Uncharted: The Lost Legacy - Review

It's been a while since I played an Uncharted 4 but I remember really enjoying it. I remember Lost Legacy coming out and at the time was unsure if the dynamic between Chloe and Nadine would work. Promptly it went out of my head until recently when a friend from work was looking to sell some games. I thought to myself 'yeah why not' and bought it from him.


One of my go-to snacks is pork scratchings - for those unsure what they are, the best thing to compare them to is hotdogs. As most of us know hotdogs are made up of lips and assholes, if there was a crispy snack version of them with the chance of finding the occasional pigs hair that's pork scratchings. I know they are bad for me, and health-wise the only thing worse would be meth. Things that don't seem very appealing are actually damn tasty and sometimes you have to take a leap of faith. Playing Uncharted: The Lost Legacy I found myself asking had taken a leap of faith paid off?

Story


Nathan Drake and the Uncharted Series is well established and loved. After the end of Uncharted 4, it seemed like Drake and given up on his life as a thief/smuggler/collector/player but fans still wanted more. Naughty Dog decided to take two established characters from the series; mercenary Nadine Ross and thief/smuggler (you get the idea) Chloe Frazer and get them to team up together. They are on a mission to find a retrieve The Tusk of Ganesh. The game has you play as Chloe Frazer, and while it would be easy to dismiss Nadine Ross as just a sidekick that is far from being the case. The two have a great dynamic and by the end of the story, I was eager to go on another journey with them.


I was like many other fans, who were unsure if the duo would work. While they were good characters in their own right they were not Nathan Drake. It turns out they stand strong in their own right and their personal stories, along with the banter and overarching story, were really good. I am hopeful that Naughty Dog was using this game to gauge fan's reaction as to whether to create a new series of games featuring the duo, but only time will tell.

Visuals 


Naughty Dog never ceases to amaze with their visuals and The Lost Legacy is no different. Trekking through India was amazing, it was like visiting another world. The ruins of a near forgot civilization are starting to be reclaimed by nature but that doesn't mean they do not still hold secrets.  It may be strange to comment on but I love the rivers and lakes, and really liked the mud hills which look and feel real.


Overall it would be hard to argue that the visuals aren't picture perfect and hope that Naughty Dog continues this trend with any future projects.

Music


The Uncharted series features some very epic music, especially the last couple of instalments. The Lost Legacy features a blend of Indian style music with a film style score sounds that work really well. The master behind this is British composer Henry Jackson, who has a rich portfolio and composed the music for; Just Cause 3, Uncharted 4, Kick-Ass 1 and 2, X-Men First Class, Wreck-It-Ralph, Captain America: Civil War and 21 Bridges.


The soundtrack comes in just a smidge over one hour and features some great tracks, my favourites being; 'The Insurgency', 'Chloe Frazer', 'Shift Change', 'Ambushed', 'This Tigers Got Claws', 'A Familiar Foe' and 'End Of The Line'. Overall an amazing soundtrack which really adds to an already epic game.

Gameplay


The gameplay is almost exactly the same as the other Uncharted games, but hey, it ain't broke why fix it? The game has you play in the third person, and there are plenty of things to climb, swing off, and explore. Sometimes Chloe would fail to grab a ledge when she should of but it wasn't enough to be an annoyance. Similar to Uncharted 4 you get to spend a good bit of time in a jeep, which is really enjoyable. The game will have you solve a few puzzles, nothing particularly taxing with the exception of one near the end of the game where you need to cast shadows on two paintings.


The gunplay is something that is always a little weak in the Uncharted series, one weapon will often not feel much more powerful or accurate as any other. While there is the option to be stealthy there is a high level of the game encouraging you to shoot the place up. Chloe's evasion roll is pretty good and as she can move quite quickly and hide behind items or in the long grass you can usually avoid getting killed.


Some of the set pieces in the games are really great, especially when it comes to climbing cliffs and old buildings. I found myself distracted sometimes and ended up falling to my death. Other times I was not sure where to go and was winging it moving from objects quickly and even got a bit of an adrenaline rush a few times.


Overall the gameplay is pretty well balanced and very much feels like you are part of an Indiana Jones-style movie, but in a good way. It might be short, but sometimes it better to keep them wanting more.




Final Thoughts


So, after a mere eight hours how did I feel? Pretty good and excited about playing more games featuring Chloe and Nadine. The story was fun and epic, the visuals were amazing, the music was so well done, and the gameplay while it had some faults it never ruined my experience. This one gets a solid 4 out of 5

Reed Remastered - Review

I love games, and as anyone that also loves games known, there is never enough time to play everything. This means having to sometimes pick and choose carefully what to spend your time playing, so for example going on the PlayStation Store and checking out Indie games and falling into a rabbit hole is never a good idea. Two hours later and (a lot less money in my bank account) I found some games that looked like fun. One of those games was Reed Remastered, and at €4.99 what did I really have to lose?


