It’s surprising that over the last 10 years, it’s the indie game that has had the most touching and memorable stories. Even with AAA games’ million-dollar budgets, they can’t seem to get a decent story with armies of writers and directors. What Remains of Edith Finch may be called a “walking simulator” by the younger crowd, but these slower-paced adventure games are usually the most touching and memorable. You play as a girl who is slowly unlocking the mystery of why every member of her family died in a large house built from the ground up on the oceanside.
The game starts out simple enough: you walk down linear, winding paths, and the character narrates along the way. The text floats along where you walk, and it’s an immersive way to tell a story. Once you enter the house, you will eventually find your way through mysterious rooms through secret passageways, and in each room is a piece that will bring you into their story. The most unique part of this game is that each story is so different and is told in unique ways. One story has you playing as several animals in the first person as the boy tells his story. In one story, you are just trying to swing as high as you can so you can fly. One story towards the end has you cutting fish heads in a factory, and you play a 2D RPG on the side while still trying to cut the fish heads. As the story goes on, it gets more detailed and expands in your view. The game is very imaginative, with my favorite piece being a 1960s horror comic, and the panels come to life with you playing a character in some of them. The game never gets boring or old, and the short length helps keep the game from overstaying its welcome or doing too much.
My biggest complaint is that there’s not much to interact with outside of initially entering the house. Once you get through the first few rooms, you just go from room to room and find the main story piece. The pacing is great, as it doesn’t get too fast, so you feel the rest of the game is too slow. There are also different themes throughout the game, such as horror, adventure, happiness, and sadness, and the house itself is haunting, empty, and lonely. This game oozes atmosphere, and you get different feelings from each room as you discover the fate of each family member. There’s so much detail in this game, and the visuals are quite nice for an indie title in this manner.
Sadly, due to this type of game, it won’t be played by many people, which is a dying shame, as What Remains is probably one of the best games to come out this year. The story is memorable, the game has plenty of atmosphere and character, and there’s so much to love about the game. If you’re a fan of Gone Home or just great stories in general, then you will love this game.
Atmospheric side scrollers became popular thanks to Limbo. With no story but an entire tale told through the atmosphere, puzzles, and platforming, this became a great way to show gamers that the platforming genre can be a little more mature. Inside are all the aspects that Limbo created and perfected.
The game starts out with a little boy stumbling out of some trees and running through a forest. In the background, you can see soldiers in masks searching for something, but you’re never quite sure if it’s the boy or something else. Who this boy is and his purpose are never explained, but that’s kind of okay, as it’s up to the player to interpret this. The game has no tutorials, as there’re only two buttons to use: jump and an action button. You slowly get introduced to the game’s puzzles by pulling objects to ledges to reach greater heights, learning to keep switches open, etc. The game’s main focus is the art style and atmosphere. This game has an Uncanny Valley militaristic dystopia theme with everything in gray. It really grabs your attention, and the game can get quite tense.
Some of the more memorable scenes are when dogs are chasing you, as there’s no music but just the panting of the kids and raging, aggressive dogs at your heels. Most chase scenes actually require skill to finish, as they require precise timing of jumps and even quick-on-your-feet puzzle solving. The game is very well-paced, as I wanted to play through the whole thing without stopping. While there wasn’t a story being told, I wanted more chase scenes and sections where the boy had to sneak by these adults. The game isn’t just a flat plane, either, as the world turns and pans in accordance with the 2D playfield. It never feels like you’re going just left or right in a world that has been cut in half. There’s depth in the foreground and background, which is something that’s not done often in side scrollers.
There’s something strange going on in this world, as it seems most humans (or slaves) are mind-controlled and are being sold to other humans or possibly some type of alien. I couldn’t really tell, and again, that’s the point. Your job is to keep this boy out of danger and to keep pushing forward. From swimming, using a submersible, climbing, running, jumping, and puzzle-solving, there are quite a lot of games here for such a short length. Inside also has amazing animations and physics—some of the best I have ever seen. The way the boy runs and the people in the background interact with your every move is jaw-dropping. The boy would sneak across a floor and open a grate while everyone was starting inside some vat in the background. As soon as that grate dropped, all heads looked toward you. It’s creepy and fantastic all at the same time, not to mention the boy’s gruesome death animations and scenes.
