Early last week, I had the chance to preview the survival horror game, Daymare: 1994 Sandcastle. This entry is set before the events of Daymare: 1998, which was released in 2019 to questionable critical reception. However, it was Invader Studios’ first release and was made by a relatively small team. Daymare: 1994 Sandcastle has a team of fewer than forty developers on it and looks to be a step up from their first release.
First up is the graphics and it is impressive. Invader Studios uses Unreal Engine 4 to craft a run-down research lab that is relatively immersive. The team uses environmental clues like green lights to guide the player on where they should go. From an animation standpoint, everything was smooth except the backpack which would shake when riding up elevators. I was mostly impressed by the settings menu which not only featured a benchmark tool but also DLSS. Both of these features were surprising to see on a game this size. I personally didn’t need to use DLSS since the game ran at 80 to 110 FPS for me on 1440p max settings with my RTX 3080. Invader Studios recommends an RTX 2060 for an optimal experience since the build is still a work in progress, but they expect it to run even better in the months to come.
Credit: Leonardo Interactive
On the gameplay side of things, this game truly felt like a combination of Resident Evil and Dead Space. In the thirty minutes that I played, I experienced two puzzles. One was a computer game where you matched symbols which I enjoyed. The other involved the character having to freeze multiple pipes that would continue to get hot. It probably took a quarter of my demo time to finish this puzzle because I had figured that I missed something since the pipes would continue to unfreeze themselves. However, it turns out I wasn’t freezing them for a long enough period of time to last the entire duration needed. The combat wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t as responsive as I hoped it would be. You would combine the use of the freezing tool and your guns to take down the creatures, but sometimes it felt like bullets were just bouncing right off them and they would grab ahold of you.
There wasn’t much of a sample size since the protagonist Dalila didn’t actually have any conversations and just made quirky remarks, but the voice acting didn’t leave me impressed. However, my mind can obviously be changed once I listen to her in an actual conversation with someone. I didn’t experience any bugs or technical issues, but I did have one more complaint. I felt like Dalila moved a little bit too slow, even when sprinting. It wasn’t the end of the world in a thirty-minute demo, but I question how it would start to feel after a few hours of playing.
Daymare: 1994 Sandcastle is scheduled to release sometime later this year, but you can play the demo that I experienced right now through the Steam Next Fest which will run from February 21st to the 28th. Thank you to Leonardo Interactive for providing the early preview copy.
Thank you to Smilegate for providing us with a review copy.
When CrossfireX’s campaign was officially revealed, I and many others were ecstatic. It was announced that Remedy Entertainment, the studio behind masterpieces such as “Alan Wake” and “Control”, signed on to help Smilegate develop the single player component of the title: so expectations were set accordingly. To know this brilliant, talented team was creating an FPS made me realize this was something I never even knew I wanted, but now coveted more than anything. However, signs causing concern began to swiftly show. After the initial reveal, the game essentially went dark. There were barely any public progress updates, and as the release drew nearer there was little to no marketing in sight. And when we here at TGP received our code mere hours before release, alongside other, more prominent review outlets: we knew something had gone terribly awry. But nothing could have prepared me for the absolutely pitiful disaster that is CrossfireX’s campaign; and it truly makes me question just how much Remedy was actually involved in the story’s development.
Photo Credit: Smilegate
The Narrative
The narrative of “CrossfireX” has all the complexity of a doorknob. It’s not just painfully boring and generic with nothing unique in the mixture, but predictable too. Ten minutes into the first campaign, “Operation Catalyst”, I instantly knew one of my allies would later betray me after only one line of dialogue. Surely enough, an hour later, he followed through. Speaking of dialogue, the writing is atrocious, and is on par with if not worse than a third grader’s book report. The characters are all typical soldier clichés that we’ve seen time and time again, with no standouts in terms of personality. Some of the voice actors try their best with the material given, but it’s in vain. Others, though, offer middle-shelf performances at best; and karaoke night acts at worst. Considering this combination of detriments, it comes as no surprise that none of the characters are memorable in the slightest. So, if you’re looking to play “CrossfireX” for a quality story, you’re better off finding one in “Pong”.
Photo Credit: Smilegate
The Gameplay and Visuals
If I had to sum up the gameplay of CrossfireX’s campaign, I would use the words “frighteningly basic”. There is not a single element in this game that cries originality. The gunplay is generic, and nothing we haven’t seen before. There is a special ability called a “Combat Breaker” that slows down time and allows for precise aiming, but that is far from anything new or imaginative. Even with this added buff, though, hit registration is still largely inconsistent; especially when firing at a ranged target. This isn’t really an issue, however, as the game is ridiculously easy. I played on the “Recommended” (normal) difficulty , and only died twice during each campaign. This was due to me rushing through dragged out areas without fighting back, not the cleverness of the enemy AI: which is nonexistent. Enemies will line up for you like a marching band, and hardly ever adapt to your attack strategy. It’s not just those aforementioned areas that feel dragged out, though; the entirety of both campaigns do. The feeling isn’t due to length, that reasoning isn’t valid considering “Operation Catalyst” took me an hour and forty one minutes to beat and “Operation Spectre” only required one hour and twenty two minutes of gameplay to complete. Even with a total completion time of three hours and three minutes (without skipping cutscenes), the campaign was so insufferable I wished it was shorter; and a wave of pure euphoria rushed over me when I realized I never had to play this title again for the rest of my life. Other gameplay/visual elements capable of providing even the most miniscule modicum of excitement failed as well. Set pieces are cliché and lazily integrated, and at times are straight up rip-offs of those in several “Call of Duty” titles, “Battlefield 4”, and even the “Crysis” series. Level environments are bland and uninspired, with the title’s graphical quality ranging from last-gen at best to 360/PS3 era at worst. These levels are littered with an abundance of collectibles as well, which are meaningless to gather since they provide hardly any worthwhile world exposition and offer no reward: that’s right, no achievements. As a matter of fact, the campaign has zero achievements to earn, with all of them being relegated to the multiplayer mode. The gameplay and visuals of CrossfireX’s campaign are so dull and monotonous that they couldn’t even impress an Amish farmer being introduced to modern technology for the first time.
