Zombie games are an over saturated market of low effort grind fests where you mow down the same dead white guy with a flannel and blue jeans for the 567,000th time, but Left 4 Dead 2 is different. Left 4 Dead 2 is a zombie survival game that acts under the mask of a cheesy horror flick, where the playable characters are likable and the game at times can make you think before you shoot. It's a game made by valve which means two things: The game has aged incredibly well and it's going to be free or a dollar every month or so, so it's definitely worth the money. GAMEPLAY
Narrative
Visuals
Music
Interface
Technical Conclusion This game is a landmark piece that does co-op and zombie games right, it is a masterclass in the genre and every game after it should've taken notes. 5 starts, play with friends play alone, how ever, you have to play this title.
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Miitopia is a turn based RPG made by Nintendo for the 3DS in 2016. Miitopia is about a dark lord that stole the faces of the citizens of the miitopia island, leaving you and your friends to save the island and defeat the Dark Lord. This game is very fun to play, although it is a turn based RPG so replay ability is almost out of the question it is soul crushing. I spent a lot of my summer playing Miitopia because of the gimmick of filling the roles of your character, the Dark Lord, and your teammates with any mii. With 3DS's streetpass, you can take any mii made from other people and fill the roles with them. It's a great game that I suggest to anyone but it's not without its flaws.
Narrative The plot is very simple, a Dark Lord steals the faces of the citizens and you and your friends have to save those faces, but there's a twist. It's turns out the Dark Lord was a normal person possessed by an evil spirit. The evil spirit was a person who hated their own face so much they casted their face away, filling the soul with hatred. That's as far as the narrative goes, you go through different areas helping different people and areas by slaying monsters and recusing faces by defeating bosses.The dialogue is silly and fun all around, you don't control what your characters say so they feel like their own little characters. The game is very simple and innocent, except the twerkeys but we'll get to those. Gameplay The game itself is quite linear, when you properly start the game you're given a map selection screen where you're able to pick a level. There are optional levels but it all funnels to a certain point of a town or a boss you need to defeat. The levels often have branching paths but what they do it mostly give coin, challenge, or make you want to do all of the paths because you want every level to be completed like me. Now to the battles, you are only allow to control your character, what your teammates do is out of your control. Sometimes, depending on what personality you've given a character, a character will do something related to that trait, like not attacking a monster or giving items to teammates if they're kind. Personalities make battle unpredictable and fun and could be considered as a different class all together, but that doesn't mean battles can be all too fun. If you get a certain ability that does a lot of damage, you won't find a lot of reasons to use your other abilities because they don't do as much damage, making battles a grind. You can level up your characters through battle and improve their stats by feeding them food you've collected in battle at the inn. The inn is where you stop to rest at the end of every level, in inns you can place two teammates in each room. Putting teammates in the same room fills their friendship meter, which in turns allows them to do things like team up on the enemy or take damage for each other if one is about to die.The game is built to be unpredictable in what your team does and says, it's like you're a god watching down on this team instead of being apart of it, and I really like that design. Visual The game has a pretty distinct art style, very close to Tomodachi Life on the 3DS, the animations are smooth and the models for characters looks good on the 3DS. It uses colors a lot, there is no dull looking place in Miitopia it's all very imaginative. Art was just very appealing to look at but not anything to write home about. Audio Miitopia's music is amazing, the music in this game is a treat in it of itself it's incredible. Each piece compliments each part of the island you explore and they all just bop like they are really good, definitely suggest to listening to the OST. But away from the music, when a mii talks a speech bubble appears above their hand and says what they're saying, there is no voice acting just random little sounds to indicate that they are speaking. Game sounds were normally in the background, the music is the main focus of the audio department and I say it really paid off for them. Interface A lot of the game is controlled by the touchpad of the 3DS, just tap to action to do it. There are button inputs you can use the joystick and A button to go through menus but this game was definitely touchpad first.The menu was user friendly and I'd expect that for a nintendo game since they are normally family friendly in game design. Miitopia is a 3DS exclusive so there's no graphics or audio settings because you really don't have to change the graphics and you can turn off your volume on the 3DS itself. Everything in this game is very easy and streamlined, the maps are short and easy to run through and I can find just about anything within the menus, no complaints here. Accessibility In the front of the case it says that Miitopia was made for everyone 7+, and with streamlined elements I think they nailed the accessibility, except for one thing. Replaying Miitopia feels like a chore, the game does have random moments but the core story is still linear so running through the game again loses a lot of the charm. Having access to fun replayability is not common with a lot of turn based RPG since getting rid of all the progress you've done and starting anew isn't so fun, especially when you're only given one save slot like in Miitopia. That's the one aspect of Accessibility Miitopia is lacking in, everything else is quite easy to do not counting New Lumos aka the challenge world as that is in the post game. Technical Miitopia ran great with no problems from my end, the game is structurally sound in terms of technical sides. The game was built for the 3DS so I'd expect it to work on a 3DS, I've not come across any bugs, glitches, or crashes throughout my run. Conclusion Miitopia is a cute, weird game that I love, it has fun random moments, odd humor, and jsut sucks you in with it's gameplay and presentation. This game is more or less untalked about now a days and it one of the only reasons I still have a Nintendo 3DS. The only problem is just replaying it because once you've played through it once, you've seen everything the game has to offer. But besides that I'm giving it a 4/5 stars, pick it up and try it out, it's a fun little adventure. INTRO In the new age Doom games players are taught one thing, waiting around is a good way of dying, then it gives you a enemy that goes against that one simple rule. In order to defeat the Marauder you must wait for him to attack first then you attack, sounds simple right? well the only attack you can counter is one that the marauder does when the player is within mid range. That is, if the marauder decides your mid range, sometimes the marauder will start with the attack then block your counter attack with a shield, sometimes the marauder will be on the other side of the map and run up with the counter attack. It feels like your playing against the game and that is not a fun mechanic.
