Call of Duty 3 Review - The black sheep of the series?

By Sam Coles:

Call of Duty 3 is regarded as the black sheep of the family and honestly I don’t know why people think that, considering Treyarch only had 8 months to make the game it is one of the best campaigns in the COD series. Call of Duty 3 was released in 2006 on the Xbox 360, Xbox, PS3, PS2 and Wii but curiously not on the PC.

Call of Duty 3 takes place during the European front in World War II where you swap between several different armies from an array of countries. You have the predictable US and British chapters, but it’s the Canadian and Polish chapters that are more interesting especially the Polish as you are part of a tank crew. They really emphasise the characters in this game as they are very likable and you tend to grow attached to them and it makes it all the more devastating when they die in battle. The voice acting is fantastic across the board from funny quips to arguments in your squad.

The gameplay is what you expect from a Call of Duty game where you point at things and you shoot at them and they tend to die, but they have added a few things to change the gameplay for better or worse. They’ve added in vehicle sections where you drive a jeep or a tank flattening everything in your way. A negative aspect of the gameplay are the quick time event fist fights you have with German soldiers, it’s not so bad on Xbox 360 but on PS3 and Wii you have to use motion controls to wrestle them off and it is not very fun. The gameplay in general is pretty solid although some of the single shot weapons can be questionable with their hit detection but overall great gameplay.

There is multiplayer but the servers are practically dead these days, but in its hay day you could have matches up to 24 players which it was weird when it came to Call of Duty as they only go up to 18 players and still do to this day. It would be great if they made more large scale COD games.

Visually the game looks great with great explosion effects and even the character models still look decent. The weapons are accurately modelled in the game from the classic M1 Garand and Thompson Machine Gun to the MP40. The sound effects are amazing with the terrifying chatter from the MP40 to the earth quaking thud of the grenades as they explode the attention to detail when it comes to the visuals and sound are amazing and it still holds up today.

Overall I don’t understand why people hate Call of Duty 3 it’s one of the best games in the series and one of the best World War II shooters of the period and considering they only had 8 months to make this game it is a true testament of creativity. The game is easy to find and you can play the 360 version on Xbox One via the backwards compatibility programme. You can get for a decent price but it’s not what I would call cheap for an old game from that period especially on 360 and PS3.

Rainbow Six Vegas Review - Take your time.

By Sam Coles:

Tactical shooters are far and few these days as people tend to like fast pace action like Call of Duty and Battlefield where there is not a lot of strategy. Back in the day there was a small shooter that came out on the PC called Rainbow Six back in 1999 and what that game did is looked at all the current shooters and said “No that’s not how it works in real life”. So what we got was a realistic tactical shooter where you could deal a lot of damage but your enemies could do the same to you so there were real risks to take in these games. The games went on for many years but it wasn’t until the Vegas games where it got really popular and that was due to the fact that it was released on the Xbox 360 and PS3.

Rainbow Six Vegas begins in a Mexican city where you’re investigating a terrorist group who are threating the US border as they want to attack Vegas for some reason. Honestly I never play a Tom Clancy game for the story because during this period the games had a basic set up and context to complement the gameplay and didn’t really have in-depth stories it’s all about the gameplay.

This is a tactical shooter although it has been streamlined compared to other games but it’s still very much a tactical shooter as you take damage easily and you have to command a squad. This game really encourages you to take your time don’t rush in and try and gun down everyone at the same time as that is a great way of getting yourself killed very quickly. Utilise your squad mates they will follow every order you give them, set them up on a vantage point to give over watch, set them to infiltrate mode where they will only fire when you tell them to or assault where they shoot hostiles on site. The different tactics add a layer of replay value as the levels are fairly open ended and you can take different approaches.

The graphics are pretty good with some decent lighting especially in the first level during dawn in small Mexican town. The character models are somewhat decent but can look a bit dated, but to be fair this game did come out 10 years ago so I wasn’t expecting a huge amount of detail in that department.

