New Direction

Alright so. I know its been a while since I posted anything. You should know that I have several reviews waiting in the wings and that I have adopted a new style of writing, one with more zaz to it. Google is telling me Zaz isn't a word thats fine, I can't really think of a better word right now.......Oh wait hang on. New writing style has more flair. Ah that's better google likes that one. Ok. 

Where is this going? Well I am moving my reviews to a new place. You can find older entries here but I am moving to Tumblr, mostly because its more popular and more people, specifically actual game's writers are more likely to see it. And yes I know that Tumblr has a weird edge to it but seems to me if you want to get noticed this is probably the place to start.

Hopefully I have a job soon. Its all kinda up in the air at the moment, we'll see soon though. Anyways come have a gander, I am still getting used to Tumblr so there is a lot I have to learn. See you soon. 

Link to my Tumblr page: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/thatcritical-hit

Critique is encouraged if I want to improve which I do. I know some things will need improving so try not to be too scathing. 

Hyper Light Drifter

Set adrift on lights bliss

So often nowadays are games released with information about their story, characters and world that players can quite easily glean out everything they need to know based on a couple of trailers. There are some exceptions to this rule however and Hyper Light Drifter numbers amongst them.

Information in Hyper Light Drifter is impossible to glean out. Everything you see has to be whittled down to speculation, you have to decide what exactly is happening and why your mission is important with very little to go on. Like a fine piece of art, you have to step back to appreciate the work and beauty that has gone into a game such as Hyper Light Drifter, for it is part of a rejuvenated effort by developers to bring back that nostalgic 2D sprite generation that many of us remember.

Hyper Light Drifter is a game of nostalgia then. For it is a loving and dedicated tribute to an age of gaming that is far behind us now and in a world of blockbusters and triple A games, this bright spark of difference seeks to stand out like a splash of red on a canvas of white.

The Drifter

Only known as a drifter to the people of the world your task, vague though it is, is to explore regions around the small city to fight powerful bosses and unlock, presumably, the cure to a disease, which ravages the main character.

The vagueness of your task is obvious from the moment you begin HLD, there is no hand holding here, no leading you by the nose. You are thrust into a merciless pixelated world and given no choice but to fight and that is where HLD shines.

Encounters often force you into inescapable situations, usually blocking off your exit, enemies spawn in and the numerous enemy A.I. means that you have to fight with precision and some tactical planning i.e. When should I use a health pack? Is there a particular gun that can deal with these guys easier? I have three evade steps how should I use them?

The difficulty of HLD’s battles is akin to Dark Souls. Each movement must be sparring, an overly zealous attack pattern from you can spell certain doom and leaving one enemy even by himself is not wise. Its these things that players remember from similar older games where learning a bosses battle pattern was a matter of trail and error and not a quick Google or YouTube search.

But it is these things, frustrating though they may be, which define HLD as a loving tribute to older generations. The bosses of the game attack in patterns and its up to you to discover their weakness, plan you own attacks and use no small amount of luck to survive encounters. Each is unique and proves themselves capable in a number of different ways. The puzzles of the game also require a similar level of dedication, dashing at the right moment to pass over a spiked path that, moments before, skewered enemies to the ceiling.

Of the most important part of Hyper Light Drifter is found in its music. A soundtrack that accurately compliments the surroundings of the game world, the tempo changing in places to emphasize a change in the environment a new enemy type showing up or a boss entering the fray. Its uncommon in games nowadays for music to so properly fit a scene, sometimes games go out of their way to point out this difference by being not so subtle and adding in music that doesn’t gel with the situation. HLD sews the music in with its environment’s making the whole experience cohesive and natural.    

Enter The World

Information is given to you in the form of npc’s showing you particular pictures either of the bosses of the area your in or of the events that lead them to the city. They don’t speak or they do in a sense but its intelligible, in this game pictures really do tell a thousand words.

Finding bits, the currency by which you either purchase items or abilities, is a matter of scouring each area with a fine tooth comb; sometimes making you dash over an invisible floor panel that can lead you to another room or a piece of scenery hiding a hidden path. The risk is in the reward. What you chose to use those bits for however is a troublesome exercise as you have so very few to play around with and all the while you have the inevitable task of seeking out more once you’ve spent them.

The npc’s don’t leave much of an impression upon you aside from maybe the second drifter who appears at points, proving himself an adroit warrior and giving you hints on where to go next.

The scenery of HLD gives hints to the past while also being exceptionally well crafted. Each point of the map coloured differently, a herculean corpse sprawled out across the landscape providing a glimpse into a much older massacre at the hands of an unknown force. Its these things that give the barest glimpses of what Hyper Light Drifter hides expertly, a story untold a mystery unsolved. Only we are left to piece it together in our own way.