Every now and again I love a Chinese Spring Roll from a restaurant, little crispy, full of vegetables and I sometimes even lull myself into thinking they are healthy. Now if I want one (or more) I usually am getting them with another dish but if I want the solo I feel bad ordering one item and go for the frozen option. I cannot say this enough DO NOT BUY FROZEN SPRING ROLLS. They may look the same but they are not, a cheap imitation that will make you question whether you like spring rolls at all. Playing Reed Remastered I found myself was I eating a spring roll from a restaurant or a frozen abomination?

Story


You are Reed, a small white rabbit plushy looking thing who is created to stop the destruction of the digital domain. That's it. Even when completing the game there is just a small pat on the back and that is it.


Overall the story is paper-thin and for an Indie game that can be okay as long as all the other elements are good.

Visuals


I'm a sucker for a few things in this life, coconut flavoured or smelling things, head massages and pixel graphics.  The visuals in Reed Remastered are okay and, and certainly have some similarities to the game Fez.  There are friendly creatures in the world which kind of look like a fish wearing spectacles with purple hair. The enemies look like angry hairless chickens - luckily they look scarier than they are and a quick jump on their head stuns them.


Overall the game seems to borrow from other better Indie games but fails to add anything unique or interesting enough to set it apart from others.


Music


The soundtrack is rather peaceful featuring lots of ambient sounds. Unfortunately, I was unable to track down the soundtrack. The soundtrack was composed by Oleg Hosoutsou, the font used in the credits was hard to decipher so there is a chance I may have read the name incorrectly.


Overall a calming soundtrack that had nods towards the Fez soundtrack. Was the Reed Remastered soundtrack bad? No. Was is it memorable? Also no.

Gameplay


The game is a puzzle-ish platformer which has fifty levels/rooms. Like many games of this genre, they start difficult and then increase in difficulty. There are traps and many spikes that stand in your way, each level has you collect a cube and then navigate to the exit. While the game itself was not overall challenging or fun there was one element I really enjoyed - the 1-pixel of death as I call it. Old school games could be unrelenting and be a single-pixel too far in one direction or another could spell death. Reed Remastered is incredibly good at replicating this and gave me a rich feeling of nostalgia.


Overall the gameplay worked, each level could be finished in a couple of moments or minutes (depending on how many times you die). While the gameplay worked it never felt that fun and again provided nothing that has not been seen many times before.




Final Thoughts

So, after a little over two hours how did I feel? Disappointed. The story is lacking, the visuals were uninspired, the music was good enough and the gameplay worked but never felt exciting. If the game had not been so cheap I would be a lot more disappointed. In honesty, I am not sure how or why this game got remastered but I guess that is sometimes the way of things, this one gets a 2 out of 5

The Last Of Us Part 2 - Review

It's already July, how did that happen? So what I have achieved this year? Umm...played a lot of games, watched TV and gained some weight, that's good, right?  Last night I finished playing The Last of Us Part 2. Playing it was very interesting and was certainly very different from the first installment, but was that a bad thing?


The other evening I wanted takeout, I ask my better half Starfish Nolls what she wanted, now in my head, I was waiting for her to say what did I want and in my head, I was thinking pizza. She then suggested Spitjack's, it gave me pause, I checked the menu and went for a chicken and ribs combo with vegetables, mash, and an extra bit of garlic mash. It was so tasty it was crazy and am still thinking about it now (damn I'm hungry). I guess what I am saying is I went in one with an idea and when I allowed myself to be more open I was both surprised and happy. Playing The Last of Us Part 2 I found myself asking was I happy and surprised or should I have just ordered a pizza?

Story


The Last of Us Part 2 picks up a few years after the first game. We see both Ellie and Joel a little older and living in Jackson, a secure safe place with everything they could possibly want, life is good. As is often the way it is when life is good and we let our guard is down that we can get sucker-punched. Early on Ellie witnesses a brutal murder and so starts rising in her darkness that can only be quenched by revenge.


The story sees Ellie leaving the safety of Jackson to exact revenge, half the game is spent from her perspective and the second half you play as Abby the person she wishes to punish. Naughty Dog does a great job of making you feel conflicted about the two characters. It is hard to describe either character as being completely good or bad. By the end of the game, I was left struggling who's side to be on. The game has a lot of complexities to it. Revenge is damaging not only to those it is exacting it on but those are exacting it. There are many people I felt compassion and sorrow for and nothing was ever black and white but constant shades of grey.


