Steam Summer Sale: Damage Report

I probably would have picked up a couple more things in this sale if time wasn’t such an issue – but I know by the time I work my way through these, another sale will probably roll around.

First up is The Alters which I played a demo of during the Steam Next Fest last year and I didn’t actually finish it because I was sold on the game pretty quickly and didn’t want to spoil anything.

South Of Midnight was a game I thought I might pick up at release but I just didn’t have the time for it. It looks stunning in terms of visuals but I’ve heard more mixed opinions when it comes to gameplay.

And finally we have Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. I’ve said before that I’m not a massive fan of turn-based combat systems, not unless they offer a unique twist or are a top tier example of the genre. Everything I’ve seen about Expedition 33 suggests it may be both. I figured I’d better get stuck into this one soon before the internet spoils it for me.

Now Playing: Stellar Blade

I recently wrote a post about the demo for Stellar Blade in which I shared my first impressions of the game – most notably, the combat. But having now played the entire game, I’d say my initial description of the combat wasn’t entirely accurate. It was accurate for the demo, perhaps, but not for the way the combat of Stellar Blade evolves as you progress.

I said that Stellar Blade features a more slow, ‘reactive’ combat system than a fast, ‘proactive’ one. And whilst that is true during the early stages of the game when your available abilities are limited, once you complete the opening area and unlock several new skills, Stellar Blade’s combat does come to offer a more fast, proactive experience – one in which you can dictate the pace and be far more aggressive with your approach.

Nevertheless, Stellar Blade is certainly not a Devil May Cry or Bayonetta style action game and approaching it as if it were will only be detrimental to your experience. It touches lightly upon the mechanics of those games but it is, like I said in my previous post, a more potent mix of Dark Souls and Sekiro.

You have ‘camps’ (bonfires) at which you can rest, restore your health and your healing ‘flasks’, spend skill points and upgrade your gear – but which also re-spawn all enemies within the world. Like Dark Souls, the combat is far less mobile than DmC or Bayonetta, even when you’ve unlocked all of your skills. You may be able to blast your way through lesser enemies with ease later in the game but careful, deliberate timing (and energy management) is still key for tougher enemies and for the boss fights in particular – which I’ll touch upon in a moment.

From Sekiro, Stellar Blade borrows the ‘poise’ system and transforms it into enemy ‘balance’. Break an enemy’s balance by performing enough perfect parries and you’ll be able to perform a powerful ‘retribution’ counter-attack – essentially the ‘deathblow’ from Sekiro. But Stellar Blade is certainly more forgiving in terms of timing than Sekiro (and can be made even easier thanks to certain skills / gear upgrades), and more forgiving in terms of defeat than Dark Souls – you don’t lose anything upon death.

Whilst Stellar Blade may borrow various aspects from other games (and not just in terms of combat), it combines these aspects in a way that doesn’t feel as derivative as you might expect. The combat experience it offers is a unique beast all its own – a beautiful chimera, if you will – one I came to enjoy and appreciate quite a lot by the end . . . although it’s certainly not without its problems or potential improvements.

The game demands that you play a particular way to be effective – mastering timing is key. Perfect parries and dodges are the basis not only of your defence, but for creating openings you can then exploit. There’s a satisfying flow to combat but it does, I must admit, grow a tad repetitive before the end. Whilst the game does a great job of pacing out various new skills and abilities as you progress, there’s not quite the creative selection of combat options I’d want in a game like this. Using the drone as a ranged weapon within combat is fun, for example, but somewhat limited in terms of actual effectiveness.

You also get access to a couple of sets of energy limited ‘special’ attacks and these are also fun, but they don’t fundamentally change the way you fight. There’s also an ‘ultimate’ style time-limited ability that looks super cool visually but is surprisingly weak in terms of damage output meaning it’s not half as much fun to trigger as it should be.

What I feel Stellar Blade really needed (and I hope the sequel leans into) is a selection of new weapon types, each with their own move-sets and special attacks – heavy weapons with slow attack speeds but high damage, spear-like weapons with extended reach, or simply fast paced, dual wield sword sets. Not exactly original, no, but that’s the direction I’d like to see Stellar Blade take in a sequel – a variety of weapon types with their own strengths and weaknesses and ideal use scenarios to really mix things up and keep combat fresh from start to finish.

That said, whilst the combat doesn’t offer the variety or the creative options for the player I’d like, it does offset its somewhat limited scope by providing a fantastic and varied range of enemy types to fight. You’ll encounter new enemy types all throughout the game, each with their own attack timing and patterns. So whilst the way you fight doesn’t really evolve in the way that I’d like, the game finds other ways to keep you on your toes.

And that’s where the great boss fights come in – there’s so many satisfying and fun boss fights in Stellar Blade that it’s kind of ridiculous. They’re easily the real highlight of the game and where the combat system really shines as you’re forced to utilise all of your skills to succeed – well, you can spam some moves and cheese your way through to a degree, but it’s more fun when you really lean into the system and find your groove.

