Editorial | Skyrim's beauty 9 years on!

By Sam Coles:

When we go through tough times, we generally reside within the realm of comfort. For my Dad he likes to watch old Disney and Loony Tunes animations, my Mum listening to David Bowie and Tom Petty and for me playing games from childhood and my early to late teens. Skyrim is one of those games and given the current climate (at time of writing) it was a good time revisit, as it is something to help me forget about my worries. I just want to reflect on the game, which is rather fitting as the game is 9 years old this year.

Skyrim has an interesting history not because it was in development hell, but people kept asking Bethesda when the next game was coming out. After 5 years since the release of Oblivion Bethesda announced Skyrim, with a release date of the same year and to say I was excited is a huge understatement. Skyrim was shown off at E3 2011 with comments such as “You see that mountain? You can go there”, which is mocked these days. However you have to put yourself in the shoes of gamers at the time, this type of freedom didn’t really exist when it came to console open world games. Even Bethesda’s own work at time such as Oblivion and Fallout 3 had its own restrictions and draw backs, whereas Skyrim was something special to behold.

I was 18 years old when Skyrim finally dropped on 11.11.11, my god did they play that one up but I digress. It was a beautiful experience, I got the same feeling I had with Oblivion 5 years prior, when the game lets you set off and doing anything you want I got a sense of wonder and whimsy. It’s something even to this day I have yet to find in modern open world games, with Red Dead Redemption II got very, very close to that feeling. So why even today do I get that feeling with Skyrim? Well let me take you on an adventure and explore the frost laden realm of Skyrim.

After you are dragged by the nose with a patronising tutorial, Skyrim lets you of the lead and tells you to do whatever you want. Yes you could carry on with the story if you must, but the game doesn’t stop you from doing a complete U-turn and head off in the other direction. This is what the beauty is of Skyrim’s design, yes it can come across as shallow in a lot of places but it’s this total player freedom is what many (including myself) fell in love with all the way back in 2011. The game actively encourages the player to be curious as a cat, where you will find new people to interact with, new weapons and armour, magic spells, different cults and religions as well as uncover ancient secrets and legends that have been lost to the sands of time.

At a surface the level the gameplay is rather unremarkable and simplistic, but that doesn’t mean that is a bad thing, no far from it. The experience that people love about Skyrim or any Elder Scrolls is exploration, when I first heard that The Elder Scrolls V was going to be set in the Nordic region of Skyrim I was hesitant as I thought it was going to snow all the time, but I was wrong the landscapes were more varied than I thought. Sure you have the classic trapping of regions similar to Skyrim like mountains and Arctic tundra, but you also have richly vegetated forests that stretch for miles and humid swamps with crickets chirping in the background. My expectations of the region went from in the middle to over the moon, Skyrim has something for everyone to enjoy.

In terms of visuals yes this game still holds up, I revisited the game on the PlayStation 4 with the “Lively Graphics” mod installed and it’s subtle but it gives it an extra bump with how vibrant colours are, increasing the density of the foliage as well as improving how lighting reacts with the environment. The sun rises and sets are still spectacular to behold, and as clichéd this may sound its beauty makes me shed a tear coupled with the beautiful tones of Jeremy Soule’s musical score.

Hard to believe nearly a decade later that I still find enjoyment within Skyrim, I know the game has its detractors but can you honestly tell me that it is not a beautiful experience? Because it is, it has something for everyone, and honestly that is what video games are about letting as many people as possible enjoy them.

Streets of Rage 4 Review - The 90's are back baby!

By Sam Coles:

2D brawlers are a dime a dozen these days, this is mostly due to game design moving onto different pastures but that doesn’t mean smaller scale projects don’t take hold of the genre. Streets of Rage was Sega’s answer to Capcom against their popular Final Fight series, where they produced a trilogy of games on the Mega Drive back in the early 90’s. Fast forward over 20 years later and we get a 4^th game in the franchise, and you know what it is amazing and one of my favourite games of 2020 so far!

Well the narrative is as basic as you can get with a 90’s inspired video game, Axle Stone and friends plan on clearing the titular Streets of Rage up from corruption and crime. That is pretty much it, I honestly was not expecting anything particularly deep with a narrative for Streets of Rage, and it just sets up the context and tells you to punch anything with a stupid haircut until it tells you to stop.

You can pick four characters (to begin with) you have Axle Stone, Blaze Fielding, Cherry Hunter and Floyd Iraia. All feel great and unique to use, my favourite to use was Blaze as she was quick and nimble but powerful at the same time.

