Double Dragon IV 2017 - Review

Here we are again, and time for another review.  My first introduction to Double Dragon was on the Sega Master System, which was fantastic.  I remember the game fondly for a few reasons; it was the first beat em' up game I ever played, my Dad and I played this game a lot together which was a great experience, and I tried my first ever cheat that my Dad managed to find, we kept dying near the end, and if you perform about thirty leaping kicks on Mission 4 you get infinite credits.  It was, and still is a classic, naturally, I was excited about playing the new version of Double Dragon IV.


Ever tried cheese strings?  They are basically sticks of cheese like material that you can peel, and create strings from.  When I was a child this sounded so cool, cheese is good for you but tasted bad (I have a very different opinion on this subject now) and you can make strings from it.  After badgering my Mum she got us some, well, the disappoint was instant, they tasted awful, and it wasn't that easy to pull apart and make strings.  Playing Double Dragon IV I found myself asking was this a cool sounding idea that was disappointing, or a cool sounding idea that ended up being equally as cool.

Story

As with Kunio-Kun (River City Melee), Double Dragon turned thirty last year, and Arc System Works decided to remake Double Dragon IV.  While I played the original Double Dragon, I have never played the other games in the series, I really need to remedy that.  Lucky enough the instruction booklet that came with the game covered the back story for the whole series, which was pretty cool.


The story is set in a post-apocalyptic world, violence ravages the lands, there is only one glimmer of hope, two brothers, Billy and Jimmy, know as the Double Dragon.  After overcoming the power of the Gensasuken technique, Billy and Jimmy set up Sosetsuken dojos across the US to preserve peace. On the way to San Fransisco they are attacked by a new enemy called The Renegades, as if that wasn't bad enough Marian (their mutual love interest, not sure how that works) is kidnapped, again, which seems to reoccur throughout the series.


The story is beyond cheese, in fact less than cheese, more like cheese strings.  Once you have beaten the final bosses, who have been trying to kill you the whole game and in the final battle keep shooting at you, you decide to spare them.  One of them asks, why would you spare us after we tried to kill you, side note, these girls are so bad they have taken over Japan, response, 'we don't use the art of Sosetsuken to kill'.  The sisters then decide they want to try and change, and be better people, WTF? No, no, no, it's all so wrong.

Visuals

Arc System Works decided to go old school with the visuals and gave it all an 8-Bit look.  Unlike River City Melee, no risks were taken visually, which was a shame as I would have expected them to do something.  The game is not the most exciting, but there were a few levels that stood out for me.  Mission 5 features some docked ships, and the sun rising behind them look really cool, along with Alcatraz also being visible in the background. The start of Mission 9 (seen in the picture above), went for a bright lights, big city feel, which I liked.  Mission 12 and the final boss fight is set on a beach, which was quite picturesque.  Overall the visuals were bland, and uninspired.


Music 

The score has a classic 80's, early 90's beat em' up sound, which for the most part sounded good enough.  Double Dragon IV 2017 managed to bring in  Kazunaka Yamane, who was the composer for the series.


The score runs at little over forty-five minutes, while there was not really a lot of stand out tracks my favourites were; 'Main Theme', 'Theme of Jake', 'Themes of William and Linda' and 'Themes of Abobo and Chin'. 

Gameplay

Double Dragon IV offers three game modes, Story, Duel, and Tower.  The Tower mode features
one-hundred floors that you can battle through,  I cleared about twenty-five of them before getting bored.


The combat can be pretty brutal, one wrong move and enemies will end up playing pass the parcel with you.  The fighting moves were nothing too exciting with the exception of two; spinning headbutt, which sees you character spinning through the air, and the cyclone kick, which makes you spin up into the air like an open cork screw.


The enemies vary quite a bit, most of which are okay but there are a few annoying ones.  There is Burnov, he is wears a welders mask and enjoy using his fingers as a weapon (that's not a misprint). There is Abobo who apparently used to be a football player, he charges you, and then throws you over his head.  Of course I couldn't forget Roper, he likes to throw things at you boomerang style, annoying as hell.  There were a few occasions where enemies were completely hidden off screen and then suprised you by kicing you in the face, which sucked.  There were also enemies who would wait at the top of a ladder waiting to hit you, this seemed quite an unfair advantage as there was no way to counter it.


