Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Campaign - Black Hawk Down to The Italian Job.

(PlayStation 5 code provided by Activision) 

By Sam Coles:  

Call of Duty has been up and down in recent years, but you could always rely on a decent campaign in each game but 2023’s Modern Warfare III was a bit of a blunder. So, when Activision announced Black Ops 6 I was cautious but now I have played the campaign I can safely say that is one of the best in years. I use to be a massive fan of the Call of Duty series, but in recent years I have fallen off the bandwagon, but kept up with the series regardless and this game is a very pleasant surprise. So, let’s get into it.  

Black Ops 6 is set in 1991, where it starts off in the Gulf War which honestly, I thought was a bit of a bland setting for a game, but soon after it veers into the realm of espionage fiction. It has elements of history in the game, but ultimately it goes for a fun fictious spy thriller to entertain the player. You go from your stock standard military shooter of blowing up scud missiles in Iraq, to robbing a casino in an Ocean’s Eleven style sequence. It goes from Black Hawk Down to The Italian Job in tone, where I am expecting Michael Caine to show up and say “You were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off”!  

Anyway, the plot revolves around a private military group called the Pantheon who have sleeper agents within the CIA, where they are trying to get hold of a biological weapon to unleash on the US. You have old favourite characters joining the band of rebelling agents, such as Frank Woods and Russel Adler. They are being hunted by said group, so they have setup shop in an old CIA hideout where they can rest and setup their operations where you the player can upgrade said hideout. The plot is really good, it is completely insane but in all the right ways although the tone does shift all over the place. One moment it is an intense military drama, then a kookie heist movie then suddenly it turns into a phycological horror. Outside of that, the voice acting is great the performances from all the actors are superb!  

Now gameplay wise, this is where I would usually give a quick synopsis about it but they have changed a fair bit including the campaign. Let’s start with the aspect they have marketed the most, the omni-movement. What this basically means is that you can perform any movement in any direction, so you can sprint, slide and dive in any direction you want. This on paper sounds absurd and honestly in practice it is, but again in all the right ways as I feel like I am in a John Woo film as I dive across tables, slide through enemy’s legs as I turn legs into stumps with my shotgun. It is immensely satisfying to sliding into a room, diving across tables and gunning everything down without being hit.  

The game does include fairly open-ended levels, the game is overall linear with its structure but they do mix things up by including levels that allow you to tackle objectives in any order you want. Unlike the open combat missions from Modern Warfare III, these are fun and have focus and are not repurposed Warzone levels. They also include levels where you can take a stealth approach too, or moments where you just talk your way out of a scenario you know like an actual secret agent with plausible deniability.  

Not only that the game gives you a plethora of tools to tackle each combat engagement, you have your usual tactical options like flashbangs, smoke grenades and distractions. However, you also get more lethal options like airstrikes and mortars to the more absurd such as RC cars with C4 strapped to them or my favourite the exploding homing knives. You don’t have to use these, but they are a massive help as this game is quite challenging even on normal difficulty, I died a fair amount in this game. This game will repurpose you as a shovel if you get too careless during firefights.  

Visually the game looks fantastic, I played this on the PlayStation 5 and it looks incredible with a stable 60 frames per second throughout with little to no hitches. The character models look great and believable with excellent animations throughout coupled with the well-crafted backdrops you will explore in the game, my favourite being the neon lit casino you rob. Sound design is excellent, gun audio feedback has kick with the chatter of a light machine gun to the hip thrusting thuds of buckshot from a shotgun. Visuals and audios are top notch in this game.  

Overall Call of Duty: Black Ops 6’s campaign is one of the best in years, it knows what people want from a COD campaign a bombastic and over top set piece driven experience and it delivers that in spades. It feels like Call of Duty is back with this instalment and I love it!  

Judgment - Yakuza but a detective thriller.

By Sam Coles:  

The Yakuza franchise has been around for nearly 20 years, with the first debuting in 2005 on the PlayStation 2. After years of struggling to get a foothold in the west, it wasn’t until 2017 when it got mainstream recognition with Yakuza 0, and it has all been smooth sailing since then. However, they would change things up with the series, and I am not talking about the turn based JRPG approach with Like a Dragon, but with 2019’s Judgment. A game that takes a slower approach to the series but in the good way given the context of the narrative, anyway let's get into it.  

Judgment takes place in Kamurocho the usual stuff, but this time you play as Takayuki Yagami who was once a lawyer but now a private detective. Yagami was once a lawyer but left the profession due to one of his clients he got acquitted ended up brutally murdering his partner soon after he was released. Using his knowledge of a lawyer he puts it to go use as a private detective, where he ends up stumbling upon a string of murders where all the victims have their eyes gouged out.  

This makes Yagami chase this case, as it goes all the way to the top throughout the police department as well as a conspiracy to get a type of medicine to public trial. It is a really interesting story, yes it does include members of the Yakuza but it is mostly about a political conspiracy which had me on the edge of my seat throughout the narrative, coupled with the excellent Japanese voice acting.  

