Tag: PS4

God of War

Kratos and his son Atreus journey to the highest peaks in all of the Realms in order to scatter the boy’s mother’s ashes.

But all manner of hell will greet them on their path

I had such a great time playing God of War.

I very quickly got drew into this world and felt myself being channelled through Kratos’ immense power. For a large percentage of this game I was Kratos. I think this was due largely with how the game never once took me out of the immersion. I don’t remember ever seeing a loading screen, save for the initial loading of the game.

The relationship between Kratos and his son Atreus was an emotional and thoroughly entertaining one to see unfold. I went into God of War without knowing anything about any of the previous games. So Kratos’ character was completely new to me; any references to previous events, or any moments that he goes against any previous perceptions of him, would have been lost on me unfortunately.

I kinda wish now that I’d held off and played those earlier games first now.

But nonetheless, this game still hit me right in the feels at multiple times.

There isn’t any prerequisite to have played those earlier games either, as the story is self-contained, and is really about a father and his son going on this journey together — both literally and figuratively.

More widely speaking, I think the game is about family and parenthood in general — about what it means to be a family and what we would do for them, and what we would be prepared to give up to see our children safe.

The First 3 Captures

The World is stunning

The world in God of War is so beautiful. And the sense of scale it has is just breathtaking.

I can still remember the first time I saw the world serpent and just how massive it was. It’s body can be seen wrapping around most of the lake of nine (the game’s central area). Whilst it’s head can be seen out in the distance, blocking a portion of the sky off.

There is a variety of areas that must be passed through in order to reach your ultimate destination: Mining caverns through mountains; Wide open expanses of water to be fully explored; dangerous forests and ruined temples; and the highest peaks in all of the realms.

The game lets you decide at many points whether to continue along the game’s main story or go out and explore. I chose to explore a lot of the time and am glad I did. The world has many secret areas to discover and puzzles that when solved, will give you items that will greatly help you on your quest.

I found the inclusion of a “realm within realms” which you must run through when “fast travelling” between areas was actually really clever. As a developer I can imagine this being a neat way of loading in the next area whilst running this small path.

The combat is insane

The combat in God of War is mental to say the least. Your main weapon is the Leviathan Axe which can be thrown and then summoned back to your hand at will — exactly like Thor’s hammer.

Not only does Kratos’ Axe open up a whole manner of creative ways to take out enemies, but it is used often in the puzzles you will encounter. It has the ability to freeze what it touches, which can be used in certain places to gain access to otherwise inaccessible places.

Not only is there Kratos though, but his son also. By pressing the “square” button you can command Atreus to fire an arrow in battle. You can leave him to fire as he likes, but you’ll find that there are many opportunities to create clever strategies when using both characters to their fullest.

As you gain XP you will be able to unlock many skills for both Kratos and Atreus, as well as upgrade and enchant armour to help you in battle. I wont lie, I found all of the different fight moves a little intimidating. In fact, I found myself button-mashing through most encounters of more than three enemies.

I found the difficulty challenging too (in a good way). I started the game on “normal” but had to downgrade it to “easy”. And even on easy the game was a challenge for me. I dare say if I’d committed the time to learning the moves that are possible and getting them in as muscle-memory I would have found it a bit more easy-going.

In Summary

If you enjoy action-focused games with a deeply emotional tug, then you need to play God of War. Every person I’d spoke to before playing it told me about how good it was and that it only gets better as you progress — and they were all correct.

Not only does this game get increasingly good the further through the story you get, but I have a feeling it will get better with age too.

Welcome to Hanwell — first impressions

I picked up Welcome to Hanwell for a few quid in a recent PlayStation Store sale. On first playing it has a good creep factor. Waking up in a morgue and taking your first steps in the dark, dank blood-splattered underground is a great introduction to any horror game.

The opening had me walking through a couple of corridors into the adjoining rooms and office, as it taught me the basic game controls and mechanics. One of these mechanics was looking behind you as you run — this can only mean bad things ahead.

