When you think about soccer, the last thing you think about is cars. Rocket League takes a joke and turns it into one of the best competitive games in years. That’s a bold statement, I know, but you have to play it to believe it.
There’s no story, no leagues, no teams with some sort of crappy background to tie something in. You just customize your RC car and smack a giant ball with it. It sounds boring and simple on paper, but it is the perfect formula for something amazing. Once you jump into the tutorial, you will think it’s quite simple: drive your car into the ball and get it into the goal. It sounds simple, but when you have five other players doing the same thing, it can become insane and immensely fun. One of the key assets of Rocket League is that the control mechanics are simple to learn but hard to master. Sure, you can do a bicycle kick, launch your car into the air willy-nilly, and even guard a goal, but it’s how you do all this with finesse that will determine how good you are.
When you finish the tutorial, you will notice it will take about a dozen rounds before you start to really grasp the mechanics. Again, it’s not that they’re hard; they just require practice. The maps have speed boosts strategically laid out throughout the map. These are orb globes (full boost) or orange plates (partial) that are placed so well that you will subconsciously remember where they are and hit them as you are going around the map. This is hard to get right without breaking concentration. Hitting the ball into the goal is the main goal, but what’s so great about Rocket League is how this is done. Because this game is online, there will be exciting and memorable moments that you can save via replays, like an amazing pass, a long-shot goal, a great defensive move, or something along those lines. I made some incredible, insane shots and helped my team out without having to communicate, and that’s also hard to get right.
Rocket League doesn’t have voice chat, which is a blessing in disguise. Instead, you get predetermined messages that you can select with the D-pad that get your message across. Most players are great athletes in this game, and the competition is the same. Outside of scoring, there are other ways to get to the ball; you can drive on the walls and ceilings. Rocket League has each map in a glass case, so this allows you to drive up a wall, kick off, and hit the ball that’s high into the air. Even after dozens of matches (probably over 100 at this point), I still miss jumping up and hitting the ball in the right direction. I have to warm up like any good online game.
The visuals are fantastic, with individually rendered grass blades, great lighting effects, high-res textures, and gorgeous colors and sound. I really felt like I was in a stadium playing a sport. The customization for your car is nearly endless, as parts are unlocked based on achievement goals, which makes you want to keep playing to have the best-looking car on the field. There is a great match-making filter implemented, and free maps and updates are constantly being added. 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, and 5v5 are all possible options, and they are so great. Matches are quick to start up, and there are tons of players online, so you will always find a match to join. The servers are also very stable, with no hiccups during my entire time playing the game.
With that said, I can’t stress enough how Rocket League is more like soccer than actual soccer games are. You get the thrill and joy out of scoring like you would in real life; this is in contrast to the stale solo plays of real soccer games like FIFA or PES. Some people may scoff at that, but it’s the truth of the matter. Rocket League is addictive and fun, and anyone who plays online competitively will enjoy this game even if they don’t like soccer or cars. The game has a wide appeal to all audiences and will allow for hundreds of hours of fantastic gameplay.
Have you ever wondered what would happen if humanity was on the brink of extinction? I really mean it too, not just in a cheesy sci-fi movie way. Soma makes you truly and honestly think about this, and it scares the crap out of me. Right up front, I want to say that Soma is one of the most original stories I have seen in a game in a very long time. The story takes a while to understand what’s going on, but once you do understand, you’re in for quite a ride.
You play as a man named Simon who is fighting brain cancer. You go to a doctor’s visit and sit inside a chair. One moment you think you’re getting scanned, and then you wake up in a mysterious lab wondering what’s going on. Immediately, the plot and timeline continue on around you while you’re catching up. It really makes you feel like you’re being dropped into the middle of a shitstorm. The premise of the story is that a meteor wiped out nearly all of humanity (which is a real and possible reality), and there is a system called the ARK that is to preserve humanity digitally. Now the story makes you think the ARK is several different things and works in different ways. The story is so well told that you actually organically understand everything exactly as Simon is understanding it; it’s quite unique and ingenious.
The game is made by Frictional Games, which made Penumbra and Amnesia: The Dark Descent, so you know what you’re in for: a very scary game. Soma is actually much more intense than those games, and it is scarier. The graphics engine has been pumped up quite a bit; while not state-of-the art it looks way better than Frictional’s previous games, and it is still quite beautiful artistically. Your goal is to solve simple puzzles in some areas while also discovering more of the story through audio and text files while you explore rooms. The most intense part of the game is when these WAU creatures are wandering and shuffling around. You have to hide and sneak around them, which is some of the scariest things I have done in gaming in quite a while. The sounds help sell the scare factor, and I really felt claustrophobic through the whole game. Running around in derelict underwater labs isn’t a walk in the park.
The game is broken up into areas or lab sites, and the whole thing takes place underwater. As you go further and further into the ocean floor, things get crazier and crazier. The WAU is an organic computer system that we built to help sustain life underwater, but it’s now taking over and has killed off nearly every remaining human left on the research site. The way this place is built is awe-inspiring and really makes you feel puny, thanks to the way the story is told. You literally go through every step to launch this ARK into space, and you have a computer AI companion that makes you feel even more alone. The various story pieces that come together in the game are fantastic and very memorable; I can’t say much more without major spoilers. I will say that you get moral choices in the game, but in the end, they mean nothing, and that’s actually the way you want it. The way the story is told, there is no way to find out what happened with your choices, and it makes it feel that much more real and scary.
