Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War Review - That title is a mouthful.

 

By Sam Coles:

The Call of Duty franchise has been going for nearly two decades which makes me feel old, anyway it is a series that certainly has its detractors but if you take it for what it is then you can get a lot of fun with it. This year’s Call of Duty has had a rather rocky development cycle, as the folks at Sledgehammer Games were supposed to be spear heading the project. However things took a turn and sailed into stormy waters, so Treyarch and Raven Software had to take it over to get the project done. Despite the somewhat rushed development, it is still a fun game with some questionable issues I will get into shortly. This is Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War (that is a mouthful).

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War takes place during the titular period in the late stages of the war in the neon lit 80’s, 1981 to be more precise. You play as Bell who is a silent protagonist which the last time we saw this was Modern Warfare 2, but honestly it works within this context which I won’t spoil. You are tracking down a Soviet agent codenamed Perseus, who has come out of hiding to shift the balance of the Cold War which could possible turning it into nuclear war. The campaign is rather entertaining and it’s nice to see returning characters such as Hudson, Mason and Woods however this campaign is incredibly short where it is over when things start heating up.

What I like about Cold War’s campaign is that it is not a constant shoot, shoot, bang, bang affair, as it embraces the Black Ops part of the title. The game embraces the espionage side of things, you will be sneaking around in enemy territory snapping photos and hacking computers. It’s a nice change as this campaign has more quiet moments compared to other games in the series, although its tone is more Hollywood in style compared to the more serious Modern Warfare.

Gameplay goes back to the more stripped back and fast paced nature of the series, rather the more slower and tactical movement of Modern Warfare. It feels quick, fluid and tight to control but I feel that a lot of guns lack impact but this is mostly due to the sound design for the weapons sounding as about as intimidating as a wet fart.  However the more traditional gameplay gives me a warm feeling of my teenage years, where it is simplistic but hard to master.

In terms of multiplayer the previous paragraph is applicable in terms of gameplay feel, Treyarch have brought back the pick 10 system when it comes to perks and guns but maintained the excellent gunsmith system from Modern Warfare. Where you can create weapons that are practical, or some rather absurd creations that are not exactly combat proven. Time to kill is higher compared to over COD games, which is fine but it does create some inconsistencies where you can pump five bullets into someone’s head and they still stand as straight as a lamp post.

Visually and here comes the word of the review it is inconsistent, there are moments where the graphics really shine such as the vibrant and lush jungles of Vietnam. However the game can look really washed out and it looks less appealing than Modern Warfare (2019), it’s not a bad looking game but it just looks rushed in certain areas coupled with the more stiff animations.

Now let’s get onto the technical issues, let’s start off with the performance (on Xbox One) it doesn’t run that well. This game has constant stutters throughout the gameplay and in the cutscenes especially the cutscenes, they slow down to a crawl. I have to say the performance issues are rather baffling considering that there does not seem to be reason for these issues, the game is not particularly demanding in the graphics department.

I also ran into some glitches, the major one I ran into was at the start of the campaign where they teach you CQC moves where you can either take a human shield or do a completely over top finisher which saying it’s overkill would be putting it lightly. Anyway digressions aside I decided to take him as a human shield, but my new meat shield wouldn’t die and I could not despatch him with a new grenade friend in hand so I had him for the rest of the level. A baffling glitch where I had to restart the entire mission.

Overall I did enjoy my time with Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, but it just feels like it was put together at the last minute. The technical issues do drag down the experience, which honestly if you are looking for a better and more recent Call of Duty experience I would suggest 2019’s Modern Warfare.  

Watch Dogs: Legion Review - No you can't hack Big Ben.

By Sam Coles:

Watch Dogs is a franchise that had a rather rocky start to say the least, with its first reveal of the original game back at E3 2012 (god I feel old) showing off some amazing graphics where we were presented with a  game that was still good looking but lacking certain details. Fast forward to 2020 and I honestly feel that the franchise has finally found its footing, balancing its tone with serious and comedic fun. Welcome to London and this is Watch Dogs Legion.

Watch Dogs Legion takes place in modern day London were a rogue hacker group called Zero Day have caused a series of explosions across the city, where they frame Dedsec another nobler hacker group for the event. UK government sees no other option so they hire the not so subtly named Albion private security firm, to patrol the streets of London with their drones, identity scanning checkpoints and armed guards basically putting London under martial law. The story is rather entertaining it can be fun but is not afraid to go into more darker subjects, such as human trafficking and the fine line between humanity and tech as they try to merge dead people’s mind with artificial intelligence (yes really). It knows when to present serious subjects, but at the same time knows when to bring a certain amount of levity.

