Assassin's Creed Mirage - Back to its routes.

(Game provided by Ubisoft)

By Sam Coles:  

The Assassin’s Creed series has been around for over 15 years (at the time of writing), and these days is met with a resounding eyeroll. However, despite its ups and downs, I still love the series, even the RPG series of games which tends to be a controversial opinion. Three years after the release of Valhalla, Ubisoft decided to take the series back to its stealthy routes with Assassin’s Creed Mirage, a return to form with the first game with both the setting in the Middle East and the stealthy aspects of the series. Is it any good? Let’s find out!  

Assassin’s Creed Mirage takes place in 9th Century Baghdad a couple of decades before Valhalla, you play as Basim a street thief who gets by pickpocketing citizens day to day. It is not long before he gets tangled up in a conspiracy with the Hidden Ones (Assassins) and Order of Ancients (Templars), where he ends up murdering the Caliph of Baghdad to save his friend. He ends up fleeing the palace and is wanted for murdering a religious figure and his friends are slaughtered to get to him. He ends up fleeing Baghdad and is taken in by the Hidden Ones, he ends up training with them at their hideout in the castle Alamut where he spends months perfecting the assassin craft.  

The plot is interesting and is surrounded by mystery, Basim at this point is in his early 20s so he is not the wise man we meet in Valhalla, so he is very naïve about the scenario. As the story is not straight forward, so there are no clear good or bad guys even with The Hidden Ones, as they have their own agenda. Basim is a good change of pace, as he wants to do what he believes what is good in the world, but it is not clear cut as he thinks, and like any young man he gets frustrated at his mentors because they don’t see eye to eye.  

Let’s go over the gameplay, it goes back to the slower paced stealth routes of the series so you can no longer brute force your way through a situation as you have the consistency of day-old porridge. Anyway, the game rewards you for being patient and methodical as you must plan your route in and use opportunities to get to your targets. The main assassinations remind me of mini-Hitman levels, not as complex mind you but you have various ways of getting to your target without raising an alarm.  

Like the first game, you must get your assignment from the bureau and then you begin an investigation. Investigations (obviously) require you to gather evidence about your target, you examine murder scenes, offices, houses, eavesdrop on conversations as well as following suspects. Unlike the first game, this setup doesn't feel repetitive as the tasks feel more varied as well as the dialogue adding flavour to the scenario.  

When things do go wrong you are not completely defenceless, you can engage in combat, but it is simple, but it can get overwhelming when you are surrounded, especially by armoured enemies. You have a parry and dodge attack; you can parry certain attacks which will give you a free instant kill if their stamina is depleted. However, certain attacks cannot be blocked, so you must dodge them with a swift roll, as well as to get a cheeky back stab with armoured enemies as they can’t be damaged from the front.  

Stealth is where the game really shines, you have the classic crouch walk that gets you around silently, however you have a plethora of tools to help you with your sneaky tactics. You can use throwing knives to dispatch enemies from a distance, sound distractions to move obstacles out the way, blowpipes if you want to take the non-lethal option, gas proximity mines as well the old trusty hidden blade to the windpipe. The options are fun to mess around with, as well as the various ways to parkour your way to a target, which I will get into now.  

Parkour has been changed from the RPG games, as in those games like Breath of the Wild you could pretty much climb anything with no restrictions which trivialised the climbing as it sucked the challenge out of the game. They have gone back to the classic climbing system in this game, you can no longer climb anything, if you are climbing a building or tower there must be visible ledges or foot or hand holes for you to climb. It adds an element of believability to the climbing, as you can’t just climb a cliff like you are Spider-Man, it adds finesse to the scenario. Not only that, the parkour feels fluid and the level design has been repurposed to accommodate the system. It feels fantastic, to run from rooftop to rooftop as you get into a rhythm, sliding across tables to them do a leap of faith into a bale of hay. 

Visually the game looks stunning, I played this on a base PlayStation 4, and it looks beautiful. The city of Baghdad really shines during sunsets and sunrises. The warm glow of the sun as it rises over the desert, to then reflect on the sandstone buildings to greet the day as I perch on a viewpoint is incredible. To compliment the great visuals is the soundtrack, like most Assassin’s Creed games the soundtrack is one of the highlights. The soundtrack is thematically appropriate to the setting, and made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck.  

Overall, Assassin’s Creed Mirage is a great game and a return to form to its stealth routes. It makes you really sit back and take in the atmosphere as you stalk your target, it has a sense of voyeurism as you investigate your target as you hide in plain sight. It is a shorter experience too, which is a welcome change, as it took me about 15 hours to finish the campaign, but it was a good 15 hours, nonetheless. I do recommend this game.  

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Red Dead Redemption Nintendo Switch Port - Cowboy adventures on the go.