Photo Credit: Smilegate
The Verdict
Growing up, my mother burned the adage “If you have nothing nice to say, don’t say it.” into me. And I have abided by that for the majority of my life. But apart from my obligations as a reviewer, I wouldn’t be able to stay quiet about the abhorrent quality of “CrossfireX”. Even at ten dollars a piece, both operations aren’t worth the smallest amount of any sane individual’s time. The story is forgettable and insufferable, and seemed to have no effort or passion put into it whatsoever. The gameplay/visuals were undistinguished and pedestrian, a true blight to the brain. I know this review may come across as harsh and a bit cruel, but “CrossfireX” is an absolute embarrassment of an Xbox exclusive, and should be forgotten until the day it is nothing but dust and echoes.
Last year, the most significant leak came from Nvidia themselves, when GeForce Now’s database leaked a list of games that were on their servers. Over the last few months, almost twenty of those games have been confirmed to be real projects. That obviously doesn’t mean everything will actually come to fruition, but one of those games was Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Remastered. Now, this would make sense considering we have already seen the first two games in that trilogy release.
To heal the pain due to my lack of timezone knowledge…
There's technically a 4th Call of Duty title releasing by the end of 2023.
Modern Warfare II Warzone II COD 2023 and something else.
Today, we got even more evidence that it could be real. Infamous Call of Duty leaker, Tom Henderson, went to Twitter to say the following: “To heal the pain due to my lack of timezone knowledge… There’s technically a 4th Call of Duty title releasing by the end of 2023. Modern Warfare II Warzone II COD 2023 and something else.” Tom followed up with a tweet confirming that he was referring to Warzone Mobile, but there is still reason to believe that it could be the 5th Call of Duty title released by the end of 2023. If I was a betting man, I would say that we will see Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Remastered by the start of 2023’s summer season. There is no reason to hold on to it if it has already been made.
The 4th Call of Duty title I'm referring to is Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile.
Not much is known, but it's expected to release this year.
Disclaimer: Activision provided us with an early copy of Call of Duty: Vanguard Ultimate Edition on PC for review purposes.
Introduction
Call of Duty: Vanguard had me worried from the get-go. At first, there was a dreadful wait for any official updates on the game. The community heard whispers through leakers such as Tom Henderson, but Activision continued to withhold updates from the community for months on end. It was the middle of August which was usually the time we would all be checking out the beta and we still had no updates. Obviously, it eventually got announced later that month and by October we all were diving into the beta. My second concern with the game was that I didn’t enjoy the beta. The gunplay and mechanics felt rough and it was clear that it needed more time in the oven to cook. I was one of the many people calling for a delay which never got granted. However, I have now beaten the campaign, enjoyed the surprisingly content-filled multiplayer, and dabbled with the disappointing zombies mode. In this review, I am only going to be talking about my time with the campaign. Which was better than expected.
Narrative and Gameplay
Six specialists from six different backgrounds join the first Task Force to take on a threat from the Nazi Army during World War II. In the first mission of the campaign, your team hops back and forth between two trains as they push through countless enemies. They even go as far as jumping off the train, onto the roof of a truck and shooting everyone inside of it, and then jumping back onto the train at the last second before it blows up. I was pretty disappointed by this because I wanted a more grounded experience similar to Sledgehammer Games’ Call of Duty: WWII, rather than getting something that feels like it was taken out of a Michael Bay movie. Thankfully, my wish was granted because everything after this point in the game has a much more realistic vibe to it, even though it still pushes the gas pedal to its max. Throughout the next couple of missions, we get flashbacks that give much-needed bonding time to our cast of characters on an individual level. Four different fronts throughout the war are explored ranging from the jungles of Midway to the rooftops of Stalingrad. These four storylines are the best moments of Call of Duty: Vanguard and give distinct experiences that were top of the line. Each storyline introduces new side characters to care about (and in classic Call of Duty fashion, a lot of them unfortunately die). Each character you play unlocks new abilities. Crack locks and safes as Novak, command troops as Kingsley, climb walls and bait snipers with the reflection of your knife as Petrova, take over the sky as Jackson, and blow everything up as Riggs. Some of these are more lackluster than others (I am looking at you Novak). When the flashbacks are over, it brings us back to where the first mission ended, for an exciting conclusion to the story. I still wish the main cast got more bonding time together as a squad because eighty percent of the game is flashbacks before they all met (excluding Kingsley and Webb). It would be tough to believe that Task Force 141 were able to take down Makarov in essentially their first two missions together. The main villains of this game also are very forgettable. To the point where I was almost ready to publish the article, and then I realized that I forgot to mention the villains. Their only traits are that they are ruthless Nazi leaders which aren’t really enough for me when I compare them to some of the previous main villains.
Credit: Activision
Call of Duty: Vanguard from a gameplay perspective feels like a mixture of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019) and Call of Duty:WWII. With forty-plus different weapons, there are plenty of ways to deal with enemies. Blowing through the wooden planks of a train with a machine gun feels as good as anyone would expect it to. The destructible environments have always and continue to be one of the most satisfying parts of playing through the campaign. I played through the campaign on the default difficulty due to being strapped for time and not wanting to have to spend time replaying sections which led to me seeing one flaw that I probably would not have seen on the higher difficulties. The AI can be very rough at times. Like standing in front of an enemy and them taking ten seconds to open fire level of bad. This only happened on a handful of occasions, but I guess that is what I get for being a coward and not playing on veteran.
Bugs
I am happy to announce that my experience had no major bugs and ran incredibly well on my PC. The only bug that I can remember running into in-game was a dead body having a spasm after dying which caused a trash can to start making a ton of noise. Obviously, your miles may vary depending on what platform you are playing on because my friend Mike ran into quite a few bugs on his Xbox Series X including having his achievements glitched. It is also nice to report that Activision may have found out how to compress their files because my game only takes up 77 gigabytes, which is incredible compared to the mess that was last year. One gripe that I had with previous games that somehow continues to happen is this bug (I think it’s a bug, maybe it’s intended, and I am just stupid) where shaders download every time I open the game. The message doesn’t stop me from starting a campaign mission or joining a multiplayer match, but it is still at the top of the screen constantly as I go through the menu. Also be prepared to see advertisements for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019), Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, and Call of Duty: Warzone every time you launch the game. Activision had the idea to have the Vanguard launcher act as a launcher for the previous iterations of Call of Duty meaning you can select their campaigns or multiplayer (which will prompt you to a screen to purchase them). Warzone being there makes sense considering it will have Vanguard content in it, but the other two really have no business being there.