I did run into a few issues in the game, like some of the sneaking areas were really difficult without a walkthrough because you need to keep your flashlight off and you’re basically feeling around in the dark. This made certain areas extremely frustrating and caused multiple deaths. I also found a few puzzles very vague. If those issues had been fixed, this would be the perfect adventure game, as it has already revolutionized several tired elements. You will look past these issues, thankfully, due to the story being so incredibly amazing that you will want to go on.
The atmosphere itself is just very foreboding; all you want to do is find another living person, but Simon’s luck is just really bad. Frictional Games forgoes the cheesy, predictable quirks of gaming stories and makes you press on and feel alone and hopeless, which is fantastic. Walking around in labs and then stepping outside into the vast ocean is a great experience and makes you realize just how screwed you are. You can still be attacked outside, and you must follow the procedures and safety measures set up throughout the underwater city, or you will die. The fact that Simon relies so much on his AI companion just reminds you how fragile this whole mission could be and that humanity could be lost forever so easily.
With that said, Soma is one of the greatest gaming stories ever told, and I seriously mean that. It’s just too bad this is an indie game and won’t get the attention it deserves. The game has a few flaws, like slightly dated visuals, difficulty spikes, and some vague puzzles, but you won’t care and will want to press on thanks to the amazing atmosphere that nearly makes you feel like it’s happening to you.
Note: This is a re-review due to my original Halo 3 review being very brief and not up to par with how I write these days.
Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios
Developer: 343 Industries/Bungie
Release Date: 9/25/2007 (X360), 11/11/2014 (XONE)
Available On
Nearly four years in the making, Halo 3 was one of the most anticipated games of the last-generation console launch. While it didn’t quite make the November 2005 360 launches, it did garner huge sales and broke records at the time. I remember playing Halo 3 shortly after its release and thinking it was the best of the trilogy. Now, after playing Halo 1 and 2 remastered, I have to say Halo 2 still stands superior. While Halo 3 is better balanced and has a better dual-wielding system, it’s shorter in length and feels like too much of the same. How many times do we have to “stop” the flood? How many Halo rings do we have to land on? It keeps getting boring and tiresome, and for me, the series has hit a fatigue plateau that it needs to get out of. While the Brutes are a more relevant enemy and there are more Flood variations, I’m still tired of it all.
Despite those complaints, the game is still solid, no matter what. It’s challenging, for sure, and there are some added elements that change it up just enough to justify calling it a sequel. Remember those giant scarabs from Halo 2? Now you get to battle several of them in the game. We can now drive Scorpions and new Covenant vehicles such as Choppers, but sadly, we can no longer drive Wraiths. These balancing tweaks help make the gameplay better, just like only certain weapons can be dual-wielded. Dual Needlers can still be rocked around, as can Brute machine pistols, Brute shotguns, more energy weapons, and improved UNSC weapons.
The game is shorter than the last games, but each level is completely different. One level has us on a Halo ring, another on the derelict Ark, so it doesn’t get too boring, but everything is very familiar. The whole point of the game is to stop the Flood and the Prophet of Truth from firing the Halo rings and killing everything in the galaxy. While the story is just as brief as the last games, I still found myself disappointed in not seeing or hearing about more lore. The series hasn’t exactly been expanded upon; it just stretched out through the trilogy, which I felt was disappointing.
Graphically, Halo 2 remastered looks better than Halo 3, but this isn’t a surprise. Halo 3 was criticized for not having “next-gen” graphics at the time of launch and was claimed to just be marginally better looking than Halo 2. Halo 3 doesn’t get a remaster here, and the gorgeous pre-rendered cut scenes are gone, which is a huge letdown. Honestly, Halo 3’s graphics are kind of all over the place with decent character models, but some textures look awful in spots and the physics seem weird and too floaty—even for Halo standards. Halo 3 received some lighting enhancements, and certain areas look pretty good (mainly outdoor areas), but don’t expect to be wowed by the looks of this game at all.
Overall, Halo 3 does what it was supposed to do: let us finish the fight against the Covenant Prophets and the Flood. The ending is satisfying enough, and I felt the game was shorter than previous installments, but somehow it was just right for this game due to the same feel it has. Sadly, the game was not remastered and feels inferior to the remastered versions of Halo 1 and 2. There’s just enough variety and changes here to make it feel like a sequel, but not the earth-shattering sequel that Halo 2 was.
Right out of the gate, I have to say that this game is extremely difficult. It took me nearly a year to get through this game because of just how exhausting the game is to play through. Fifteen grueling chapters clock in at about 15 hours. You play a man named Sebastian who enters an asylum with two other detectives to find out why a massacre broke out there. You are then stuck in a bunch of nightmares; you’re chasing a boy named Leslie and running from a man named Ruvik. That’s it. Have a good night. The story makes zero sense; there’s no comprehension, and it’s very disorienting. You go from crazy room to crazy room, down hallways and arenas, with no sense of why you’re doing this.