I love the atmosphere of the game so far — despite having been unable to escape this basement area for about 45 minutes or so. The idea of an open-world horror game does tickle my fancy somewhat, so I really hope I can get past this first challenge.

And no — I’m not going to spoil what that challenge is. 😀

Welcome to Hanwell title menu
Welcome to Hanwell loading screen
Starting point in the morgue
Eyes open – first sights
Some bloody escape

One draw back for me

I have to mention one thing that has me a bit miffed. I can not find any option to invert the Y axis. 🙁 . This may seem like a petty thing, but I find it super jaring to play any game without the inverted Y axis. I think this can only be due to the many many hours I spent playing Ace Combat 2 on the PlayStation as a youth.

I have tweeted the developers in the hope that it could perhaps get added in an update. Not sure if this will happen, but if you don’t ask you don’t get.

Thoughts on Resident Evil 4

Leon Kennedy returns in the East European wilderness in search of the kidnapped daughter of the President. And everything wants to kill him.

It’s felt like the longest time to get into the swing of things with Resident Evil 4.

When I first tried it about four or so months ago, I didn’t get the appeal – at least not now in a post – RE2 Remake world. After my first failure and struggling with the control system I didn’t think I’d ever go back.

But I did go back — months later — and I am so so glad I did.

Resident Evil 4 has become a favourite of mine. I would put it alongside RE2 Remake in terms of enjoyment and replayability.

The Controls

The control system felt entirely foreign to me on that first play months before. I went into it expecting similar fluid controls of the recent RE remakes, but instead was greeted by something half way between that and the old tank controls of the originals.

The aiming felt so constricted — having to stop running, begin aiming, and then slowly move the gun’s reticle to where I needed to shoot.

However, after an hour or so of playing something happened — I noticed that I was just moving along and playing the game. I was no longer forcing anything.

What I first thought to be constricting was in fact what was helping to give tension to the game play. The fact I couldn’t walk and shoot meant I had to choose my moves more wisely.

Castle corridors

The Setting

The Eastern European setting is absolutely gorgeous. And the excellent soundtrack really helps tie the whole thing together.

The game never lost its claustrophobic feel for me either. Despite the early parts of the game being in relatively more open surroundings, the levels are designed in a way that leaves many corners to be surprised from. There were many times when I would hear a shuffling noise and not be able to fully pin point it.

Later on, the setting takes on a more Gothic tone in a huge, decadent castle — before leading you to it’s final location, which I’ll leave you to discover. The castle is a really stunning level and some great, sometimes over the top, moments in it.

I especially enjoyed a no-combat section where you have to control Ashley to get her to Leon safely. Some truly spooky moments in that little section.

Overall, the game was much longer than I was expecting. Just as I thought it was moving towards a resolution a whole new chapter would begin. Despite the 16 or so hours of play time I spent, the experience felt so much longer — and I mean that in a good way.

Approaching the Castle

The Enemies

The game really throws you in at the slightly deeper end. I thought I would never get past the first village encounter — it felt impossible with just too many enemies coming at me at once. But after persevering and reaching the end of the first chapter, it felt like it was all coming together.

The early part of the game sees Leon fighting off the village’s residents who have all become victim to a mind-controlling parasite. Controlled by some unseen entity they run at you before slowing to a walk just a few metres away. This gives you that time to aim the weapon and fire — so they don’t just all run at your face at once.

Later on you’ll meet creepy cultists and flying bugs, before working your way through the game’s hierarchy of main villains.

There was one enemy type in particular that was equal parts inventive and terrifying. But I’ll leave you to discover those for yourself, should you dare to play. 😛

The Graveyard and the Church

In Summary

Resident Evil 4 went from being a game I couldn’t stand — just down to it’s controls — to one I couldn’t do without now. After getting past the initial confusion over the half-tank/half-fluid control system, it really is a blast to play.