Jumping. Jumping. Jumping!!! Jumping was pretty bad and very rigid, but I learnt to live with it, that was until the later stages.  All of a sudden I'm playing Prince of Persia, dodging traps, jumping from one platform to another, and with the jump being so bad I lost quite a few lives.


Overall the gameplay was okay, but the jumping and traps later in the game really soured things for me.



Final Thoughts

How did I feel after little over three hours?  Disappointed.  There was nothing daring or exciting about it, the story was weak, the visuals were only okay, the music...next, and then the gameplay, the real core of any game could have been good, but instead was only okay due to the jumping.  There were two positives for me out of the experience; one I didn't get the special edition, two I got to try River City Melee.  This one gets a low 2 out of 5

River City Melee Battle Royal SP - Review

A few months ago I was looking through an email from Limited Run, for those of you who are not aware of them, they print a limited number of physical games that ordinarily would be only available as a digital download.  They were about to release two games, River City Melee Battle Royal SP (part of Kunio-Kun Series) and Double Dragon IV.   I really wanted the Special Edition of Double Dragon IV as it came with the soundtrack, alas even though I logged in a mere fifteen minutes after it went on sale they had sold out.  As I had already planned to spend that money I didn't want to waste it, so I bought River City Melee and Double Dragon.  I had never played a River City Melee game up to this point but it seemed fun, and I thought why not.


Who remembers Bernard Matthews Mini Kievs?  They were so tasty, small balls of turkey in bread crumbs, filled with garlic sauce.  Thinking of them always reminds me of my childhood, when I was first presented with them I was skeptical, but very quickly I learned to love them.  Playing River City Melee Battle Royal SP I found myself asking, was I right in my initial skepticism, or was this something I could learn to love?

Story

The Japanese Video Games Series, Kunio-Kun turned thirty last year, in honor of that Arc System Works (who now owns all the rights to the series) released River City Melee Battle Royal SP.  In all honesty, while the name River City Melee rang a bell with me, I had never played one of the games, this is most likely as I grew up as a child of Sega rather than Nintendo.

Like with many of the old-school style games the story is relatively simple.  A mysterious gang is going around attacking students and other gangs.  While this is all happening, students/teams/gangs are informed about an upcoming fighting tournament.  Twenty-five teams enter in the hope of being crowned the winner, along with figuring out if the mysterious gang is somehow related to the tournament.

While the story is simple, I liked that each team had its own backstory, so each time I played it through I got something a little different.  It may not be the most exciting story, but it is fun.

Visuals

The visuals are quite interesting, if for no other reason than their contrast of old versus new.  The backgrounds in each of the stages have a modern feel, they look clean and fresh, which is why they are in such contrast with the 8-bit style characters.  While it's not for everyone I really liked it, even though on occasion I ended up paying attention to the background more than I should have, to my own demise. 

There were some interesting level designs including the; football pitch, factory, and school gym.  The football pitch offers a crowd of cheering fans, along with a goalkeeper who you can try and score goals against, while you try to battle enemies.   The factory had two nice touches, conveyor belts, which looked good and could make combat tougher, but also an item/weapon dispenser which really helped shake things up.  The school gym stage was a little awkward as it could be difficult to gauge where the edge was, and if you were unlucky, would fall off.  What made it fun was in the lower right corner under the stage you could see Scott Pilgrim.  Overall, visually, it was a pretty good, and a lot of fun.

Music

The score is upbeat, fun, and a little cheesy, none of which are bad things in my opinion.  It's strange, sometimes in games, I don't realise how much music they actually contain until I sit back and listen to it all afterward.  This is definitely true of River City Melee Battle Royal SP.  The composer for the score is, Kazuo Sawa, who is a Japanese Video Game Composer, he has been in the industry for many years, and has helped create the sound for the Kunio-Kun series, along with the Sound of World Populous.