And the enemies look great. I love the designs. In fact, I love the look and design of the world and characters as a whole. There’s a few oddities here and there – certain looks or designs that don’t quite feel like they belong. But overall, Stellar Blade is a fantastic looking game with great environments and character models.

The game’s structure is split between more focused, linear levels and a couple of open world maps you can explore – and these are the two areas you’ll spend the most time within if you’re interested in completing the numerous side quests available. Most of these are very basic quests along the lines of ‘go to X, find Y’ but they do push you to explore very nook and cranny of the map.

And there are a handful of pretty good narrative driven side quests, and some even lead to fun optional boss fights. I had a great time working my way through them all and finding all the collectibles I could – especially the extra outfits for Eve and the cans. I also liked the odd platform section or simple puzzle to solve – it helped break up the combat. The side content even introduces the best character in the game – Clyde – who teaches you about fishing. No, I’m not joking, Clyde is easily the best character and must feature in the sequel.

Whilst the structure of the game does work quite well, the ‘point of no return’ (which the game does thankfully warn you about) seems to come very quickly and if – like me – you want to catch all those fish and finish all those side quests, you might find yourself putting the main story on hold for several hours before you get back to it. That’s something that really could have been paced out better.

Okay, so let’s move onto the weakest aspect of Stellar Blade and you’ve probably already guessed what it is given that I’ve described a fishing mini-game side character as the best character in the game. Yes, Stellar Blade has some bloody terrible characters.

The story of Stellar Blade, though clearly evocative of NieR Automata, is . . . fine. It tells its own story – it just doesn’t tell it very well. Describing it as ‘messy’ would probably be the nicest way to say it. But it does have some cool ideas and it’s really not the problem with the game because to me, the story isn’t the most important thing – the characters are.

Great characters can elevate a weak story but Stellar Blade is sorely lacking. Now, you might think I’m primarily talking about Eve because Eve isn’t a very good character. As I said in my demo post, she starts the game with the personality of a brick. But here’s the thing – I get what they were going for with Eve. She’s meant to be serious, matter-of-fact and somewhat naive – although her naivety too often comes across as her being incredibly thick.

But I at least see the intent with her character and she does, to a degree, begin to show some semblance of a personality towards the end of the game and in a handful of the side missions. It’s a shame because, as I also said in my demo post, a game like this really benefits from a strong character at its core.

But no, Eve’s not the worst character in Stellar Blade – that honour goes to Adam. Adam, the man with no soul. Adam, the personality black hole. I have no idea what their intent was with Adam. He’s as important to the plot as Eve is – arguably even more so for reasons I won’t spoil here. But he’s so damn boring. There’s just nothing to latch onto with Adam. No charm, wit or humour – he’s about as exciting as a bar of soap.

He needed to be more of a rascal – more of a Han Solo type. A thief with a heart of gold. Cliche? Sure! But he would at least act as an appropriate foil to the more serious Eve. Their partnership and what should be a developing friendship (if not romance?) throughout the game should be key, especially given what the game builds to at the end.

But there’s nothing. There’s no real relationship. It’s all so flat. Unlike Eve’s butt – and we can’t review Stellar Blade without talking about her butt because her butt has more character to it than Adam. It’s a shame her butt seems to be the main talking point about this game because there’s so many great aspects to it that deserve more attention.

I really like the outfits. Do they all fit within the world? Hell no, but who cares? It’s a video game! There’s plenty to unlock, some very skimpy, and others not at all. Some are just silly – in fact, I kind of wish there were more silly outfits like the Fluffy Bear suit. I guess the problem is, because Eve lacks a strong personality, she ends up feeling more like a plastic doll you’re just dressing up.

This isn’t helped by the game’s dialogue, a lot of which is absolutely f**king atrocious. It’s so bad it’s at least unintentionally funny at times. I can’t really blame the VA – they had to work with what they got and what they got was f**king terrible.

Overall, Stellar Blade is an excellent action game that may borrow generously from other titles in terms of combat and narrative, but it successfully forges its own path and builds its own unique identity. It is – as I said – a beautiful chimera, which is somewhat appropriate given one way the game can end. It has great visuals, animations and music. But it’s not a game without its flaws and I hope to see those flaws addressed in a sequel.

More weapon types and move-sets. A more considered and structured narrative. BETTER DIALOGUE. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD BETTER DIALOGUE. Give Eve an actual personality. More environment types. Improve the pacing of side and main content. I can see so many ways the sequel to Stellar Blade could take this foundation and build something truly spectacular upon it. Or maybe they just give us more butt. That will probably work too, but this series (if it becomes one) deserves to be known for far more than that.

8/10

Steam Summer Next Fest

Dispatch is a Telltale style narrative adventure game in which you manage a team of superheroes by assigning them to tasks that best fit their skills. The demo was very short, but it won me over with a fun premise, quirky characters and some very funny dialogue.

You get Telltale style dialogue choices to make and the ‘choices matter’ promise (don’t get your hopes up) as you play as an ex-superhero who must dispatch a team of dysfunctional ‘superheroes’ to tackle various emergencies across the city. The game is split between the animated dialogue scenes and the switchboard part of the job.

