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Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 07/02/2019

Posted in: Linux, Mac, Microsoft Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 4, Sony Consoles, Steam Deck Playable, Steam Deck Verification, Xbox One. Tagged: cyberpunk, deus ex, eidos, mankind divided, montreal, nixxes software, shooter, square enix, stealth, third person shooter, tps. Leave a comment

Publisher: Square Enix

Developer: Nixxes Software/Eidos Montreal

Release Date: 08/23/2016

Available On

Deus Ex is an old, well-loved franchise, and the reboot with Human Revolution was well received despite its many flaws. Mankind Divided is a direct sequel taking place right after the terrorist bombing at the end of the last game, and Adam Jensen is at it again, trying to solve murder mysteries, stop more terrorists, and put an end to the hatred against augmented humans. Dealing with racism, discrimination, classism, and many other dystopian issues, Mankind Divided delivers an atmospheric world to explore with great characters.

The gameplay elements from Human Revolution carry over and feel more polished and nuanced, but this game has its own set of issues. Starting with exploration, Mankind Divided has small areas in Prague you can explore and complete side missions, and sadly, that’s all. You can’t talk to 90% of the characters, and there are only a dozen side missions in the whole game. Prague just feels very cramped and small in scope, and the Deus Ex franchise has enough lore and interesting things going on that it could be an open-world game. Despite the areas being full of NPCs, open buildings, police walking about, etc., it just feels so empty and lonely. The amount of interaction is so little, and there’s no real point in exploring anything except to hack computers to read emails and find ebooks, but even these don’t really give a lot of insight into the surrounding world.

Once you get into a mission, the combat is actually rather versatile. You can go completely stealthy using silenced weapons and takedowns, or augment yourself for combat with powerful melee moves, more health, shields, and more. I went the hacker/stealth route, upgrading all my hacking augs and biocell meters for stealth shields and extra takedowns. Every area has multiple routes to get to the goal by either shooting through all the enemies, hacking your way around turrets, cameras, and security, or just taking everyone down one by one and sneaking through vents. It’s rather satisfying to find your own path, and I rarely had issues in which I didn’t know how to get to a particular area. The shooting is rather satisfying as well, but sadly, the game is designed to use very little of it. I never used anything outside of my silenced pistol, despite holding on to four different weapons through the entire game. You can pick up grenades, software to help hack, and various healing items, but I never really needed most of it.

Outside of shooting, cover mechanics, and various combat abilities, there’s nothing else to the game. The story and characters are interesting enough to keep you going, but it’s mostly forgettable. The overall terrorist plotline is done to death in other games, and I’d rather know more about the surrounding world and how the people live day to day in this dystopian police-state world. That interested me more than anything Adam and his cohorts were working on. I honestly enjoyed the side missions more than the main storyline, which is odd for a video game in general. There are some persuasion dialog mini-games where you must sway a character in your favor, but it’s easy, and the outcomes don’t really affect the overall story.

Thankfully, Mankind Divided is for both action fans and stealth fans despite the game being built for stealth gameplay. There are no bosses this time around, and the game has a lot of technical issues. At launch, the game was nearly unplayable for most people, and now, after many patches, the engine is incredibly unoptimized. Even two video card generations later, the engine struggles to stay at 60FPS with load times for menus! MSAA is nearly impossible to enable, and with frames dipping into single digits, there’s a lot of chugging when turning the camera as well. On anything but the latest GPUs, you’re not going to enjoy this game at all, and it will murder your system. The game looks really good, though, with good lighting, high-res textures, and great character models.

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Overall, Mankind Divided expands on its predecessor but not on the overall series. More interactive areas would have been great, bigger areas to explore, more side missions, and even more insight into the day-to-day lives of the citizens in Prague. With a terribly optimized engine and the fun factor of combat and stealth varying from satisfying to incredibly frustrating within minutes of each other, Deus Ex just needs a reboot before coming back. The story is enough to keep you moving along, but it’s nothing memorable.

Reviewed On

Keyboard & Mouse

Observation

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 05/26/2019

Posted in: PC Reviews, PlayStation 4, Sony Consoles, Steam Deck Unsupported, Steam Deck Verification. Tagged: adventure, horror, no code, observation, scary, space. Leave a comment

Publisher: Devolver Digital

Developer: No Code

Release Date: 05/21/2019

Available On

I love horror games set in space, as it’s probably the most unknown part of life that we know, the most isolated, and can be quite scary. Observation forgoes the aliens, monsters, and ghosts and literally gives us an enemy that is the unknown incarnate. You play as the AI of the space station observation, and you help out crew members trying to unravel the mystery as to why their space station broke down.

Playing as the AI itself is rather cool and something completely different in an adventure game like this. You control cameras in a couple dozen sectors of the station as well as a sphere that you can move around in freely. The sphere is not where you spend most of your time in the game, but rather flipping through cameras, downloading data, and solving puzzles. It sounds odd and confusing, but the game really opens up with fun puzzles and an incredibly tense atmosphere.

