Mafia II Review - I'm very excited for Mafia III!

By Sam Coles:

It’s been six years since the last Mafia game was released and it is one of my favourite games on the Xbox 360 and PS3 with its excellent story and fun and tense gameplay set in a believable world. With my excitement for Mafia 3 which is out in October I’m going to review Mafia 2.

The story is told from the perspective of the main character Vito Scaletta who retells the events of the game. The first part of the game sees you fighting in Sicily during World War II where you’re fighting off the last of fascist regime. I have to say that this opening to the game was unexpected for a Mafioso story because I was expecting the usual trope where the main character is a normal law abiding citizen then turned into a thug. Vito eventually goes home to his hometown of Empire Bay where he is greeted by his best friend Joe Barbaro who finds a way to get Vito discharged from the military through less than legal means.

Vito is then finds out after his father’s death he had a huge debt of money who he owed to some thugs who keep intimidating his sister and mother, he has an altercation with one of the thugs and starts to find a way to make money fast which is where Joe comes in. Joe introduces him to his boss Alberto Clemente, who he then proceeds to work for, but one thing leads to another and he ends up in prison as he takes the fall for a robbery.

The story is engaging and well performed from start to finish with twists and turns with a few shocking and emotional moments with great voice acting and well-crafted cutscenes coupled with the beautiful musical score.

Gameplay is a mixture of shooting, driving and exploring on foot as it is an open world game (sort of), but the overall structure is very linear because there is nothing to do when you drive from mission to mission except buy new clothes, cars and collect Playboy magazines (not joking). Driving feels fantastic with the 1950’s sports cars as you throw them around corners they feel weighted and realistic with the physics and are just satisfying overall to control.

Shooting is functional it’s nothing mind blowing it’s your typical third person shooting akin to Gears of War with a good cover system where you pop out and shoot enemies until they’re all dead. The guns are great from the 1940’s all the way up to the 50’s and are modelled with exquisite detail and all sound fantastic.

The visuals still hold up after six years with excellent detail on the car models you can really tell that the team took the time to analyse and research the cars of the 40’s and 50’s no stone was left unturned. The character models and animation are brilliant with subtle raises of eye brows to a slight twitch as they smile. The city looks beautiful with superb weather effects to the dark snowy winter to the sweltering hot summer; the weather effects make this city feel alive.

The only problem I have with this game is that the frame rate has a habit of dipping in cutscenes and gameplay when things get busy because this is a visually demanding game  it happens here there and it can dampen my overall experience sometimes.

Mafia II is a wonderful game and it has got me excited for the third instalment that is coming out soon. If you haven’t played this game I would highly recommend it, it fairly cheap and easy to find so go get it! 

What have they done to God of War?

By Sam Coles:

When I first saw the reveal of the new God of War I didn’t know what to say and when I had a good think about it I thought what on earth have they done to it? I want to talk about it briefly and how this new God of War completely misses the point what the series is about.

Let’s start with the obvious with the third person camera which does not work in my opinion, the camera was fixed in the previous games and some people complain about fixed camera angles. The fixed camera angle works well in this type title works because you have a wide look on what’s going on during fights and you can see every angle of attack with this zoomed in third person perspective you can’t see everything around you.

The third person camera does not work for this type of combat because God of War is not a slow paced game like Dark Souls where you can take your time with strikes, its fast with loads going on which require quick reflexes. What I can also see about this God of War game there are going to be lots of scripted sequences and don’t bring up the argument of the quick time events because they were quick and you could fail them and there were actual consequences when did fail them.

The other problem I have with the new game is that they are trying to make Kratos a sympathetic character and it doesn’t work because Kratos is an objectively bad person he kills anyone who gets in the way of his progress innocent or not. The whole point of Kratos was that he is an angry and violent person who thrives on violence because it’s a power fantasy where you destroy everything. I just don’t see Kratos going from a guy poking a person’s eyes to a loving father. I don’t think having a cinematic game for this game would work because at the end of the day God of War is all about the gameplay because what is the first thing you do in every game before this one? Gameplay!

The final point I’m going to bring up is that the notion that every game needs to have a good story in order to be a good game needs to go away, don’t get me wrong I like games with good stories but when it starts to get in the way of gameplay then I have a problem. A good example of a triple A game that has a thin line of context with great gameplay is the new Doom where the game hands you a gun tells you to kill things until the credits roll. Good stories have their place in games but game developers need to focus on gameplay first and foremost look at the Order 1886 they made it like a film and it got a lot of negative comments about it.

