Review Category: Games

BATTLE CHIEF BRIGADE

Battle Chef Brigade is an extremely rare example of a game which breaks the mold of conventional genres. Glancing simply at the opening graphics, you would likely expect an anime-esque beat ‘em up with a few Cooking Mama mechanics. Instead, what you have here is a Monster Hunter Iron Chef, with match-three puzzle mechanics and an engaging storyline. You’re not here to simply carve up a kingdom threatening dragon’s rear, you’re there to serve it to your customers.

The game sees you stepping into the shoes of Mina Han, a cook who aspires to join the Brigadiers, combat chefs who defend the kingdom. After fleeing her home she participates in a tournament to prove her worth. While sticking to many essential fantasy tropes, the cooking angle opens up a number of doors these tales would otherwise overlook. How the kingdom survives, how others are judged and the intentions of the villain are twisted by this. Furthermore, as it is separated out into six chapters, it allows the player time to stop and explore the interactive towns which are dotted across the overworld.

Rather than sticking to the usual side-quest and main quest formula, the game mixes things up with daily challenges. These are used in place of the typical methods of grinding, and usually add a slight twist onto one gameplay style or another. Restaurant Rush, for example, requires you to manage multiple ongoing meals at once to complete puzzles before individual timers run out. No single one is ever the same, and the coloured balls representing ingredients can break if shunted about. This adds another level by not only making speed an essential part of the game, but completing certain puzzles in as few moves as possible.

Challenging chefs is where the game truly shines, as it sees you sprinting back and forth between hunting monsters and slow-burning meals. You will often have a challenge set before you, with a judge’s specific preferences revealed just prior to the start, before being sent off into the wild. Each area has its own ecosystem with certain monsters dropping certain orbs, meaning you always need to quickly pick out the right species for the meal you have in mind.
However, there are additional layers to this. Certain breeds grant higher quality materials, a few rare ones offer augmenting ingredients, while the density of bone structure needs to also be accounted for. Bones can be turned into prismatic cores, which in turn boost the score of certain combos. This is to say nothing of other issues, such as the need to remove poisons from certain meats, the benefit of sauces, or the side effects of how you cook them. While the system might be seemingly simplistic, the sheer number of factors you need to account for allows Battle Chef Brigade to benefit from the sheer number of multiplying factors which come into play.

Even without the match-three mechanics, it helps that the dungeon crawling combat system has been extremely well programmed. Mina’s slashes and kicks are extremely responsive, and the sheer variety of enemies means you will need to constantly change tactics in how you deal with certain monsters. While most fit into the expected Metroid categories, they have odd behavioural quirks which can come back to bite you. Notably the scavengers which become hostile and try to gobble up your recent kills. Combined with the active timer of the meals you need to leave cooking on the stove, it turns events into a fast-paced treasure hunt for the right ingredients.

The only true flaw worthy of mention is how situational many cooking implements are. There is no way to alter them after learning the theme of the battle, leaving the player to work with very general builds. You can overcome this by utilising the combos you feel are the most effective with the right timing, but it can lead to a few frustrating losses. Besides this, the only other issues stem from elements it currently lacks, such as a multiplayer contest mode. However, that’s easy to forgive thanks to Trinket Studios’ tight budget.

With those minor gripes aside, Battle Chef Brigade is easily one of the best indie releases of 2017. It’s more than merely the sum of its parts thanks to how it combines the varied gameplay elements to build an ongoing world, and how each mode links directly into the other. If you have even the slightest interest in brawlers or even desire a match-three release with a twist, definitely give this one a look.

BATTLE CHEF BRIGADE / DEVELOPER: TRINKET STUDIOS / PUBLISHER: ADULT SWIM GAMES / PLATFORM: PC, NINTENDO SWITCH / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

HELLO NEIGHBOR

Welcome to Rear Window if it were a Terry Pratchett story. Hello Neighbour really is more or less that. You play as someone who peeks in on someone living in the house across from you and behaving very strangely, seemingly hiding something in his basement. Your job is to sneak inside and find out what it is, as the building becomes more surreal with every step.