The entire goal of the game is to follow the objectives the humans give you, which can range from scanning systems to locking down hatches. You can download audio logs and scan documents found on walls throughout the ship for extra story insight, but it’s not as easy as that. Each module in the station has 2–3 cameras, and they have a limited viewing range. Most stuff comes from laptops, which require you to add them to your link list by pressing three random buttons that come up or turning on the power socket near them. These contain schematics to open doors, audio logs, and sometimes hints. Your SAMOS has a map of every module, and you can switch between cameras here as well as check various systems throughout the ship when an objective allows it.

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It seems kind of lame on paper, but the execution of making what you can do as limited as the AI or a computer can be is just so fascinating to play with and explore. Being an AI that can see what goes on with these humans and you can’t do anything for them makes for some great tension and puts the entire story into another perspective that really hasn’t been explored all that much. I feel if this game were played normally as a human, it would have been boring, but whole new mechanics open up and require you to think differently. While the objectives change frequently and most things are only done once, they are fun puzzles that require a little bit of thinking and reflex. One of my favorite things was going out into the sphere and exploring the space station in space. It was such a cool moment to see that, as most games put you in a fighter jet, space just doesn’t look so big and empty. There’s very soft music and little ambiance, so it’s just you and the station in this big empty void with a planet below you. Subtle things like this can really boost a game’s cool factor.

The visuals are pretty good, but the animations are really awkward, animatronic-like, and kind of creepy. The voice acting is spot-on, as I felt the character’s pain and sadness through their voice, so it really hits home. My only big complaint is that the game is 4 hours long and the story has too much of a cliffhanger. The story itself has a lot of plot holes because we never know why the station was attacked, what these beings are, or why they want the people in the station. Without spoiling the story, the ending is just a big, “And that’s it?” but it does leave room for a possible sequel…maybe.

Overall, Observation is one of the standout games this year due to its tense atmosphere, great voice acting, and overall unique gameplay mechanics that really feel fresh. I wanted it to last longer and I wanted the story to be more fleshed out, but what we get is something really memorable and unique, but sadly, most people won’t play this because it’s an indie game and these don’t get pushed like they should.

Reviewed On

Keyboard & Mouse

A Plague Tale: Innocence

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 05/22/2019

Posted in: Microsoft Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 4, Sony Consoles, Steam Deck Verification, Steam Deck Verified, Xbox One. Tagged: a plague tale, adventure, asobo studio, horror, innocence, scary. Leave a comment

Publisher: Focus Home Interactive

Developer: Asobo Studio

Release Date: 05/13/2019

Available On

The plague was a devastating disease that wiped out millions in the medieval era. It’s uncommon to see a disease revolve around a game’s story, but A Plague Tale does it wonderfully. Full of adventure, sadness, excitement, and little hope, Innocence does an amazing job of making you care about its characters and world.

You play Amecia de’ Rune, who is a girl of royalty. She goes on a walk with her dog and father in the woods, and, well, I don’t want to spoil a thing here; bad things happen, and she must suddenly flee her home. The entire game revolves around trying to find a cure for the plague and her brother, who has a mysterious disease that may or may not be tied to the plague itself. Amecia and her brother Hugo are fantastic characters and I was glued to my screen and played through the entire game in one day. I wanted to know what was next, and the great stealth combat is some of the best I’ve played in the last decade.

The game is a mix of stealth combat and cut scenes with just some exploring. The game is highly linear, but the combat areas become more open later on in the game, with multiple ways to get through enemies. The main focus of combat is fire and your slingshot. This sling can be used to whip rocks at enemies’ heads to kill them, but doing so around other guards will alert them. At the beginning of the game, you will just toss rocks at metal to distract guards and use pots to lure them away. You aren’t killing too much during the first few chapters of the game, and this is okay. The game slowly adds new ammo types, various ways to combat rats, and new ways to use fire.

Soldiers and rats are your enemies in this game, and the rats are the most deadly. Outside of hiding and working your way around enemy soldiers, the rats are completely afraid of fire and light, as it kills them instantly. The game has some sort of “rat” engine as thousands appear to scream and swarm around like bugs, and it’s rather disturbing to see at first. Various forms of fire will light your paths, such as sticks that burn quickly and are used to solve puzzles, haystacks, torches, braziers, and various light sources. Some areas are puzzles that require you to light your path through rats, and towards the end of the game, you can use the rats against soldiers since your ammo allows you to put out fires and not just start them. I won’t give away the combat types in the last 4 chapters, as this will spoil a lot of the story.

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What makes the game so great is not just the story, amazing voice acting, and characters, but the combat unfolds so slowly throughout the game, and each combat scenario is different from the rest, that you want to keep playing. The game never gets boring, and the environments are constantly changing. You also get to upgrade your sling with more ammo and faster reloading and aiming, and this is done by looting materials throughout the world. You can find workstations, and later on, you can acquire an upgrade that allows you to do the upgrades without a station. You can also craft ammo types, which are essential for getting through the game. Towards the end of the game, you must think and really know your arsenal and various ways to get through combat areas are available that allow you to sneak or fight.