Gameplay is what you would expect when it comes to a Streets of Rage game, you progress through a level, beat seven shades of blue out anything that moves and eat food off the floor which makes me wonder they are not constantly vomiting, but I digress. However the controls are easily tightest in the entire series, everything is fast and fluid without it being frantic, it is easy to get a grasp of the situation but that does not mean this game is easy.

You can punch, kick, jump and pick up various weapons to help in the fight these can range from lead pipes, knives, stun weapons, police batons and of course your special attacks come into play too. How this works is that it bizarrely takes inspiration from Bloodborne with its mechanics, when you use your special attacks it takes a fraction of your health. However as long as you don’t get hit after you perform said attack, you can get your health back by attacking enemies. It’s a great dynamic where it gives you powerful attacks, but at the same time you are literally risking your life in the process to cut down a large percent of health on a boss.

This game gets rather challenging the further you progress, with tougher enemies such as the police officers with their shields where they can bridge on being annoying rather than challenging. It is a good steady curve of difficulty at the start of the game, but then it takes a sharp spike when you get to the old pier stage. But overall gameplay is superb and had me smile with glee as I pummelled thugs into the dirt.

After you have finished the story mode you can do arcade mode where you rack up a high score on any stage of your choosing, as well as a boss rush mode which is rather self-explanatory.  Not only that you can play the game in co-op with up to 4 players, both online and local play which keeps the old school spirit alive.

The presentation is absolutely amazing; from the booting the game up you will see the superb animation that the main characters have. It’s a mix of western animation and anime, with fluid movement throughout and it is honestly beautiful! Colours really pop and leap off the screen, coupled with the fantastic soundtrack where you can also change it to the old Mega Drive OST if you wish. Over presentation is great, coupled with the smooth and crisps framerate that never stutters.

Streets of Rage 4 is a return to form, it takes the existing foundation of the previous three games and dials it up to eleven. It has tight and responsive controls, great music and sound as well beautiful animations. This is one of my favourite games of 2020, go out and get it!

Editorial | Star Wars games you should play.

By Sam Coles:

Ah May The 4^th a day that fans of the Star Wars franchise took full advantage of with their play on words, a funny pun but it shows how much passion within the community there is. Star Wars since its beginning in 1977 exploded into a phenomenon, with several films up to 2019 and of course in the subject of this article, video games. There have been many video games based on the series, from the Atari 2600 to the questionable games from EA (not counting Fallen Order). I just want to recommend some games from the past couple decades. Oh these are in no particular order, and remember if I don’t recommend a game that probably means I haven’t played it.

Rogue Squadron:

With the popularity of flight simulators as well as arcade dog fighting games such as Star Fox, you would think there would be a Star Wars game within the same vein. And you would be correct, but this wasn’t the first as X-Wing and Tie Fighter came out a few years prior, however Rogue Squadron on the N64 was the more notable.  It took all the popular set pieces with the air and space battles from the first three films and put them into video games form, from the Battle of Hoth to the battle Tie Fighters in an asteroid field. It is truly and excellent game, plus I remember my mind being blown with the teaser for the Phantom Menace with the Naboo Starfighter being a secret unlock via cheats.

Star Wars Bounty Hunter:

Now the prequels often get a lot of flak and for good reason, as the writing can come across of what a 10 year old thinks what romance and anger is but they had interesting worlds and characters but the execution can be like me trying to pour coffee in the morning, spotty at best. What we did get was a bit more background on Boba Fett in the form of Jango, which he got his own game and wouldn’t you know it was amazing. Released on the GameCube and PlayStation 2 (sorry Xbox) in 2002, it was an open ended third person action game. So far so standard, but what is amazing is that you get to utilise Jango’s full arsenal of weapons and gadgets to takedown enemies. From his wrist mounted flame throwers, jetpack, duel blasters and my favourite the wrist firing lasso which stops enemies in their path. If you are looking for a good representation of being a bounty hunter in the Star Wars universe, then you can’t go wrong with this title. Plus if you have a PS4 you can play it via the PS Store.

The Force Unleashed:

Now here is a game that is often forgotten, which I think mostly stems from the year it was released back in 2008. The game is set in between the events of Episode III and IV, where you play as Star Killer a secret apprentice of Darth Vader where you are hunting the last of the Jedi. What transpires is a tale of realisation, as Star Killer has a revelation that the Jedi aren’t as evil as the empire portrays them to be (shocker) and betrays Vader and joins the rebellion. In terms of gameplay and I know this is a very by the numbers thing for a video game critic to say, but it makes you feel like a Jedi where you can use the force to manipulate physics in the environments. Which can lead for some great moments, or knee slapping scenarios when the physics have a bit of wobble as you have to bear in mind this was 2008 and games were still a bit clunky. Anyway a great game, highly recommend it and it is backwards compatible on Xbox One if you have a 360 copy.

