The Clayton Awards 2020

Game of the Year 2020 – Half-Life: Alyx

'Half-Life: Alyx is an excellent game, an excellent prequel to Half-Life 2, and an excellent set up to Half-Life 3 which, given the post credit scene, now feels like the inevitable next step, VR or not.'

'If you already own a VR system then it’s a must buy – it’s a new standard by which all VR games will be compared.' (Full Review)

Most Disappointing Game of 2020 – Metro: Exodus

'Exodus, if I’m being really harsh, feels like a mistake from start to finish. A mistake in terms of story, mission design and level progression. It feels like the developers realised their mistake at some point but by that time it was too late to turn back, so we end up with a messy game that feels cobbled together with inconsistent quality and a rushed and unsatisfying conclusion. ' (Full Review)

Now Playing: The Outer Worlds

If you’ve read my initial impressions of The Outer Worlds you’ll know that, despite liking the RPG mechanics and finding a lot to like about its setting and style, I wasn’t really enjoying the way the game structured its quests, and I wasn’t finding myself particularly engaged by its narrative or characters. I was hoping that, as the game progressed, The Outer Worlds would finally draw me in and make me care about this world and the people within it. Unfortunately, The Outer Worlds never quite managed to do so.

I don’t want to spend this entire reviewing dunking on The Outer Worlds because there is a lot I like about it. As I said in my First Impressions post, the way the game handles the various player skills and ties these into both dialogue and quest choices is very impressive. I love how many options the game gives you as to how you can go about completing the various quests. I also really like the dual nature of the main quest line which is essentially split – if you’ll excuse the simplification – between the ‘good guy’ and ‘bad guy’ path.

As disappointed as I am by The Outer Worlds it’s still a game I might return to again in the future to play through that ‘bad guy’ path and see just how much I can f**k up the game world. I liked the little ‘epilogue’ scenes at the end which give you a sense of how your choices impacted the future of the Halcyon colony and, perhaps more importantly, the people you met along the way. Purely from an RPG standpoint of choices and consequences, I can’t really fault The Outer Worlds. It has some of the best quest variety determined by player choice / dialogue / skills I’ve seen in a long time.

The real problem with The Outer Worlds is that, despite the cool, Firefly inspired ‘space western’ setting, the impressive RPG systems and the solid, if not particularly inspired combat, very little of it is interesting to play from a narrative standpoint. It is, to put it simply – kind of boring.

Although I like the setting and the humorous approach to characters and quests, it results in a story that you can’t really take seriously because the game never really takes anything seriously. It’s far too glib for its own good. Firefly was a show full of humorous touches and characters who could see the funny side of serious situations. But it knew when to tone down that humour and casual approach because, like The Outer Worlds, it was, at heart, a pretty dark setting where bad shit goes down more often than not.

 

The Outer Worlds lacks that serious, darker edge that would really complete and make this a world worth believing in and – more importantly – fighting for. It’s just so tongue-in-cheek about everything to the point that if the game doesn’t really care, why should you?

The quests, as I described in the FI post, typically adhere to a repetitive structure that doesn’t really evolve from one world to the next. And the game doesn’t break quests down into sub-objectives the way it really should, instead preferring to create separate quest entries based around a single location. This isn’t a major issue, more of a reoccurring annoyance, but it results in a situation where you stop caring so much about the content of a quest objective, and instead just want to clear it in order to reduce your ridiculously expanding quest log.

 

The crew you can recruit on your travels are a pretty bland and disappointing bunch. They ain’t the crew of the Serenity, that’s for sure. You only really get to work with and know two of them prior to their recruitment but the rest just kind of join you because . . . well, just because, I guess. None of the companion quests are really any good either. I wouldn’t say they’re bad, but they suffer from the same problem as so many of the quests in the game – they’re just so by the numbers and bland.

In terms of quest narratives, there’s nothing here you haven’t seen and played before. Do you recall that mission I talked about in my FI post? The one with the missing worker? Even before I entered that damn house I knew it was cannibals because of course it f**king was. It always is. The Outer Worlds never surprised me. It never really took a risk or presented me with difficult choices. It was all too obvious, too clearly structured and too damn easy.

