Saints Row: The Third Remastered Review - Absurd! (in a good way)

By Sam Coles:

You know when you are in drought of game releases when I have to review are remasters, so here I am again with Saints Row: The Third Remastered. Now you would think that this is a shallow cash grab which when it was first announced I had that same outlook, however the developers put actual effort into this remaster. So much so that it bridges into remake territory. Is any good?  Is it worth picking up? In short yes, let’s get into it.

Saints Row: The Third takes place after the events of the second game, where The Third Street Saints have become celebrities and media moguls. They are so popular that they are signing autographs at a bank they are robbing, it is completely absurd but that is part of the story in the older Saints Row games as they balance goofy with a serious tone in parts. During this daring bank heist things escalate and the bank staff are armed and open fire, where The Saints are then arrested where you get to customise your character and you find out that the bank belonged to a rival crew called “The Syndicate”. They find themselves in Steelport with no money or influence, so the purple clad gang must rebuild one piece at a time. The story is really fun, but you can really tell this game was released in 2011 originally because some of the jokes don’t quite land now, and the music screams of that era with the overuse of Dub-Step (yeah remember that genre of “music”).

Gameplay has been left unchanged where you have a mix of shooting, driving, fist fighting or obliterating someone with a phallic shaped bat (yes really) which adds more to the over top nature. Gunplay feels serviceable not bad by all means, but it just comes across as a bit floaty as I sometimes struggle to keep on target. It is mitigated when you unlock upgrades such as increase bullet damage, as well as accuracy upgrades but the shooting does feel like a bit of a chore when you start the game off. However the hand to hand and melee combat is really fun, I can’t help but suplex every pedestrian that gets in my way or as I said before deck someone with a dildo baseball bat.

Driving took me  a while to get use to as I have just came off of playing Mafia II which has a more realistic approach, but Saints Row tells you to go nuts and throw your cars around corners collateral damage be damned and it is supremely fun. Not only that impact feedback feels great when you hit other cars and pedestrians as they rocket into the sky Team Rocket style, plus the sound design is top notch when pedestrians thud as they collide with your bonnet.

Like the past games Saints Row: The Third has a bevy of side activities to partake in, these can range from pimping, rampages and my favourite insurance fraud where you character acts as if he or she has no bones in their bodies and can fly around like a newspaper in New York. These are mostly for more money and XP for upgrades, which unlike Saints Row 2 you don’t have to do them to earn respect to continue the story which is a good thing.

Now to get to the meat and potatoes of the remaster, the presentation and I was very surprised how much effort went into changing and enhancing old assets. The lighting has been given a huge boost sunrises and sunsets look incredible, with the orange glow filling the streets of Steelport, coupled with the excellent neon lights that reflect in the rain soaked nights illuminating the darkness.

Character models look much better and look less like plastic action figures, they have visible pours and blemishes and clothe stitching have been given extra details too. Cars have more of a shine to them, with extra reflects especially during rain storms and it looks glorious. Now the framerate, if you have played the game on Xbox 360 and PS3 originally you would know the game does not run that well it stutters like crazy. I can say that this remaster runs absolutely fine if you lock the framerate on the base consoles at 30 fps, if you unlock the framerate it can jump all over the place so I would suggesting locking it if you are playing base machines.

Overall I was pleasantly surprised with Saints Row: The Third Remastered, it took the base game and enhanced every inch of the game which was completely unexpected. If you haven’t played it before this is the best way to play, and hell it is great for those who have already played it. It is a fantastic game, despite certain jokes not quite landing due to their dated nature but great game overall and I highly recommend it.

Mafia II: Definitive Edition Review - An offer you could probably refuse.

By Sam Coles:

With the trying times at the moment we all like to reside in our comfort zone, the games industry knows this by producing a good amount of remasters and remakes recently. Mafia II is one of my favourite story driven games from the Xbox 360 and PS3 era, where it wears its influences on its sleeves with storytelling ideas taken from The Godfather and Godfellas. Now 10 years have passed since its original release, 2K Games have produced a remaster for current gen consoles. Does this remaster do it justice? Yes and no.

Mafia II takes place in a fictional city within the US called Empire Bay, between the years of 1945 and 1951. You play as Vito Scaletta a young trouble maker trying to make it in the world of organised crime, one night he is robbing a jewellery story with his friend Joe where he is then arrested and sent to fight in the war during the invasion of Sicily. After he is shot in the war he is sent home, where his friend Joe has connections to get him out of the army where he then embroils himself in the world of organised crime. He ends up working for the Clementi Family where he is then thrown in jail for 10 years, and comes out in the new world of the 1950’s, where he ends up in a world of betrayal and murder. The story even 10 years later has aged well, with its storytelling with the dialogue and visual presentation.

