MASS EFFECT 3

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PC version reviewed.

GAMEPLAY
Messy journal system is an unnecessary step backwards from previous games.

The best combat the trilogy has to offer

Multiplayer, whilst pretty simple, is a nice addition

STORY
Mass Effect 3 manages to take the series to its highest heights at some points, yet also manages to delve to some of its lowest lows.

The Tuchunka arc is absolutely fantastic and concludes so many characters arcs perfectly, most especially Mordin and Wrex. The Quarian arc is brilliant too, doing the same for Legion's character. There are moments in these arcs that will make you smile, make you laugh and even make you cry. I really feel these moments are somewhat overlooked because of the original ending to the game, but they are really magnificent regardless.

Cerberus are far too involved in the game to the point that the Reapers seemingly take a back seat for most of it, I mean Harbinger who was built up as the main antagonist only appears for a couple of minutes and you don't even know he's there if you're not paying attention. Meanwhile Cerberus have suddenly become galactic overlords and manage to be almost everywhere, despite being a rogue alliance black ops group. For some missions it makes sense, such as the Grisson Academy, where they're trying to kidnap biotics, that sounds like Cerberus to me, but why are they everywhere else? How much money do they have after losing large investments and integral agents such as Miranda, Shepherd and the Normandy? How did they recruit so many people?

By far though, easily the worst thing in the whole of the Mass Effect trilogy is Kai Leng. The tertiary antagonist of this game who appears out of nowhere and constantly ruins things with his incredible plot armour. He's an underdeveloped mess that brings the whole game down because of how he brings down other characters and the story around him.

There are a number of other plot points that don't really make sense, one of the most prominant was the Citadel. In the original game the Reapers are trying to enter the galaxy through the Citadel to cripple the main seat of government before attacking the rest of the the galaxy. Due to Shepard's intervention they have to enter through a different point of the galaxy. However when they finally arrive in the galaxy the decide to leave the Citadel alone, I assume because they would win too easily if they took it. Perhaps the resistance could have made Omega a temporary galactic capital or something instead? Of course Cerberus take that over for no real reason anyway... Suffice to say that Bioware really dropped the ball in some places.

It was interesting to see how many big choices really mattered from previous games, and for the most part it seems they didn't matter. The fate of the Council, the Rachni and the Collector Base all don't really seem to mean anything. There were a few choices that did matter however, such as the Genophage research. For the most part through, your choices will have been funnelled into "war assets" against the Reapers, where you never really see them (Until a pretty great scene towards the the end).

GRAPHICS

SOUND
The best soundtrack of the series for me. "Leaving Earth" and "A Future for the Krogan" are some outstanding pieces of music and highlights of the really strong soundtrack.

VALUE FOR MONEY

OVERALL

KINGDOMS OF AMALUR: RECKONING (2012) REVIEW

The definitively average game.

PC version reviewed.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is a third person action RPG published by EA and developed by 38 Studios along with Big Huge Games for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC.

This review has some spoilers!

I'd really like other RPG franchises to emerge and rival the likes of The Elder Scrolls. Sadly I don't think this is the one to do so. Despite the lead designer working on Oblivion, don't expect anything akin to The Elder Scrolls experience. Exploration or deep lore are certainly not aspects where this game shines, in fact it doesn't really shine anywhere, but nor does it do anything too badly. Instead it just ends up being very generic.

GAMEPLAY

Classes, such as the warrior and rogue, are a bit boring, especially when trying to use range, where the camera can often pan to annoying angles to make things harder, causing you to miss things you should have seen. On the other hand a mage can be kind of fun at some points, but will end up being pretty trivial as you'll be able to take out rooms of enemies in a matter of seconds at the press of a button.

The game makes a good use of quick times events, giving you the opportunity to finish off enemies in style at the end of combat with the press of a few buttons. If more games did quick time events like this then perhaps people would be more favourable towards them.

A world that is incredibly boring and empty. Many people compare this game to a dead MMO and it really couldn’t shake that feeling. It's not at all helped by its very boring, mundane repetitive quests, with examples ranging from killing 10 enemies to spending half an hour finding these random stones spread across the dead world. If these tasks were side quests they wouldn't be so bad as you could ignore them, but these kind of quests take up the majority of the game and its main story.

Once you've entered a new zone in the game you've pretty much seen all there is to see within the first few steps, most dungeons and other places of interest have similar, if not the same design as all before them, which certainly leads to the game growing stale. I can't help but feel this game would have been better with a style more like the Uncharted series, where you go from set piece to set piece, rather than an open world style, which leads to numerous hours of emptiness.

I always like to have a jump option in games, even if it isn't important. Reckoning interestingly only lets you jump at certain scripted points, forcing you to run around some things, even simply trying to jump off a small rock or a staircase will lead to you being blocked by invisible walls. In a game as open as this immersion often gets killed by your inability to move around as freely as you should be able.

