Gallery: Yakuza Kiwami 2

 

Now Playing: A World Betrayed (DLC)

After what felt like something of a content drought for Total War: Three Kingdoms, we have a new DLC following hot on the heels of the recent Mandate of Heaven DLC – A World Betrayed. Like Mandate of Heaven, A World Betrayed shifts the action to a new campaign start date – 194. So, once again, we’re faced with a familiar campaign, but with a new twist.

Unlike MoH, however, this new campaign doesn’t offer as significant a change from the core 190 campaign. It’s focused primarily on two characters – Lu Bu and Sun Ce – characters that already feature in the 190 campaign, but are now promoted to faction leaders, each with their own unique campaign mechanics.

I’ve played primarily as Lu Bu, so this review will be mostly based upon that campaign, but I’d say that both of these ‘new’ factions are pretty fun to play. Lu Bu has a mechanic called ‘momentum’ which grants the ability to reset your movement points after each battle. This builds a ‘momentum bar’ that grants further extensions to movement range, army bonuses and character satisfaction the higher it goes.

 

Playing as Lu Bu is all about maintaining your momentum, continually moving from one battle to the next. It results in a very rapid campaign in which you can build your personal prestige very quickly – I triggered the Three Kingdoms war and declared myself Emperor after only 28 turns on Hard. I’ve had a real blast with this campaign, and with this DLC in general, but the problem is, I’m not sure I can really recommend it.

A World Betrayed has released at the same price as Mandate of Heaven. And if you’re going to charge a similar price, I’d expect a similar level of new content. But compared to MoH, A World Betrayed is sorely lacking as far as new content goes.

Mandate of Heaven introduced new characters, factions and mechanics to the game, but A World Betrayed is essentially only re-purposing existing characters – Lu Bu and Sun Ce. The content that you’re paying for in A World Betrayed, in my view, doesn’t match the asking price, and that’s why it’s a hard one to recommend.

 

But it’s a tricky one to judge, because like Mandate of Heaven, A World Betrayed is more than just the DLC – it includes a pretty sizeable patch that overhauls various aspects of the existing game and adds quite a lot of new stuff entirely for free. In fact, the free content patch that dropped alongside A World Betrayed is, in many ways, much better than the DLC itself.

It introduces around 16 new characters, each with unique art. There’s been new additions and improvements rolled into the Spy system. There’s a great new ‘mercenary contract’ diplomatic option that allows you to fight for gold on behalf of other factions. All of the ‘bandit’ factions have also received a campaign overhaul.

They have an entirely new approach to the technology tree based upon the territory they seize, the income they receive and the infrastructure they can support. Oh, and there’s also a new free playable bandit faction, with its own unique mechanics.

All of this stuff is great, but it’s also all free and not technically a part of this DLC. Obviously, free updates like this are essentially funded through DLC sales – one wouldn’t exist without the other – and that’s why, despite feeling that A World Betrayed shouldn’t be priced at a similar level to Mandate of Heaven because it doesn’t offer a comparable level of new content, I don’t really feel short changed.

It’s a tricky one, because the DLC and the patch, taken as a whole, is really good. But this review is purely of the paid content included in the DLC, and in that regard, the DLC package is somewhat lacking. If you’re a fan of 3K then it’s something I’d still recommend picking up at some point, but it might be best to wait for a sale.

6/10

Suburban Killbot Year 8

Well, I certainly didn’t expect the next time I wrote one of these yearly updates that I’d be doing so in the middle of a global pandemic. I can’t say it’s had a significant impact on my life – I didn’t exactly get out of the house much anyway. I did start a new job recently, but that’s now on hold. I’m certainly not bored – if anything, I’ve got too much to do and not enough time.

Since the start of this year I published a new e-book every month. I can’t say they’ve been very successful, but I didn’t really expect them to be. I’ll keep doing what I can to drive sales, but I’m just pleased to get them out there. I’ve got one more e-book lined up, but that’s going to take a little more work before it’s ready to publish. And once that’s done, I guess it’s time to write something new.

At the time of writing I’ve got reviews of another 4 games lined up, and there’s more new stuff coming out I’m yet to play. Like I said, I’m certainly not bored. Here’s the updated, yearly mosaic of my top rated games –

Now Playing: Halo CE

Halo is one of the most enjoyable and engaging first person shooters you can play. It holds up remarkably well today thanks to the free form, sandbox style of its campaign. The missions may not be as long or as elaborate as those in later instalments of the franchise, but they’re still endlessly replayable thanks to the dynamic nature of the combat and the enemy AI.