The Outer Worlds feels like a real missed opportunity. The underlying RPG design and combat works well and I like the setting as a whole. But the game doesn’t strike the right narrative balance, it relies far too heavily on safe and familiar quest design, and it doesn’t do enough to connect you to this world or the people within it. You never really care about what’s at stake or who might live and die because the game doesn’t really seem to care, either.

 

As a result, you just run through it, disconnected from the narrative and the choices you’re making. I can appreciate the underlying systems and mechanics, but when the narrative aspect of the game is so damn dull, that doesn’t really count for much.

I’m certainly not going to write off The Outer Worlds as a bad game. It’s not. And, like I said, I might even give it another shot in the future and try out the other major path. It might be a lot easier and more enjoyable to play as a ‘bad guy’ who doesn’t care about the world, people or consequences when the game doesn’t seem to either. Hell, maybe that’s the way it’s intended to be played.

Overall, The Outer Worlds is a mixed bag of solid mechanics and an interesting setting, let down by tired, safe and predictable quests, rather shallow characters and a real lack of a darker edge that would prevent the world from feeling like a pointless joke. I’d still recommend checking it out (on sale) if you’re really into choice driven RPGs, but otherwise, give it a miss.

5/10

Cyberpunk 2077: First Impressions

With nearly 40 hours clocked, I figured it was time to drag myself away from Cyberpunk 2077 and share my initial impressions. I guess the question is: does it live up to the hype? To the 8 years of anticipation and excitement? The answer to that question will really depend upon your own expectations. What game did you want Cyberpunk 2077 to be? 

It’s not GTA: Cyberpunk. The open world isn’t a chaotic sandbox and you can’t go bowling with your cousin. It’s not Yakuza, with 101 mini-games. It’s not like The Elder Scrolls, in which you play as an entirely blank slate. Cyberpunk 2077 is, at its heart, an open world Deus Ex game with a dash of Mass Effect and (believe it or not) the original Watch_Dogs. It is, for the most part, exactly what I wanted it to be. So yes, for me, it does live up to the hype.

But does that mean it’s perfect? Hell no! I’m already compiling a list of all the things I feel the game could improve upon. Cyberpunk has plenty of rough edges – and I’m not just talking about the bugs and performance issues. In some ways, I wish Cyberpunk was a little more GTA-like, at least in the open world sandbox aspect.

The civilian npcs only seem to exist in three states – walking, fleeing or cowering in terror. And they all share the same ‘cower’ animation, so it’s pretty funny watching large groups of them all crouch and cover their heads in perfect unison. The npc car AI is also pretty terrible to the point that I wonder if it exists at all. They don’t react if you crash into them or even park your car in the middle of the road – they just stop and stare at you. They don’t try to drive around, honk their horns, yell or swear. 

And then we have the police who, if you happen to catch their attention, randomly spawn into the road and take pot shots at you until you leave their field of view at which point they forget you exist entirely. Cyberpunk 2077 could also do with some Yakuza style mini-games of its own. Some fun little activities in the world you can enjoy between missions – gambling, old-school arcade games, shooting ranges etc.

I wish I could preview clothes before I buy them. I wish I could have more than 3 active weapon slots. I wish I could customise my ride and my apartment, or change my hair style. I wish I could have more than one grenade / consumable type active at a time. I wish some characters had more to do, more missions and interactions. I wish the ‘life path’ choice actually had more of an impact on mission / dialogue choices.

 

So yes, there’s a lot of areas Cyberpunk 2077 can improve upon beyond just fixing the bugs and performance. The good news is that the core of the game – the really important stuff – the general gameplay, the story, the characters and the quests are all fantastic. The foundation is solid. It’s now just a question of how they build upon it going forward. 

I can’t say the bugs have really impacted my enjoyment of the game (at least so far) – of those I’ve encountered, only one caused an issue with a side quest in which I was unable to interact with an npc. Fortunately, it was an optional objective so I was still able to complete it. Aside from that, every other bug I’ve encountered has been visual / animation related – npcs popping into existence, characters walking through the floor, cars floating in the air, animations failing to trigger so characters appear to ‘slide’ their way to their objective and, most amusingly of all, T-Pose enemies.

