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