Each hero has their own strengths and weaknesses, so it’s important to pick the best hero for the task. I’m not quite sure there’s any real way to ‘fail’ at this because the demo doesn’t make it clear what the benefits or consequences are for success or failure, but we’ll see how it plays out in the full release.

Whilst I may have my doubts about the ‘gameplay’ aspect of this adventure, everything else I’ve seen has me interested, so I’ll certainly think about picking this up at release.

No, I’m not a Human is more interesting in terms of concept than execution – at least based on this limited demo. You’re stuck in a house because it’s too dangerous to venture outside during the day due to something going ‘wrong’ with the sun. And at night, the mysterious ‘Visitors’ roam the streets.

The idea is that every night people will knock on your door. You need to decide if you’ll let them in or not and if you do, question them and try to determine if they’re Visitors or not. If you suspect someone is a Visitor, you get the option to shoot them – but you won’t know for sure if you’re right or not until you pull the trigger.

 

There are different ‘tests’ you can try to use to figure out who’s human and who’s not. It’s all very simple but, as I said, more interesting in terms of concept than execution. It’s really a game about paranoia but it all feels a little undercooked. I’m curious to see if the full game can expand on the idea in a more meaningful way.

ERA ONE is a space RTS game that’s clearly inspired by the Homeworld series. Actually, to say it’s simply ‘inspired’ by Homeworld would be generous. Just like Tempest Rising was ‘inspired’ by C&C, ERA ONE is a shameless Homeworld clone and just like TR, I’m totally okay with that.

If you’ve played Homeworld then much of ERA ONE will be instantly familiar which is good, because the demo has no real tutorial to ease you into things. Ship movement controls, tactical view, research types, building modules, resource collection – it’s all here and exactly as you expect, and the ship designs are lifted straight out of Homeworld.

That’s not to say ERA ONE has no new ideas of its own – I really like the ship customisation and the modular mothership aspect. But this demo certainly wasn’t perfect – the UI is an absolute mess to navigate and needs some serious streamlining. The combat / movement speed is way to slow, and ship / turret health balancing needs a lot of work.

Slow really is the key word and the reason I didn’t ‘finish’ the demo – at one point I watched two opposing fighter wings going at it for nearly 8 minutes. I’m glad the basic fighters aren’t made of paper, but this shit just got tedious.

And, of course, Homeworld wasn’t just loved for its gameplay but its strong narrative and setting. It remains to be seen if ERA ONE can provide a story and setting that’s not just a shameless copy, but something original that stands strong on its own merits. I’ll be keeping a close eye on this one.

Now Playing: State of Decay 2

I reviewed the original State of Decay back in 2013 in which I described the game as ‘an ambitious title with a lot of cool ideas packed into it. Unfortunately, the execution of a lot of those ideas is slightly flawed in one way or another, which sullies the overall experience.’ It was a game I felt was deserving of a more refined and expanded sequel.

So here we, over a decade later and I’ve finally got stuck into State of Decay 2 which I’m pleased to say is a refined and expanded sequel . . . but also not quite the step up I was hoping for – and in some ways, something of a step back.

I could probably copy and paste a lot of my review of the original game here because so much of it still applies to this sequel – the good and the bad. Like the original, State of Decay 2 is a third person, open world zombie survival game with an emphasis on scavenging, base building and community management.

If you’ve played the original you’ll be right at home in State of Decay 2 because it plays largely the same. You have a team of survivors with their own unique skills, each of which can be improved by controlling them directly and taking them out into the field, or by training them at your base.

Your base serves as your primary safe zone in which you have a limited number of building slots to construct various upgrades to keep your survivors fed, rested and happy. There are multiple base locations on each of the available maps – some large, some small. But the larger you go, the more people you need, and more people means more resources consumed, and more resources required to survive.

You’ll find these resources out in the world, split between items you can use immediately, or ‘backpacks’ of a specific supply type – ammunition, medicine, building materials, food & fuel – that you can return to your base and add to your supply pile which is needed to keep your base operational.

Scavenging for supplies in a world full of zombies is obviously dangerous, but you can take a companion survivor with you for support, and you have plenty of weapons and tools at your disposal to even the odds. Scouting locations is key to know what resources may be available, but also if any zombie hordes are wandering nearby, or if a plague heart is active in the area.

The ‘plague hearts’ are a new addition to State of Decay 2. How many there are and how active they are will depend upon your chosen difficulty. They spawn zombie hordes that travel across the map and ‘infect’ locations. Over time, these infections grow and spread so if you don’t deal with them – and destroy the plague heart releasing them – you’re going to be in for a rough time.

Although I like the plague hearts, I’m not so fond of the ‘blood plague’ mechanic in which your survivors can get infected by zombies and die if they’re not treated. It’s not hard to treat the plague, but it is hard to avoid it – it becomes a little tedious having to treat infected survivors every time they tangle with a single zombie.