That is my opinion I hope I get to see more of the new God of War and maybe it will prove me wrong but what I’ve seen it looks boring and completely misses the original idea of the old games so come on Sony show me real gameplay next time. 

The History of Quake.

By Sam Coles:

Quake turned 20 years old recently and I can’t believe it’s been that long since the original game was released, it is a fantastic first person shooter series with great environments and games that barely have any connection with each other. Join me as I go over 20 years of Quake history.

Quake (1996):

Id Software had the idea for Quake before Doom and Wolfenstein 3D it was first advertised in Commander Keen called “Quake The Fight for Justice” it was conceptualised as an RPG similar to games like Ultima Underworld. Id found their success with Doom and Wolfenstein and had a good formula going and the development of Quake started to run into issues so much that John Romero left the company after the game was finished, they ditched the RPG idea and played it safe by making a game like Doom. This time however it is completely 3D with the character models and the environments, Quake emphasised verticality more than Doom.

Quake begins with a choice how hard do you want it? They did get rid of the creatively named difficulties from Doom and Wolfenstein, but they do fiendishly hide the Nightmare difficulty which that in its self is a test. The game again is split up into chapters with slip gates where you have to breeze through a level, kill enemies and explore for weapons and keys.

Gone is the pistol now you start with a shotgun with the super variant turning up later, each of the weapons come in pairs you have the shotgun and the super shotgun, the nail gun and super nail gun, the grenade launcher and rocket launcher. There is one weapon that does not come in a super variant and that is the Lightning gun, at one point there was going to be a chain lightning gun but it was dropped due to time restraints.

Quake’s environments are dripping in gothic atmosphere taking ques from H.P Lovecraft as some of the new members of the id team were huge fans of his works. No text or cutscenes tell the story in typical id titles the environment tells it instead with cold and brown hues that show nothing but emptiness as you hear the distant moans of enemies.

Quake’s physics were a step up from Doom you had to tread dangerous environments with molten lava etc. so the natural evolution was the ability to jump. Players managed to exploit the jumping by combining the explosions of the rocket launcher to bring a new advance movement to the genre called “Rocket Jumping” this lets you propel yourself to insane heights accessing places you thought were out of bounds.

What people remember Quake for the most is the multiplayer, Quake was the first successful online multiplayer and spawned the E-Sports culture, yes Doom had multiplayer but it didn’t have that much of an impact compared to Quake. Multiplayer was Deathmatch only but people found new strategies of controlling your character like strafe jumping and bunny hopping. Like Doom Quake was very mod friendly where modders were creating their own games and the most famous one was Team Fortress where they filled the void of objective based modes and team based modes.

Quake was a resounding success with critics and we wouldn’t have to wait too long for a sequel only a year later for Quake II and it was radically different in style and tone compared to the first.

Quake II (1997):

Quake II came out a mere two years after the first game and to begin with it wasn’t called Quake but one thing lead to another and they ended up calling it Quake II so it would sell and you can tell that it wasn’t a Quake game because it ditches the gothic style. It has a story a thin one but it’s there, you play as a lone space marine as your unit was wiped out by the menacing alien race known as the Strogg they’re a mix of cybernetic parts and different races across the universe spliced together.

The gameplay was a step up from the last game with faster movement and smoother animation with great gunplay. They still maintain some of the paired weapons like the shotgun, super shotgun, machine gun and chaingun with a few new additions like the hyperblaster and my personal favourite the rail gun! The rail gun is absolutely devastating as you can one shot most enemies but it does take a few seconds to recharge with each shot so it’s a high risk and high reward weapon it’s a staple in the multiplayer.

Quake II stepped up the mark with the multiplayer with maps that were designed for with the added mobility with rocket jumping etc. and other mods like Action Quake flocked to it and was one of the most played multiplayer games of the time. When the time came to release another Quake game id Software made one of the most risky decisions with the third game.

Quake II did get a couple of console ports on the PlayStation and N64 the PlayStation version was not very good as it didn’t bother to use the dualshock sticks and used the d-pad. The N64 version on the other hand was a fantastic port utilising the 64’s ram expansion pack and the controller was a perfect fit for the genre.  

It would only be two years until the next Quake game and it would define online multiplayer for shooters for years to come.