CONCLUSION
When a game takes control away from the player during gameplay it's frustrating, it feels unfair, it doesn't feel like the players fault. The Marauder was not made to be mixed in with the other demons, I can think of a vague story reason but gameplay wise, the thing the new DOOM games focus on, it does not blend well. Don't get this viewpoint twisted, DOOM Eternal is still a fantastic game with fun combat mechanics and set pieces that looks amazing. I love the game, it's a huge leap from DOOM 2016 in (mostly) good ways but the Marauder encounters are the only time where players are taken out of the experience and are reminded it's a game and they must exploit said game. It's not fun to fight the Marauder in a game where the fun comes from fighting demons, it's ok to have challenge in your games but if it feels like your fighting the game itself it's not fun it's just unfair. Introduction Just a Regular Game is a flash game on the Cartoon Network site made up of three other unique mini games, all with scoreboards and high scores. These games were made for children 10+ so the games have to be simple and easy to play for any one and Just a Regular Game achieves that. For this review since the game is three separate mini games, I'll be reviewing them in order of least level of enjoyment to the highest, but first some background on Regular Show. Background on the Show Regular show was made by J. G. Quintel, the same who worked on the Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack, and it follows a blue jay named Mordecai and a racoon named Rigby and their job at a park where an episode starts off fairly normal then quickly devolves into madness. For example, Season 1 episode 1 "The Power", where Mordecai and Rigby start off by accidentally making a hole in the wall in their room to using a magic keyboard to accidentally send their friend Skips to the moon and have to get him back. In this episode we meet Benson the park manager, Pops the son of Benson's boss and Skips, the parks groundskeeper. Another episode to know in this review is the next episode, episode 2 of Season 1, "Just set up the chairs" where Mordecai and Rigby are given the jobs to set up the chairs for a kid's birthday, when searching for more chairs the two find an abandon arcade machine that released The destroyer of World which they have to defeat with a arcade monster of their own. so now that a little background has been covered let's start reviewing the Game in order of my level of enjoyment for least to greatest Escape from the Moon
Destroy the Destroyer
Put the hurt on him
Conclusion Just a Regular Game holds a special place in my childhood but one game being good, one alright and the other boring doesn't translate as a good game. I know this game is a basically a flash game on a website that lags every time an ad off screen loads in but Just a Regular game is still a good time waster. Is it a good game? Overall not really but that doesn't mean I and others don't still enjoy it. Call it nostalgia but I think this game still holds up to this day, mechanics are easy to understand and the game isn't too frustrating, it's a good game, but isn't just regular game. Just a Regular Game:
The Fallout series are games, that in recent events, me and a lot of other players have some issue with. From the awful launch of 76 to the ultimate backlash for fans to Bethesda for their bug filled games and lack of updated engine. I have fond memories with Fallout 4 so in recent events I decided to play through it again, this time with a more cynical eye. When starting the game I was greeted to a bug, my wife in the game had mysteriously disappeared only to pop right back into reality, wonderful. Overall the game was still a fun FPS but when completing the game I felt no real positive emotion, maybe from my countless playthroughs or maybe just the fact the ending doesn't bring too much of an impact, either way the ending was the weaker of the series. Going through the story feels like a chore and this was true before making this review so not much for replay value. I would say this game is worth the money since it is an older title now and the price is marked down, It's not an awful game it just seems passable. Does it deserve a recommendation? my opinion no, it's not strong story wise and it's not fun RPG wise so no, I will not recommend this game. Speaking of story, this games got one alright for how forgettable it is. The story reflects the story of Fallout 3 in which you go searching the wasteland for a family member, in Fallout 3 it was your father, in Fallout 4 it is your infant child Shaun. Since this game has a voiced protagonist the game only gives you one outlook