The village and Gothic setting make me even more excited for the upcoming PS5 “Resident Evil 8 (Village)”. Taking what they learnt and developed with RE7 and applying it to this kind of Gothic setting, Capcom could be making something really special to experience.

I can’t recommend RE4 enough. For it’s crazy story, hideous and tough monsters and often cheesy dialogue.

Leon needs you.

Thoughts on Days Gone

Days Gone is an apocalyptic game on the PlayStation 4. A beautiful, violent and unforgiving world.

Bend Studios’ Days Gone took a while to grow on me, I wont lie. The main reason for this was a couple of blue screen crashes I experienced during the early hours of it.

However, fast forward a few months to my restarting it and it quickly became a favourite game of mine.

As replayability goes, this is up there as one of the best for me — I literally jumped straight back into New Game + after the credits had rolled on my first playthrough.

What is Days Gone about?

Days Gone puts you in the very capable boots of Mr Deacon Saint John — a biker from Farewell, Oregon. The story opens on day zero of a mysterious outbreak that sees people devolve into violent none-thinking animals.

After his wife Sarah is injured, they are separated as he manages to secure her a place on an outbound medical helicopter — Deacon must stay behind to make sure his best friend, Boozer, makes it out alive. However, that is the last he sees of her.

Fast-forward 2 years or so and we join Deacon and Boozer riding through the Oregon forest roads in pursuit of someone. From here you take control of Deacon’s destiny and must survive a world that is literally always coming for you.

One of the main threads throughout the story is whether or not Deacon will ever see Sarah again. That story and his undying love for his beloved is beautifully told by not only the writers but the people portraying those characters too.

An unfolding story

One of the biggest criticisms I see for Days Gone is it’s narrative structure and how it almost feels like it could be ending, before introducing a new set of characters. But I found this to be one of its biggest draws for me.

The story felt more like a novel at times than a typical video game narrative. And I loved that story.

Instead of a simple structure like:

  1. Setup characters
  2. Setup conflict
  3. Work to resolve conflict

It was more like:

  1. Setup main characters and the world they live in
  2. Drop into their lives at a given point
  3. See how their lives unfold from there

Our own lives are rich and we meet people at different points in those lives. We don’t just get introduced to all the people we will ever know at the start and continue to the finish line.

Days Gone does a great job at actually telling an unfolding story where different characters enter and exit at various points. It gives it that extra piece of realism for me and it’s a story that just keeps getting better.

The World

The World of Days Gone is fucking stunning. That’s the only way I can put across my complete love for this world. The weather effects look incredible — especially in the heavy rain and blizzards.

The towns, outputs and lake houses dotted all over and hidden amongst the wilderness beg to be found and explored. I can’t really put across the feeling I get whilst just wandering about the world finding new houses and farms.

I could spend hours just riding the broken roads — circling the entirety of the map — just for relaxation. Of course that relaxation is quashed when you accidentally run up against a horde of freakers.

Oh and I haven’t mentioned the wildlife yet!

I remember one instance after completing the game’s main story where I was riding around looking for the collectables. I kind of got lazy in my diligence and before I knew it, as I was getting off my bike, one of the world’s many huge bears attacked me from out of nowhere. I literally jumped out of my skin.

And then there are the pack-hunting wolves and later, the crows.

The world of Days Gone is brutal and unforgiving, and I love it.

Freakers and Hordes

Freakers are the “zombies” of Days Gone, except more fierce, fast and agile than traditional zombies. Although one on one isn’t too much of a challenge — in fact the AI can be very easy to get around at times — as soon as you pull more than a few freakers, things can escalate… very quickly.

One of this games technical achievements that made the press was the concept of a Horde of freakers: literally hundreds of enemies on screen and running at you at once. That feeling of discovering your first Horde — the world has many of them — coming over the brow of a hill or feeding in a pit, is a hard feeling to beat.