Credit: Activision
Conclusion
In the end, I was satisfied with the campaign experience that Sledgehammer Games provided. My main gripe comes back to the main cast not getting enough bonding time with each other before the flashbacks started to roll. I really feel like having a mission or two occur before the train mission could have done some good for the story. As an overall game, I would say Call of Duty: Vanguard is better than Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War. Even though the following review score will JUST be for the campaign, I do want to note that Vanguard has so much more content on the multiplayer side compared to last year’s entry. If you even remotely enjoy playing zombies, I highly recommend you check out a review covering exclusively that, because there are some serious issues with Vanguard’s zombies mode. However, I am only focusing on the campaign here so I am not going to let that change the score for the review.
Thank you to Electronic Arts for providing the early review copy for Xbox Series X.
Last week, I got my hands on Madden 22 and I am finally able to share my thoughts. Anyone who read my review of Madden 21 last year, would know that I wasn’t that happy with the state of the game, especially with franchise mode. Electronic Arts promised that new changes would come next year, and I am happy to report that they did deliver. However, there were still a lot of shortcomings that I will discuss below.
Game Modes:
Lets start off with the two game modes that will require just a short response. The Yard and Superstar KO have returned, but both of them feel the same as they did last year. I don’t necessarily think this is a bad thing, because both game modes are fun. Considering that they are obviously more of a side activity rather then a main focus game mode like MUT or Franchise, makes me feel that big changes aren’t really needed. On top of that, Electronic Arts has promised that more big content will be arriving to Superstar KO early in the season, so maybe twists and changes are around the corner.
Franchise returns with a bunch of cool changes. Franchise now includes staff management which means you can manage your individual coordinators using skill progression like an RPG. There is now an evolved mechanic for preparing for your next game with new drills for practice. Electronic Arts also has said that there is a brand new scouting system in development that will come later in the year. Its nothing super crazy, but seeing even a bit of effort being put into franchise mode is very nice to see.
Ultimate Team is the game mode that usually interests me the least. The “thrill” for getting new cards and packs haven’t interested me since my days in high school where I would grind Madden Mobile. On top of that, buying packs to make my team the best it can be is not interesting to me what so ever. However, Ultimate Team made $1.5 billion in revenue for Electronic Arts last year, so there will always be a huge audience for that part of the game which will continued to be supported.
Face of the Franchise was the absolute most disappointing part of Madden 22 for me. It still feels like such a downgrade compared to Longshot. The story is very minimal and showcases a star college player who is going to be a top three pick in the upcoming draft. It has your character going to a six week long Nike training camp with a bunch of other NFL stars. I am not even gonna focus on how unrealistic that ever happening is, because I have a list of other more pressing matters to complain about. Face of the Franchise is supposed to be focusing on your player, yet when you play in your two college games, for some reason you are forced to play both sides of the ball. On top of that, they removed the quick simulation feature so you are forced to play through it. The quick simulation tool comes back once you make it to the NFL which makes things seem even weirder. Its just a minor gripe, but it is something I needed to mention. The thing that irks me the most is how bad the cutscenes look. The first couple cutscenes feel similar to how longshot cutscenes felt a few years ago (which is bad enough because I expect enhancements over the last three years). However, things somehow get worse just two hours into the “story.” I have attached some videos below, and I think that most people will agree that they look nothing like how a “next generation” game should look. There is also the problem that characters who were voiced, ARE NO LONGER VOICED during some conversations. Could Electronic Arts really not afford to spend the extra money to record these side activity lines for Face of the Franchise? It breaks the immersion to have one cutscene be voiced, and then the next to just have textboxes. Something like this is completely fine for an indie team, but this is Electronic Arts. They make billions of dollars each year. Having cutscenes remain consistent in quality should be something that comes without asking.
The last thing that bothered me with Face of the Franchise is a small thing that isn’t game breaking, but it is immersion breaking. My player was drafted #1 overall by the Jaguars. However, the Jaguars also draft Trevor Lawrence with their second pick in the draft and he shows up in the background at practice. How and why?
Gameplay Changes:
There are quite a few new mechanics added to Madden 22, but none of them are game changing. They are nice improvements, but I don’t think they are going to convince anyone who didn’t enjoy Madden 21 to want to buy Madden 22.
Gameday Momentum adds a new momentum meter and unlockable perks called momentum factors that give different advantages to all 32 home teams, unique to each stadium. Some of the perks include causing the screen to shake for your opponent or the routes to get swapped up during the pre snap.
Gameday Atmosphere adds new crowd animations, super fans, and remastered audio that makes the stadiums feel more lively.
Star Driven A.I makes teams use more realistic play calls and causes players to adjust at halftime.
Catching Control has been improved so it is more responsive with its foot detection by sidelines and player reaction when turning up field after the catch.
Tackling animations have improved to truly represent size and weight mismatches between players.
Blocking has been improved to be more organic and dynamic in the pocket
Bugs:
One crash that turned off my Xbox Series X while playing Face of the Franchise.
The announcers are still really glitchy. I said this in my review last year and I noticed multiple announcer errors in the first game that I played (Super Bowl LV rematch). For example, they might say that it is a players first completion of the game, when in reality they have had multiple. It is really just a lot of stuff similar to that. Nothing game breaking, but it still kills immersion which is important to me when gaming.
Plenty of minor visual glitches including my light skinned Face of the Franchise player having dark skinned legs.
Trevor Lawrence still getting drafted to the Jaguars after me in Face of the Franchise.
Madden 22 is not a great game, but it is a step in the right direction compared to Madden 21. For someone who doesn’t love Madden Ultimate Team, I don’t think I can recommend it for $70. I think those people should just play it through EA Play Pro or should just rent it for two months and then pick it up on sale when it is in the $20-30 range. However, if you have the money to spend, and you enjoy playing online, then you probably aren’t even reading this anymore and have already started downloading Madden 22.