and one opinion, you want to find him and when you do, it is a twist but a predictable one. It turns out that your son is actually running the evil faction know as the institute, and depending on which faction you side with, you either kill him or he dies anyways, I love choice. The characters throughout the game are your standard Bethesda NPCs with no charm or memorability, the dialogue wheel has been extremely simplified, giving your 4 options, 3 of which is saying yes different ways. The Fallout series was build off of witty and fun RPG game, except Fallout 3 as it was more of an FPS with RPG elements which was fine until Fallout 4 became a FPS with RPG similarities rather then elements. The game does well at an open world gameplay and the first person shooting aspect is not bad, although the enemies sometimes feel like standing targets that sometimes move to the left and right is there is no real challenge, even if you crank up the difficultly it just turns them into bullet sponges and not effect the AI. It is possible to completely forget about the story and do whatever in the game, although the side quests aren't exactly fun but you can play through the entire game without touching the main quest. The game can be completed by someone who hasn't played it before with some harder challenges for veterans, although the ladder part I find is very rare. In previous titles the visuals had a slight color tint to it, in Fallout 3 it had a green tint, in Fallout New Vegas it had a red tint, Fallout 4 ditches that completely with normal natural colors with is a nice change in my book. After 5 years of the game being out it still looks good, although characters pathfinders get messed up often, making them block doorways or not know where to even go. There are very few animations and the only well thought out ones for the player character was the one when the player picks the one no option as to opposed to the three other yes options, which isn't a compliment. The music is forgettable and I think it was designed to be, ever since Fallout 3 there has been radio stations that play music from the era Fallout is replicating that being the early 1900's, so the background music is composed as boring so players will switch to the radio, or maybe I'm giving Bethesda too much credit. The voice acting is not bad, while there were times where the delivery was off or you think to your self "that was the best take?", it's still professionally done. There were no real awful sound effects, a lot of it was just passable, it was gun sounds not a lot I can say. The Pip boy and map are the same as they are in every 3D Fallout game, easy to use and quite convenient, although if you play for to long items might be lost forever in your inventory but that's late game, as it stands the Pip boy, map, and inventory are easy to use. Whenever you get a quest it'll always have the Bethesda map marker so you know where to go and can follow it blindly and not take in the world you're in, not to say it's not important it can just be a little distracting. If you bought Fallout 4 for the replay ability and the RPG elements well, don't get your hopes up, the role playing aspect went out the window once a voiced protagonist came into the mix and there isn't any real difference between endings besides the Institute ending and that's about it. With an open skill tree you can make the ultimate killing machine and not have any real choice at the start. Subtitles were legible expect for one part that always happened to me, when Preston Garvey is explaining how to get rid of some Raiders in the early game he tells Sturges to tell you their plan, problem is the subtitles for Sturges never showed up, it was just the same line of "Sturges, tell him" at the bottom of the screen, only happened there. Oh crashes, bugs, glitches, is it a Bethesda title if it doesn't have all three? The community has excused these errors for long enough, I've had textures missing, NPCs T posing, random crashes, the works. I feel like Bethesda needs to actually fix these problems instead of having them as silly little jokes and "oops too bad" moments, sometimes their games including Fallout 4 are unplayable, in my play through recently I was met with a hour loading screen followed by a crash, fitting. Opinions on Bethesda aside, is Fallout 4 amazing? No, is Fallout 4 awful? No, it is just ok, the controls are ok, the music is ok, the story is ok, everything is mediocre execpt for the consistent glitches and the lack of any real replay ability. I give it three stars, it's not amazing and it's not awful, I still had fun playing in making something out of something lack luster, that is when it's not crashing.