The soundtrack features forty-eight tracks, and about an hour of music, there were many catchy tunes, and the only really annoying sound was the one used when dialogue was being typed on the screen, very piercing.  My favorites pieces included:

Like A Work Horse

Last Straight Course

Awards Ceremony

Continuing Universe

Daisetsuzan School Theme

Funky's Theme

Happy Ending

Mysterious Gang

Nervous Competition 

Preparation 

Passionate Fight

Rantov March

Run Together

Ultra Niekketsu

Super Shoot

Gameplay

Onto the breaded turkey!  I won't lie my first impressions of the combat was not great, and even when I played it on Beginner difficulty it seemed challenging.  The problem was that I was thinking of it in terms of a fighting game that required skill, but when it comes down to it River City is pure button bashing.  Find one or two moves that work, and go to town.  In fairness, there is a little more to it than that but that is the crux of it.  

There are twenty-five teams, made up of five characters, different characters have different special moves.  One of my favorites moves had to be the Mach Punch, it was fast, and effective against multiple enemies.   The key to success is to go into each fight guns blazing, get as many hits in as you can, more hits, means more points. There are also items and weapons on each stage, which can really help turn the tide of the battle.  While you can get knocked out first, you could still end up finishing with more points that then other players.  Once three rounds have been completed whoever has the most points win. 

The game has a lot of charm, one example of this is during dialogue sequences.  Little emotions are displayed on and sometimes around characters, for example, if the character is angry they have flames around them, circular swirls next to their head indicates confusion, and red expanding cross next to their head indicates irritation.  This is something seen in many Japanese games, anime, and manga.

Once I got used to the gameplay style I really got into it and ended playing it through multiple times.

Final Thoughts

So, after five hours how did I feel?  Really good.  Initially, I felt a little skeptical, especially after my first playthrough, but after playing it a few times I got a lot more into it.  Overall a great game that has inspired me to go back and check out some of the other titles in the series.  While I was back, and forth a few times on how to score the game I finally settled on giving it 4 out of 5

Gravity Rush 2 - Review

Well, here we are again, time for another review, but first some backstory.  I remember playing Gravity Rush (also known as Gravity Daze in Japan) on the PS Vita when it was first released back in 2012.  I was working in HMV at the time and hadn't yet committed to getting a PS Vita,  I played it a few times on my lunch break and really enjoyed it.  I eventually got one, and Gravity Rush was the first game I bought with it.  Strangely enough, when Gravity Rush 2 was announced for PlayStation 4 it was one of the things that prompted me to buy one.  It might be a bit late, but I finally got around to playing it.


Any fans of red velvet cupcakes in the house?  Me, me, me, me!  They are soft, sweet, and they look awesome.  Unfortunately, with the popularity of red velvet cupcakes everywhere is making them, and some of them taste bad.  The sponge is sometimes too dry, or there is so much sugar in them you can taste the granules, or the cream on top just doesn't taste good, and if you are really unlucky all three.  So, naturally finding a high-quality red velvet cupcake can be tough.  Playing Gravity Rush 2 I found myself asking, did it have the right combination of ingredients, or was this a dry, sugary, mess?

Story


The original game had you playing as Kat, a girl who had lost her memory and has the ability to control gravity, with the help of her cat Dusty.  Gravity Rush 2 sees Kat transported to a new world after falling through a gravity rift in Heskville, her hometown.  Unsure of her new surroundings, and having lost her gravity-controlling powers that had made her the Gravity Queen, she is forced to work mining gems.  She's not the only one forced into slave labor, it seems everyone is, with the exception of the upper echelon. This, of course, is only the start of her journey, and things get pretty interesting fast.


The story answers many questions from the original game, along with asking, and answering some new ones.   The sidequests, while at times could be fun, felt a little samey, and were simply a distraction from the main story.  The pacing overall in Gravity Rush 2 was pretty good, with exception of a few minor bumps. 






Visuals

The art style used in the game is beautiful, from the towns to the character designs they all look so good.  The way Kat's long hair moves when she is moving around looks realistic, but also very artistic at the same time.  Her cat Dusty has a great design that makes him look like he is part of the night sky.  Story panels are used to help narrate what's going, they look really good and is a lot more exciting then it may sound.  Without a doubt, my favorite area in the game was Jirga Para Lhao, a set of floating islands that are spread out vertically and horizontally.  They feature marketplaces, government buildings, a high-security fort and mansions high above the clouds.  The town feels alive, full of different people, all going about their daily lives.  Overall a visual spectacle and one of the biggest positives about the game.