I was amazed all the way through this game, despite the ending making zero sense and just being so abrupt. I wanted more, and hopefully we will get more. I can see that this could be a vastly expanded universe with an amazing story, but these atmospheric indie games tend to never have sequels. The game’s art style is just some of the best this year, and the graphics are also technically impressive, with amazing textures, lighting effects, and shadowing that would put some big-budget games to shame.
Overall, Inside is a wonderful must-play game. It’s oozing with atmosphere, tension, and pacing that will keep you glued during the whole 4-hour play session. When it’s over, you will sit back and remember most of the scenes and wonder what’s going on in this game. I felt more like a spectator who jumped into the middle of a movie, and I’m just watching what’s happening next, hoping to catch on. This is a unique way to tell stories and can be very hard to pull off. Thankfully, Inside will have you thinking about it long after it’s gone.
Adventure games are always hit or miss, as they have many classics to live up to. There are the occasional crazy and interesting adventure games like Neverending Nightmares that are quite fascinating. Bulb Boy is one such game where you play as a, well, bulb boy who must defeat a monster to save his grandfather. There’s not much of a story here, as it’s all about atmosphere and visuals. The game is rather short, and it’s not the most cerebral adventure game out there, but it’s worth a purchase.
Like in a typical adventure game, you can tap on areas for the character to move to and examine items. Bulb Boy is very straight-to-the point so there’s not much exploring here. There’s only so much to click on and very little inventory. The game has bosses on each stage that you must defeat, but the puzzles are very easy and not really puzzles. You find an object, and it can only go in one direction, as there’s no backtracking or exploring involved. I would love to see this universe expand, as Bulb Boy is grotesque, beautiful, and full of atmosphere. It’s a horror adventure with a cartoon flair, guts, and everything disgusting all over the screen.
There’s a lot of green in this game, and the cut-out art style is just fantastic. I enjoyed playing through the whole game, despite only taking a couple of hours. Bulb Boy’s death animations are brutal, there’s a lot of variety, and the game has a nice, quick pace to it. Some of my favorite things about this game are the extreme closeups of areas, as they show the sickly detail of everything around this character. It’s nightmarish for sure and definitely one of the most artistic games this year.
It’s a crying shame that this is an indie game and won’t get much attention. I hope for a sequel that’s more expanded, but we’ll see. In the meantime, just feast your eyes on the beautiful art, despite how straightforward and simple the gameplay is.
Surreal adventure games are the next generation of the adventure genre, and if they are done right, they can be quite memorable and mesmerizing. Journey was one of the first of this kind of new adventure title. With minimal UI, gameplay, controls, and story, you are swept through a linear journey of emotions, visual beauty, and auditory bliss. Some of the people from Journey are back at it again with Abzu, an underwater cinematic adventure.
You play as a character that swims around the ocean, exploring and trying to stop some sort of mechanical infestation from destroying all ocean life. The story plays out similar to Journey, in which you figure out what’s going on contextually as you progress through the game via images and scenes. If you played Journey, then you know what to expect with Abzu. What this game does differently is that it focuses more on an exploration of this beautiful world than pushing the player through a short journey and telling a quick story.
Right off the bat, you will notice how gorgeous this game is. Using Unreal Engine 4, Abzu is bursting at the seams with color and saturated with detail. As you push through each large exploration area (there are about a dozen), your main purpose is to find hidden shells, activate various switches to open doors, and activate little pools that will add various new creatures to the game. While I mainly feel this was filler content to extend the game another hour, it forces you to explore the ocean floor and look around a bit. Seeing all sorts of marine life and plant matter float around you is just amazing. This game really makes you feel like you’re swimming in the ocean and exploring what’s under the sea.
The game’s pacing is similar to Journey, with an explorative area and then a cinematic on-rails section that shows off the visuals that this game nails. Having your character leap out of the water to a stunning vista or romp around with whales in the murky depths is something not seen in any other game. Not a single area is the same, and I never saw the same sea creature twice. It’s the little things that count in games like this, and the amount of detail packed in Abzu is triple that of Journey, and I loved every second of it.
Now, that’s not to say that exploring these cinematic moments is the best thing for this type of game. I thought Journey’s pacing was spot on, but Abzu feels like a bumpy roller coaster with these cinematic scenes spread too far apart. There are only so many switches, chains, and doorways I can go through before I want something else. When you give the player very little to do, you have to rely on the senses and visuals to keep the player entertained. I feel this could have been an underwater journey if the pacing was a little better.