The main game mode in State of Decay 2 is ‘Campaign’ which acts as a sandbox mode in which you pick your survivors, pick your map, choose your difficulty and get to work. The goal of the campaign is to clear out every plague heart upon the map and complete a survivor’s ‘leader goals’ which vary depending upon which character type they are. It adds a fairly basic story aspect to the sandbox, but it’s nothing to get too excited about. Once you’ve completed the goals you’re free to depart the map and pick the next carrying all your survivors, gear and skills with you and start again.

It certainly adds more replay value to State of Decay 2 than the original, but it can get a tad repetitive regardless of map – even on higher difficulties, clearing out the plague hearts becomes a matter of routine. It also, sadly, suffers from the same ‘mission spam’ as the original, as other communities on the map come to you far too frequently with their requests.

Whilst you can choose to ignore them, these smaller communities do become beneficial over time once allied with your camp. I just wish they’d be a little more patient – I had a mission from one community who I’d helped on several occasions time out because I was busy with something else, so they contacted me on the radio, told me to ‘go f**k myself’ and disappeared off the map. Rude!

It wouldn’t be so bad if you could send your survivors out to help you deal with all these annoying little errands, but you can’t. In fact, your fellow survivors are kind of useless when you’re not directly controlling them. This is why I feel a little disappointed with State of Decay 2 and why it feels like a bit of a step back.

In the original game you could, at the very least, ask your survivors to collect backpacks you’d dropped if you ran out of space – but you can’t in the sequel. I was really hoping to see an expansion on the kinds of commands you can issue to your survivors, not a reduction. It would be nice if I could could tell them not to just collect a backpack, but to loot a specific location, or clear out an infection.

It would be nice if I could take more than one survivor with me on a run, or order my companion to search and loot a specific object. It would be nice if I could send them to deliver supplies to other communities. It would be nice if they could actually drive and I could direct them where to go so I could take a break.

It would also be nice if, when a zombie horde attacks your base, they didn’t rush out through the front door, leaving it wide open and try to fight every zombie in melee when I’d built perfectly good defensive towers for them to shoot from. I’m really hoping State of Decay 3 improves drastically on survivor AI and functionality because they’re kind of f**king useless here. Oh, and you know what else would be really nice? A proper co-op campaign mode!

Beyond the Campaign mode you also have ‘Heartland’ which offers a smaller, more story focused experience. It’s pretty fun and I enjoyed playing through it at least until the end in which you have to fight your way through these very annoying and repetitive ‘plague walls’. It is, at least for me, a ‘one and done’ kind of experience. There’s no reason to go back to it unless you’re desperate for every achievement.

And then you have ‘Daybreak’ which is a simple siege mode in which you have to defend an NPC against several waves of zombie attacks. It’s intended to be played in co-op but you can try it solo – just don’t expect to have much fun as the AI companions it gives you can’t shoot for shit.

Overall, State of Decay 2 is a solid, refined and expanded sequel, but it doesn’t really innovate or dramatically improve upon the first game in the way that I’d hoped. It fixes some issues I had with the original, but it also still suffers from some of the same problems, and it also introduces some new ones of its own. Like the original, it’s frustratingly close to being great. Maybe in the next one, eh?

7/10

Oblivion Remastered: First Impressions

As a massive fan of Morrowind and its expansions, I picked up the collectors edition of Oblivion when it released back in 2006 without hesitation. But I was, I must admit, initially somewhat disappointed by the game. I recall disliking the main quest and thinking the map was less interesting to explore than the weird and wonderful Vvardenfell.

Nevertheless, I still played Oblivion for a good few hundred hours split between my disc copy, and a digital GOTY edition I later picked up on Steam. Because whilst there were aspects of Oblivion I felt were disappointing compared to Morrowind, I did come to love Oblivion in other ways.

I may not have enjoyed the main quest a great deal, but I do recall enjoying my time exploring the faction and side quests. And although the general points of interest upon the map – old mines, abandoned forts, dank caves and ancient ruins – didn’t offer much in the way of reward or variety (but plenty of backtracking), the game possessed a unique charm that slowly won me over.

Oblivion is just . . . strange, in its own special way. It’s a game full of jank, of technical bugs, of wonky physics – but nothing game breaking. Just regular, unintentional hilarity. From buckets suddenly springing to life and breakdancing across a tavern floor, to NPCs ice skating down a road whilst swinging an invisible hoe . . . you never get know what you’re going to discover as you explore the wacky world of Oblivion.

And don’t forget the often bizarre NPC interactions. Or the very odd characters you meet who possess some of the most funny, inappropriately delivered or just bad – but in a good way – VA you’ll ever hear.

Oblivion may be a flawed game but it certainly possesses its own special charm. But honestly, it’s not a game I recall as fondly as Morrowind or as perfectly as Skyrim. I never invested the same amount of time into Oblivion as I did those other games. But that’s why I was excited to pick up this remaster. Oblivion is a game I’ve been thinking of returning to and this remaster has given me the perfect opportunity to do so.

