Insurgency: Sandstorm Review – What's Old Is New Again

With our reinforcements depleted and the enemy firmly entrenched in its defensive positions, the outcome of this battle looks bleak. Rather than desperately charging headlong into the fire zone like lambs to the slaughter, before we respawn our commander urges the squad to hang back as he coordinates one last-ditch attempt to capture the objective. After flanking the control point with his observer to find a good vantage point, he orders gunship support to pick off exposed snipers and drive the remaining enemies indoors. The rest of us pop smoke grenades to cover our movement before infiltrating the building housing the objective. 

Some of us won’t make it out alive. As the smoke begins to clear, we stare unblinkingly into the corners of the bullet-riddled room in hopes of spotting the last few defenders before they see us. My finger hangs deliberately over the mouse button ready to unload, but they fire first. The room erupts with gunfire and two comrades grouped closely together shriek their last breaths, but their deaths are not in vain. The rest of us spot the muzzle fire and rain revenge, securing the objective and completing the improbable comeback. 

At its best, Insurgency: Sandstorm capably delivers heroic moments like these, where the tension would suffocate if it weren’t for the equal dose of adrenaline rushing through your veins. This tactical shooter demands precision and rewards teamwork, but it also expects you to do your homework and survive without the conveniences of modern shooters.

As the years have gone by, tactical shooters like Rainbow Six and Battlefield have slowly sanded away the rough edges from their spartan foundations to become more streamlined, bombastic, and inclusive. Insurgency is the old-school mercenary who fills that void for those craving the punishing realism of yesteryear. Bullets are deadly, and no medics are standing by to miraculously revive you after being downed. Grenades don’t have indicators when they land near your position, and the lack of mini-maps and killcams means snipers with good hiding spots don’t need to relocate. With no kill confirmations, you won’t even know whether you killed that soldier hiding behind cover until you see the dead body yourself. Those who prefer the more arcade-like approach to military games may find the lack of these quality-of-life systems frustrating. But if you embrace this more realistic combat and operate like your life is on the line, Insurgency comes alive.

Before you drop into a match, you must choose one of the eight classes. A few, like the commander and observer, have critical responsibilities, but the rest basically break down by weapon type. Developer New World Interactive smartly limits the number of players who can use the most powerful classes, which prevents matches from becoming frustrating due to too many snipers or rocket spamming. All the weapons and attachments are unlocked from the start, but your loadout is limited by weight so you have to make some tough choices. Do you carry extra grenades or fully invest in useful attachments for your primary weapon? The many combinations for each class encourage experimentation before you settle on a favorite loadout.

Each of the three competitive multiplayer modes focuses strictly on attacking or defending control points. Some require the attacking team to take them over sequentially, whereas others spread the fight out across multiple positions. Respawns come in waves, either based on a timer or gifted as a result of capturing a new control point. Patience is required, because you sometimes have to wait minutes rather than seconds before the reinforcements get deployed, and you’re often several hundred meters away from the hot zone once you drop back in. I appreciate respawning at a distance because it creates a natural frontline where you don’t feel constantly in danger of being flanked during your approach, but hoofing it as far as 300 meters brings to mind some of the boring treks in long-lost games like Delta Force. 

Over the course of battle, expect to see some technical glitches. Though my performance was generally stable, occasionally my soldier's hands would disappear or he would have problems vaulting through windows. The netcode also could use some refinement. There were times I made it safely behind cover but still took a fatal bullet mere nanoseconds after the fact. 

Though they lack the graphical polish of many modern shooters, Insurgency’s maps are well designed, with varied elevations, winding streets, and plenty of cover. But apart from the oil refinery, they all feel remarkably similar, as if they were adjacent war-torn districts of a no-name Middle Eastern territory. The game would benefit dramatically from some environmental variety; right now it doesn’t even include a map set during the night to mix things up. 

 

Some of the maps include a truck with a turret mounted in the flatbed, but the controls are lacking and the absence of more deadly player-controlled vehicles is noticeable given its modern military setting. Commanders can call in gunships, mortars, and drones to aid the cause, but each is automated once you choose the attack location. In a game so defined by skill and execution, it feels odd to take control of these devastating weapons away from the player.

New World scrapped its plans for a story campaign during development, so the only option outside of competitive multiplayer is a cooperative mode where your squad commandeers control points from an A.I. occupying force. Respawns only trigger after capturing the next objective, which adds much-needed tension to the otherwise generic mode. Playing through each map for the first time is a fun way to get your bearings and calls to mind Rainbow Six’s terrorist hunts, but there isn’t enough depth or variety here to encourage repeated playthroughs. 

The progression system feels similarly underequipped. Ranking up earns you currency to buy new cosmetics for both the security and insurgent forces, but the options are unimaginative and paltry compared to options found in other shooters like Ghost Recon Wildlands. With no accolade or medal awards, the only real reward for a well-played match in Insurgency is the pride you feel for a job well done. 