The Outer Worlds is a RPG by Obsidian and Private Division, an game which has the feel of older RPG games like Oblivion or Fallout New Vegas, a game that Obsidian worked on. In the Outer Worlds, the player character is a colonist frozen in a pod on a ship called the Hope. The player is rescued by Phineas Wells who tasks you to help him revive the other colonists, the player is ejected into the planet below and the game begins. While playing the Outer Worlds I felt levels of enjoyment to anger, I personally loved the dialog of characters and the fun interactions you can have, but then find myself in a spot where I kept dying and dying, but that never made me personally quit the game. As an RPG, one thing it does well is its replayability, with different playstyles, endings, and secrets not yet explored, there is lots of replayability with makes it worth the 60 dollars. I would definitively recommend this game to my friends, it's a RPG straight out of the 2010's with a nice coat of pain with a little more streamlined customization. The gameplay was very open as RPGs should be, the game is spilt up in different planets with lots to explore and aren't just glorified levels. The player goes to these planets by the story, Phineas will give you directions and main quests to show the player other players and characters. The games difficulty is not so consistent, I played on normal and some parts were easy while other would be incredibility hard which only made me quit once with is a feat. Seeing as the Outer Worlds is an RPG, there are different playstyles you can use, although I found it hard to do an melee only run, making feel like the game was made for guns, but people have done it before me. The gameplay was fun, there is a machinic that functions like the VATS system from Fallout, instead of selecting a bodytype and pausing time, TTD or Tactical Time Dilation slows down time and lets you give harmful effects to enemies, for example if you target the head it will blind enemies decreasing their accuracy. The gameplay is logical, it feels like a normal FPS but with some imaginative SciFi weapons like a shrink ray that shrinks enemies. The graphics both look dated and new at the same time, the technology shows age but nothing too big to bring you out of the immersion. While you'll get your occasional texture pop where texture load in while you play, it's mostly cloths or landscapes everything was on model with no noticeable errors in that regard. The backgrounds and worlds were beautiful with bright colors for one and deep and depressing colors for another, it's imaginative to say the least. The animations for NPCs were minimum, only having a couple poses when in dialog, some head nods, and of course lip syncing, the monsters are also minimum but that's understandable considering the size of the game. The music was not too memorable as it's blended into the background, I couldn't tell you one track except the main menu music, which isn't the best. The voice acting is on point and very felt stilted to me, everything sounded natural like the creature sounds, the environmental sound effects, all sound effects and voices sounded great. The controls were your standard FPS RPG control layout which doesn't have customization, but isn't a problem for me at least. The menu is very streamed line so anyone can use them without trouble, although this makes the more hardcore players a little disappointed as some crazy character customization are not present. The menus like the inventory was organized and streamed lined, the menu options involve changing the difficulty, volume, and even an option to have your dialog options pop up before an NPC is done speaking. The map was only used to see where exactly you're supposed to go and to fast travel, so the map isn't anything to write home about. There is a hint system that appears during loading screens at the bottom of a in universe ad, which are random and aren't related to your quest since the game wants you to deal with it your own way. The text had no spelling errors although it didn't always say what the NPC was saying but something similar, like them saying "We have to go kill those guys" with the text saying "we got to kill those guys". There were no technical problems like crashes or bugs I found, only thing that bugged me was the loading screens that took a minute or two, which if I'm honest I and other people who've played a lot of RPG games have grown accustom to. For my final score, I would give The Outer Worlds 4 stars, not the best but definitely a sort of love letter to people who grew up or enjoy playing the RPG games of the 2010's, I honestly enjoyed this game so much it has become my favorite game and I know lots of people agree with me fully.
Tetris is a long living title from the arcade era whose name remains relevant to this day, but does it still stay consistent at keeping people playing and having fun? Well I sure think so, the game is all about planning ahead in a game of randomized blocks and slowly building speed of said blocks. The game rewards players who rank up a lot of points and think strategically, which is an aspect that hasn’t evolved from the original arcade game and for good reason. The visual style of different shaped blocks and charming simplistic graphics helps all different Tetris games stay consistent and appropriate. Since Tetris dates back to the early days of arcades, there isn’t a lot of music playing in game besides the Tetris theme, there are little sound queues for when a block is placed down or if the player gets points by lining up Tetris blocks but other then that the audio is lacking. When playing Tetris there are different little windows showing you the main game play where you control the Tetris blocks, a window showing the next blocks that will drop, a window for a block you want to save for later, a window for what level the player is on, and a window showing the player the score. Now a days, Tetris on almost all platforms is a free to play game that anyone from newcomers the veterans and pick up and play any title available, newcomers tend to play faster and lining up blocks to get points while veterans take their time and build up their blocks to get lots and lots of points. As a game, Tetris isn't technically demanding, the frame rate is smooth, there is little to no input lag and the graphics aren't slowing anything down. All and all, Tetris is a fun game that anyone can play and get into, its arcade style of point based objectives and leader boards holds up to this day, it’s a fun game series that I’m sure everyone has played at one point in their lives.