Reading reviews and how people generally felt there a bit of backlash regarding Ellie being gay (which had already been established in the first game). Never did I feel it was dealt with ham-fistedly or hammered home, it was what it was. When it came to the transgender character I did feel it was slightly shoehorned in. There should have either be no mention of it or perhaps create a bit more discussion about it. That being said this element did not stop me in any way enjoying the story. The only real gripe I had was the endings, it felt a bit like Lord of The Rings Return of the King (not the extended edition) and was never sure if the ending I was seeing was the last one.


Overall Naughty Dog a great job of the story, it was thought-provoking, never black and white, and often toyed with my emotions. Any good sequel should be better in every way to its predecessor and Naughty Dog managed to do this perfectly in relation to the story.

Visuals


The visuals are...wow. The game looks sharp, organic and the world is really interesting to explore. There are lush forests, remnants of the old world in the form of a torn-up city, crude camps, and more sophisticated from along with dark dank areas which you want nothing more than to escape as quickly as possible. With some games it feels like you are just moving from one set piece to another, playing The Last of Us Part 2 never felt that way to me.



Overall the visuals are out of this world if you take that the studio that brought us Crash Bandicoot also brought us Uncharted and The Last of Us it is almost unbelievable. The team they have working on the visuals but in so much time to make the game look perfect. I am salivating at the idea of Naughty Dog making a follow up if for no other reason than the visuals.



Music


There are two distinct music styles used in the game, the first is hard plucked acoustic guitar to convey somber tones and gives the player pause, the other is an array of musical instruments to create a feeling of danger, threat, and sometimes intense action. The music is skillfully used in the game helping to heighten situations and but is never a constant but instead used subtly. The score is created by Argentinian composer Gustavo Santaolalla who has been part of a number of TV Series and Films including; 21 Grams, Brokeback Mountain, and the series Making A Murder, and the band's Iris, Soluna, and Wet Picnic. The additional music is supplied by Mac Quayle who worked on Mr. Robot, American Horror Story, The Best Friend, and Bad Samaritans to know just a few.


The soundtrack runs just shy of two hours and in my opinion, is the best video game soundtrack of the year. While to me they are all great tracks there are a few that stood out for me; 'Eye for an eye',
'They're still out there', 'The WLF', and 'The Island'.


Overall an amazing soundtrack that enhanced an already great experience.

Gameplay


Onto the breast and ribs (wow without the food analogy at the beginning that would sound creepy). The game has you take on the role of both Ellie and Abby in the third-person just like the first installment. The game at its core is a survival game that feels a lot more action-packed than before. The game can be played fairly stealthily but sometimes things get loud and you got to do what you got to do.


With Ellie, her close combat weapon is a flick knife, the strongest I have ever seen and I slit a lot of throats and it never broke once. Abby has the ability to make shivs but these are only really helpful against the infected enemies known as clickers, for the most part, she uses her powerful arms to break necks. They both have similar weapons, hands guns, rifles, and bombs but I did prefer Abby's. With Abby, she has a crossbow which is powerful and you can retrieve the bolts, unlike Ellie's bow where once the arrows are fired they are gone. Ellie has the more subtle rifle whereas Abby has the semi-automatic rifle which one you get the scope equipped it was one of my number one weapons next to the hunting pistol. Standing back looking at the two characters' weapons Ellie favors a bit more subtly verses Abby's which are noisier and more powerful, which speaks to my play style.


Manuals are back, these can be found in the world and unlock skill trees to improve the character, take enough pills and you can unlock everything you need. Ellie's had some great ones for increasing health, and Abby has the ability to craft certain ammo which is really handy later on.


The combat and cover system works.....mostly. Similar to the first game the cover works most of the time but sometimes the character won't stick to cover or points the wrong way. Occasionally you would perform an action behind cover and then stand up and get spotted. NPC's traveling with you can almost walk straight in front of an enemy and can't be seen, which is jarring if when you are being stealthy. The close-quarters combat works and can be a lot of fun but sometimes an action won't be recognized and messes everything up. Gunplay works okay as well but even with certain upgrades shooting can feel slightly inaccurate.


Overall the gameplay is a lot of fun and while some annoyances from part one still linger in part two there are improvements and for the most part, did not stop me enjoying the game.





Final Thoughts


So, after thirty hours how did I feel? Happy, sad, and many other emotions. The story was a brilliant experience and while occasionally it felt a little longer in places than it needed it was still enjoyable. The visuals were incredible and the world felt so organic which made everything I did seem more important. The music was somber, dark, and intense and made for a really good soundtrack. The gameplay was pretty strong but there were certain areas that could use improvement, hopefully, if there is a part three these will get ironed out. Is the game perfect? No, but it is pretty damn close, this one gets a 4 out of 5