Battletoads (2020) Review - A toadally good time.

By Sam Coles:

We seem to be in the era of retro revivals with the past couple of years since classic games from the 90’s are making a comeback, such as Spyro, Crash, Resident Evil and of course Battletoads. It has been 26 years since their last game which was released on the Super Nintendo; the series is mostly notorious for its insanely and somewhat unfair first outing on the NES. Now it has made a return on the Xbox One simply named Battletoads, a naming convention that is teetering on testing my patience, but I digress. Is the return of the bipedal amphibians a great return? In short yes.

The narrative in Battletoads is surprisingly funny and self-aware, it takes place 26 years after their last game and they find out that they are not that popular anymore. People no longer know the Battletoads so it is their question to become popular again by any means, it sounds rather stupid and ridiculous but the execution works. The writing is on point and made me laugh out loud a few times throughout my play through, don’t get me wrong there were a few dud lines which had my eyes rolling like dust bin lids in a washing machine but it is mostly good.

Gameplay is a typical 2D brawler sprinkled with some vehicle sections and light puzzle solving, but the meat of the game is combat and it feels great. When the game was first shown off it looked slow and clunky, but now it feels zippy and responsive with great feedback as you deck enemies when your hand as it turns into an anvil. You can punch, kick and head-butt foes typical stuff in this genre, but you can transform in objects that make no sense but it is entertaining to watch. You have moments where you turn into a shark because science, to you playing a Battletoads arcade cabinet in the middle of the fight which does damage. It is completely ridiculous in a good way, as the game’s combat is over the top but it never gets incoherent or messy as the main characters standout on screen.

You can either play the game solo or with two other friends, but unfortunately at the time of writing the co-op is local play only and you can’t play online which is baffling to say the least. The game is perfectly viable solo as you use the other toads if one dies, where each have their strengths and weaknesses. You have one fast, one slow and one in between both, which ironically correlates with their size. When one of the toads dies they get put on a timer where they will respawn which sounds like it would make the game easy, but far from it as this game can get rather challenging in places not unfair like the original but challenging enough where I died a lot.

The presentation was a contentious point with the community, there are some that loved the new look and others who thought it looked like a Saturday morning cartoon and didn’t fit the series. I think the game looks great yeah it takes the aesthetic of a cartoon, but so did the original to a certain extent as it was a parody of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The colours are vibrant and really pop out of the screen, the expressions are over exaggerated and the animation in the general is smooth and looks fantastic. I don’t understand how someone can say this art style looks bad, it looks amazing and is a nice palette cleanser from playing serious games.

Overall Battletoads was a fun a time, hard to believe it has been 26 years since their last game and this return was great. It has funny writing, beautiful visuals and gameplay that it is fast and snappy. It’s a great time and I recommend it, so grab now or if you have Game Pass you can download it now!

Editorial | Wolfenstein The New Order: A series that matured.

 

By Sam Coles:

There are certain franchises in the video game industry that lie within dormancy; this has been the case for the Wolfenstein series for the past two decades. Since its big success in 1992 with Wolfenstein 3D where it basically invented the first person shooter genre, it often struggled within the shadow of its younger brother Doom. It got constant reboots throughout the decades with the excellent Return to Castle Wolfenstein, the lukewarm 2009 title Wolfenstein from Raven Software and the topic of this article Wolfenstein The New Order.

First announced in 2013 with a teaser featuring Jimi Hendrix’s Watchtower, it was a surprise as no one was asking for a new Wolfenstein game. At this time id Software and their properties were in a bit of a slump and were at risk of falling into obscurity, this was mostly due to the release of Rage back in 2011 which was a fine game but didn’t really resonate with audiences. The reaction to Wolfenstein: The New Order was a resounding shoulder shrug, but when more gameplay and story elements were revealed people began to warm up to the game. When it finally released on Xbox One, Xbox 360, PS4, PS3 and PC in mid-2014, it quickly became the best game of that year.

