Titan Attacks! Review (PSN – PS4, PS3, PSVita Cross buy)

Some reviews can take the easy way out and describe plot, atmosphere or other narrative events. Then you get games like Titan Attacks! (Exclamation included), a title that disposes of most of these trappings in order to present you with a clean game design. That doesn’t mean that Titan Attacks! is without great art, it uses a retro 8-bit styling to proclaim what it is; and that is a VIDEO GAME.

Yes this is an old school video game reimagined, with pure skill and strategy aspects at its core. None of that look at the lighting effects or physic engine shenanigans here; just pure arcade action.

So what type of game is it? Well it is a poor answer to say that it includes within its DNA (or should that be code) a considerable nod toward a single screen shooter by Taito featuring aliens who happen to like marching down the screen, a.k.a. Space Invaders.

The little plot that there is all about a lone tank driver etc. but all you need to know is left/right/fire/smart bomb. So what is new…?

Well the adversaries utilise a variety of flight paths that necessitates the learning of differing strategies. Accurate shot timings is also crucial since apart from clearing each screen a successful hit of the bonus ships will present a possible financial reward/score multiplier.

However care has to be undertaken in order not to incur penalties. The loss of your score multiplier is bad enough but the financial debit made to your in game currency that really hurts since between each stage you are allowed to purchase upgrades to the initial basic tank. Turning it into one that can survive and likewise customising it to your style of play into the bargain. And you do need to upgrade because this game does get tricky. Keeping the shield healthy is paramount (each hit hurts) since the incremental cost of restoring it will rob you of funds for the smart bombs, shot power or even the cash to increase the number of shots fired at a time.

As waves are cleared a larger foe is faced and once cleared the whole process begins again with a different landscape in the background along with a few other tweaks and additions. There is also an occasional bonus round where a number of saucers have to be cleared within the timeframe. As to what this gets you I can shamefully tell you I haven’t a clue. These opponents are unarmed but utilise a neat trick by CHANGING DIRECTION just as your carefully timed shot is about to hit. An incredibly annoying tactic!

As already mentioned the art style is a deliberate homage to the 8-bit era. If anything the reduced palette of colours can make the screen hard to see in a bright room since is uses a heavily weighted selection of purple hues and the background neon sign effects can disguise some of the enemy fire. But then there are the small touches that help to create atmosphere, the falling enemy shots are surrounded with a faint smoke effect and then there are the shells that bounce when they hit the ground.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szVEYej83BA&w=560&h=315]

There are 5 ‘worlds’ that also allow you to re-join the action at a later point in the proceedings when they’re cleared, although I did find that the restarting stats for your ship to be far less than I’d like but that could just be my poor play. This is cross-buy & cross-play title. Once purchased you have it for the PS3, PS4 and PSVita and progress did seem to be transferrable. As you would expect all versions were identical but I found the PS Vita edition to be more difficult due to the reduced screen size hampering my reaction time and hence the fine gun emplacement. This wasn’t too much of an issue as I soon acclimatised to it.

So what did I think of it?

Well it was a surprising entertaining piece of software and it has entered into my ‘go to’ games list for when I have spare 5 minutes, although in fairness to it and myself the games last a lot longer than that.

And lastly a thank you to the Curve PR team for the advance review copy.

Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn Part One

Well there is no doubt about it, Final Fantasy XIV was a mess both technically and in design. It was heavily panned across the board and started the damaging slide of the brand, so much in fact Square Enix had to shut the game down and relaunch. Under the new name Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn the game relaunched and now crossing it's third platform on the Playstation 4, nine months in since it's Playstation 3 and PC launch, it's time to see how this game still stands.

Your first days in Eorzea

A Realm Reborn picks up five years after the closing events of the original game, which you will see as the opening sequence of the game, the Heroes of Light (AKA the former players) have gone missing and you heed the call of the Crystal on your way to finding your adventure in a new home.

