My Usual Spiel - Aragami: Back to the stealth

Release date: October 7, 2016
Genre: Action-Adventure, Stealth

Publisher: Lince Works, Merge games
Developer: Lince Works
Engine: Unity
Platforms: Windows, Linux, PS4, OSX
Modes: Single Player or Coop Campaign

I have fond memories of stealth games, or simply choosing the stealthy option in games such as Skyrim and Far Cry, I even refused to play the Witcher series simply because you couldn’t really stealth. Though the greatest of all stealth games in my view was Tenchu, playing Tenchu 2: Birth of the Stealth Assassins on the PS1 and Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven on the PS2, lately I have had the good fortune to be gifted an Xbox 360 from a  friend and now have the ability to play Tenchu Z though It’s not exactly of the quality of the previous games I’ve mentioned it’s at least something. 

It is I, the Aragami

But this was actually before I had the Ex-bax Tree-Sixty and was having a long drought of stealth games, I had tried to go back to Tenchu 2 using an emulator on my android tablet but it just didn’t really feel the same (does it ever?). So when I saw Aragami on Steam I was fairly interested. Why wouldn’t I? it had a Japanese theme, a cool looking ninja-like character and of course stealth and stealth kills, it was cel-shaded but looked absolutely amazing so there was nothing wrong with that. The setting for Aragami is in a sort of fantasy feudal japan with lots of mystical magic elements, it tells a somewhat cliched story that you, the Aragami, or ‘an’ Aragami I’m not sure, were summoned by an ‘astral projection’ of Yamiko, a girl whose ‘Nisshoku’ kingdom of shadow was defeated by the ‘Kaiho’ kingdom of the light and she is now held prisoner by the Kaiho and she has summoned you to take her revenge and rescue her, and I’ve only just realised now this was all done in one night.

Yamiko as she appears in one of the graphic novel cutscenes

Yamiko returns on occasion to give you advice and show you the way towards the main castle, you do actually converse with her sometimes which apart from overhearing the guards conversation is the only comic relief in the game. So anyway you have the setting, the story, the struggle between kingdoms, the bad guys, the damsel in distress and you, the unlikely hero etc, so now this is where it starts to differ from Tenchu and I’ll try to not compare them over the course of this review hah. 

Yamiko in the game world, she appears and dissapears at will, often just speaking in your head.

As the Aragami you are a being made of shadow and vengeful spirit, and thus your powers come from shadow and your weakness is light, you must always keep to the shadows. For reasons I’m not sure why your character can’t actually jump instead you use the right mouse button and click another patch of darkness to “Shadow Leap” through to it (similar to Dishonored), allowing you to silently move to ledges or through light sources to stay in the shadows. Of course to do this you need shadow power, shadow power is accrued (surprise, surprise) when you are in the shadows and it’s level is cleverly displayed on your cape, moving too close to light sources drains your shadow power but you can gain it back easily. Though I’ve had some scary moments where you can get caught out in the open when an enemy walking towards you and end up frenzily clicking around looking for a shadow to jump to, but this gets easier when you start to gain more ability such as the one where you can ‘summon’ a shadow in a particular area as an escape route.


I achieve the highest rank 'S' in the first level by complete stealth, this was the only level I was able to manage it XD
 
Moving near any light sources drain your shadow energy so it’s no wonder enemies walk around or near them to make it more difficult for you to get past, the ‘Kaiho’ soldiers have light embued weapons and if you do get spotted they can kill you with one hit, so usually when spotted I often just give up and start again from the quicksave if I can’t get away in time. There are only a few variations of enemies, there are the basic light-sword wielding enemies (who also have a medium range light-beam slash) and then there are the archers who aim beams of light as if they were snipers, shooting a ball of light in a location if they detect something. These balls of light act like mines and can kill you if you stray too close and be found more frequently in the later levels, blocking off paths and forcing you to shadow leap through them or take a different path. some enemies actually walk around with these ball of light surrounding them making them difficult to stealth kill.

Archers were particularly dangerous if not taken out first

An emphasis on stealth in this game is paramount primarily because you cannot even swing your weapon in normal combat as you are only seen using it in stealth kills or sometimes destroying glowing orbs that control force fields. Unlike the Tenchu games if you are spotted there is not staying to fight and finish them off unless you are quick with your abilities as you can be killed in seconds. There are only two “boss fights” in the game and neither of them have you engaging in full-on combat, it’s really down to stealth and using your powers. Speaking of which you use these powers for pretty much anything, you can’t jump, open doors, climb ledges or up ladders, you are relying on shadows for everything more complicated then walking and running which makes you feel a bit fragile, which you are I guess you’re just a damn shadow heh. Conveniently you start in a very dark graveyard, then as the game progress there becomes less and less shadows with you having to rely on your ‘shadow-creation’ ability to get places.

 

Ares like this required careful planning and tagging of enemies (if you had the ability) to see their movement around obstacles, especially if you were doing a complete stealth run without eliminating any enemies.