Overall, Abzu is a fantastic adventure game, and any fan of Journey must own it. The visuals are absolutely stunning, and Austin Wintory is back with another beautiful soundtrack—one of the best this year. It’s just a shame that the game suffers from poor pacing and exploration elements that are just there to force the player to look at everything. I feel like I’m getting my face rubbed in beauty rather than being allowed to soak it in as it passes by me.
Point-and-click adventures are becoming big on mobile platforms, which is nice. Sitting down and relaxing with a great story and exercising your brain with puzzles is a perfect fit for mobiles. Sinless is a strange game, as it doesn’t make any sense, but it is still enjoyable.
You play in a cyber-dystopian world where everyone is controlled via computer chips called “progs,” which have pre-programmed attitudes and moods. You just so happen to be someone who is immune to this control, and the government wants to kill you. You travel through a strange city trying to find your girlfriend and realize you are part of some prophecy and are some sort of messiah for this desolate world.
The strangest thing about the game is the art style. While it’s great and very stylized, it’s muddy and washed out and almost doesn’t quite work for this game. It’s very hard to see things in these images and find objects to click on. I really love the art, but I feel it’s not right for this type of game. With that said, it really gets the mood and atmosphere of being tense, controlled, and lonely; everyone is living in constant fear. My issues didn’t set in until about an hour into the game, when I realized there were no clues on what to do or where to go next. I had to resort to a walkthrough.
This is usually common in adventure games, but this is a 3-hour game at most. Yes, only three short chapters. There is so much backtracking and obscure conditions you have to meet to finish the game; it was just too damn confusing for me. I was really into everything but the way the game was played. I also didn’t like that the clickable dots only appeared if you left the screen alone for a while. With the washed-out visuals, I wanted them on screen at all times.
At least this game has some pretty cool mini-games that make you smile and appreciate it a bit more. There are also some video game references, such as Mirror’s Edge, which was nice to see. Overall, Sinless is worth the purchase price, but don’t expect much out of it after a 3-hour sitting.
Well, 2016 seems to be a great year for the comeback of shooters. First Overwatch, now DOOM (well, in reviewing order). DOOM could have gone so bad, so quickly. However, ID Software went back to its roots, updated it for 2016 technology, and gave the middle finger to all the rest of the stuff plaguing the genre. DOOM is by far one of the best FPS games I have played in over a decade. It’s fast-paced, challenging, fun, full of secrets for veterans, and just plain old shooting.
The game actually does have a bit of a story, and it’s done just right so that it won’t get in the way of the shooting. You play Doomguy, a UAC Marine who has to help a robot scientist named Hayden stop another researcher from bringing Hell to Earth. Amanda Pierce let the tech and religious aspects of Hell get to her, and it overran the advanced Mars facility. Most of the story is told through logs, which are actually the best way to keep the story from getting in the way or becoming a train wreck. There are few cutscenes in DOOM, and when they play out, they are a nice break from the challenging gunplay. It’s light and crisp and isn’t stale, which is great for the genre. Too many games—Battlefield and Call of Duty, in particular—try to do this Hollywood sci-fi script of I don’t know what the hell to impress the edgy gamers out there. It doesn’t work; it’s a train wreck, and those stories are a complete mess. The FPS genre relies too heavily on story and not enough on gameplay.
With that said, DOOM is just like you remembered all those years ago—forget about Doom 3. As soon as I took control of Doomguy, I was in heaven. It’s fast-paced, controls amazingly well, and the guns feel fantastic. The slow build-up of your arsenal makes you smile every time you acquire a new weapon. Seeing Doomguy pick up the shotgun brought a “hell yeah” smile to my face. Seeing the chainsaw rip through enemies just gave me satisfaction as a shooter I haven’t felt in years. There’s a strong arsenal, and not all classic weapons return; a majority are new. The chaingun is fun, the heavy assault rifle is fun, and the gauss rifle is just so much fun. DOOM starts bringing the series into 2016 with weapons mods and Praetor Suit upgrades. These seem unnecessary at first, but with the way the enemies are balanced and maps are laid out, you feel you need them. Each weapon has two different mods, which are incredibly helpful. The shotgun can get an exploding buckshot or a three-round burst. There’s no reloading ammo in the game, so the R key is used for switching between mods. To keep things balanced, there’s a mod switching animation, so going into combat with what you want is necessary.