The much touted advanced AI used by the neighbour is one of the game’s biggest selling points. Sticking to examples set by the likes of Alien: Isolation, the game emphasises unease above all else. You know that he is nearby and you cannot fight him, leading to incredible tension broken up by occasional bouts of exciting chases. Taking him head on is out of the question, and if you rely on a few key tactics too often, he will quickly develop methods to counter them. Become complacent in relying on bear traps to win the day, and you’ll quickly find them being thrown back at your head.

Yet, while the Tom and Jerry meets Psycho antics are one of the most heavily advertised aspects of the game, the puzzle segments simultaneously make and break it. As none are signposted, you are left to scurry about trying to pick out details on just what you are facing and how to complete it. Many rely upon various objects lying about the house, while others hinge on use of the physics engine. When they are executed well, these reward intelligence based upon a skewed internal logic fitting the graphics. When handled poorly – especially in the third act – they become a source of non-stop frustration where physics based bugs and numerous graphical glitches can stonewall your every effort. This is to say nothing of segments which can apparently only be completed via omniscience, with solutions so convoluted that even the best players will be left stonewalled for hours on end.

The abrupt difficulty spikes would be bad enough in of themselves, but Hello Neighbour’s villain seemingly gains x-ray vision at random. You can find him countering your every move before you have even entered the building, or suddenly tracking you down with laser-point precision despite your every effort. These moments undermine the entire experience, and you can find yourself easily giving up in frustration.

Hello Neighbour has an extremely steep divide between its strengths and failings. There’s middle ground here, as you’re either bashing your head against a brick wall of bugs and a foe gone god mode, or it’s an intense stealth survival experience. While there is definitely a good game in here, and some excellent thrills, without a few extra patches it’s impossible to recommend.

HELLO NEIGHBOR / DEVELOPER: DYNAMIC PIXELS / PUBLISHER: TINYBUILD / PLATFORM: PC / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

NECROMUNDA UNDERHIVE

Wargaming powerhouse Games Workshop have been doing very well recently. They have released a raft of new games that combine old-school nostalgia with some stunning models and very well realised gameplay. Coupled with exceptional community support, it really feels like they’re listening to their hordes of fans and delivering quality game after game.

Necromunda Underhive is an interesting new approach to one of Games Workshop’s most eye-catching games. Necromunda is a gang warfare skirmish game set in the absurdly gothic world of Warhammer 40,000. The planet Necromunda is made up of vast industrial structures called hives ruled over by feudal clans, and the whole thing has a wasteland warrior/cyberpunk vibe, mixed in with the sci-fi gothic of 40K. The feuding families fight in the lower parts of these mega city blocks, the ‘Underhive’ of the game’s title.

Original Necromunda came in a box with easy to put together models and complex 3D terrain. The old models were sort of ugly. The new game has completely gorgeous models aimed squarely at the hobbyist. You have two gangs worth of models (20 in total) with a very, very wide range of assembly options. The box comes with a handy infographic on how to put them together in an optimal way, but feel free to ignore that. They are a lot of pieces here, and assembly won’t be a quick task. The most extreme example is that there is a tiny cigar that you can glue to the tiny face of your ganger. Patience is a virtue indeed. But it’s entirely optional, and the pieces are fun to put together, and even a ham-fisted type won’t cover themselves with plastic glue.

The board is not 3D. Instead, we have various tiles that can be moved around to create a variety of dungeon-like scenarios. We have lots of bulkheads, doors, and barricades which are highly detailed bits of plastic that we can scatter across the board. The inside of the box also doubles as an ‘arena board for the ‘learn to play’ scenario. The more old-school 3D game is still here; it’s just given more detail in a separate supplement. It is very pretty and very detailed, but be aware that Necromunda Underhive is very much a starter set for a flat terrain skirmish game, set in sewers and similar ‘dungeon-like’ areas.

The rules will be familiar to anyone who’s played Warhammer 40K in the last 20 years, and yes, it’s a game where you use a ruler to move pieces around and work outline of sight. The two gangs are interestingly balanced. The muscle-bound and crude Goliaths are tough and best deployed to fight immediately. The lightly armoured by swift Eschers are swift and cunning. As such, it looks easy for the Goliaths to win, unless the Escher player uses the terrain and keeps out of range, sniping and running. Tactics cards provide a useful edge and keep the game moving, but don’t make up for actual tactics. The provided scenarios are fun and require minimal setup. It’s ideal for busy gamers who just want to squeeze a bit of wargaming in on a week-day evening.