Gameplay wise if you have played Yakuza, you will be instantly familiar with this game, you roam around the streets and sometimes you will get into fist fights with the local thugs. The combat is very similar to Yakuza 6, with reused animations but with certain aspects tweaked to Yagami’s more slim and slender build, so he is a more agile in fights. It’s rather entertaining seeing him bouncing off walls, as he flies foot first into some unfortunately thug’s face. Combat feels much faster, as you are playing as a younger and more agile person in this game, Yagami spins around like a tornado in fights while knocking people down like bowling pins and it is gleefully entertaining.  

Like the other games in the series, you can get distracted with various activities in the world, you can go to the arcade, play pool, play darts or blow off some steam at the batting cages. However, one of the most iconic activities in the series karaoke is conspicuously missing which is rather baffling to me.

 

Besides the usual things you would expect in a Yakuza game, you have to act like detective. There is more dialogue in this game compared to the other games and I know that is saying a lot considering there is already a lot dialogue in Yakuza games. Contextually this makes sense, because you have to interview people about crimes and scenarios, whether you are going undercover or just examining a crime scene. It never got boring the dialogue because the characters are really engaging coupled with the well written script.  

What I like is that you have dialogue choices in this game to piece together the crime, you use evidence to accuse people that they are lying or present it to a prosecutor. It requires you to pay attention to dialogue, otherwise you will be lost in key moments when you are finally putting it all together. How you gain said evidence is through examining crime scenes, this will put you into a first-person perspective, which immerses the player into the scenario. You have to really pay attention to details, as it will help you with your future investigations. It adds enough to make this game separate from the rest of the Yakuza series.  

Visually the game looks incredible, it runs on the Dragon Engine which was first introduced with Yakuza 6 and it just looks fantastic. The streets of Kamurocho at night with its neon lit streets really standout especially when it is raining. Character models look great and believable, even for a game from 2019 it still looks fantastic.  

Overall, Judgment is a fantastic spin off to the Yakuza series as it does just enough to differentiate itself from the rest of the series. The angel of you being a detective works really well, and it feels a mix of 1930’s film noir mixed with Jessica Jones and it is brilliant. It is really cheap on PS4 so I recommend grabbing it!  

Warhammer 40k: Space Marine 2 - "For the Emperor"!

 

(Xbox game code provided by Focus Home Entertainment) 

By Sam Coles:  

It’s safe to say that the Warhammer license in video game form have been consistently good recently, and one that really shines at the moment is Space Marine 2. To be honest if you said to me that Space Marine was getting a sequel a few years ago, I wouldn’t believe you but here we are with Space Marine 2 in 2024 13 years removed from the first game. Is it worth the wait for a sequel to an underrated gem? Absolutely, let’s get into it.  

Space Marine 2 takes place after the cliffhanger of the first game, where Captain Titus well Lieutenant Titus now was branded a heretic and stripped of his Captain rank as well as his Ultra Marine status. Shortly after a brief introduction mission, where he is part of the Darkwatch outfit and is nearly killed in said mission he is resurrected and has his Ultra Marine status is reinstated. The plot is nothing that spectacular, but to be honest you probably have to be a Warhammer 40k enthusiast to understand most of it which I am not. It just adds the context for what alien race you are going to exterminate that day.  

Anyway, people play Space Marine 2 for the combat and it delivers it in gory over the top spades! Like the first game it is a mix of Gears of War and God of War (the old God of War games), where it is a mix of third person shooting and hack and slash combat. These systems combine to make a cacophony of violence which blend together beautifully.  

You can shoot your way through encounters, but ammo can be scarce in a lot of scenarios so you have to get up close and personal and bathe in the blood of your enemies. It is a combination of parrying attacks which replenishes your shield with a variety of melee-based weapons, chainswords, power swords or a knife to make things simple. Where you can then shoot an enemy square in the face for major damage, although this game gets very hectic with the amount of enemies on screen I was never overwhelmed by the odds. It keeps the combat varied, as it mixes shooting and melee combat which keeps you on your toes as you have to balance each type of enemy, plus it just feels great plowing through hordes of enemies with a chainsword as blood ladens your armour. It is a simple combat system, but that doesn’t mean it is a bad thing as it serves its purpose and situations can get tough if you don’t pay attention.  

The game graphically is spectacular, I played this on Xbox Series S and despite what some internet hyperbole would have you believe it is a capable console. Yes, it runs at 30 frames per second but the experience is stable and I never really had any frame drops throughout my experience. The game’s skyboxes look amazing, you really feel the grand scale of the 40k universe, although sometimes you think something is part of the backdrop and then it tries to kill you in the form of swam of Tyranids. The swarm and horde tech in this game is genuinely impressive, and considering that this game is from Sabre Interactive who made World War Z it is no surprise they went this route with the encounters. I was really shocked with the hordes of enemies coming towards to me, and I was as tense as a bike chain that is about to snap.  

Overall, Space Marine 2 is an excellent follow up to the 2011 game it understands the assignment of a video game with intense action and a power fantasy. It has interesting moments in the narrative, but most will be more interested in tearing Tyranids apart with their bare hands. Highly recommend on any platform that you have access to!