Performance has been . . . okay. I’m playing at 1080p with a 1080 on High settings and getting between 45-60 FPS depending upon the environment / situation. It’s not perfect, but it’s perfectly playable and I’m pleased to say I’ve not had a single crash. That said, a friend of mine who also picked up the game couldn’t even launch it without it crashing, so your mileage may vary depending upon your hardware and your settings.

Despite all the open world issues, Night City is, without a doubt, one of the most incredible open worlds you’ll ever experience. It’s vast. It actually feels like a city. 40 hours in, and I’ve barely scratched its surface. It’s visually stunning, vibrant and the attention to detail is fantastic. And the city is absolutely full of content – so much that it’s almost overwhelming. 

And none of this content feels like the typical open world ‘filler’ that you might expect. Every side job has a story attached. Every one feels unique. Yes, they do mostly follow a similar set of core objectives revolving around killing someone, rescuing someone or stealing something, but every location and challenge is unique in how they’re set up. Some are short, but others are longer, more elaborate affairs that later lead onto more missions.

And even the ‘crime’ side content in which you must take out various gang members across the city serve a fun purpose – they give you the perfect opportunity to try out new weapons, cyberware and abilities. 40 hours clocked, and I’ve still not even cleared a single district of the city of side content. And I want to do all of it, because everything I’ve done so far feels worth doing. None of it feels like filler. None of it feels tacked on to artificially extend the experience.

I think one aspect of the game everyone was concerned about prior to release was the combat. But, funnily enough, that’s now the least of everyone’s concerns. The combat is really good. You have a great range of options available to you with regard to weapon types and abilities allowing you to build your character to fight in a way that feels fun and satisfying for you. I’ve been focusing on pistols and revolvers and having a real blast. 

The ‘hacking’ aspect feels very Watch_Dogs as you can ‘quick hack’ not only enemies but various environmental objects. You can take control of cameras, mark enemies, distract patrolling guards, trigger overloads, disable enemy weapons or even blind their optical implants. Sometimes, enemies try to hack you and do the same – although, sadly, not very often.

V, who you play as, isn’t a blank slate but more like Shepard from Mass Effect. They have their own personality, but it’s a personality you can shape through your choices. Make no mistake, V is very much a character in Cyberpunk 2077. They’re not like an Elder Scrolls / Fallout mute weirdo.

Oh hell, what else? There’s so much to talk about in Cyberpunk that I’m not sure what else I should cover here or save for my review. Maybe I should just wrap this up. I could talk about this game all day – all the things it does well, all the things it doesn’t and all the things it can improve upon. Yeah, I think I’ll leave this here. It’s a little scattershot, I know, but I’m sure I’ll be able to put together a more coherent review when I’m ready.

Now Playing: Halo 3: ODST

This is the first time I’ve played ODST and I had quite a shock when I started the game and realised that it’s played in first person. ODST originally released in 2009 on the 360 and, for a reason that now eludes me, I always believed it was a third person game.

I don’t know how ODST was sold and marketed on release but playing it today, it feels like an expansion pack to Halo 3. It’s very short, and the missions almost feel like content that was cut from Halo 3 and repackaged into this game.

ODST is set during the events of Halo 2 and the Covenant invasion of New Mombasa. I always wanted to see more of that setting in Halo 2 so I was glad to return to it here. You play as the ‘Rookie’ a new member of a squad of orbital shock troopers on a secret mission to extract a high value target from the city.

The game is structured in a way that’s kind of unnecessary and annoying. Your drop into New Mombasa doesn’t exactly go as planned and you find yourself on the streets of the city at night, separated from your squad. As you’d expect, your objective is to link up with your missing squad mates – Buck, Dutch, Romeo, Mickey and Dare.

As you move through the city and engage small groups of Covenant forces (but not any elites which I found a little odd, because weren’t the elites still fighting for the Covenant when ODST is set?) you’ll find ‘clues’ that trigger a flashback mission for each member of the squad showing what happened to them after the drop.

These missions are all fun and varied with a mixture of on foot and vehicle action. But they’re also all very short – you can blast through the missions in under 2 hours quite easily. But, when viewed as an expansion, and given the low price of entry for this PC version – only 3.99 – I’d say that’s still pretty good value given the replay value if, like me, you’ll be playing solo and in co-op on the various difficulty levels. 

