E-Book Release: Queen Of The Seven Spheres

There are many accounts of how Queen Joan Anais Volais came to sit upon the throne. Of how a bastard daughter of the House Volais came to rule the Seven Spheres. Many words have been written, yet more spoken. Few know the truth.

In one tale, Joan was smuggled from the royal estate to the sanctuary of Vallon, where she was hidden by a convent of the Sisters of Virtue. Other stories say she was disguised as a boy and taken to the free city of Ruelle, to be tutored by the legendary Knight Jean-Marc Coquard. The more outlandish tales speak of corsairs, of a young girl adopted by the scourge of the star lanes. And then there are those who call Joan the Daughter of Andraste, reborn in flesh to right a wrong and reclaim the throne from the traitorous House Bordas.

Only Joan knows the truth, and in Queen Of The Seven Spheres, she shares her eventful and exciting journey to the throne. From finding a home with a group of thieves and street rats, to joining a band of mercenaries in search of vengeance against the Bordas. From sailing the void with a rowdy pirate crew, to leading an army into battle. From servant, to princess, to Queen of the Seven Spheres, Joan travels far and wide in her quest to regain the throne in the name of House Volais.

Now Playing: Boneworks (VR)

I can’t recall the last time I told a game to f**k off as much as I did Boneworks. It’s a game that made me angry and frustrated. Boneworks also likes the smell of its own farts. All the ‘advanced VR concepts’ nonsense is just a lazy way to deflect criticism, as if anyone who doesn’t enjoy Boneworks must not be ‘skilled’ enough in VR. F**k right off. There’s nothing ‘advanced’ about anything Boneworks does. I’ve seen everything it does before and I’ve seen it done far better.

The campaign doesn’t get off to a great start with a self indulgent and irritating tutorial that goes on for far too long. The first few missions, despite the large, expansive environments, are incredibly linear and lifeless. The only ‘challenge’ I faced was trying to wrestle with the game’s fiddly controls and wonky physics. I’d say the levels get a little more interesting when you reach level 4 or so, but it’s a small victory for Boneworks that sadly doesn’t last.

 

As the missions continue they get increasingly short, linear and simple, culminating in a final mission that feels like it was cobbled together in about 5 minutes – which is also about how long it takes to complete. This leads onto a horribly designed ‘epilogue’ section (and absolutely terrible ‘boss’ fight) that I almost didn’t bother to complete because of how awful it is. The game also pretty much forgets any ‘puzzles’ about half way in and just relies on the shoddy combat to keep you engaged. Without it, each mission really is just a slog from A to B with the occasional hunt for a colour coded key.

The ‘story’ is a lame mixture of Half-Life and Portal – they even try to mimic the super gravity gun finale of Half-Life 2 but do so in an incredibly poor and lazy way. And leaving crowbars f**king everywhere in the environment isn’t clever or funny, and neither is the totally pointless ‘MELONS!’ nonsense which is a tragic attempt to recreate the cake memes of Portal.

For a game based so heavily on a physics system, they really needed to make it work at least most of the time. But I didn’t get through a single level or puzzle of Boneworks without some aspect of the game’s physics totally f**king up. And I’m sure someone might say it was because of my controls – that the game isn’t really designed for the VIVE wands, despite supporting them and including them in the tutorial. F**k right off.

 

When I try to move a box and my virtual body glitches me inside of it so I become a half-man, half-box hybrid, barely able to move or free myself so I’m forced to restart, I don’t really see how using the Index controllers would have saved me. Or when my arms glitch though a wall or ladder when I’m climbing and I plummet to the ground. Or when the game’s physics just don’t work in even the most basic of f**king puzzles.

To give a specific example, one early puzzle requires you to position barrels in an anti-gravity ‘leak’ to push a platform up higher and support it so you can safely cross. It’s so f**king simple, but when I started loading up the barrels, the platform above didn’t move. I ran around for about 5 minutes thinking I’d done something wrong, but I then recalled the earlier puzzle I’d had trouble with (and spoke about in my First Impressions post) and realised the problem wasn’t my solution (which was correct) but the game.