Quake III: Arena (1999):

If you were to release a game like Quake III these days the comment sections on Youtube videos and forums would be flooded with comments like “No campaign no sale” you know idiots who are naïve and have no idea. Quake was known more for its multiplayer so id Software capitalised on that and made the third game multiplayer only and it was a great success and very impressive and you have to bear in mind that this was 1999 people were still using 56k dial up.

This really defined the arena shooter where you didn’t have perks, loadouts or levels it was all about your reflexes and something that most fps does not have any more map control. Map control was a big aspect of that game you had to know where the health is and where the best weapons are to gain the advantage because if you didn’t you would be turned into mincemeat.

Quake III was also notable for the first game where it was required an open GL graphics card to run it as it abandoned software support so if you didn’t have a 3D graphics card for your PC you were left playing solitaire.

Quake III did have a few console ports like on the PS2 which was a four player splitscreen version of the game as Sony didn’t really do online games at that point and the Dreamcast version. The Dreamcast version had full online support but they ran into a problem where PC players found a way to access the Dreamcast servers then proceeded to thrash the console players as controllers don’t have the speed and accuracy of a mouse and keyboard.

Quake 4 (2005):

Whenever I see people talk about Quake 4 on the internet it’s generally in a negative light and I don’t know why in my opinion I think it was the last of the traditional first person shooter before Call of Duty took over. Quake 4 was released in 2005 on PC and as a launch title for the Xbox 360 and was not developed by id Software as Raven Software took the reins with id supervising.

Quake 4 is a direct sequel to Quake II where you’re cleaning up after the marine from the second game pushing back the last of the Strogg forces and you then find out that the leader of the Strogg is not dead. There is a bigger empathises on team work in this game as you’re generally with a squad of marines who will assist you in firefights, replenish your health or armour. 

The game runs on the Doom 3 engine with some really impressive dynamic lighting which you just don’t see in games these days with dark and dingy corridors with flicking lights and it just builds the atmosphere beautifully.

There are moments where you’re alone which evokes Doom 3 with the dark corridors except you can hold a gun and a torch with your pistol or machine gun which is good and it does get really tense.

One of the most notable parts of the game is when you’re turned into a Strogg soldier and what this does is that you can access Strogg areas and it increases your health by 25 and you can run a lot faster it’s a gory and graphic part and really stands out.

So where is Quake now? Well there were a couple of spin offs like the Enemy Territory a multiplayer game which was made by the same guys who worked on the Return to Castle Wolfenstein Multiplayer which was a lot of fun. There was an in browser version of Quake III called Quake Live which was pretty good for an in browser game. What’s next? Well id Software announced Quake Champions at E3 2016 which is returning to the routes of Quake III which it’s going to be a multiplayer only arena shooter. Quake is a fantastic shooter and it’s hard to believe it’s been 20 years let’s hope it lasts of another 20. 

Battlefield Bad Company 2 Review - DICE can do good singleplayer campaigns.

By Sam Coles:

When you hear the title Battlefield you think very serious and gritty war games, but what if I told you that there was a time when DICE had a sense of humour with the Battlefield series and I am of course talking about Bad Company 2. The Bad Company games are great with brilliant gameplay and a fantastic campaign with corny one liners and banter which the main characters swapping back and forth between each other. So when someone says DICE can’t do campaigns just say Bad Company.

Bad Company 2 begins during the Second World War where you’re in the Pacific front trying to uncover a top secret weapon that the Japanese are working on. You’re part of a Navy Seals special unit who are looking for a scientist who worked on the weapon, the game starts off quiet which is unusual with these games because they usually throw you straight into the action and I appreciate that and it makes the action unexpected.

Something goes wrong and then it jumps to the present day (2010 which was present day when this game came out) where the Bad Company unit return and they find themselves in Alaska where the Russians have taken over large chunks of the world and they’re slowly moving towards America. The highlight of the game’s campaign are the characters in the Bad Company unit because the dialogue between them is hilarious because they’ve been through a lot in terms of war but they’ve learnt to laugh it off and see the more humours side of it in a dark and twisted way.

The gameplay is a first person shooter (duh!) where you through different locales from snow laden mountains to the lush, tropical and humid jungles of South America shooting anything that moves. Each location is varied and interesting to keep you pushing through the campaign with different terrains that you have to contend with. This game’s unique selling point is the destruction you can cause which is absolutely amazing even comparing it to modern Battlefield games because if you see a building or structure and you don’t like it you can destroy it which is fantastic. This can work to your advantage as well because you can create new vantage points by shooting holes in walls and this plays a huge part in the multiplayer.

