Wasteland 2

Welcome children! It is I! Your lord and master! Here to guide you through the dregs and detritus that has been spewed out on to the internet and in to our shops, things that make us feel that all hope for originality and inventiveness has been lost to the Warp.... But fear not! I bring glad tidings for I am filled with glorious purpose!

In all honesty I've been away doing many things that meant that a few things suffered in response to that, so I'm back! Permanently I hope as I will be doing a review every two weeks, but I am going to start with Wasteland 2, a game I picked up because it had a giant mecha scorpion on the Steam page.

I did not say that in jest.

First of all, when I started Wasteland 2, I had just come off a Fallout (Original top down view game) binge, which might be why I liked this game so much, that and this game is one of those titles that I am probably going to be spending a lot of time on.

So when you begin Wasteland 2, you can either pick from a group of characters that have been pre-made, or you can create your own characters, the latter of which is what I chose to do in this game, mainly because I liked the idea of my 70 year old primary school teacher Mrs Mullins beating a man to death with her bare hands.

Now! With Mrs Mullins and her group of hoodlums ready I began! And promptly watched a cut-scene of a man being buried. 

Usually I hate watching cut-scenes in games, mainly because it sounds like a group of amateur dramatics students trying to do a rendition of Othello, but this one actually went quite well, mainly because I was impressed that people still put live action cut-scene's in games.....and the speaker had a voice like golden syrup.

Wasteland 2 is a CRPG in the old style of CRPG games, meaning that not everything that you touch in this game is going to end well, like when I touched a can and a goat head butted Mrs Mullins, so remember that.

Having left Fucknuckle the goat and his hoard of hairy minions behind I emerged blinking in to the outside world and began walking to my first point of interest.

The outside world in Wasteland 2 is mean and nasty, and if you begin walking stock up on water and remember where all of the oasis' are otherwise you will die a horrible death. However, the map that you are wandering through is genuinely beautiful in it's own way.

Also there are radiation spots that are in the map, so I'd recommend avoiding them.

The combat is nicely fluid and works very well, it feels somewhat like a mixture of Company of Heroes and X-COM so you have to move your troops around to flank the enemy and try to avoid eating a bullet or twenty as they try to do the same.

The conversation window feels very reminiscent of Fallout which is always a good thing, you can type your own questions down which is always appreciated because it adds that level of immersion as far as I am concerned.

I can't really say more without delving in to how good and seamless the storyline is, because I want to keep spoilers out of this, and I want you to play this game and say what you think about it.

Pro's:

-Seamless Combat

-Dialogue tree's are nicely done and well voice acted
-Feels a lot like Fallout 1 and 2
-The AI keeps you on your toes.

Con's:

-Voice acting whilst good can be a bit over the top.
-If missing targets in X-COM annoys you then this will also annoy you.

Other games similar to this that you may like.

-X-COM
-Banner Saga.

Project Zomboid- First Look on an Early Access Game.

Hello weary traveller! Pull up a hand made seat and a warm can of beans as I proceed to tell you about the indie game that has gripped me like that bad case of food poisoning I got that one week in Uni that had me walling off the bathroom rather than clean it.

Welcome to Knox County! And Knox County is fucked.

Ever wanted to play a game where if you make an error in judgement, don't eat often enough or get cocky then the game is going to beat you to your knees and laugh at you whilst you spit out gobs of blood and bits of skin? Well here is Project Zomboid, the newest installment of "If you fuck up, you'll know about it."

When you make your character in Project Zomboid you have nothing but the clothes on your back, and you actually have less than that if you chose the handyman specialisation in the character creation screen, where you will be topless, not the best choice for the zombie apocalypse.

First off, you choose your map, the place where you will inevitably die, then you create the character who you will inevitably die as, choosing Male, Female, skin tone, weight, job, extra skills and most importantly - beard.

Then you wake up in the map somewhere and shit goes downhill from there.

First things first, there is no map, no HUD circle in the corner to tell you where you are, no you have to remember how you got to where you are going and how you are going to find your way back to your safe house before some undead bastard uses your skull for the Sunday league bowling tournament.

Secondly you are going to need to find a bag! Because you can only carry so many cans of beans and baseball bats before you get weighed down so any fucker can sneak up behind you and nibble on your neck...and not in the good way.

And then you are off! In to the wilderness of Knox County! Oh wait did you use a gun? Good luck mate, I'll time you to see how long you last after firing the first bullet....And you ran? You are just going to make them hungrier and angrier.

Zomboid is a game about tough love, there is a tutorial as soon as you open the game and you can call it up at any time. But when the first group of deadites come shambling through the door to your safe house lets see how well you remember to not run before using that bat to cave their skulls in, so you can save on stamina.