My real problem with ODST is the ‘Mombasa Streets’ level you play between the proper missions. Once you complete one flashback, you’re back on those same streets with a new waypoint leading you to the next clue and the next mission. It’s an open map with various routes but it can be a real slog as you’re forced to plod your way from one end of the map to the other.

It’s easier not to bother fighting enemies on the way because it will just slow you down. I really didn’t enjoy playing the Streets level between missions. It just felt like pointless padding to drag out what is a pretty content shallow experience. All you’re doing is running from one waypoint to the next in order to unlock the next mission. I was so bored doing this and as much as I might enjoy replaying the actual missions in ODST, I don’t ever want to have to trudge my way through the Mombasa Streets level ever again.

The story is short and we don’t really get enough time to get to know our squad, but it does enough to keep you engaged and curious to see where it’s going. If you like Halo 3 then I’d certainly recommend picking ODST up, but don’t set your expectations very high.

6/10

The Outer Worlds: First Impressions

I’m having a real hard time trying to decide if I like The Outer Worlds or not. With more than 20 hours played and roughly half of the game completed, I’m still on the the fence, so I thought I’d post my initial impressions and try to figure out exactly why I’m struggling to get through it.

The Outer Worlds is a sci-fi first person RPG. You play as a recently de-thawed colonist in the Halcyon system. It’s a setting that’s clearly had a lot of thought and attention put into it with a wide and varied range of corporations, characters, environments and technology. There’s clearly a Firefly inspired ‘space western’ style to it as you recruit a rag-tag crew of mercenaries and bounce from one frontier world / outpost to the next in search of ever more lucrative work.

The game is very bright and colourful (although arguably a little too garish at times) and takes a rather laid back, not-too-serious approach to its setting, missions, characters and dialogue. And dialogue is a big part of The Outer Worlds, with all of your various speech skills (persuade, lie and intimidate) playing a key role, in addition to various other skills such as medicine, engineering or perception.

I really like the dialogue system and how so many of your skills come into play when interacting with others and opening up new ways to approach or complete missions. As far as the RPG mechanics go in terms of building your character with different skills and perks, I really can’t complain.

When you’re not talking you’re going to be fighting and, once again, I don’t really have too many complaints about the combat system. You have a decent, if somewhat limited, selection of weapons, all of which can be upgraded or modified. The armour / clothing options may not be great, but they do the job. Overall, the combat isn’t anything special but it’s solid and fairly enjoyable.

So I like the setting, the style, the RPG elements and the combat. So why am I struggling to like the game as a whole? After a lot of thought and consideration I think I’ve finally figure it out – as unique and interesting as the setting may be, I feel like I’ve done this all before.

 

The first world you land upon has two main factions. You can choose to help one – at the expense of the other – or you can try to broker some kind of agreement between the two. The second major world you land on also has two main factions. And, once again, you can choose to help one – at the expense of the other – or . . . I think you get the point. 

The missions in The Outer World feel so uninspired and by the numbers. I had one quest to find a missing worker who was last seen in a house in some nearby ruins. I entered the house and was immediately confronted by an odd couple who invited me to stay for dinner. Cannibals, obviously. I knew because I’ve played this mission before in so many other games.

And that’s the real problem I’m having with The Outer Worlds. Despite the unique setting, there’s nothing unique about any of the missions you undertake. They all follow the same repetitive patterns from one location to the next, with similar options and outcomes. And they’re not, I hate to say, particularly exciting from a narrative standpoint.

It certainly doesn’t help that The Outer Worlds often splits what should be sub-objectives of a single quest into multiple quests tied to a single location. I find myself having to check my quest log far too often in order to keep up with exactly what quests I’m doing and where so I don’t have to continually backtrack to locations I’ve already visited. 

The companion characters who you can recruit also feel very shallow. You only really get to know two of them prior to their recruitment and the rest just kind of join you because . . . well, just because. I’m hoping they’ll become more interesting as I explore their personal side quests but we’ll see how it goes.