The presentation still holds up considering the game came out six years ago with the detailed environments, exquisite gun models and the good characters models with excellent animation when they get shot and die, animation across the board is excellent even with the environments. The sound design! What can I say about the sound design it’s DICE they know what they’re doing when it comes to sound with the distant crackle of gunfire after you’ve pulled the trigger to the earth quaking explosion sounds and even the enemies death screams echoing across the battlefield! I can’t say anything bad about the sound design.

There is multiplayer although it’s probably baron these days as most people will be playing Battlefield 4 or Hardline (unless you’re on PC) it was one of the biggest multiplayer games on the Xbox 360 and PS3 with player counts up to 24 players which sounds pathetic compared today’s standards, but this was console gaming in 2010. You have your standard modes like Conquest, deathmatch etc. but this was the game where they introduced the Rush mode where you have two sites you have to blow up or defend, when one team blows up both sites you move up to the next base, it’s good tug of war style of game.

My only problem with this game is when you’re sniping on some maps there is this weird graphically problem where you get this haze when you’re scanning a distant compound and this seems to happen on snow maps, it’s a pain but it doesn’t happen too often.

Battlefield Bad Company 2 is a blast from start to finish with singleplayer and multiplayer with great action, fun characters and over the top destruction that would make Michael Bay blush. If you haven’t played this game go out and get it! It’s super cheap and easy to find! 

Medal of Honor (PS1) Review - Great first person shooter for the original PlayStation.

By Sam Coles:

If you’re my age or above you’ll remember the period from 1999-2008 where there was an overabundance of World War II themed first person shooters, this all began with Medal of Honor back in 1999. Created by Dreamworks interactive which the game was directed by legendary film director Steven Spielberg, Medal of Honor was something we hadn’t seen before with intense action taking ques from Spielberg’s film Saving Private Ryan which came out the year before.

Medal of Honor sees you play as a mute Sargent in the US military as you journey through various European locations as you gun Nazis. The missions have multi layered objectives and you have to do them all in order to finish each level, these can vary from blowing up AA guns, taking down high ranking officers or going undercover to sabotage enemy vehicles. This game is varied I don’t think I ever found a dull moment because the action and even the quieter moments kept me engaged because after a tense gunfight it was nice to turn the heat down with a undercover mission.

Gameplay wise it’s pretty good considering it’s a first person shooter on the PlayStation because attempts in the past have been bad with games like Quake II not working very well on the system. Not to say that the controls are perfect, they do take a while to get use to especially if you are used to modern control schemes. The left stick moves forwards and strafes and the right controls the camera in modern games, however in Medal of Honor the left control stick looks around and moves you forward and back and the right stick is used to strafe, it’s weird at first but you do get used to it.

The shooting is pretty good, slow, but good as you tend to go through an area where then proceed to kill a few enemies. It’s slow because it’s not fast like COD as you can’t really rely on an auto aim system to help because it’s like Goldeneye with its aiming system where you’re locked into position when you’re trying to do precise shooting. It can feel a bit stiff these days but it’s functional and not frustrating to pull off.

Graphically it hasn’t aged well but they’ve rendered the character models and environments in 3D so there are no pre-render backgrounds so I can give it the benefit of the doubt as it seems to be pushing the PlayStation to its limits. The animation is fantastic and I think it still holds up today because enemies will react appropriately to where they have been shot and fall over accordingly when they die.

Sound design is excellent with the ambient noises as you walk through a small countryside village late at night as you hear the distant barking of dogs to German soldiers shouting orders to each other, it really immerses you in the environment. The noises with the guns are great as well with great chunky sounds from the M1 Garand, MP40 and Shotgun they sound like they do damage which I can’t say for most modern games where they sound like peashooters.

My only problem with this game is that there are no checkpoints so if you die when you’ve got quite far in a level you have to do it all again and this trend carried on all the way up to the PS2 games and it boggles my mind. The levels most of the time aren’t particularly long but they can get fairly difficult as they start to throw in SS Officers at you who are armed with MP40’s and they can take a huge chunk of your health.

Medal of Honor is a great game for the PS1 and is an essential game you have to own as a retro collector or someone who is curious about older games. It’s very cheap and easy to find and if you own a PS3 you have no excuse as it will work in the PS3. Go get it!  

F.E.A.R Review - One of the last traditional first person shooters of the time.