The only problem I have is the cover mechanic can be a bit fiddly and your character has a habit of taking cover in the wrong position. Another aspect that got on my nerves is the voice acting and it is absolutely terrible it sounds forced and is not enjoyable to listen to, that is something that got much better in Vegas 2. Also the game is very conservative with checkpoints, look I’m not asking for checkpoints every five minutes like Call of Duty, but having to start 10 minutes back from where I’ve died is annoying and frustrating, that is something they’ve fixed in Vegas 2.

Rainbow Six Vegas is a great and challenging game but with some its flaws I would highly recommend picking up the sequel as it irons out those issues, but it’s still a fantastic tactical shooter. This game is super cheap these days I picked up my copy for 99p and plus you can play it on Xbox One via the backwards compatibility.

My Favourite Games of 2016.

By Sam Coles:

So 2016 is coming to a close and there have been some good games, whether it was a continuation of a series to a resurrection of an old classic that influenced the entire industry it has been an interesting year for gaming. I want to share my top games of 2016, these are in no particular order and remember it’s my opinion if you don’t like it fine but be mature about it.  Also I will not be including any remasters.

Call of Duty Infinite Warfare

Now hear me out I know this game got a lot of hate when it was announced because people are stupid and judge games before they play them, but the game is rather good in terms of singleplayer. The campaign is fantastic with well written characters such as your robot sidekick Ethan. The gameplay is a nice change as you go from the standard boots on the ground combat to space combat and even zero gravity gun fights; it keeps things fresh and varied. So if you’re not one of those idiots who judge things before trying it for yourself give the campaign a go it’s fantastic.

Doom

When they announced the reboot to the classic shooter Doom back at E3 of 2014 I was very worried about it because I thought they were going to follow modern shooter tropes like regenerating health and limited weapon inventory. However after the release of the fantastic Wolfenstein The New Order my faith was restored, when Doom finally came out I was pleasantly surprised. The game takes no prisoners it will kick you in the nether regions over and over again as this game is very hard. This is an old school shooter where you run at 60 mph, you can hold 10 weapons at once and of course there are health pick-ups so you can’t hide behind cover waiting for your health to come back. This game really encourages movement and punishes you if you stand still. Get this game if you haven’t already.

Uncharted 4

Here was another game that I was worried about because the announcement trailer looked very morbid and it also didn’t help that it wasn’t written by the original Uncharted writer as it was written by The Last of Us writer. However I was overjoyed to find out it was the same swashbuckling adventure like the others and it was a great send off to Nathan Drake. The game looks absolutely stunning; it’s one of the best looking games of the year coupled with excellent acting with well written characters and set pieces. It feels like a final send off to the linear set piece extravaganza from the 7^th gen as a lot of games these days are either shooters, multiplayer only or open world. This game is excellent and I would highly recommend this to any PS4 owner.

Titanfall 2

The original Titanfall was a good game but however it lacked content which resulted in the player count dying. When they announced a sequel and they said there was going to be a campaign I rolled my eyes at the idea because I was expecting a tact on singleplayer, but the campaign was excellent with a the bond growing stronger with your titan throughout the game. There were some decent platforming sequences which really test your reflexes which complements the combat as well. Multiplayer has been given a boost as you have different classes of titans similar to the hero system in Overwatch, my favourite being the Ronin class with huge sword.

Ratchet and Clank

A game I almost forgot about as it was released in late spring this was a remake of the first game that was released years ago on the almighty PS2. This tied in also with the movie that was released as well which was a bit meh, but this game was fantastic with visuals that look like an interactive Pixar movie with Ratchet looking awesome as you can see each individual hair on his body. It was a nice change of pace from games that were aimed at adults with the intense violence and it was nice to switch gears to something that was light hearted and fun which is something the gaming industry has forgotten for the most part. This game was a budget title but has triple A production values so if you haven’t picked this game up do it now PS4 gamers!

Battlefield 1

The Battlefield series before this game has been sitting comfortably in modern combat for the best part of six years, but they announced this game and it was set in the First World War a lot of people were excited as it is a setting that is not often explored in video games. The announcement trailer became one of the most liked videos on Youtube however I was very sceptical as the launch of Battlefield 4 was a complete mess as it took them nearly a year to fix it, but Battlefield 1 was smooth sailing when it came out. The campaign was rather good and utilised the setting perfectly for emotional stories which I was not expecting from DICE as Battlefield 3 and 4’s campaigns were awful. I wish they had used the setting to their advantage in the multiplayer with more trench warfare but it feels like a Battlefield 4 reskin which isn’t necessarily a bad thing but I would have liked more modes to fit the theme.