The most striking thing about this remaster is obviously the visuals. They’re not perfect – there’s some odd issues with reflections in particular that need to be addressed – but overall, Oblivion now looks fantastic. The character models, despite a significant improvement in quality, still possess a familiar and goofy appearance.

This is one of those remasters where they’ve done such a great job with the visuals that it almost tricks you into thinking Oblivion always looked this good. It’s essentially what I always pictured Oblivion as looking like in my head – even though it never did. A few glitches here and there aside, I really can’t fault the visual overhaul.

 

Yes, you’re still playing Oblivion – warts and all – but you almost feel like you’re playing a new Elder Scrolls game entirely. This remaster is an upgrade that’s breathed new life into Oblivion in a way I wouldn’t have thought possible – a treat for fans of the original, and new fans alike.

There have been a few ‘modern’ tweaks to how Oblivion plays with a new levelling system, various improvements to combat and the ability to sprint but overall, this is still the Oblivion we all know and love because underneath all of the pretty visuals the original game still chugs away – all of the original jank, bugs and strange behaviour.

Within my first few hours of playing this remaster I found myself attacked by what I at first believed to be an invisible enemy . . . until I noticed the head of the NPC bobbing up and down from beneath the floor. Nothing a well timed arrow didn’t fix – and I knew this was still the Oblivion I loved.

Enemy AI is still terrible – particularly if you utilise stealth. But it is funny killing every enemy in a room one by one with a bow aside from one poor bastard who just stands there staring at his dead friends before boldly declaring ‘WHO’S THERE?’.

Will new players come to love and appreciate Oblivion for what it offers? I think they will as there is something very refreshing about it despite all the bugs and janky behaviour. It’s a game that offers the player so much freedom and doesn’t continually hold your hand. It trusts that you’ll figure things out on your own.

I never liked Oblivion as much as Morrowind or Skyrim and even though there’s so much of the game I’ve forgotten or don’t recall clearly, I’m not expecting this remaster to change my mind. But it’s certainly been fun playing it again. I don’t know when or even if I’ll write a full review because it feels a tad redundant given that this is – despite the visual overhaul – still the same game it was 20 years ago.

I still don’t really care for the main quest – I find the Oblivion Gate stuff pretty dull. The Fighters Guild quests are fine – if they didn’t continually send you bouncing back and forth across the entire map to pick up new contracts. The Thieves Guild is still fun – provided you acquire the Skeleton Key to avoid the tedious and excessive lock picking.

I’ve still got the Mages Guild and Dark Brotherhood to go (pretty sure the DB was my favourite back in the day), in addition to the expansion and DLC content and quite a lot of side quests. Maybe once I’ve cleared it all I’ll see if I’ve got anything more to say – maybe I will end up liking it even more than I did, or maybe I’ll like it less. I’m curious to find out.

E3 Special 2025

Not-E3 season kicked off with a surprise Sony State of Play showcasing a varied range of titles, but the only games that really caught my eye were Romeo is a Dead Man from Suda51, and Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls, both of which are slated for 2026, so let’s not get too excited, eh? I’m not a Bond fan, so the big 007: First Light reveal didn’t really interest me. There was also a tease for a Ghost of Yotei gameplay reveal in July which is . . . better than nothing, I guess.

Up next was Summer Game Fest. I wasn’t able to watch it live, so I just spun through all the announcements the next day. I liked the look of End of Abyss, Atomic Heart 2 (even though I’ve still not played the first one), Acts of Blood (AKA The Raid: The Video Game), and Ill.

I guess Resident Evil 9 was the ‘big’ reveal but the trailer didn’t show us much. Nor did the Death Stranding 2 cutscene, but there’s already been a fair bit of gameplay footage released for that one so I can’t really complain. There was also The Expanse: Osiris Reborn featured at the Future Games Showcase. As a fan of the show, that might be cool.

With so many of their heavy hitters not arriving until next year, I was expecting a more low-key Xbox and Bethesda Showcase and that’s exactly what we got. I can’t say it wasn’t a good show, but I was pretty disappointed because the one thing I really wanted to see wasn’t shown at all – the next Starfield expansion. Seriously, Todd, where’s my Starfield content?

But what did catch my eye? Well, Mudang: Two Hearts looked pretty cool, as did Clockwork Revolution. We got our first look at the Indiana Jones DLC – The Order of Giants. There was also Beast of Reincarnation, The Blood of Dawnwalker, At Fate’s End, Aphelion & Cronos: The New Dawn. Oh, and Keeper and Super Meat Boy 3D! Lots of good stuff.

We also got a release date for Ninja Gaiden 4 which I’m purely interested in because of Platinum Games . . . but with so many high profile departures from the studio over the last year, I don’t know if the magic will still be there.

And finally we got to see a lot more of The Outer Worlds 2. I wasn’t a big fan of the original (I reviewed it back in 2020), so I’m a little wary about this sequel, but everything I’ve seen does look good. Overall, a really good show (Starfield disappointment aside) even without the heavy hitters.