The physics were just broken, and I ‘solved’ the puzzle by standing under the platform and pushing against it myself which magically ‘unlocked’ it and it shot rapidly into the sky. At least in this example, pushing actually worked. Most of the time, if I wanted to push anything, the only way I could get something to move would be to charge at it and headbutt the f**ker. That always did the trick.

 

And that was my experience of Boneworks, its ‘puzzles’ and its ‘advanced’ physics system – they all kind of suck. And bloody hell, don’t even get me started on those little forklift things you can use to move boxes. Trying to push or even pull them where you want them to go is an absolute f**king nightmare. But the thing is, even if I hadn’t encountered all of these bugs and glitches, the puzzles – what few there are – would still kind of suck and the campaign would still be short, simple and totally disappointing.

Which leads me onto combat, which also kind of sucks. The gun selection is limited and although I wouldn’t say they handle badly, they don’t handle particularly well, either. Not compared to other VR games. And the melee combat? It’s pretty terrible. Enemies sometimes barely react to your strongest hits to their face with an axe, but flail wildly and die at other times if you so much as brush past them. It’s just shit. And because the combat is dodgy, fiddly and lame, I really have zero interest in the ‘Arena’ mode you unlock upon completing the campaign.

Overall, if it wasn’t clearly obvious, I kind of hated playing Boneworks. Even if I was using the Index controllers and the game’s physics system didn’t regularly shit the bed, the combat, the puzzles, the level design and the campaign are all pretty bad and have all been done better in other games. And that’s why I simply can’t recommend Boneworks. The most positive thing I can say about it is that I mildly enjoyed a couple of levels around the middle of the game. Just a couple of odd levels that were better designed and paced. But that’s all I got. I don’t plan on ever playing it again.

4/10

Now Watching: The Ring Collection

The original Japanese Ring (1998) is one of, if not my favourite horror film. I don’t typically watch or enjoy a lot of horror, they very rarely ‘work’ for me. I usually just find them silly or boring. But Ring? Ring never fails to unsettle me, no matter how many times I’ve seen it. I think it’s the sound, more than anything. Those little audio beats that put you on edge. I wouldn’t say Ring is scary, as such, but it does get under your skin. I think the reason why is how simple and grounded it is.

Ring, if you don’t know, is about a cursed VHS tape. A little dated now, perhaps, but like I said, I still find it very effective. The rules are very clear – once you watch the tape, you have seven days before you die. It’s a story set against a ticking clock, as our protagonist Reiko Asakawa must find a way to break the curse, not only to save herself but her young son Yoichi.

It’s a film that’s perfectly paced, beginning with Reiko’s investigation into what is, more or less, an urban legend shared by schoolchildren. But as Reiko discovers, this legend is real, and as the film progresses, she must trace the origin of this curse back to its roots in order to find a way to escape her inevitable fate.

We know Reiko is safe during these seven days, but as each day passes, the tension grows. Step by step, the mystery is revealed. And just when we think it’s over, and Reiko has successfully ended the curse, there’s a neat little twist to the tale. Unlike say, The Grudge (2002) or a lot of other horror films featuring angry ghosts, Ring abides very strictly by its rules and I think that’s why it’s more effective.

Although I quite liked The Grudge, I always found it a little silly how the ghosts could go anywhere and do pretty much anything. But the ‘monster’ of Ring – Sadako – has to abide by very strict rules and I find that far more compelling and unsettling. She doesn’t just pop up for cheap jump scares and you only actually see her at the very end of the film, but she’s always there, a lingering presence, just out of the corner of your eye, haunting those who are cursed. (9/10)

Ring 2 (1999) is, unfortunately, a disappointing sequel. There are some aspects of it I really like – the way it takes a minor character from the original and elevates them into the protagonist of this film, and the way the characters of Ring 2 attempt to perform a more scientific investigation of the curse in order to find a way to finally break it. That stuff is pretty interesting and not the sort of direction you’d typically expect in a horror sequel.

The problem Ring 2 has is that it’s very unfocused. Is it about breaking the curse (with science!) permanently? Is it about elaborating more on the origins of the curse and Sadako’s power? Is it about exploring the psychic potential of Yoichi and his connection to Sadako? It ends up being a little bit of everything but none of these aspects are explored or concluded in ways that feel particularly satisfying.