(Game provided by Rockstar Games)

By Sam Coles:  

There are no games that have had a bigger impact compared to Red Dead Redemption, it was one of the best games of 2010 that everyone is still talking about today. With its emotional and engaging storytelling to the beautiful frontier world to explore, coupled with John Marston's journey as he redeems his past to save his family. However, it is also a game that has been stagnated on older hardware for over a decade and yes it got a backwards compatible update on Xbox One/Series X|S but PlayStation users have been left in the wind until now. Red Dead Redemption is now available on PS4/PS5 (via backwards compatibility) and the platform I will be talking about, the Nintendo Switch.

  

For the uninitiated I will give you a brief synopsis of the narrative of the game, you play as John Marston, an ex-outlaw who has been tasked with hunting down his former gang members. Set in the year 1911, it shows how the wild west is dying and civilization is taking over. Marston’s family has been kidnapped by the federal government and is blackmailed into killing his former comrades. What I like about the narrative, which holds up 13 years later still with writing and acting is that it portrays both the government and criminals as violent and corrupt thugs, showing that both sides are as bad as each other. It is a tale as old as time, but the performances and writing are fantastic, it was during the period that Rockstar Games started to mature with its writing instead of the whacky and goofiness from the PS2 era.  

Now let’s talk about the port of Red Dead Redemption itself on Switch, now I know the Nintendo Switch gets dragged over the coals due to its weaker hardware. However, if it is utilised properly, you can get some amazing ports, just to list a few Dying Light, The Witcher 3, Doom and many more. Red Dead is another good port, but to be honest the Switch should have no issues running a game from 2010 as the Switch is far more powerful than the Xbox 360. The game looks great, it has better loading, textures and draw distances as well as the bugs that were present in the original release are no longer in this port. Yes, this is a basic port and not a remaster but honestly it is just nice to have this game on modern systems albeit with no PC release which is baffling to say the least.  

Red Dead’s world still holds up in today’s environment, it is now more immersive on Switch when you play it with a good set of headphones as you lie in bed it is relaxing. It is just a wonderful world to explore, as Rockstar’s are worlds about narrative and not a checklist to complete so their worlds feel organic compared to most games at the time and even now. There is something about riding slowly as you see the sun slowly rise over the horizon, and let the ambient music play is truly stunning, you can almost feel the desert heat slowly bleeding through the screen as you drink whisky to get into character.  

Not only do you get the base game for this port, but also the excellent expansion Undead Nightmare. This was released during the height of the zombie craze back in the day, during the popularity of The Walking Dead. It is a lot of fun, and is a less serious take on the game, plus being a gunslinger that guns down hordes of zombies is hilarious. It is also great seeing old characters return from the base campaign.  

Now the contentious point of this port is the price point, which here in the UK on the eShop is £40. If you have played the game before, then yes that is an expensive price, however if you have never played this game before (where have you been) then this is a great way to start as it comes with the expansion pack and is the smoothest way to play it. Let’s just hope we can get a PC port at some point, as to this day (at the time of writing) there is no legal way to play this on PC.  

Overall, this is a good port of the game. Yes, it is not a remake or remaster as some were led to believe for some reason, but it is a decent port and great for those who have never played it before. Plus, for me I get to play it on one of my favourite game consoles.  

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Resident Evil: Separate Ways - Ada Wong is back!

(Code provided by Capcom)

By Sam Coles:

Just when you think the Resident Evil 4 remake couldn’t get any better, they drop an expansion for the game Separate Ways. This was originally introduced in the PS2 version of Resident Evil 4, to compensate for the compromised visuals of that port as it didn’t look great compared to the GameCube version. This time it is a paid expansion which I know it ruffled a few feathers, however it was completely remade with new scenes, encounters and new weapons so it is worth the £7.99 price tag.

Separate Ways takes place alongside the main Resident Evil 4 campaign, where you take control of femme fatale spy Ada Wong. Who has been contracted to track down a lab sample of the parasitic infection called Las Plagas, which has infected a small village in rural Spain by the local cult. She has to use her sly wit and good looks to get what she wants, while helping her past love Leon anyway she can, as she still feels something for him. The plot is nothing complex, but I love seeing different angles of the main plot from the perspective of Ada and Lily Gao does a good job voicing her most of the time.

What I like about the remake of Separate Ways is that it is not beat for beat of the original, for one you start off in the castle while teaming up with iconic ladies’ man, Luis Sera. It makes for a nice change, especially for veterans of the game such as myself and surprises at every corner. Another aspect that the changed from the original, is that Ada gets infected at the start, which triggers hallucinations but not only that you are tracked by one of Salazar’s guards throughout the game. These segments are great and rather challenging, as he has a good reach with his attacks, plus he creates fake copies of himself.

They also include sections from the original base Resident Evil 4 campaign, such as bits from the castle section and of course the infamous laser hallway scene. Yeah you could argue why they weren’t included in the base game, but I would say they make more sense with the character of Ada.