Let’s talk enemies. The game is chock-full of them, and all the classics return. Pinkies, Hell Knights, Cacodemons, Imps, etc. They look fantastic, blow up great, and the game is so gory and full of detail. The game isn’t the most technically impressive as some textures are lacking, but the game has incredible lighting, and the game runs at a nice smooth clip at 60 FPS. It does require the latest PC hardware to run at maxed-out settings, with Nightmare textures needing a GTX 980 or higher as it requires 6GB of VRAM. If you have the rig, you’re going to be in for a visual spectacle. I also have to commend the audio. The explosions, gunfire, enemy sounds, and gory splats are fantastic. The game also has a good ‘ol heavy metal soundtrack with a techno twist. This is one of the best video game soundtracks this year.
DOOM’s level design is actually very old-school, and it works well here. Each level is made up of arenas with linear hallways in between. 50% of the fun in DOOM is finding all the secrets, thanks to the excellent map. Once you find the Auto Map, all secrets are revealed, but they are still challenging to find. You might see a collectible floating in the air, but you have to find the right switch or path to get to it. I haven’t had this much fun finding collectibles and secrets in a game in a very long time. It was done right here and was not forced. Everything you miss can be reacquired by replaying levels. DOOM also features a new Rune Trial mode, which is a super fun mini-game of sorts that is quite challenging. I was able to beat them all through the first play-through, but a few proved tough. You get timed to complete certain goals, such as killing a certain number of enemies under certain circumstances. They change up the pace and are a warm welcome to the series.
Multiplayer is a bit of a disappointment, but it’s not awful. It’s fun for quite a while, but it won’t have you coming back months later like other shooters. You have your classic modes, and it’s just plain old run-and-gun fun online. It just feels like it’s lacking something or something that needs adjusting. Hopefully, the next DOOM will address this issue, or we will get a stand-alone DOOM multiplayer suite.
DOOM is a fantastic shooter and one of the best to come out in the past ten years. It does have a few flaws; I forgot to mention glory kills, which are melee kills used when an enemy is stunned and flashing. Pressing F can launch you towards the enemy to acquire health and ammo, but it’s overused quite a bit. Thankfully, it’s totally optional, and towards the end of the game, the novelty wore off, and I only used it for health and ammo. The game does get repetitive towards the end, but not in an overly bad way. It’s just part of the genre and series and is a staple that will never go away. Outside of these issues, the game is worth a full purchase.
First-person shooters have hit an all-time slump in the past 10 years. With Call of Duty and Battlefield every year, they have kind of polluted the genre. FPS games are the laughing stock of the gaming community, and it needs to stop. Even worse, FPS multiplayer has taken an all-time low as well. I have not enjoyed online multiplayer since Team Fortress 2, and that was a long time ago. Overwatch finally fixes this problem. Yes, Overwatch is the best multiplayer game I have played in nearly 10 years. That’s not an overstatement; that’s not an exaggeration; that’s a true, hard fact.
What makes Overwatch so great? First off, the characters. Overwatch has some of the best characters gaming has seen in ages, with every single one being memorable, unique, and fun. Not once did I find myself hating a character or preferring not to play as one. But you’re also probably asking, “What is Overwatch?” A team-based shooter with 6-vs-6 with various maps, objectives, and downright amazing fun.
Overwatch does not have a story, so let’s make that clear. It doesn’t need one either, and that’s a damn miracle on its own. You boot up the game, play the tutorial, and go; that’s all you need. This is very refreshing, as I’m tired of shooters shoehorning crappy stories into games. There isn’t even a backstory for the characters, which is also not needed as it just works. I can’t express this enough; the game just works, and it’s a masterpiece.
Let’s talk about gameplay. The game is perfectly set up for this type of game and strays away from leveling up weapons and getting new gear like in other FPS games. Each character has two abilities and two modes on their weapons. Characters are divided up into class types, which are tank, offense, defense, and support. Each class has about five characters, so there are plenty to choose from. Not a single character plays the same, and this is key to balancing out matches. One feature I absolutely love is the match hints when selecting characters. It lets everyone know when there are too many offensive characters, too many snipers, not enough tanks, etc. This allows you to balance out the match and works wonders. Rarely did I play a match in which players did not follow these guidelines.