Thanks To THQ Nordic for Providing An Early Review Copy
What is better than becoming a ninja racoon who fights a bunch of other mutant animals in a post apocalyptic world? Biomutant was a really unique idea that unfortunately didn’t pan out the way I hoped for. Before we dive into specifics, lets start with the basics. Biomutant is being developed by Experiment 101 which is a new team with less than 30 members that is owned by THQ Nordic/Embracer Group. Biomutant will be releasing on May 25th, costing $59.99 on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Windows PC. Biomutant can also be played on an Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, and PlayStation 5 through backwards compatibility and next generation versions at a later date. Biomutant will also be available through EA Play Pro which costs $15 a month. Experiment 101 has a really small team, but I can’t give them much leeway due to the fact that they are still charging sixty dollars for Biomutant. I understand that they probably had little to do with that decision, but a sixty dollar game has to be reviewed like a sixty dollar game, regardless of the size of the team that made it.
Narrative
I will be as vague as I can be here to avoid spoiling stuff, but to be completely honest, there isn’t much narrative stuff that I can spoil. This was one of my biggest concerns going into this game and it unfortunately came true. The narrative is really weak. The main story telling element is through a narrator essentially reading the story of you. The best comparison I can make to this would be Immortals Fenyx Rising. You are either going to love it or hate it, and I can say that I was not a fan. The NPCs in the game talk in their own gibberish language and then the narrators translates and tells the story. The downside to this is that you never get to actually connect with the characters or get a real feel for their personality. Dialogue itself also gets pretty repetitive when talking to some characters. For example, the tribe leaders have identical dialogue options. Now as far as the main story itself goes, there is a tree of life in the center of the map and there are these monsters that want to destroy it. If the tree gets destroyed, all life will die. There are different tribes that want to protect the tree, and there are others that want to see it get destroyed. You will pick a side and then you will fight anything opposing your goal. Throughout your journey, you will have flashbacks where you will see events from your childhood, but those moments are short lived and still don’t add enough. I would like to note that I haven’t completed all of the side quests so I am not sure if they cause any changes to the ending (I doubt it).
Exploration and Combat (listen to those melee sounds!)
Gameplay
The combat is the most enjoyable part of the game, but even that falls short at times. It starts off on a high note during the opening boss fight, where it teaches you a bunch of moves and combos. You have different classes, mutations, perks, and a ton of different weapon options which add new moves to combat encounters. One tiny issue that I have with the combat is the lack of a lock on system. If it had one, combat encounters with multiple enemies would feel a lot more fluid. Biomutant has crafting and weapon customization which is done pretty well, but it was something that I didn’t use that much besides during required sections. The biggest problem with the combat is that there is zero feedback when you are hitting enemies with a melee weapon. It feels like you are swinging at ghosts with a sword made out of napkins. Things get even worse when you hear the weak sounds that some of the melee weapons make. I wish I was kidding, but Biomutant has some of the worst sounds I have ever heard in a sixty dollar game.
Quests are a key part of any single player game and Biomutant has a lot fetch quests. For example, going for a ride on a catapult (needed to start certain outpost missions) requires you to go across the map to get a helmet, even though you have plenty of helmets in your inventory. A ton of the side missions are checklist type quests which just end up being time fillers. I am fine with side objectives being there to pad for extra content, but the main story should not consist of a ton of fetch quests. Something that pops up through out your quests is a morality system based off light vs dark, but its end up becoming forgotten due to how easy you can max out your mortality meter.
Taking over outposts is a main part of the tribe war part of Biomutant, and some of them make little sense. Obviously, I mentioned the helmet example before, but there were quite a few other things that stuck out to be just as odd. An example is one of the outposts that you see relatively early in the game. There is a cave full of moth nests next to the outpost, and a friendly NPC recommends you to destroy the nests so that the moths will move into the outpost. That is a unique way to clear an outpost so I was initially digging it until I saw that there were a ton of soldiers in the caves. These caves were completely empty, (besides the three moth nests) so there would be zero reason to have soldiers chilling in there. Like these caves were pitch black and didn’t have tents or anything. This quest could have been so much cooler if you had to fight mutated moths or some other insect in the caves, but the developers just copy and pasted soldiers into there even though it made zero sense for them to be there. I attached a video of the last part of that fight below.
Biomutant has puzzles that come up quite often, but they are all practically the same. They may be different in the sense that one may be a breaker box and the other may on a door, but the puzzle itself is just an easy color matching game that is super simple to complete once you have done the first one in the tutorial. This is a minor issue which will probably not bother most people, but some of the HUD markers feel misplaced. You can change the scale or could just turn it off all together, but you can’t actually move stuff to the corners of your screen which is where you would traditionally expect it to be. Another minor gripe that I have is the menu itself. Its colorful, fortnite inspired menu just feels out of place in a post apocalyptic game. One thing that I loved and needed to mention was the fact that you urinate on a flag post to unlock a new fast travel location.
Source: My PS5
To cap off the gameplay section, I would like to discuss how Biomutant doesn’t really respect your time which is something that quite a few open world games love to do. It forces you to go thousands of meters away just so you can hear the narrator translate dialogue from a new NPC which will lead to you having a checklist worth of tasks to fulfil. One objective has you saving twenty plus NPCs which leads to nothing. There are so many other objectives that just don’t have satisfying conclusions and makes you second guess if that was really the end of a side story. Biomutant could have had a fantastic gameplay loop if things were done on a smaller scale (meaning a smaller world that is filled with more detail, less mechanics that are more ironed out, etc). Mechanics like the mech or boat could have been more impactful on the game if they were used in a smaller but more refined area. I have seen other critics talk about how Biomutant was a success for such a small team’s first game and they aren’t wrong. Experiment 101 did a good job for what they were working with, but THQ Nordic/Embracer Group should have given them more support and a bigger team. They continue to acquire more and more studios and could have had some of them help Experiment 101 bring the true vision of Biomutant out.