Watch Dogs 2

Watch Dogs back 2014 was slammed by a lot of gamers and people proclaimed it to be the worst thing ever to be inserted into their disc drive and honestly I liked it, was it perfect? No not at all but it wasn’t the spawn of Satan. Watch Dogs 2 is what the first game should have been it ditches the morbid story line from the first game and it has an upbeat tone and makes fun of modern society even down to the hipster lifestyle, it’s completely self-aware. The gameplay is a lot of fun and messing around in the open world is amazing with the new hacking abilities like being able to take control of other cars when you’re being chased. This is a great open world game in an industry where we’re over saturated in them.

Those were my favourite picks of the year, what are your favourite games of 2016? Let me know in the comments or you can tweet me @samcoles2 or @bristoliangamer.

Splinter Cell: Conviction Review - Taken the video game.

By Sam Coles:

The Splinter Cell series has been up and down with the fantastic first entry to the average sequel Pandora Tomorrow and then it went up in quality again with the excellent Chaos Theory. Conviction was a bit of a downgrade from the superb Double Agent and here me out it’s not a completely terrible game but it misses the point the of the series and throws stealth out the window in some parts.

Splinter Cell Conviction takes place a few years after Double Agent and Sam Fisher has gone into hiding after the stuff he did as an undercover agent in the last game as he killed his best friend and commanding officer. He then found by terrorist and his old agency where then finds out there was more to his daughter’s death and goes on the run with support from his old co-worker Grimm. The game’s story feels like a video game adaptation of the film Taken as Sam is a retired government agent who is looking for his daughter and he’ll do anything to get his way whether it be torturing people who good or bad. That is my biggest problem with this game Sam Fisher comes across as a complete psychopath compared to the usual calm and charismatic persona from prior games.

Gameplay is what you expect from any Splinter Cell game you sneak around with your silenced pistol and gun down enemies without others noticing, however the stealth seems to take a backseat in this game and relies on action set pieces to excite the player but it misses the point of the series. We don’t need action set pieces to excite us sneaking around and having a guard brush past as you hold your breath and hope he doesn’t see you is exciting enough.

You have various weapons you can use but there is no point as your starting silenced pistol is accurate enough and it has infinite ammo, which sucks all tension and planning out of a mission as you can run around like a mad man and gun down everything that moves. There is none of the unique gadgets from the other games and I know what people are going to say that he is no longer working for NSA, but it would have been cool if he had access to some sort of black market. This game has been stripped back in terms of features.

There is a new feature and to be honest it is a bit pointless they should have made them cutscenes and this is the interrogations scenes where you can get information in many creative ways by slamming their head into a toilet etc. Again this is pointless this should have been a cinematic and you do get the option to kill them or not but this has no impact on the story, it gives you the illusion of choice.

The controls are very clunky it took me a while to get use to them as I have been playing Blacklist which has a standard third person control scheme. Instead of pressing the left trigger you have to press forward on the left analogue stick to peek out of cover and shoot, this feels incredibly stiff and it is very annoying. Fisher’s movement in generally feels a bit stilted and stiff he doesn’t feel natural to control when he is moving around and it’s bizarre a game that came out a generation before has better controls compared to this game.

Graphically the game looks good character models have great animation when it comes to facial animation with decent details on clothing. The environments look great with decent lighting. What I don’t like about the visuals is the black in white effect when you’re in the shadows as they wanted to make the HUD minimalistic, but I would have rather had a bar to show how visible I am.

Splinter Cell Conviction is not a very good game and is probably the worst game in the series; it’s available on Xbox 360 and PC. It’s really cheap for a reason, pick it up if you’re curious but I do not recommend it.  

My Experience with PS4 and Xbox One Two years Later.