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The game also looks amazing, with gorgeous vistas, amazing models and textures, and superb lighting effects. For an indie game, this is one of the best-looking games this year and even has great controls and a good camera. Even having to have Hugo tag along with you all the time doesn’t get in the way. He’s always holding Amecia’s hand; you never have to leave him to go do stuff and make him come back like in other escort-style games.

Overall, A Plague Tale is one of the best games released this year and has everything going for it. It never got boring and was just so much fun to play through and I always wanted to know what was coming next and see Amecia, Hugo, and their friends make it through to the end. Sadly, with this being an indie game, a lot of people are not going to play it, and I really hope to see more from this studio.

Reviewed On

Keyboard & Mouse

Mortal Kombat: Deception – 15 Years Later

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 05/16/2019

Posted in: Gamecube, Microsoft, Microsoft Consoles, Nintendo, Nintendo Consoles, PlayStation 2, Retro Consoles, Sony, Xbox. Tagged: deception, ed boon, fatality, fighter, fighting, midway, mortal kombat, multiplayer, online. Leave a comment

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Publisher: Midway

Developer: Midway

Release Date: 10/04/2004

Available On

It was the very first game I ever pre-ordered. I have never been more excited about a game in my life. Watching gameplay trailers on a PC from 1997 on a 19″ CRT monitor while I stash away allowance bit by bit to get the Premium Pack for PS2. 2004 was an exciting year for gaming and for Mortal Kombat. With Deadly Alliance receiving mostly positive reviews but a lot of criticism from reviewers, Deception turned everything to 11 and added interactive arenas, more game modes, and online fighting. Yes, the online part was the biggest selling point of Deception.

This is the direct sequel to Deadly Alliance. Quan Chi and Shang Tsung have failed to take over, and Onaga, the Dragon King, has decided to rise from the Outworld and claim everything as his. A man named Shujinko is now the game’s lead (the first of many to come in later games) and must stop the Dragon King and reverse the actions he took during the Konquest mode that helped give Onaga his power.

Let’s talk about Konquest mode first, as most people will dive into it right away. It’s awful and should never have existed. It’s an expansion on Konquest from Deadly Alliance in which Raiden just walks along a path, and each “level” is a training tutorial for all the characters. This is an adventure mode where you get quests, find the treasure for the Krypt, find hidden secrets, and find out the back story to Deception, as well as meet many MK fighters and surprises. It sounds great on paper, right? Well, it’s horribly executed as one of the worst attempts at a free-roaming RPG/adventure hybrid I’ve ever seen. Shujinko runs around in supersonic, fast-forward motion; the realms are void of any life; they are terribly laid out; and the worlds rely on a grid system to figure out where every secret and item is. The problem is that the map is useless with no actual grid on it, so you run around for 10 minutes trying to find D2 or H8 only to realize it’s locked away and you can’t go there until you complete the Konquest.

That’s the main downfall of Konquest. Quests aren’t logged, and the entire game has to be played with a guide. It would take dozens and dozens of hours to figure everything out yourself, as locations to solve quests and even chests are incredibly cryptic or specific. Some chests with Krypt keys only appear on certain days of the month and times, and you would never know without a guide. You can meditate to make time move by faster, but this whole entire game mode is just frustrating, messy, and irritating. Doing the actual main quests is fine, as there’s always a large green pillar of light pointing where to go, but talking to a random character and getting a one-sentence quest saying to find a gem is not how quests should be done.

On top of all this, the world is terribly laid out. They try to force a look at each realm, such as Chaosrealm, which has magic portals that project to you various little floating islands that are “chaotically” made up and don’t make sense. Orderrealm is just a giant circle floating in the sky with “order” in the layout, and it looks nice and dystopian. It’s a little corny with the way the worlds are represented, but it’s kind of cool to finally explore these areas despite there being nothing to do in them. The visuals are also abysmal, as this looks like an early PS2 game that launched, even a little worse than that. Horrendous textures and models, awful voice acting, and laughable animations. It looks like an amateur game developer made this over the weekend.

Outside of Konquest, things are much better when you actually get to fighting. If any game were to use realistic martial arts, it’s Mortal Kombat. This fighting system and this era of games aren’t most people’s favorites. The realism is nice, with some good animations, and each character has two martial arts and a weapon style. You can branch into these styles with long combo strings, but that’s where the issue lies. This realistic, slower fighting style is in contrast to the fast-paced action of the 2D games. The characters look like stiff plastic dolls, and the combat is all about memorized combos. It’s fun, and it works with Mortal Kombat, but it’s also not the best way to play these games. The slower fighting pace means more strategy is involved, and a new breaker system has been added to quickly get out of combos.