Gameplay is similar to the first two where it takes inspiration from the Grand Theft Auto series, where you can hijack cars and assault the local law enforcement but with a hacker twist. However this time you no longer follow a singular protagonist as there isn’t one, but instead you take control of several randomised NPCs across the British capital. So there is no central protagonist as Dedsec themselves act as the main characters, where you take control of London one region at a time. It kind of reminds me of Assassin’s Creed Syndicate where you take over London region by region, although this game doesn’t have the laborious street gang fights.

 

In each mission the game this time compared to the first two does encourage a non-lethal approach, as this is London most NPCs don’t tend to carry guns as they are somewhat of a rarity in the UK. Anyway the game lets you scope out the fourth coming area with cameras, cute spider drones, delivery drones as well as body cams. Plus this gives you the chance to mess with the enemy as you can make cars drive themselves, explode barrels, send lewd text messages to distract them or make their technology malfunction and shock them. It gives you a huge amount of tools to utilise without killing anyone, and ultimately feels more satisfying sneaking in, getting the info you need and slipping away like the ghostly hacker you are.

Not to say that you can’t go loud and cause chaos across the London Town, which you can and is it rather fun to get into trouble with local law enforcement especially when playing as an old lady. It is always hilarious seeing an old lady deck a police officer or doing a stealth takedown on an Albion operative, it’s like she is finally taking her frustration out on the youth.

Driving feels good not realistic by any means but it feels fantastic as you nail it around the corner at 90 degrees, where you then tail whip someone with your rear end. I am rather mean in this game so I get endless joy hitting people off their motorcycles, it’s like a moth to a flame I’m instantly drawn to it and no I’m not a dangerous person honest.

Visually the game looks great in terms of its environments and main characters, the streets of London have been recreated beautifully coupled with the slick rain effects on a stormy day. Main characters look really good with excellent attention to detail, however I cannot say the same for the NPCs you will be taking control of. The randomise characters do not look that great, they look washed out and something I would have seen on a mid-gen Xbox 360 game they are not appealing to look at all. Now this is to be expected as you can’t expect every character in the streets to have exquisite detail, no that would be an unrealistic expectation. However it does leave a bit of a sour taste in my mouth as they are the characters you are controlling for the majority of the game.

Other issues mostly stem from performance and picture quality, now to preface this part I was playing this on an Xbox One not S or X the old VCR player as some have nicknamed. The game has performance issues on this platform as it seems to be pushing the limits of the system, the game tries to runs at 30 frames per second and it succeeds for the most part. However when things get busy with explosions during firefights, things start to lag and stutter like me after a few drinks and it can be hard on the eyes. Screen tearing is also an issue on this platform, but to be honest this seems to be an issue with Ubisoft games in general and not just this generation of consoles.

Overall Watch Dogs Legion is an enjoyable game, it seems Ubisoft have finally found their feet with the series with both gameplay and tone with its narrative. Exploring the city of London is a joy, coupled with the fun and chaotic gameplay. Yes it does have its issues on the Xbox One (have no say about PS4), but what is here is a fun and entertaining experience.

Editorial | Majora's Mask 20 Years Later.

 

By Sam Coles:

When we think of the year 2000, we think of a new millennium but these days we are shocked how it is now 20 years since that year. A lot of great gaming experience came out that year with the PS2 first launching in Japan and Europe, the first Timesplitters and the subject of this article The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask. A game that had a rather tumultuous development to say the least, turned out to be one of the most unique Zelda titles in the series. So let me take you on a journey through the dark and twisted tale within the land of Termina, this is The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask 20 years later.

Let’s rewind back to the late 90’s when production of Ocarina of Time wrapped, they had left over material and some at Nintendo wanted make a remixed version of Ocarina. However Eiji Aonuma suggested to make another game instead, and then he was given 18 months to make another game. I am of course over simplifying the situation, but it shows what pressures he was under when creating Majora’s Mask which explains its morbid and pessimistic tone. So much so Eiji Aonuma would constantly have nightmares, so much so one of them would coincidentally make it into the game with Deku Scrubs chasing him. Despite the short production period Majora’s Mask turned to be a great game, it reused Ocarina of Time assets and character models but it works in the game’s favour as it presents itself as a parallel universe to Hyrule. Laborious development aside let’s talk about the game itself.