I didn’t talk much about the AI in Halo in my Reach review, so I wanted to touch upon it here. Enemy AI was always a strong point in the Halo games. They try to flank you, take cover to recharge their shields, flee if they think they’re losing, rush you if you’re close or dive out of the way to avoid grenades.

Sure, you can argue that it’s just basic scripting, but it’s very effective thanks to their range of animations and audio. The different races you fight – primarily grunts and elites in Halo 1 – each have their own ‘personality’ in combat that determines how they’ll react and how they’ll fight.

 

This Halo release includes the option to play through the campaign with both original visuals and audio, or a remastered version. I’ve seen some criticism of the remastered visuals, but I think they look fine and they do put the game more on par with later titles. What’s really neat about this release though, is that you can switch between Classic and Remastered visuals on the fly.

I am curious to know, however, if your choice of visuals does have a gameplay impact. I found playing Halo on Legendary in Classic visuals much easier than playing in Remastered. Whereas I could easily string together a chain of head shots in Classic, for example, I couldn’t do so as reliably in Remastered. I’ve seen some people say the enemy hit-boxes are a little ‘off’ in Remastered, but I don’t know if this is true or not. It’s just a little strange how much easier Halo 1 feels to play in Classic compared to Remastered.

Gun play in Halo 1 is as smooth and enjoyable today as it was at release. Obviously, the weapon and enemy variety isn’t as good as later instalments, but what’s here is still pretty good and I’d say I actually prefer how some weapons handle in Halo 1 compared to Reach – the assault rifle and the shotgun in particular are much more enjoyable to use and feel more viable on the Legendary difficulty. I also like the increased grenade limit, because I’ll never get tired of tossing those around.

 

The campaign of Halo is about 4-5 hours – a little shorter than Reach, but still very enjoyable. My main criticism of Halo and its campaign is how its recycles some of its maps as you progress. There’s a couple of missions where you’re essentially just backtracking through the same map as the previous level. And some of the alien environments – a Covenant ship and the internal architecture of Halo itself – can be very copy/paste leading to areas where it’s very easy to get turned about and get lost because you’re not sure which direction is which.

A little over half way into the game, the Flood are released. Whilst lacking the personality and AI behaviour of the Covenant – they basically just rush at you – the Flood do introduce a new dynamic to combat. They just keep coming, forcing you to stay on the move before they overwhelm your position or you run out of ammo.

Although they’re not as interesting to fight as the Covenant forces, I do like the way they transform the latter half of the game. Halo 1, in some ways, turns into something of a sci-fi horror game as both the human and Covenant forces struggle to contain and stop the spread of the Flood. There’s a wonderful sense of desperation from both sides as you fight your way through the chaos. And the Flood just keep coming, an unrelenting tide of flesh and teeth.

 

Halo ends with a fun dash to escape, the iconic theme kicking in at just the right moment. Even today, it’s an exciting final ride. And Halo, of course, isn’t just a solo game, but playable in co-op, and I had a real blast playing through the campaign in both modes. Like Reach, there’s plenty of collectibles to discover – terminals and skulls – as well as little secrets to find that unlock various achievements.

There are time and score challenges to test your skill, and plenty of gameplay modifiers – some to make the game harder, and some just for fun. There’s a lot here to keep you busy. As I said in my Reach review, the multiplayer side of Halo just doesn’t interest me, so I’m not going to factor that into this review.

Overall, Halo 1 is an excellent shooter that I’d highly recommend. I’m very eager to see how the upcoming Halo 2 remaster is handled. I recall having pretty mixed feelings towards the Halo 2 campaign at release, so I’m curious to know what my impression of it will be today.

8/10

E-Book Release: The Thief, The Mother & The Empress

Jing is a thief, but she doesn’t steal crowns – she steals code. Living in the Mire, the industrial heartland of the City of Moreau, Jing and her best friend Guz accept a contract from a local broker to harvest code from a corporate archive, but things don’t quite go to plan.

Jing and Guz retrieve the code, but find themselves on the run, hunted not only by local enforcement, but by the Black Hearts – the secret police of Jacalyn Adelise Volais, Empress of the Thirteen Worlds. The situation becomes more complex with the arrival of the Daughters, a group of neural terrorists led by the mysterious Mother.

The stolen code isn’t what Jing expected – it appears to be a memory. In a world where memories are a commodity to be bought and sold, the question is – a memory of what? Or who? And more importantly, will Jing and Guz ever get paid?