Necromunda Underhive is a fun skirmish game and a good way for older players to lure younger gamers into wargaming. The core set does not come with rules for campaign play; for that, you’ll have to pick up the Gang War supplement. We firmly recommend that you do as this is a game that if you want to really get the most out of it. You’ll want to set up a league and a campaign (The Gang War supplement is slender but packed with all the detail you need).

Necromunda Underhive is for nostalgia junkies and table-top gamers looking for old-school skirmish shenanigans.

NECROMUNDA UNDERHIVE / PUBLISHER: GAMES WORKSHOP / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

ROGUE TROOPER REDUX

Based upon one of the three members of 2000 AD’s holy trinity of anti-heroes, Rogue Trooper Redux is a welcome re-release of a sadly often overlooked adaptation. Following (with some pragmatic edits) the story of the last genetically modified infantryman, Rogue, hunting down the general who betrayed his species, the tale works the best of modern and classic stories into itself.

More pressingly though, while it is clear that TickTock Games was loyal to the comics, their focus was always placed on developing a brilliantly innovative game. While it certainly leans towards run ‘n gun mechanics, there are always more options for stealth assassinations or setting up ambushes through use of the environment, enemy weaknesses and a few unique quirks of your equipment. Because several pieces of your equipment are sentient, this means you can set up your helmet to distract a patrolling squad, leave your rifle as a mobile gun turret, and have your backpack hack a backdoor into their base. All while you sneak about quietly picking them off one by one.

While the levels themselves are obviously scripted to have you follow a single general path, Rogue Trooper hides this surprisingly well. The various environments maintain a better illusion of open terrain than many modern games, and they rarely make the mistakes commonly found in limiting the player to narrow corridors. This means that there’s a surprisingly high level of replay value in previous stages when it comes to trying fun new ways to murder Space Nazis.

Unfortunately, Rogue Trooper’s inescapable sin is down to being noticeably long in the tooth. While it was certainly ahead of its time, ten years and two console generations will make any release look long in the tooth. Many of the core aspects it helped to push forward have unfortunately been better refined and reworked in games since. So, elements such as a few lengthy turret segments or even the cinematography of certain cutscenes will still mark it as a dated release.

Even without this, however, Rogue Trooper does have the unfortunate habit of sticking to more repetitive run and gun segments. While other games might break up the core gameplay with unique mechanics or one-off minigames, it offers little to liven them up outside of its (admittedly quite large) standard bag of tricks.

Ultimately, how much enjoyment you will get out of this game will stem from how forgiving you are of its age. If you can still pick up PlayStation 2 era third-person shooters and still feel the thrill of blasting through small armies with moments of nuanced tactics, then Rogue Trooper is definitely a game for you.

ROGUE TROOPER REDUX / DEVELOPER: TICKTOCK GAMES / PUBLISHER: REBELLION / PLATFORMS: PS 4, XBOX ONE, PC / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

WOLFENSTEIN: THE NEW COLOSSUS

With The New Colossus, it’s clear that MachineGames stuck to the oldest of sequel tropes: More is better. If you have a winning idea, then doubling down on its best elements is usually a major step in the right direction. As a result, the latest Wolfenstein game strikes a similar tone to The New Order but manages to rise above it.

The story is set several months after the ever anti-heroic Blazkowicz bumped off several major Nazi leaders. Yet, the world is still governed by the Third Reich, and it will take more than one person to lay them low. As such, he begins working to unite the scattered resistance cells, and anyone mad enough to take on Mecha Hitler. The story is infinitely crazier this time around while still possessing that Tarantino style of storytelling. Used as a method of both raising the stakes and justifying a few very unique sequences, it manages to be insane enough to let you accept almost anything while providing several extremely tense sequences.