Having each character play completely different forces forces everyone to either pick a few favorites or experiment. I still haven’t played all characters yet, but I stuck with Mercy (a healer) through most of my time. She doesn’t have any defense or offense abilities outside of a small pistol that does minimal damage. It’s up to other players to protect you and use your abilities to their full extent. She can fly towards another player from a good distance, and this was a great defense. If you’re out in the open, you can fly to a character, and they will usually protect you. Her secondary fire ability is increased damage dealt, so I would use this on a player until their health dropped. Every character also has a special ability that needs to be charged. Once charged, these can turn the game around and give your team an edge. Mercy can resurrect a dead player, which I have actually won matches doing.
Another character I played a lot was Pharrah. She’s a rocket launcher offense character that can fly. Her gameplay is designed for vertical play, and it’s so much fun. Her rockets are fairly balanced and bring me back to the days of the Unreal Tournament. Her abilities are a rocket pack that allows her to glide, a super jump, and her special ability is a rocket barrage, which is best used in the air as she’s immobile during this ability.
As you can see, the game is perfectly balanced. Not one single character is overpowered, causing players to use only one character. There are melee-only characters like Reinhardt, who uses a giant shield that players can take cover behind, but he also wields a giant hammer. He’s deadly up close, but he can’t do much for players far away. Then there’re characters like Widowmaker and Hanzo, who are snipers and do great damage from far away but can hold their ground in close combat if it’s one-on-one. I just love how well each character plays and each one is unique, and I haven’t had that feeling since Team Fortress 2.
Once a match is over, there’s an awesome play of the game that is picked by the winning team. You get a cool character intro screen as well as great adrenaline-fueled music along with the 10-second replay clip. Right now, there’re issues with computers spitting out outplays via numbers, so a lot of support characters get overlooked, but Blizzard is currently working on this. The whole time I played Mercy, I was only Play of the Game once, and that was because a player I was healing killed a lot of people, and then I resurrected someone, making my numbers slightly better. It’s unfair, as characters who do quick high damage get the most plays, such as Reaper, Hanzo, McCree, Bastion, Reinhardt, and D.Va. Most of the characters have huge AoEs, which the computer considers the coolest.
Once the play is over, players can rate the match and commend the players with the best numbers, and then you go to your XP bar. Every time you level up, you get a loot box, which contains four items ranging from new skins, sprays, icons, and voice lines. These are nice perks to make your character stand out a bit, but I would have loved something more robust. Maybe being able to customize the character fully would have been nice, but any weapon or ability upgrades would break the entire game. It’s perfectly balanced as it is.
The map’s design is also fantastic. I didn’t find a single map I disliked or didn’t want to play. There are about a dozen or so maps right now from around the world, ranging from Russia to the USA, China, and Mexico. They are laid out just right so every character can take advantage of something, whether it’s a sniper spot, large open area, or corridor.
Now let’s talk about visuals. Overwatch is not as technically impressive as it is artistic. The game looks fantastic; don’t get me wrong, but this isn’t going to make the latest GPU sweat. There’re some low-res texture issues here and there, and you can tell it was optimized for consoles. The lighting effects are fantastic, and everything is highly detailed, but don’t expect The Witcher 3 status graphics.
With all that said, Overwatch has been one of the best shooters in the past ten years. I recommend every shooter fan pick this up, especially if you love Team Fortress 2. The game is perfectly balanced, has memorable characters, and is a blast to play as it forces players to work in teams even without communicating.
I just played this game in one long four-hour sitting, and I’m a little emotional about it. The game is completely story-driven and not one of those shitty Steam Early Access survival games that are becoming a plague. Instead, we get a linear adventure game with no combat and just beautiful visuals and a great story. You play a man named Henry who’s suffered the loss of his wife’s mental state due to Alzheimer’s. The game starts out with just some text about how Henry came about to take this job as a fire watchman. In just a few minutes and several lines of text, you develop feelings for Henry and his wife, which is really tough to do. The words are carefully chosen and arranged in just the right way.
In between this text and the segment is a mini-tutorial with Henry making his 2-day hike to his watchtower. unobtrusive and feel natural and organic, so when you take full control of Henry, you’re ready to start playing. When you do, the game starts out with simple missions from the head watchtower, Delilah. Your only communication with her is your walkie-talkie, and you never actually see her in the entire game. It’s a sense of mystery that allows the player to paint their own picture like a book would. The first missions have you setting out to stop some teens setting off fireworks, and this is where you get oriented with the map and compass. There’s a dot where you are, so there’s no need to memorize anything or do aimless guesswork.