Music


The score features an array of instruments, with a particular focus on; piano, strings, brass, flute, and percussion.  The opening track features a crescendo of brass and strings that help create an intense yet upbeat sound.  Similar to the original score, Gravity Rush 2, has a distinct anime sound, which isn't surprising as the composer comes from an anime background:


Kohei Tanaka has worked on a number of anime series, and movies, along with some video game titles.  Some of his works include; Pokemon The Movie, Angelic Layer, Dragonball, One Piece, The Cursed Holy Sword, Gravity Rush, Sakura Wars and Resonance of Fate.


The soundtrack runs for over three hours, has seventy-three tracks and spans four CDs.  While I felt it was good, I did not feel it was as good as the original Gravity Rush score. My favorite pieces included:

Requiem
Banga Ambient 1
Suspense
Mining for Ore 1
Storm and Triumph (Full Version)
Forbidden Zone
Frustration
Night Gale
Fort Bismalia
Endestria (Abandoned Version)
A Cue Aun Tu Oi/A Red Apple (Original Version)
Queen of Electromagnetic Force
Despair

Special shout to Kat's version of  'A Cue Aun Tu Oi/A Red Apple', that I found to be really good and quite endearing.  Overall a good score, that in time may hold the same place for me as the original.

Gameplay


Onto the red velvety sponge that is the gameplay.  Straight off the bat I wanted to talk about the combat, and gravity control, these have both been refined versus the original, and that is certainly not a bad thing.  There is an ability called 'stasis field', this basically allows you draw items towards you and then fires them at enemies, which can be really devastating. The gravity kick and standard combat kicks feel smoother and more accurate too.  There are different combat styles this time around, including Lunar, and Jupiter.  Lunar allows you to jump further, and faster without having to use your gravity gauge.  Jupiter lets you kick harder and stronger, along with giving you the ability to create a ball of debris that can be really handy during boss fights.  While they are fun to use, switching between them using the touchpad is not, sometimes it fails to recognise the correct style or does nothing, on occasion, this disturbed the flow of combat.


Similar to the original game you can upgrade your abilities, these can be improved further by using talisman you find while mining.  If I'm being honest I didn't find them that helpful, you can combine different types together, fuse two of the same together or recycle them, overall it just felt unneeded as the skill tree did all you really needed.


The Nevi are your main enemies, basically purple goo with one or more weak spots that are always easy to see.  There are some new additions to the Nevi army, including a few that are really well armored.  Now, don't get me wrong a good boss fight can be a lot of fun, but near the end of the game it is wall to wall bosses fights, by the time I finished, I had grown weary of them.


The game has notifications, some of them let you know about new missions, others about new outfits and downloadable content, some regarding online challenges.  They never stopped coming, if I got that many notifications on my phone I would turn it off, and put it in a drawer.


Overall though some great gameplay, with only really a few minor issues.



Final Thoughts

After nearly twenty hours how did I feel?  Pretty good, with a few minor exceptions it did everything I would want from a sequel, larger world, and story, improved gameplay, and visuals, what more could I ask for?  The side missions for me were one of the bigger problems I had as they just felt a little too, meh, for those of them that were good there were really good.  Overall it was a great game that wasn't a hard to score, this one gets 4 out of 5

Shadow Complex Remastered - Review

The other day I was searching through the PlayStation Store, looking to burn some of my hard earned cash, and I came across a game I had almost forgotten about - Shadow Complex.  I had played the first hour or so on someone else's console a good few years back, before it had been remastered.  I always wanted to try it again and for under €5 I couldn't pass on the chance.


