people. While this is good and all, the problem is that the world itself is sterile, boring, and so are the characters. There’s no reason to really care outside of the somewhat entertaining story missions thrown at us. Icarus, Plastic, Noah, and various other characters just feel like cookie-cutter generic fill-ins for something that could be more.

This also goes for learning about the world. The majority of the game is actually filled with side missions, time trial runs, collecting things, and audio recordings. Here’s the problem with all of this. I just do not care one iota to do any of these. I spent a good ten hours trying to complete every mission as I went on and then I just gave up. I don’t care about this world enough to bother spending more than the 8-10 hours the story missions give me. While the art style is faithful to the original with vibrant reds, blues, whites, and oranges, running around the city on top of Glass just isn’t interesting. I’m glad there’s an open world here rather than linear level design, but if it’s filled with boring filler content just give me a better linear story mode. I don’t want to hack billboards to put my “ghost” on it for other players to see. I don’t want to create my own run trials for others to play. I have never cared less for an open world than in Catalyst. You pretty much see the entire city during the story missions, but after collecting the 100th chip, the 150th blue orb, and finishing at least two dozens of trial runs and side missions I just stopped caring. There’s no real reward for finishing all of these either outside of “drops” you get to customize your ghost for players to see online. 

Here’s something else to consider. I had this game installed on my PC for four years before finally finishing it. I wanted to complete the game as much as possible, but every time I booted it up and saw the dozens and dozens of icons on the maps, finished a few side missions, I turned it off. I have never had a game installed on my PC for that long without making frequent progress. I had a kid, went through three GPU generations, built two whole PCs, became a nurse, moved states, lost my father, and have a second kid on the way. All that happened between release and finishing the game. The world is just plain boring and the story isn’t interesting enough to warrant sticking around for most gamers. I really like Faith, as she’s a well-designed character, but her personality is very one-note and she feels generic as well.

Let’s talk about what you actually can do in the game. The entire appeal of Mirror’s Edge is the parkour system. The first person parkour system is a lot of fun, and honestly the only saving grace for the entire franchise. You can run, jump, slide, double jump, zipline, and propel yourself around the buildings with grace. The new runner’s vision is a must as this is a red line you follow and the objects you need to use turn red. While running around and jumping around buildings is exciting, after 15 hours you grow tired of it sometimes. Only do the story missions provide something new to climb on or new environments to be in as well as scripted events. The controls work for the most part, but it’s the combat that hasn’t improved much and is a real pain. I honestly wish they just nixed combat all together for the series. You can do heavy and light attacks, but also while jumping off walls, off ledges onto enemies, and slide into their legs. If they’re stunned you can do quick three-hit combos, dodge and kick from behind, and all that jazz. It works, but it’s very frustrating when you confront more than two enemies at a time and it’s not fun when you aren’t on the move. Most of the time you can avoid enemies and only a few instances required me to take them down, but combat isn’t fun at all. The guns are gone in this game, but the combat just feels clunky, heavy, slow, and cumbersome. 

That’s pretty all there is in the game. It looks fantastic as it pushed the Nvidia 10xx series cards to their limits when this game came out, and I remember my GTX 970 couldn’t run the game on Hyper settings at 60FPS. It just looks so good, but again very sterile and boring to actually be in. The main missions provide entertaining for about 8-10 hours, but the extra side stuff is a pointless borefest. The parkour system combined with an open world just isn’t interesting enough to justify spending 50+ hours completing everything. Every area pretty much looks the same and the characters are boring and generic and I feel the series needs a complete overhaul if it even gets one. Due to poor sales of this game, we may be seeing the last of Faith. Stay for the story and then don’t bother after that.

Far Cry: New Dawn

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 10/13/2020
Posted in: Microsoft Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 4, Sony Consoles, Xbox One. Leave a comment

Publisher: Ubisoft

Developer: Ubisoft Montreal

Release Date: 02/15/2019

Rating: Mature

MSRP: $39.99

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One of my biggest problems with Far Cry is that it’s too big. Every Ubisoft open-world game has become so large that it’s boring to explore. I’d rather have a smaller area with more interesting things to do. No longer does a large open world impress people these days as it’s nothing new. These games just keep getting larger and larger, but what you do inside has not evolved much. Running around taking out the same outpost 50 times, collecting things, hunting animals, upgrading stuff – it’s just so trite that I just don’t care for it anymore, and Ubisoft is the worst offender out there.

New Dawn is a direct sequel to Far Cry 5 in which you play as a nobody who has come across Hope County in it’s isolated post-nuclear world of Montana on a train of survivors and get ambushed by the sisters Lou and Mickey. These are the antagonists of the game, and while they have a great personality and hit that Far Cry villain meter just right, their screen time is cut down to just a few scenes. The entire game is basically Far Cry 5, but more post-apocalyptic this time around. If you played that game nothing has changed here outside of a new ranking and looting system that is forced upon the player to even progress in the story. It’s something that drove me insane through the entire game and I always hit a progress wall because I had to stop and grind for material to unlock the next weapon bench level which then unlocked the next weapon level but to craft those weapons I had to grind for different material. I mean, Christ! Do you see what I mean?

The game is broken down into four different levels with the highest being an Elite rank. The enemies are ranked and are only immune to weapons of that rank as well. This is the stupidest system they could have done to try and make the game more interesting. I can use level two weapons on level three enemies but I will die and dump tons of ammo into them and I can’t carry enough even with my full ammo perks. The entire game can really only be played one way, to be honest. The main material to upgrade your main outpost, Prosperity, is ethanol. This is acquired by liberating outposts. Oh jeez, liberating outposts? I wonder where I’ve done that before. Once you liberate the outpost you get ethanol and some bonus if you don’t set off alarms or aren’t detected. I believe there are about a dozen outposts in the game, but the redundancy doesn’t end there. Once you liberate all the outposts you need to re-liberate them! Yeah, what?! This is to put that rank system into play and let you take it on with the next level of enemies. Then you get even more ethanol and the process repeats. You can’t even progress to chapter two without upgrading all the stations at least once which requires liberating all outposts. You can steal ethanol trucks, but it’s not enough to bother with.