Apart from the insanely vague story, the game does give off an amazing sense of atmosphere. Creepy intestines hang from the walls, eyeballs float around on ceilings, and enemies are some of the scariest stuff since Dead Space, but I have to say, the atmosphere is awesome. Unfortunately, that’s about all that The Evil Within has going for it, despite trying to bring back the old-school survival horror vibe, which it fails to do. This is done with a lot of stop-and-go cut scenes and endless hallways, and then you’re slammed with a bunch of action and no ammo—yeah, it’s one of those.
This game wants to bring survival horror ammo scrounging to a game that has a lot of action, and this is very bad. It just doesn’t work. Even if you are smart with your ammo, conserve, and use melee when the option is available, it just doesn’t always work. The game is highly unbalanced, with long stretches of nothing and then several arenas full of bad guys. Now there is a stealth element added in, but it fails most of the time. Enemy paths are random, they are placed poorly, it’s hard to get to them because the sneak animation is aggravatingly slow, and it doesn’t end there. The game is devoid of puzzles, meaning there is no challenge outside of combat. On top of all this, gunplay itself isn’t very fun, as the camera zooms too close to Sebastian’s shoulder, making quick aim disorienting and difficult, the animations are janky and can’t be interrupted, and it takes forever to level up your abilities and weapons—it actually requires a second playthrough.
I feel sometimes I’m too hard on the game, as it isn’t terrible, just extremely difficult and unpolished. The graphics are also something to be desired; they feel very dated but have some nice lighting effects. However, the textures and models are all over the place, but nothing in here looks truly next-gen, even on PC. I feel that this game is a little hard to explain as there’s so much going on and each area is completely different. That may be the only thing saving this game outside of the gruesome horror scenes and interesting boss fights. With no way to understand the story, players will try to latch on to other elements, but at the end of the day, you sit back and wonder if it was worth it.
Weapons in the game are your standard affair: a shotgun, revolver, sniper rifle (bolt action, of course), rocket launcher, magnum, and crossbow. The crossbow is probably the most interesting gun in the game, as you can create bolts from scraps you find by disarming traps. These become vital during boss fights and when you’re surrounded by bad guys. One interesting, yet unnecessary, element in the game is burning bodies with matches. If you have some, you can do an instant kill by burning the body. This is useful against tougher enemies to save on ammo. There are also your typical secrets to find—hidden keys, map pieces, etc.—stuff that most people don’t care to collect.
Some players may appreciate the hardcore challenge, but most will balk. But the game is worth a playthrough for the atmosphere and roller coaster ride of gore, guts, and weirdness. Be prepared for a nonsensical story and extremely unbalanced difficulty. If you can stomach the unpolished gameplay, then you could have a pretty entertaining experience.
Master Chief is one of the most iconic characters around, and despite being on a Western-heavy console brand, everyone knows who he is. The green Spartan made waves back in November of 2004 with Halo 2. Halo 2 pretty much defined online console multiplayer and was the driving force for Xbox LIVE throughout the Xbox 1’s lifecycle. I still remember Peter Moore lifting up his sleeve and revealing Halo 2’s release date as a tattoo on his arm; it was unique and cool, and probably something he regretted later on. Halo 2 also received more hate than any other game I can think of, and sadly, I’m one of those people. See, I was a hardcore Sony fanboy at the time and loved my PS2. While it was a superior console, it lacked show-stopping online games like Halo 2 and an FPS exclusive (Killzone was not what FPS PS2 owners needed).
Halo has fantastic sci-fi lore, and I didn’t appreciate this until I got much older. If you read the comics and novels, you will realize just how deep and fantastic the Halo universe is. Halo 2 expands on the first game tenfold in nearly every way. The story is more fleshed out, has fantastic pre-rendered cutscenes, and has some incredible voice acting. The campaign was longer than the first game and offered more variety. For starters, dual-wielding was introduced and was one of the first games to make it work right. Each trigger on the Xbox allowed you to fire each gun independently as well as mix and match your favorite guns. More weapons were introduced, as well as the new Brute enemy. From start to finish, Halo 2 is one of the most diverse FPS campaigns I have ever played, from forests to interplanetary ships to jungle ruins and even cities. There’s so much to see in this game, and it’s also quite beautiful.
One thing I could never get past was the continued use of the same covenant over and over in each game. However, this allows you to remember and learn the AI quirks of each enemy so that when you play the next game, you already know their strategy and how to play the game. The Covenant are some of the best enemies ever made in an FPS because they require you to use strategy and everything in your arsenal. Enemies will duck, hide, and run away from you, which was almost unheard of back in 2004. Of course, with the Anniversary update, the AI is improved, and it feels like a fully updated game that could release tomorrow, despite the graphical age the games have aged very well gameplay-wise (Halo 1 is up for debate on that one).
The story behind Halo takes place after the first game, with the first Halo ring destroyed; however, a new protagonist joins us as the Covenant Elite Arbiter, who was tasked with protecting the ring and failed. He’s been made a martyr and must help activate the Halo rings to stop the incoming flood. Sadly, the flood is back and more aggressive than ever. I somehow didn’t mind them so much in this game, as they are not thrown at you for several levels at a time but given to you for a level here and there, and man, are they some of the most annoying enemies in gaming history. The little, tiny “poppy” floods, the big “pregnant” floods, and those ones that rush you. Now the Brutes have turned, so expect these floods to be even harder to take down. At least they are more balanced out and not thrown at you in seemingly endless waves.