Now then, it should be a couple of days after you have first emerged blinking from the static caravan you spawned in and it's time to start reinforcing your safe house, time to go in to town and find equipment and tools if you haven't found them in the houses you've looted in the area...oh and be careful about smashing windows, some places have burglar alarms still on.

So then...Now that we have a little time now that you know what the difference is between your arse and your elbow, let's talk more about what you can do in Project Zomboid, starting with looting an entire house from top to bottom, using a hammer and nails together with planks to board up windows and doors, cook, farm, hunt.

Admittedly to get some of the necessary items for this you are going to have to go in to town, which is about as good as it sounds when used in the context of Zombie Survival game, because you are going to need things like a Fire Axe, seeds, a trowel and things that you probably won't have access to in your current location.

Electrical systems and Water systems will shut off after a random portion of time (You can decide on this time in Sandbox mode, along with what type of zombie you will be surviving against,) so your food will go rotten, and you won't be able to use the oven, microwave or fridge to cook or store food, so perishable foods are less than useful at that point...and you will have to learn how to make a fire outdoors.

So let's see what I have covered: If you run you'll get killed, if you use loud weaponry without checking your surroundings and having lots of ammo you'll get killed....eat bad food? Killed....Don't fortify your safe house? Dead...Don't take enough weapons to adjust for weapon degradation? Whoops!.....Don't check your surrounding before entering or exiting a place? Zombie food...

Well, aside from it being an early access game, there isn't much more to say about this game...other than I have spent over 110 hours playing this thing...so I would probably say that I do enjoy this game.

And in conclusion!: 

Pro's:

-I have been playing this game for over 100 hours and haven't been able to put it down for a long period of time.

-I have found this game to be incredibly tense when things start going wrong.

-It's being updated often so things are changing and there are lots of new thins being added.

Con's:

-It's in Alpha, I didn't really touch on it, but it is in Alpha, I have found a few occasions where the processor was chugging it's heart out trying to get it to work.

-Weapons degrade far quicker than I would like but that is just me.

Similar Games!:

Okay...now then, I'm trying to think of a few games like Zomboid but I can't think of any.... Well I guess you could play any zombie apocalypse game like Dead Rising and pretend it's your own character.

Shadowrun Returns

Hello and welcome children, come in to my parlor and let me tell you about a wonderful Computer Role Playing Game that had taken hours and hours of my life, leaving me as a smelly husk of a former university student.

Shadowrun Returns was a game I found on Steam some time ago, but didn't buy until I a) saw Total-biscuit's review of the game on YouTube, and B) I only bought it after climbing out of my X-COM dungeon because I was enthralled by the damn game so much that I felt like I had given up cigarettes all over again.

Shadowrun Returns is a fantastic game....that is about the crux of the matter when I talk about this, in fact I struggle to find anything wrong with it or anything it lacks, especially considering there is no voice acting to have fuck up, no video to crack the immersion or wobbly camera going behind the character when they move which is fluid enough to cause sea sickness (No joke, it happened to a mate of mine, he can't watch Cloverfield for more than 30 minutes at a time.)

So let's go over the story, you are broke and living in a bedsit when you get a message from an old runner buddy who has been slotted or died from drinking himself in to an early grave, that is for you to find out, but that is only the start, seeing as though this is a CRPG in the old style like Fallout and Wasteland, you are going to be finding out a lot about this world that is trying to kill you and wear your skin as a Troll tea cosy.

The combat system is very reminiscent of X-Com, in that you are moving in turns rather than in a constant flowing clusterfuck like Dawn of War or Company of Heroes, so you get a bit more time to think about what to do before getting your people in to cover and returning fire, as opposed to freaking out clicking everyone and killing the first thing that looks at you funny.

Conversation's are quite open and you can talk to anyone who is in the area as far as I remember, so feel free to talk to the people that have been created. And damn well you should! It probably took a lot of time to make these characters and their conversations!

Now in closing, I would heartily recommend this game, in fact I can't recommend it enough, watch a Total Biscuit WTF video of it if you want to see the combat and conversation system in play because even I with my lovely words can only describe it so well.

In Summation 

Pro's:

-The story is well written.

-The combat system, whilst not perfect, feels fluid.

-the conversation system is engaging.

Con's:

-This might draw you in quickly so book a few days off work.

-The combat system can be a bit clunky, and people don't get in to cover as they should

Medieval 2 Total War

After having played Rome 2 and Shogun 2 on Steam, both of which have made me incredibly annoyed with the games and also with Steam because of their lack of ability to read my main graphics card on my laptop, I have come back to the game that got me in to the Total War series.