Bannerlord: First Impressions

Mount & Blade: Warband is one of the first games I ever wrote about on this blog. It was a little rough around the edges, but a game I thoroughly enjoyed to play. And I guess I can now say the same about its sequel (which is actually a prequel, chronologically speaking) – Mount & Blade: Bannerlord – which, after eight or so years of development, has finally released, albeit in Early Access.

The Early Access release had me a little concerned. The last thing I wanted was another DayZ situation, in which a game that’s gone through various stages of development hell is dumped on Steam using the EA tag in order to excuse the shoddy state of the product. Thankfully, that doesn’t appear to be the case with Bannerlord.

The game certainly isn’t finished, and it certainly has its fair share of bugs and issues, but the majority of the planned content is already available and the game, even in this early state, is very fun to play. And in a very positive sign for the future of Bannerlord, patches have been released nearly every day since launch which have already fixed or begun to fix the most pressing issues.

I can only talk about my experience with Bannerlord, but player experience will vary. I’ve not had a single crash in 40 hours of play, but I’ve seen other players report frequent crashes. I’ve also seen people report issues of save corruption but, once again, it’s not an issue I’ve encountered. That’s something to keep in mind – my experience, as far as performance and technical stability goes – has been pretty positive, but that’s not been the case for every player and it may not be for you.

Bannerlord begins with a decent (as far as options go) character creator, although it’s hard not to create a character who doesn’t look like a walking corpse with dead eyes – they really do need to work on those faces. Once you’ve chosen a ‘history’ for your character (that determines your initial player stats) you’re put into a short tutorial section that will introduce you to the basics of combat, recruitment and movement on the world map.

It’s short and it’s limited, but it’s good enough to get you started. That said, Bannerlord is in desperate need of more tutorial systems. It doesn’t necessarily need more tutorial quests or dialogue – a comprehensive set of UI tool tips would be most welcome, for example, because even after 40 hours of play, I’m still figuring out and learning about various aspects of character skills, settlement management and battle tactics that the game just doesn’t explain or reveal.

Visually, Bannerlord looks pretty good. I mean, it’s not exactly on par with other recent games, but it’s good enough and some of the battle animation quality is great. The battle audio is also fantastic and where the game really shines. The battles are wonderfully immersive and, with the option to support up to 1000 models per battle, can be incredibly tense, thrilling and chaotic to experience when two equally sized and equipped armies clash on the field.

Troop AI can be a little dodgy. Enemy armies don’t always play to the strengths of their troop types or the local terrain. And if you ever fall during battle, the odds are that your soldiers will begin behaving like complete idiots and turn what should have been an easy victory into a very costly one. I guess the loss of a commander would naturally result in a loss of troop cohesion, but it’s like they totally forget how to fight at all.

Sieges in Bannerlord are great – when they work properly, that is. They’ve had a pretty major overhaul compared to Warband, with new battering rams, towers and field artillery all constructed on the campaign map prior to the siege and usable once it begins. Storming a castle or a town has never been so much fun – although after 40 hours of play I’ve never been in a position where I’ve gotten to defend a settlement, which is a little disappointing.

The main problem with sieges in Bannerlord is that they’re one of, if not the most, buggy and inconsistent part of the game in its current state. Sometimes troops just get stuck on ladders, unable to climb up or down. Sometimes they’ll wheel a siege tower up to a wall, but then forget how to use it. The performance on some siege maps gets pretty choppy, to say the least. The AI also has problems with the narrow walls and I’ve seen dozens of troops fall to their death because they all got stuck trying to squeeze along a small walkway.

The campaign side of the game plays pretty much just like Warband did – you recruit your troops, level them up and you can choose to join an existing faction or break off and create your own. There’s more options with regard to settlement management and internal faction politics, but a lot of these systems still clearly need work. I’d love to be able to transfer troops between garrisons, for example, without having to manually go and ‘collect’ them myself.

The thing I want more than anything though, is a proper notifications system. Right now, the game does a terrible job of conveying important world events to the player – if a faction declares war, or signs a peace agreement, for example. Or, even more importantly, if one of your towns or castles comes under siege.

The ‘event log’ in the game does inform you of various things, but it moves pretty rapidly and doesn’t always highlight the key information you need. They do seem to be improving this – I’ve seen more ‘pop up’ type notifications appear after recent patches – but it’s something they need to keep working on.

Overall, Bannerlord has been great fun to play, even in this Early Access state. The patches seem to be coming quickly and making real fixes and improvements to the game, but there’s still quite a long way to go. If you’re a fan of Warband I’d say it’s worth picking up right now, but be aware that you may encounter issues and that the game is still a little rough around the edges. Then again, if you’re a fan of Warband, you’re probably going to be okay with that.