The narrative was a real surprise when this game first came out because when you think of B.J. Blazkowicz you don’t think of a deep character, the most characterisation we got were various gurns at the bottom of the screen. However he is fleshed out in this game where he comes across as sympathetic and tired, after a final push in 1946 he ends up in a coma for 14 years and wakes up in 1960 where the Nazis won World War 2. Struggling to take this in he wonders if it is worth fighting against a huge super power, there is this constant sense of weariness from B.J’s dialogue with his internal monologues during gameplay. The story was a complete surprise as most were expecting another meathead shooter, and yes it does deliver that in the gameplay but the story makes you really care about B.J’s struggles.

Gameplay was something of a revival of old school design, however it mixed it with modern design principles. You had the ability to aim down sights to do precise shooting, but it wasn’t required to get through the game as the guns didn’t really have bloom or spread which encourages you to go nuts in firefights. Health regenerated to a certain extent, but they reintroduced health packs to help you get back to peak physical condition.

It aimed to pleasure two audiences, fans of old school shooting design and those who are used to modern gameplay elements and it worked. Not only that levels were not linear by nature, I mean there were still linear set pieces but it balances it out with stealth and sprawling level design with multiple routes that housed secrets. Speaking of stealth this was a nice call back to the original Wolfenstein released in 1981, it was possible to get through sections without raising alarms.

Now one would say that it goes against the nature of Wolfenstein, but given the nature of world within context it makes to take a more quiet and guerrilla warfare approach with combat. How this works that there will be two Nazi captains for you to shoot with a silenced pistol, throw a knife into their back or whatever body part you feel like that day or stab them in the throat. If they spot you they raise an alarm with tougher reinforcements for you to take down. It gives you multiple options in each scenario, which ultimately makes the game re-playable.

Now visually the game didn’t look amazing even for its time, but you have to realise that A. they were compensating for Xbox 360 and PS3 and B. They prioritised high framerates over visuals. Not to say it doesn’t look good especially on PS4, but it suffered and still does with bits of pop in with its textures as it uses a modified id Tech 5 which ran Rage which had similar issues. Not to say there are not plus points about the presentation, the gore effects as you blow a Nazi’s head, leg or arm off is extremely satisfying especially when you are duel wielding automatic shotguns. The visuals were never a deal breaker to me as the art design really shines, with big oppressive sky scrapers that dominate the world as the monotones of concrete of the Nazis rid the world of colour and saturation it really sells the world.

Overall Wolfenstein The New Order is a game that shows a series that can mature as time goes on, it wouldn’t be the only series within this time frame that would go in this direction. It shows that games grow up alongside the gamers, and it was a great move by Machine Games to take.

Editorial | How Insomniac Games made the best Spider-Man game ever.

 

By Sam Coles:

When you think of Spider-Man in the video game space the consistency of their quality is like me before I have had coffee, not exactly the best. Not to say there are not any good Spider-Man games, we have the movie tie in for Spider-Man 2 from Treyarch and Spider-Man on PS1. However in 2018 Insomniac Games released a game simply titled, Spider-Man, and it is one of if not the best Spider-Man game ever and now I have said Spider-Man so many times it is starting to sound weird, but I digress.

Now let’s start off with the story as you will know I’m not a huge fan of Spider-Man as a character, as I tend to find his quips in most circumstances to be as pleasurable as a kick to the gonads. However in this game he is older and more mature, and to be honest some of his quips made me laugh but he is also a human and can show other emotions. I have to say this is my favourite version of Peter Parker; he knows when to shut up when the situation calls for it and shows other emotions besides smug git. Not only that the transformation of Doctor Octopus from humble scientist to villain is a terrifying one, because again they show the human side of him he wants to change the world but Normal Osborne stops him from doing so.

The gameplay is what really makes this experience as it feels like that they took elements from their previous project, Sunset Overdrive. They took the concept of constant movement and momentum from Sunset Overdrive, as you swing from building to building at the speed of sound and it feels graceful and smooth. It takes a more realistic approach (hear me out) where you can only swing a web if there are buildings and trees in the nearby vicinity, it creates a layer of believability in the world as it always looked silly in the older games where Spidey would cling to thin air.

Combat is instantly familiar if you have played any of the Batman Arkham games, where you are up against a huge group of enemies where they will attack you from all corners, where you will dodge and counter. However fitting with Spider-Man’s speed and agility it is faster compared to the Batman games, and honestly can get tricky in parts when they introduce multiple enemy types because you can’t just counter attack out of the situation. It keeps the combat fresh and honesty never found myself bored with the combat in the game, compared to the Arkham games where it started feel like routine.

