Publisher: Electronic Arts

Developer: Respawn Entertainment

Release Date: 11/15/2019

Rating: Teen

MSRP: $59.99

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There have been many Star Wars games over the last three decades. While some have been fan favorites, there has probably been a Star Wars game in every single genre imaginable. Even with the successful games, there has been one thing lacking from every game that hasn’t been done correctly until now: Jedi battles and light saber gameplay. Some of the other Star Wars games may have done it decently, but never as flashy or well done as Fallen Order, but that’s not the only quality this game has.

Fallen Order takes place during the timeline of the original movies when Darth Vader was still alive. You play as Cal Kestis, a fallen Jedi who is on a mission to retrieve a Holocron containing the location of every single Jedi child left. Like every Star Wars story there is a Sith lord after you and in this case the Second Sister of the Inquisitor Order is after you. Cal rides around with his Jedi pal Cere and pilot Greez. They use Greez’s ship as a hub area in which you can customize your lightsaber (more on that later) and travel around the four planets that the game offers. Each planet is a large open area that you are free to explore, and while you explore these planets you acquire Jedi abilities and new tech for your Droid, BD-1.

The main focus of Fallen Order is the fantastic combat system put into place. The game is incredibly responsive, has beautiful animations, and you really feel like an actual Jedi for the first time ever. You can light attacks which are used the most, and heavy attacks use up your Force meter. As time goes on your acquire the double lightsaber and then eventually the dual lightsaber becomes a powerful force ability. Parrying and dodging are key to staying alive because you can’t just wail on enemies and spam attacks. Each enemy is unique with their own attack powers. From regular Stormtrooper rifleman and shocktroopers to powerful Purge Troopers that have heavy plasma swords, rocket launchers, and flame throwers. You can knock back energy blasts with your lightsaber and throw back projectiles which is awesome. There are even a few occasions where you get to take down AT-ATs.

Once you acquire more force abilities they can be used in combat such as Force Push, Pull, and Slow. These are key to clearing rooms or knocking enemies off of cliffs, but also used in puzzle solving. There are only a few large puzzles in the whole game, but they are fun and require a bit of thinking and mastering the Force abilities. As you progress you can use these new abilities to access new areas such as pulling down ropes, blowing down weakened walls, slowing down fan blades, and more. You can access new areas to open chests that have customization items such as lightsaber parts, ponchos for Cal, and skins for BD-1 and your ship, the Mantis. You can also find Force Echo spots to add to your XP to level up.

So while exploring is completely optional if you just want to enjoy the story sections, there are several bombastic scripted events throughout the game that are incredibly enjoyable. Fighting a giant bird on Kashyyyk, or even running from Tie Fighters on another planet. The scripted events are worth playing alone and I was highly entertained. This also leads to some amazing boss fights that put your skills to test in which you need to time parrys and dodges perfectly while learning their attack patterns. While you travel through planets you can unlock shortcuts, but I found it annoying that you couldn’t fast travel between meditation spots.

As you gain XP and skill points you can acquire new combat moves and increase your health and force meter. These are also increased by finding parts of three throughout the game. This is where Fallen Order takes a page out of Dark Souls’ book as when you meditate it saves your game there, but if you restore your health all enemies in the world respawn. This can be quiet annoying when you’re backtracking through an entire level to get back to your ship or something since there is no fast travel feature. I also found that you must master the combat system in order to get through this game, especially at higher difficulties, as you can’t fast travel or move around easily throughout the game besides running away.

There is lightsaber customization in which you can choose the blade color, and the design of the switch, hilt, and various other parts. Sadly, you don’t get more colors until towards the end of the game, but all those chests you spend hours finding contain mostly lightsaber parts. Is it worth spending hours for? Not really, but at least the chests are completely optional and won’t make you feel guilty for skipping them. Likewise, customization is cosmetic only and there aren’t any ways to add abilities this way or change the actual shape of the lightsaber or anything, but it’s the most detailed customization we’ve ever had in a game.

With that said, Fallen Order scratches every Star Wars itch I have. The story is great and feels like it could fit into a Star Wars film. The characters are memorable, likable, and the satisfying conclusion at the end of the game makes the short play time worthwhile. The usual plot twists and turns in a Star Wars film are present here and it’s just good enough to make you surprised when a new event unfolds. I did feel the game was a bit slow in the beginning especially if you’re fully exploring the planets and may spend an hour or two trying to find all the paths on the map and the chests. Speaking of the map, this is by far one of the best video game maps ever made. If you aren’t sure where to go a yellow wall will appear on the map showing you need to go in that direction still. Shortcuts are green, red objects mean you need to acquire that ability to advance past it and it just feels so useful and I constantly referred to it.

The game also looks gorgeous with some amazing vistas, especially in the beginning of the game on Brakka, and this just feels like a high-budget Star Wars movie. Amazing lighting effects, fantastically done motion-capture and voice acting, it has it all. I loved exploring the few planets in the Star Wars universe up close and personal, and the game is definitely memorable for that. I don’t have too many complains about Fallen Order outside of the tedious backtracking and the combat can be very difficult to master due to perfectly needing to time everything, but it’s challenging and just satisfying enough. I also wish the story were longer and there were more planets to explore, but that’s only because I enjoyed the game so much I wanted more.