The freakers are often found dotted around the world in most places — especially at night — but Hordes will travel in a large pack between a water source, a feeding pit and their daytime refuge — a nearby cave normally. Choosing when and where to attack will depend very much on your confidence and fighting preferences.

One thing I will say is that these Horde battles can get unbearably tough at times (and long) — especially on higher difficulties. Being chased by hundreds of freakers often means that more will be pulled into that group as you pass by the other freakers just wandering the world.

I had one fight recently on my new game plus that lasted just less than an hour, and I barely made it out alive.

Summary

Days Gone is as beautiful as it is deadly. With many of the familiar parts of a traditional open world game — bandit camps, collectables, side quests and varying storylines — this game still manages to carve out its own niche within that genre.

It’s in a league of its own. And although it can be very occasionally buggy, the amount of stunning moments this game holds, greatly outweighs it’s very few flaws.

If you like Open World games and Horror, you need to be checking out Days Gone.

Resident Evil : Project Resistance CLOSED BETA — my thoughts

I couldn’t believe how lucky I was to open my email two weeks ago and find an invitation to the upcoming multiplayer game Resident Evil: Project Resistance. I had heard it referred to as “Resident Evil but done like Dead by Daylight”. But I’m here to tell you that it is so much more than that.

I’ve always loved the classic Resident Evil games (from the original through to Code: Veronica – I haven’t played any more till Resident Evil 7: Biohazard). Resident Evil 7 rekindled my love of horror games and the Resident Evil 2 Remake rekindled my love of Raccoon City specifically. So when I had heard about an upcoming multiplayer game set in this world I jumped at the chance to enter into the closed BETA access ballot.

I still can’t believe I got in.

What is the aim of Project Resistance?

You choose from one of two sides when entering into a game — you can be either one of four survivors, each with their own unique traits, or the Mastermind, who is trying to stop them from escaping. I found both sides fun in their own way, but the clear winner for me was playing as the Mastermind — especially when I got to jump into the skin of the Tyrant twice in each game (more on that later).

Survivor goals

As one of the four survivors your goal is to make it out of the match with your allies. This means fighting your way across three separate areas of the game map and out of the exit gate, all while the Mastermind throws everything at you from Lickers to Zombie Dogs.

Each time you deal damage or complete objectives you get additional seconds added on to your team’s time to escape. And believe me when I say that every second counts. Each area has a simple puzzle to solve, which essentially involves exploring the environment for each part of a puzzle to unlock the next door.

The survivors enter the last area

Each area has a safe room where you can buy extra weapons, ammo and herbs with credits found within the map. These safe rooms can also be used as breathing spaces — The Mastermind is unable to send enemies in there after you.

Mastermind goals

As the lone Mastermind, your job is to stop the four survivors from making it through those three areas and out of the exit. You can throw anything at them that you have at your disposal, but there is a slight caveat.

The Mastermind builds up a points gauge, about 1 point per five seconds I think. Those points can then be spent to play “enemy cards”. You see, each enemy you can place down in the map is represented by a card within your “deck”. Decks can be chosen before the match but the BETA was limited to a single selection. Those cards then become available on a rotation, allowing you to build up a good varied selection of enemies for the survivors to fight through.

A Zombie dog for example takes 2 points to place down. It is a weaker enemy, but more can be placed down in succession. A Licker on the other hand is worth 7 points but is much stronger. So it will take slightly longer to build up to the points to place one of those down. So it’s all a bit of give and take.

Downtown map view

Another power gauge that builds up over time, separate from the card points gauge, is the ultimate weapon metre. The only Mastermind that was available to play in the BETA was “Daniel”, whose ultimate weapon is The Tyrant from the Resident Evil 2: Remake. The Tyrant card pops up once its metre is filled, after which you can place it for free. Once placed, you actually take control of the trench-coat-wearing machine!

If you manage to keep the survivors occupied enough through the match, and their timer runs to zero, a gas will be released killing them all. If this happens then you have won the match.