Your main arsenal are your abilities which include offensive, defensive and Aragami abilities. These available are gained by finding scrolls hidden throughout the levels, the more you find, the more abilities you can unlock so being the only the collectible in the game too they are fairly important. The Aragami abilities include very useful skills, such as hiding bodies, ability to cast shadows and allowing your Raven companion to keep track of enemies and even revealing the location of hidden scrolls. The defensive abilities include summoning decoys, invisibility and revealing enemies through walls. The offensive techniques include a lethal shadow dart, a blinding wave of shadows and an entertaining ‘mine’ type trap which pulls enemies into the void. These abilities can usually only be used twice before requiring a cooldown but can be accessed again by performing a “Shadow kill” which is sort of like an advanced stealth kill which takes about 1.5 seconds to activate and then unleashes shadow dragon head which swallows an enemy whole in spectacular fashion. As you can guess all these abilities work well when used wisely though I didn’t use many at all, only when I was in a tight spot, but only now watching a video of someone else using them I understand a bit more.

Here I try out a custom map and use a few shadow abilities, I also try out the map editor

I tried to play this one the usual way I play Tenchu, lots of stealth killing, minimal weapon/item use but I quickly found that it was actually more encouraged to go complete stealth though it was harder. There were a few bonuses including not dying and respawning, not alerting enemies and complete stealth and I’ve actually just learned now that you cannot obtain the highest “S” rank if you kill any enemies. I thought this was a bit annoying but it’s ok I guess as it’s much harder to stealth through the level avoiding the enemies instead of eliminating them as you go, I did still get a good score by defeating every enemy but I guess that’s still not the point. This is a good change as historically with the Tenchu series it didn’t seem to matter how many times you were spotted as long as you did enough stealth kills to bump your score up so you got Grand Master every time. 

Got spotted way too many times here.

Like Tenchu also I found myself getting too impatient and getting caught out leading to some bad scores, sometimes I tried to avoid but the amount of enemies in a level was quite large some places it seemed almost impossible to get past without getting rid of at least one enemy. As you progressed it got harder leading to more mistakes, you start of the first few level being very careful then after the 6^th level you just want to get through it as your objectives don’t really change, each level involves getting from one place to another without being spotted or dying and involves stealthing or killing enemies and also clearing “force fields” that block your way by finding the orbs of light that generate them. There’s only 12 levels but it did get slightly repetitive.

Chapter VI: Mausoleum of the Fallen was a difficult one, it was like a huge museum filled with light and archers and guards everywhere and made movement difficult, ended up trying to kill everything and got a horrible score.

 Probably the best thing about the game is the graphics, the cel-shaded loveliness of this game is amazing, not to mention the beautifully drawn comic-style cutscenes. Unlike games which are trying to be photorealistic and end up overdoing it sometimes the visuals are sharp and just flows and I’m going to stop before I sound like an artistic wanker. There’s not exactly much colour in the visuals as the game takes place over one (very long) night but it’s anything but dark, the moon is always out and shining bright enough to cast moonshadows everywhere (which you need) and the enemies are champions of the light so there’s candles and lanterns and fires and glowing swords and bows and orbs all over the place all of which makes a very bright night, of course if it was an incredibly dark clouded-over night then the game would be too easy wouldn’t it? You progress though several different areas, including, graveyards, towns, forests, lakes, castles and temples and I noticed the colour hue of the visuals change, from blue in the graveyards to green in the forest for example. 

The game had this beautful haunting feel, this shot is mostly dark but I think it looks really good.

Though your character was well detailed the enemies I loved the effects of the shadow abilities and just the way you and your cape shimmers in the darkness and light and I could probably say this is my favourite cel-shaded game, though I haven’t played much apart from Katamari Forever which I didn’t really like with that sort of graphical style. As for the music and sound it’s fitting of the subject material, I was impressed with the way the voice acting was all in Japanese as this definitely wasn’t the case in Tenchu though having all Japanese voice acting did make the storyline sound a bit dull as everything had this sort of formal tone to it. There isn’t much music but when there is it’s appropriate, it’s more like ambient sounds then the occasional spasm of music, no that doesn’t sound right, tremor of music? Anyway it really did sound like a game set in Japan and the haunting sound effects and Japanese cultural themed soundtrack was great.

One of my favourite places to hide heh especially good for listening to enemies conversations, I was impressed that they did have Japanese voice actors.

Aragami also has a two-player co-op mode which is pretty cool as you don’t see it much anymore, though I’ve yet to try it, I’ve seen it in action in some videos and like the Sniper Elite games doing stealth co-op requires some practice, probably even more so as you’re relatively close to the enemy. There is also a fairly detailed level editor, which harks me back to the days of messing around with the Tenchu 2 level editor though I’m not sure if this one is more detailed but it certainly is polished with the items you set on the ground coming falling down and bouncing onto the ground with a satisfying ‘plunk’ I’ve played some (quite hard) user-created missions with it and yes I’m proud to say someone has attempted to remake one of the most famous Tenchu missions though not correctly as it’s rock hard, and then there are your usual experimental challenge levels where you have to get from one side to another alive. I didn’t spend too much time with the editor as I didn’t have any big plans for it though If I really wanted to I could re-create a Tenchu 3 mission though that would require a lot of screenshots which I can’t get on the PS3 and screenshotting a youtube video would just take too long and be too annoying.