Graphics
I played Biomutant on my Playstation 5 and the game didn’t look as pretty as the gameplay that I saw on PC and Xbox Series X. The main reason behind this is because the next generation version of Biomutant has not released yet. But the game looked even worse on PS5 compared to XSX due to some technical issues that the developers had which required them to keep things at 1080p upscaling to 4K. Upscaling can be hit or miss (TLOU2 did a fantastic job), but Biomutant was a miss, especially when viewing the game up close on a monitor. Biomutant ran mostly at 60 frames per second, but there were areas where it dropped below it. Some of the areas with a ton going on ran fine, but then there would be weird areas where it lags. One example was an indoor subway when I was fighting just four enemies. Outside sections look good besides some pop in, but indoor locations look like they didn’t get much time spent on their attention to detail. Another delay really should have happened to put some extra work into the next generation versions of the game.
Conclusion
Biomutant was a super ambitious game that I really wanted to love, but I could not. Experiment 101 wanted to do so much and ended up falling short in a lot of areas. It is almost impossible to make a huge open world game with tons of different mechanics while keeping everything at a high quality. THQ Nordic/Embracer Group really should have staffed up Experiment 101 with a 100+ person team, because there is such an interesting premise behind all of the jank in the world of Biomutant. At this point, I can’t recommend Biomutant at full price. I would highly recommend waiting a few months and picking up the game at a sale price. If you really need to play Biomutant now, then I would recommend either picking up a month of EA Play Pro and essentially renting it, or just buying a physical copy so you have the option to sell it if your not enjoying it.
Thank you to Bloober Team for providing a review copy for PC.
Xbox was missing one thing when they launched their next generation consoles back in November…exclusive games. The Medium was going to be the first major exclusive to launch, but it was pushed out of December to escape the giant called Cyberpunk 2077. I set fairly low expectations for myself going into The Medium. Bloober Team is a studio who has really only worked on AA games, so I was not expecting this to surpass the quality of a blockbuster title like Spiderman: Miles Morales. However, I was still really disappointed because The Medium is not very fun. The Medium has a ton of cool ideas but struggles to actually fully develop those concepts into great game mechanics.
Story:
As always, I am not going to post any major spoilers here. Majority of people reading this review are considering whether or not to purchase the game. So giving them my opinion on every major plot point will not do them any good. The narrative starts of on an unsettling note. The protagonist, Marianne, is saying her last goodbye to a loved one. After that, Marianne heads into the middle of the woods with zero supplies. Not even a flashlight or a knife. She eventually makes it to a hotel called Niwa, where she meets a character called Sadness. Did I mention that Marianne is able to see into another reality? Now I don’t want to give much more since this is where the pre-launch demo stopped, but I will give a few more final thoughts. I hated the first half of the story. It felt uninspired and very dull. However, the second half of the story was incredible. New characters were introduced, the cutscene quality went up, and the story all together started to make actual sense.
Gameplay:
First things first, there is a semi-fixed camera. I must admit that in 2021, this is a major turn off for me. The developers have said that they wanted it to be similar to Silent Hill 2, but Konami used it because there were technological restrictions twenty years ago. I wouldn’t be surprised if they did this to try and make the game perform better because its optimization feels dated, but more on that later. The Medium at its core is a walking simulator. I personally enjoy walking simulators since I adored games like Firewatch and What Remains of Edith Finch. When I played those games, I never felt like they could have gotten better by having a shotgun in them. However, The Medium could have really used a better combat mechanic to get through some of the more dragged out segments. The Medium is a boring game for the first half. Things are better during the second half of the game when the stakes are raised but the first half is pretty brutal, and once again I am someone who usually enjoys walking simulators. The main combat mechanic in The Medium is using energy to either shield your character from bugs or to parry (parry gets introduced fairly late into the game). The other way to deal with enemies is stealth. You crouch and hold your breath to get past the enemy. Some areas expand on stealth a little bit more, but all together it is pretty boring.
There are a few chase scenes as well that will get your palms sweating, but they won’t ever actually scare you. There were only two times that I was actually scared during my playthrough and one of those was a cheap jump scare during the first hour of the game. (I am not saying this to try and sound like a tough guy. It took me multiple attempts to complete the first hour of Resident Evil 7. My third attempt was finally the time that I got through it. I then managed to beat the rest of the game and loved it.) Quite a few of the puzzles in the game revolve around you just powering something using your energy, but there are a few puzzles that actually made me think outside of the box. The world has items you can interact with, which is a great way to add some lore. Even though the building is pretty much abandoned, The Medium does a good job at telling side stories in a unique way rather then having you read ten pages worth of notes.
Source: Bloober Team
Tech:
The Medium is an optimization nightmare. Going into this game with a brand new Ryzen CPU and an RTX 3080, I really thought there was no way I would have any issues. I was wrong. I played on DX11 because DX12 was completely broken for me. This means raytracing was never even an option for me, but that may have been for the better since there was very little consistency with the games performance. I started my playthrough on 4K and was able to stay at 60 fps for the entire introduction of the game. However, once the game split realities, my performance would tank all the way down to 26-50 fps. I switched over to playing on 1440p and I still had similar issues throughout my playthrough. There were also times where the game would freeze to 1 fps during a body transition between realities. If I was playing on a normal hard drive then I would understand this, but I had The Medium installed on an NVME 4.0 SSD, so I can’t imagine speed was the issue.
The game had its moments where it did look good, but there were way more scenarios where things looked super blurry. I originally thought this was due to a poor use of DLSS, but changing that setting didn’t fix anything with the blur. Sometimes the background would look like a complete blur and other times it would be Marianne really out of focus. I even had a sharpening setting on 100 percent to try and make things look better, but it didn’t do much. If you are considering The Medium on consoles, I would recommend reading a review from someone who has the same system as you. Considering the amount of issues that I had on a high end PC, I would imagine that the experiences on the Series S and X were not perfect.
Bugs/Warnings:
There is a lot of flickering on your screen which may bother some people. For example, sometimes when switching in-between realities, the screen will flicker out of control for like five seconds. There is also a section that revolves around you following different flickering lights.
Some of the settings like to change on their own in between play sessions. For example, it took me three sessions to beat The Medium. On my second session, my resolution changed. When I opened the game for my third session, my fps was capped at 30 when I originally had it set at 60.