Insurgency: Sandstorm isn’t for everyone. Its steadfast commitment to realism may off put those who like to jump right into the action, respawn immediately after dying, and get showered with rewards for ranking up. At the same time, fans who lament the mainstream evolution of tactical shooters like Rainbow Six and Battlefield may find solace in this unforgiving, undeniably tense combat. Insurgency: Sandstorm may be spartan, but its limited package can still deliver memorable moments.

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Below Review - Curiosity And Consternation

Below is an experience shrouded in mystery and discovery. Your character is a mere speck on the screen, with a zoomed-out camera providing a sense of scale that shows how tiny you are in relation to a vast, often-unforgiving world. The highly stylized art style combines with Jim Guthrie’s enthralling soundtrack to create an immersive adventure that’s easy to get lost into. No matter how strange, everything in Below’s world feels like it belongs, from meandering foxes on a desolate beach to the soft breakaway of blocks as your lantern’s light creates a path through the darkness. But Below’s gameplay can be debilitatingly frustrating, because despite permanent progression through shortcuts and other unlocks, death is swift and devastating, and it can leave you without essential resources to collect your corpse with a fresh character.

Arriving at a mysterious island, your tiny adventurer is armed with a sword, shield, and little else. You figure out how to manage many survival aspects (food, water, heat) while exploring your way to the depths of the island through many biomes and challenges. Sometimes the challenges are survival-based, like staying alive in a frozen cave. Others are more traditional dangers, having to battle off increasingly dangerous enemies, blocking with your shield, dodging out of the way of attacks, and letting fly a perfectly aimed bomb arrow. Or perhaps you need to solve a puzzle by landing an arrow, shining your lantern, or swinging a hammer.

Along the way, you find (and craft) new equipment that allows you to handle increasingly deadlier environments and enemies as you delve deeper into the heart of the island, including a pocket dimension that allows you to store resources for safekeeping. Each new special item you find, buy, or craft allows for satisfying experimentation. Below is unusual in that the deeper you go and the more interesting and wondrous environments become, the more the enchantment is stifled by the sheer weight of lethal traps and foes. From the darkness floors and beyond, death becomes an oppressive force that’s not just difficult or challenging, but oppressive and unfun.

 

It can be an absolute nightmare to recover your supplies from a floor that you haven’t unlocked a fast route to, and life without your lantern (which must be recovered from death each time, a critical item that many of the game’s mechanics hinge on) is bleak. By the time you get to take on a super cool boss, you’re left more concerned about your potential mortality than getting to really enjoy how precise and crafted the movements of the entity are. As you travel through the weird and wonderful, much of the enjoyment can be lost, channeled into death concerns, grinding for supplies to ensure that you can recover from loss, or simply running back through lengthy segments to get back to where discovery can begin again.

While every tiny unearthed secret provides a pip of inspiring joy, a singular misstep into a one-shot trap or dark creature can sap the fun in a heartbeat, creating a world where the fear of death reigns over all with an overbearing, heavy-handed truncheon. I also ran into a demoralizing bug where a critical progression item was unable to be recovered after death, leaving me locked out of advancing and forced to restart with a fresh save file.

Despite death’s cold grip threatening to ruin everything (a sense which grows the further you progress thanks to several significant difficulty spikes), the core concepts of discovery and exploration shine through. Finding out how to make arrow-bombs to take out tough foes, finding a shop, crafting a stockpile of elixirs, finding a critical elevator to the surface, and putting new gear to use in order to tackle new environmental hazards feels satisfying to figure out on your own. The first time you engage with new areas and mechanics can be awe-inspiring, as each area has its own special identity that feels like it truly belongs. Putting together the often-esoteric pieces of the puzzle and looking up at the sky from the top of the island is inspiring.

Below’s death mechanics can be devastating and off-putting, and caused me to bounce off the game several times. The survival nags are annoying, and the grinding for a safety net feels like a busy chore, but the overall combination of stylized graphics and soundtrack create an incredible universe that begs to be experienced. You need serious tenacity and perseverance to see the sights, but they are wonders worth seeing.

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Battle Princess Madelyn Review – Retro To A Fault

Romanticizing the past is easy, but older games shouldn’t always be held up as examples to follow. The retro aesthetic has plenty of appeal, including a simplicity of concept and presentation that can be refreshing set against modern behemoths. But old-school styling and design can also add up to frustration, aimlessness, and exasperating difficulty. Battle Princess Madelyn nails the throwback vibe it’s shooting for, and in so doing, exhibits both the highs and lows of the games from which it draws inspiration. If someone told you this was a lost sequel to Ghouls ‘n Ghosts rediscovered after all these years, it would be easy to believe.

Battle Princess Madelyn unleashes the titular royal on a side-scrolling world filled with creeping undead, giant snakes, and demonic trees. Her family has been kidnapped by a malevolent force, and she flings an endless supply of spears and swords to overcome the threat. Through charming (if simply drawn) characters and cameos, the story takes on a personal vibe, and showcases a plucky, capable heroine with spark and panache.