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Interactive environments are some of the coolest features of Deception, as they are basically fatalities within a stage. There are yellow lines that indicate when a player can get knocked out and take damage to a new tier, and red lines that will kill the player. The arenas are large enough that a game of tug-of-war always ensues, which makes playing tenser, especially online. Do you just knock them into the trap or play with them so you can cause a fatality? Speaking of fatalities, each character has two unique ones; some are great and some are lame. Li Mei, for example, has two fatalities that are just boring. Super punches to the chest, and you explode? Yawn. Kick your head off. I saw it before. Some others are rather runny and unique, but there are also Hara Kiris that allow the loser to do a fatality on themselves, taking the glory away from the opponent. Whoever inputs their code first gets to have fun.

Outside of combat, you can play Puzzle Kombat, which is just Street Fighter Puzzle with MK characters. At the end of each round, there is a fatality unique to the player, but getting your power level up means you can perform a special move that each character has. It can be played online as well, is super addicting, and can be a game on its own. The last mode is Chess Kombat, which is one of the most unique modes to ever grace a fighting game. Just like a game of chess, you can pick which character is what piece, and you play chess, but instead of just knocking a piece over, you fight it out MK style. Each piece gets a certain amount of health, so pawns get the least amount of health. It’s a great twist that adds more skill to the game and can also be played online. It’s a ton of fun, and I hope this mode returns to future games.

Besides the Krypt, where you can unlock various stuff for fans like promo videos, behind-the-scenes art, and various goodies, there’s not much else. Online play is incredibly smooth, with a full lobby where you can talk to other players, challenge players, and have a win/loss ratio next to your name. I never had any connection drops and playing online extends the longevity of the game tenfold.

I also want to talk about the new characters. Since MK4, Midway has had trouble adding interesting new characters, and that trend continues for the third time. Dairou and Havik are just boring, awful characters that don’t have any personality or soul. They feel forced, and I’d rather have a classic character put in than these two.

Overall, MK: Deception is a fantastic fighting game that is only hampered by slower combat and a horrible Konquest mode that must be played to unlock half the game’s roster and extra costumes. Puzzle and Chess Kombat are excellent modes that add dozens of hours of fun, and online play is always welcome.

Note: As of May 31, 2014, you can no longer play Deception online due to GameSpy servers being shut down. Even then, not a single person played this online game between 2006 and 2007. As Armageddon and other fighters came out, Deception’s user base quickly fell after the first 18 months and never went back up. Get a buddy to play next to you instead.

Reviewed On

Devil May Cry 5

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 05/10/2019

Posted in: Microsoft Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Sony Consoles, Steam Deck Verification, Steam Deck Verified, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S. Tagged: action, capcom, dante, devil may cry 5, dmc5, hack and slash, nero. Leave a comment

Publisher: CapcomDeveloper: Capcom

Release Date: 03/07/2019

Available On

Devil May Cry is a series PlayStation fans hold dear to their hearts as it helped kick-start the PS2 and sell many consoles. It was something to brag about—a game that had the action that was only seen in a 2D platformer for slashers—and now it’s in full 3D with a new character and an attitude. Thankfully, if this is your first DMC outing, there’s a whole movie explaining the events of the first four games and somehow leaving the Ninja Theory DMC reboot completely out of the fold.

You play as three different characters, Nero, Dante, and V, who are hellbent on stopping a demon king from unleashing hell on Earth. It sounds pretty generic, but it’s a solid continuation of the story from a game that’s over 10 years old. It picks up after the events of DMC4 and has a few plot twists that are just decent enough to keep you hooked. However, the story is kind of slow going, and it’s not as meaty as games that are currently out, but it’s really more for DMC fans, but as a standalone game, it makes no sense. You really have to understand and know the events from previous games to really care, as they are not explained.

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DMC has always been famous for its thrilling, fast-paced combat and stylish scoring system, and they are in full effect here. Each character plays differently, with Dante having the most robust and deep combat system. He can switch between four styles like before Gunslinger, Trickster, Swordmaster, and Royal Guard, and these four styles must be switched up to keep the style gauge going up. Each style has different attacks and a special attack, such as the Trickster style, which lets Dante dart around and dodge, the Royal Guard allows him to block, and Gunslinger unleashes a ton of bullets. My favorite weapon is the new Cavaliere, which is basically a motorcycle split in half. Yeah, a motorcycle. It’s a heavy weapon that’s super slow but incredibly powerful. I do have to mention that his weirdest weapon is Dr. Faust which is a cowboy hat that he throws that uses up red orbs, but gives red orbs in return if the enemy is hit.

V is definitely different from the other two, as he never directly attacks enemies. His three shadow creatures do, as he has a bird for projectiles, a Jaguar for melee, and his Devil Trigger is a big creature called Nightmare. V can stand off in the distance and attack the shadows while he reads from the poem Dante’s Inferno and charges his devil gauge, which allows him to summon Nightmare. The creatures can’t do a final blow on the enemies, so V has to charge in and take the final hit. His levels are honestly easy, as if you stay back far enough, enemies will leave V alone, and his creatures only get knocked out for a bit and can be revived faster if you stand by them.

Nero is probably my least favorite character to play since his combat is really dumbed down and his Devil Breaker arms feel pretty useless. They give you a slight edge, but they break so quickly and you run out so quickly that you are reduced to his revolver and sword, so I easily felt overwhelmed by enemies and couldn’t do crazy combos like with Dante or even V. I died more using Nero because I felt he just lacked something that the other two had.