As mentioned in the tech category, DX12 was completely broken for me. The game just wouldn’t launch when using it.
Dialogue audio gets really low at times during cutscenes. Since I am talking about audio here, I would like to note that the soundtrack was really good, but it wasn’t used enough. There were a lot of parts that could have used some ambient music in the background.
Source: Bloober Team
The Score: 7.3/10
The Medium does some really cool stuff but it gets dragged down by its flaws. Based on the first half of the game and all of the tech issues I had during my playthrough, The Medium would only be a 5/10 for me. However, the second half of the game really carried things and allowed my experience to end on a positive note. I understand that review scores don’t really translate to the average consumer so here are my recommendations. If you have Game Pass on Console or PC, then you need to check The Medium out. If you don’t and still want to explore The Medium, then I recommend you buying a month of Game Pass to play it. I really don’t think its worth its full price of $50. Waiting for a sale or playing through Game Pass is the way to go for The Medium.
Like an angel falling from the heavens or a god exiled from their kingdom, Godfall’s quality plummets into the Earth with air-shattering velocity within the first half hour of playtime. I usually don’t immediately start my reviews this up-front, with how I blatantly feel about the current title under critique, but in this instance an exception must be made. Godfall is by far one of the blandest games I have ever played, if not the most creatively bankrupt experience I’ve slogged through in recent memory. But before I delve too deeply into the title’s abhorrent misgivings, allow me to explain the promise of Godfall, what it was meant to be. Advertised as a melee combat, combo heavy take on the “looter shooter” genre launching alongside the PS5, Godfall looked to many (myself not included) as a showcase of what next-generation online play should be. However, when November 13th finally came around, all of those hopes disintegrated swifter than Icarus’ wings under the scorching sun. Instead of a glorious simulation of god-like power, what we got instead was a glorified, generic live service title without a single spark of originality.
Image Credit: PlayStation
Now it’s par for the course to lead in with the narrative discussion, but to be blunt there’s not much to be said whatsoever. The story’s plot (which I won’t spoil here, but think Cain and Abel meets Clash of the Titans) and cast of characters are not compelling in the slightest, largely due in part to the overwhelming amount of storytelling clichés and the utterly basic motivation to defeat the main antagonist. Not much exposition as to why the plot is even happening is provided to you either, which left me feeling overall disconnected from the plight of the main protagonist. In truth, I ended up not caring about any of the narrative’s elements. But hey, so what if the story sucks, right? This is a looter: the gameplay loop, combat, and environments are what’s most important here. So, with that being said, does Godfall’s gameplay redeem it’s narrative woes? No, no it does not.
Image Credit: PlayStation
The missions you undertake in Godfall see you, Orin, travelling to different realms to amass power and allies to vanquish the scourge your brother has unleashed upon the world. It’s too bad, then, that all of these realms look largely similar. Like the story, the art-style doesn’t present an ounce of anything unique, and many objects are overly saturated with gleaming gold. There are areas that deviate from this design philosophy a smidgen, but along with being uninspired they are still few and far between. It’s adequate for what the title is trying to be, but graphically it all looks very last-gen and mostly unimpressive (apart from the consistent 60 FPS). Due to these bland environments, the desire to explore/replay levels past the main path is absent, especially when the potential loot gained from doing so all looks/performs the same as other weapon/ring types in their respective classes; culminating in a disgustingly linear experience. At this point, it may seem that I have nothing positive to say about Godfall, that I had no fun with the game entirely. Although upon reflection that is how I feel, I cannot deny that Godfall’s combat was pretty damn fun…at least for the first hour or so. It was surprisingly engaging at first, with easily chainable combos feeding into the player’s power fantasy smoothly. However, you’ll find yourself repeating combos quickly, and even with unlockable skills remains a button mashing fest. On top of this, the combat presents no challenge. It’s beyond easy, and unfortunately has no adjustable difficulty slider (resulting in the same set difficulty for everyone). To get a rough understanding of how benign the enemies in this game are, let me paint you a small picture: I’ve barely healed, and haven’t died at all throughout my playthrough. At. All. You’d think that even mini-bosses/bosses would present some difficulty, but that couldn’t be further from the case. Mini-bosses are just reskinned basic enemies, and main bosses’ attacks are highly telegraphed and repeated, allowing for more than enough time to avoid any attack. AOE’s (area of effect attacks) are even outlined for you, so unless you’re purposely not looking at the boss you can’t miss it. Even if you were to hypothetically fall in combat (as unlikely as that is), when you return to the boss arena: all your damage dealt to their health bar is saved! I would say the difficulty in Godfall is laughable, but that would imply that there’s something to laugh at. It’s nonexistent. And even then, that’s if you can even fight the boss without running into a game-breaking glitch. For example, TGP’s own Frank ran into a progression-halting bug that prevented him from venturing beyond the first boss. Upon the boss entering its second phase, it begins to utilize both a jump attack and a fire-damage based AOE. Due to the former maneuver, the boss positioned itself above a particular piece of geometry from which it could not come back down from. Additionally, the boss proceeded to spam the aforementioned fire attack, preventing Frank from even approaching the boss’ feet (the only part of it that could be hit). Since boss fight progression doesn’t reset upon death, Frank had three choices: throw his shield from a corner over and over again to defeat the boss, start a new character, or quit the game. I think it’s fairly obvious as to which option he chose, and I was not far behind him.
Image Credit: PlayStation
Godfall, frankly, brings nothing to the table. You’ve seen everything it has to offer before, and done better at that. The game lacks originality, creativity, and ingenuity across narrative, gameplay, and design elements alike. Even if the core mechanics are enjoyable for awhile, it’s only a matter of time before it turns into a bore, then a chore, and then finally a brutal slog. Assuming the mindless, repetitive combat is somehow up your alley, the game might just decide to throw a glitch at you from where there is no return; unless you wouldn’t mind restarting your progression from square one. Overall, Godfall is a pitiful excuse for a 9th generation launch title, and is absolutely disgraceful for trying to get $70 out of the consumer.
Thank you to IO Interactive for the review copy on Xbox Series X.