By Sam Coles:

The PS4 and Xbox One have been out on the market for three years now with varying degrees of success. I have had my Xbox One and PS4 for two years now and what started off as a magical adventure because it was a brand new console has turned into a stale experience due to the lack of originality, disappointing games and just bad business practises. Now hear me out there are couple of games that have really impressed me this generation the past few years, but most of the games are either remasters or uninspired open world games.

I got my PS4 and Xbox One during November of 2014 and I was super excited, my PS4 came with Shadow of Mordor and Watch Dogs which I enjoyed both games despite what people thought of Watch Dogs, I got Halo The Master Chief Collection and Dragon Age Inquisition. I really enjoyed these games and I was looking forward to see what these consoles had to offer, the main reason I wanted these consoles was to play The Witcher 3 and Metal Gear Solid V, The Witcher 3 was a fantastic continuation of the series, but MGS V was not very good as it was an open world game when it did not need to be one.

Things were looking good so far with these consoles and I was really enjoying them, but it started around late 2015 when I was getting a tad fed up because we had the trend of the remasters starting to crop up. Now before you start to have a go and say remasters are good I agree they are, when they are games that are not widely available and are based on really old games that are not HD. The problem I have is that they are “remastering” games from 2-5 years ago and claiming they are HD remasters when those games are already HD and they don’t need the treatment as they still look good on a high definition television.

The next issue that has made go back and play games on the 7^th gen and below for pleasure are unfinished games. A lot of games are being released in unfinished states whether it is features cut out and being sold later to the fact that they do not work on release The Master Chief Collection and Battlefield 4 are prime examples where it took the developers nearly a year to fix. It boggles my mind with some day one patches especially singleplayer games, a singleplayer game should not have a massive day one patch of 6-9GB+ as they do not have online features. It’s always a red flag when a singleplayer game has a large day one patch an example of this recently was Dishonored 2 and Mafia 3 they had 6GB patches and they are purely one player and they still performed like an arthritic leper. I just wish developers would take their time with their games, say what you want about the Call of Duty series but at least when their games release they work day one and the patch on day one is a few mega bites and not giga bites.

Another aspect that has started to annoy is that every game seems to be open world and don’t get me wrong I like a good open world game when they’re supposed to be open world. However we’re getting games from established franchise having open worlds now for example Metal Gear Solid V didn’t need to be open world because the sandbox itself was boring and there was nothing going on in that world. The same goes for other franchises like Ghost Recon which had open ended levels in the other games but they were very focused on what you’re objective is. I miss games that have a focused direction rather than these open worlds that are a mess and focus tends to get muddled, an open world where you can truly do anything lacks focus as there is not an overarching objective. I’m not saying we should have strictly linear games but we should have more games that have a directed focus rather than a boring open world.

Now we’re in the middle of the generation and Sony and Microsoft have decided to make these pointless mid generation consoles because the consoles came out under powered, the PS4 and Xbox One should have been the specs of the Scorpio and Pro when they came out in 2013. These upgradable consoles just remind me of the Sega 32x and Mega CD as they are add ons to prolong the life of the console, the PS4 pro doesn’t have any notable difference and if you own a PS4 don’t bother getting one and the Scorpio hasn’t been released yet. What is the point of these consoles? Sony and Microsoft why didn’t you wait a couple of years and release the PS5 or whatever the next Xbox is going to be called instead of these half-arsed consoles. Stop trying to emulate gaming PC’s you’re missing the point of what consoles are supposed to be, they’re meant to be fix pieces of hardware for 5 years minimum for the mass consumer.

I don’t hate this generation completely but mostly it has been annoying and aggravating with some the baffling practises and the disappointing and lacklustre games, there have been some good games like The Witcher 3 and of course the resurrection of the Doom series. Let’s see how things play out for the rest of the generation.

Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker Review - What The Phantom Pain should have been.

 By Sam Coles:

The Metal Gear Solid series is generally known for its outings on home consoles, but there were a few times where Kojima brought the tactical, espionage, action to the handheld systems the PSP especially. Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker was a PSP exclusive until it was rereleased on Xbox 360 and PS3 back in late 2011, this was Kojima’s attempt to bring a fully-fledged MGS game to the handheld and he succeeded.