The gameplay itself retains the classic relentless shooter stylings which made its predecessor popular. There’s no regenerating health and you can carry enough guns to outfit a small army, most of which fit into the standard tropes with a few notable twists. The minigun, in particular, proves to be extremely cathartic, hitting just as hard as an attack rifle with every bullet. The sheer variety of new enemies and even mass-produced versions of old elite mooks helps to offset this firepower without compromising the feeling of satisfaction in wielding so much power.

The only real sins in The New Colossus stem from how certain levels are dragged out. While they offer free-roaming experiences, secrets and are wonderfully designed, they lack the variety found in those of the previous game. As such, while a few key locations like Area 52 or the bullet train fight stand out well, you’d be forgiven for taking breaks with others. Equally, while it further emphasised themes of racism and abuse, it seemed that the script didn’t know quite what to do with them. As such, they serve as an additional element to certain scenes but lack some real impact on the story.

With a more coherent tone, a broader variety of enemies and all the excellent Easter Eggs you could hope for (No German Beetles this time, but there is something better hidden away) this is the best first-person shooter we have seen in months. Whether you’re looking for a grindhouse game with a little depth or simply an excuse to shoot Nazis, definitely grab this one at the earliest opportunity.

WOLFENSTEIN: THE NEW COLOSSUS / DEVELOPER: MACHINEGAMES / PUBLISHER: BETHESDA / PLATFORMS: XBOX ONE, PC, PS4, NINTENDO SWITCH / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

STAR WARS: BATTLEFRONT II

Star Wars: Battlefront II is the rare example of a game which takes two steps forward, and then twelve backwards. And then stumbles over the edge of a cliff. There are tangible, very notable, efforts to bring back what made the classics memorable. Many key criticisms have been resolved with brilliant solutions, vastly improving the core gameplay, and with a true story mode this time. Unfortunately, EA’s greed got the better of it.

Story mode follows the Imperial forces in the wake of the Death Star’s destruction. Focusing largely on the elite Inferno Squad, it follows their journey to carry out Palpatine’s final command and as some come to question their role in the Empire’s remnant. While brief and more than a little reliant upon nostalgia, it nevertheless handles its subject matter well. It offers a better take on sympathetic Imperial characters than anything found in the Rebels cartoon, and even the character appearances of favourites fit well into the plot.

The multiplayer modes beyond the campaign itself owe more to the classic Battlefront games than the 2015 sequel. Classes have made a very welcome return, allowing for actual squad tactics to take precedence over one-man assaults. While they cannot carry so broad a loadout as those in 2015’s game, the weapons and abilities have been carefully made so that they might carry out a few duties extremely well, from crowd control to picking off officers or repairing vehicles. Yet, despite this, minor quirks and additions to every army still make their gameplay unique, from the Clone Troopers’ jetpack assaults to the Empire’s heavy armour tactics. This allows you to keep coming back to the same levels with new armies while finding the experience rewarding.

The maps have been extremely well designed this time around, sidestepping the issues which plagued the 2015 game. Vehicles lack half the invincibility they once benefitted from and maps rarely favour one side over another. The likes of Theed offer a careful balance between vehicular combat and fighting on foot, to the point where the flow of battle can drastically shift several times thanks to carefully timed flanking attacks. You even get the odd chance to enjoy the beautiful scenery between the explosions, thanks to DICE’s efforts to bring these worlds to life.

Perhaps most prominently, two of the more infuriating let-downs of the 2015 game have been resolved. Heroes are extremely tough but hardly unstoppable, and the Jedi stand a better chance of inflicting more damage upon foes even with ranged heroes nearby. As such, they are a force multiplier over a one-man battering ram. Furthermore, while mechanics of piloting a starfighter have been fine-tuned to lack the unwieldy qualities which plagued the previous game. The fact that you are more involved in the battle than locked away from it in the sky alone is a massive step in the right direction.

These elements would have made for a decent game at worst. For any Star Wars fan, it would have been welcomed as a classic. Would have been, until EA decided they wanted a bit more cash from their customers. The loot boxes and microtransactions have been the target of much controversy over the past month, and not without good reason. To be blunt, everything outside of the campaign has been crafted to desperately encourage players to give it more cash.