Now Playing: Tempest Rising

To say Tempest Rising is simply ‘inspired’ by the Command & Conquer Tiberian series would be generous to say the least because it is – unashamedly – a new C&C in all but name. And I’m totally cool with that. After the absolutely abominable C&C 4 all but killed the series, fans have been waiting for either a new entry, or a new RTS game to pick up the torch.

In C&C you can play as the GDI – a NATO-esque Western military alliance. Or as The Brotherhood of NOD – a cult-like organisation that covets Tiberian. In Tempest Rising you can play as the GDF – a NATO-esque Western military alliance. Or as The Tempest Dynasty – a cult-like organisation that covets Tempest.

GDI – GDF. The Brotherhood of NOD – The Tempest Dynasty. Tiberian – Tempest. The two Tempest Rising factions even, to a degree, play like their C&C equivalents – GDF is more focused on low mass, high tech forces, whereas The Dynasty relies more upon cheap, but plentiful units. But I’d say that, overall, there’s a closer technological balance between GDF and The Dynasty than GDI & NOD (at least in the early C&C games).

The plot of Tempest Rising will also be instantly familiar to any fans of C&C because it is, more or less, a rehash of the plot from C&C 3 – the two factions fighting it out on a global scale until the arrival of a new, third faction that’s connected to the Tiberian/Tempest.

In C&C 3 it’s the Scrin. In Tempest Rising it’s the Veti. But unlike C&C 3 in which the Scrin had their own mini-campaign, there’s no such equivalent for the Veti in Tempest Rising. That’s a shame, but I have a feeling we may see a Veti campaign added via DLC in the future.

I guess the question is – does Tempest Rising, by so strongly mimicking C&C, lack its own identity? I don’t think so. In fact, I’d say Tempest Rising does a strong job of building its own over the course of the two campaigns. It utilises the C&C framework to provide a solid and familiar foundation on which to build, one that should be appealing to old C&C fans waiting for something new.

I think it’s a pretty smart strategy, and I’m also pleased to say that the game doesn’t just try to copy what came before it – it has plenty of new ideas of its own. Both factions feature an impressive range of unit and building types that allow you to put together varied army compositions based on how you’d prefer to play.

And this isn’t a game where you can just spam a handful of units to win – you really do need to utilise and combine different units and their unique abilities to your advantage. The range of special unit abilities can seem a little daunting at first – in a fast-paced RTS, you don’t necessarily want to be juggling so many cool-down limited abilities across several units. But Tempest Rising does a decent job of easing you into things so you’re never overwhelmed.

Of the two campaigns, I’d say I enjoyed the GDF more as I feel they offer a better balance and variety of missions. I feel The Dynasty campaign is a little weaker, with too many missions relying upon you utilising small strike teams with more linear maps and objectives. There’s surprisingly little base building to be found in The Dynasty campaign – more often than not you’re working from existing bases or capturing enemy facilities.

Unlike C&C, which had its glorious live-action mission briefings and colourful cast of characters, Tempest Rising, perhaps out of budget necessity, instead uses in-game engine characters to provide briefings. This does allow them to add some interaction in the form of optional dialogue questions, but they’re not half as much fun.

They’re . . . fine, but very stilted and they lack the personality of the best C&C briefings – like Michael Ironside barking orders at you in C&C 3, or Kari Wuhrer as Best Tanya from Red Alert 2. The story, as I said, is essentially a rehash of C&C 3, but it’s also . . . fine. The two campaigns play out in parallel so you get two sides of the same story.

So how does it compare to the C&C games it so closely resembles? Well, I’d say it’s up there with the best – but not quite the very best. As a first game in a new series I’d say Tempest Rising is great, but it does rely a lot on that C&C nostalgia to carry it through. I think what really matters is where they go from here – and the story certainly sets up a potential sequel.

You have one great campaign (GDF) and one okay-ish one (Dynasty). The factions are well designed and the units and their abilities really do feel like what you’d expect in an actual C&C sequel. The visuals are great and the game runs smoothly. Oh, and the music is great too – if a little overbearing when it continues pounding even during mission briefings.

I’ve not tried multiplayer because that’s not really my thing, but I’ve tried a few skirmish maps and had some fun, although I do think the skirmish AI could do with some tweaks so it’s a little less stressful to fight against – right now, even on Normal you only really have two options – spam and rush, or extreme turtle.

Overall, Tempest Rising is a very good RTS game that doesn’t quite match up to the best of the series it’s so heavily ‘inspired’ by, but it certainly comes close. The question is – what’s next? Can this game spawn a new series that can stand on its own? That’s not so reliant on C&C nostalgia? I think it can, but it’s certainly not going to be easy.

7/10

Stellar Blade (DEMO)

When I first saw Stellar Blade I thought it was going to be an action game in the style of Devil May Cry or Bayonetta, but that’s not what it is at all. In terms of combat, I’d say it’s a pretty interesting mix of Dark Souls and Sekiro. It’s what I’d describe as a more ‘reactive’ action game than a ‘proactive’ one. You’re not dictating the pace – you’re reacting to enemy pacing / animations. It’s a game that – like Dark Souls – rewards careful, deliberate play and patience.