Once you get to the site, you realize it’s two female teens who are completely naked, drinking beer, and blasting music. They get upset with you like any rebellious teenager would and threaten you. The first three days of being a fire watchman are played out; however, the game gets darker and tenser as you progress. There are little subtle things that freak you out, such as seeing a man on your way back to your watchtower, discovering someone’s watching you and listening to your conversations with Delilah, and so on. It’s all very organic, and the fact that it is subtle makes it scary and gives a tense atmosphere without using cheesy ghost stories and jump scares.
There were several moments where I wasn’t sure what kind of story this was. Supernatural? After an hour into the game, I figured it wasn’t that. Was it a slasher flick-type story? Not when I realized there’s actually no violence in the game. Was this a murder mystery? Maybe something with aliens? Not at all. It was great to go down this twisting path to finally discover what the true threat was, which I will not spoil here.
The only lighthearted nature of the game is the relationship between Henry and Delilah growing through conversation; however, I was never completely trusting of her due to certain dialogue exchanges and slip-ups on her part. Firewatch is a roller coaster ride of emotions and story-driven feelings that most games can’t get right. In fact, Soma was the last game to make me feel this way.
Overall, Firewatch actually has a few flaws that keep it from being perfect. Outside of the story, there’s a lot of aimless backtracking, as after the second hour, you have already discovered this entire area. The Metroidvania-style gameplay to recover equipment to get to new areas seems natural, but it just exaggerates how much this game relies on backtracking to extend game time. Firewatch does have some excellent visuals, though, but nothing that will make modern PCs sweat. I personally had a small connection with this game as I grew up in this area of Wyoming, where the game is based. They mention the cities of Casper and Gillette, which I grew up in both throughout a lot of my childhood. I also visited Yellowstone, so the environment is very familiar to me and made me feel like I was back at home as a kid.
Play Firewatch for the great story, but don’t come in expecting a slaughterfest, survival game, horror jump scares, or any of those cliches. The game is quite mild gameplay-wise, but the story will have you thinking days after finishing.
Borderlands is well known as a shooter-RPG hybrid, but with little to no story. There’s a lot of potential in a great Borderlands story, and Telltale Games finally delivered that. TftB is a fantastic story-driven game with memorable characters and enough Borderlands lore and quips to make a fan faint. The visuals are great, and there’s a lot to walk away from after completing it.
You start out by playing as two characters in this game, Rhys and Fiona. Rhys is a Hyperion corporate employee, and Fiona is a Pandorian con artist. The whole goal of the game is to open the Vault of the Traveler and find its hidden treasures. The entire point of any Borderlands game is to open a mysterious vault. The game is mostly comprised of flashbacks, as a man is dragging you two through the desert and having you retell your story leading up to the point of capture. This mysterious figure is well hidden, and I couldn’t guess who it was for the life of me. The unveiling was so surprising. Telltales are masters of surprise and plot twists, and TftB has plenty of them.
Like most Telltale games, there’s not much gameplay involved, just enough to make you feel like it’s a game. However, the stories are so fantastic that you won’t care much. There are a lot of quick-time events and moral choices in the game. These choices are the key components of any Telltale adventure and are what make them memorable. Some choices don’t matter so much, and some can change the course of the entire game. TftB doesn’t have as many story-changing choices as, say, The Walking Dead, but they do make a difference and can be tough to decide on. Putting your own moral compass in the game is what makes these games so memorable, and I love it.
Each episode usually switches back and forth between Rhys and Fiona, from Pandora to Hyperion and back. The game truly felt like a long adventure and was very satisfying and fulfilling all the way to the very end. The game has a large scope, and there is plenty of Borderlands stuff in here for fans. Opening loot crates can give you cash to use in-game; there are various jokes and even cameos of Vault Hunters from previous games. I also felt that the story was told at a decent clip and never got slow and boring or felt rushed. Each episode probably doesn’t stand on its own, but as a whole, the game is wonderful.
I want to complain about the exclusive quick-time events being the only thing that consists of gameplay, but I won’t because it works for the game. There’s action, drama, and plenty of comedy thrown in that any Borderlands fan will love. The visuals aren’t technically impressive, but the meld of Telltale’s art style and Borderlands is a perfect match here, and it feels like an actual Borderlands game, which is what counts.
In the end, no matter what console you play it on, TftB impresses on every level and tells a story that any fan will love and approve of. Even non-Borderlands fans will like the game. TftB is a perfect formula for how you do a franchise spin-off and do it right.
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.
thebinarymessiah.com 
Try multiplayer. A lot of fun !