As with all Final Fantasy titles this game drowns in storytelling, if you are one to pick up a quest and set out killing straight way, this game will most likely frustrate you as the game loves to have characters chatter away at you. A good example of this is the opening section it takes a good 5-10 minutes before you even step into something that looks like a MMORPG interface, and that is excluding character creation itself. Once you enter Eorzea you are treated to a wonderful world to explore, except you are not....

This highlights one of what some people would consider the weakest element of the game, the game locks almost all content behind a story. As mentioned above this will certainly frustrate a lot of players, until level 10 of your selected class you cannot join another class guild in the same city and until level 15 to gain an Airship Pass to gain access to other parts of the world, making first impressions of the levelling experience painfully slow. Same is said with dungeons which must be completed once before any other progression in content is made.

Thankfully once you push past level 15-20 you have access to all classes which you can freely switch to as you feel with the same character. This is the strongest element of the game as you are not forced to restart the game again, if for example you don't like the class you simply walk into a class guild and join keeping all progress in your other classes while you level and experience the new class. This system allows the storytelling 'wall' to be forgiven slightly as you only ever need to progress past the story once.

Knowing your role

From character creation you select from the eight the Combat classes in the game, as you progress through the guild's story you start to unlock more skills, however to begin with your chosen class may not be as fun as you expect due to the fact most skills run off a 2.5 second cooldown system. This makes the combat at first feel quite slow, this is by design to keep all players on an even footing in combat across platforms and regions, thankfully the game does use this fact to it's best giving all skills a sense weight and power when used.

Once you cap out your class you will barely notice the timers as combat is very active and chaining your skills becomes important as many skills will become more powerful as a follow up to another skill then using it alone. When you start playing a second class you unlock the cross-class skill system allowing you to access skills from other classes to allow a fair bit of customisation with your class, however some skills are just the same skill renamed, so a little reading up is required.

When you take a Combat class to level 30 you gain the ability to convert that class into a Job, these are specialised roles more suited to end game content. These require a second class to be at least levelled to 15 and also changes which cross-class skills you are allowed to use within that Job.

The class system like most of the content hides it's better features away from you unless you are either told and just stumble into it, as classes and Jobs are weaker if used without them. That said once properly utilised it's a very good system and strong enough to encourage levelling multiple classes at once.

Finally an armoury system helps you sort through your items by placing them in their own 'bag' as the inventory system doesn't expand past it's starting amount, which is quite large to begin with, combined with gear set system to help quickly swap classes from the hot bar.

Freedom! What to do?

While levelling your class you are given a hunting log, these are optional kill quests marked above monsters with a target marker above them, much like quest mobs are highlighted. Unlike normal quests however you don't go to a NPC you just kill a set number to be rewarded with experience and Gil, competing the tier of the log will reward you with a greater amount before unlocking the next tier, providing you are at the correct level to do so. This is a good way to boost your levelling and most class quests do actually lead you into those areas with your hunt target mobs are.

When out in the world you also get to experience the Full Active Time Event or FATE system. FATEs are live events happening in your location where a group objective much be met for rewards of Gil, Experience and sometimes loot, grouping is not required as long as you involve yourself in the task. FATEs do scale with the amount of players within them even add NPCs to help deal with the numbers at some points, however the FATEs can be outnumbered by players making them far too easy at points, but there are high ends FATES requiring a lot of players, but I'll get to them later.

To help with your levelling experience outside of world content, or if you get bored of general questing the alternative is Levemates (or Leves for short). These are shorter personal quests on a timer, which have certain objectives which yield greater rewards. Quest mobs and objectives spawn in the world as normal however only you and people linking the same Levequest in your group can interact and attack things within the Levequest, this is good as it not only adds a bit more of a challenge given the time limit but also less stressful trying to find everything in time as everything belongs to you.

Given that Leves are repeatable and fast the experience gain is greater then general questing these are limited, you gain 3 Leve 'points' per 12 hours with a maximum 100, Leves are not limited to Combat classes but Craft and Gathering classes too, I personally found Leves a great method to level those class types.