Here I try out several fan-made levels and also make an experimental archer-infested custom map

Overall Aragami is one of those games that I almost love/hate to play similar to L. A. Noire, Katamari Forever and of course Tenchu. I wanted to do so well but ended up getting impatient and not doing well enough though this could be down to the fact that I wanted to play it just like I did Tenchu with my “weapons and abilities are for the weak” mindset where I try to stealth kill everything and everyone which of course always seems to end up with me being spotted multiple times. But this always comes down to how the game is scored which is different from the Tenchu games where as I’ve said before this one is focused on stealth as a necessity for survival rather than a way of making things easier for yourself. 

Well, I've really messed things up now.

When you were spotted in Tenchu you had more than enough health points, combat abilities and even armor in some cases to be a force to be reckoned with, especially Tenchu Z which has so many combat moves you can unlock though there’s only 2 boss fights in the entire game. Aragami Is a stealth game very much based in the mystical ancient world, you aren’t a Ninja in the traditional aspect, you’re a creature of shadow and all of this is fine, I’m just glad stealth games are still being made. And what's more I hear there's a prequel expansion in the works..

JD

8/10

Things I liked:

Genuine Stealth game

Excellent Cel-shaded visuals

Smooth Liquidy animation

Cool abilities

Things I didn’t like:

Very fragile protagonist

Lack of objective variety in levels

Too much reliance on shadow abilities

Aragami release trailer

Oh, I'm bein' followed by a moonshadow, leapin and hoppin' on a moonshadow…

My Usual Spiel: Battlefield 1, the Great War, the same Game as before

Well I'm back, first post of 2018! you thought I was gone, I thought I was gone too, especially with that last post but it looks like we're back on, and what a game to start with Battlefield 1! Can't quite believe I wrote over 4000 words, guess I had a lot to say. Anyway welcome to 2018 and hopefully a good year of blogging ahead.

Release date: October 21, 2016
Genre: First Person Shooter
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: DICE, Uprise, Criterion Games
Engine: Frostbite 3
Platforms: Windows, PS4,Xbox One
Modes: Single Player Campaign and up to 64 Player Multiplayer

I can still remember the hype when it was revealed that the new Battlefield (BF) game would not be set in a modern-day era. This announcement came after the release of Call of Duty Infinite Warfare and I’m sure you all know of the rivalry between BF and CoD or the fans rather and so while call of Duty rocketed into the future the Battlefield series was going back to the past, you could imagine the glee we all felt where we thought for a second we would actually be getting a HD remake of Battlefield 1942. But no, we weren’t going back to WW2, the series had already had a Vietnam based expansion too, it was revealed that the fifteenth installment to the Battlefield series would be loosely based on the events in World War 1 or based on World War 1 or a Battlefield game with a World War 1 skin I’m not sure which one is the best way to explain. 

Anyway the new game came out with a bang and quite an epic trailer at that. My housemate was very interested being a staunch fan of Battlefield 1942 and also its predecessor Codename Eagle which was arguably the first of all the Battlefield games and the only one previously set in time of the first world war but occurs in an alternate timeline. After seeing the trailer and some of the parodies that were made for it, he decided with the help of myself and a few others to create a parody trailer using Codename Eagle itself. I enjoyed the process and it worked out really well, we had a LAN party and everything and we got quite a few comments on the video too. We spent a lot of time playing the demo Sinai Desert map which was quite large and featured almost every form of vehicle and weapon (except sea) I did notice now and in the trailer that there was a large emphasis on vehicles which is unusual for World War 1 as it was mostly known as an infantry war as per games like Verdun, but then again this is Battlefield and it’s the vehicles that rule.

Sinai Desert as shown from above

In any case, there was a lot of hype leading up to the release of the game, there was so much shit talking about how Battlefield went into World War 1 while Call of Duty was going into space with its Infinite Warfare, I of course wasn’t really too fussed. After Battlefield 3 I didn’t care that much about what happened to the game as it was now all the same, I never bothered with the Police-themed Hardline as it was basically just the same thing reskinned, the same gameplay, the same graphics just little things changed similar to the new Star Wars Battlefront 1 & 2 it’s the same freakin game all over again and I was expecting Battlefield 1 to be exactly the same. And as you can probably guess I wasn’t wrong, you remember the total conversion mods for your favourite games? it’s the Battlefield WW1 Total conversion we have here.

Though maybe I’m being a little too harsh, the singleplayer was ok I guess, It was a more enjoyable then Battlefield 3 and 4  as it was composed of 5 (and a half)  ‘War stories’ instead of one storyline so there are mini campaigns which show different theatres of the war. Unfortunately the authenticity just wasn’t there, a lot of over-the-top action in unrealistic scenarios but there were good bits there too and it’s a Battlefield game after all.