Character creation is pretty limited and you can't really make your character look all that great. Luckily you're able to wear a helmet for a lot of the game, which bring me to the customisation, which deserves some attention as there is a good variety of things to craft and pieces to find, which can make your character look better. However finding anything to make good armour and weapons will require you to head out into the very bland, generic world.

STORY

The story is really generic and boring with no characters to care about, or even remember the names of. The game has your standard, cliche RPG story of being the chosen one to defeat some generic evil faction, normally you'd expect some engaging characters or unexpected plot twists to set the game apart from the standard, but the game never really does change in plot from the moment you set out.

Characters also spend far too long talking to you about things that are irrelevant, many just throw in more words than necessary, almost seemingly as padding, leading to dialogue interaction being a chore a lot of the time. Imagine going to a restaurant and asking what's on the menu, only for the waiter to tell you how their whole morning has been. It's unnecessary, irrelevant and only helps make this game far more daunting than it should be.

It isn't helped by the fact that the game just drags on, from the pacing of the main story to the dialogue with other characters, after experiencing the first few hours you'll have seen most of what this game has to offer. There are only so many times your brain can ask why you're running across half the map to go and defeat five specific enemies before returning along the exact same route to continue the mind numbingly boring story.

GRAPHICS

Not much to say really, they look fine, nothing really special though. The world is a bit bland but not horrible. Perhaps the main problem here is that the game has vast landscapes of the same thing, be that a desert or a forest, which you'll have to run through countless times to get to the slightly nicer looking places.

I didn't come across any performance issues, frame rate remained good and the game didn't crash, stutter or freeze.

SOUND

Now the soundtrack is actually promising, but the same music just plays over and over again which just gets boring. Perhaps it was designed with the intention of being as similar to the game as possible, which is why it seems so repetitive.

VALUE FOR MONEY

The game offers many hours of game time, but it’s not worth playing because it’s all so boring. I would actually be interested in seeing how long this game would be if you skipped all the dialogue, didn’t have to run for hours from A to B and if the game had no loading screens, I imagine the game wouldn’t be so long then. The game is a good example of quantity over quality.

OVERALL

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning personifies an average game, it holds nothing too special, nor does it ever seem that appalling, the game is just a snooze fest. If you really like MMORPG’s then maybe give it a go at a discounted price, but avoid paying full price. If you aren’t a big fan of RPG’s or dead MMORPG's then stay away from this game. It might be the most boring game I’ve ever played, even despite liking RPG's, and that’s a shame because I really wanted to enjoy it.

Thanks for reading.

AWARDS SEASON: BEST GAME OF THE YEAR 2011

Overall winner

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Honourable mentions

Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings

Dark Souls

ASSASSIN'S CREED: REVELATIONS

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THE ELDER SCROLLS V: SKYRIM (2011) REVIEW

Engaging, enchanting and exceptional.

PC and PS3 versions reviewed.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is an open world RPG published and developed by Bethesda for the Playstation 3, Playstation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and PC.

GAMEPLAY
Now gameplay is something Bethesda have improved over the past Elder Scrolls titles from Morrowind to Oblivion and now given it a further upgrade in Skyrim. While It may not be the best combat system I've ever used it still gets the job done and serves up an interesting perk system to add to the experience, but I believe Bethesda have focused more on the exploring part of the game which I have no problem with, it offers something different to the so linear games we see dominating the market these days.

Continuing on gameplay, you can almost pick up and use anything in this game from buckets to tiny pieces of chalk, this is another great boost to immersion in this game but comes at the price of a few bugs here and there.

The menus in this game do what they're supposed to do and arrange the categories of the game nicely, it can be a pain to go through if you have a full inventory though. Loading screens are nicely thought out with facts and lore to slightly enhance the experience, perhaps one of the downsides though is how long some loading screen can be for consoles.

The game is packed full of things to do and places to see, the in-game world is massive and full of secrets to find. It's easy to say your just going on for a few minuets but then finding yourself still playing after unintended hours.

STORY


GRAPHICS

The graphics, while not among the best of 2011 are still very strong and only help in immersing you into the world of Tamriel even more, from the snow covered shores to the dark caverns under the ground. The variety of things to see is rich as well whether that's waterfalls, mountains or old ruined forts. The world really feels alive and handcrafted. If you own the PC version of the game you can even improve the graphics further with the help of the brilliant modding community. 

SOUND
The Soundtrack to this game is simply a masterpiece from the familiar Jeremy Soule. Just strolling in the plains or fighting in one massive battle, the music is always keeping touch with what's happening on the screen. Sometimes it's nice to just sit back or slowly walk around to absorb the fantastic world and brilliant ambient music. Jeremy Soule has truly outdone himself with these sweeping scores.

VALUE FOR MONEY
As for the game being worth the price tag, I couldn't recommend any game further more then Skyrim, no other game can come close to the 600 hours I spent in this game and it could be a while before another does. 