Your movement and attacks are somewhat slow – even your basic dodge is limited in range. You have simple combo attacks, but these won’t cancel or stun enemy attacks (not unless you complete an entire sequence) and you can’t easily break from a combo to parry, dodge or block. If you try to play Stellar Blade like DmC or Bayonetta you’re going to be in for a rough time.

Enemies have ‘balance’ points which is essentially the ‘poise’ system from Sekiro. Every time you perfectly parry an attack, they lose a point, and if they lose them all you can perform a stylishly animated ‘retribution’ attack for massive damage. This isn’t a game where you can rush in and spam buttons – you need to bide your time and creating openings to exploit.

 

Some attacks can’t be parried, only dodged, and some ‘lethal’ attacks can only be countered with unlockable skills. The combat in Stellar Blade is all about proper timing and once you understand that, and accept that’s how the game wants you to play, it’s pretty damn fun and satisfying – especially when you down a boss without taking a single hit.

There is a bit of trial and error at play in the sense that until you’ve fought an enemy or boss once, you won’t be aware of their attack patterns, so be prepared to die a few times until you learn their moves. I also feel that some enemy attacks aren’t adequately telegraphed to the player.

You can rest at camps as you go and, like Dark Souls, these heal you but also re-spawn local enemies. I did like exploring the (limited) map available in this demo – there’s quite a few little nooks to discover containing supplies or lore to collect. Oh, and I really like the enemy designs.

 

I played through this demo twice to get a feel for things, including the additional boss challenge and although I enjoyed it, I’m not sure if I want to pick this up at release because despite coming to like the combat, there are other aspects of Stellar Blade that feel a little weak.

The story and character aspects are clearly evocative of NieR: Automata but kind of terrible in comparison. All of the story stuff in this demo fell flat for me with some bad dialogue and a main character with the personality of a brick – which is unfortunate, because a game like this really benefits by having a strong personality at its core. It is only a demo, so maybe these things improve / get better as you go, but it’s not a great first impression.

Overall, once I did get a feel for the combat, I did like what I played. I’m not sure I like it enough to drop 60 quid at release, but I’ll see what else I’ve got lined up to play.

Now Playing: Ghost of Tsushima

Ghost of Tsushima is an open world, third person action game in which you play as Jin Sakai, a samurai on a mission to free his home – the island of Tsushima – from Mongol invaders. But to do so, Jin must be willing to break the samurai code and become the Ghost – hero to his people; demon to his enemies, Jin Sakai is . . . Samurai Batman! Or should be, if the game wasn’t dreadfully dull. I hate to say it, but Ghost of Tsushima is one of the most disappointing games I’ve played in a long time.

Ghost of Tsushima is, without a doubt, one of the most visually striking open world games you can play. You’ll have seen the screenshots but they don’t do the game justice – you really need to see it in motion. The swaying grass, the falling leaves, the misty haze, the glow of fireflies and the warm hue of the setting sun – everywhere you go in Tsushima looks beautiful.

But whilst the visuals are lovely they do somewhat lose their lustre as you progress because, yes – you can have too much of a good thing. There’s not a great deal of varied terrain in Tsushima, and once you’ve stood in awe of one field of gently swaying grass, you’ve kind of seen it all. And as gorgeous as the landscape may be, the actual design of the open world in terms of structure and content leaves a lot to be desired.

Whilst the map is broken down into smaller regions marked by natural boundaries (good), significant landmarks or terrain variation are few and far between (bad) making navigating the world purely by visual cues rather difficult. The game eschews a typical map marker for a ‘flowing wind’ effect that’s supposed to guide you to your chosen destination.

And it sort of works – but you’ll still have to stop and check your map regularly. And honestly, I think I would have preferred the option of a more simple and precise – if admittedly intrusive – marker to guide my way.

Not only is the landscape poorly designed from the point of view of navigation, it also doesn’t really encourage exploration with such a repetitive and lacklustre selection of side activities – not to mention the far too frequent enemy encounters that interrupt your travel.

It’s not unusual to encounter several enemy patrols along a single stretch of road. If you try dealing with them all, you’ll never get anywhere fast. The main and side quests of Ghost of Tsushima are already extremely combat focused. There are also numerous enemy outposts to clear and villages to liberate in the open world.

That’s why you need to give the player some space, some time to relax between combat and explore the world without constant interruption. Pacing is important, even if you have a great combat system . . . which Ghost of Tsushima most certainly does not.

The combat – at least initially – is fast, brutal and punishing in a way that really does demand your attention. It’s built around a simple and familiar system of block, dodge, parry and strike – but capped with some satisfying and stylish finishing animations.

The problem is, as you level up and unlock new skills, Jin’s strength snowballs so rapidly that before you even reach the end of Act 1 you feel practically invulnerable and the combat becomes entirely trivial.

Stealth becomes something you do for fun, not out of necessity to even the odds. And the problem only grows worse over time. Once you upgrade your gear and unlock the Ghost Stance ability you can simply walk into enemy camps and slaughter everyone within a matter of seconds.