There's even a sequence where you control a messenger pigeon

The first ‘War Story’ Storm of Steel is basically a prologue where you take control of different allied soldiers fighting the Germans in a trench wasteland. The second Through Mud and Blood was quite enjoyable as you take control of a Mark V Landship though most of the time you are jumping out for some stealthy kills and reconnaissance but the tank battles towards the end were good.

Detail is incredible in this one.

Friends In High Places was probably my favourite, you were a fighter plane pilot and were in the plane most of the time also finding your way through no-man’s land and even walking on a Zeppelin.


The pretty epic but entirely fictional "Fort et Fidele mission

Avanti Savoia! was a short story where you play as an Italian Shock Trooper who wears a suit of armor and carries a large machine gun. This one was probably the most ridiculous as it seemed like you were this invincible space marine from the Warhammer 40k series, literally you were walking along mowing down German Soldiers like a one-man army, I felt this was so far removed from a realistic WW1 perspective it was silly, why the suit of armor? I actually saw soldiers wearing metal armor and helmets in the game art and certain classes in the multiplayer modes wear it too. Though it’s strange I never really saw this in any WW1 photos or footage and most movies and shows in WW1 the soldiers do not wear any kind of metal armor, but then again this is Battlefield so mowing down enemies with an LMG (technically though the one he holds doesn’t seem that light) and suits of armor are consistent with the series I guess.

Almost steampunk-esque

The Runner was the Australian-Gallipoli based one which was ok, you played as an Australian message runner for the British at what was supposed to be Gallipoli and did a lot of running and gunning. Nothing Is Written was probably the best one, you were a female Beduin warrior fighting the Ottoman Empire with good old T. E. Lawrence himself, you did a lot of stealthing through the desert and around the camps and it was fairly open ended which was really good.

This mission was really good, you had to infiltrate three Ottoman camps in the desert and either eliminate the commander and steal the documents or both, it was very open ended unlike the usual linear-path gameplay from most other FPS story-modes.

So anyway on to the multiplayer, the new Battlefield Companion replaces Battlelog though this is inside the game itself so you no longer need to launch from a web browser and get those annoying update version errors and have to download the individual file just for the server list. And speaking of server lists after a lot of crying about how the new Star Wars Battlefront had no server browser Battlefield 1 thankfully has one though there’s enough people playing not to really matter to be honest. It’s only if you’re looking for a particular gameplay type like War Pigeons or the options of having rifle only deathmatch similar to Verdun which is regarded as the number one simulator in the trench warfare area though unfortunately these modes are not very popular with the average Battlefield player. This is one of the main problems with Battlefield nowadays, it’s a group  of players who want the same old thing and they got it.

The new-look main menu: beats the old battlog I gotta tell ya

As I mentioned I tried out the multiplayer demo on the Sinai Desert which was super awesome as it had everything in it, it was fun trying out the horses and flying the new planes and driving the new tanks. The kits ere relatively the same as usual, the Assault was the main anti-vehicle with Anti-tank Grenades, Mines, Dynamite and the AT Rocket Gun which was a lot of fun. The Medic has the usual kit, medic crate, rifle grenade, the new revive weapon is a syringe which is just as weird as the defibrillators. The Support now has some interesting toys available it has the usual Ammo Crate and Mortar but now has the Limpet Charge and Crossbow Launcher the latter of which can either shoot high explosive grenades designed to take out vehicles or Frag grenades designed to take down enemy soldiers. The Mortar used to be very very effective with the anti-infantry airburst rounds, so effective in fact that they nerfed it so now it is almost useless, even the HE mortar pales in comparison to the usefulness and mobility of the HE grenades and Rocket gun of the Assault class. But anyway I still like playing the class, I can still repair vehicles though now Tank Drivers and Pilots can repair their vehicles themselves without getting out which kinda sucks for the usefulness of Support but we’re still useful anyway.

The Giant's Shadow map was released some time after the main game, it featured a crashed airship as the centrepiece and heavy fog as you can see here. I play as Medic for this round.

And then there’s my guilty pleasure class, the Scout. I’ve found many ways to make this class useful. I’ve found many spots to set up camp and spot enemies with the Trench Periscope, this thing is basically the same as the tactical visor in battlefield 4, it auto-spots enemies in a cone in front of you and gives extra points if they are killed by your teammates. I’ve had many a round where I’ve found a nice spot set up a Sniper Decoy and camped, yes camped I spotted enemies and took pot shots at both infantry and vehicles thanks to the quite useful K Bullets, I also set up Tripwire Bombs so I was definitely helping my team to all those camping naysayers out there. It seems that hiding in a bush (or whatever) seems to be my preferred playstyle as it was way back in Vietcong, is currently in PUBG, and is while playing the Scout class in BF1.

Me using the scout trench periscope and sniper decoy

Among the new features there is a greater emphasis on melee combat with the new insta-kill bayonet charging which I keep forgetting to do and when I remember to do it I always just run in, not hit anyone and get shot. The melee combat does seem more refined with a chance for the victim to fight back rather than the attacker having the full advantage but to be honest it’s still just furiously clicking your melee button and hoping for the best. There is now more options then just knives yes there now spades, clubs, hatchets, pickaxes and weapons designed for the new mounted class such as the Cavalry Sword and the Elite classes such as the Raider Club.

