Kevin He
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Press StartLatest Reviews
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.
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.
Adding a sweet cherry on an amazing cake, Platinum have put Nintendo costumes into the port, letting you play as Princess Peach, Daisy, Link or Samus. Not only are these cosmetic changes, but they actually have gameplay effects. You can actually use Samus’s arm cannon, Link can block attacks with her shield and halos are rupees instead, and the two princesses can summon monsters instead of wicked weaves. I can’t think of any developer that would go to this much effort, and it’s just a genuine delight to see how much work has gone behind the port, and that absolutely zero percent of it is locked behind paywalls.
Some puzzles are genuinely interesting and require some actual thought, for the most part they’re quite straightforward. What’s more remarkable is the two brothers’ interactions with the world. Dozens of events happen in this world, and like the naive younger brother, the gamer would be naturally drawn to attempt to interact with other characters, animals and objects in the world. Simply sitting on a bench to admire the view is in itself breathtaking.
It’s a tricky situation, as Superhot is currently being priced as roughly $25 AUD for a game that amounts to a couple of hours (excluding the extra modes). However, the extreme fast paced nature of Superhot means that not one moment of the game feels bloated or overlong. Every second in Superhot feels like it belongs there, and it’s refreshing that a game is able to strip down to the bare elements and come as far superior to the bloated masses of games that tend to shove too much in their games for the sake of extending gameplay.