What else can I say about the gameplay? Well if you liked the Resident Evil 4 remake already, then you will like this as it more of its great combat. However, Ada is faster and more nimble compared to Leon plus there is an emphasis on verticality thanks to her grapple hook gun, which she uses in every scene almost. Combat just feels tight when you play as Ada, plus she makes good work of shield enemies as she can rip them away with her grapple hook gun when you unlock a charm for her attaché case.  

I feel that Separate Ways is an excellent addition to the Resident Evil 4 remake; yes you could argue that it should have been bundled with the game in the first place. However, they had to remake the campaign from top to bottom. It is a great 4 hour romp, with plenty of replay value, it is worth asking price and it is more Resident Evil 4!

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Tears of the Kingdom - The beauty of its world and design.

 

By Sam Coles:

The Legend of Zelda is a series that has been around for nearly 40 years, which is mind boggling to say out loud. However, the series stagnated with its design over the years since Ocarina of Time as Nintendo wanted to make lightning strike twice. Skyward Sword seemed to be the tipping point, as fans didn’t welcome it with open arms. So Nintendo went back to the drawing board, and in 2017 we got Breath of the Wild, which completely changed the Zelda formula, and then in 2023 we got Tears of the Kingdom which expanded Breath of the Wild’s ideas and concepts. I just want to talk about Tears of the Kingdom for a few paragraphs.

Let’s talk about the introduction of the game, yes it is slower than Breath of the Wild before it lets you explore the world however there are lots of mechanics for the player to get used to. The island you first start on teaches you about the new mechanics, specifically the Ultrahand a device that lets you build things to help you traverse the world with little to no restrictions. You see any objects you can pick up, well you can fuse it together to make a platform, raft, cart or catapult and much more as I am simplifying the creations you can unleash on the world of Hyrule.

Not only that, you have a fuse ability where you can make weapons with different elements and objects in the world, this took me a while to get use to as all the weapons I found were weak, and that is done by design. When you find objects such as Moblin horns, rubies and even food like apples you can combine them with a stick or a rusty sword and it will increase the damage you can do. So this really incentivises the player to engage in combat, as the reward is to make powerful weapons. They have forgone elemental arrows, as they are completely redundant as you have items like various Chu Chu jellies which have fire, electricity, water, ice and of course bomb flower arrows. However, you can slam anything on your arrows; you want to fire a mushroom at an enemy? Go ahead, it won’t do much damage but the game isn’t going to stop you.

After the initial island tutorial, you literally dive into the game to the surface of Hyrule in a seamless transition that Skyward Sword wish it could do. Once you are on the surface, you are free to do anything, you could continue with the main quest or you can start conquering shrines which is what I did. The first few shrines are simple as they teach you about certain mechanics, specifically to do with combat. However, they do start to get a bit tricky with certain puzzles, as you have to think outside of the box with the Ultrahand. Thankfully, they got rid of those tedious gyro maze puzzles from Breath of the Wild.

The shrines are not the predominant challenges in this game, there are four temples to get through and these are a somewhat return to form of the old days. However, these temples boil down to find and unlock four or five locks or taps (faucet for my US audience). They are not that taxing on the mind, but they make for a nice change from the shrines plus the boss fights are fun and challenging.

Now to get to the meat of the game that I love, the exploration which is hands off like Breath of the Wild but expanded. There is something so peaceful and calming exploring Hyrule at your own pace, with no goal in mind. However, this time you have three layers to exploration, the surface, sky and the depths it just adds new ways of traversing the world coupled with the new abilities. The Ascend ability is a fantastic addition, also a technical achievement for the Switch as you can ascend (duh) through more or less any ceiling as long as there is a surface above. You can find some fun secrets with this ability, as you can get into places that are obstructed by traditional means of entry. My mind when exploring in this game is always set in Breath of the Wild mode, as I always forget that I have these more elaborate ways of exploring. The game really encourages you to experiment and think outside of the box, as a lot of scenarios are not straight forward most of the time or in my case exploit the game with the auto-build feature.

The sky and depths portion of the map, change the way you explore in the Zelda, as it adds literal verticality to the game. There are shrines in the sky, where getting to them is a challenge within itself as well as the shrine. The depths you unlock light roots, to brighten the dark and ominous caverns and yeah these areas can feel empty underground but they serve to find resources only found in the depths.  

Now let’s talk about the visuals, yes you can argue that from a technical stand point it is not the most cutting edge game in terms of graphics. However, I would say that Tears of the Kingdom like Breath of the Wild has a timeless artstyle, it really knows how to utilise light with the sun as there some breath taking moments as the sun rises and sets. I found myself just watching the sun disappearing on the horizon, as the sombre piano score plays as I think about my next destination. It really pushes the Switch to its limits with the bright and colourful visuals and the scope of the world, sometimes a bit too hard as the frame can drop in certain moments but it doesn’t happen too often.

Tears of the Kingdom is a game that will stand the test of time, Nintendo took all the core concepts of Breath of the Wild and expanded them making Breath of the Wild redundant. Easily one of the best games that Nintendo have released in the past 20 years, and really elevated the Zelda formula.

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