The game does give you a welcome selection of combat stances and a fine selection of ninja-style tools – but putting aside how fiddly it can be to switch between them in a fight – you don’t actually need any of them. They’re fun to use on occasion, but entirely unnecessary.

Ghost of Tsushima also has a rather wonky auto-lock system that often sees Jin facing entirely the wrong way. You can switch to a manual mode but – like switching between your tools – it’s kind of fiddly to use.

And whilst I welcome those additional tools, you still only have one main weapon – your sword. Given how the plot of the game is about Jin being willing to break his code, I don’t see why we couldn’t have had another weapon type or two to help mix things up – like a spear, or a mongol shield or . . . anything.

Early on in the game you get access to a grappling hook and I thought I really would be like Samurai Batman – swinging across rooftops, using it to grapple enemies from stealth or even within open combat. But no, the game doesn’t let you do anything so fun. The grappling hook is only useful for some basic platforming in the open world or during the scripted story missions.

I wouldn’t say that the combat in Ghost of Tsushima is bad as such – it’s simple and accessible and it makes it very easy for the player to feel like the ultimate samurai killing machine . . . but maybe a little too easy. It just becomes too trivial, too quickly and because it’s such a frequent and significant component of the game, it becomes increasingly dull to engage with. You stop enjoying fights long before the end – you just grind them out as quickly as you can so you can move on to the next.

This certainly isn’t helped by the numerous side quests, nearly all of which – regardless of plot – is a simple matter of ‘go to place, kill mongols’. Sometimes they mix it up with ‘go to place, kill mongols’ and then ‘go to another place, kill more mongols’ but that’s about as exciting as it gets.

And it’s such a shame, because some of these side quests have potentially interesting set ups – such as a quest to save a sake brewery from mongol raiders. I thought it might involve getting the mongols drunk . . . or maybe Jin gets drunk whilst waiting for them to arrive? Or maybe you assassinate them with a barrel of poisoned sake? Maybe you even dress up as a geisha and serve it to them!

I don’t care how stupid that sounds, just give me something fun to do, give me something memorable, something unique. Something more than what you get – you go to the brewery, hide in some grass and then kill the mongols when they arrive. And that’s pretty much all you do for practically every side quest in the game no matter the location or plot.

Ghost of Tsushima is at its best when you’re focusing on the main story but even that’s not without its problems. Act 1 sees you storming a castle to rescue Jin’s Uncle and kill the evil Khotun Khan. But guess what – the Khan’s in another castle! And the exact same thing happens at the end of Act 2. He’s like the mongol warlord equivalent of Princess Peach.

I hoped the third act would provide a suitably exciting conclusion but I hate to say it – the final battle sucks. It’s incredibly rushed, the contribution of your allies is massively glossed over, you only actually fight a couple of small groups of enemies and I defeated the Khan by running in circles and tossing sticky bombs on him. I didn’t really need to – it was just too funny.

It’s not like I hated the story – the story is easily the best part. I liked Jin and Yuna and the little quest chains for the key side characters. I also liked the ‘mythic tales’ quests because they provided slightly more varied quest structures and you can unlock more unique gear and abilities.

I don’t get why they shied away from the obvious romance between Jin and Yuna. I don’t normally give too much of a shit about something like this but come on – why is this game so sexless? It really needed something to spice things up. The story just doesn’t land the emotional beats in the way you feel it should.

And another thing – the plot is all about Jin turning his back on the samurai code and becoming the Ghost, but why couldn’t they have factored that story aspect into player progression in a more meaningful way? Perhaps you could have had different skills and gear for ‘Ghost’ and ‘Samurai’ and each is unlocked depending upon how the player acts – a player who sticks to the code and faces their enemies head on unlocks more samurai abilities, whereas a player who embraces stealth, poison and assassination unlocks more tools and skills along those lines.

It wouldn’t even need to change the story or how things play out, it would just present the player with diverging options on how they want to progress and how they want to develop Jin. But . . . maybe I expect too much. Maybe I’m asking for too much.

I can’t deny how striking the game looks. How polished it is. The visuals, the music, the VA, the animations, the UI – the production value is clear to see. And maybe that’s enough for some – but not for me.

Because I can’t overlook the bland, excessive combat, poor enemy variety, terribly paced player progression, the repetitive and dull side content, the lack of creativity of the missions, the lacklustre conclusion and the absence of emotion in the story. There’s nothing truly challenging or engaging here – neither narratively, nor in terms of gameplay.

That’s not to say I have no hope for the coming sequel – Ghost of Yotei – because the Iki Island DLC included as part of this PC edition does demonstrate some promising improvements to overall quest design. That said, I’ve seen other Sony first-party sequels suffer from a lack of ambition and an unwillingness to break from the tried and tested they believe will lead (usually correctly, sadly) to critical acclaim. Hopefully Ghost of Yotei won’t just offer more of the same.

5/10

Gallery: Indiana Jones & The Great Circle