Textbook of Gaming

For the second time ever, war has changed. The Fallout 76 beta has given players the opportunity to explore the world of the Fallout universe in a new MMO setup. Now you can roam the wasteland with friends, or maybe make new ones. Or, more likely, brutally murder everyone you meet for their tasty, tasty gun-food. The beginning of the game is a very familiar experience to any fan of Fallout ; spending approximately a million years creating a perfect avatar of yourself in the character creator. After that, it’s finding your way out of the vault and then your feet. What may be less familiar, and even daunting for new players, is the permanently locked hardcore survival gameplay. Disease, hunger, and thirst meters take up a large amount of the player’s pre-occupation when wandering the wasteland, no longer simply just rads, HP, and AP. You masochists out there probably love this – real post-apocalyptic survival! But for newer players, or those who enjoyed the regular experienc...

We’re taking Weekend with Indies in a slightly different direction this week, looking at a AA game released independently by Rebellion: the quirky and peculiar, co-operative shooter-slash-puzzler  Strange Brigade . Rebellion isn’t a stranger to co-op shooters, from classics such as the Alien Vs Predator series to a pulpy spin-off to their acclaimed Sniper Elite series called Zombie Army Trilogy . Their latest self-published effort follows in the same pulp science fiction vein as ZAT , taking players on an adventure through 1930s Egypt in pursuit of the evil witch-queen Seteki and her hoards mummified minions, minotaurs, and even pirates. As I said above, there are plenty of puzzles to be found in the game that are worth solving, because the secondary objective of Strange Brigade is acquiring artefacts, diaries, blue crystal cat statues, and all the gold that the player can eat. But between the player and their reward are the undead hordes of Seteki, from Skeleton Warr...

2011 was a stellar year for gaming, especially if you like action games. Batman: Arkham City received 10/10 ratings from numerous outlets; Skyrim released for the first time; Uncharted 3 , Gears 3 , Dead Space 2 , the list of critically acclaimed releases goes on and on. But there is one game that is missing from that previous paragraph, and I feel its exclusion is unjust, ironically. It’s a game that was praised for its ground breaking animation work, for bringing together such a wide range of game genres in such a stylish, atmospheric, and cohesive manner , and for its attention to detail. That game was L.A. Noire – a third person action adventure game set in the titular Californian city in the 1940s. The game comes from Team Bondi and Rockstar games, and like many of Rockstar’s other games, L.A. Noire is an open world affair. But instead of causing mayhem, the player is tasked with undoing it. They step into the shoes of Cole Phelps, an LAPD officer and former Marine, an...

It was quite a novel idea for DICE to put out the Battlefield V beta last week, what with the 1 st of September being the 79 th Anniversary of the Invasion of Poland and all. Once again, consoles and PCs roar with the sounds of Panzers, Spitfires, and explosions as soldiers – well, nerds – scream out for a medic. It could almost make you nostalgic, which is what Battlefield V is all about! The devs have worked hard to make the game feel more like the older titles in the franchise in terms of gunplay and teamwork. But have their efforts succeeded? Well, let’s start with the weapons, which feel far more lethal at close range than they have done in a while. The time to kill is pretty quick up close, faster than even Battlefield 1 , but it makes the game feel far tenser. It actually encourages you to play a bit more cautiously, sneaking across the map and positioning yourself tactically instead of charging headlong into the hail of machinegun fire. At range things get a b...

Oh look, a new Dontnod game… I know, I know, I said I’d give it a rest but I promise this will be the last one until I complete LiS2 ! Captain Spirit serves as a demo for the next instalment of the series, debuting in September, and is centred on the life of Chris, a 10 year old boy living with his dad in a snow covered, two bedroom house in rural Oregon. He also likes to fight the forces of evil as his alter-ego Captain Spirit! The environment art is utterly gorgeous, and sees the devs return to using the Unreal engine to its fullest. Snow drops off the pine trees, and the environments hold their trademark level of detail and painterly textures that made the original so eye-catching. The music, as ever with this series, is contemplative and complimentary to the visual style. Life is hard in Chris’ house. His mother passed away at some point in the past; Chris has immersed himself in comic books and make-believe adventures as a cushion for the blow, whilst dad has turne...

Let’s start this one off with an apology – I haven’t been writing over the past few weeks due to moving into a new place and a few personal matters to attend to. But that whole whirlwind of furniture, bills, and seagulls attempting to break into the dining room is behind me, and hopefully I’ll be returning to keeping this blog going once per week. And we start back with a game that has been on the back burner for a while . I’ve been meaning to do a review of Hellblade ever since it came out back in August last year but it continually slipped past me. That ends this week, with an in depth look into this tale of loss, Gods, and grief. Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice centres on the titular character of Senua, a Pictish warrior who has suffered from a severe personality disorder since childhood, referred to as the Darkness. The Darkness has grown worse, however, as her village has been destroyed and her lover, Dillion, killed by Viking raid. Senua sets off from the Orkney Isles to t...

Last week, Quantic Dream released the demo for David “I know Ellen Paige” Cage’s latest adventure game called Detroit: Become Human . The game is set in the near future where domestic, human like Androids are not only a reality but are also beginning to question their place in society. The demo is just one level from the full game entitled “The Hostage”, where the player controls Connor, an Android hostage negotiator working for the Detroit Police Department and one of the central protagonists. Together with the player, Connor must secure the release of a young girl who is being held at gunpoint by her family’s malfunctioning Android. We don’t get off to a great start; the player must pass a speech check with the on-site police captain to gain some initial information. This mostly gets the player nowhere, making the odds of Connor successfully negotiating the little girl’s release from the get-go either middling or poor. Thankfully, there’s plenty of evidence to peruse in order...

Last year Ubisoft revealed FarCry5 at E3 in the aftermath of an incredibly turbulent year. 2016 saw the election of Donald Trump, Brexit, and Europe wrestling with the largest migrant crisis in history and the following resurgence of far-right politics. It was within this maelstrom that Ubisoft decided to release a game that explored possibly the darkest aspects of American life: religious extremism, gun culture, and the isolated experience of many states. * MAJOR SPOILERS FOR FARCRY5 AHEAD * In case you’ve been living in a fallout shelter snuggled up to an AR15 and a tin of beans, FarCry5 is centred around the Project at Eden's Gate, a cult that is attempting to take over Hope County, Montana, in preparations for the end of the world, forcibly converting and pacifying the local population in order to further their goals. The cult takes inspiration from some of the most extreme real world examples of Christianity derived organisations, such as the Branch Davidians and the...