Speaking of the Class system, it’s gotten a bit convoluted now so I’ll list them below:

Infantry classes

Infantry classes include Assault, Medic, Support and Scout, these are now similar to Battlefield 1942 but still only 4, the Engineer type weapons have been divided among the Assault and Support classes.

Vehicle classes

Vehicle classes include the Tanker, Pilot and Cavalry (if you can call a horse a vehicle I don’t know) are similar to the Pilot from Battlefield 4 as you didn’t spawn in the plain with a full kit, you just had your pistol and few other things. This is the same with the Tanker and the Pilot you have a different loadout with includes handguns and repair tools and other utilities. When I heard Cavalry was being introduced I wasn’t sure what to think and honestly I don’t use it much myself I prefer it in a Medieval setting such as Mount and Blade Warband though riding a horse with friends was fun none the less, the Cavalry also has its own kit which features a Cavalry Sword which is heaps of fun to use if you time it right. I had a few rounds where we all tried to get on horses and be mounted infantry like the Australians in the Battle of Beersheba.  

Elite Classes

Elite Classes replace the weapon pickups around the map in other games, they spawn randomly in specific areas on the map and can be picked up by any soldier who will then be transformed into that class until they die or the round finishes. The Elite classes include the Flame Trooper which is pretty self explanatory, the Sentry which is similar to the Avanti Savoia! War story where you are an armored MG wielder, the Tank Hunter which is armed with a heavy rifle that can disable vehicles, and the Trench Raider armed with melee weapons and grenades who was released with the Battlefield 1: They Shall Not Pass expansion.

There's a Flame Trooper in there somewhere

Now we come to the subject of vehicles, now as you know Battlefield is a game that is known for having vehicles but when I think of World War 1 I think of trenches and soldiers and artillery and horses and gas, I don’t really think about tanks, but there actually were tanks, and there were planes lots of planes and boats and motorcycles and a lot of things if you think about it. So BF1 still has lots of vehicles though they took a bit of getting used to going from the very Modern BF4, I’ll start with the light vehicles which included the scout cars, new armored cars and motocycles with sidecars. As with all light vehicles in Battlefield these are vulnerable to just about anything and should be used only for transport and skirmishes, that said I really enjoyed zooming around on the bike and the armored car was fun too. I never really thought about tanks much in WW1 but there are three in the game, there’s a light tank though when I have the ability to spawn a tank I usually go the Landship (from the ‘Through mud and blood’ war story) or the A7V which is like a moving fortress of a tank. This one was quite funny because in the war these things were very slow and impractical being only able to go 15kmh on roads and 5kmh over rough terrain though in the game the tank is quite fast and can scale steep hills easily if manoeuvred correctly which is ironic but I bet DICE had to make it that was so they would be at least of some use.

Driving the heavy tank, you can see my emblem on the side.

I have never been very good at planes but I had a lot of fun trying out the fighter planes and using the keyboard to manoeuvre and got a few kills in some rounds, I spent most of my time being a gunner for my friend Brok who really knows how to fly them. I suppose you may be wondering at this point how I went with repairing vehicles and for those of you who don’t know I quite like being the support class and doing this. One of my favourite things to do in Battlefield 4 was to sit in the lightly armed and armored transport chopper and repair it while someone else flew which really helped as those things were huge targets and usually didn’t last long. Well unfortunately in this game there is no way to repair a vehicle while inside it, when spawning a vehicle as a pilot you have the ability to self-repair on the fly when driving, the support class can repair with their hammer but have to get out of the vehicle so in the case of planes that’s obviously not an option, but it’s ok I have enough fun in vehicles anyway. I also like the way you can get different version of the vehicles for example you could get the flamethrower tank upgrade or the trench fighter specialization for the Fighter plane though you no sooner chose that then get attacked by a tank or another plane, you can’t win really. It’s sort of like trying to decide whether to equip a frag or HE grenade usually when you spawn you find you’ll need the opposite one.

I found the planes a lot easier to fly compared to the jets in BF4, probably because they weren't so freakin FAST

Replacing Battlefield 4’s Levolution events are Behemoths featuring the Airship, the Armored Train and the Dreadnought, these vehicles spawn later in the game on the losing teams side in order to try and even things up. I’ve had a go at all of these and they do make a bit of a difference but often don’t last long as they are a pretty huge target, the airship especially. There was one game where it spawned in and then the opposing team immediately started pelting it with 3 Anti-air emplacements and it didn’t even last 2 minutes, however being in them is fun while it lasts and they have some serious firepower though I think the best thing about them is just the spectacle of seeing this huge thing thunder into the map oh and the explosions are awesome too, I swear I took so many screenshots of exploding zeppelins.