The game features two different game modes, using the same environmental backgrounds, but with totally different level designs and approaches to progression. The story mode is a lengthier quest with lots of new items to unlock and secrets to discover, while the arcade mode is a more straightforward and linear path through challenging battles and platforming. These modes result in significant replay potential.

The story mode provides a satisfying progression of new weapons and armor, though I was disappointed that I ran out of things to spend my currency on well before the game’s conclusion. I encountered a multitude of side missions to tackle, but the absence of a quest log or directional aids makes them all blur together, and it’s often difficult to tell the difference between critical objectives or missions that just net you some extra currency.

I was continually impressed by the variety of monsters, animations, and environments to discover; the desire to see the next area helps motivate continued play. Simple but enjoyable fantasy combat kept me mashing buttons for hours, and the platforming is often difficult, but usually rewarding. Unfortunately, the levels are often confusing to navigate, offering little guidance on how to push the story forward. A smartly implemented hint system alleviates some of the worst offenses, if you check those tips out. In addition, your trusty ghost dog companion also barks and helps steer you toward important objects. Even so, the long checkpoints, frequent blind death drops, and extended vertical climbs that characterize many levels all add more frustration than enjoyment. Many story mode levels also demand backtracking after a boss fight or to find particular sub-levels; pacing would often be better if I was just teleported back to a dungeon entrance or quest completion.

The arcade mode offers a cleaner, more straightforward homage to the original formula. But players should be prepared for a devilish difficulty curve that might crush your spirit long before you see credits. I enjoyed the arcade style the most after first completing the story mode, at which point the added challenge felt manageable but still appropriately punishing.

Battle Princess Madelyn has a sweet, personal touch to it that shines through in the final product, as well as a message about the value of family. The game was built in part as a father’s message to his real-life daughter, and whether you know that backstory or not, it lends the story and gameplay a heartfelt and wholesome tone. The Ghouls ‘n Ghosts formula is a lesser-tapped classic that is reinvigorated here with skill, but some structural and design elements hold the experience back from greatness. I hope we get to see more adventures with Madelyn and her family; with some refinement, this whimsically macabre world would be a joy to explore again.

 

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Ashen Review – Turning Strangers Into Friends

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Dusk Review – Getting Old Schooled

Big-budget, triple-A experiences have never been better, but modern games have no shortage of long cutscenes and hand-holding tutorial sequences. In contrast, Dusk is a nostalgia trip that strips away modern expectations and delivers distilled FPS thrills. Dusk doesn't mess around with leveling mechanics or a sprawling narrative; it hands you a shotgun and lets you loose on a demon army. This simplicity is Dusk’s greatest strength, because this no-frills shooter is an excellent crash course in basic game design.

Dusk doesn't hide its homage to '90s corridor shooters like Doom and Quake. These straightforward, boxy levels are relatively short and filled with colored keycards and hidden monster closets. But, given its graphical constraints, Dusk’s environments are incredibly well-realized. Animated scarecrows stumble out of cornfields while rundown barns teem with hooded cultists and demonic goats. Each level features its own twist on folk horror, seemingly inspired by films like The Wicker Man and Texas Chainsaw Massacre. With sparing detail, Dusk establishes an ominous tone that completely sucked me in from level one.

One of the biggest reasons to explore every nook and cranny of Dusk’s short levels is to gain access to powerful weapons. Early on, I fell in love with dual-wielding shotguns, but another favorite go-to became the rivet gun, which fires off super-heated construction rivets that explode like miniature missiles. Unlike many classic FPS games, I constantly rotated through Dusk’s arsenal thanks to each weapon’s specialization. For example, the hunting rifle is a long-range tool that packs an incredible punch, while the crossbow fires magical green arrows that rip through multiple enemies and even fire through walls. Each weapon is incredibly satisfying, and thanks to an ample supply of ammo scattered on the ground, my magazines rarely ran dry.

 

Mastering Dusk’s arsenal is important, because the action is frantic. Every firefight feels like a dance as you rotate through insanely powerful weapons and strafe dozens of incoming foes. Most enemies do little more than stand and shoot or run straight at you, but given the sheer number of foes and the fact that different projectiles move at varying speeds, I was constantly on my toes. Dusk is a shooter with no reloading, no cover, and no nonsense, so every skirmish is an absolute thrill ride.

Dusk’s intensity also pairs well with its oppressive atmosphere. You rarely have time to think about the horrors you’ve witnessed because the game is continually tossing enemies at you and letting you burn off that nervous energy in combat. Dusk is at once nerve-racking and cathartic.

 

After you finish the extensive single-player campaign, you can jump online for 16-player multiplayer mayhem. While the online action remains fast-paced, deathmatch is the only multiplayer mode, and it only has a handful of interesting maps. I had no trouble jumping into online matches, but I did have trouble getting a full 16-player match going. An in-game link to a community Discord channel helps coordinate play sessions, but this feels like papering over a problem rather than providing reliable and robust matchmaking. Given online multiplayer's lack of options and intentional lack of progression, this mode feels more like a novelty. Fortunately, the single-player campaign is more than worth the price of admission.