I remember at the time gameplay was rather contentious as a lot of people were wondering what it was trying to be, a linear action game or open world GTA clone with a Mafioso skin. Well it kind of falls in between the two, while you can explore the world of Empire Bay it’s like and to quote Geralt from The Witcher Netflix series “It’s like ordering a pie and finding it has no filling”. While the open world aspect is very beautiful, it is about a hollow as my stomach in the morning where there is not much to do in it but that is not the main focus.

The main focus are the narrative missions, which have serviceable combat with guns having weight and a good punch to them which I cannot say for the hand to hand. The hand to hand is functional but not particularly engaging especially when you unlock the counter attack, where you can hold the block then use the counter move, rinse and repeat. I got most of my enjoyment out of the firefights and car chases, as the engine is still really impressive with bits of walls falling off in chunks as bullets rip through and cars turning into a burning shrapnel heap as you crash. Still very impressive and amplified with this remaster.

So does this remaster do the game justice? Yes and no, while from a console gamer’s perspective the game looks objectively better than the Xbox 360 and PS3 version. With character models (mostly the main characters) have more details on their face, hair and clothes. The environments look cleaner with extra details, such as improved textures with snow and various interior surfaces. Cars look sharper and look amazing, especially in the sunshine as it reflects beautifully.

I can hear you now, “Sam what is wrong with the game”? Well let’s start off with the big issue, it doesn’t run particularly well, I played this on a standard Xbox One and it stuttered a fair bit. The game targets 30 frames per second, but unfortunately struggles to maintain said framerate in busy environments, interior sections of the game as well as certain cutscenes. There were a few bugs that were not present in the original too, such textures on some character’s faces stretching all over the place which never happened in the original game or cars just spawning out of nowhere. The last issue is the audio mixing, this was an issue in the original but it is somehow worse in this version where it is either too loud or too quite. What is also very baffling, during most cutscenes audio for the dialogue will play out of one channel, the last I checked this is 2020 and mono audio is not a thing anymore.

Overall Mafia II: Definitive Edition is fine, but unfortunately is hampered by technical issues that were not present in the original. I would say grab this if you haven’t played it before, but I hope they fix these issues as this is one of the best narratives in video games from last decade.

Mortal Kombat: Aftermath Review - "Your move creep".

By Sam Coles:

Mortal Kombat has come a long way, from its edgy inception back in the early 1990’s to the more story driven experience we got in Mortal Kombat 9 onwards. So if you were to tell me that a fighting game was getting a story expansion I probably would have laughed at the absurdity, but here we are with Mortal Kombat: Aftermath for MK 11. Is it a worthy addition to the base game? Yes to a certain extent.

Mortal Kombat: Aftermath continues straight away after the ending of Mortal Kombat 11, where Liu Kang who is now a fire god and protector of Earthrealm has defeated Shinnok’s mother Kronika. Time itself is now in the hands of Liu Kang under the guidance of Raiden who is now a mortal after transferring his power to him; however Shang Tsung alongside with Nightwolf and Fujin turn up to stop Liu Kang as he may doom time itself. Shang Tsung explains that Liu Kang cannot reset time properly without Kronika’s crown, which was destroyed in the fight between the two. What transpires is a DC Comics style multiverse tale, where Shang Tsung goes back in time before Kronika has the crown. However the story makes more sense compared to DC’s multiverse plot and is straight forward and well written, well written for Mortal Kombat.

The story is well paced and yes it clocks in just over 2 hours, but it is as long as it needs to be if were any longer it would feel dragged out. I know this may be a pain due to the expansion’s price which even I think is pushing it a bit, but the extra work to produce the extra cutscenes is astonishing with the facial animations yet again producing a high amount of detail from subtle grins to the twitches in cheeks. Netherrealm have shown they are a force to be reckoned with when pushing technology and this is within the fighting genre.

What else do you get with this expansion? Well if you get the collection oh I’m sorry I mean “Kollection”, you get access to three new playable characters as well as the previous downloadable fighters. The three new characters are Fujin, Sheeva and Robocop and no you did not misread that I indeed did say Robocop. Now you can live out the R-Rated fantasy of The Terminator and Robocop smashing seven shades of shrapnel out of each other.

How does each character handle? Well let’s start off with the unstoppable law enforcing cyborg Robocop, as you would expect is extremely slow. He is a powerful character but I will be honest he is not fun to control or play with, his move set relies mostly on powerful strikes which I understand given his character but he is not that useful against most of the roster of Mortal Kombat 11. Sheeva is a nice addition she is and always has been a more faster and less powerful version of Goro, but like in the older games her air stomp move is easily spammed and is a cause of constant frustration. Finally Fujin is a great all-rounder similar to his godly brother Raiden, with the exception of that he wields the power of wind and not thunder and lighting.

