Judgment - Yakuza but a detective thriller.

By Sam Coles:  

The Yakuza franchise has been around for nearly 20 years, with the first debuting in 2005 on the PlayStation 2. After years of struggling to get a foothold in the west, it wasn’t until 2017 when it got mainstream recognition with Yakuza 0, and it has all been smooth sailing since then. However, they would change things up with the series, and I am not talking about the turn based JRPG approach with Like a Dragon, but with 2019’s Judgment. A game that takes a slower approach to the series but in the good way given the context of the narrative, anyway let's get into it.  

Judgment takes place in Kamurocho the usual stuff, but this time you play as Takayuki Yagami who was once a lawyer but now a private detective. Yagami was once a lawyer but left the profession due to one of his clients he got acquitted ended up brutally murdering his partner soon after he was released. Using his knowledge of a lawyer he puts it to go use as a private detective, where he ends up stumbling upon a string of murders where all the victims have their eyes gouged out.  

This makes Yagami chase this case, as it goes all the way to the top throughout the police department as well as a conspiracy to get a type of medicine to public trial. It is a really interesting story, yes it does include members of the Yakuza but it is mostly about a political conspiracy which had me on the edge of my seat throughout the narrative, coupled with the excellent Japanese voice acting.  

Gameplay wise if you have played Yakuza, you will be instantly familiar with this game, you roam around the streets and sometimes you will get into fist fights with the local thugs. The combat is very similar to Yakuza 6, with reused animations but with certain aspects tweaked to Yagami’s more slim and slender build, so he is a more agile in fights. It’s rather entertaining seeing him bouncing off walls, as he flies foot first into some unfortunately thug’s face. Combat feels much faster, as you are playing as a younger and more agile person in this game, Yagami spins around like a tornado in fights while knocking people down like bowling pins and it is gleefully entertaining.  

Like the other games in the series, you can get distracted with various activities in the world, you can go to the arcade, play pool, play darts or blow off some steam at the batting cages. However, one of the most iconic activities in the series karaoke is conspicuously missing which is rather baffling to me.

 

Besides the usual things you would expect in a Yakuza game, you have to act like detective. There is more dialogue in this game compared to the other games and I know that is saying a lot considering there is already a lot dialogue in Yakuza games. Contextually this makes sense, because you have to interview people about crimes and scenarios, whether you are going undercover or just examining a crime scene. It never got boring the dialogue because the characters are really engaging coupled with the well written script.  

What I like is that you have dialogue choices in this game to piece together the crime, you use evidence to accuse people that they are lying or present it to a prosecutor. It requires you to pay attention to dialogue, otherwise you will be lost in key moments when you are finally putting it all together. How you gain said evidence is through examining crime scenes, this will put you into a first-person perspective, which immerses the player into the scenario. You have to really pay attention to details, as it will help you with your future investigations. It adds enough to make this game separate from the rest of the Yakuza series.  

Visually the game looks incredible, it runs on the Dragon Engine which was first introduced with Yakuza 6 and it just looks fantastic. The streets of Kamurocho at night with its neon lit streets really standout especially when it is raining. Character models look great and believable, even for a game from 2019 it still looks fantastic.  

Overall, Judgment is a fantastic spin off to the Yakuza series as it does just enough to differentiate itself from the rest of the series. The angel of you being a detective works really well, and it feels a mix of 1930’s film noir mixed with Jessica Jones and it is brilliant. It is really cheap on PS4 so I recommend grabbing it!  

Warhammer 40k: Space Marine 2 - "For the Emperor"!

 

(Xbox game code provided by Focus Home Entertainment) 

By Sam Coles:  

It’s safe to say that the Warhammer license in video game form have been consistently good recently, and one that really shines at the moment is Space Marine 2. To be honest if you said to me that Space Marine was getting a sequel a few years ago, I wouldn’t believe you but here we are with Space Marine 2 in 2024 13 years removed from the first game. Is it worth the wait for a sequel to an underrated gem? Absolutely, let’s get into it.  

Space Marine 2 takes place after the cliffhanger of the first game, where Captain Titus well Lieutenant Titus now was branded a heretic and stripped of his Captain rank as well as his Ultra Marine status. Shortly after a brief introduction mission, where he is part of the Darkwatch outfit and is nearly killed in said mission he is resurrected and has his Ultra Marine status is reinstated. The plot is nothing that spectacular, but to be honest you probably have to be a Warhammer 40k enthusiast to understand most of it which I am not. It just adds the context for what alien race you are going to exterminate that day.  

Anyway, people play Space Marine 2 for the combat and it delivers it in gory over the top spades! Like the first game it is a mix of Gears of War and God of War (the old God of War games), where it is a mix of third person shooting and hack and slash combat. These systems combine to make a cacophony of violence which blend together beautifully.  