By Sam Coles:

F.E.A.R was released back in 2005 on Microsoft Windows and on the Xbox 360 and PS3 a year later and is probably one of the last traditional first person shooters for the time as games like Halo and Call of Duty started to take over. It blends Japanese horror with high octane action you would see in the Matrix or a John Woo movie and is a great game you should play.

You play as member of the titular F.E.A.R which stands for First Encounter Assault Recon and you’re after an escape convicted named Paxton Fettel who has linked his mind with the Armacham soldiers and you must stop him. There is also a ghostly girl named Alma who has a special interest in you as she stalks you during the quieter moments when you’re exploring for med kits and ammo etc. The story is interesting to keep you playing with some great moments and twists which will keep you hooked.

The gameplay is a first person shooter where you go into an area then start gunning down anything that moves with various weapons. The unique selling point with the gameplay is the reflex mode where you can go into slow motion for a limited time which will give you an advantage in a fight because you might be able to takedown five guys in one swoop. The gunfights are exciting with details such as chunks coming off walls, paper flying off desks, enemies exploding with a well-placed headshot and dust emerging when you shoot walls the detail is high in the shootouts. 

You have a variety weapons which are all satisfying to use like the SMG, the Penetrator which can stick enemies to walls, the multi rocket launcher and of course the all mighty shotgun which if you don’t have it in one of your weapon slots then you’re not playing the game correctly.

The A.I is smart in this game because unlike most first person shooters where they operate in waves, they instead act as a squad so they will assess the situation so they will spot your torch and call it out to their allies or they will retreat if they can’t handle the situation it keeps you on your toes. Even the subtle things like when they have a heavy unit with them the normal soldiers will stay behind cover and supress you as the heavy walks towards you.

Graphically the game still looks pretty good in places with great particle effects during the slow motion fights especially when you throw a grenade. The slow motion effects really steal the show with the visuals because you see each individual bullet or shotgun pellets fly through the air. It’s a shame that other parts of the game don’t hold visually like the character models and some of the textures are bland and blurry. It has some great dynamic lighting as well during some of the darker moments as lights start to flicker where it builds a tense atmosphere.

F.E.A.R is a great game with a tense atmosphere with exciting gunfights where you see blood and dust fly everywhere as you unload your Spaz 12 shotgun. If you haven’t played this game pick it up! It’s easy to find on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC. 

Carmageddon Max Damage Review - 90's cheese at its finest.

By Sam Coles:

I swear the past couple of years there have been games that were extremely popular in 90’s making a comeback on the 8^th generation of consoles with titles like Wolfenstein The New Order, DOOM, the upcoming Quake Champions and now we have Carmageddon. I don’t have a problem with this because the 1990’s was the golden age of gaming on both console and PC; Carmageddon was a very controversial game due to the violence of running over pedestrians. It was banned in several countries and altered to zombies in UK and robots in Germany. Does Max Damage live up to the name? Yes but it does have few faults with the gameplay.

You first pick which character you want to play as the main two from the old games return Max Damage and Die Anna. You then pick an event with different locales, the locations can get a bit samey because it seems like you’re driving through the same industrial area over and over.

The different events you can participate in are:

Classic Carma:

This is what you expect in a Carmageddon game a race with a sandbox nature where you have several ways you can finish the race. You can either finish it by destroying every racer, kill every single pedestrian or of course the boring way of finishing all the laps.

Pedestrian Chase:

What you have to do in this event is kill each pedestrian that is highlighted on your mini-map and the first to reach 10 kills wins. I wasn’t a fan of this mode because you can kill on ped and then the next one would be on the other side of the map.

Deathrace:

This is a traditional circuit race where you have to finish three laps or again you can kill all the drivers in the race if you’re mental!

Checkpoint Stampede:

This is the same as the pedestrian chase mode, but instead of killing people you must go through checkpoints and I have the same problems with this mode like I do with the other one because it slows the game down to a snail’s pace.

The gameplay does take a bit to get use to because the car physics are very bizarre and clunky, but once you get the hang of it it’s a lot of fun. It’s really satastfying to nail a corner with a sweet drift as you plough through a legion of pedestrians coupled with a shower of blood and giblets flying everywhere. During gameplay there are many ways you can obtain points which will unlock more challenging events for you to play, the way you can obtain more points is by killing pedestrians, destroying other drivers or collecting barrels that are scattered around the arenas.