Ooohh that's a good one

I spent most of my time playing the conquest mode with friends as that’s all that seems to be played these days but was intrigued by the new Operations mode similar to Evolution from Battlefield Vietnam. Operations take players across an entire front of the Great War in a sequence of connected rounds, with one team attempting to push the frontline forward by conquering ground while the other attempts to defend their position. The next map played depends on the outcome of the previous one, and the attacking and defending sides will switch accordingly. This was great fun when doing it as it is much more realistic and you have an intro and can see how the battle progresses. The only problem with this is that not many people play it, most of the time when we tried there was not enough people to start the operation. I also tried out War Pigeons which was pretty ridiculous  when you’re hastily writing a note then throwing a pigeon in the sky in a hail of gunfire with your allies madly running around trying to defend you but I guess that’s how it was.

The Operations selection main screen

One thing about this game I was impressed about was the graphics, it’s probably the only thing I really enjoy the Battlefield series for as it’s gotten kind of stagnate, I mean the Frostbite 3 engine looks great though I don’t know how much better we can get. In this game actually I though they looked a bit over-the-top and colourful, especially with the ‘Friends in High places’ campaign where there were explosions of sky and clouds and colour everywhere though I digress, Battlefield isn’t exactly known for being subtle, if it was a movie I suppose you could compare the war stories to a cross between a Baz Luhrman and Michael Bay film. That said, everything looked great, the amount of details was crazy as with most Battlefield games these days and now that I have a 27 inch 2k screen with Gsync its gonna be even better, in fact I don’t even think I’ve played it when my new screen yet. The multiplayer maps are nothing less of amazing with rolling hills of green grass or poppies, and hellish crater-pocked landscapes of mud and blood (like the first singleplayer campaign) Of the initial maps a few stood out including Empire's Edge and St. Quentin Scar both of which have beautiful countryside landscapes in Italy and France respectively. As before I loved the maps which had the full range of vehicles, I did get sick of maps that came up all the time including Ballroom Blitz and Argonne Forest which was the only infantry-only map though it still had the Armored Train as the behemoth.

Although I didn't like Argonne Forest, it still looked pretty good

Playing with friends is the same as usual though it’s slightly different again with the menu’s you can sort of add each other as a squad through Origin to make sure you’re all in the same squad when you go into the game, it took a bit of working out to get right, then choosing a server is something else again, from the main menu you can choose four options. The first Operations, which are new to the Battlefield series, these are a series’ of maps in the same theatre of war set out like a storyline with the attacking team pushing the frontline forward until they conquer the map while the defenders must reinforce and keep hold of it in a mode similar to Rush. This mode looked very exciting as it would seem practical to play a series of similar maps together while taking part in a grand storyline though sadly this mode just doesn’t get enough players, they all just seem to just go to the regular servers and play conquest like they always have.  There is still the others modes such as Rush itself, the entertaining War Pigeons and Team Deathmatch but these are played sparingly with most people going straight to the server browser and playing Conquest as before sadly. As I mentioned before I enjoyed going Medic, Scout and Support and shying away from the Assault class only because it’s the one that doesn’t interest me but then again it's the one with all the anti-vehicle ordinance this time around. I do miss being Support and hanging out of the chopper repairing it as this has now been replaced with the Pilot and Tanker classes being able to self-repair, so it’s basically same-old conquest mode and I’m again seeing myself playing around with the Scout and Support toys such as the K Bullets, Trench Periscope, Mortar and Crossbow Launcher.

With my Trusty Hammer I can repair anything

In regards to the expansions the only one I have been able to play extensively is They Shall Not Pass which introduces the French Army and arrived with new maps, new weapons, new vehicles and the Trench Raider Elite Class. Among the new vehicles was the ever-popular Saint-Chamond Tank and the new Char 2C Super Heavy tank which is classed as a behemoth and boy is it fun when you can actually get in it though I’ll admit not quite as fun as the Rattetank from the BF1942 Mod Forgotten Hope Secret Weapon, man that is something else. In the launch there were 4 news maps with the expansion though I was disappointed to find out that two of them were infantry only maps. Soissons with its sunstroked fields is a great map especially for planes and I’ve had plenty of aerial combat rounds there, Rupture is a bit more gritty but the red poppies are a nice touch. Verdun Heights is a rather large infantry-only map set in the artillery-blasted forest of Verdun and Fort De Vaux is basically just Operation Locker. This was annoying that when you just wanted to play the new French maps you had to contend with two infantry-only maps where there was only one out of the 10 that were on release for the main game.

Squad work on the new French Expansion Rupture map, I play as medic mostly.

Unfortunately I have not been playing the game much at all in the past months as this is due to the rise of the infamous Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds and my usual ‘squad’ of buddies are now firmly entrenched with this game with some being discouraged with BF1 and uninstalling it altogether including my friend who was once so happy for it, so any foray back into it would most probably just be on my own. Which is a shame because I did originally purchase a premium account which automatically game access to the rest of the expansions, In The Name Of The Tsar, Turning Tides and Apocalypse all of which are now released, so I will definitely be having another delve in to see these at least once. So on the whole Battlefield 1 is ok though it’s far from the Battlefield 1942 HD remake we’re all hoping for and sadly I think if it ever gets created it will just be same old thing as Battlefield has been since BF3 and won’t have the magic that made the original one so special.