Another huge update was the vehicles, as in Halo 1, they handled like crap. Each vehicle now has a boost feature, and they handle so much better and are easier to shoot with and maneuver. They are also given to the player more often and become vital tools at certain levels, just like your guns. I also found the shield was used better in this game as it recharges much faster, and health packs are no longer a concern anymore. Master Chief can take a little bit more of a beating after his shield has been used up.
The visual enhancement in Halo 2 is even better than that in Halo 1. The game looks amazing with completely redone environments, textures, lighting, and sound this time. Switching between classic and new modes was like night and day—I could never go back to the old Halo 2 again. With these new updates come the Halo toys you can find, as well as more skulls and terminals. These unlock achievements are quite tricky to find. The worst thing I can find about this game is the difficulty spikes. Some segments required constant restarts to find the right combo of how to hit the enemy or retry a new strategy. This led to many frustrations, but they weren’t as frequent as in the first game. I also didn’t like how most skulls can’t be acquired on anything but the hardest difficulty.
Overall, Halo 2: Anniversary is a must-play for Xbox One owners or lovers of the FPS genre. Halo defined the series for a reason and isn’t quite as shallow as haters would like to think. There’s a whole universe here that people are missing out on, as well as some of the best FPS action known to man.
Shoot-em-ups, shmups, and side-scrolling shooters, however you want to call them, had a grand place in the video game industry. While they may seem like a dying breed, they dominated the arcades and consoles leading up to the PlayStation 2. R-Type, Raiden, 1943, Cotton, Ikaruga, Defender, and even Space Invaders and various other shooters were household names. They are also some of the toughest games ever made. Only consisting of a few levels, these difficult pieces of art were what made you a hardcore gamer. Blazing Star was one of many, and it is now playable on mobile phones.
Blazing Star has only seven levels, but they are extremely brutal, and most people won’t make it past the first one. The controls are simple enough: use your thumb to move the ship around while you fire your bullets, and use another button to cause your bullets to scatter around. It’s fairly simple—sometimes too simple—but it works. The game is as hectic as you would expect and is actually one of the harder bullet hell games I have played. As you move along the 3–4 minute levels, you acquire points and also power-ups along the way. If you die, you get a chance to recover your power-ups, but there’s so much going on on the screen that you will have a hard time gathering them all back up without dying again. Honestly, there’s more going on than I could keep track of, but it was a lot of fun.
The final level is actually just a really tough boss, but beating the game is quite satisfying, and I have to say it looks good too. The screens are bright and crisp on high-res phones, and the only problem I had were the controls. They felt strange somehow, but I preferred a controller. I had to constantly lift my thumb and move it back because the ship didn’t follow my thumb where I wanted. The delay caused me to underperform, but this was fixed using an actual analog stick. I honestly can only recommend this game to hardcore shooter fans; casual lookers will immediately hate this game. There’s also nothing particularly memorable about Blazing Star that really sticks out; it feels average, but average enough to be better than a bad shmup.
The first-person shooter genre hasn’t really advanced over the years. I feel this is one genre that is de-evolving over time. No longer do we have the clever and memorable shooters from the mid- to late-90s and early 2000s. Every shooter these days is all about killing as much stuff as you can as fast as you can, and Hardline is no exception. The game tries to take a more cerebral approach with the addition of stealth. Remember, half the time you are a cop and the other half a criminal. You play a man named Nick Mendoza, who is a good cop who gets framed while taking down a drug cartel in Miami. Your partner is a female cop; there are few plot twists; a lot of unrealistic stuff happens; there’s some cheesy dialog; blah blah, you get the rest. While I was interested in the story enough to keep playing, I forgot about the whole thing once I shut the game off.
Hardline’s stealth gameplay actually isn’t half bad, but it feels pointless in some ways. Sure, you’re rewarded for using stealth and arresting criminals, but I feel this could have been done in a different way. As you sneak around levels, you can make people freeze, up to three, and take them down. This rewards weapon and attachment unlocks, obviously; what else? It’s fun at first, but after the first level, I just wanted to shoot stuff up, but I couldn’t because of the unlocks. Each level pretty much plays out exactly the same: navigate the extremely linear level, get lost a few times, use the annoying scanner to find evidence for more unlocks, and kill more bad guys. Hardline is literally a leapfrog game from stealth to action, and it gets a little tiring after a while. Thankfully, the game only lasts about 5 hours, and then it’s on to multiplayer. On some levels, I was able to take down all the bad guys, and that felt satisfying, but in some areas, you had to enter the right area or take them down in a certain order to not get spotted, and this was so irritating. One level had me trying to sneak out of a prison ground while trying to hide from cops, but for some reason, they constantly spotted me no matter where I hid, and it was all about reloading the game 500 times to exploit the mechanics—not fun.
One thing I do like a lot about Hardline and Battlefield in general is the overall handling and feel of weapons. They have weight, they feel real, and there’s a lot of feedback and skill required to aim the gun, and with this, you will find your favorites. Hardline is more urban cops vs. robbers, so you won’t see the military weapons you’re used to. Most missions I went through with a pistol as my main weapon and then a shotgun or SMG as a backup, that’s it. No grenades, no rocket launchers—nothing like that. It’s an interesting change-up for the series, but it just wasn’t done right.