Pizza's are awesome, so many toppings, so much choice, no matter what kind of mood you are in it's hard to say no to having one. I like anything with a lot of meat on it (wahey!), but sometimes I like a simple cheese pizza.  It's not the most adventurous pizza but still pretty tasty and it's great if you can't decide what you want.  There are some cheese pizzas that have four, six and even eight different kinds of cheese.  While sometimes variety can be nice, for me any more than four kinds of cheese is too much for me.  Playing Shadow Complex Remastered I found myself asking, did it have the right amount of cheese or was it too cheesy for me?

Story

Enter Jason Fleming, aka Nathan Drake, aka Nolan North, underachiever, and slight disappointment to his dad.  After meeting Claire, and going on a few dates she decides to take him out to the wilderness on a hike, what could go wrong?  Nothing, nothing at all, apart from stumbling onto a secret base controlled by a James Bond-like villain.  Claire gets captured (a lot) and it's Jason's mission to infiltrate the base and save her (multiple times).

Unlike Uncharted, that comes across as charming and a little cheesy Shadow Complex is super cheesy and not in a good way.  Everything is very cliche and the story itself is pretty weak, which is surprising as it is based on books by Orson Scott Card that sound really interesting.  An example of the cliches littered throughout the game is the line Jason uses after confronting the villain, 'Who are you?', 'I'm no one and everyone'.  My eyes rolled so heavily I almost caught sight of my own brain.  To put a ribbon on this puppy, the story is not great.

Visuals

There are good and bad things when it comes to the visuals in the game.  The cut sequences look bad, which is a shame as it was supposed to be remastered.  Jason's face looks like a swollen potato with a face drawn on it and character movements often look clunky.  The areas you explore are mostly inside the enemy base, after a time I found them a little dull, save for a few areas, like where the armored suit is being kept or when you go outside and get to experience nature.  That all being said there are some really cool things too, the mech suits the enemy have are impressive, silent takedowns look good and the torch lighting effects look really good especially when being used in the ventilation system. 

It's not the worst looking game by any stretch of the imagination but is definitely not the most inspiring or interesting either.

Music

The score features a big orchestra style sound that is present throughout the game, as a whole though I never really took notice of it in the way I do in other games.  Being honest though, with the style of game it is there is no great need for it.  The two creators and composers of the score are:

Josh Aker, who is a video game composer for Chair Entertainment, his works include; Infinity Blade 1,2 3, and Undertow.

Isreal Curtis, who is a composer, in honesty I could not find a lot on him, his works include; Jerk Theory, A Dog's Tale, and Vampired.

Additionally, Shaun Barrowes, a pop artist who released an album called Big Bang Theory has a song that is used in the end credits called 'Light of Day/Dark of Night' which is pretty good.

The score comes in at just over forty-five minutes,  the soundtrack is okay but definitely not the most exciting, my favorite pieces included;  'Shadow Complex Main Theme' and 'Light of the Day/Dark of the Night'. 

Gameplay

Onto the pizza!  The gameplay is very similar to Metroid, for those of you who don't know what that is, shame on you.  Exploration is the name of the game, in the early parts you will run into obstacles you can't overcome, that is until later when you unlock new weapons and items. The first item you get is a torch which can be used to identify obstacles and what you need to get past them, it also doubles up as a torch.

The game gives you a handgun to start with later gets swapped out for better guns as you progress.  Once you start using the assault rifles enemies become a little easier to deal with.  Every now and then you will get the chance to operate a turret, this will change your perspective and allows to you really unload on enemies.

While you will obtain many items my favorites were; friction 'damn-pner', which lets you run so fast you can kill enemies, smash through obstacles and run up walls.  The grenades/missiles, which to me both seemed as powerful as each other were both really handy.

When traversing through the game you can listen in on enemy conversations which can be funny at times, especially the one in the mess hall discussing the difference between liberation and conquering.  

Final Thoughts

After little over five hours, how did I feel?  Not bad but not great either.  The story is pretty weak. The visuals have a lot to be desired, which is really disappointing for a game that was supposed to be remastered.  The music is present but underwhelming.  The strongest part of the game is the gameplay itself which was pretty fun.  This one was little tough to score but I finally decided that this one gets 3 out of 5

Aladdin - Review

Many moons ago, when I was just a child, I watched Disney's Aladdin.  I remember being blown away, I loved everything about it, even the singing which generally I am not a fan of with Disney movies.  I remember playing the game on the Megadrive, which at the time I found fiddley, especially the level where you are riding the flying carpet.  Only in the last few months had I mentioned playing it when I was younger, my lovely better half Nolls purchased it for me as a Christmas present. Yay!  I couldn't wait to play it again.