Super Hot is a first person shooter game where time only moves when you move, with a story that isn't as simple as the game play. The game starts with you talking to a friend via an online chat, they tell you to download a game called Superhot.exe which you do and begin playing the game, which is both unique and enjoyable. Time moves whenever you move, a mechanic that makes the game fun to play yet at times frustrating. Super Hot is a puzzle game as much as a shooter, the players have the same objective of beating all the enemies in the level, each level has a unique theme like being stuck in a elevator with three red enemies with guns attack you or being forced to dodge bullets without anyway to defend yourself. While the characters in the game are really just red guys, the player and the game itself aren't exactly three dimensional characters, they aren't supposed to be, the red guys serve as basic enemies, the game is the main antagonist and protagonist (and I'm not talking about controls, the game of Superhot.exe is a character) and finally you, the player. Character and a thrilling story take a back seat to player experience, where in levels it's always the objective of kill all enemies and it's up to the player on how to execute that. The graphics of Super Hot go for a old late 90's to early 2000's era graphics with the characters made of visible polygons and the UI of the main menu looks like a old game launcher, even the computers and VR headset look like 90's futuristic gear. Now there is little to no music in Super Hot, there's the buzzing sound of the level starting or the noise of a crash slowing becoming bit crushed as you died, to even the victory screen repeating only SUPER HOT SUPER HOT SUPER as your actions throughout the level play in real time. The lack of music is I think a choice to immerse the player into the mechanic of time only moving when you do, it would be annoying for a song to keep starting and stopping or continuing playing while you play, it would ruin the fun. The only times Super Hot crash is when it's intentional, remember the game of Superhot.exe is conscious and will sometimes send you out of bounds and crash for story purposes rather than a simple bug error. This game doesn't have any real replay value since all the surprises are spoiled and the game is very long, but other then that Super Hot to me is a 5 starts, it's engaging, fun, frustrating, the story sucks you in, the world sucks you in, it's a amazing experience that is worth every penny.
In the weeks leading to the release of Smash, fans and creator Masahiro Sakurai were hyping the game up as the ultimate Smash game, with all fighters from past installments coming back, and more content and polish than any other Smash game. I made a post about how the game was going to be the best game of 2018 before it was even close to being finished, but is the game as good as it was hyped up to be? Yes and no. The game has over 70 characters now, each with mostly unique move sets and combos, the game has tight fast past game play and controls, fun to play and fun to watch. The game is easy enough for newcomers to pick up and have fun, but hard to completely master and play on a competitive level. Smash Ultimate does its best to make this the ultimate installment in the franchise, with some fan requested characters being playable or in the game otherwise, stage builder, a single player experience that's over 60 hours long, a video editor, a variety of stages to choose from, and so much more. But there is a problem with this installment, that of course being the online, as Nintendo online is cheaper than other payed online services, it doesn't feel like a service you should pay for. In the past, matches online were group in two main sections, for fun and for glory, for fun threw you into a match with any stage with all items on and for glory threw you into a match on a flat stage with two stocks in a 1v1. Ultimate abandoned this method in favor for preferred rules, where the player can set their rules and enter a match with someone. The problem is that there is no dividing factor between people who want to play for fun and those who want to play competitively, no to mention the lag in 1v1 matches, the constant internet crashes and kick outs, and random opponents that most of the time would be way higher in rank and skill or are lower in skill and rank that don't give a challenge. There is a lot of content that feels like they didn't put enough in, like the different modes in Games and more or the sub modes in the Smash menu. While some parts of the game feel vapid, the game is still better than previous installments and more fun to play alone and more so with friends
During the February Direct, Nintendo announced a free to play game for Nintendo online called Tetris 99, the classic Tetris game with a battle royale twist. The game itself is very bare bones only having three menus with only one game mode, The Battle Royale mode, stats, and settings. The controls are pretty simple, you move your Tetris blocks with the D-pad, press A to flip them, and use the left stick to target ether your attackers, random players, players with badges, or people with the most K.Os. Once you select the Battle Royale mode you'll be dropped in a random lobby and starts to load while the other 98 players load in. There is no tutorial and doesn't even tell you the controls, just drops you into the game. At the beginning of the game, you will be targeted by a number of players, and when those players get combos, a stack of grey blocks will spawn when you drop your next tetris block. The game is unforgiving in the sense that at any moment a hundred grey blocks will spawn in and completely make you lose. It is just basic tetris and people who do not like tetris will not like tetris 99, but ones who do like tetris will love it for it's no real divergence from the tetris formula and hate this game for it's unforgiving game play and matches.
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The views and opinions expressed in this blog are solely those of the author and Do Not represent those of Durham School of the Arts or Durham Public Schools.
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