While it doesn’t directly lock things away, it just makes life difficult for anyone who wants to enjoy the game without spending more money. The heroes, in particular, are guilty of this thanks to the glacial grind required to slowly unlock the more expensive among them. It’s so bad that you could likely complete Knights of the Old Republic from start to finish before you’re finally allowed to get Darth Vader. A matter only made worse thanks to EA lifting ideas from Dungeon Keeper Mobile, adding a timer to how much in-game currency you can earn from it per day.

Yet, what truly ruins the game is the Star Cards. Locked away inside loot boxes you will find few cosmetics and a truly staggering number of power buffs. Recharge Vanguard immediately recharges all your specialised abilities the moment you defeat an enemy, allowing you to relentlessly spam previously one-off abilities. Toughen Up allows an assault class to constantly regenerate when active, and can be boosted until you can take entire clips to the face without flinching. This is to say nothing of the heroes cards (with one which allows Boba Fett to disable the weapons of those he hits) or combinations which can render your character effectively invulnerable to damage.

The fact that the entire game has been built upon microtransactions is why they’re the focus of this review. They seep into everything, ruining effectively every part of it beyond the fleeting campaign until it’s genuinely difficult to praise the great work put into multiplayer. Yes, the graphics are fantastic and the sound design is on par with, if not better than, the films, and the maps do a genuinely great job of balancing out both sides better than those from DICE’s previous effort. Yet that’s a bit hard to appreciate when the person you play against has more power thanks to buying more Star Cards. Especially when it reaches such ludicrous heights that one improves aim-assist to the point where have a borderline aimbot with certain heroes. Thanks to this, Battlefront II simply isn’t fun to play.

Oh, and if you can stomach all of that? Welcome to bug country! The game is riddled with countless graphical and gameplay errors, ranging from constant image stuttering to becoming stuck in walls. You can simply run backwards at the wrong time and end up wedged inside a piece of terrain, or even unable to disembark from a vehicle. The constant lag only hinders things further, to the point where the FPS of multiplayer gameplay and easily start to resemble a slide show display of maps.

Battlefront II isn’t a video game. This is something crafted to prey upon those with gambling addictions, disguised in a veneer of science fiction nostalgia. If you are honestly, utterly, completely dead set upon buying a Battlefront II, just get the original. It might be dated, but it has infinitely more content, better unit balance and enough mods to justify the cheap price. As for this thing? Wait until you stumble upon it in a bargain bin a few years down the line.

STAR WARS: BATTLEFRONT II / DEVELOPER: EA DIGITAL ILLUSIONS CE / PUBLISHER: ELECTRONIC ARTS / PLATFORM: PC, XBOX ONE, PS4 / RELEASE DATE: NOVEMBER 17TH

SUPER MARIO ODYSSEY

Oh no! Princess Peach has been kidnapped! Again!

It’s a familiar story that somehow has never got old, and one that never fails to raise a smile. Loading up a new Mario game and anticipating the crazy adventures that lie in wait is one of life’s finest pleasures, and thankfully Super Mario Odyssey certainly didn’t disappoint!

As we’ve already established, Peach has been kidnapped for what must be the hundredth time. Bowser now intends to marry the Princess, but first he needs to collect a range of items from across 15 themed “kingdoms” in order to plan the perfect ceremony. With help from Cappy the ghost, Mario sets sail in an airship called the Odyssey to track down and defeat Bowser and rescue the Princess once again. There’s only one hitch – the Odyssey needs power moons to function, so Mario will have to collect as many of these as possible to travel between kingdoms.

Some power moons can be won by meeting specific objectives which advance the story, while others are concealed by miscellaneous puzzles and platforming trials within each kingdom. When a moon is found, Mario continues from that exact spot so that he can seamlessly keep running around to find more moons, making Odyssey the closest thing to an actual open-world 3D sandbox Mario game that we’ve seen so far. Sure, there have been plenty of 3D Mario games, but objectives have traditionally been divided into their own self-contained sections. Odyssey isn’t one single huge expanse of land like your Grand Theft Autos or Breath of The Wilds, but it’s a remarkable departure that really works in the game’s favour.