Spider-Man is not just bound to his standard web shooters, you can upgrade them to do all sorts of crazy things such as electric webs to short out transformers (no not those ones), concussive blasts that sending enemies flying and totally not killing them and many more. These also come into play with suit powers, you can unlock different suits from the many eras of Spider-Man, but they are not only cosmetic as they can have gameplay differences. This is fantastic as it gives you an incentive to finish side quests, which in most open world games most players will probably do a few and not bother with them but not the case in this game as it rewards you appropriately.

The presentation is masterful, honesty when they first showed this game off back at the PS4 reveal I thought to myself “there is no way that this game is going to look this good” but I was very wrong. The detail on Spider-Man’s suit is incredible, you can see every bit of stitching on his suit I couldn’t believe it when I first booted up this game. The streets of New York look beautiful, with the excellent lighting at night as the rain beats down onto the pavements with the street lights reflecting to the orange glow of the morning as Spidey looks upon the horizon. This is Insomniac’s best looking game, it is insane all the details I would just swing around the city appreciating the beauty of it all.

Insomniac’s Spider-Man is easily one of if not the best Spider-Man game to date; it gets everything right about the characters and the world which leap from the comic panels onto the screen in the virtual world. I can’t wait for the standalone tale of Miles Morales on the PS5.

Destroy All Humans (2020) Review - Time to do questionable things with probes.

By Sam Coles:

Remakes and remasters have been rather ubiquitous in 2020 with certain events putting new productions on a slow burn, but it has been great revisiting classics with a new coat of paint as well tighter and more modern controls. Destroy All Humans was somewhat of a cult classic when it first released on the PS2 and Original Xbox in 2005, originally developed by Pandemic Studios who made the original Star Wars: Battlefront games and the mindlessly fun Mercenaries series. It was a fun third person shooter making fun of B-Movie tropes as well as the mind set of America in the 1950’s, which makes for a fun tongue in cheek adventure. It is worth a revisit as well as for new comers? Absolutely, and I will tell you why.

You play as the extra-terrestrial Crypto who has been tasked to scout out Earth for research, and when I say research I mean cause havoc on the planet while extracting human’s brainstems for genetic research. Now that sounds morbid, but fortunately Destroy All Humans does not take itself seriously at all. It completely makes fun of the 1950’s American society, so you have the classic and idyllic white picket fences as well as everyone talking about their distaste for communists every five minutes. It is very self-aware about how absurd the scenario is as it takes jabs at B-Movie conventions, with probes, flying saucers and ray guns that would make Michael Bay blush. If you are looking for a story that will make you laugh then this is your game, even 15 years later the writing still holds up.

Gameplay is mostly a third person shooter but it is also a mix of other mechanics, there are times where you have to take a more stealthy approach by donning a disguise as a human to gain intel. It adds a good mix with the gameplay coupled with the really fun moments where the game lets you go nuts as you unleash destruction with your ray-gun, or you can hop into your flying saucer as you do your best maniacal laugh as you destroy buildings.

As you terrorise the local populace you must extract their brainstems which makes a nice popping noise when do it, anyway this is in aid for upgrading your weapons and flying saucer. This gives the player an incentive to actually collect things within a level as you can upgrade your weapons to do ridiculous damage, which make your rampages more fun. To be honest it’s one of those games where it is fun to collect stuff, as well as shooting anything that gets in your way. The gameplay loop of Destroy All Humans is addictive, this stems from the upgraded controls which feel very tight and responsive.

Visually it has been given a huge bump in visual fidelity compared to its original PS2 and Xbox release, lighting looks superb with the sun setting on the beaches to the bright sunny days in a the suburbs. Character models look great and standout more with their exaggerated and cartoonish look, which work well with the better lighting and more saturated colour palette. Honestly it is astounding what they have done to bring this obscure gem into the modern era; it is just a joy to look at and appealing to my eyes.

Destroy All Humans is a fantastic game that doesn’t take itself serious, with a really funny story that still holds up 15 years later coupled with the chaotic gameplay it makes for a really good time. If you are looking for something fun, over the top and more light hearted then I high recommend this game.