The first-person shooter has evolved a great deal since Doom popularized the genre in 1993, but, in spite 25 years of innovations, Dusk proves that many of the old tricks still work incredibly well. Dusk might look and feel like a Quake mod, but it's so polished it feels modern. Anyone with even a hint of nostalgia in their bones for classic shooters should dive headfirst into Dusk.

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Gris Review – Not All Who Wander Are Lost

The protagonist of Gris charts her own way out of sadness, and while grief is often navigated alone, that is not necessarily the case here. Her path isn’t straightforward, but the game’s well-designed gameplay and levels don’t make you feel helpless and isolated, instead delivering catharsis.

The visual style immediately stoked my interest. It’s arresting and stylistic, accented by interesting and appropriate movements of the camera. The graphics’ clean lines are still expressive and often a fundamental part of the puzzles, instructive in how players can move about the world and interact with it. With that also comes enriching aural flourishes that further pull you in and changes of color that help express the protagonists’ progression.

 

Gris’ unnamed protagonist does not have a lot of powers in her arsenal, but make no mistake: This game is not just a pretty-looking, light platformer. What abilities she does have to influence environments build throughout the game, such as her dress becoming weighty or flowing to burst through or float across levels. The use of these powers is meted out to produce satisfying moments and to make sure there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to problems. One of my favorite reoccurring sequences involves reverse gravity areas, a nice confluence of the game’s form and function that also shows off Gris’ ability to deliver precise platforming.

I appreciate how Gris’ level design encourages exploration without sowing confusion, frustration, or leaving you lost when it comes to the larger tasks of solving puzzles or advancing the story. It’s not easy for a game to both give players a sense of exploration while still maintaining a framework for levels and puzzle gameplay that doesn’t make you feel like you’re simply moving from one task to the next. Even during backtracking, in Gris it’s like you’re seeing things for the first time because of the flow of the levels and the art style. This keeps it from feeling like you’re a rat enclosed in the walls of a maze simply bumping into things until you get it right.

Gris’ story is open to a range of interpretations, and it’s not important that you arrive at a specific meaning. Instead, in creating a well-constructed game, developer Nomada Studio has laid the foundations by which you can find your own sight and voice.

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Desert Child Review – Just Scraping By

Desert Child casts players as a desperate young man who can barely make ends meet as he strives for glory as a hoverbike racer. But even when you get first place, you aren’t showered with prize money; sometimes you’re lucky to win enough to maintain your bike and get a decent meal. The slow struggle to amass wealth is an unconventional subject for gaming, and Desert Child conveys it well. However, when it comes to providing fun and depth, this stylish title doesn’t make it across the finish line.

You experience the world of Desert Child in two ways: racing and wandering. The races are short one-on-one affairs that make you weigh your boost and ammo as you try to stay in the lead. Though you can pepper the screen with bullets if you want to, the most lucrative strategy involves shooting certain hazards (like TV monitors that drop money) while trying to bash other hazards with your bike. The process isn’t complicated, and once you get the hang of it, the races don’t demand new tactics. Unfortunately, because your winnings are so meager – especially early on – you need to race a lot to earn the money to compete in the final contest. That may be in service to Desert Child’s overall message, but without any meaningful evolution, action quickly grows stale and repetitive.

The only major source of variety is what upgrades you install on your bike. Working within the confines of a grid, you place mods of different shapes and sizes, then junction power to them to enhance their effects. This can result in things like a higher ammo cap, more money, and bigger bullets. However, because the total upgrades are few (and the upgrades you can equip at once even fewer), you don’t have much opportunity to develop different playstyles. You can technically use various guns, but that choice is made at the very beginning and set in stone, so you need to start a whole new game to experiment with those options.

The shallow racing puts the burden on your off-the-track activities to keep you invested, but those also fall short. While roaming the city, you can pick up other jobs (like pizza delivery and kangaroo herding) that are just different spins on the basic racing formula. Otherwise, your time between races is spent walking slowly across multiple interconnected screens in a routine of simple tasks like repairing your bike, buying some food, and depositing your leftover money in the bank. The distance between these errands is frustrating, because you don’t have anything interesting to do in the world as you make the rounds.

 

Though Desert Child doesn’t always succeed in its ambitions, it usually looks good in the attempt. The pixel art and soundtrack create a slick retro atmosphere, and unique camera angles give you surprising looks at certain parts of the city. But again, it all feels superficial because the minimal story and dialogue mean that you never get a good sense of the futuristic setting beneath its junky, dystopian veneer. Some of it is good for a chuckle (like how all food is just called “burger”), but don't expect to form any attachment to characters or the world around them.

Grinding for slim rewards during the few hours it takes to finish Desert Child  encourages you to think broadly about financial hardship. While that’s a worthwhile topic to consider, the inert world and thin gameplay aren’t enough to translate Desert Child’s core concept into an entertaining game.