You once again play as Big Boss and it has been 10 years since he killed the Boss during operation Snake Eater, he is now in charge of a PMC called the Militaries Sans Frontieres which means a military without borders. What Snake set out to do is to produce a military without a country and who fight for themselves and not for ideology or political statements.

They are given a contract by a professor who then turns out to be a KGB spy who wants Snake and his army to drive the CIA out of Costa Rica because that is a region that will let them have control of central America. The reason why decides to take the job is because he thinks The Boss is alive as a recording was taken in the region and The Boss’s voice is heard, but it is not possible as Snake killed her, it turns out it is  an A.I with The Boss’s memories known as Peace Walker.  The story is fairly straight forward for a Metal Gear Solid game and you won’t be confused if you have played MGS 3 as it does refer to that game a fair bit. The story does get emotional near the end when Snake finally let’s go of The Boss and moves on.

The gameplay is very different compared to other games in the series; for starters you have to manage your private army back at Mother Base which you build up throughout the game. This really empathises a non-lethal approach as you’ll need the man power back at base, you do this by knocking out guards and use the Fulton balloon system which never stops being funny when you see them rocket up into the sky. Then you can assign them to a specific role as they have particular skills in aspects like R & D, medical, food and just a general soldier. This is vital as the game does get very tricky later on when you come up against the massive A.I robots and they get very hard and somewhat frustrating.

Not to say that you won’t be doing your standard Metal Gear sneaking around and I must say it controls really well especially if you’re playing the HD version with the aid of an extra analogue stick. Snake can now crouch and walk which is a big help if you want to be extra sneaky however there is a baffling decision to remove the crawl and I don’t understand why they did this.

The more you level up your R & D team the more weapons you can unlock you start off with a standard M16 and a tranquilizer gun and then you unlock more extravagant weapons like rocket launchers to make the boss fights easier.

Graphically the game looks great for a PSP title the character model of Big Boss looks good, however some of the environments do look a bit baron, but these issues are smoothed out on the HD version. I love the art direction with the cutscenes where it is presented as a comic book with panels and speech bubbles it looks like the concept sketches from the first Metal Gear Solid which looks great.

The only problem I have with this game is that it becomes a real grind near the end to get the true ending it was the same problem I had with The Phantom Pain and you have to do the same boss fights on harder difficulties and it is a pain in the neck.

Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker is a great portable game and it is what The Phantom Pain should have been in terms of gameplay and story. This game is easy to find on PSP, PS3 and 360, but I would highly recommend getting the HD version as it comes with Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3 or if you really have some spare cash get the Legacy Collection on PS3.

Halo: The Master Chief Collection - Two years later and it works perfectly.

 By Sam Coles:

When Halo The Master Chief Collection was first announced back at E3 of 2014 I was super excited as it had a from the ground up remake of Halo 2, not only that it came with Halo 1, 3 and 4 with frame rates of 60 fps and 1080p resolution. It’s great you can play cleaner versions of the games; however when the game came out it was marred with technical issues such as awful matchmaking where you could be waiting up to an hour for a game coupled with crashes and glitches. It took 343 almost a year to get the into a working state with over 22GBs of patches to fix it, so after all the controversy is it worth picking up for your Xbox One? Yes.

Halo The Master Chief Collection is a package that comes with Halo Combat Evolved Anniversary, Halo 2 Anniversary, Halo 3 and Halo 4. Halo 2 has had the most attention as the cutscenes and graphics have been overhauled as this collection was released to celebrate the 10 year anniversary of Halo 2. It’s a great way to play through all four games from start to finish whether you are playing it for the first time or you want to do a full Legendary play through from 1-4, you can customise playlists to suit your needs and play style and it’s great. It’s a great way to get into the series if you’re a new Xbox One owner or if you’ve never played a Halo game.