OVERALL
In my opinion Skyrim is the best Elder Scrolls game yet, improving on everything it's predecessors got wrong and pm right. 
While I doubt we will ever get a "Perfect Game" I believe TESV: Skyrim is the closest we may see for a while, I've loved my time in it and can't wait to see what Bethesda have to offer for TES6 so that's why I'm giving Skyrim a 10 out of 10 - I was wrong. There actually is a perfect game, it's called Okami.

CALL OF DUTY: MODERN WARFARE 3 (2011) REVIEW

All style, no substance.

PS3 version reviewed.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is a first person shooter published by Activision and developed by Infinity Ward in collaboration with Sledgehammer Games for the Playstation 3, Xbox 360, Wii & PC.

This review has some spoilers!

GAMEPLAY

The same as MW2, ignoring any innovations BO made, a case in point being diving into prone, which you could do in BO, is no longer an option. You would think Infinity Ward could at least implement some minor upgrades from Treyarch's instalments, instead it seems they want to ignore that another developer is at least trying new things with the franchise.

Another such example is the playable character, one of the great parts about BO was that the protagonist actually had a voice, while here you've been reverted back to random goon with no voice what so ever. The main character you'll play as is Yuri, who won't talk at all, but the moment you play as someone else and he's around he will talk. Why do that? What does that achieve? There are so many moments where your character could have said something and they don't, it's infuriating.

There is a tacked on survival mode that seems to have been created in the hope or replicating Treyarch's zombies, however this mode is just a generic horde mode. You get better guns, the rounds keep going and more enemies spawn. There is no story or anything to try and make the experience more memorable.

The AI teammates are pretty useless and only really seem to be there to trigger events, I'm not sure they even really help you take enemies down either, more so just watch and shout things at you. I can't even really remember any of the characters who were introduced, not that any of them really mattered anyway.

The multiplayer maps are bland, boring and uninspired, none of them are memorable and they grow stale pretty quickly. They're really disappointing in comparison to some other games in the series too, such as MW1, which had great maps by the dozen, all with different ways to come out on top. With MW3 most the maps can pretty much approached the same way with the same load outs. Where's the fun in always using the same gun, rather than having to switch from an assault rifle to a shotgun because of the advantages you will gain on the map.

A lot of the game seems to be a copy and paste from MW2, killstreaks are mostly the same, many guns feel the same, even some maps seem to carry a resemblance.

If you've seen the trailers and seen the car chases or submarine rides, thinking they look like cool additions to the game, then you'll be disappointed to learn that all those things are pretty much just part of scripted sequences or tired turret sections. Even the most destructive moments of the game all happen as you simply watch on. I'd go as far to say that this game feels like a Hollywood action blockbuster that has little heart and only wants to show you explosions. You would have thought the game would at least let you have some leverage in that regard.

STORY

The only real story going on in the game involves Price and Soap going after Makarov, the rest of the characters are just shooting things really. There isn't really much to say about it, you just go from A to B trying to track him down. There is the whole back drop of World War 3 too, but you'll never really learn much about that, because something of that scale certainly deserves little attention. The most you'll really get about the whole World War 3 thing is that Russia has invaded much of Western Europe and the USA, so get moving soldier. What I'm saying is that all the other levels outside the Price and Soap ones are pretty pointless.

The previous Modern Warfare instalments are infamous for certain events that take place during the story and stirred up controversy, MW1's nuclear weapon and MW2 "No Russian" level certainly put the series in the limelight, however what you thought of either doesn't matter, the fact is that they did add to the story in both games. MW3 again tries to catch those controversial headlines with a gas attack happening in France. The problem with this is that it doesn't add to the story at all, it's an obvious attempt at grabbing headlines.

GRAPHICS

Looks pretty much the same as MW1, it might even look worse than BO. Considering how much the franchise brings in a year, you would think that the graphics could be improved.

SOUND

Brian Tyler's soundtrack does its job, although I'm not sure you'll remember any of the themes for long to come. Voice acting and SFX all seem fine and in order.

VALUE FOR MONEY

The only thing that has advanced from Modern Warfare 2 is the story, everything else is pretty much the same as the previous instalments in the series, if perhaps even worse. If you're up for more Modern Warfare then this game will probably do, however if you feel like you're growing tired of the franchises repetition and seemingly backwards steps, then this won't be worth the money.

OVERALL

Modern Warfare 3 loves to show you spectacles, but rarely really lets you take part in them, and I think that sums the game up quite well. It has a lot of flash, but doesn't really expand upon that. There is no innovation over either of its predecessors and it even takes numerous steps back from Black Ops. Unless you're a big fan of the series and aren't getting tired of the same old formula you should ignore this one.

UNCHARTED 3: DRAKE'S DECEPTION (2011) REVIEW

PS3 exclusive.

Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception is an action adventure game published by Sony and developed by Naughty Dog for the PS3.

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VALUE FOR MONEY

OVERALL
While Uncharted 3 is another great addition to Naughty Dog's impressive collection, it feels more like a side step rather than the next step big step forward.