Marshmallows are quite nice, they are soft, fluffy, sweet and remind me of being a child.  They come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and colours.  While I like the classic pink and white ones my favorites are probably the multi-coloured ones.  They don't contain artificial colours, flavors and have zero sugar.  Okay, that last sentence was a complete lie.  The only downside is that you can't eat too many of them and you will feel really sick.  Playing Aladdin I found myself asking had I eaten the perfect amount or did I have one too many?

Story

He is known by many names, Prince Ali, Street Rat, but his friends call him Aladdin or Al.  A story about a boy living on the streets with his pet monkey Abu, trying to survive.  The story used in the game is a little more straightforward than the movie. The first couple of levels you get to see Aladdin trying to escape the guards and survive before he is eventually thrown in the palace dungeon.  There he meets an old who offers him a way out, as long as he will do him a small favor first.  If some reason you missed one of the best Disney movies of all time I won't say anymore by spoiling the story.


The story is fun and there are moments of comedy in the game, but it is far cry from the movie.  That being said I did enjoy the story that unfolded in the game.  I really want to watch the movie now though, might watch it on my birthday (celebrate good times, come on).

Visuals


The game looks remarkable especially for one that is nearly twenty-five years old.  There were two versions of the game produced, one on the SNES and the other on the Megadrive, the latter is considered the better of the two.  This was due to Disney themselves playing an active role in the games design process after the original studio (Blue Sky Software) had failed to produce a complete product.  Virgin Interactive helped to bring the game to life along with Sega.


One of my favorite animations in the game is when you hit Iago the parrot, his feathers fall out and he drops off the screen, it just looks really comical.  In the desert level, Abu can be seen jumping excitedly up and down on the stomach of a guard who looks dazed.  When Aladdin attacks the guards they drop their trousers and you can see their boxer shorts, another classic.  The most imaginative level was when you are in the lamp, it is a lot of fun and very colourful.  The only negative is the escape level which features a lot of yellows and reds, sometimes it can be difficult to tell where one ledge ends and another begins, leading to more than a few deaths.


Music


When I popped in the cartridge and powered on the Megadrive I smiled instantly, the first thing I heard was the opening of 'Whole New World' - which is a great song.  The soundtrack for the game has some of the classic songs from the movie but are slightly reimagined, due to the sound restrictions of the Megadrive.  The creators/reworkers of the score were:


Tommy Tallarico, American composer, musician, creator of Video Games Live, who has worked on over three hundred video games.  Some of his works include;  Earthworm Jim 1 and 2, Terminator, Unreal Tournament 2004, Robocop Vs The Terminator, Advent Rising, Mick and Mac as the Global Gladiators.

Donald Griffin, American Composer who works include; Mario's Time Machine, Rampage 2: Universal Tour, Jungle Book, and Cool Spot,


The soundtrack was great and I often found myself humming along to the songs, my favorite pieces included; 'Prince Ali' (Prince Ali! Fabulous he! Ali Ababwa!), 'Camel Jazz', 'One Jump Ahead', 'Rug Ride', 'Friend Like Me', and 'Whole New World'.

Gameplay


Aladdin may be short by comparison of today's games but it's certainly not lacking in gameplay.  There are two weapons in the game,  a trusty sword, and apples, it turns out apples not only keep Doctors aways but also guards, parrots and weird spirits.  The combat generally works fine but I certainly found myself relying on apples over the sword as they were far more reliable and offered a good distance attack. The game has you jumping around quite a lot, as any old-school platformer does, unfortunately, Aladdin's jump is a little poor and certainly is nowhere near as impressive as his movie counterpart.  The merchant featured in the film is hidden on different levels throughout the game, if you collect enough jewels you can buy more lives or continues, which can be really handy later on.