The drifter can be changed as well finding costume sets that alter the appearance of his cloak, sword and companion, allowing you to change one piece of equipment while leaving the others the same. But finding these costumes is another part of HLD’s difficulty, each one proving as much or even more of a challenge than the bosses you face.

Sometimes its difficult to take in the shear beauty of HLD seeing as there is always so much going on but in those moments when you do you can truly see the love of a generation raised on snes come to life around you.

The Answer

Hyper Light Drifter stands out firmly showing its strengths and weakness in equal measure because it can afford to. The ultimate ending of the game leaves a lot unanswered, including the fate of our hero. Its telling that he is afflicted with a disease as Alex Preston, the developer, was born with heart problems (hence the studio name Heart Machine) so this is very much a personal story for both of them.

The ambiguity of the game though is what drives it forward, the want for you to know more even if its only a small bit of information is what makes the game enjoyable in the first place. The knowledge of finding a path, that sense of direction where other players will get lost these things define Hyper Light Drifter cementing it as a true throwback to older games and almost certainly will become an indie classic.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

To say that Deus Ex: Mankind Divided doesn't accurately portray real world crises would be something of an understatement. The opening moments of the game ring a very familiar tune of terrorism, fear, social and political unrest, racial stereotyping and a general lack of light at the end of the tunnel, all of this seems to be a very good and practised move by Eidos Montreal to remind us of the bleak state of the world. But perhaps there is a light at the end of the tunnel for both the real and virtual worlds. The beginning of mankind divided gives you the option to watch a 12 minute refresher video on the events of the previous game, Human Revolution, during it you start to get a sense of just how bad things are by the time mankind divided starts. As the tension in the video builds it finally climaxes with an augmented human rampage, which is the basis of mankind divided. Many of the characters in the game call it the Aug incident and since the "incident" humanity has done what it does best, separated themselves from those who are different.

Mankind Divided

Perhaps before I go on I should give some context to some of the events and terms being used here. Aug stands for augmented, humans who have been augmented with mechanical limbs or organs to continue living. The Aug incident saw augs, who had been implanted with a certain chip, enter into a killing frenzy completely against their will. This, naturally, caused a rift to form between regular humans, dubbed naturals and augmented people. In fact things became so bad that eventually the two sides were separated, creating more fear of augmented individuals and causing mechanical apartheid. In the back ground of all of this is a shadowy organisation orchestrating these events to play out in their favour. The group, the Illuminati. 

By the time Mankind Divided begins the world is teetering on the brink of augmented human extinction and that is where our protagonist, Adam Jensen, enters the fray. Adam Jensen himself is augmented and by all accounts is the most heavily augmented person on the planet, with about 50% of him being augmented. After the events of the last game Jensen has been drafted into Interpol's, Task Force 29 to serve as an agent. Much to the chagrin of many NPC's who find having a "hanzer" (augmented slur) on their team a liability. The game begins with Jensen flying off to take care of a weapons deal in Dubai along with others from TF29 and its at this moment that the game starts letting you define who Jensen is to you. This comes in the form of two choices Lethal or Non Lethal. Based on those choices you can make Jensen out to be a devastatingly powerful aug who could go on a killing spree when ever he feels like it or you can choose to treat your enemies with respect and deal with them in a way that doesn't require you to rearrange their spine. In the end the choice isn't as large as you might think but I'll get to that.

"Sometimes you just have to let go...."

So obviously things aren't going great in the world, fear and segregation are in full force by the time that you reach the hub of the game, Prague. When you first enter Prague you get to see first hand just how bad things are, with signs and borders indicating where naturals and augmented people should wait. Police decked out in right armour and carrying machine guns approach to authenticate your papers to make sure that another "clank" doesn't cause a problem. Even though your moving through a train station there is still a feeling of tension, an air of discontent, that people are just wanting to lash out against their oppressors and as luck would have it at the moment when you've cleared all the checkpoints bombs go off and all hell breaks loose. 

This tension can be felt in nearly all aspects of the game, from communication with your own team members in TF29 too complete strangers on the streets, who always have a word or two to say about Jensen. Perhaps the biggest cause for concern is the fact that there are police patrolling the streets of Prague nearly 24/7 offering similar words of consternation whenever you get too close to them, clearly this isn't helping the situation of another Aug incident since everyone will feel threatened by this show of force. The thing that interested me from a story standpoint was that nobody, aside from a few characters, seemed to have any sympathy for Aug's. No human was willing to step up and defend them, no civilian saw what was happening and wanted to help. It seems that even if mankind was divided that at least some people would want to stop things from deteriorating. It seems like the world has just decided to blame everything that goes wrong on Aug's.