Outside of combat, there’s nothing else to do outside of collecting orbs, buying skills, and items, and then replaying again with your newfound abilities to get them all. The environments get repetitive and get rather dull towards the end, as you are mostly spending time in a creature “tree” called Qliphoth, and it’s just endless hallways of red and black and blood and weird tree stuff. There’s not much to look at here, and I would have liked to have seen more varied levels like in previous games. The game is also rather short, ending with 20 missions in about 8 hours. The game isn’t nearly as difficult as previous games, but it can get hard, and you need to remember boss patterns and master the dodge button to get good scores in each level.

Overall, DMC5 delivers exactly as expected: great combat and interesting characters, even if V has no background and is rather dull, but I loved seeing these guys on screen, and I only have to scold that weird Michael Jackson dance scene towards the end of the game. Yeah, it was pretty cringy. There’s no ultrawide support on PC despite the RE Engine supporting it, and there are many bugs still present as I frequently crashed towards the end of the game, but it looks damn good and the voice acting is really great as well. DMC5 is a fantastic action game, and fans will love what it has to offer outside of Nero’s lacking combat and the dull, repetitive environments.

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Xbox One S Controller

Resident Evil 3: Nemesis – 19 Years Later

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 05/07/2019

Posted in: Gamecube, Nintendo, PC Reviews, PlayStation (PS1), Retro Consoles, Sega, Sega Dreamcast, Sony. Tagged: adventure, capcom, horror, nemesis, raccoon city, resident evil 3, scary, Sega, Sega Dreamcast, zombies. Leave a comment

Publisher: Capcom

Developer: Capcom

Release Date: 11/17/2000

Available On

Resident Evil has been more about tense action, inventory management, and puzzles than horror. RE3 polishes up the already not-so-smooth gameplay of Resident Evil and ports it over to the Dreamcast to make another buck off of it. RE3 doesn’t really have much of a story, but the tense action, puzzle-solving, and always-looming Nemesis boss make this one of the tensest games of the era.

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You play as Jill Valentine (the star of the first game) and are back in Racoon City this time to try and find out what happened during the outbreak. Being a direct sequel to the second game, you visit a few familiar areas, and some Easter eggs are tossed in. Outside of running around collecting ammo, healing items, documents, and various things of that nature, you solve puzzles and mow down armies of the undead and genetically modified. New enemies crop up that are freaky and challenging, and the only boss in the game is Nemesis, who is a tough monster, and choices are thrown into the game depending on where the story goes. These choices impact where you start in locations and how you approach fighting the Nemesis. One choice kept the Nemesis from chasing me around town, but I was going to have to fight him early on. You can totally avoid fighting him in most cases, but he becomes stronger the less you fight him.

I honestly recommend playing this game in easy mode the first time, as you get tons of healing items and weapons at the start, as well as infinite save ribbons. This mode should be used first for another reason, and that’s to learn the layout of the game. Resident Evil is a game where enemy location, map layout, and puzzle-solving are a must before attempting harder modes. Now with all that said, I do find earlier Resident Evil games tough outside of just combat, as without a guide you can get lost and frustrated quickly as puzzles are obtuse, and there might be objects you saw hours ago that you have to go back and get, such as the Downtown/Uptown maps in this game. It’s imperative to write things down if you don’t have a guide, as you will run around for hours trying to find that one item that you can’t remember.

The story and characters are nothing special, but the voice acting is surprisingly decent for its time. We don’t learn much about Umbrella outside of someone going in and trying to pop off the supervisors throughout the city and cover up the T-virus outbreak. There’s no character development or anything like that, so you’re mostly paying for the action. The visuals are rather nice, but at this point, the pre-rendered backgrounds were getting tiring. The Dreamcast version is a slightly smoother PlayStation version, but there’s not much of a difference. I would have liked to have seen more modes, better visuals, and new content for a new $50 release, but what we get is mainly for newcomers.

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I highly recommend RE3 on the Dreamcast. At this point, this is the definitive version of the game and the best the series has to offer up until this point. Don’t expect a deep story; have a guide ready, and you’ll be in for a good 8–10 hours of intense action and fun.

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Mortal Kombat Gold – 20 Years Later

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 05/05/2019

Posted in: Retro Consoles, Sega, Sega Dreamcast. Tagged: ed boon, eurocom, exclusive, fatality, fighter, fighting, gold, midway, mortal kombat, Sega, Sega Dreamcast. Leave a comment

Publisher: Midway

Developer: Eurocom Entertainment Software

Release Date: 08/31/1999

Available Exclusively On

Mortal Kombat 4 was a rough start in the realm of 3D gaming for Mortal Kombat. Midway Chicago were experts at 2D fighters, and somehow MK4 seemed a little rough around the edges. It looked decent and better than most 3D fighters back in the day, but Gold was an opportunity to release the arcade port of MK4, which looked the best and ran the best over the PlayStation and Nintendo 64 versions.