Two of the most memorable levels for me were 'Inside the Lamp' and 'The Escape'.  The lamp level was fun and imaginative, it features Genies' body which is used to traverse the level, his head is on balloons that float around and his hands flick you to different areas.  At the end of the level, you walk upstairs that is tongue, gross but still funny.  The escape is memorable for a very different reason.  It is by far the most annoying level, not only are there no checkpoints but it is often hard to tell where one ledge ends and lava begins.  This resulted in me dying multiple times, and that's before you start jumping from one floating rock to another with exploding lava between them.


The final boss is Jafar, who is a pain in the ass.  His first form isn't too bad but I did have to hit him a helluva of a lot before he changed into a snake.  This form is really frustrating as he shoots flames across the floor and on the two small ledges.  The ledge attack is the worst as it does not follow a pattern, stand on it for more than second and he will cook you like a chicken (mmmm chicken).


There is a lot of fun to be had, but the game is not without annoying parts, all in all though, I really enjoyed playing it again.




Final Thoughts

So after playing for fours hours was I feeling sick or nicely satisfied?  Definitely the latter.  The story is great, it looks good and music is fantastic.  The gameplay is not always rock solid and could be annoying at times but certainly did not stop me playing it.  For this old classic, I give it 4 out of 5

Prey - Review

Happy New Year!  Can you believe it's 2018 already?  Last year was a good year, personally, professionally and gamelly (yeah, I know that's not a real word).  I ended last year having played forty-two games, thirty-nine of them completed.  Project X Zone 2 on 3DS I am still playing and really enjoying, and have no doubt I will finish later this year.  There were two games I walked away from last year, The End Is Nigh and Resonance of Fate.  The former started out really fun and challenging, but after getting to the point where it seemed the game was going to end the developers piled on a load more levels.   This would normally be a good thing, but the difficulty level spiked too much and stopped being fun.  The latter, well it was intriguing, with some really original concepts, but near the end of the game after I had put in sixty hours it became apparent that to complete it I would need to put in at minimal another twenty hours.  I bowed out, it had become about finishing the game rather than enjoying playing it.


Anyway enough about 2017, let's talk about Prey, wait when was that released?  When it was announced I was a little skeptically about playing it, why you ask?  Back in 2006 Prey was released, I really enjoyed it and was looking forward to playing the sequel.  Unfortunately, the plug was pulled and there never was a Prey 2.    When I read about the new Prey I found it did not resemble the original Prey at all and I promptly lost interest.  Luckily enough my main man DG told me a lot about the game and he encouraged me to play it.


I find calzone's to be highly underrated, which is a shame as they can be really nice.  One could argue that they are simply a folded pizza, and it would be hard to disagree with that assessment, but to me they are more than just that.  On the outside, they look simple, unassuming, but when you take a bite you can't believe what you have been missing out on.  The cheese seems more cheesy and the tomato seems more, well you get the point.  Playing Prey I found myself asking, was there something tasty inside or was it just a poor imitation of a pizza?

Story

The game's protagonist is Morgan Yu, you wake up in your apartment and your brother Alex calls letting you know how happy he is that you will be working with him.  Get up, go to work, rinse, repeat, everything's normal, or is it?  Very quickly things become dark and confusing, not knowing what to do or who trust.  Being honest saying any more than that will spoil the main story.


The game offers multiple side quests some of which directly affect the main story, for the most part, you won't know which ones these are, so try not to skip too many of them.   Some of the side quests were really interesting as they offered insight into the world you were in, especially the social aspects.


Overall the main story was pretty good, if not slightly drawn out near the end.  The side quests give depth to the characters in the world and really makes you care about them, well some of them anyway.

Visuals

The game looks really sharp, so much so that when Morgan initially wakes up I thought it was a cut sequence.  The world reminded me of a nice hotel or a cruise ship, well except for the darkness and death that is.  There are parts later in the game where you have the opportunity to float around in space which is not only fun to do but looks really cool as well.  The enemies are interesting and terrifying, at least initially until you get used to seeing them.  One of my favourite things visually was watching the Recycler at work, changing weapons, food, scrap into more workable building blocks.


While the game does look sharp I found it difficult to pull out areas that really stood out.  It is inaccurate to say it looked boring but considering the backdrop I thought it would have been more exciting.