So what does Adam Jensen represent? Which side does he see? Does he sympathise with the Augmented? Does he think that humans are right to be afraid? As the main character you have a unique perspective that very few people have in the world as Adam is forced to deal with both sides. The human side in the form of TF29 and the Augmented side in the form of the Juggernaut Collective. This is the defining point of the game as it is very difficult to walk a line in between those two groups and often the game will force you to make a choice between trusting humanity to do the right thing or to fight for the freedom of the augmented. Many times during the story you are asked where your loyalties truly lie and I am going to be honest ninety percent of the time I didn't even know. Its that uncertainty that made the game interesting to me, other players may blindly follow one side but I wanted to know where the middle path might lead. That makes for a very different play experience and in the end different outcomes. 



"And embrace what you've become"

Mankind Divided has some great core gameplay. The cover mechanics are sound and the abilities available to you make engaging enemies a different experience each time you try it. The game doesn't slap you on the wrist for the way you chose to approach a situation, in fact it actively encourages you to explore multiple and different ways of dealing with a situation wether you talk your way out of it with the C.A.S.I.E system or go in guns blazing throwing up titan armour and nano-blades like your some 22nd century berserker. The good and refreshing thing is that you don't get questioned (at least not often) about the moral choice of either sparring a life or taking it as some games like to do nowadays. I mean come on, sometimes you have to cut loose. 

The plethora of augmentations available to Jensen means that you have multiple ways to play the game and though you are limited in your choice at first you can expand Jensen's armoury to make him more formidable as the game goes on. Certain augments are geared towards stealth, while others are built for engagement. Again we see the flexibility of the game allowing you to chose your own path both in terms of augments and in story path. Another thing about the game is that there are at least three different ways you can approach a situation each one varying in approach and difficulty. This means that you won't ever be stuck for ways to deal with certain situations. 

The good thing about the augments is that there isn't just one silver bullet augment, one that is so broken that the game is just trivialised by your use of it, there are always ways for the enemy to counter the augments you use no matter what they are. Having said that the A.I in the game is actually fairly challenging. More than once I found myself moving back into cover because I had been spotted, enemies will check areas to make sure that the threat is gone and sometimes you can use this to your advantage. Distract a group of enemies by dropping one of them and while his friend investigates you sneak on past. Its these situations, these ways of manipulating the situation that makes the game good.



Shadows Linger

My experience with Deus Ex is minimal. I haven't played the first game Human Revolution and because of the 12 minute introduction I didn't feel entirely bad about skipping to the next one. Overall I enjoyed my time with Mankind Divided the intrigue of the game, the mystery, second guessing every characters alignment. These aspects of the game were fun and exciting, the various twists and the ways that you can approach NPC's meant that no two situations would be the same. Augmentations were fun to play around with and it helped me define what play style would fit me. The backstory of Deus Ex is interesting to, if you have the patience for it, piecing together every small detail of the various NPC's you encounter and working out the agenda through emails and phone calls is what makes the game large. 


For all that though the game took me about seven days to complete, side quest's included. I felt that despite finishing it in the best way possible, no npc's killed, mostly positive outcome, that something was missing. For all its finery and a definite step forward in terms of graphics and gameplay Mankind Divided felt rushed as if all the best parts of the story were something that I had missed, when in actuality they weren't there at all. The story is half done and by the end of the game you feel dissatisfied with the ending. There are plot points that aren't resolved, characters who have little motivation and honestly a rather cliche villain. It felt as if they game could have more to it. Its a shame really, because so much of the game feels final, as if things have reached a fever pitch and all the answers will be laid bare. Unfortunately that isn't quite the case and whatever ending there is to find, also unfortunately, will likely as not be found in paid DLC. Still Mankind Divided is a fun and engaging experience and I would definitely recommend the game for any avid first person shooter/ rpg fans.

Dark Souls III

Soul of Cinder

The Time To Link The Fire Has Come

The Lords of Cinder have been slain. Their ashes will become the kindling for one massive fire, the time has come to Link the flame. But...honeyed words and a writhing black mass within the body tell us "Play the usurper". An age of fire must begin, but is it the age that the people have wished for? These questions can't be answered until the last incarnation of fire is destroyed. The time has come. Let the age of Hollows begin..........

If you've played through Dark Souls III then you probably saw this coming, hints were dropped multiple times about the direction I was taking the end game. I'll explain a bit more about that later, for now there is the fight.

The Soul of Cinder is fairly tough, I'll admit that I lost the first time round, though I came close to beating him. The Soul of Cinder takes everything that you have learnt and puts it to use against you. He throws spells and combos at you like no man does. Therefore its best if you pay attention to what stance he takes towards the end. The Soul of Cinder is reminiscent of Gwyn in a lot of ways and has many homages to the first Lord of Cinder, including using his sunlight spear (Which you can transpose from the Soul of Cinder).