The gameplay is great and it’s interesting to see how the gameplay has changed with each game and how it has evolved or devolved depending on who you’re talking to. The first game was somewhat traditional as a shooter as you have these big wide open spaces exploring and looking for health kits etc. Yes health kits the original Halo did not have regenerating health only your shields will regenerate. Halo 2 was more focused on the narrative with story swapping between two protagonists Master Chief and the Arbiter. Halo 3 felt like the original Halo with the huge and wide open spaces and 4 was heavily focused on the narrative with the relationship between Chief and Cortana.

Multiplayer at launch was a total mess where matchmaking would not work what so ever where I remember waiting for 45 minutes for a match. These issues have been ironed out and it’s fantastic, you can customise playlists from all 4 games which can be a bit jarring switching between gameplay from each game. There is a lot of content when it comes to the multiplayer and the ability to mix the games up keeps everything fresh.

In terms of visuals Halo 2 got the most attention as it was the 10 year anniversary of Halo 2 when the collection came out and it looks amazing where everything has been made from the ground up. The cutscenes done by the folks at Blur Studios look absolutely stunning with new textures and animations coupled with the excellent facial animation.

Not to say that the other games didn’t get a bit of TLC Halo 3 looks vibrant and clear compared to the 360 version the environments really shine in this version although the character models do look blocky. Halo 4 looks like it belongs on the Xbox One with the sharper textures and smooth frame rate, you can really tell that 343 push the limits of what the 360 could do back in 2012 with the visuals, Halo CE looks a bit drab but it’s nice to have a smooth frame rate.

Halo The Master Chief Collection had a rocky start back in 2014 but is the best way to play Halo 1-4, so if you want to play through them again or if you’re new to the series and are an Xbox One owner then this is a good place to start. This game is fairly cheap these days so it’s a bargain of a package.  

Call of Duty: Ghosts Review - Is it the worst Call of Duty game?

 By Sam Coles:

Call of Duty is the hate bandwagon that people like to jump on because it makes them look cool when it does not. The hate started with Call of Duty Ghosts which is considered by the community the worst game in the series, is that bad? Yes and no.

Call of Duty Ghosts takes place in the not so far future, but it’s not future combat like Advanced Warfare etc. it’s still very much a modern military shooter like Modern Warfare. The game’s premise is that the entirety of South America have band together to form a union called The Federation and they have the bright idea to hijack the US’s orbital missile weapon so they can have a back door to invade the states. The game’s story is extremely silly and stupid and not in an entertaining way like with the other games because they play it seriously and it doesn’t help that the voice acting is unusually bad for a Call of Duty campaign.

Not to say that the campaign doesn’t have its moments such as the part where you have crashed in a rain forest and you have to use stealth as you’re out armed and outnumbered. The parts where you take control of Rylie the dog are fun as you rip throats out as you sneak through long grass but you only do this once and it’s tossed a side.

The gameplay is familiar if you’ve played any Call of Duty since the original Modern Warfare games where you point and shoot as you run down a linear corridor, but at this stage this was during the period when people were getting sick of the modern military shooter. You have gameplay gimmicks that come and go during the campaign which you never get to utilise again.

The multiplayer is okay but overall is lacklustre and does not add anything new to the table, it’s a decent laugh if you want to play with your friends but overall it is rather cookie cutter due to the lack of innovative ideas. They did have game altering aspects with the environments but they don't compare to Battlefield 4 with the falling skyscraper.

The game’s presentation is not great it looks very blocky and it is bizarre how Black Ops 1 a game that came out in 2010 looks much better than this game. The environments are grey, brown and boring to slog through there is no splash of colour and I know they’re going for that post-apocalyptic look but you can still have colour in that setting. The presentation overall is unappealing.

Call of Duty Ghosts at the end of the day is a game that I can’t recommend and this is coming from a fan of Call of Duty, the gameplay is cookie cutter, uninspired, boring and just tiring it is fairly cheap if you’re curious but I do not recommend it.

The Godfather Game Review - An offer you can't refuse.

 By Sam Coles:

The Godfather is one of my favourite films ever and is an absolute classic when it comes to Mafioso story telling. When I found out back in 2005 that there was a game based on the films was coming out I was a bit sceptical as most movie licenced games are generally radioactive waste. However The Godfather was actually a decent open world game (at the time) with plenty to do and fun side activities to partake in.