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Just Cause 4 Review – An Explosive Sandbox Of Possibilities

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Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Review – A Raucous Clash Reunion

From its humble Nintendo 64 beginnings, Super Smash Bros. has been a delightful neutral zone for players looking for top-tier competition as well as friends who just want to kick back and watch Princess Peach knock the stuffing out of Bowser. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is the culmination of everything that’s come before, offering a massive roster of classic characters and stages and subtle additions that make the game feel fresh. Whether you haven’t played Smash since your dorm-room days or you breathlessly await each new entry, Ultimate is not to be missed.

One reason why the Smash Bros. series has been so successful is that it’s one of those games where the old “easy to learn, difficult to master” cliché applies. In that way, Ultimate maintains its reputation as being one of the best party games around. It’s a great equalizer, with characters that are recognizable and memorable, and above all else it's fun to play. Ultimate adds some new faces to the proceedings, like Animal Crossing’s Isabelle, Metroid’s Ridley, and the Inklings from Splatoon. I like seeing some new blood (even if it’s never spilled), but none of the new ones fully clicked with me. Isabelle comes closest, feeling like a fresh variation on Villager, but I kept getting drawn back to my old mainstays including returning favorite Pichu. 

Ultimate’s new World of Light solo mode wisely doesn’t try to shoehorn platforming elements or push too far beyond the core of what Smash does best. Instead, you navigate a large map and take on themed challenges. The gimmick – and it’s a pretty good one – is that you’re freeing the spirits of characters who have fallen to a mysterious force. The spirits represent a vast array of characters from the world of gaming, the majority of whom aren’t represented as playable heroes in the roster. For instance, one spot on the map might have you saving a goron chief from Ocarina of Time, aka a giant, tan-furred Donkey Kong. Or a battle against Snorlax might have newcomer King K. Rool taking on the role of the slumbering Pokémon. Basically, imagine the playable cast cosplaying a wide array of other gaming characters. I spent dozens of hours in the mode, and I was continuously surprised by how creative the developers got in finding doppelgangers for these matches. 

Once liberated, the spirits are added to your roster and provide buffs for your hero. Exploring the World of Light can be a little tough at the start, but by methodically battling across the map I slowly accrued gear that made me feel like I was gaming the system in the best possible way. Battles aren’t quite as scary when you have spirits that counteract the burning effects of a stage’s lava hazards and also give you a powerful weapon or regenerating health at the start of the match. You can train your spirits in dojos and send them on expeditions, too, leveling them up for more power and adding yet another fun twist.

 

Your collection of spirits can also migrate over to classic Smash modes, which further transforms the game. You want to use two final smashes with every activation? How does an extra jump sound? I’ve always enjoyed the barely contained chaos that Smash brings, so these extra enhancements are welcome. If the spirits seem like too much, plenty of other under-the-hood tweaks can customize the experience. The most noteworthy addition is creating and saving your own custom rule sets, which are then surfaced on the main Smash menu. As someone who only plays matches with stock lives, this fixes a small but longstanding issue. Now I can dive into matches at the press of a button instead of having to fiddle around with menus. Another cool new option is the ability to earn final smashes by filling a meter instead of breaking the smash ball. It changes the tenor of matches, since players can focus on their opponents as opposed to the floating object.

Single player is better than ever, but solely playing against the CPU is a sad existence. Unsurprisingly, Ultimate’s multiplayer component shines. Local co-op is great, with up to eight players fighting at once (or even more, though not simultaneously, with the return of tournament play). If you don’t have the controllers for that kind of gathering or your Smash crew has scattered over the years, online is a viable alternative. The four-way matches fill up quickly, though it falters where it actually matters. The framerate and overall stability is inconsistent, which is frustrating in a game that depends so heavily on reaction time. I had more than a few otherwise-preventable deaths after the game hiccupped as I was on my way back to terra firma. Ultimately, however, Smash is best played with your friends piled into the same space, where you can shout, cheer, and taunt with impunity at every close match.  

 

Once all the characters are unlocked, the character-select screen is a magnificent thing to behold, with every character from the previous games present. However, getting them to show up is another thing entirely. When you start, you’re given eight measly heroes to choose from. It’s a seemingly clever nod to the modest starting roster from the Nintendo 64 game that started it all. Once I was done chuckling at the familiar lineup, the realization that I was going to have to unlock more than 60 remaining characters set in. New faces pop in whether you’re playing regular matches with friends, classic battles against A.I., or in the World of Light mode, but it’s an unnecessarily tedious and antiquated process.

Ultimate is a tremendous package overall, including just about everything a Smash fan could want. Sure, there are a few omissions; the lack of a home-run challenge hurts, and I would have loved to see an updated take on the Poké Floats stage (or the ability to create my own). The biggest fault in this close-to-comprehensive collection is perhaps the flipside of one of its strengths: For all the new things it brings, it’s all very familiar. As fun as they are to play, the handful of new characters don’t have the same pop of novelty that past additions have delivered. It’s a solid lineup, just not one that’s especially surprising beyond its overall scale.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate isn’t dramatically reinventing the franchise, but that’s all right with me; it’s a refinement of what’s come before. Some of my favorite gaming moments have centered on Smash, and it’s great to have a solid new anchor for moments yet to come – even if it means getting knocked into oblivion by a snoozing Jigglypuff every once in a while. 

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Earth Defense Force 5 Review – A Weakening Resistance

It may not be complex, but the core of Earth Defense Force 5 is accessible and entertaining. You are a soldier who (along with the optional assistance of co-op buddies) fights off an invading horde of giant bugs, frogs, UFOs, and more. You customize your loadout with weapons that range from awesome to awful. When your enemies are destroyed, they may drop new weapons for you to equip on future missions. Plowing through swarms of baddies while hoping for good loot is a pillar of countless games, and it retains its primal appeal here. However, Earth Defense Force 5 doesn’t build on that foundation, even when compared to previous games in this series.

With cheesy dialogue and simple point-and-shoot gunplay, Earth Defense Force 5’s presentation and mechanics take a back seat to pure arcade action. Jumping into the fray is easy, whether you’re firing off hilariously short-ranged explosives or unleashing a barrage of powerful homing missiles. Your otherworldly foes explode in satisfying spurts of fire and goo, often flailing wildly from the generous application of exaggerated physics. The resulting B-movie vibe serves this experience well, doling out laughs while removing barriers between you and the main attraction: shooting at a screen full of enormous creatures with weapons of escalating destructive force.

The mayhem is charming, but Earth Defense Force 5 hits the same basic notes as its predecessors, parading out familiar enemies (or their analogues) in a routine that doesn’t introduce many unique twists. The previous installment changed the dynamic by offering four classes with different specialties, and those same four options reappear this time around. You can technically use classes to strategize with your teammates online or in split-screen, like having the support-focused Air Raider help guide the Fencer’s heavy firepower. However, the action rarely demands (or even encourages) that level of coordination. The balanced offense of the Ranger and airborne mobility of the Wing Diver classes remain the most satisfying and versatile options, especially for solo play.

Most of my favorite improvements to the formula are quality-of-life changes, like earning health and weapons for all classes, not just the one you are currently playing. This means that you aren’t starting from scratch four times if you want to get a taste of what each playstyle offers. I also appreciate that picking up duplicates can increase the weapon’s stats instead of just feeling like wasted effort.

 

Though the experience is more user-friendly, these changes aren’t enough for Earth Defense Force 5 to gain any ground. It doesn’t feel substantially different from when I first played Earth Defense Force 2017 over a decade ago. I’m shooting ants with rockets and machine guns of wildly inconsistent utility. I’m cackling as buildings collapse. I’m crossing my fingers for a better version of my favorite gun. It’s fun, but it’s practically identical to the fun offered by its predecessors. If this is your first time playing an EDF title, this fatigue may not be an issue; the idea at the heart of the game is still a blast. At the same time, Earth Defense Force 5 barely feels like a step up from a game that was considered clunky and unpolished in 2007.

As video games evolve, developers continually set new standards by creating experiences with sophisticated storytelling, heightened immersion, and jaw-dropping technology. Earth Defense Force 5 has none of those things – but that’s okay. This series has always had a single-minded commitment to one simple truth: It’s fun to use weird weapons to blast lots of aliens. That fact may never change, but in an industry that has been steadily raising the bar, Earth Defense Force 5 allows the series to fall further behind.

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The Council Review – The Wrong Side Of History

History is full of power struggles, great betrayals, and behind-the-scenes scheming. The ugly side of politics often rears its head as leaders engage in the cutthroat pursuit of protecting their citizens … and themselves. The Council explores this concept, allowing you to align yourself with renowned historical figures to decide what’s best for the world. With a cool geopolitical backdrop, you’d think The Council would be engaging. While the scheming is full of good ideas, it never lives up to its potential. The adventure is disappointing and unsatisfying, with ridiculous plotlines, technical shortcomings, and annoying puzzles. 

The Council begins as a mystery of sorts. You arrive at a strange manor where your mother has gone missing. The reason for your visit? Your mother is part of a secret society that determines how to govern the world. It’s up to you to investigate this unique group, which includes famous individuals such as George Washington and Napoleon Bonaparte. The plot starts off promising, referencing historical events and exploring how religion has influenced government, but as fictional elements grow more prominent, it goes even further off the rails. When a huge plot twist was revealed halfway through the five episode arc, I lost all enthusiasm for the story – and further developments made me even more disappointed. To be blunt, the plot insults your intelligence with clichéd good-versus-evil comparisons. The tale unfolds through voice acting so bad it’s distracting, and watching the wooden character models interact is just as jarring. This hurts the immersion just as much as the horrendous twists; for a narrative-driven experience like The Council, these are all big problems.

At the very least, The Council has some interesting wrinkles in how it explores choice and progression. Every political mastermind has skills that make them successful, and this is put directly into the gameplay with light RPG elements. You pick from three classes – diplomat, occult, or detective – but you’re not cut off from gaining skills in different trees. As you play, you can apply points to increase your prowess in particular skills, like conviction, diversion, and psychology. Permanent bonuses called talents are unlocked depending on how you react and what you find in the manor. These can be anything from gaining additional experience to obtaining extra items. As someone who plays a lot of RPGs and loves building characters, I enjoyed this aspect. You’re always balancing what’s more important for you to focus on. Do you want to level up the manipulation skill to get people to act in your interest, or invest in the ability to pick locks to obtain beneficial items and information?

 

This all plays into your conversations. Depending on your aptitudes and the information you uncover, certain dialogue options open up. As in politics, relationships are important and fragile. A wrong move can cost you, but you can also make enemies into allies just as quickly with the right argument. The basic gameplay revolves around effort points, where some dialogue options have a cost, and that cost is lowered depending on your skills. You only get so many each quest to expend, so choosing wisely is essential. You want to invest optimally, whether it’s in an alliance or learning a secret that changes your perspective on a situation. The game has its share of alternative paths because of this, but that doesn’t matter when they all lead you down bad plotlines.

In addition to exploring the manor, building relationships, and making decisions, you encounter puzzles, which are more complex and logic-centric than we’ve seen in recent narrative games like Life is Strange and Telltale’s The Walking Dead.  While I enjoy solving riddles and brain teasers, The Council’s puzzles are tedious. For instance, one had me matching religious figures in paintings to their associated bible verse. If that required me to sort through a book or two, it wouldn’t be so boring but this is a drawn-out process that you do multiple times by trying to decipher clues for the verses that span across many different gospels and passages. I much preferred when deducing solutions based on the information you have, such as learning how to write messages in a secret code and matching historical dates and events to access a secret room. As you solve various puzzles, expect to backtrack to talk to people and gather requested items, which is exacerbated by long load times when you enter a new room. 

The Council’s bad graphics, voice acting, and load times didn’t bother me as much as its problematic narrative. What’s the point of having choice and consequence when you don’t care about the story you’re inhabiting? The Council seems promising with its good ideas, but then when you get further into it, it betrays you like a dishonest politician. 

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Beat Saber Review – Engrossing Musical Swordplay

When virtual reality became a real product we could have in our homes, the platform promised the potential of lush, engaging, and fully realized worlds. We’re still working toward that future, but while we’re waiting, Beat Saber offers one of virtual reality’s best experiences. It doesn’t create a new world to explore; instead Beat Saber focuses on placing you in a song and giving you the tools to participate in its rhythms in ways that traditional music games can’t.

In Beat Saber you use two light swords (one blue and one red), and you swing them using Move controllers. Red and blue blocks fly toward you, indicating which saber you should use to hit them. Along with being color coded, the blocks also have arrows dictating the direction of your chop. A blue block flying at you on your right with an arrow pointing north requires you to attack it from the bottom swiping upward. A red block coming from the left with an westward pointing arrow requires you to swipe through it from right to left. These blocks fly at you in time with the music booming in your ears, and when you find the rhythm and take down each block, you feel like you’re conducting a violent symphony. It’s beautiful.

A clinical description of how the gameplay works really doesn’t do it justice. Wielding lightsabers to destroy blocks as the music and light show fully envelops you lets you focus on the task at hand with extreme precision. The music and visuals fully take over your peripherals, engrossing you and making you feel the music. It wasn’t long before I was slashing blocks based purely on the rhythm, embracing the choreography of each song and focusing less on the arrows on the blocks. It makes the experience a fantastic showcase for the platform and genuinely feels like something that wouldn’t work outside of a headset.

With driving beats and dance-worthy intensity, every song is enjoyable and perfect for the style of gameplay Beat Saber offers. However, compared to other rhythm and music games, the diversity isn’t there. The original soundtrack (no licensed songs here) stays rooted in techno-centric beats, and there are only 16 so you end up playing the same songs a lot.

Despite the repeated songs, the gameplay doesn’t grow stale. Early on, you simply grasp for high scores, but you eventually encounter tasks like completing a song without making wide arm movements, or missing a specific number of blocks without failing. The campaign also offers a deep challenge, dipping into the extreme difficulties before showing you the finish line. Even if you’ve been playing Beat Saber for months in early access on Vive and Rift, the campaign offers a worthwhile and enjoyable challenge.

 

You have an assortment of options for tackling songs outside of the campaign. You can do no-fail mode (helpful for learning the more difficult songs), play without arrows on the blocks, or play with single-color blocks. You can also elect to turn on modifiers for score boosts, like playing a song at double speed or making the arrows disappear from the blocks right before you swipe through them. I liked all these modifiers and how they added gameplay variety, which is important considering the small track list.

Beat Saber is a must-play for anyone interested in virtual reality, but not for the reasons we typically associate with the platform. It won’t make you crane your neck to take in the majesty of your surroundings, but Beat Saber uses VR to place you into the music and taps into your carnal desire to hit things with swords. Years into its life, the gaming public is still unsure of this new way to play video games, but Beat Saber has the potential to convince skeptics to take another look.

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Artifact Review - Analytical Adventure

Valve’s Artifact was announced to mixed reactions at the Dota 2 International tournament in 2017. Artifact apparently signaled Valve’s return to active game development, but it is different from the studio’s signature series like Half-Life and Portal. Instead, Artifact is a card game set in the world of Dota, and it is designed by Richard Garfield, the creator of Magic: The Gathering. While Artifact is different from Dota 2’s team-based gameplay, much of the flavor and mechanics translate well into the three-lane game. If there’s one big similarity between the two Valve titles, it’s that some time and dedication are required to learning, understanding, and enjoying the game.

 

The easiest way to explain Artifact is that you’re playing three different games simultaneously with a single hand, and you need to use those cards to win two out of the three games (or win one of the games twice). Success is all about management and position; you need to make hundreds of decisions in a single game on both micro and macro levels. It’s overwhelming at first, but after many hours of play and mastery of the systems at work, the satisfaction of executing a perfectly timed game-winning move is immense. On the surface, Artifact appears to be a tangled web of randomness with so many aspects being left to chance, but corralling those variables and subtly working with the tide of each game creates an atmosphere unlike any other digital card game.

 

Everything hinges on your heroes. Your deck must contain five heroes, and they come with associated cards (Dota fans will recognize flavorful skills and abilities, but no previous Dota experience is required). These cards play well with the hero's stats and passive or active skill. For instance, one of the most powerful heroes in the game, Axe, doesn’t even have a passive. Axe is just a big pile of stats. As a red hero, Axe loves to fight and is more than a match for other heroes and creeps, so this is exactly where you want him, pummeling enemies into submission in direct combat with superior size. The other three colors all have their own specialties as well. Black focuses on gold acquisition, mobility, and assassination. Green has huge monster creeps available, huge health pools, and helpful buffs. Blue has frail heroes, but extremely impactful magic spells. You’re free to mix and match heroes and colors, but you can only play cards of a color in a lane with a corresponding color hero, so getting too bold could result in difficulty playing cards where you want.

 

 

Not only are you laying down creatures to attack your opponent and heroes and push the lanes, but you also gather gold from killing enemies. You spend this gold in the shop at the end of each round to buy various equipment that roughly falls into three categories: weapons, armor, and consumables. Just like in Dota, you want to have plenty of potions and town portal scrolls to keep your heroes healthy and moving to where they need to be. Big items can change the course of the game, but saving enough money to get them can be a losing strategy, as your opponent can dominate the board while you save.

 

Once you’re past the basics, higher levels of play open games within games, where bluffing and taking full advantage of initiative (who plays first in a lane) create game-defining big plays that can feel as epic as an Earthshaker Echoslam in Dota 2. If you’re willing to put in the time and effort, you’re rewarded with tons of satisfying gameplay. When is the right time to abandon a lane? Should you go all in on one lane or try to win two lanes? Should you commit heroes to defending a dead lane, and if so how many? Should you pass your turn to attempt to grab initiative back so you can make sure you have the first action during the next round? You’re going to be making an absurd number of choices, and they won’t always be right. As a longtime card game enthusiast, being faced with situations where there isn’t a definitive correct play is highly entertaining.

 

Constructed play takes a backseat to draft with the initial launch set. The metagame is already well established, and while things could change, powerful “best in every deck” heroes offer little flexibility in deckbuilding or room for creativity. Draft is another story, and is the best format available, allowing players to pick two cards out of packs until they create a full deck and take it into a string of battles. I hope the constructed format becomes more interesting as new heroes come into the game, but for now draft absolutely puts it to shame.

 

Players can play in free events with preconstructed Valve decks, free constructed/drafts with friends or random global players, and paid tournaments. Unlike many other digital card games, currently there are no progression systems or ways to earn cards outside of purchase.  All trades are made on the Steam market via buying and selling, so you can pick up exactly what you’re looking for, but you won’t be getting any free cards if you’re looking to build a collection. In this way Artifact feels like it’s hampered by an archaic physical card game model in the digital realm. While it’s not explicitly pay-to-win, it’s absolutely pay-to-compete and collect, and this feels restrictive – especially since you’re already paying a fee to purchase the game initially. Much can be said about psychological hooks that other digital card games employ to keep people playing and “grinding” but at least there’s an option to acquire cards slowly in those models. Here, you’re paying to engage in anything meaningful. Period. And it doesn’t feel good.

 

Artifact pulls a ton of flavor from Dota 2, but it’s not necessarily a game for Dota 2 players. Artifact is instead a highly cerebral card game of push and pull, with intense resource allocation and randomization management. Artifact is absolutely not for everyone, but it excels at creating a crazy strategy cocktail pulling from every bottle on the shelf. For card game fans, Artifact is not to be missed.

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Mutant Year Zero: Road To Eden Review – A Strange Mutation

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