Another first for the series is the removal of power-ups. No mushrooms, no fire flowers (or not in the way we’re used to seeing them, anyway), no nothing. Instead, Mario now throws his cap at enemies to possess them and utilise their abilities. There are over 50 “useful” enemies in the game, and every single one of them is quite honestly a joy to control. Another new addition is the Crazy Cap shop, where Mario can spend his coins to buy outfits and items. These outfits don’t really alter gameplay in any way, although most of the “special” outfits (purchased by using stage-specific collectable purple coins) are required to access certain areas. Plus it’s just fun to dress Mario up in silly clothes for the sake of it.

The actual gameplay in Super Mario Odyssey isn’t too challenging and lives are unlimited (there’s a ten-coin penalty for dying, but there’s no penalty at all if you’re out of coins), but moons can be fiendishly well-hidden and finding them all will be quite a challenge for completionists. At the latest count, there are well over 800 of these celestial secrets to be found – we suspect this number is down to Nintendo having so many ideas that they thought they might as well put everything in, rather than landing on a figure and then having to work out where they were going to hide them all. Don’t worry though, you don’t need to find anything close to that amount in order to finish the story. Beating Bowser adds a ton of extra moons to the world, and more moons equal more crazy outfits becoming available from the shop as well as gaining access to a couple of unlockable extra (more challenging) hidden worlds, so there’s plenty to keep you going in the replay stakes.

All in all, Super Mario Odyssey is every bit as good as you might have heard. Nintendo have clearly put their heart and soul into making this game, and their passion for the series is abundantly evident. The superbly orchestrated original soundtrack is filled with nods to previous Mario titles, and each kingdom is thoroughly memorable thanks to the game’s huge amount of ideas and impressive overall design. Special mention must go to the mid-game Metro Kingdom, where Mario mixes with humans for the first time in New Donk City. The festival that takes place at the end of this stage is one of the most joyful things we’ve ever come across in a videogame, and deserves to be experienced by as many people as possible!

Players of a certain age will find it impossible to think back to their first time playing 1996’s Super Mario 64. Partly down to the similar control scheme (although thankfully without the N64’s unwieldy controller!), but also due to the inescapable sense of wonder when arriving in a new location. Mario 64 remains one of the most fondly-remembered titles in the series to date, and it isn’t difficult to imagine Odyssey being held in the same high regard 20 years from now. It really is as good as you might have heard. Without any glaring issues or fault to be found whatsoever, we can’t really rate this one anything other than…

SUPER MARIO ODYSSEY / DEVELOPER: NINTENDO EPD / PUBLISHER: NINTENDO / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

PERDITION’S MOUTH: ABYSSAL RIFT

There is a glut of board games on the market that are miniatures heavy and ‘adventure quest’ in style, resembling games such as HeroQuest and Zombicide. We tend to only review a few of these, as many of them have limited availability, which is a pity because some of them are a little bit special.

Perdition’s Mouth: Abyssal Rift is one of the more stand-out games of this genre, and it’s currently on its second printing (and can be pre-ordered via Kickstarter). This means you can easily get your hands on this rather odd and different game pretty readily. The smooth design marks it out as the future of dungeon bashing adventures.

Perdition’s Mouth: Abyssal Rift is a cooperative game for 1-6 players that works best with about four people and has an ‘icky’ fantasy vibe familiar to fans of Peter V Brett’s Demon Cycle or the Diablo series of video games. The plot begins with a bunch of heroes jumping into a mountain full of demon worshipping cultists and gets darker in subsequent missions. There’s a full campaign, though it works fine as a stand-alone.

One of Perdition Mouth’s appeals is that it’s a lot less vague than many of the traditional dungeon crawling games out there. It’s built on solid euro-game principles; all the rules mesh together, making the whole thing feel seamless. It is (by necessity and design) a little more involved than a Euro-game, but much smoother than your typical dungeon bash. It partially does this via two nifty disc-dial things. The hero dial tracks player actions, the enemy AI dial uses a glass bead system to track threats and monster actions. The idea is that the players really need to work together to calculate the most efficient way to take on the bad guys, and the dial lets them work out various solutions. Like all good co-op games, there’s more than one answer to any given problem, which means every player can shine. (It also stops one player from taking over; there’s rarely one ‘true’ solution.) The game generates puzzles and tactical problems along the way, and these add to the team-based problem-solving adventure.