JD

6/10

Things I liked:

Old-school feel of WW1 theme

Entertaining new vehicles and gadgets

Amazing graphics

Server browser included

Behemoths were fun and a good addition to the game

Things I didn’t like:

Same old Battlefield game with new skin

Not enough people playing new modes

Unrealistic take on WW1 especially in War stories

Support unable to repair vehicles while sitting in them.

Infantry-only maps should be abolished this Battlefield not COD

The original reveal trailer


My friend Brok's  Codename Eagle parody trailer

I miss helicopters because they haven’t been invented yet

My Usual Spiel - Minecraft Story Mode Season 1: More fun then a point and click adventure

Release date: October 13, 2015
Genre: Graphic adventure
Publisher: Telltale Games, Mojang
Developer: Telltale Games, Mojang
Platforms: Windows, macOS, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Modes: Singleplayer Only

I for one, have been playing Minecraft for a long time, almost since the start actually, if I can recall it was the Alpha 1.2.3_04 version from late 2010 and in case you’ve been living under a rock it’s gotten bigger and more popular than ever becoming a franchise with apparel/toys/home and office supplies and gadgets and other merchandise. It’s become so big in fact that the franchise has now qualified for a Telltale game. For those of your who don’t know Telltale Games  are a game design company that focuses on episodic gaming and digital distribution and is well known for their game series’ that are based on TV shows such as The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones, they have also brought their own style of game to other game worlds such as Tales from the Borderlands which is based in the Borderlands universe. As you can probably guess Telltale game focus heavily on storytelling with most of the player interaction comes from Quick Time Events and Dialogue wheels though simple movement like walking around and investigating an area is still allowed albeit with limited control and within a small area. This type of gameplay is often referred to as Interactive movies, the Dreamcast game Shenmue one of the first game to feature this type of gameplay and also Heavy Rain which was a launch title for the PS3.

The main menu, it all looks very clean.

When Telltale released Minecraft Story Mode on Steam I was at first not very interested as it seemed like it was for kids, then a bit later I looked at a playthrough of its and was impressed at the design but scoffed at its limited playability, then I decided in the end I might actually give it a go partially because it was on sale and partially because anything Minecraft I’ll try out. So I did, and I was pleasantly entertained, the visuals were great, who knew they could make a game with blocks look so good and not specifically the graphics just the designs they created in the game itself there was lots of thought put into every scene and it looked amazing. I found myself constantly thinking of how long each area would take to build in the original game though of course with mods like Worldbuilder large-scale projects are made much easier. I purchased the base game and also the Adventure Pass so I could access all 8 chapters of the story though though technically the first four episodes are one story the next 4 are a different story though with the same characters and setting. Most of the lore and the areas used are based on the main game, you even explore areas such as the Far Lands which is a name given to the supposed “edge” of the Minecraft worlds, though there are no traditional Villages all of the people, houses, towns and communities are created new for the series.

The Temple of the Order of the Stone

So we’ll start at the beginning, Minecraft Story Mode tells the story of the The Order of the Stone which is also the name of the first episode, the 4 members are Gabriel the Warrior, Ellegaard the Redstone Engineer, Magnus the Rogue, and Soren the Architect. The order were famous for defeating the infamous Ender Dragon and then faded into legend. You then get to create your character with limited options, I just went with the default white male character as it didn’t really matter to me, you also had options to different skin colours or a female character. You are then introduced to Jesse, a fan of Gabriel the Warrior and a poster collector who is preparing for the EnderCon Building Competition alongside their friends, Axel, a griefer, and Olivia, a redstonist, and Jesse’s pig Reuben. First off there is a brief scene in the friends treehouse where you are introduced to the characters and the dialogue wheel which is actually kind of stressful as you have a limited amount of time to reply and if you don’t someone takes it upon themselves to answer for you, in contrast to The Old Republic where you could stand around for hours staring at each other before needing to press anything and even press escape to re-do the conversation if you didn’t like how it turned out. 

You can view all of the episodes from the start, this is the screen from the first one showing most of the main characters including (from left to right) Lukas, Jesse, Olivia, Axel, Reuben and Petra

 You were then able to freely walk around and look and interact with things inside the treehouse, yes that’s pretty much the degree of control you have, walking around and looking at things in a smallish area. throughout the game you can interact with other characters while doing this of course and there are also parts of the game where you can look around multiple areas and rooms. ‘Jesse’ also has an inventory where you can place various items beginning with a humble wooden sword but can be a variety of things from old favourites from the base game like Flint and Steel to new special items acquired on the journey like the Eversource Crown. Unlike the original game you cannot ‘equip’ these items or use them at any time, they require a special circumstances often involving a quick decision and a bit of fumbling around trying to find the inventory key.

The scene is from episode five where the group are investigating Sky City , you can see the quicktime keypress prompts and the scene where you can control Jesse and walk around investigating.