The film lacks the tension and unsettling nature of the original. I’m glad it didn’t simply try to do what so many horror sequels do which is tell the same story but with new characters. Ring 2 does attempt to advance the story and reveal more of the mystery surrounding Sadako and the curse. Unfortunately, it spends a long time meandering along and doesn’t really resolve very much by the end. (5/10)

Spiral (1998) is the alternative sequel to Ring. It was the first sequel to be filmed but, because it wasn’t well received upon release, Ring 2 was made to replace it. Spiral, unlike Ring 2, follows the plot of the book series Ring is based upon more closely, but as a result, it also doesn’t really feel like a sequel to the original film at all. Although some characters from Ring do appear, the film follows a new protagonist – Mitsuo Ando. And rather than focus on the VHS tape curse, Spiral instead focuses upon the concept of a ‘supernatural virus’.

I’d actually say I prefer Spiral in some ways to Ring 2 but ultimately, the film loses its way as it reaches its conclusion. It loses the simplicity of the original film – the seven day curse – and instead treats the curse more as a spreading disease that will ‘change’ people and bring about . . . human evolution? Wait, what? And now Sadako has been ‘reborn’ and can also give birth to fully grown men?

The ending of Spiral is almost like some kind of bleak apocalyptic scenario as Sadako and her supernatural plague are unleashed. It’s actually kind of interesting, in a weird sort of way, but I can’t say I care for it as a sequel. It feels like it would work better as its own thing. Ring, for me, was effective because of its simplicity. It was grounded enough to feel ‘real’. But Spiral just gets too wacky and weird for me to really take it seriously. (5/10)

And finally we have Ring 0: Birthday, which serves as a prequel to the series, with Sadako herself now our protagonist. I like Ring 0 quite a bit, even though I’d agree it’s not exactly a story that needed to be told. But though we know where the story is going – Sadako’s got to end up down that bloody well – the film does a good job of building her character and investing us in her story.

Sadako, even in the original Ring, was something of a ‘monster’ you could sympathise with, and I think that’s what makes her more compelling. In Ring 0 we get to see her struggle with her psychic abilities and trying to find her place in the world. But Sadako is haunted by her past and a fate that seems inevitable. Even though we all know how it ends, you still kind of hope she’ll find some way to escape.

And that’s the fun thing about Ring 0 – it’s not really a horror film, not in the typical sense. Because in Ring 0 you’re kind of rooting for the ‘monster’. Even when at the end, she goes full Carrie and starts murdering everyone, you’re kind of cheering her on because those f**kers kind of deserved it. Well, most of them, at least. (6/10)

Overall, Ring is excellent, and Ring 0: Birthday is a pretty decent prequel. If you want to watch one of the sequels I’d recommend Ring 2 before Spiral but, as I said, there’s still enough interesting and weird shit in Spiral to make it worth checking out. And, of course, there’s even more Ring stuff out there – the American remakes, a TV show, and more (terrible) sequels including a Grudge / Ring crossover.

It’s kind of funny how such a small, simple horror movie about a cursed VHS tape spawned such a massive franchise. But Ring really is that good. It’s just a shame nothing that followed it could quite hit the same high.

Now Playing: Shadow of the Tomb Raider

I enjoyed the 2013 Tomb Raider reboot, but felt there was far too much emphasis on combat and not, somewhat ironically, on tomb raiding. Spin on to 2016 and Rise of the Tomb Raider, a game which addressed many of my criticisms of its predecessor, but still left me feeling a little disappointed. And now we have Shadow of the Tomb Raider, the concluding piece of this reboot trilogy. The question is, is Shadow a step up from Rise, or a step back?

In my eyes, it’s neither – it’s a step to the side. It gets the same things right and the same things wrong. I feel like I could copy and paste most of my Rise review here and, aside from changing a few names here and there, everything I’d written would still apply.

 

Shadow sees Lara travelling to Mexico and South America as she once again tangles with the totally uninteresting Trinity organisation – a rather dull group of paramilitary bad guys who are obsessed with obtaining ancient, powerful artefacts. (I really hope that, if this series continues, this is the last we ever see of Trinity) Lara, in an attempt to prevent Trinity from stealing another artefact, inadvertently triggers a Mayan apocalypse and she must now find a way, not only to stop Trinity, but to prevent the catastrophe she’s unleashed. 