Gold is pretty much an unchanged version of MK4, with just added content. We get added characters such as Mileena, Baraka, Kung Lao, Cyrax, and Kitana, and hidden characters such as Noob Saibot, Sektor, and Meat. That large roster change and just these added characters make the game worthwhile, but there are no added modes or anything like that. Despite this being an arcade-perfect port, it still looks dated compared to current Dreamcast games like D-2, Soul Calibur, and Sonic Adventure. On top of all this, Mortal Kombat has never been known to be a very deep fighter, and that’s extremely clear in this title.

Another added feature was weapons that could be brought out instead of just picked up off the ground, but they don’t add any depth to the game and are actually quite useless. Once you get hit, the weapon flies out of your hand, and you are left defenseless. There are also no real combos in the game, there’s an over-reliance on cheap fighting with character special moves that are hard to break from and there’s a lack of grappling. Even the fatalities, which are iconic staples of the series, are lacking in this game with only two-stage fatality levels, and most of the new characters have repeated fatalities from MK3 or both of their fatalities are similar, such as Mileena, who throws sais and then nails. I have to say the Fatalities in Gold are some of the weakest in the series, but there are some great ones at least.

Because of the lack of depth in the game after you see all the fatalities and endings, there’s really no reason to go back to the game, especially when there are better fighters on the Dreamcast. It’s great to have an MK game on this system, but why not port MK Trilogy over? Even UMK3 would have been nice at this point.

Overall, this is the definitive version of MK4, so take that as you will. If you never liked MK4, you will like Gold even less, but with the arcade version of the game intact, it’s a nice fighter on a system that has few of them. If you can ignore the weapon system and enjoy the added roster of characters and the fatalities, then this is a decent fighter at best.

D-2 – 19 Years Later

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 05/04/2019

Posted in: Retro Consoles, Sega, Sega Dreamcast. Tagged: adventure, d-2, d2, exclusive, horror, kenji eno, scary, Sega, Sega Dreamcast, warp. Leave a comment

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Publisher: Sega

Developer: WARP

Release Date: 08/22/2000

Available Exclusively On

D was a strange FMV-based game for PlayStation that didn’t get much attention or very good reviews. D-2 is a spiritual successor to that game with more gameplay and stunning visuals, but it still has its fair share of issues. This is by far one of the strangest games I have ever played, and being my first Dreamcast game, it helped put the system into perspective.

You play as a woman named Laura Parton, who is a flight attendant and is on a plane that crashes in northern Canada in a remote area. She wakes up in a cabin to discover strange creatures that “blossom” and use humans as hosts. The game’s intro is well done, with combat and navigation being introduced as a tutorial, which was kind of rare back in the day (we had manuals back then). The game is a first-person light gun shooter mixed with a first-person adventure game and a third-person tank game like Resident Evil. I wouldn’t really call his survival horror as it didn’t feel like it. When you’re inside buildings, you can only turn to objects you can interact with, like adventure games back in the late ’80s and early ’90s on PC. When you’re shooting enemies, you can turn in a square pattern using the face buttons and aim with the analog stick. It’s really strange, but I have to commend WARP for trying to use the Dreamcast’s weaknesses in its favor and making this game work control-wise.

The third-person adventure part is the weakest part of the game, as it’s literally just a mode of transportation between random JRPG-style battles and buildings. There’s a lot of boring walking along just white, endless tundra. You can use a rifle to hunt animals and use them for health so you don’t use up your first aid sprays, but hunting is a real pain, and only the hares are worth shooting as they give you two meats. The scope is incredibly shaky, and most of the time I always miss it. Outside of the hunting, I just ran back and forth between cut scenes, as that’s really all you’re doing. There are probably a good 2–3 hours of cut scenes in this game, so it’s only for the most patient gamers.

Combat consists of shooting a gun at these creatures that can attack you as many as three at a time. They start out easy, but towards the end of the game, I died a lot. Part of this was the strange design of the combat system. Face buttons flash on-screen when an enemy is nearby, and pressing that button makes Laura turn towards the enemy, and the analog stick is used to aim. The aiming is really sensitive, and there’s no way to dodge or block, so you take damage no matter how fast you are swinging around trying to kill everything. I had to strategize filling up my health by leveling up versus wasting health items. You gain experience from combat, but it only increases your health, and that’s literally it. You also have unlimited ammo for your machine guns, but your handgun and shotgun are limited. The handgun is literally limited to six bullets in the entire game, as far as I could see. I used the gun once, and it was done. The shotgun ammo is hard to find, and I saved it for bosses, but bosses are usually only beatable with machine guns, as you need rapid-fire to shoot everything they throw at you. The same goes for grenades, which are useless against bosses because they move around so much.