Once you finally progress some you are at least using level two weapons and I stuck with this for most of the game. However, I hit a wall at the end of the game as I couldn’t finish a mission without elite weapons. To do this I had to re-liberate a few outposts, upgrade the station, then grind for materials to get at least one elite weapon. To do this I had to do expedition missions that are so boring and annoying especially without a real co-op partner to get circuit boards that are needed for most elite weapons. That wasn’t enough though! I needed to hunt the elite animal for its skin too! Just…the walls never ended and it was just one after another after another. In between these walls, there’s really nothing to do outside of collecting materials all over the place. That’s literally it. The game is a borefest outside of the mildly entertaining story mode as I did enjoy seeing the villains on the screen including Joseph Seed.

The game map is also just too damn big. It’s smaller than Far Cry 5, but everything is spread so far apart that driving is a must, but I never even bothered flying anywhere as you have to grind to unlock flying vehicles. I feel like all the work I did in Far Cry 5 was reset after playing this game. The entertaining parts of Far Cry 5 are absent like the Arcade mode and the stuntman levels. There are a few side missions here to acquire allies, but they are mostly uninteresting. After I got just enough stuff to finish the game I felt there was no point in continuing. The entire game is built around grinding to progress in the story, but once that’s done what’s the point of finding everything? You can unlock perks for stealth kills, and various other things that are mostly useless like faster cooldown on mounted weapons…really? What’s the point of that? The game relies way too much on this material system to build up everything without it ever meaning anything after the story is finished.

Overall, New Dawn is worse than Far Cry 5 but taking out all the fun and wrapping the game around a grinding material hunting fest and smacking you will progression walls constantly. The map is too large and empty, there aren’t really any modes or things to do outside of looting materials, and the only really entertaining parts of the game don’t get much screen time. This feels like the most useless Far Cry game to date as if it never existed anyone would miss it. Even if you did play Far Cry 5 there’s no reason to even play this outside of sheer boredom. The shooting is still solid like always, the visuals are amazing, but that means nothing when it’s inside of a boring empty world that forces the player to play the game a certain way then give them the finger when the game is completely over.

I Am Dead

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 10/11/2020
Posted in: Mac, Nintendo Consoles, PC Reviews, Switch. Leave a comment

Publisher: Annapurna Interactive

Developer: Hollow Ponds

Release Date: 10/08/2020

Rating: N/A

MSRP: $17.99

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I Am Dead is a curious object hunting game about a ghost of a museum curator. That may sound boring on paper, but it’s quite charming and the mini-stories within are nice enough to keep the game moving along. You discover you have died, of what is unknown, and you can see through objects like a ghost or “slice” objects. This is a game all about a no-clip camera! It’s pretty cool at first as you can push the camera through an object to see what’s lying or hiding underneath. This is 100% a hidden object game with a larger budget is. The goal of the game is to find a spirit that can take over quieting the island of Shimerston as the volcano is about to erupt. You slowly learn of the island legend and the 5 main characters you need to try and convince to do the job.

There are 5 objects to find in each level. You spin around an area with smaller areas to click on and then the object hunting begins. To know what you are hunting you click on characters with bubbles as you will recall their memory and the main object they are talking about in that memory is what you will hunt. The stories are the most charming part of the game. They are super short but well written and during these stories rotate some sort of weird globe to focus the picture into view. It’s pointless, but it’s something to do during all the talking. Once you know what object you need to find is you will get a hint if that object is in the area you clicked on by the icon popping up on the screen. It was never too difficult to figure out what the items were, but the optional Grenkins objects are a lot tougher. This is a side puzzle that requires you to rotate a certain object like a shadow game so only part of the camera clips through and it looks like the icon. If the Grenkin object is what you clicked on Sparky, your canine companion will bark so you aren’t aimlessly rotating every object. There are additional tougher objects to hunt if you can find the secret list. These are tiny objects hidden inside others such as toys or bugs and you only get descriptive hints as to what they might be. 

To be honest, the game shows you all it can do in the first ten minutes, and outside of hunting for the main items, I collected Grenkins for two levels and stopped. It was just too much to endlessly rotate and hunt objects forever as the main story was already asking for a lot. If you really love the gameplay mechanic here then it’s for you, but after so long I tired of it and wanted to see the story progress. There is literally nothing else to do in the game outside of object hunting as that is the sole mechanic. At least the areas are all varied and no single object was the same. You can finish the main story in about 4 hours, but if you collect everything you might be here for over 10. The visuals are quite charming with a flat pastel color and low poly objects. It has a unique look and each item is surprisingly detailed both inside and out. There are hundreds of objects to examine and it’s quite impressive that the developers went through all that effort. The voice acting is also quite good and it helps seal the aesthetics. 

Overall, I Am Dead is a fun object hunting game for a few hours, but the story, in the end, doesn’t wow you or have a twist ending. It’s pretty predictable and the extra puzzles aren’t worth your time as there is no reward outside of just doing them. The visuals are charming and there is a lot of detail put into the objects you examine, but the entire game shows everything it can do in the first ten minutes and never evolves beyond that. If there was something more to this game outside of just clipping through objects for 4 hours until I find what I need I would stay longer, but this game is mostly for object hunting fanatics.