The plot, overall, is pretty decent and I’d say I enjoyed it more than Rise. The main villain is a little more fleshed out but, without getting into spoilers, it does feel like he’s a character who should have been introduced in Rise and then expanded upon here, especially considering certain revelations regarding his connection to Lara’s father. That stuff is somewhat glossed over and rushed as it was clear the writers wanted to wrap up any loose plot threads before the end of this trilogy.

But whilst the main story and missions are all fun and engaging, the side missions are a mixed bag ranging from decent to dull, with some pretty bad VA – so bad in fact, that I just started skipping all the side quest cut scenes and just figured out what I was supposed to be doing from the text on the quest marker.

 

Like Rise, Shadow is a game of ‘hub’ areas that you can explore, each with collectibles to find, riddles to solve, optional tombs to raid and ancient crypts to explore. Like Rise, they also overdo the collectible stuff a little too much to the point that maps can sometimes feel like collectathon marathons as Lara races from one item to the next and you soon stop caring / reading about the relics you’re picking up.

Like Rise, Shadow also uses an XP/crafting system, which also means you’ll be gathering resources in the world to upgrade your gear and weapons. I don’t really mind the skill tree system for unlocking new abilities, but the crafting just feels kind of pointless and if this series does continue, it’s another thing I’d like to see scrapped.

Visually, Shadow of the Tomb Raider looks pretty damn impressive – the environments, lighting and attention to detail. It’s a game I never got tired of admiring each new location I came upon. It really is a fantastic looking game and that’s one aspect I can’t really fault.

 

The tombs in Shadow, both as part of the main story and the optional ‘side’ tombs, are all pretty fun, although do suffer from the same problems as those in Rise in the sense that they’re all far too linear and far too easy. Navigating the tombs is, more or less, simply a case of following a linear path from A to B and solving the occasional puzzle along the way. There’s not really any sense of exploration or investigation involved.

I’m not saying I want a tomb with endless backtracking and ridiculously obtuse puzzles, but I’d like something a little more elaborate, thoughtful and clever than what we’ve got. That’s another thing that I’d like to see improved upon if this series continues. I played the ‘definitive edition’ of Shadow which included several post-release ‘challenge’ tombs and some of these, though short, did seem to be taking steps in the right direction.

The combat in Shadow, like Rise, is kept short and sharp, with more emphasis on stealth, although if things do kick off, you don’t need to worry – enemy AI is pretty basic and easy to defeat. There are a number of ‘set piece’ moments in Shadow to enjoy – I say ‘enjoy’ rather than play because they’re more like roller-coaster rides that you can sit back and watch, only needing to press the occasional button.

 

And a lot of Shadow, like Rise, really is just about following the linear path and pressing the occasional jump / grab button at the right time. There’s not much sense of risk, or of needing to time a jump properly. It’s all a little easy and relaxed, despite Lara’s grunts and groans. And I guess, like Rise, that’s my main criticism of Shadow – it’s all a little easy and simple and it never really challenges you, not in terms of combat, platforming or solving puzzles.

Overall though, I still thoroughly enjoyed playing Shadow of the Tomb Raider and I think that if you enjoyed Rise, you’ll also enjoy this. But if you didn’t like Rise, I wouldn’t recommend it because it is, more or less, just more of the same. I don’t know how successful Shadow was and if we’ll see this series continue, but I hope we do, because I certainly want more Tomb Raider adventures.

Ditch Trinity, scrap the crafting, build more elaborate tombs and puzzles to explore. Give us a more global adventure with multiple countries to visit to loot – sorry, protect – ancient artefacts. No more ‘end of the world’ dramatics. And give us a Lara who’s a little more cocky, adventurous and not quite so haunted by the past. Let her move on and just enjoy doing what she does because what she does is pretty damn cool.