Outside of combat, the story just makes zero sense. Each disc feels like its own story, with one of the weirdest endings to a game I’ve ever seen. So, there’s an apocalypse coming as the game is playing off the Y2K scare, and it’s supposed to be the same one that wiped out the dinosaurs. There are so many plot holes that you can literally separate each part of the story and just ask yourself, “What?” There’s a man named David that is never explained, and he whispers to Laura at the end of each disc. There’s this plant parasite thing that is explained in disc 3 and makes a little sense, but then there’s a weird priest that randomly has the power of the apocalypse. Then there’s Jannie, who is a little girl, and we have no idea what her connection to anyone is, and she is a pointless character. You then can be resurrected every time you die, as you’re some sort of “chosen one,” and that is also never explained. Then, at the end of the game, time rewinds back to 1999 and you meet David, and then there are 10 minutes of white text on a black screen of statistics about various issues the planet is facing from the late ’90s, and before that was footage of wars and various world events. What does that have to do with the rest of the game?! It made no sense, and thankfully, the game was only about 6–8 hours long.

Various elements of the game just slow everything down, such as a cutscene for picking up items, a cutscene for opening and closing a door, laying down in bed, and examining simple objects; all of this adds up to maybe 30 minutes of time just being burned, and the constant backtracking to pick up a key at this house, walk all the way across the map to this house to talk to this person, walk all the way back across the map to then trigger another event, and in between all of this, there are dozens of random battles that also slow down the game. After the first hour, combat just isn’t enjoyable and becomes a nuisance. I have to give WARP credit for the amazing monster designs and some incredibly disturbing images that weren’t really common on the Dreamcast or anywhere back then outside of Silent Hill. The animations are well done, and the bosses are the best part of the game combat-wise, as they make the most sense with this combat system in place.

The game itself looks amazing with great lighting effects, and everything is rendered in real-time instead of pre-rendered backgrounds like Resident Evil. The voice acting is even passable without being really cringy and laughable. Overall, the game has a lot of good elements that are just not tied very well together. It’s playable and aged fairly well, but it’s incredibly slow and cut-scene-heavy with flawed combat and a story that makes zero sense. It’s an obscure title that shows how unique the Dreamcast was, and it is one of the rarest games to find for the system, but if you have the patience, give it a chance.

WarioWare: Smooth Moves – 12 Years Later

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 04/14/2019

Posted in: Nintendo, Retro Consoles, Wii. Tagged: exclusive, intelligent systems, micro games, Nintendo, smooth moves, wario, warioware, wii. Leave a comment

81142-warioware-smooth-moves-wii-front-cover

Publisher: Nintendo

Developer: Intelligent Systems

Release Date: 01/15/2007

Available Exclusively On

WarioWare has always been about showing off the capabilities of Nintendo’s systems, usually in the controls department. Each iteration has been 100% unique to that system, starting back on the GameBoy Advance. Smooth Moves uses the Wii Remote and Nunchuck in really unique and fun ways, but just like too much fun, it only lasts as long as a snack.

Just like every other WarioWare game, you play small microgames that last 5 seconds each and are only given a single-word clue on how to complete that mini-game. It goes by in a flash and requires quick reflexes to complete. The main map of the game consists of 8 different mini-game stories that are just little hand-drawn cut scenes to make some sense of the crazy sense of humor. Games range from opening a door to weird men, picking a nose, shaving a beard, and whacking people with bats. There are probably 30 odd mini-games here, but sadly, you can go through all of them in less than an hour.

That’s about how long this game lasts, fun-wise as well. There are some side games like can shooter, stack the blocks, and a few others, but they get boring quickly. Honestly, this is a good entry game for new Wii system owners, as you have to hold the Wii Remote in certain ways, such as on top of your head, on your nose, or like a steering wheel. There are various “positions” that flash before each microgame on how to hold the Wii Remote, making this probably the most unique WarioWare game ever made. It’s super silly and incredibly funny, but also frustrating.

Some mini-games take several tries to understand what you’re supposed to do, and I got a game over many times because I just couldn’t figure out the microgame fast enough. It’s not a big deal because each “story” only lasts about 3 minutes, and you quickly go through all 15 microgames to reach a “boss.” This boss fight lasts 10 seconds and is just an extended version of the microgames. This includes driving around corners without hitting anything, playing the original StarFox, and playing a dancing mini-game.

I honestly would have been made to pay $50 for this game when it was released, as it’s easily a $20 game at best. It feels like a budget game, but it isn’t bad at all; it is just incredibly short and more fun to play with people around. I would have liked a party mode where other players have to jump after each microgame to make things crazy, or even some two-person mini-games. There’s a lot of missed potential here, but what we get is a lot of fun.

Overall, Smooth Moves lasts about as long as a large bucket of popcorn, and it’s all over, leaving you wanting more. It shows you how unique the Wii controls are, but doesn’t offer anything meaty to satisfy this unique playset.