For now, I’m going to continue slogging my way through the rest of The Outer Worlds in the hope that it expands and evolves into a more engaging and unique quest experience that actually does justice to the unique and engaging setting. It’s been pretty frustrating so far, I have to say. There’s so many aspects of the game I like, but the entire experience is dragged down by such bland and by the numbers quest design. I really hope it improves.

Now Playing: Star Wars: Squadrons (VR)

Star Wars: Squadrons may not be a VR exclusive title but, with 45 hours clocked at the time of this review, it’s become the VR game I’ve put the most amount of time into. And although I have tried playing a few missions out of VR, I can’t say I enjoy the game half as much when I do. Playing in and out of VR are two very different experiences. Once you’ve played Squadrons in VR, you really can’t go back.

The feeling of being in the cockpit, the increased situational awareness and the sense of scale all combine to build an incredibly immersive VR experience. But, as I’m sure I’ve said before, there’s a big difference between VR exclusive and VR supported of which Squadrons falls into the latter category. 

It doesn’t support VR motion controllers but this isn’t a surprise given the lack of assignable keys / buttons. I guess you could argue that the cockpit should be VR friendly and allow you to flip switches and press buttons within the VR space but for that to work, Squadrons would have to be built from the ground up for VR.

I played Squadrons with a 360 pad and, although not as immersive as a proper flight stick might be, it did the job, at least for me. And I do think VR gave me an advantage over other, non-VR users – it’s so much easier to judge distance when manoeuvring around or between obstacles, and it’s so much easier to track targets when you can just . . . turn your head. 

But the fact that Squadrons is only supported in VR and not exclusive does lead to some unfortunate drawbacks. The first is visual fidelity. Whilst the game looks sharp and the textures look high resolution out of VR, in VR is another matter. This is most noticeable when looking at the background star fields which in VR look like a low resolution jpeg stretched across your vision.

It’s not too noticeable when you’re engaged in the action and tracking targets but when you do notice it . . . ugh. The characters and ships also lack the sharpness and detail when seen in VR. It feels like Squadrons needed a VR specific visual overhaul, not only to improve the overall quality, but to replace various textures which might look good outside of VR, but look rather low quality in VR.

The VR performance also isn’t perfect, and although I haven’t had too many issues, I’ve seen many other people who haven’t been so lucky. Obviously, the strength of your hardware will play a factor, but it doesn’t seem like the game is properly optimised across the variety of available VR headsets. Supported, not exclusive, remember?

Thankfully, despite the VR specific issues, Squadrons is still a blast to play. There’s a pretty decent single player campaign of 14 missions split between the Empire and the New Republic. It’s certainly not going to win any awards, but it does what it needs to in order to keep you invested and engaged. The two squads you fly with on both sides of the conflict have their own personalities and quirks, but you can’t really interact with them in or out of missions. 

The missions are fairly varied in terms of objectives, but there’s a lack of variety when it comes to ship types. I’m not just talking about the 4 ship types on each side available to you as a player, but the larger capital ships. We see a mon calamari cruiser, for example, during one of the prologue chapters, but it never appears again throughout the entire campaign.

Overall, the campaign serves not only as a decent tutorial system for all of the various ship types across both factions, but it also provides a pretty fun and replayable (thanks to various difficulty settings and mission medal rewards) single player experience.

Beyond the campaign are two modes – Dogfight and Fleet Battle. Dogfight is a pretty simple 5v5 multiplayer team death match mode with a score limit of 30. It’s a short, punchy mode that’s great for a quick fix. Fleet Battles, on the other hand, is the real meat of the multiplayer – a 5v5 objective focused mode in which two teams attempt to destroy the opposing team’s capital ship.

The mode can also be played solo or in co-op with and against bots, which is a welcome inclusion given that the MP may be dead in a year or so if Squadrons doesn’t receive the content updates it needs or deserves. Fleet Battles are at their best when your team works together, supporting each other and playing to the objectives which I’m pleased to say happens far more frequently than not.

The main problem with Fleet Battles right now is one of balance. Players have already discovered some, shall we say ‘optimal’ ship builds and tactics that can make these battles be incredibly one sided, particularly if you’re playing as the Empire. This has led to an annoying situation whereby players on the New Republic side are quitting before the match begins resulting in matches not being ranked due to the team imbalance. And ranking, as a whole, seems to be somewhat broken, even when you do finally play in a match with balanced teams. 