Multiplayer is interesting, but it still doesn’t top Battlefield 3. Most modes consist of variations of capturing the flag with small maps, but the most interesting is hotwiring. This is a car heist mission where you drive around on maps, but the vehicle handling is some of the worst. Even during the campaign, the car chases felt fake, ridiculous, and completely unbelievable. The janky and over-exaggerated handling doesn’t help either. While multiplayer is a nice change from urban maps over large military fields, it’s not something to write home about. I got bored after getting to around level 15 and just kind of stopped and went on to better games.
The visuals are quite impressive, some of the best out there right now, with fantastic lighting and extremely high-res textures. While the PC version does look the best, the PS4 and Xbox One versions are nothing to scoff at. However, you will need a fairly new system to run this on a PC—nothing over 18 months old.
With that said, Hardline is a nice change of pace for the series, but it just wasn’t executed right. The story is decent, albeit cheesy and fake; the levels are more linear than you can imagine; and the leapfrog from stealth to action is just a little nauseating and causes poor pacing issues. The car chases are terribly done, completely fake, and unbelievable. The multiplayer, while interesting, feels too similar to other shooters and doesn’t top Battlefield 3’s excellent maps and balancing; the visuals are also stunning, but this won’t help the game much. What we have here is a slightly above-average shooter and a below-average Battlefield game. I really felt this was the series’ low point, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t want a sequel that’s more fine-tuned.
Oh, Halo, I have a love-hate relationship with you. Back when Halo was released, I didn’t really think much of it. I saw the box in game stores, but I never actually heard much about it. It wasn’t until Halo 2 that the series really took off and was talked about by everyone who loved it and hated it. I just so happened to be someone who hated it, even though I didn’t play it. It looked like a generic sci-fi shooter with boring guns and boring enemies. For years, I refused to even accept Halo as a good game series. I finally sat down with the first game on PC back in 2007 and felt it was like a chore. The game was overly difficult and ugly, and I didn’t get the game at all. I washed my hands of it and was done.
Later that year, I borrowed an Xbox from a cousin (the original) and rented Halo 2 from the video store (back when that was still a thing) and actually started to like it. The game felt more balanced, more cohesive, and had a more interesting story. However, I still hadn’t even touched the multiplayer, as I didn’t have Xbox LIVE. I wouldn’t experience Halo multiplayer until Halo 3. After playing through every Halo game, I started to feel fatigued by the series. ODST and Reach were extremely boring and didn’t do much outside of the story and presentation. However, I would still go back to playing Halo 2 and 3, but I swore never to touch Halo 1 again. Now, 8 years later, I’ve played through Halo 1 and like it a little more; however, it still feels like a chore.
You play as Master Chief, a Spartan in the Earth Defense Corps who just so happens to get stuck as the savior of Earth. You fight some Covenant, an alien race hellbent on capturing Halo, and then some Flood, a super-weapon species designed to wipe out all life in the galaxy. You spend almost the entire game on the Halo Ring, which is a giant ring-shaped artificial planet that looks like Earth. Later, you run into an AI called The Librarian, whose function is to destroy all life in the galaxy to wipe out The Flood, so they starve to death. Of course, Master Chief and his AI partner Cortana must not have that. The story is quite interesting; however, it doesn’t really explore much of the Halo universe, and I wanted more.
Halo’s famous for its balanced gunplay and enemy AI. While there are only about 10 different enemy types in the game, Halo was one of the only FPS games at the time to force you to change up your tactics, weapons you use, and how you approach each firefight. Despite popular belief, Halo is not a run-and-gun type of game at all. If you run out into the open, you will die almost immediately. Halo is also the father of the regenerating shield, which is a core gameplay element of the game. Without it, the number of enemies you have to kill and scenarios would not be possible, as you would die and never make it through the game. Despite the shield recharging so slowly, it makes you stop and think before you step out again and lose your health.
The guns are also very memorable and iconic in Halo. The needle is a weapon that fires pink shards at the enemy, and they home in. After a few seconds, the shards explode, causing damage. The assault rifle is probably the most iconic weapon, as it’s the standard and most basic weapon in the game. Aside from plasma and standard weapons, you can also drive vehicles. This is actually where I had a huge issue and still do: the vehicles controlling garbage. The Ghost, Banshee, and Warthog are floaty, not very responsive, and counter-intuitive to what the game wants these vehicles to do. I also don’t like how you can’t drive and shoot the Warthog at the same time; it makes you too vulnerable.
The one thing Halo has always had a problem with is the repetitive hallways and the extreme linearity. Nearly every level had you backtrack back to the beginning once you got all the way through, and this got frustrating and tiresome toward the end of the game. The core game is also just repetition, but that’s expected of any shooter. Shooting the same enemies over and over in different variations just gets old, and some people may not be able to tolerate it. Despite this, and like I mentioned earlier, Halo combats this by making you think before you run out into the open.
Outside of the shooting, the game just feels strange as a whole. It feels dated still despite the update; however, it does help tremendously and makes the game more enjoyable. The new graphical update is more than an update. It’s completely redone, and switching from remastered to classic graphics on the fly makes you realize just how old this game is. We’re talking Quake 3/Source Engine graphics here. After playing the updated version, I could never go back. The game just looks way too ugly compared to others, which makes it much less enjoyable. In fact, the updated graphics actually help make the game easier to play with better lighting and more detailed environments. I found the original Halo way too dark in most areas, and it was always hard to see.