The Story In Four Sentences:
Hitman 3 has one of the best stories that we have seen from the Hitman franchise in a long time. There will be no story spoilers here so it is going to be kind of vague, but Hitman 3’s story is a lot more emotional and personal. It is focused more on Agent 47, rather then the bigger picture. Cutscenes are a major step up from Hitman 2 which helps the game deliver a satisfying storytelling experience and proper conclusion to Agent 47’s story.
Gameplay:
Now this is something that I can talk more in depth about without ruining the game for you. Just like in any other recent Hitman game, there are many ways to complete a mission. Think of the map like its one giant sandbox for you to play in. I obviously want you to be able to discover some of these murder sequences for your self so I am not going to mention every highlight but here are two in particular that I thought was awesome. Have you ever wondered what Knives Out would feel like in a video game? I never did until I saw Dartmoor where you have the opportunity to become a detective. This level looks and feels so much like the mansion in the movie and has multiple references to it. Now obviously, you can become the detective and take out your target when you get her alone for a few seconds or you could spend an hour solving a murder mystery by gathering clues and evidence throughout the mansion. After you solved that murder mystery, you can go kill your target. Same result, but just a new way of getting there. On a different mission, I eliminated a target by having an AI fire different employees in an order that would cause a chain of different events to occur leading to an explosion.
Baseball Right Next To Open Window Easter Egg
Essentially all of the maps are open (besides the last one which acts as more of a conclusion to the story) which allows tons of replay value. There are shortcuts which act similar to something you would see in Demon Souls which can end up saving you time when you replay the level. Maps from the first two games of trilogy have been ported into Hitman 3 which can give you even more gameplay (I do have a few problems with this that I will talk about later in the article).
From a technical standpoint, the game runs amazingly. As stated above, I played on the Xbox Series X and had a solid 60 fps while at native 4K. Other reviewers did mention that there was one spot in particular with a ton of flowers that caused some dips but they were very minor and only for a small part of the level. I personally never walked through the flower field because it is a tiny part of a much larger map. There is a very good chance that they have fixed it by the time you play it so you may not even realize it.
The Flaws:
Some of these issues are major and a decent amount of them are minor but here are all of the flaws that I found through my time with the game.
There is anti-consumer friendly pricing for DLC. The standard edition of Hitman 3 retails for $59.99, while the deluxe edition retails for $79.99 on consoles and for some reason $89.99 on the Epic Games Store. The deluxe edition includes 3 outfits, extra escalations, a digital artbook, a digital soundtrack, and a commentary video for the intro of the game. I have no problem with that price. The problem that I have currently is with the price of the upgrade. If you buy to upgrade from your standard edition to a deluxe edition digitally via your Xbox, IO Interactive wants $35. I can’t say I agree with charging someone an extra $15 for DLC because they decided they wanted to wait for getting the extra content until after purchasing the base game.
The other problem I have with the DLC pricing involves the Hitman 2016 and Hitman 2 content which is playable in Hitman 3 with some enhancements. Now this is an awesome feature for people who bought Hitman 3 on the same platform where they got the first two games. However, that wasn’t my case. I played Hitman 2016 and Hitman2 on Steam, but played Hitman 3 on Xbox. This was not a major issue for me. I was going to purchase the levels for a second time on console just because I was enjoying Hitman 3 that much. Here is where the problem comes into play. The Hitman 3 Access Pass for Hitman 2 Standard costs $59.99 and includes the base game locations. The Hitman 3 Access Pass for Hitman 2 Expansions costs an additional $39.99 for people who want to play the DLC that was released for Hitman 2. You could also just buy the Hitman 3Access Pass for Hitman 2 Gold which bundles the previous two items together. Now for my friends who got the game on Epic, you get the Hitman 2016 content for free and can currently buy the Hitman 2 maps on sale for $19.99. However once that sale ends, you will need to pay $99.99 if you want all of the Hitman 2 maps. So to summarize for anyone who is just as confused as I was: It can cost you up to $194.97 (prior to tax) if you want all of the content in the game. You can save $15 if you buy the deluxe edition upfront rather then buying the standard edition and then the deluxe upgrade after the fact.This gives me major flashbacks to when I had to look a graph to see all of the versions of Anthem. Even if you disregard how confusing it was, I still have problems with it. Charging MSRP for content from an old games screws over digital consumers. Anyone who has a console with a disc drive can go to their local store and buy a sealed copy of the standard edition for $19.99. They can then get the free upgrade to Hitman 3 by just putting the disc into their console once. So why is IO Interactive charging their digital fans three times the price? A digital copy of the game costs them less money to sell compared to a physical version that they are selling at stores.
Now exclusivity isn’t something that is going to affect the score I give Hitman 3 but it is something I want to mention to consumers who care. First, Hitman 3 is exclusive to the Epic Games Store on PC. Second, VR is exclusive to PSVR. I personally didn’t see a problem with the Epic Games Store deal this since Hitman 2 had a ton of financial problems throughout its development. At the end of the day, its a free download (and I know some people still won’t download it and that is perfectly okay). What did tick me off was the PSVR exclusivity especially when VR files have been found in the PC version of the game. Having console exclusives is one thing (Xbox vs PlayStation). Having PC exclusives is another (Steam vs Epic). Having VR exclusivity tops everything. There are so many platforms and the average consumer isn’t going to buy all of them when a lot of times they cost more then next-generation consoles. Off the top of my head, I can think of 6 major VR headset developers that support bigger budget games (Valve, Oculus/Facebook, HTC, Samsung, HP, and Sony). Out of all of those, Sony has the worst one. On top of that, Hitman 3 requires you to play with the PS4 controller rather then motion controls.
On paper, there are less mission stories. In Hitman 3, only 4 out of the 6 levels have mission stories with 3 each for a total of 12. Hitman 2016 had 64 total mission stories. Hitman 2 had 34 with an additional 10 coming from DLC. It is worth noting that there are a decent amount of hidden mission stories (such as the legendary exploding golf ball). This might be a positive for you because I know there are people out there who like less hand holding in games but I still prefer the option to know how many of the mission stories I have experienced. I don’t want to be walking around the map searching for another mission story if I have already completed all of them.