Graphically it’s not the most impressive game I’ve seen the environments and textures are blurry and bland with a few frame rate hitches here and there. The pedestrians don’t look good, however I would argue that was purposely done because some levels can have nearly 1000 pedestrians that you can brutally kill. The car models look pretty good especially when they take damage, with details such as your car splitting in half to it completely exploding, you can repair your car on the fly and I love that the bits of shrapnel comes flying back onto your car it’s a nice touch.

Carmageddon Max Damage is an enjoyable yet flawed experience with a few clunky mechanics, but it is still a lot of fun I would recommend getting this and plus it’s a budget title so you have no excuse. 

Spec Ops: The Line Review - It's all your fault.

By Sam Coles:

There are games that are miss leading with their marketing materials etc. but not in a bad way but make you misconstrued of what it actually is. This was my experience with Spec Ops The Line and yes there are tons of articles and videos about this game all over the internet but I want to give my experience about it. It starts out as a generic military shooter then it proceeds to punish you for what you have done by continually kicking you in the nether regions.

You play as Captain Walker where he and his team are responding to a distress call from Colonel Konrad his mentor and best friend. It turns out that he has gone rogue (or so you think I get into that later) and he has started to rule over the ruined Dubai which has been destroyed by a devastating sandstorm. As you venture further through the plot you start to question what is real and what is fake, this game starts to take dark turns as you witness brutal killings and genocide.

The characters in the game start to become tired and angry when you get to later stages you can tell even down to the way they talk to each other. For example Walker would give an order saying “Take out that sniper” however later he is tired and the insanity starts to take over and he will say loudly and angrily “Take out that fucking sniper”.  It shows what the team have gone through and they just want to end it and go home.

When you get to the end of the game you finally meet Konrad or so you think, he then goes on to explain that the whole situation was Walker’s fault and he wouldn’t stop and here is the other kicker Konrad has been dead for some time. Walker was hearing his voice in his head throughout the entire game because he needed a scapegoat for his actions such as killing civilians with white phosphorus which is a nasty scene. You’re then left with a couple of choices kill Konrad to get him out of your head or let him shoot which leads you to killing yourself. I’ve never felt so disgusted with myself after an ending of game with the actions I took, this game was a jab at the modern war shooters of the time where they glorify this sort stuff, did it work? Not really.

Spec Ops The Line is not a game where I would critic gameplay it’s all about the narrative and this is a narrative you need to experience because it will leave you cold and disgusted with its dark themes and jabs at the modern shooter. Pick it up and be prepared to face the worst.

Lego: Star Wars The Force Awakens Review - Nice addition to the Lego formula.

By Sam Coles:

Lego games over the years have not been my favourite genre and that is due to the fact they haven’t changed the formula for the best part of 10 years. Lego: Star Wars The Force Awakens has my attention not just because it’s set in one of my favourite films in recent memory, well that is a big factor. They throw in different gameplay mechanics to spice up the game just enough to make it different.

The story retells scenes from the movie but in cute Lego form with comedic ques, however the start of the game start s in Episode VI on the battle of Endor which serves as a tutorial with the new mechanics as well as the fight with Vader on the Death Star II. Like the other games the comedy is great with slap stick moments, but the problem I have like Lego Marvel Avengers is the fact they take the dialogue from the films and it seems out of place with the silly moments.  I wish TT games would go back to the old style of the Lego games where there is no dialogue and they have to convey the scene through hand gestures and visual ques; it’s funnier that way because it’s like a silent slap stick movie.

The gameplay is no different to any other Lego game you have combat which is still the weakest part of the game I don’t know why TT have not fixed this yet it still feels extremely clunky. What you’ll be doing mostly is platforming, puzzle solving and building. The puzzles aren’t particularly difficult but I will give it the benefit of the doubt because this game is aimed at a young audience. Building has been given an extra layer to it because they maybe more than one contraption to help you solve your current predicament. 

They’ve added in air combat sequences which are simple but really fun, but they don’t make the inverted controls the default which is a pain with standard look I would recommend switching to inverted with the flying sequences take make things easier.

The Lego games have never wowed me with the graphics, but this game has beautiful visuals with the environments even the Lego character models look really good. There is an excellent use of depth of field throughout the cutscenes and even during gameplay when you’re focusing on something. The sound design is top notch, but you should expect that from a Star Wars themed game with great explosion and blaster sounds to the superb musical score provided by the one and only John Williams.

Overall I was surprised how much I like Lego: Star Wars The Force Awakens because usually I despise the Lego games due to their repetitive nature and no innovation to the formula, but this game adds just enough to make it feel fresh. Go out and get!