7/10

Boneworks: First Impressions (VR)

I hate to say it, but I’m kind of disappointed by what I’ve played of Boneworks. I’m about 4 hours into the game, and I can’t honestly say I’m enjoying it very much. I could probably stop playing it today and I really wouldn’t care. But I won’t. I’ll keep going, keep playing in the hope that the game will improve.

Boneworks is an interesting mixture of puzzle platforming and combat. You play as Arthur Ford, who must enter the virtual city of MythOS to . . . reset the system . . . or something? I don’t really know and I’m not sure it really matters. Your goal is to simply progress through each level from point A to B, solving physics based puzzles and fighting holographic enemies.

In terms of story, style and tone, Boneworks is clearly trying to be evocative of Half-Life – crowbars and (robotic) headcrabs – and Portal – quirky humour (MELONS!) and scrawled warnings /clues on the walls of each level. And that’s fine, even if it’s not entirely original. The problem Boneworks has isn’t really with its style or story. It’s, well, pretty much everything else.

Boneworks has a lengthy tutorial level that talks about ‘advanced VR’ concepts, but there’s really nothing that ‘advanced’ about anything that it’s doing. Free locomotion, physics based combat, a virtual body and climbing mechanics – I’ve seen these done in other VR games and frankly, I’ve seen them all done better. And I guess that’s the heart of the problem here – it’s not as if these things are done badly in Boneworks – they’ve just been done better in other games.

Melee combat, for example, is incredibly fiddly. Simply holding your weapon at the angle or in the kind of grip you want can be a challenge. It should be noted that I’m playing Boneworks using VIVE wands, and not the Index controllers the game was obviously designed for. Nevertheless, I don’t have any issue playing Blade & Sorcery with my VIVE controllers and I don’t know why the developers of Boneworks didn’t utilise a similar system of weapon grip / control as that game.

And then we have ranged combat involving various guns, but aiming with these guns can be (literally) hit and miss. The gun models, animations, sound and feedback from each weapon simply isn’t as good as say, Pavlov VR.

The physics of Boneworks, which is such an integral part of the design, can also be pretty wonky. I really don’t know why they felt that nearly every object in every level needed to be physics based. It’s not nearly as impressive as the developers seem to think it is. For example, you might walk over to a desk to pick up an object upon it, but as soon as your virtual body touches the desk, the whole bloody thing flips over like you’ve crashed into it. Or, even more annoying, the dodgy interaction ‘aim’ results in you grabbing the entire desk and not the object you wanted to.

The challenge for me in Boneworks, at least so far, hasn’t been the puzzles or the rather brain-dead enemies – it’s been the wonky physics and awkward controls. I feel like I’m continually fighting against the game just to do the most simple things like picking up an item or holding an axe in the right direction.

During the first big puzzle in the game, I thought I’d figured out the solution, but when I tried to push a particular object, it didn’t work. After much frustration, I eventually realised that my solution was correct, but I had to move the object by pulling … or rather awkwardly dragging the object behind me, because pushing simply refused to work.

Everything in Boneworks just feels a little rough, awkward and wonky. It’s not that great visually – the environments are big, but pretty empty and lifeless. The music is kind of irritating. The VA isn’t very good and the audio quality is strangely poor. The combat isn’t very satisfying. The puzzles aren’t that challenging in terms of design.

The only real challenge I’ve faced in Boneworks is fighting against the game itself to simply walk, run or climb in a precise way – without my limbs getting stuck or glitching through objects. It’s been pretty frustrating to play but, I’ll keep going. I’m hoping it’ll get better.

Now Playing: Saints & Sinners (VR)

The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners is a VR survival game. It shares a similar comic book visual style to the Telltale Walking Dead series. The colours are subdued, the lighting is gloomy and the ambient sound is largely silent. Saints and Sinners doesn’t exactly ‘pop’ visually or audibly, but it does do an effective job of immersing you within this moody, land of the dead.

You play as The Tourist, a survivor who enters the flooded city of New Orleans in order to locate the ‘Reserve’ – a secret bunker full of guns, ammunition, food and medical supplies. But you’re not alone in searching for this hidden cache. There are two other groups of survivors in the city, and neither of them are particularly friendly.