Medieval 2 felt like it was an amazingly huge game when I first started playing it, that may be because it allows you to play as one of a number of countries during this era of western history from Britain, down past France and Spain to the top of Africa, across to Jerusalem and up to Russia, which constitutes the entire map.

So, when you first start you get to choose from a small subsection of the countries, after having completed a short campaign and finishing the objectives (Or a long campaign if you want to play as a starting nation) you can go through again and choose who you want to play as, almost to the extent where it feels a bit like FIFA where you can play as a 1st division team and try and get in to the premiership.

Ruling your kingdom is relatively streamlined, there are a few bits of micromanagement, for example you need to do taxes and the like, but only if you have a general in the city who can rule as a duke/baron, but if you don't then it will just go to auto tax unless you change it, which is nice because it allows you to just focus on building your empire or building your army, if that's your thing.

Moving on from the army, we can navigate directly to the combat, which actually functions like a real battlefield and army manager and simulator, for example, if the battlefield is covered in snow then your troops will get cold, move slower and the like, if it begins to rain then you will not be able to use archers as effectively and so on, which makes choosing the correct battlefield and correct weather to attack just as important as choosing the right troops.

This means that you can use the environment to your advantage, like positioning your archers on top of a hill whilst your enemies try and climb it whilst your light cavalry attacks from the flanks, which feels incredibly satisfying when done correctly.

Your troops also get tired, for example sending a unit of dismounted feudal knights running and screaming in to close combat like football hooligans on a night out might sound like the best form of attack, but you have to make sure that you haven't left too big a distance between you and the enemy so your men aren't shattered by the time they close the distance and hit like pensioners on sedatives.

Now, I understand that some people might prefer to do a campaign as the Romans, or the Oda clan from Rome or Shogun respectively, but to be fair, those 2 games have annoyed me, and secondly I am a big fan of medieval Europe, massively so, which is why, regardless of how long it has been since I last played it, I can slip back in to Medieval 2 and play as someone like Portugal easily, almost like slipping on a pair of comfortable shoes.

However, to the bad parts.

I hate the religion part of the game....that might just be a personal quibble but it's a pretty big one, but it can develop a major thing for you if you become excommunicated by the Vatican or have a jihad placed upon you, especially if you have a lot of generals who view being pious as a disease that needs to be destroyed. 

The AI from the enemy can be at times a little dim, I.E. sending a unit of horsemen around the flank and hitting the enemy in the rear can be amazing, but only if the AI picks up that it is having it's face torn off and responds accordingly, not standing around picking it's noise as my horsemen smash them in their faces with maces.

But those are the two small niggles that I have for an altogether fantastic title that I have been playing for years and will continue to.

Pros and cons:

Pro's

-Fantastic Battle System

-Great management system for your empire

-Moving around the map without actually doing anything can be a pleasure due to the gorgeous map

-The TBS part where you move around the map has FOW, which is really nice to have.

Con's

-I hate the religion system because I hate religion in general, but that's just me, I want to walk around a kick someone's teeth in without worrying if they have been invited to afternoon tiffin at the Pope's gaffe.

-AI can be thick on occasion.

Dredd

Harken to me peons and peasants, it is I, your God and master who has returned from the perils of the warp to lead you further as your God-Emperor, further in to this great and terrible time we call the future.

*Ahem*, now that I have that out of the way, here's my review on Judge Dredd.

Now then, if you haven't seen this film yet, you and I are going to fall out very fucking quickly, because I like this film, this film brought me out of the depressing haze of Iron Man 3 and certain sections of The Avengers (Yes it was a pretty good film, but if you try and tell me that S.H.I.E.L.D.  Was accurately depicted there then I am going to come around to your house and piss behind your sofa and put piri piri sauce on your toilet seat.)

So then, in this film we step in to the bullet ridden boots and pipe dented helmet of Judge Dredd in Mega City-One, whilst on a regular day in the job.

Before I go any further in to this review I want to tell people who are die-hard Dredd fans that they may not like this, but I liked this because of some of the slight differences between this Dredd-U and the regular Dredd-U, because it actually makes the city of Mega City-One feel more dilapidated and getting fucked up.

First of all, there is no Psy-division in this universe, Judge Anderson is pretty much a fuck up of a judge who is being given her last chance at becoming one because she is the most powerful psychic in the city and the chief judges have decided that they need her.....not sure why, the use of say for example Judge Rico (The clone of Dredd not his Brother), might have been a little bit better and would have made it a little more exciting.

Now then, Peach Trees is a self contained city come sky scraper which is being controlled by Ma-Ma and her gang, when she kills 3 people who were selling drugs on her turf she skins them alive and throws them over the balcony using Slo-Mo (I'll come back to that later), whereupon Aderson chooses that they go there and begin her testing.

From there things go from relatively alright from a judge's point of view to worse, to fucked over a bramble patch when the entirety of the city decends upon them like vultures upon a carcass, or rugby fans at the pub.

The technical aspects of this film and camera aspects of this piece are absolutely beautiful, and that is me being genuinely serious, the use of Slo-Mo is something that I have been wanting to see something similar to in a film for some time, the scene slows down, the colours become so much more vivid and even when a bullet slaps through someones' cranium it looks genuinley balletic.

Ma-Ma is quite a good villain, and is someone that I enjoyed watching just to see what she would do next to try and kill the judges, and the use of an old plot point from the Judge Dredd comics was a really nice twist I can imagine that some people who don't read comic's or Dredd were surprised to see that.

Overall I think that this film was an awful lot better than the Sly Stallone one, but I think that trapping my bollocks in a vice would be better than that.

Points of Good :

-Dredd doesn't take off his helmet 
-The difference in aesthetics of the costumes looks a lot better than the regular Dredd uniform.
-The Lawgiver handgun actually looks a lot more brutal and intimidating than the original Lawgiver, but also looks like it could work in reality compared to the Mk 2.


Points of Bad :
-Lawmaster looks a tad stupid compared to the comic version.
-I don't like Olivia Thrilby's acting in this film but that might just be me.
-Would have been good if they would have actually used more Judges and gone more in to the laws but hey, if you people will go out and buy the DVD's then maybe we can get a sequel out of this.

Doom 3: BFG Edition

Ahhhh Doom, id software's big number from back in the 2.5D era, and one of the big games that everyone still remembers...well if you weren't a spod when everyone else was playing this masterpiece, and now id has brought out the BFG edition to make my trousers tight and my journalistic gonads churn with anticipation.

So then, we step back in to the very comfortable boots of the "Doomguy" to wade through the legions of demons that stand between you and the Cyberdemon....and of course there is doom 2 and 3, so yeah it's pretty good.

Okay, so then, the original Doom, Doom 2 and Doom 3, along with the expansions and also a couple of extra levels for the original 2 games to pad the game out a little...that and get you some interesting stuff for completing those levels (Xbox is what I got it for, so avatar stuff for me!)

Doom 3 now actually handles with common sense, for those amongst us who never played the original Doom 3, I refer to the fact that you couldn't use a gun and a torch at the same time, I like the fact that I can have a torch when I am shooting at a guy....though I would have enjoyed having a rifle sight aswell, but thats just me.

 So then, there isn't much that needs to be said about the original Doom games, you ran, you killed, you got to the end of the level and moved on, getting progressively bigger weapons and going up against progressively badder asses.

Doom 3 wasn't really changed either, you get the flashlight mounting on your body armour, you still can't aim down the barrel of the gun to allow for more accurate fire, but that's just a little nit pick of mine, and to be fair it doesn't really change all that much.

Pros and Cons.

Pros
-It's Doom.
-I missed old fashioned shooting games
-I can carry around more than 2 guns...which is nice

Cons.
-Oh god the pixels....

If you liked this then you might also like
-Quake
-Rage
-Most other FPS games that aren't really realistic.

Preview : Metro: Last Light

Metro 2033 was a fantastic game, and one of the few games I regret trading in for the cavalcade of mediocrity that was Skyrim.



And now they are releasing Metro 2034 and everyone who reads this can colour me excited, now with this trailer that was recently released I find myself wishing more and more that I could pick up my Bastard and head outside into the frozen wastes of Moscow.

I felt that Metro 2033 got a lot of undeserved stick, I found it to be extremly intruiging as a concept and as a storyline, namely due to the fact that I wasn't in America now and the story had more depth than a spoon...Also I didn't run around with people calling me "The Chosen One" or the "Lone Wanderer"....also it was Fucking DIFFICULT!

Now to my friends I am one of the few people who actually enjoys playing Dark Souls, and I love playing games which make me put more effort into them and force me to concentrate...for one thing Metro doesn't actually have a HUD system, and there is no health bar, to find out how you are doing you have to listen to your heartbeat, which adds another dynamic.

Imagine if you will, walking down a set of stairs, you get attacked, you panic unload a clip into whatever is attacking you, but not before it takes off about half of your health, and now you have to go into the bowels of a train stationin the dark, with only your helmet mounted flashlight and your Bastard assault rifle for company...all the while you can hear your own heartbeat telling you that you are injured.

As an action game it was relatively average, but with certain nice little details, though as a horror and a survival game it is right up there near the top in my opinion because it makes you think, makes you worry about yourself and above all, makes you strategise about your surroundings and how to survive by planning, something that I truly love.

I am looking forward to this game so much it's untrue, I would recommend you buy/replay Metro 2033, I am going to pick it up at some stage today or tomorrow.