There’s some cosmetic customisation available in Squadrons but it’s really nothing to get very excited about. I can’t say I care too much given how little you actually see of your pilot or the exterior of ships in combat, but it still feels like they’ve given players the bare minimum to work with and called it a day.

I don’t know if we’ll see more content for Squadrons but I hope we do. I don’t see why the game can only be a ‘one and done’ or a ‘live service’ title as if there’s no middle ground in which it can thrive. I’d happily pay for a campaign or multiplayer expansion if it offered a few new ships, modes and maps. But even if Squadrons, as the content currently exists, is all we’ll ever get, given the reduced price, I’d still say it’s good value. And even when the multiplayer base inevitably runs dry, I can still see myself returning to it to replay the campaign or engage in Fleet Battles against the AI.

7/10

Gallery: Horizon Zero Dawn (Part 2)

 

Now Playing: Resident Evil 3 Remake

I recalled very little of the original Resident Evil 3 going into this remake so, like my review of the Resident Evil 2 remake, this review isn’t going to serve as a comparison of the original – not what it’s gained, or what it might have lost during the transition – but instead, a review of what we’ve got now.

And as much as I did enjoy playing this remake, I have to say I’m still quite disappointed by it. If I did have to make a comparison it would be that this remake is to Resident Evil 2 what Resident Evil Zero was to Resident Evil – a shorter, more linear, action focused but ultimately forgettable companion piece.

I played through the campaign three times on all of the initial difficulty modes. My first run, on Standard, even when exploring every map for every collectible and item, was still over in 4 hours. My second run on the easiest ‘Assisted’ setting to pick up the few odd collectibles I’d missed was over in less than 2. And my third run on ‘Hardcore’ wasn’t much longer. I didn’t bother with the difficulties unlocked beyond Hardcore because after three separate runs, I felt like I’d seen everything the game had to offer.

I can’t say I didn’t enjoy each of my runs and I liked the addition of the ‘coin shop’ which lets you buy various items and weapons to mix up your play as you progress through the various difficulty modes. But that’s really what the game is focused upon – multiple, multiple runs on higher difficulties and more challenging ranking objectives. If you’re someone who just likes to play through a campaign once and move on, you’re going to feel very short-changed by this remake. 

And to be frank, this remake does feel like it was knocked out on the cheap. It’s not just the length, but how much content is recycled from the Resident Evil 2 remake. The ‘sewer’ section in this remake may have a different layout, but it’s essentially the same environment you fought through in Resident Evil 2. You also return to the gun store from Resident Evil 2, and get to enjoy an extended return to the police station from Resident Evil 2. When a chunk of your game is just recycled content from the last and barely scrapes 4 hours in length, it ends up feeling more like a DLC.

And that’s the best way to describe how I feel about this remake – it feels like a DLC for Resident Evil 2. And I really liked Resident Evil 2, so I that’s why I still enjoyed playing this. But I’m damn glad I didn’t buy it at release or pay full price for it. That said, I picked it up at 50% off and I still feel a little ripped off.

The disappointing thing, is that this remake could have had so much more to offer – more locations, more puzzles and more sections where you switch between Jill ‘potty mouth’ Valentine and Carlos. We could have seen more of the city, more new locations and more new enemy types. The boss fights in the game are all pretty fun but also pretty easy once you’ve learnt the pattern. 

And that’s kind of the problem with this ‘multiple run’ approach to design – once you’ve done it once, it gets easier every time. There’s no more surprises and despite the increasing difficulty, the game actually just gets easier, particularly if you use the coin shop to unlock various health, defence and attack boosters, not to mention unlimited ammo weapons. And why wouldn’t you? It’s all the game really has to offer beyond your first run – the ability to unlock items that makes each repeat play even easier than the last.

Overall, I enjoyed playing this remake enough to play it through more than once, but by my third run, even I’d had enough. If you enjoyed the Resident Evil 2 remake then I’d still recommend picking this up but only on a significant discount.

6/10