The Godfather game follows a nameless grunt in the Corleone family, it follows scenes from the movie and shows the background activities you did not see in the movie such as how the gun was planted behind the toilet in the restaurant etc. You can customise the look of your character from facial hair, hair styles and of course a large selection of suits to fit the Mafioso theme.

The gameplay is an open world game where you roam around completing various missions for the family or you can go around shooting people who look at you funny. The real fun is extorting businesses where you shakedown shop owners for protection money, this is great because each shopkeeper have their weakness, you can get money just by talking to them, roughing up their customers or my favourite destroying their inventory. This will result in you gaining daily payment straight to you where you can spend on new clothes and weapons, which will have different levels of effectiveness from your standard tommy gun to the level 3 annihilator.

The controls of the hand to hand combat is extremely brutal as you use the left and right triggers to grab your target and then use the right stick to pull off different punches and kicks depending on their stance.  You can also strangle them to death by pushing both thumb sticks in and it really feels as if you’re choking the life out of someone. Once you’ve got your enemy down to a certain amount of health you can use the “Blackhand”. What this does is that you can pull off brutal executions and this can range from snapping necks to putting a gun to the back of their head and pulling the trigger.

Visually the game is very drab and it's not very impressive compared to other games of the era, the character models are lackluster and the car models are bare bones. Overall the presentation has not aged well at all.

The only real problem I have with this game is that the driving does struggle to be engaging as it feels very floaty and turning corners is very sensitive. Another issue is that the shooting is very stiff and the cover system is very archaic and to be fair this game was released the same year as Resident Evil 4 which perfected the formula at the time.

The Godfather game is a decent open world movie tie in game with great action, fun gameplay with extorting shopkeepers and brutal combat. You can get this game on PS2, PS3, Wii, Xbox, Xbox 360 and PC so there are a lot of systems to choose from to play it and it’s very cheap to pick up these days.

Darksiders Warmastered Edition - War has never looked so good.

By Sam Coles:

Darksiders is a series I feel that does not get enough attention and that is a shame because it is a fantastic game. I love THQ Nordic have rereleased them on Xbox One and PS4 to give the two games attention, they released the second game last year first and now the first which is the best one. Hopefully this will garner enough attention to get a third instalment, so how does the remaster stack up? Very well!

Darksiders takes place in the modern day (for 2010) when the apocalypse has begun on Earth and the player character War answers the call. However he has noticed that his brothers are not there with him and realises that the call was false and is then put on trial by the Chard Council who keep the peace and balance between heaven and hell. The story is interesting with the lore of the world by taking certain things from Christian afterlife etc. which will keep you intrigued from start to finish coupled with good voice acting.

The gameplay is an interesting one and it’s not a style you see often replicated and that style is The Legend of Zelda. This game controls like the 3D Zelda games with the lock on feature, exploring dungeons, unlocking items and fighting bosses. However the combat is much better than any of the Zelda games taking ques from games such as, Devil May Cry with the fast pace combat to the over the top violence of God of War. The gameplay is varied and fantastic unlocking new abilities such as being able to glide with wings to turning into a massive demon that destroys everything in its path. You gain souls which you can exchange for items such as healing potions, mana potions and upgrades for your weapon.

The visuals have been given a decent bump in quality with updated textures that look nice and smooth especially the quality of War’s character model. Colours have been give an extra bump as they look more vibrant compared to the Xbox 360 version; I played it on Xbox One if you’re curious.  It’s also great that game runs at 60 frames per second which makes the game more responsive compared to the original and it’s not just bound to the PS4 version like it was with Darksiders II which I don’t know why that was the case when that game was not visually intense.

The only problem I really have with Darksiders is that the game is really bad at telling me when I’m being hit by small and fodder like enemies which is a pain as you die because you were focusing on the bigger and tougher enemies.

Darksiders Warmastered Edition is great and is good if you’ve not played any of the games, this gives me hope that there will be an interest in restoring the series and maybe we’ll get a third game whether it be a reboot or sequel. Go out and get this game it’s cheap as well I saw it for £14.99 on Amazon so go out and get it!