When it comes to multiplayer, it also suffers from feeling old. While the maps are remastered, the gameplay just feels a little old and not as fast or deep as the newer games; however, there is a charm to the age. The game is very simple, there’s not much to the multiplayer, and the maps are also not as complicated as newer ones. Fans of the original game will love being able to finally play the original online, like it was intended to be.
Overall, Halo: CE Anniversary is a fantastic update and probably about as good as the original game can get without changing any major gameplay elements. On the Xbox One, the game runs at 1080p and 60 FPS, which looks fantastic, and it also has the menus of The Master Chief Collection’s, which is an upgrade over the Xbox 360 version. If anyone couldn’t stand the original, they may find it more appealing now, but expect the overall gameplay and design of the game to not have changed.
I’ve finally done it. I know I have all three current-generation gaming systems. What’s the positive side to that? Being able to enjoy each console’s strengths and exclusives. The bad side? I play more games than I can in a week. Why did I wait so long for the Xbox One? Its game exclusivity release windows were far and few between, and it didn’t offer anything the PS4 couldn’t… well, that anyone cares about anyway. There are a lot of nice features on the Xbox One that no other system has, but are they what sells the console? At this point, Microsoft doesn’t really have anything to sell the Xbox One outside of its already built-up user base as well as its three trump cards: Halo, Forza Motorsport, and Rare. While Microsoft used Killer Instinct, Forza 5, and Halo 5 to get people excited about the launch, Microsoft’s launch was very weak outside of a few strong games.
Let’s face it, the look and design of a console can really matter. Just look at the Atari Jaguar with the CD add-on—it looks like a toilet. The original Xbox was geared towards PC gamers who were already used to bulky cases. While it wasn’t as sleek as the PS2 or cute as the GameCube, the monster box meant power—and power it had. Being the first system to have an online infrastructure and have a built-in HDD, the Xbox shipped with an 8GB HDD, but Xbox LIVE wasn’t up and running until long after the console’s release. Then a little game called Halo swept the gaming and entertainment industries by storm, and Halo 2 helped kickstart and raise the bar for first-person online gaming. It was massively successful and even made Nintendo and Sony rush for a proprietary FPS. Sony made Killzone (stank), and Nintendo made Metroid Prime (awesome). However, neither garnered the attention that Halo could, and Killzone was quickly forgotten. What else made the Xbox so successful? It’s hardware. It had a whopping 733 MHz CPU based on Intel’s Pentium III Coppermine chipset and a 233 MHz GPU made by Nvidia. This meant off-the-shelf parts and was easily programmable, similar to a PC. While the PS2 was extremely difficult to develop, the Xbox had great-looking games from the start. From Halo, Forza Motorsport, Blinx, and Fable, the Xbox had a great lineup, but it quickly died out towards the end of its life cycle. The Xbox showed its age and games; we’re looking better on the PS2 for some reason (God of War, Shadow of the Colossus), and Microsoft quickly lost interest from Japanese developers, so the PS2 made waves.
With that little history bit, the Xbox 360 had a year’s head start and was powerful, but met the same fate as its little brother. Great games from the start, but many exclusives jumped ship, and Microsoft lost steam once the PS3 sales were climbing. While still a good system, it doesn’t have the exclusives it did five years ago and isn’t as unique as it was at launch.
Out of the Box
The Xbox One takes the original design and the Xbox 360 S design and smashes them together. You have the sleek box shape of the 360 S and the hard lines of the original system. The Xbox One is huge, bigger than the PS4, and somehow less powerful. More on that later. The Xbox One logo on the front brings subtle attraction along with the glossy panels and chrome disc drive bezel. The box is sleek and Microsoft’s best-looking one yet. It’s also surprisingly light for the size of the system.
Under the Hood
The Xbox One is actually a little weaker than the PS4. I know fanboys are going to scream and have a tantrum, but the numbers and facts don’t lie. Sure, it’s powerful, but not as much as you’d like to think. While the Xbox One and PS4 both have an 8-core AMD CPU that is similar to that in phones, the Xbox One is clocked at 1.75 GHz, while the PS4 is clocked at 1.6 GHz. Yeah, go ahead and laugh, but the GPU is probably more important on consoles than you think. While the Xbox One has an 853 MHz AMD GPU, the PS4 has an 800 MHz one but has more compute units. The PS4 has 18 while the Xbox One has 12, meaning the PS4 can outperform the Xbox One with this. To make it easier, the Xbox One has a GPU equivalent to an AMD 7790 or Nvidia GTX 650 Ti. The PS4 has a GPU equivalent to an AMD 7890 or Nvidia GTX 670. While those GPUs have now been left in the dust, the PS4 and Xbox One are stuck with them. Sadly, this means lower resolution on Xbox One, and due to only having 8GB of DDR3 RAM, loading times could be much longer towards the end of the life cycle over the PS4, which has 8GB of GDDR5 RAM. The Xbox One also has three USB 3.0 ports; one is cleverly hidden on the left side rather than being in the front. I also have to commend Microsoft for making this the very first console to have 5 GHz WiFi, which is a huge win over any other console for download speeds. I could download a 62GB digital game five times faster than I could on another console. I love this.