Jedi Fallen Order:

Finally we come to the most recent Star Wars game Jedi: Fallen Order, made by Respawn Entertainment something I wasn’t expecting from a collective of ex Call of Duty developers. Anyway Jedi Fallen Order is a superb game, where takes inspiration with its gameplay from Dark Souls, where the combat is more methodical as oppose to the more over the top nature that we are used to. Enemies require timing, whether it is attacks, blocking and dodging but without the ball busting difficulty that From Software’s Souls series is notorious for. Anyway it is a mixture of Dark Souls combat, Metroid Prime exploration and Uncharted style platforming that forms this cocktail in video game form for an extremely entertaining experience.

Those are few Star Wars game I recommend for you to dig your teeth into, Happy Star Wars day everybody and May The Force Be with you!

Editorial | Games from my Childhood: Oddworld Abe's Oddysee.

By Sam Coles:

Childhood memories of games really stick in your mind; this can be for a number of reasons whether it is the fact you didn’t have to worry about things as well as having that sense of wonder you don’t quite get anymore when you are an adult.  This segment is more of an experiment and it might become a staple on the blog, or something I will do here and there but anyway let me tell you about Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee.

Released on the original PlayStation all the way back in 1997, Oddworld was released at a time where developers were more willing to experiment with ideas and gameplay concepts. Oddworld was such an interesting and Odd (you see what I did there) with its setting, story and gameplay. I remember this game intriguing and frightening me as a child, with the unique world and the horrifying design of the creatures of the enemies. Even nearly 23 years later this game’s atmosphere still sticks in my mind, and is something that has not been replicated in games of today.

Let’s start off with the story; you play as the titular Abe who works for a meat processing plant called Rupture Farms, I’m sorry did I say work? I mean he is actually a slave, which he states himself. Anyway confusing job titles aside, he is working late one night and over hears a meeting from the higher ups of Rupture Farms. Things are not going well as they have processed most of the animals of Oddworld into extinction, so they have come up with a solution of turning their own workers into meat lollipops. Which is rather counter intuitive, because if you are going to kill your workers who is going to do the work? But I digress. The story is a great mixture of serious and humour, it does indeed have a dark tone but it is also not afraid to throw in cartoon sound effects when Abe bashes his head. It’s this juxtaposition that keeps you off guard throughout the game’s narrative.

The atmosphere, where do I start? This game that is nearly 23 years old at this point still holds up, and that is saying a lot when it comes to PS1 games. The art style is absolutely beautiful, the hand drawn pre-rendered backgrounds look absolutely stunning with each area looking unique where I felt each new locale I would explore feeling fresh. The soundtrack is also a standout, where it can range from dark and oppressive, relaxing as you explore the forests outside of Rupture Farms and the chanting and almost whispering in the dark caves of the Paramites. It’s an atmosphere I have not seen replicated; it is totally unique and still sticks with me to this day.

Now the gameplay can be a mixed bag, while I enjoy the weighted momentum of Abe but it can test my patience from time to time. I chopped this down to me being a silly child and my lack of skills at video games, but even as an adult I struggle to finish this game. It has delayed controls, spikes in difficulty and situations that are extremely trial and error where you would have to play the game before to see these traps coming. However I still like with the different scenarios you go through to save your fellow brothers and sisters, as well finding devious ways of killing your enemies.

The game is a platformer, but you are not fast or super human you are a weakling who can die in one hit. Now this sounds like a terrible idea, but honestly it works in the games favour you have to utilise stealth, communication and mind control no you didn’t skip a page I said mind control. The game relies heavily on communication with your fellow Mudokons, where the game speak control scheme comes into play. You have hello, wait and follow me you have to guide them through hostile territory and as a child I would often get most of them killed resulting in the bad ending. These days I can save most of them, as you have to grasp the slight delay they have when they move, which can lead to some extremely tense situations.

As I said before you have mind control, in the first game you can only take control of the trigger happy Sligs. This adds a different layer of complexity, as you can now attack with a machine gun, however you can no longer climb or jump. You can also communicate with different enemies and wildlife; this is great for gaining the upper hand. It’s a dynamic system that allows you to feel powerful and weak at the same time, but when the game grants you that power it makes feel like Thanos with the Infinity Gauntlet in comparison.

Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee is a game from my childhood that still holds up remarkably well; sure it has its trial and error nonsense. However outside of that it has an art style that holds up 23 years later, coupled with an excellent musical score that adds a layer of atmosphere. There is a remake called New “n” Tasty, but I do recommend playing the original on the PS1, PC, PS3 (disc or digital) or the PS Classic.