The Last Story – 7 Years Later

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 04/14/2019

Posted in: Nintendo, Retro Consoles, Wii. Tagged: aq interactive, exclusive, jrpg, mistwalker, Nintendo, rpg, the last story, wii, xseed games. Leave a comment

Publisher: Nintendo

Developer: Mistwalker

Release Date: 08/14/2012

Available Exclusively On

You’re a mercenary who wants to become a knight in a far-off land with two races at war with each other. On top of that, you accidentally fall in love with the princess and end up in a political war and the savior of the world. It sounds like a typical JRPG, doesn’t it? Well, it kind of is, but the story is incredibly engaging, and I can’t give more away without spoiling it. It takes a little while to pick up, but there were some unexpected plot twists and turns in the story that had me blowing through this game in 3 days. That’s how engaging this game is. I wanted to play more and keep going further because I cared about the characters and what they were going to do next.

The Last Story plays a lot different than any other JRPG out there, so much so that I have yet to play one that is like it. The combat system is both real-time and pause-based, with deeper strategies slowly unlocking as you progress through the game. What’s great is that the game starts off super easy and simple, and I honestly didn’t really get a game over until two-thirds through the game, but then it got really tough and challenging, but just enough to make me think a little and really decide my next decision rather than hacking away blindly. The main mechanic in all of the combat is Zael’s gathering ability, which makes all enemies go towards him. This is needed for strategic reasons, as you have magic party members that cast spells on a timer. If they get hit, that timer resets, so you need to have all the enemies come towards you and your other melee fighters. This seems like instant death, but their movement slows down and the magic fighters’ cast speed increases double, so there are benefits to this. You can also use your gathering as a burst weapon if you get hit enough times.

You can also snap to walls and take cover, as well as peak out and hit enemies with your crossbow. This also lets you see enemies’ weaknesses, which are mandatory later on when trying to figure out how to kill enemies. Sadly, this isn’t as smooth as it sounds. The controls are really sticky, so if you don’t face the wall exactly head-on, you won’t get the prompt, and this includes using the wall-run move, which is hindered by the camera and is uncontrollable. I also had issues when attacking an enemy; by just pressing forward on the C-stick, I couldn’t quickly back out or dodge. I would snap the stick back, and I would still be attacking, and this was usually the main reason why I would die. Speaking of dying, you get 5 lives, and then it’s game over. This sounds like it’s easy, but it works well with this combat system, and there were plenty of times I ran out of all five lives pretty quickly. You can get more lives during combat with a revive skill or an item.

Outside of whacking enemies, you can pause the battle by pressing up on the D-pad and choosing your main skill, regular skill, retreat to a healing circle, or guard. Your main skill requires a meter to fill up before using it, and to command your party members, your command bar must have all bars filled so you can’t abuse it. You can also use these bar segments to use your Gale move, which lets you dash around the battlefield, knocking enemies over. It’s a very interesting and intricate combat system that you end up mastering by the end of the game, or you won’t pass the tough bosses in the last few chapters. They require all of your knowledge of the combat system and learning each party member’s moves and all their strengths.

Every so often, the game does change things up by throwing an enemy at you that can only be killed on dry land and heals in water. There are throwables scattered sometimes and destructible environments to make killing groups a little easier. Once a battle is over you level up and can collect items. These items randomize as you approach them with a slot machine-style spin and range from weapons, armor, and crafting items.

Weapons and armor work a little differently here, as you won’t really buy weapons after the first 10 chapters and instead just upgrade the weapons you pick up, and the same goes for armor. I always found a more powerful weapon from a boss or tough enemy and never had issues with that. Thankfully, there’s an auto-equip feature, which I love in JRPGs, and it does a good job making sure everyone gets what makes them the strongest. I never really had to manually equip anything.

Outside of combat, there are some optional chapters you can complete, but honestly, they’re a complete waste of time as the items you get aren’t much better than what you will get during the story, and there are no extra plot paths or anything like that. It’s literally just to level up a little bit, but even ground isn’t needed in this game as you level up so quickly during the story. Most of the story is progressed by entering rooms, talking to people, or leaving and coming back to the main castle. Most NPCs give you clues as to where to go, so that was never a huge problem. There really isn’t much to explore here, as many areas repeat themselves a few times, and the castle area is rather small, equal to the size of a market center in most games. I wish I could have traveled around more, but the story explains why you don’t really go anywhere, and it makes sense.

Let’s talk about the production values a bit. The game looks fantastic for a Wii game, with lots of detail, good lighting effects, and huge vistas, but it comes at a huge price. The game slows down to single-digit frames constantly whenever the camera pans out too far or you get a vista shot. Even during combat, when there are a lot of effects on screen, the game crawls, which makes things frustrating as the controls don’t respond during these times. There’s tons of horrible aliasing, and the textures are muddy because Mistwalker tried pushing the system way too far. It still looks great but also looks bad because you can see the Wii struggle so hard just to render a single face on the screen and it looks like a GameCube game at best. The voice acting is actually pretty decent for a localized JRPG, and like I said earlier, the story is just amazing and memorable.

Overall, The Last Story is a must-play for any Wii owner. It strays far enough away from JRPG tropes to be unique and has enough action gameplay to keep people from getting bored. The lack of grinding needed, engaging story, great characters, and interesting combat are enough to get you through the 20–25-hour story. You do have to forgive the visuals and some minor control issues.