GUI
I hate to say this, but…Xbox One looks too much like Windows 8. I know. I know. Go ahead and say it. It is the most difficult system I have ever had to navigate. For starters, I couldn’t find the system settings. Why is it an app? Why is everything an app? I like apps on consoles, but everything on the Xbox One is an app, and it relies on the internet more than any other console. If you pin your favorite stuff to your home area, you can’t use it when you are offline. It doesn’t end there; I couldn’t find anything in the game store. Yeah, that’s probably important, right? The game store looks empty and completely unintuitive. There’s a small featured section as well as Top Paid, Free, Newest Games, etc. However, I could not find the Games with Gold section anywhere except at the home dash in a featured box. That’s completely ridiculous. I still don’t know what’s for sale for gold members, and I can’t find it. This is the worst game store setup I have ever seen.
Functionality
Let’s talk about some of the Xbox One’s exclusive features. Microsoft is seriously trying to push the set-top box thing; however, this is probably only something that less than 10% of users will use, mainly sports fans. The Xbox One does feature a TV-Out HDMI option, so you can plug in your HD set-top box or even another console. While plugging in consoles isn’t recommended due to lag, it’s an option for people short on ports. Hell, you can play Killzone via the Snap app on your PS4 while someone is playing Halo right next to you. God forbid. There are features in the system to set up your TV and sound system to use voice commands via the Kinect, but only users who bought the launch consoles will have a Kinect. I feel many people from here on out will never see this feature happen.
Another function is the Snap app. This is actually really nice, as it cuts out a quarter of the screen for using other apps on the Xbox One. This includes TV, walkthroughs, web browsing, the media player—you name it. This comes in handy for people who love to multi-task, but I noticed some slowdowns when playing graphics-heavy games. Another feature that is new to Xbox is Blu-ray. Yeah, Sony fans are saying “Ha ha,” but it’s a smart choice. Games are just too big for dual-layer DVDs these days, so with their own high-capacity media disc being burned out by Blu-Ray, Microsoft didn’t have a choice. This means you no longer need a separate Blu-ray player or PlayStation 3 or 4 to play Blu-ray movies.
Another small feature is the Xbox One Smartglass app, which you can use with your phone or tablet. The layout is pretty much the same as the Xbox One itself, was responsive, and worked well as something that can be used to control your console. This is great for watching videos or listening to music, so you don’t have to keep turning on your controller.
Outside of these features, I did find something disturbing that is probably the Xbox One’s most fatal flaw. Slow install times off discs. The PS4 takes less than a minute, and you can play the full game right away. For some reason, Microsoft thought it was cute that you could play what’s installed, but that’s literal. I booted up Killer Instinct, and all characters were locked until the game finished installing. Wonderful, so now I can stare at the menus for 3 hours while the game installs. Oh yeah, another thing: games are fully downloaded from Xbox LIVE rather than installed off the disc. This is one of the dumbest things I have ever had to deal with. I booted up the Xbox for the first time at 5 p.m. on a Saturday, and I left Killer Instinct installing all day; it took forever. The trick is to disconnect from Xbox LIVE before installing, so it only takes roughly 15 minutes. Connect again to download the current update. Even if you have a fast connection, the games take forever to install, as they need to be downloaded and then installed rather than doing both at the same time, like on PS4. One positive thing came out of this, and that’s being able to play digital downloads while you wait, which is something that can’t be done on PS4.
I won’t talk about the controller much, as I already did an extensive review on that, but I will say that the controller is amazing and is an evolution of the Xbox 360 controller. I also want to mention the DVR and capture features that the Xbox One has. The Xbox can snap moments when you unlock achievements, and even the father of the achievement system has evolved. They are more informative when they pop up, no longer leaving you puzzled as to what caused the achievement to unlock. Outside of the name, a description of the feat will also appear.
The Games
It all boils down to the games, right? I played Forza 5, Killer Instinct, and Halo: The Master Chief Collection, and I was seriously impressed. Microsoft actually released better-looking games at launch than Sony. Forza 5 and Ryse: Son of Rome are truly impressive launch titles. They look absolutely amazing and wipe the floor visually over any PS4 launch title, even Killzone: Shadowfall. Games played just like you expected they would; however, Microsoft has a trump card that will come in handy towards the middle of the Xbox One’s life cycle, and that’s cloud computing. This allows AI and even graphical features to be processed on the Xbox One, which is a super powerful tool that no other competitor has. Forza’s Drivitar AI is computed on a server rather than inside the Xbox One. While this feature is slow to start, it’s sure to bring some impressive stuff to Xbox One later on.
Xbox One for All and All for One
The Xbox One isn’t a perfect system and has many flaws in its GUI and various functionalities, but it’s a great system and a worthy successor to the Xbox 360. While it lacks the exclusives that the Wii U and PS4 have, it will grow in time and hopefully carve its own unique experience that previous consoles from Microsoft failed to do. If Microsoft can keep exclusives exclusive to Xbox One forever, it will help a lot. If they can help grow the system over time, like they did with Xbox 360, it will help quite a bit. It’s impressive to see where Xbox One is now after the disastrous launch and reveal two years ago. Xbox One is well worth a purchase for the handful of excellent exclusives available right now.
