Gallery: Tales of Arise (Part 2)

Now Playing: The Walking Dead: The Final Season

It’s kind of amazing that The Walking Dead: The Final Season even exists. It’s a game that essentially got canned mid-way through development and half way through its episodic release. That it got completed at all is thanks to the passionate developers who were determined to finish what they’d started. That’s why I don’t really want to be too hard on it. That said, I can’t say I agree with the ‘overwhelmingly positive’ Steam reviews because, to be frank, The Walking Dead: TFS isn’t actually a very good game.

The story picks up some time following the events of A New Frontier and sees Clementine and AJ find refuge in an old school for troubled youths. There’s only 4 episodes to play, as opposed to the usual 5 of previous ‘seasons’ but that’s not surprising given the development issues. And I can’t say it feels like the game got cut short – it tells its story and it tells it well in the time that it has. If all you care about is seeing how Clementine’s story ends, then I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

But here’s the thing – there’s not much of a ‘game’ here at all. Most of your time ‘playing’ TFS will be sitting back watching cut-scenes. Every so often Clementine will stop moving and you’ll realise you’re back in control, but some of these ‘gameplay’ sections last only a few moments as you move her forward a few steps and . . . the next 5 minute cut-scene triggers. Honestly, they could have just cut the pointless ‘gameplay’ sections entirely and just made it a full animated movie with dialogue options because that’s all it really is.

There’s an attempt to make combat against walkers more engaging but it’s complete shit because it just involves running back and forth to create some space before killing them one at a time. If you let one get too close to you they lock on like a heat seeking missile and can magically teleport behind you, instantly killing Clementine and forcing you to restart the section from scratch. It’s not hard, just irritating.

There’s no way in which the gameplay directs the flow of the story. Miss a QTE? You either insta-die and have to re-do it, or . . . it turns out it didn’t matter anyway. A great example of this is in the final episode where a character is fending off a walker and Clementine has a bow lined up to save them. The game puts you in charge of taking the shot but I decided not to, just to see what would happen. After nearly a full minute of awkward struggling and Clementine just standing there watching, the character just kicked the walker off themselves because . . .

Choices, both in gameplay and dialogue, don’t count for shit. I guess that’s kind of been the case throughout this entire series but it feels even worse here and it’s particularly disappointing given that this is the last season. This was a chance to really give us a lot more variation to the story through our dialogue choices and our actions in gameplay – especially at the end. When some dialogue ‘choices’ result in an insta-death, what’s the point of them? You’re just forced to go back and pick the ‘right’ option anyway.

The game sets itself up to mirror the first, with Clementine in the role of Lee and AJ in the role of Clementine. It’s a neat idea – you’re teaching AJ and shaping who he will become through your words and actions. And if this led to a variety of possible outcomes – such as AJ dying saving Clementine, or Clementine dying saving AJ, or both surviving but at a cost or . . . there’s so much more they could have done given that this was the last season and there’s no need to worry about any kind of ‘canon’ ending to take forward into another game. Instead, there’s only one ending for both AJ and Clementine regardless of your choices or actions.

Do some characters live or die depending upon your choices? Sure, but not in any ways that actually result in a different sequence of events or overall outcome. And frankly, the new characters really aren’t that interesting so I can’t say I really cared that much about who survived and who didn’t.

Overall, I’m glad I played The Final Season but that’s only really because I love Clementine as a character and I wanted to see how her story ends. From a ‘game’ point of view, The Final Season isn’t good at all but given the development troubles, I have to cut it some slack. If you enjoyed the other Walking Dead games then this worth getting on sale, but don’t set your expectations very high and be aware that you’re mostly just going to be sitting back, watching the ride.

5/10

Steam Winter Sale: Damage Report

Phasmophobia is a ghost hunting game that I picked up for two reasons – 1) it’s VR supported, and I’ve been looking for a new VR title to play and 2) it’s got co-op play, and I’ve been looking for a new co-op game to play with a friend.

I’ve actually played Project Zomboid before – an early demo release several years ago. But the game is now more popular than ever thanks to the release of a new MP mode. At 6 quid, I figured I’d give it a shot myself.

You might recall I actually picked up Scarlet Nexus last year and it featured in my Halloween Sale post. The thing is, I’ve not actually got around to playing it yet, so it’s still here, in my Sale list, waiting.

Not pictured here but a game I got over Christmas and will also be covering soon is Metroid Dread.

And finally we have God of War which has just released for PC and I do plan to pick up, but I really need to play Scarlet Nexus first otherwise I’m never going to get around to it.

Now Playing: Halo Infinite

Halo Infinite has what may be the best gameplay of any Halo game to date. Purely in terms of its combat mechanics, Infinite is a damn near perfect game. The movement, shooting, weapons and enemy AI all combine to create one of the most engaging, creative and tactical moment-to-moment action games that you’ll ever play. There’s an incredible ‘flow’ to combat that’s not unlike another fantastic shooter of recent years – Doom Eternal.

Whilst Infinite may lack the pure intensity and focus of Eternal, it shines in ways that Eternal does not. The introduction of the grapple shot changes the way you approach every fight, not only in giving you an expanded range of movement options, but the ability to pull weapons and other items towards you – grappling an explosive coil before tossing it towards a group of enemies never gets old.

But, unfortunately, I’m not just reviewing the gameplay of Infinite. It’s undoubtedly the best aspect of the game – as it always should be in any game – and it elevates everything else, including all the weaker aspects of the title. But those weaker elements do drag the overall experience down.

