Kevin He
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Press Start Latest Reviews
Super Meat Boy and Limbo; these are games that reward a player through failure. Those games were not afraid to show the player what they did wrong, and what you needed to do to progress. Failure was due to the player’s faults and mistakes. The failures you encounter in Monochroma are due to a poor physics engine and terrible controls. When it works and when puzzles mesh well, it’s still not very original. If you’ve played any of the platformers I’ve mentioned before then you have played Monochroma.
While the hack and slash aspects of Empires aren’t anything revolutionary, and the presentation still remains unimpressive, Empires contains some very well fleshed out modes that will have you sinking a lot of time into, if it’s your thing. Samurai Warriors 4 Empires is definitely worth playing if you are even mildly interested in the Warriors franchise and Japanese Feudal history, and if you haven’t touched a Warriors game since, is still worth a purchase.
The day/night cycle, widely touted by Techland to be a game changer isn’t quite what it’s hyped to be but it’s still a lot of fun. Night only lasts 7 minutes, but during early levels 7 minutes feels like an eternity, as the game turns into a pseudo-stealth genre. Volatiles come out at night, and they are possibly the toughest enemies in the game, able to sprint indefinitely after you and capable of killing you with a few swipes. Avoiding them is essential during early levels, and even in max levels they require a tremendous amount of effort and strategy to bring down. Playing at night was something I avoided at the start, as I wasn’t strong enough to last more than a couple of minutes, but soon enough it became less terrifying and very fun. Skill points are doubled at night, and when you hit high levels you need those extra points to level up. Starting a pursuit, luring volatiles and infected to a trap and setting it off nets thousands of points, and it’s very satisfying to survive a full night.
The majority of this takes place in Toki Toki City; the main hub on which you depart on Time Patrols (main quests), online/offline battles (up to 3v3) or Parallel Quests (side quests). There a lot of quests to partake in, and every now and then you can participate in quests involving bad guys. What if you fought with Raditz when he fought Kakarot or Piccolo? These delicious slices of ‘what if’ scenarios are an absolute joy to play and see as a DBZ fan, it’s just a shame that combat is frustrating.
There are so many additional elements to the game that will enlist another 5000 words to explain in detail, but the crux of the gameplay is that the main combat is fun if a little repetitive, that will definitely start to slog in some parts of the epic 40-50 hour storyline. However, the presentation of the game is wonderful enough to keep the gameplay engaging enough to see to the (bitter) end.
Speaking of linearity, the game has an annoying habit of pulling control away from the player to showcase an ‘exciting’ and ‘explosion filled’ event, like a railcar flipping over you, or you flipping off a railcar, or you generally flipping and falling off many things in general. It’s meant to invoke a sense of thrill and excitement, but it’s a well worn trope that got old when Modern Warfare did it (and I’m pretty sure that was the game that STARTED the trend) and it’s not exciting here.
[divider]CONCLUSION[/divider]As a huge Deus Ex fan, with Human Revolution being one of my personal favourites for the previous generation, it’s easy to look at Mankind Divided as a bit of a disappointment, as it falters in many aspects and lacks substantial improvements in other areas that previous games failed in. However, Mankind Divided is still an interesting exploration in sci-fi themes, with a solid narrative and some incredibly refined gameplay mechanics backing it up.
<img decoding="async" data-attachment-id="23670" data-permalink="https://press-start.com.au/reviews/2016/02/12/naruto-shippuden-ultimate-ninja-storm-4-review/attachment/b_story-11/" data-orig-file="https://press-start.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/B_STORY1.jpg" data-orig-size="2000,160" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="B_STORY" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://press-start.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/B_STORY1-300x24.jpg" data-large-file="https://press-start.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/B_STORY1-600x48.jpg" class="size-full wp-image-23670 aligncenter" src="https://press-start.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/B_STORY1.jpg" alt="B_STORY" width="2000" height="160" srcset="https://press-start.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/B_STORY1.jpg 2000w, https://press-start.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/B_STORY1-300x24.jpg 300w, https://press-start.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/B_STORY1-600x48.jpg 600w, https://press-start.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/B_STORY1-560x45.jpg 560w" sizes="(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px" />Having never played the previous Ninja Storm games, Number 4 tells an abridged version of the manga (and anime). For people who have never followed Naruto before, this is a quick and dirty way of catching up to the entire series, but the story given in the main mode is highly pruned and streamlined to the bare essentials. There are a lot of gorgeous cutscenes that carry the story well enough, and the well acted English AND Japanese voices add to the story. However, if you are a casual fan or one who barely dabbles in the series, this game isn’t necessarily the best starting point for you.<img decoding="async" data-attachment-id="23676" data-permalink="https://press-start.com.au/reviews/2016/02/12/naruto-shippuden-ultimate-ninja-storm-4-review/attachment/screenshot_0004_layer-1/" data-orig-file="https://press-start.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/SCREENSHOT_0004_Layer-1.jpg" data-orig-size="1500,400" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="SCREENSHOT_0004_Layer 1" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://press-start.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/SCREENSHOT_0004_Layer-1-300x80.jpg" data-large-file="https://press-start.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/SCREENSHOT_0004_Layer-1-600x160.jpg" class="size-full wp-image-23676 aligncenter" src="https://press-start.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/SCREENSHOT_0004_Layer-1.jpg" alt="SCREENSHOT_0004_Layer 1" width="1500" height="400" srcset="https://press-start.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/SCREENSHOT_0004_Layer-1.jpg 1500w, https://press-start.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/SCREENSHOT_0004_Layer-1-300x80.jpg 300w, https://press-start.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/SCREENSHOT_0004_Layer-1-600x160.jpg 600w, https://press-start.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/SCREENSHOT_0004_Layer-1-560x149.jpg 560w" sizes="(max-width: 1500px) 100vw, 1500px" />Bare essentials means, well, bare essentials. There’s a lot of back and forth and a lot of lost side plots as the game attempts to be the...
On a purely technical scale it’s impressive, watching thousands of units battle it out in what are mostly gorgeous backdrops. It’s something the Total War series always excelled in, and it’s especially fun to watch in the fantasy nature of Warhammer. In terms of pure graphical fidelity, it’s less impressive. While there have been an array of improvements in terms of environments and animations, it’s still quite repetitive in terms of assets used.
It should be noted that this is NOT a remake, and the gameplay has remained untouched from the original. While this can be seen as good, other people may note the lack of progress, the clunky controls, and the godawful camera. The camera is one of the worst things I’ve battled with since the heyday of Ninja Gaiden, and it’s a shame it has to be like this.