The Batman Arkham games are some of the greatest things to grace the video game industry in the past decade. With the most advanced combat system since God of War, and not to mention the best superhero video game series ever made, Arkham Knight continues this trend. While Origins was a bit of a snag, I don’t count it as part of the Arkham trilogy. Arkham Knight is another masterpiece that any Batman fan will love.
Scarecrow and the new Arkham Knight are the main villains in this game, but don’t worry, there’s plenty of Joker as well, despite being dead. Joker is a manifestation in Bruce’s mind, and he constantly appears everywhere, putting his two senses into everything Batman does. It’s great to hear him again. Arkham Knight is also probably the best-structured Arkham game yet. Instead of a hodgepodge of little repetitive missions everywhere, the game has a Most Wanted mission wheel. Known Batman villains are to be stopped and captured through mission branches that are a blast. Firefly, Penguin, Two-Face, and various other villains have their own little subplot. This brings Arkham Knight to a meaty and well-balanced mission structure that the game desperately needed. The only other side things you can perform are AR missions that include fight and batmobile challenges and Riddler trophies. Oh yeah, I said Batmobile.
It’s finally here! The one and only Batmobile. It plays just like you think, controls like you think, and is as badass as you think. The batmobile can transform into a tank, allowing you to engage in battles with enemy tanks, but the best use of the batmobile is puzzles. Sadly, the tank battles are probably the worst thing in the game. While they work, they are the same thing over and over and over again; nothing changes. Enemy tanks will have a white line go across the screen, showing the trajectory of their shot. This allows you to dodge enemy missiles and shots. That’s great and all, but why does combat have to be this slow? Towards the end, the battles just get bigger with 50+ tanks in one area; that’s not exactly fun in my book. While the tank battles aren’t very frequent, they are happening often enough for you to sigh and wish it was over. As for the puzzle-solving, the Batmobile fits better here. Using the power wrench to crawl the downsides of buildings, using the wrench to power things up, ejecting out of the Batmobile to glide into a tunnel. All of this feels just like in the movies and comics; there is no disappointment there.
Combat has been perfected in Arkham Knight with added moves to make an extremely complex fight system that is so simple to learn. Outside of the counter system that we are all used to, new knock-out moves are introduced. Using your gadgets is much easier, as the button combos for them are easier to remember. LT for Batarang, LT+B for an electric shock to enemies with taser sticks, LT+Y for Batclaw, and RT+RT for Freeze Blast. It is very easy to remember, and the controls pop up on the screen to help you out when the option is available. The same goes for the knock-out moves, as well as fighting heavy enemies. These guys have their own system all to themselves. Do a fast punch combo, parry a guy behind you, a red exclamation pops up at a guy with a taser stick, LT+B, he’s down, continue pummeling the heavy, three more counters, then knock the heavy out. All of this is one big combo, and it’s so fluid and fast and one of my favorite fighting systems I have ever used.
The second combat system in Arkham is the stealth part. This has been expanded exponentially in Arkham Knight. There are more gadgets introduced that allow for more ways to take down opponents. The stealth areas are much larger and allow for multiple ways of taking people down. We’re used to stealth takedowns in various ways, including hanging, grating, and gliding behind people. Multi-level grate combat is introduced, as well as enemies being able to destroy grates so you can no longer use them. Using a voice synthesizer allows you to give commands to enemies and set up traps with your electric gun or disruptor. The disruptor allows you to sabotage weapons and drones to knock out enemies (yeah, I can’t say kill since Batman doesn’t do that). The stealth combat is fantastic and so much fun, and it allows for strategy over beating everyone up.
Outside of these new gameplay elements is the story. Arkham Knight has a long and well-told story that you actually care about. There are some great moments in the game that really get you hooked, and the ending is satisfying. I really felt the strengths and weaknesses of Batman come out through the story several times, as well as the other characters. My favorite part of the game is the ending with Scarecrow, but I can’t give it away except that it’s a first-person shooter sequence. WHAT?! Play it to find out!
Let’s talk about visuals. I know that the entire world knows how terribly optimized the game was for PC; however, if you have a powerful rig, it is very playable. Not perfect, but enough to not be really noticeable. This requires tweaks (there is a tool available on the Steam forums) to the game settings to get it to work. Out of the box, the game won’t run very well at all. There are some nice new effects, like RainWorks, Interactive Smoke and Fog, and various other effects. They look amazing, and Arkham Knight is one of the most detailed and good-looking games in a long time. However, a game should ship working, and this is just unacceptable. Most people don’t know how to tweak a PC game and will get frustrated and demand their money back (which happened and suspended the sales on Steam). The other issue is that you need a very new and powerful system to get the game to run well. I tried a GTX 670, and while I got 60 FPS when I was above the city, it dropped below 30 on the ground. Interactive Smoke and Fog dropped the game to 5 FPS; however, on a GTX 970, there were a few issues. The frame rate will vary constantly. You will jump between 60 and 30 a lot, but the tweaks available make it less noticeable. Anyone running a GPU older than a year will have issues for sure and should play the game on a console for now.
As it stands, Arkham Knight is a fantastic game and the pinnacle of the Batman video game franchise and superhero games in general. Taking all of what made the series great and optimizing and compiling the best of what everyone loves. More villains, more stories, more Batman. That’s what we came to see, and we got what we wanted.
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Try multiplayer. A lot of fun !