The game has a simple, but effective structure. Each day you will venture to one of several locations around the city. Each location is unique, some set within residential streets, others within commercial / industrial areas of the city. Your goal in each location will vary depending upon what you need – you may have a quest to retrieve a particular item, or you may be in search of specific materials to complete a crafting recipe or upgrade.

 

The locations aren’t massive, but they are highly detailed and each features at least 2 main internal areas to explore, often with multiple entry and exit points. Your time in each location will, at least initially, be limited. The other survivors in the city use a system of bells to manage the herds of walkers roaming the streets. If you’re still in a location when the bells ring, it’s time to run.

So you’re on a clock, but once you’re familiar with each location (and you’ll likely visit each location at least twice during the course of the game) you have more than enough time to search every loot hotspot on the map and return to your cozy, comfy school bus before it gets dark. I know some people won’t like the time limit, but as you progress through the story, there will be days when every location will be free of the timer, giving you all the time you want to explore.

The timer does put pressure on you, particularly in the early game when you’re not well equipped to deal with a zombie horde. You need to scavenge materials and craft items if you’re going to survive. There are three crafting facilities at your home base, one focusing upon food and medicine, another upon guns, and the third upon melee weapons. As you upgrade each crafting bench you’ll unlock new recipes and character abilities – such an increased inventory, greater health or more stamina.

Every day that passes also sees a reduction in the loot you can find, and an increase in the zombies roaming each map. There is obviously a limit to this, otherwise the game would eventually become unplayable, but it’s certainly best to maximise your scavenging early on when supplies are more plentiful – so I’d recommend crafting that backpack upgrade as your first priority.

 

You can progress through Saints and Sinners at your own pace – there’s no time limit on any of the main missions, although a couple of side quests will fail if you don’t complete them before the end of the day, so be careful of those. You can choose to spend your days scavenging and fighting other survivors, or you can focus on the main story quests – or, as most people likely will, you can do a bit of both.

The main quest isn’t particularly substantial and can be completed within a few short hours if you’re intent on just rushing from one mission to the next. And the quests themselves aren’t particularly complex, with the objective of nearly all of them being simply to retrieve an item from a location and return. It might not sound very exciting, but it’s actually a pretty decent main quest, propped up with some very good VA. It’s a shame it’s not more substantial, that we don’t get to spend more time with or better develop the few characters with whom you interact. But it’s still, overall, an engaging and enjoyable quest, one which will vary somewhat depending upon the choices you make.

Once you complete the main quest you can continue to explore the world, looting, fighting and scavenging as you please. But once you’ve unlocked all of the various recipes and upgrades, there’s not really much left to do but see how many more walkers you can kill in various bloody and brutal ways.

Saints and Sinners is a deliciously gory game. Despite the comic book style, it doesn’t shy away from the brutality not only of killing walkers, but other survivors. Thanks to the VR platform, there’s no ‘press X to kill’ style attacks, because every swipe, swing and stab is tracked via your controllers. So you can grab a walker’s head and stab up, down or from the side. You can cut off their arms and leave them rolling about on the floor. You can stick a pistol in their mouth and pull the trigger. You can smash a baseball bat wrapped with barb wire into their crumbling craniums.

 

The game allows for a variety of (sickeningly) creative kills. You can’t cut their legs off, sadly, watching as they crawl slowly towards you, which seems like a strange omission in a zombie game, but overall, the melee combat feels solid. It is physics based, so the weight of each weapon and the strength of your swing / stab is taken into account. It’s not as in-depth as something like Blade & Sorcery, but it’s very enjoyable nonetheless. The guns, compared to the melee weapons, feel a little weak both in feedback and audio.

Overall, Saints and Sinners is the best VR game I’ve played at the time of writing. It’s a fairly lengthy experience if you take your time to explore and upgrade / craft everything. I clocked over 20 hours on my first run and it’s a game I’ll most certainly play again in the future. It does have a few bugs and issues – the most annoying being that the SteamVR chaperone grid won’t display in game – so a few more patches to polish and improve would be most welcome.

It’s also a game I’d like to see a more ambitious sequel to – a continuation of the story of The Tourist. A sequel with a more elaborate story and missions, a greater sense of player choice and more npc interactions. Saints and Sinners, despite its flaws, is a strong foundation to build upon.

7/10