What I liked about Project Resistance

I have to say that I pretty much liked everything about this game. Even though it was a BETA test, it felt really polished and I noticed absolutely zero bugs whilst playing. Capcom are one of the leaders of the pack when it comes to video games right now, at least in my opinion. I think a lot of what made this game feel so polished for me, was the use of their proprietary engine introduced in Resident Evil 7: Biohazard and continued in Resident Evil 2 Remake — the “RE Engine”.

I felt there was a good push and pull between the survivors and the Mastermind. Some games I would absolutely destroy the survivors, whilst in others they would escape with 8 minutes or so remaining. It will be interesting to see how this game gets altered, if at all, after they have sifted through all of the feedback from the testing weekend.

An example of the cards to put enemies down

What I disliked about Project Resistance

As I said above, I pretty much like everything in this game. If I’m honest the only thing I found slightly frustrating, albeit only occasionally, was the enemy intelligence. I would sometimes see enemies just standing there whilst survivors ran around ahead of them. This happened rarely, but I assume it is one of those things that will get reviewed after testing. That’s what BETA testing is for, right?

What I’d like to see in the Full Release of Project Resistance

This was one of the questions on the feedback form and it really got me thinking about what I’d love to see in the final game. The DLC options here are almost limitless, but here are a few things I’d love to experience:

Lots of maps.

I’d love to be able to play through a bunch of locations from the Resident Evil universe. Even the Baker House would be a cool one for me. I think you could probably get about five or six maps from each Resident Evil Game.

Some of my absolute dream maps would be:

  • The Baker’s Guest House from Resident Evil 7: Biohazard.
  • Raccoon City Police Station from Resident Evil 2 (both versions? :))
  • Different areas of the Spencer Mansion from Resident Evil Remake
  • The Guest House from Resident Evil Remake
Mr X watches as the dog attacks a survivor

Lots of enemies

Different enemies from across Resident Evil’s history would be so awesome. I could imagine putting a bee hive in the corner of a room, with the lights turned off, to be very annoying to survivors. 😀

Some enemies I’d love to be able to place down:

  • Bee Hives from Resident Evil Remake
  • Moulded from Resident Evil 7: Biohazard
  • Giant Spiders from Resident Evil Remake
  • “Possessed” Mia Winters from Resident Evil 7: Biohazard as an ultimate weapon
  • Jack Baker from Resident Evil 7: Biohazard as an ultimate weapon
  • Maybe the ability to place enemies outside of windows that would burst through when passed?

Different Skins

I think the idea of each survivor player having to choose a different character is an interesting one. But what I’d love to see would be for players to earn, or maybe purchase?, skins. So they still play the roles as either tank, damage, hacker etc but each person can go in looking like characters from the Resident Evil universe.

Some characters I’d be super hyped to play as:

  • Leon Kennedy
  • Jill Valentine
  • Chief Irons? LOL
  • William Birkin (Imagine having a team comprised of the whole Birkin family :D)
  • Mia Winters

In Conclusion

I absolutely loved playing this game over the testing weekend and can not wait for it to be released in full. I will be buying it on its day of release.

My first thoughts when hearing about its asymmetrical structure was that it would basically be Dead By Daylight but in the Resident Evil universe. But I am happy to say that this is not the case. Project Resistance is a game that sits on its own, taking interesting elements from different games. It has the puzzle solving aspect from its own world, it then takes the asymmetrical nature of other multiplayer games whilst putting its own spin on it. Mix those with the card point system from games like Clash Royale and you’ve got an interesting game that I’ll be playing the hell out of when it’s released.

I’d like to also take this opportunity to thank Capcom for accepting me on to the BETA testing weekend. I managed to make a few friends jealous, as well as having some of the most fun moments I’ve had on the PS4 for a while.

Gameplay footage — playing as Mastermind

Me playing as Mastermind