Conflict and resolution are card based, putting this game on a firmer strategic footing. This is a game where you think your way through, evaluate risks and then try something heroic. The stakes are higher but chance feels like a tame-able thing, and that’s when you know you’re hooked.

The models are very pretty, though a little flat in places and the style is pleasingly gross. They also come up well when hit with a paint brush, the detail being strong enough to work with even those of us with limited painting talents.

The Perdition’s Kickstarter is running until November the 18th, and though it’s aced its goal, you may want to jump on as soon as you can. You can find out more here.

PERDITION’S MOUTH – ABYSSAL RIFT / DESIGNER: THOMAS KLAUSNER, TIMO MULTOMAKI, KEVIN WILSON / ARTIST: MATTHIAS CATREIN, JERE KASANEN, JAMIE NOBLE-FRIER, JUHA SALMIJARVI, TANJA YITALO / PUBLISHER: DRAGON DAWN PRODUCTIONS / RELEASE DATE: SEPTEMBER 2018

A HAT IN TIME

Collect-a-thons are coming back. For a long time now, there has been a drought in the genre, with Super Mario Sunshine-esque games becoming rarer and rarer, despite their popularity. After over a decade of more linear (but not necessarily bad) Mario platformers, Nintendo seeks to fill their gap with Super Mario Odyssey, releasing at the end of October. But in the time leading up to that, gamers were hungry enough to fund two games on Kickstarter that promised to bring back the nostalgic fun that Super Mario Sunshine and others provided all those years ago.

The first was Yooka-Laylee, made by some of the folks who worked on the old Banjo-Kazooie games. It had all the ingredients of an acclaimed game, but wound up being a flawed and overall average release. This, along with other experiences, has cast a light of scepticism upon Kickstarted games in general. However, many retained hope for one particular release. In the works for an astonishing four years, and collecting near enough ten times the targeted amount of money, people have been optimistic about A Hat In Time. And this time, there is no sour aftertaste. This is a good game.

The protagonist, known simply as Hat Girl, is adorable. Let’s just get that out of the way. She is the lone passenger on a Spaceship, trying to get home. After refusing to pay the ship toll (which we are told applies to spaceships as well), Hat Girl finds herself stranded, orbiting a planet without power or fuel. She needs to collect enough ‘Time Pieces’ to power her ship up again. Thankfully, she has the ability to knit hats that give her special powers and abilities, and so the adventure begins.

From the second you fall from the sky into a dodgy looking alley in Mafia Town, you might find yourself in love. Charm is the order of the day here, and this game delivers it with generosity. Every world has something different and unique from the others to offer. World one is essentially a Super Mario Sunshine level, the atmosphere changing throughout missions from sunny, to rainy, to flooded with lava. The second world is one of this reviewer’s most enjoyable gaming experiences, despite being a more linear chapter.

Game Mechanics change quite often in this game, which is a red flag for some. Thankfully, A Hat In Time pulls them off with grace, with nothing in particular feeling out of place or forced. There’s platforming, murder mysteries, stealth missions and a genuinely scary horror mission, and it all fits together like a jigsaw made of pure, unfiltered joy. As well as this, hidden portals open up in certain levels, taking you to bonus stages harkening back to the secret levels from Super Mario Sunshine. It’s all so wonderfully nostalgic, but the game is able to power itself on its own strengths as well.

The writing in this game is wonderfully quirky, with an excellent range of cheery and occasionally dark humour that could get a chuckle out of anyone. And everything this game does right is tied together with a wonderful soundtrack. The game also comes with near-complete voice acting, although some have complained that it is a bit over the top. There is an option to change the speech to Banjo-Kazooie grunts, but you have to unlock that feature.

The game isn’t completely clean. Along with the at times overwhelming voice acting mentioned above, you may also struggle with platforming on occasion, feeling that some parts of the game could do with being cleaned up just a bit, and wall jumping is a bit fidgety at times. It’s also relatively easy to clip the camera through walls. In this case, these are minor issues that will probably have little to no effect on your enjoyment of the game, but they are worth mentioning.