Jesse and his friends then get caught up with a scheme by the (then) bad guy Ivor who creates a Wither with an intent to control it but it soon gets out of control becoming the Wither Storm and sucks up Gabriel along with hundreds of other blocks and becomes gigantic and the gang adventure to the Nether in order to find the Temple of the Order of the Stone. After this it was time for Episode 2: "Assembly Required" the main focus of the story goes to finding the remaining members of the Order of the Stone where you meet Magnus the Rogue and Ellegaard the Redstone Engineer, you had a choice during this episode to either go to Redstonia to find Ellegaard or Boom Town to find Magnus, I’m kind of regretting going to Redstonia though now found that the choices you make determine even what content you will see as well as changes in the story which was both cool and annoying as it means I might have to play it again sometime hah.

The Wither Storm split into 3

Now I’m not going to go through the whole story but basically you find Soren the Architect who is doing experiments with Endermen in Episode 3: The Last Place You Look and then set out to stop the Wither storm in Episode 4: A Block and a Hard Place and I gotta admit the last episode in that storyline was pretty epic. The next 4 episodes revolve around Jesse and his friends Petra, Lukas and the now semi- good-guy Ivor exploring an ancient temple then getting lost in a hallway of portals and needing to find the way home. This series was especially good as it focused on Minecraft culture and themes, Episode 5: "Order Up!" focused on the Skyblock mod for Minecraft where the gang is trapped on an island in the sky and discover a city with limited resources and where building is illegal. Episode 6: "A Portal to Mystery" is based on  a murder/mystery movie and features cameos from various Minecraft Youtube personalities including CaptainSparklez, LDShadowLady, Stampy Cat, Stacy Plays and DanTDM. Episode 7: "Access Denied" is mostly about Redstone engineering and malevolent ai, and the final episode, Episode 8: "A Journey's End?" features Spleef and is where they discover The Old Builders.

PAMA from the Access Denied episode

The end of the "A Portal to Mystery" Episode with youtubers DanTDM and Stampy Cat

What can I say about the graphics well they are probably the best part of the game, the scenery, the characters and the shading effects. I only recently started using shaders with Minecraft but it’s amazing what they can do, they just make the world much more realistic and atmospheric, you can really tell the time of day and what the weather is like. I spent most of my time marveling at the creations inside the game stuff that would take me months to do though technically even with just another 2 people it speeds things up greatly. Looking at the things I’ve seen on the culture section from minecraft.net and from the many servers I’ve visited I can come to the conclusion that more people = more epic things and besides someone developed the whole of Skyrim and other games of equal epic scope didn’t they? and that wasn’t made of blocks. So It’s simply the more people working at it the easier it is, I think it’s because I just keep thinking of how long it would take me on my own to build. The game isn’t completely true to Minecraft obviously and there are a few creative liberties taken especially with the characters which you would expect.

There were some pretty epic shots in the game.

As we all know your character in the original Minecraft has very limited body movement swinging his (or her) arms and legs apparently without any elbows or knees (or feet for that matter) and has no facial expressions whatsoever, so it’s obvious there would need to be a change. The character models have been modified to have working facial features including eyebrows eyes, and mouth which is no longer a flat surface and elbow and knee joints. The characters still looked pretty funny when moving but this was all part of the game.The soundtrack was pretty damn good there was a mix of ambient music similar to the original Minecraft music then there is the orchestral soundtrack plus a bit of custom intro music it was overall pretty good, I didn’t concentrate too hard on which music was already in Minecraft and which music wasn’t and also which sounds were new etc, it all sounded good with nothing out of the ordinary thrown in, not much else to say hah

I like this intro, the scene and music work well, you can also see how the characters move and speak.

It’s easy to tell the game is made primarily for kids, whole story and interactions never include any type of adult themes, nope no violence, sex or drug use here though it’s been done already in the base game thanks to zealous modders. You can almost play the entire game with one hand (cue wank jokes) and I admit I got a bit bored just watching the cutscenes and there were quite a lot of cringeworthy scenes. I felt compelled to interact with everything I could though this meant longer gameplay time. I found after a while I was counting down the episode till I finished but this was ok, the conversation choices were fun the quicktime events were easy as usual and failing in any way put you right back to the last decision or failed keypress. This is probably the advice for all Telltale games if you like good storyline and don’t mind dialogue wheels and quicktime events then this game is fine. Almost every biome, creature, item and block makes an appearance in Story mode and it’s great to see that Telltale and the Mojang team that worked with them have made this possible. I heartily enjoyed Minecraft story mode which was my first telltale game and will be back for the second season, I may even think about watching it again.

Had to include this awesome scene of the gang riding through the nether in minecarts

JD

Things I liked:

• Great graphics, smooth overall design

• Entertaining story

• Knowledge of subject area, items, lore etc

Things I didn’t like:

• Some cringeworthy dialogue and scenes.

• Needed more combat with other weapons, bows etc

8/10


That's right, here is all of the trailers for episode 1-7

RIP Reuben