Publisher: Activision

Developer: Infinity Ward

Release Date: 10/25/2019

Rating: Mature

MSRP: $59.99

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When you’re desperate to bring a franchise back what do you do? Well, two things, you either reboot the entire series into something new or bring the series back to its roots. Activision chose the latter and somehow is just brilliantly worked. See, Call of Duty 4 was something groundbreaking and revolutionary in the first-person shooter genre. With a fantastically cinematic campaign and an interesting protagonist (Cpt. Price) and addictive multiplayer that had you grinding for perks and weapons unlocks, but it was fast-paced and fluid with well-designed maps. Infinity Ward had created a magic that took the world by storm. Of course, what do you do with a franchise that’s this successful? Milk it to death with yearly sequels for over a decade until it kills itself. That’s actually what happened to Call of Duty, twice! While the peak of the series was with Black Ops 1 the latest Black Ops 4 was a complete disaster. With every iteration was a less than stellar campaign and boring multiplayer. So, all those wonderful memories you had with Call of Duty 4 can now come back as this is a prequel to that game and keep those memories in mind because we’re going to come back to those later.

Now, Call of Duty has never been well known for its amazing story, but Modern Warfare tries at least with the game taking place in Russia and the Middle-East. You are trying to find out who stole a toxic bio-weapon and you team up with a rebel group in the Middle-East to stop the Al-Quatala terrorists from unleashing it on the world. It’s a typical modern terrorist plot, but it’s enough to get the job done. At least the characters are interesting With you playing as Adam, Garrick, and Farah. Adam is part of the US Army and Garrick is part of the SAS. Farah is the rebel group trying to break her people free from Al-Quatala and the Russians selling the bioweapons aren’t helping. Each character is actually really good to watch and pay attention to on-screen. Of course, Cpt. Price has this awesome presence that you can’t look away from. His voice acting and motion capture are amazing and it’s nice that they tried to breathe actual life into these characters. Remember when I said to remember those CoD4 moments of nostalgia? Well, when Cpt. Price comes on screen for the first time or you see the ending, you get goosebumps and can’t help but smile and think, “It’s back!”

The campaign is short but sweet. Running in at about 6 hours, each and every level is unique and different with a ton of scripted cinematic moments. There’s even a level where you play as a child and have to sneak out of your village. Infinity Ward really tried with this game and the campaign is actually replayable and incredibly fun to go through. The game is familiar to any Call of Duty fan, but you can feel the original’s fingerprint throughout the entire game. From night time stealth missions to explosives bombastic firefights, Modern Warfare covers every base and the pacing is spot on and it never gets boring. The shooting itself is very familiar with the first three Modern Warfare games with various real-world military weapons fine-tuned and balanced just right. There’s a play style here for everybody from spewing rounds with the PKM, running around corners with an M80 shogun or picking off enemies with a Dragunov sniper rifle. The balance of weapons leads to the feeling of movement and satisfaction of bringing someone down. The four-way spread of the reticle when you’re hitting an enemy and the sound it makes to let you know you’re on target to the way you can now slide around corners and mount walls. It’s a formula that only works in Call of Duty and it’s never been better than it has been here.

Once you finish the campaign it’s off to multiplayer which is where the meat of the game is at. This also feels very familiar and brings back old Call of Duty balancing and modes such as Team Deathmatch, Headquarters, and various other modes. This is the first Call of Duty game since Modern Warfare 2 that has had me coming back over and over again for more carnage. The gameplay is perfect and while the weapons are still being balanced through patches, the expensive map packs are now gone in favor of free maps and a battle pass similar to what Battlefield is doing.

Acquiring new unlocks comes much quicker and more steadily than previous games. Nearly after every match, I was unlocking something whether it was a paint job to a perk or an attachment. There are so many playstyles available for players and the maps allow them all. Hand back and pick off enemies, set up camp in a sniper position, or run around with a shield and shotgun like a lunatic, it’s all up to you. The Killstreaks and Perks are back to basic with UAVs, Cluster Strikes, and Apache helicopters raining havoc down including white phosphorus and the new Juggernaut armored suit.  It’s a reason to play better and stay alive as the best Killstreaks are for the elite players who are the best. The game can also seem frustrating at first as you will die a lot and not get any kills when you first start out. Modern Warfare has a special feel to it that every player needs to get down. Learn the maps, every nook, and corner, learn the shortcuts, and how the flow of each map is laid out. That is key.

Speaking of maps the launch maps are rather generic. While they aren’t designed poorly they just aren’t that interesting with just an overall generic feeling to them. While more maps are to come to the 10 maps included just don’t feel as memorable as previous games. With a few maps being specific to Ground War which is an all-out huge battle to take over choke points, the smaller maps just leave too much room for campers with blind corners and easy to hide in pockets. Overall, they’re still fun and I don’t have any other complaints about multiplayer than the map quality. I do enjoy the new cross-play feature which is a first for Call of duty. PC, Xbox, and PlayStation players can play together with symbols indicating what system and device the players are using in the lobby before a match starts. It’s a great way to keep longevity alive as PC activity usually dwindles towards the launch of a new game, but with three combined user bases, the game is sure to stay alive for much longer.

The last thing I want to talk about is the visuals in the game. They are out of this world amazing thanks to a new game engine and implementing RTX Ray  Tracing on PC for Nvidia GPU users. The lighting is fantastic, and the engine is so well optimized I’m able to get triple digits frames with RTX on and the graphics maxed out in certain scenes. The textures and models look fantastic and the lighting is just incredible. Running through certain scenes and levels just made my jaw drop and this is easily one of the biggest technical marvels of the year, hands down. However, that is just for PC. I did play this on the original Xbox One console and it looks like garbage with tons of blurring, poor frame rate, and stuttering. I’m sure the PS4 looks the same if now worse, and the Xbox One X and PS4 Pro versions are better performance-wise but don’t hold a candle to the PC version.

Overall, Modern Warfare is one of the best shooters in the last decade and the best in the entire series. It took way too long for the series to get back on track, but it’s here and better than ever. With groundbreaking visuals, an addictive multiplayer suite, and tons of maps to come, there’s not much to not like about this game.