This is an excellent game, breathing life back into a genre that hasn’t seen enough love since the days of the Gamecube. It will serve to tide over fans of “Collect-a-thon” games until Super Mario Odyssey’s release, and we believe it will remain loved long after that. A Hat In Time succeeds in brushing all disappointment from Yooka-Laylee under the rug.

A HAT IN TIME / DEVELOPER AND PUBLISHER: GEARS FOR BREAKFAST / PLATFORM: PC, PS4, XBOX 1 / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW ON PC (CONSOLE DATES TBC)

MIDDLE-EARTH: SHADOW OF WAR

Middle-Earth: Shadow of War symbolises everything wrong with this industry. Oh, it’s far from bad, in many respects it’s even spectacular. It offers an engaging story, great new mechanics for your armies, and even a refined system of battle mechanics and orders. By all rights this is a spectacular release, and yet all of that is buried beneath a constant push to grab more money from the player.

Following directly on from where Shadows of Mordor left off, the game follows Talion’s efforts to raise and brainwash an orc army into rebelling against Sauron. While driven by revenge, his cause sees him travelling down an ever-darker road in the name of attaining power.

The Nemesis system is what truly made Shadows of War famous, as it offered a level of enemy manipulation and espionage the likes of Assassin’s Creed never offered. Bumping off enemy commanders, replacing them with your toadies and earning an increasingly powerful rival worked towards making the world feel alive and reacting to your presence. Shadow of War takes this a step further, by shifting the focus into near open war.

Rather than simply murdering leaders and slaughtering their troops, you have the option to lead armies into open sieges and liberate massed fortifications for yourself. This is accomplished as much by sheer numbers as the likes of siege gauges, and sappers add some much-needed variety and a few ways to vary your tactics. Furthermore, as you advance deeper into enemy territory, a few familiar and very threatening faces start to appear, such as the Ringwraiths and certain very big monsters. All of who provide infinitely more entertaining fights than the prior game’s bosses.

Yet, every single point, every single advantage you can find here, is hamstrung by microtransactions, lootboxes and a cash market. Take the story for starters. While certain decisions surrounding the lore are bad enough to make Tolkien spin in his grave, it is internally consistent and well developed. So, naturally, multiple storylines are chopped off to be sold as a $100 pre-purchase addition, and the true ending is hidden away behind a carefully crafted series of gates. The sort which, one way or another, you can only unlock with your credit card.

Limiting your quest would be bad enough on its own merits, and yet this blight afflicts the essential gameplay as well. Despite starting off well enough for the first few hours, thanks to several excellent cutscenes and exciting sieges, you quickly start to see the gaps in the gameplay. As each of your orcs are customisable, you need scrolls to upgrade their abilities and boost their stats. While at first most of these seem to be accessible in the open world, many are limited to lootboxes, with the likes of Archer Recruitment (which gives you extra units of archers) or even Mount Training Legendary (giving you an extra Graug) locked away behind virtual gambling.

Worse still, the game has elements woven into its very core encouraging you to fork over cash. Not only does it have a Dragon Age: Origins style “Buy this to see the rest of the story!” moment, but the very first thing you see upon logging in is an advertisement for lootboxes. Now, that alone would be bad enough, but it keeps stacking elements atop of this. The sheer grind of relentless sieges towards the last third of the game becomes tedious to the point of boredom, and has seemingly been designed to push you into paying a bit more to make it easier. A problem to be sure, but atop of this you can end up with other players relentlessly attacking your bases and murdering your troops while you are offline. So, you could have a legion ready for the final boss ready one day, and come back to find everything in ruins on the very next.

Shadow of War had the potential to be one of the greats of 2017. If the price gouging mechanics, the sheer Everest-esque grind in the final part, and the constant push to grab more of your money had been removed, this would have been a near-perfect sequel. It would have been game of the year material, and with twice this ending score. Instead, we’re just left with monument to how a publisher’s greed can wreck a masterpiece.

Save buying this one until the asking price is at least slashed in half, folks, as you’re going to need the rest just to get the orcs you need.

MIDDLE-EARTH: SHADOW OF WAR / DEVELOPER: MONOLITH PRODUCTIONS / PUBLISHER WB GAMES / PLATFORM: XBOX ONE, PLAYSTATION 4, PC / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW