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.

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.