Overall the new additions are fine; I feel Robocop is a fun yet gimmicky addition as he just doesn’t feel that useful in most fights. I like the call backs to the first film with his one liners and Fatalities, but I honestly do not seeing myself using him that often besides the novelty factor.

Mortal Kombat: Aftermath was a nice surprise as I wasn’t expecting a story expansion for a fighting game; it added more layers to the existing story with the return of Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa from the Mortal Kombat movie reprising his role as Shang Tsung. However the new characters are fine, with Robocop being a gimmick rather than a useful character, and also at the time of writing the price for the expansion is rather high considering the content oh I apologise again I mean “Kontent” you get. I recommend it, but only if you find it in a sale.

Editorial | The Last of Us, what made it stand out?

By Sam Coles:

Storytelling in the video game industry has come a long way, from rolling text, narration and fully acted scenes. In 2013 a game changed how story in games were told, where emotions within a video game narrative were genuine and you could connect to. Now I know the style of story with The Last of Us is rather standard now, but why is that the case? Let’s talk about it, which is rather fitting when the sequel is out soon (at the time of writing).

First announced at E3 of 2012 The Last of US was a radical shift in tone for Naughty Dog, at this point they were known for child friendly platformers and the bombastic Uncharted series, then they showed off The Last of Us. The brutality being shown off in the gameplay demo did not give me vibes of Naughty Dog; however one could argue that this is another step for the studio in the direction of maturity. A year goes by and The Last of Us releases on the PS3 in June of 2013, and it was the perfect swansong for the system. It garnered praise from both critics and gamers alike, and to this day people still tout it as one of the best games of last generation.

The narrative is something that instantly grabbed players from the start, the characters acted like well… human beings. This was when full body performances were being utilised properly, not the first game to do so as Halo 4 did it the year before as well as Max Payne 3 but I digress. The characters movements synced up perfectly with what they were saying, emotions had added weight and depth, and it didn’t feel like they were reading off a script but where channelling their own inner demons in the role to bring these characters to life.

Joel was a refreshing protagonist, as he wasn’t a hero or “good guy” in the traditional sense; he did what he did to survive. He comes across as a very nasty person sometimes, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t got a sensitive side as Ellie sparks the humanity within him back up again. Ellie is the other side of the coin as she fills in the daughter role that Joel hasn’t felt for 20 years at that point, she tries to make him see some form of normality and lighten up in certain situations when it is needed. On the other hand Joel eventually warms up to Ellie, becoming the father that she never had where he teaches her basic aspects of life to help survive. It’s this dynamic relationship between the two that keeps players hooked, as it is such a believable performance from Ashley Johnson and Troy Baker where you can feel the chemistry between the two works really well.

Now the gameplay can be a bit of a contentious sticking point for some, I use to think that it was somewhat unremarkable however over the years of examining this game I found that it works in the grounded setting. Everything from the combat, movement and even the user interface feels diegetic and not for a lack of better terms video gamey. Everything from switching weapons where Joel will rummage through his backpack, as well as picking up items from tables without feeling laborious (looking at you Red Dead 2), to the shaky nature when you aim weapons feels great and part of the world.

Yes when I first played this I thought the shooting was clunky, but these days I understand why you can’t hit a light switch in one shot from 100 yards away. It’s because you are a normal person, most people don’t tend to operate firearms every day and The Last of Us shows this as Joel’s aim isn’t always precise and shakes as an enemy gets closer and closer. His actions feel somewhat clumsy, but this is intentional as humans we tire over time and this game shows this through Joel’s heavy breathing in gunfights, hand to hand as well as throwing someone or something off him when he is caught off guard. It gives an immense weight to the situation, as a few shots can put you down as you are not a super soldier.

Now the presentation was something that was and still is something to behold, this could have been a launch title for the PS4 it really pushed the PS3 hardware to its limits. So much so it would stutter in parts, but it did get an eventual re-release on the PS4 as a “remaster”. The game looks beautiful, it makes a destroyed world look peaceful a world you want to live, with forest areas rich with vegetation to crumbling cities that once had a thriving community. Characters look believable as I said before animate in a convincing manner which includes combat encounters, where they clutch at certain wounds. For a game that is nearly 7 years old, it has aged extremely well.

The Last of Us is a landmark title that really set the trend for the Xbox One and PS4 generation for singleplayer games, with its well performed and written story that will have you hooked. Even 7 years later it still stands the test of time, and with this generation wrapping up once again Naughty Dog is sending off another PlayStation console with The Last of Us Part II.