To be honest for a last boss I felt that this guy didn't pose as much as a challenge as lets say the Moon Presence from Bloodborne, that fight had multiple things to be aware of and while the Soul of Cinder defiantly posses a threat, he isn't really all that tough. Another thing to keep in mind however was that I had help from both Yuria and the shade of londor. With the Soul of Cinder slain we can now link the fire......

I went for the Lord of Hollows ending. I'll be honest here I felt really, really bad about it. Terrible in fact as you had to put an end to so many characters who were mostly innocent. Orbeck, Anri, Horace to name a few and in a wider sense you also betray all those who put their faith in you as a Champion of Ash. This ending left a bitter taste in my mouth, an ending where there is no ending...for anyone. To be hollow is to be without purpose, to be without death. It seems that the Primordial Serpent, Kaath, had his wish granted. An age of Hollows. Londor is great again.

And so began an Age of Hollows, an unceasing world of lifeless beings unknown to death. The gaping hole of the dark sign grew like a blackened sun and all who stood beneath it were plagued by the curse of the undead. What a somber world that would be.....

Dark Souls III

Lorian and Lothric Twin Princes

Lorian, Elder Prince. Lothric, Younger Prince.

Lorian, the Elder prince of Lothric was a powerful warrior. Mighty and to be feared he slew the "demon prince" after which his sword was permanently blackened. Lothric was cursed from a young age and his dutiful brother decided to share the burden of the curse, causing him to become crippled. Seeking to evade their collective duty as Lords of Cinder they fled, wishing to watch the fire fade from far away. However duty is as much a curse as any and we find the twin princes awaiting the Unkindled ready to carry out their duty......

Lorian and Lothric pose a problem for players. Alone Lorain isn't much to worry about (he says having lost to him 5 times) his swings can be anticipated and you can easily avoid his strikes. The only problem is that Lorian teleports everywhere, making locking on to him difficult. Lorain has some moves that can easily devastate an overconfident player and the one sword attack he has, where he creates a pillar of flame/light, is one of the most dangerous moves he has especially after he has teleported away. Lothric joins the fight once you have slain Lorian at this point I am reminded of the fight with Aldrich, casting near constant spells and having devastating attacks. 

Having said all of that when you get to the second portion of the fight it becomes far easier to deal with, attacking Lorain and Lothric from the side can easily end the fight almost as soon as Lothric appears. Summoning Sirris for this was the right call, or at least I think so, more than anything else I needed her for her quest line. Still with the twins defeated we can progress to the last boss.




Lord of Cinder Slain. The time to link the fire has come..................or has it?

Dark Souls III

The Nameless King

King of The Storm

It was said that Gwyn's Firstborn was a god of war. He wielded the power of sunlight and used the same miracles as Gwyn, the sunlight spear. He fought alongside his father against the dragons, however something within the first born changed. He turned against his own kin, abandoned his father and chose to side with the very dragons he had sought to kill. Now a mighty and supremely powerful foe stands before the Unkindled. He rides a mighty Dragon, Uses the power of sunlight, Strikes with the force of a god and will defeat any who trespass in his domain. Gwyn's Firstborn has come. The Nameless King fights. 

The Nameless King is terrifying. His strength is unreal as a single hit can eat nearly half of your health. He throws sunlight spears around like a madman. This guy is tough. I had to farm embers for 3 hours had 65 embers ended up with 45 afterwards. Still the battle is amazing. Fast paced keeping you on your toes and choosing when to tank a hit or flee. My heart was racing by the end of it. That is how you can tell when a boss battle is good, when it gets you in all ways.

The Nameless King definitely is the hardest boss in the game. He deserves all the preparation and discretion you can bring to the fight. There is so much lore and depth to this character especially in relation to Gwyn. 

We're drawing closer to the end now......

Dark Souls III

Ancient Wyvern

A Monolithic Foe, A Relic of A Bygone Age

Atop Arch-dragon peak rests a mighty conquerer. His will to work with dragons rather than against them turned many people against him. None the less the dragons respected the choice he made and now they protect this ancient place in the hopes that they can exist in peace. Unfortunately for them ashes have been caught on the wind and a champion of ash has come to test his might. His first task? Slay a dragon.

The Ancient Wyvern is an odd case for a boss in Dark Souls as he is so incredibly easy. The route isn't that hard to miss and while the boss could probably be dealt with in a less cheap way, this is the way that most people do it. 

Honestly, there isn't anything else that can be said about this guy. Moving on.