Majora’s Mask is an unusual game in the Zelda series due to the fact it is a direct sequel, it takes place after Ocarina of Time where Link is in search of a lost friend which is heavily implied to be Navi the fairy. When he is slowly riding through the forest his ambushed by Skull Kid who is wearing the titular mask, he steals Link’s Ocarina and horse and turns him into a Deku Scrub. Link then bumps into the Happy Mask Salesman who says he can help him transform himself back to his former self, but he first needs the Ocarina back in his possession. This comes with a big price as he has only 72 hours to do so, because the Moon is slowly descending towards the planet where it will kill everyone in the near vicinity.

The narrative in Majora’s Mask was a huge change in tone; it no longer went with the whimsical and fairy tale aesthetic but instead went with dark and morbid themes such as death and loss. In a way it reflects the troublesome development it had which led to these themes, and honestly stands out as one of the more interesting games in the series from a storytelling perspective.

What makes the game standout in terms of the gameplay is the 3 day time mechanic, and the masks themselves. Let’s start off with the most contentious aspect of the game the 3 day time limit; at first when I played this as a kid I did not like this mechanic at all as I found it too stressful. However as a teenager and young adult I adapted to the system as you have to use the Ocarina to control it, you can slow down time by playing The Song of Time backwards which will give you three hours for the 72 hour cycle instead of the gonad crushing 55 minutes. When you understand how to manipulate time via the Ocarina, the burden of stress of the situation becomes less cumbersome.

The masks are also a major mechanic in the game; you have three transformation masks you can use throughout the game not counting Fierce Deity or Giant Mask. You have the Deku which you get at the start of the game, Goron and Zora masks. These aren’t just meaningless magic McGuffins, as they represent the deceased characters you find in the world as you use The Song of Healing to sooth their last moments.  The most mysterious one is the Deku mask as you don’t receive it from a dying Deku Scrub and for years it was shrouded in mystery of who it is until you meet the butler in the Deku Palace who remarks that “You remind me of my son”. It’s those small yet significant moments that really solidify this game’s storytelling, as it doesn’t insult the player’s intelligence and lets them put the pieces together.

Anyway back to gameplay mechanics of the masks, each of them have their uses and weaknesses such as the Deku being weak to fire and can’t leave town as they don’t have effective weapons. However they can burrow into flowers and glide for a short time, which helps traverse areas that lack stable ledges. Gorons are strong, can travel around Termina fast as they roll up into a ball but they are slow when walking and attacking. The Zora mask lets you swim quickly and breathe under water, coupled with some slick combat manoeuvres. What I like about this aspect of the game is that you integrate within each community as you take on the persona of each dead character, they don’t see you as Link as you just ghost along within the land as someone else. People barely register Link’s presence, as they see him as the the Deku, Goron or Zora he is disguised as. It makes his efforts meaningless almost as they attribute his efforts to the race he has transformed into.

It wasn’t all perfect though with the game, like most Zelda games there is always that one dungeon that is infamous for being irritating and this is in the form of the Stone Tower Temple. Now in concept it was a unique idea where you would have to flip the entire temple to get to certain areas, however it was the laborious nature of having to play The Elegy of Emptiness multiple times. This song would produce rather nightmarish versions of you in all forms to help way down switches, sounds rather standard but if you know what you are doing you would have to play this song over 30 times which I don’t need to tell you how annoying that is. Unfortunately they did not fix this in the 3DS version of the game, which is rather baffling as they fixed the issues with the Water Temple in the 3DS version of Ocarina of Time.

In terms of visuals Majora’s Mask looks much better than Ocarina of Time, considering the darker tone of its story the graphics have more colour to them. My favourite area being the swamps with the warm reds and pinks, everything is densely detailed and does not have that baron wasteland that is Hyrule field in Ocarina of Time. They do reuse a lot of assets but it works in the game’s favour as I said early with the whole parallel world concept. Everything just looks better, which is helped with the use of the Expansion Pak.

Majora’s Mask 20 years later still stands out as one of the most unique games within the Zelda series, yes certain mechanics can be rather tedious but it was bold for doing something different. The story had a dark tone and the world of Termina was more interesting than Hyrule. I would say give this a go if you can, but to experience it properly play the N64 original on native hardware or on the GameCube collection.