On a certain level, you can make a ton of wine flood a room. I am not sure if this was a visual glitch but all of the containers were still full with wine even after leaking it all over the room. On top of this, walking in a giant puddle of wine doesn’t cause any red footsteps (I get it, I am really nitpicking here but it would be cool if Agent 47 would have red footsteps for a few seconds after walking in the wine.
There are quite a few visual bugs. As mentioned in the point before, there was the wine that may or may have not been a visual bug. Here are a few additional ones that I recorded. There was a missing shovel during this cutscene (no major spoilers, you can see the target name but they are all new characters who you meet at the start of each level). There was weird zoom in glitch when climbing on the ledge of a building. There was a missing cigarette but smoke was still coming out of their mouth. There was this random lady standing on a desk for no reason. Are all of these things immersion breaking? Yes. Are they at anywhere near the level of visual glitches that Cyberpunk 2077 had? No where near it so I guess I can’t complain that much.
The Score: 8/10
I loved my time with Hitman 3 and I don’t want to “punish” the developers by dragging down the score due to certain decisions that they couldn’t control. But when reviewing a game, I need to account for both the quality of the game but also the decisions of the publisher. All things considered, it is a 8/10 in my eyes which means it is still a game that I recommend buying. Now should you go and pay almost $200 on the game to get all of the content? No. If you are someone interested in playing the Hitman 2016 and Hitman 2 content, I would recommend grabbing a physical copy or waiting for a sale on the digital versions.
Okay, I get it. This review is really late. This review got started, and then sat in my drafts because Cyberpunk 2077 kept me very distracted in the little bit of free time that I had. But now, final exams are finished and I am on winter break finishing this up at two in the morning. So, what is this new entry of Spiderman about?
Spiderman returns back to New York City but this time we are playing as Miles Morales. For those who didn’t play Spiderman 2018, Miles is a teenager who befriends Peter Parker. Miles ends up getting bit by a spider and you can guess how the rest plays out. When the game starts, you can watch a summary to fill you in on all the events from Spiderman 2018 involving Miles but I would recommend trying out Spiderman Remastered if you never played the original. It is way too good of a game to skip. But you didn’t click on this article to find out if Spiderman 2018 is any good. So how is Spiderman Miles Morales?
Story:
As always, I won’t be diving deep into the story to avoid spoilers but I will give you the bare minimum. The story of Spiderman Miles Morales throws you in the middle of a war between Roxon and the Underground. Roxon is the Tesla of the Spiderman universe and the Underground are a bunch of rebels who have no business being as well trained as they are. As Miles, you do your best to protect New York City while dealing with the challenges of being a teenager. Overall, the beginning of the story is just as good as Spiderman 2018. However, the second half of the story starts to feel weaker. One particular spot is when Miles trusts someone to watch a person of interest (who I won’t name), even though minutes prior he said how he needs to keep an eye on this person because he knows that they want to harm this particular person of interest. You could catoragize this as bad writing or just Miles being naïve but either way it doesn’t make much sense besides wanting to push the story forward.
This may sound like I’m caring too much but I believe that attention to detail is important in these big budget games. In the 2018 game, Spiderman works closely with the police throughout the main story. In the intro to Miles Morales, both Spidermen work with the police. However, midway through the main story, the police disappear. During one mission, Miles discovers an enemy base filled with money and weapons. If this was Spiderman 2018, Peter would contact the police and they would usually be seen arriving as you swing away from the crime scene. However, Miles just swings away like nothing even happened, leaving the door wide open so that any child could just walk in there and grab a rocket launcher. Another example is a major main story plot point so I don’t want to spoil it, but there is a need for the police at a certain emergency at the end of the game and they are no where to be found. It’s like the police are there for the first half of the game and the side missions but they forgot about them for the final half of the main story.
So to summarize: The first half of the story is really good. The second half had a lot of moments that felt so poorly written that it made me pause my game so I could write about them in my notes. I should all emphasize that when I say poorly written, I mean poorly written compared to Spiderman 2018. That game’s story set my standards really high.
Credit: Insomniac Games
Gameplay:
At first glance, you would think the gameplay would feel pretty identical to Spiderman 2018 considering that there hasn’t been much time between them for them to evolve mechanics. This is fairly true but there are definitely some changes. The combat is the same idea but with a lot of new moves and animations for Miles. The most notable is the use of venom which is a form of electricity that Miles can use during combat to take down enemies. There is a decent amount of side content in Spiderman Miles Morales but it felt lower quality compared to what was in Spiderman 2018.
If you are playing on the PlayStation 5, you do have some new things you can check out. First off is raytracing. Insomniac Games does a really good job with it but there was no going back to it after I switched to 60 frames per second mode. Swinging around the city with that smoothness is incredible. It is worth noting, that Insomniac Games added a 60 frames per second with ray tracing in 1080p mode which is how I probably would have played the game if it was available back at launch. The PlayStation 5 controller also showcases their adaptive triggers when you swing through the city. While it is a nice touch that adds some immersion, I thought they could have done more with it. Astrobot’s Playroom set a very high standard for how developers should use the adaptive triggers and haptic feedback.
Bugs:
Early in the game, a character spills some food on a carpet (think Kevin Malone and his chili from The Office). Instead of going to the bathroom for cleaning supplies, he goes to a computer to do some work and then makes his way to the bathroom after you grab another item. That was the only notable bug. It was a very polished experience.
Credit: Insomniac Games
Conclusion:
I still stand by my original thought that this game was not needed (I felt that there was no need for a smaller standalone game since we just had Spiderman two years earlier). A fourth DLC releasing with Spiderman 2018 Remastered or some flashbacks in the next mainline Spiderman game (which is rumored to have both Peter and Miles as playable characters) could have easily told this story without some of the filler. However, this was still a great Spiderman experience. Miles was an amazing character. Seeing New York City around Christmas time changed up the map enough to make it not feel overly repetitive. The gameplay evolved much more then I expected it to (mainly thanks to the 60 fps enhancement). This game really made me think about how in the world Insomniac Games is developing so much at once while keeping it at the highest quality.
The Game Preview 