You can shoot your way through encounters, but ammo can be scarce in a lot of scenarios so you have to get up close and personal and bathe in the blood of your enemies. It is a combination of parrying attacks which replenishes your shield with a variety of melee-based weapons, chainswords, power swords or a knife to make things simple. Where you can then shoot an enemy square in the face for major damage, although this game gets very hectic with the amount of enemies on screen I was never overwhelmed by the odds. It keeps the combat varied, as it mixes shooting and melee combat which keeps you on your toes as you have to balance each type of enemy, plus it just feels great plowing through hordes of enemies with a chainsword as blood ladens your armour. It is a simple combat system, but that doesn’t mean it is a bad thing as it serves its purpose and situations can get tough if you don’t pay attention.  

The game graphically is spectacular, I played this on Xbox Series S and despite what some internet hyperbole would have you believe it is a capable console. Yes, it runs at 30 frames per second but the experience is stable and I never really had any frame drops throughout my experience. The game’s skyboxes look amazing, you really feel the grand scale of the 40k universe, although sometimes you think something is part of the backdrop and then it tries to kill you in the form of swam of Tyranids. The swarm and horde tech in this game is genuinely impressive, and considering that this game is from Sabre Interactive who made World War Z it is no surprise they went this route with the encounters. I was really shocked with the hordes of enemies coming towards to me, and I was as tense as a bike chain that is about to snap.  

Overall, Space Marine 2 is an excellent follow up to the 2011 game it understands the assignment of a video game with intense action and a power fantasy. It has interesting moments in the narrative, but most will be more interested in tearing Tyranids apart with their bare hands. Highly recommend on any platform that you have access to!  

Ghost Recon: Wildlands - The War on Drugs!

By Sam Coles:  

Open world and Ubisoft are usually met with the same reaction if you were to say chicken nuggets dipped in milkshake, usually a few coughs mixed with a bit of vomit. Anyway, oddly specific and vulgar analogy aside people seem to hate Ubisoft games before they have played them and to be honest, I don’t understand why, they are mostly harmless and rather engaging games. Are the innovative? No, but not everything in gaming has to push boundaries they are there to present a good world and story no matter how complex they are. So, Ghost Recon: Wildlands, a game that I played all the way through on Xbox Game Pass recently and it was a blast!  

Ghost Recon: Wildlands takes place in Bolivia, where you play as the titular Ghosts who are tasked with taking down a local drug cartel called Santa Blanca. It’s not a particular engaging narrative, it gives you a thin layer of context for the chaos you are about to cause within South America. If you are thinking “Wow, this has a Narcos vibe”, then you would be right as it was released right at the height of the Netflix show’s popularity, which makes sense with its themes.  

Anyway, the story is not the reason why we play this game it is the gameplay! I have to say, when Ubisoft first said they are making Ghost Recon an open world game I wasn’t sure but it makes sense if you go back to the series routes. The Ghost Recon games were an evolution of the old Rainbow Six games, similar gameplay however they took place outside in wide open spaces. The more I thought about it and when I finally played it, it clicks as an open world game where you can tackle objectives in any order you want with a variety of gadgets and weapons.  

With a brief introduction the game will dump you in the open world, explaining the bosses and sub-bosses you can take down, in order to get to the leader of the cartel. It is a completely free form experience; you can do the main objectives taking down the sub-bosses or you can go around the open world causing havoc as you do your bit for the war on drugs.  

The game does motivate you to take each mission in a stealth manner, but if I am given the option to strap a grenade launcher to the underbarrel of my M4, what do you think I am going to do? The answer is, blow everything up in sight because of course it is! However, that is the beauty of Ghost Recon Wildlands, it doesn’t penalise you for going loud but it will make encounters harder, with reinforcements among other things. There are only a handful times where the game expects you to do a mission without detection, but those moments are minimal.  

What I like about the gameplay is that you can fully customise your loadout, as this brings back the gunsmith system from Future Soldier. With this system you can customise your weapon to your heart’s desire, from the buttstock all the way down to the trigger with a satisfying animation that takes the gun apart to show the inner workings. It is a gun nut’s wet dream this system.  

You can also fully customise your operator’s appearance, you can make your appearance as serious or silly as you want. You can look like a fully equipped marine or a caricature of the average American, but I digress.  It is fun to play dress up with your character, and plus you can unlock more clothing options the more side missions you do, same applies to weapons and attachments.  

Visually this game looks fantastic, it is hard to believe this game came out in 2017 but here we are and it still looks beautiful. The environments look absolutely stunning and they are varied too, from the lush and humid jungles to the salt flats you can drive as fast as you can. Something this game does not lack is variety with its environments, I will never tire flying over the map in a helicopter as I witness the sun set on the coke fueled countryside.  

Ghost Recon Wildlands is a fun open world game, it is fun to explore Bolivia and get up to no good as you blow stuff up all in the name of the “War on Drugs”. It is super cheap these days, so it is a no brainer to pick it up if you are looking for a great open world game to sink your teeth into.