Music

The music and sounds of Prey can be best described as intense, even when you think you are safe it reminds you otherwise.  In many games when enemies appear music plays and then when you kill them it stops, not in Prey.  This is done really well and has you constantly at the edge of your seat, along with making you ask the question, 'are there more enemies?'  There were a number of people who helped create this terrifying score:


Mick Gordon, an Australian composer who has worked on a number of diverse game titles including; Wolfenstein: The New Order, Doom (2016) ShootMania Storm, Killer Instinct and Need for Speed: The Run.

Ben Crossbones, an American composer who works include;  Organ Trail, Skate or Die, Tony Hawks Pro Skater HD and Kick-Ass.

Raphael Colantonio, French game designer and founder of Arkane Studios who brought us the Dishonored series.  Outside of this he also performed the track 'Brigmore Lullaby' in Dishonored 2.

Matt Piersall, an America composer and audio director for GL33k, some of his works include;  Epic Mickey, Full Metal Alchemist and The Broken Angel, Splosion Man, Halo 4, Metroid Prime 3 and Recore.


The score lasts little over thirty minutes, it's filled with dread, darkness and really only exists for one reason, to let you know you are never safe.  The atmosphere it helps create really made the gameplay itself that much more enjoyable.  My favourite pieces were; 'The Phantoms', 'Neuromods', 'No Gravity' and 'December and January'.

Gameplay


Onto the meat!  The first thing that gave me pause when I was about to embark on my journey were the difficulty options and their descriptions.  Easy, 'You will survive. Probably' and Nightmare, 'Nothing Can Save You'.  I really liked that touch, games like Doom and Duke Nukem have a tendency to do the same thing.


Nobody likes tutorials but they are necessary to get you up and running.  Some games try to make them interesting, others do not.  Prey is definitely the latter, it felt like a tutorial from the nineties and it's only saving grace was the personality questionnaire at the end.


The game is a first person shooter style and as such that means there are a number of weapons of your disposal.  My favourite weapon for the first few hours of playing was the turret, if I found one I carried everywhere as my protector.  The Gloo gun was a stand out weapon that was not only used to remove hazards but could be also used to reach inaccessible areas and stop enemies in there tracks. The Golden Silenced Pistol and the shotgun were my go to weapons and upgrading them certainly helped.  Need more materials?  Don't worry you can you use Recycler grenades, through them into an area with lots of stuff in it and boom instant conversion - very handy to remove obstacles too.

Nothing is safe to pick up.  When is a health kit not a health kit?  When it's a mimic.  These enemies throughout the game made me jump many times even when I knew they were there.  They will jump right at your face and if you are not careful it will mean your demise.  There is a creature you encounter later called the Nightmare, it's exactly what it sounds like.  You have the choice to hide until it passes by or kill it, at least early on I would recommend the hide and pray option.


There are no shops to sell things but there is a genius invention called the Recycler.  It take anything you dont' want and converts it into one of four materials; mineral, exotic, organic, synthetic.  These materials can then be used in a Fabricator to create anything you might need, and trust me you will call on the both many, many times through out the game.


The skill tree is pretty standard until later in the game where you have access to many unusual abilities.  There is no levelling up system so you will need to collect or fabricate neuromods which are used to purchase them.  While there were many good abilities I found myself sticking to the same reliable few.  Initially I thought this was due to laziness on my part, but then I realised there were many that just were not that worthwhile.  One of the most frustrating abilities was hacking, not the ability itself but the annoying mini game you had to do each time you wanted to do it.  Anything outside a level one hack was painful, lucky enough in most cases there was a way round this.


Overall some pretty good gameplay with few complaints apart from hacking and a some so so abilities.




Final Thoughts

So after just over thirty hours how did I feel?  Pretty good.  The story was interesting and only near the end did I find it to be a little drawn.  The game looked sharp visually even if it wasn't very standout.  Musically the game was right on the money and really helped intensify the gameplay.  The gameplay itself was fairly solid with a few minor exceptions.  Overall I would have to say this calzone was pretty tasty and give it 4 out of 5