Infinite has this weird kind of split between a new open (sort of) sandbox and the more linear, structured levels of previous Halo games. The first few levels serve as a linear introduction and tutorial before dropping you onto the first ‘island’ of Infinite. The open world is split between multiple islands, and you’ll unlock each in turn as you progress through the story.

The open world is also where your frame rate will likely tank as soon as you step outside. Whilst I was able to maintain a rock solid 60FPS in the enclosed, linear levels of Infinite – and in the multiplayer which I’ll touch upon later – the open world is very poorly optimised.

It looks good, but not that good and I’d expect much better performance even on my older hardware. I mean, for all the technical issues that Cyberpunk 2077 had at release, I could still run that at a near constant 60 even on High settings, whereas Infinite struggles to stay at 60 even on Low despite not looking half as good. Thankfully, the not-too-noticeable dynamic resolution option kept me locked at 60 for the majority of my time in the campaign, even if it did makes things go a little blurry sometimes.

The open world is big – but not too big – and by dividing the content between multiple islands you never feel overwhelmed. There’s lots of collectibles to find if you like that sort of thing, but the focus of the side content is on rescuing marine squads, assassinating elite enemy targets, liberating operating bases (for fast travel and weapon / vehicle pick ups) and destroying enemy bases.

There’s not too much of anything so it doesn’t really get repetitive – there’s usually only one or two enemy bases in each region, for example, and they’re all entirely unique in terms of their design and function.

Now, just in case you’re worried, you can ignore all of this extra content if you want and just move from one main mission to the next. All of it is entirely optional. But, as I said in my First Impressions post, if you do skip it, I think you’re going to miss out on what makes Infinite unique and special within the Halo series.

Halo has always been at its best when it lets you loose within its combat sandbox and the open world of Infinite is the ultimate Halo sandbox. With all the weapons, equipment and vehicles on call at any time, you can approach how you tackle the open world content in any way that you want. You can go in solo, using stealth and long range weapons. You can go in hard and fast with shotguns and melee. You can load up a squad of marines armed with rocket launchers and then sit back and watch the carnage. Infinite lets you play how you want to play and that creative freedom is always a massive positive for me.

But then we have the more linear, structured ‘main’ missions of Infinite and that’s where the game loses its way. I wouldn’t say the missions are necessarily bad – well, maybe one of them. But aside from a handful of genuinely pretty good ones, the majority are largely mediocre in terms of design. They nearly all see you traversing the same environment type which gets pretty stale, and they rely far too much on endless copy-paste corridors connecting endless copy-paste rooms full of enemies.

But here’s the thing – because the gameplay is so damn good, you almost don’t mind. Like I said, it elevates all the weaker aspects of the title. I will say that Infinite does much better ‘boss’ fights than previous games though. Yes, they do tend to rely on ‘bullet sponge’ mechanics, but I found them all pretty fun and challenging when I played through the campaign on Legendary.

The open world also lacks environmental variety, although I don’t see this as a particularly major problem. As I said in my FI post, it’s like the developers took the ‘Halo’ level of Combat Evolved and shaped this entire game around that experience. And I can kind of understand why – Infinite is a return to a more pure and simple Halo experience than Halo 4 or what I’ve seen of 5.

But the main missions are, overall, kind of lacklustre. You reach a point in the game where the open world ends and you’re railroaded on a linear series of levels until you reach the end – levels that literally include multiple rooms where you just fight waves and waves of enemies. It’s pretty basic stuff which, if it wasn’t for the absolutely stellar gameplay, would be pretty irritating to work through.

There’s no big ‘set piece’ events in the campaign. No mission where there’s large scale vehicle action. I kept hoping all those marines I’d saved would show up at some point in tanks and warthogs and assist my assault on the final enemy base – a way of connecting the open world activities with the core missions. I was hoping for some kind of thrilling final chase / escape sequence but . . . nope.

Thankfully, whilst the mission design may be pretty disappointing, the story aspects keep you engaged. Things can be a little muddled at first but the game slowly reveals more information as you progress. Infinite feels, in many ways, like a reboot. Or maybe a reset for the series would be the more appropriate term.

It’s a way of clearing out the convoluted baggage of Halo 4 and 5 where it feels like they kind of wrote themselves into a corner. Remarkably, Infinite manages to do this pretty well, providing closure on those games, whilst setting up something new. Of course, we don’t know if what’s new will necessarily be better, but Infinite is a pretty good start.

The multiplayer component of Infinite is great in terms of gameplay, modes and maps, but the progression system and the lack of mode options and the UI in general really needs a lot of work. I won’t be factoring the MP into this review, however, because it’s not part of the package that you’re paying for – it’s a separate, free-to-play game with it’s own form of monetisation.

Infinite also currently lacks the co-op mode that I’ve enjoyed so much in previous Halo games. That’s a real shame, because I think the open world part of Infinite will shine even more if you can play with friends.

Overall, Halo Infinite is a pretty mixed experience. The gameplay may just be the best in the series yet. The story is good, if a little bit of a muddled reset. The open world is pretty well incorporated with some fun side content and plenty of secrets to explore. The main missions are fairly bland and basic in terms of design. There’s no co-op at the time of review. Oh, and the game kind of runs like shit in the open world right now.

If you’re a hardcore Halo fan, you already own Infinite anyway. If you’re a more ‘casual’ Halo fan, I’d still say this is worth picking up. If you’ve never played Halo before, this isn’t the worst place to start, but I’d still recommend getting the Master Chief collection first. If I had to rank Infinite compared the other Halo games I’ve played I’d put it below 1, 3 and Reach and more on par with Halo 2 – another flawed but occasionally brilliant Halo game.

7/10