Not far into the game you join a Grand Company, the large NPC faction guilds introduced in the main arc in which you must choose one of the three (although are able to change later on) introduce you to most of the side quests and optional dungeons within in the game. Also after joining you are given your Chocobo, this serves as both your first mount and from level 30 your battle pet. Your Chocobo gains experience like you do and each time it levels you are given points to spend in three stances you can select, tanking, healing, and DPS. There is an issue I'm experiencing with this system is that the Chocobo's exp gains don't really scale with your gains making levelling it quite slow at times. The Chocobo is an apt combat companion, but they do class as a player when it comes to grouping so not everyone will be able to use theirs all the time, but they cannot be taken into instanced content.

Learning your Craft

Crafting and Gathering classes act like their own Combat classes in a way, each guild has it's own story to tell and you still progress as you would do with Combat classes with armour and 'weapons' of the class.

Gathering classes open up nodes dependent on it's type when switched to, however seeing as you are in an active world not in combat armour you will in later areas be sneaking around in stealth trying to avoid combat at all costs, thankfully are nodes are personal to you so by time you do reach one it isn't taken from you by another player. Once you reach a node you are then presented with a window sightly confusing with numbers, what these numbers tell you are the changes of gaining the item in question and the chances of getting a high quality version of said item.

At first none of these items will be shown to you directly and you still have to harvest the unknown item at a low chance, thankfully your skills at hand increase your rates of gathering and chances of a high quality item. This is also extended by the fact you have only four attempts at a node before you have to move on to start with however if you choose your skills when gathering said node correctly you will be to extend the attempts or even double the yield.

Fishing works a little differently as it's nodes and contents are not directly displayed to you however most locations with water can be fished at, requiring it's own type of bait for optimal fishing. I've yet to experience this but also time is a factor as certain fish have different yield rates during different times of the day in game.

All of this is tracked within their own logs detailing the level and zone location each item you have harvested is at. Fishing takes this one step further by adding each location's data you have fished at plus it's own lore and maximum size per fish you caught.

Crafting itself seems a complex system however it's fairly straight forward when broken down, the main objective is to fill a progress bar in a set amount of turns. Progression is a combination of what skill you used plus your current armour and weapon skill numbers, added to that your skill has a chance to fail wasting one of your turns. Running the turn count down to zero before the progress bar is filled fails the creation of the item wasting all the items required to do so.

Crafting also uses the cross-class skill system and correct use of the skills can extend the turns remaining and improve progression per turn, also using High Quality items within the crafting will increase the chances of the item being created becoming itself high quality, this can also be improved via skills but take up turns to do so.

Crafting an item can end up using all crafting and gathering classes at many points making the system quite deep and requires you going back and two between classes and utilising mostly all basic crafts long part the level they were first used in. This makes it one of my favourite crafting systems in this current gen of MMORPGs and not the 'fire and forget' side system many games leave it as.

Items in the game can be broken down into Materia, this in FFXIV is the gem system for socketed items. This is only happens when an item is Spiritbonded to you, this basically means you have to use the item a while before it can be converted into Materia, I like this system as it prevents the market from being flooded from players just grabbing everything off the market just to convert them. Finally once your character gains more levels in crafting classes they will be able to self repair their items instead of going to a repair NPC, but this costs a certain item to do so.

D&P – Dungeons and Primals

Dungeoning as mentioned is a requirement while levelling to progress in the content and main story, this runs pretty much like the standard MMO fair with four other players. Once located all instance content can be accessed via a window called the Duty Finder this is the standard instance queue window however instead of selecting your preferred role you queue with what archtype your current class is deemed to be by the game.

This can be a bit confusing for new players as until you actually try and queue for a dungeon what you assume is one type of class could be different to what you expect – Marauder and Arcanist are good examples of this Marauder doesn't seem a tank type to start with and Arcanist with it's heals isn't a healer type but is now classed as a DPS type due to resent patch changes. Guildhests work along side dungeons by teaching the basics of group play, these are micro dungeons with objectives these also go deeper into the combat system the higher the Guildhest level is.

Finally and most importantly in the instance experience are the Primal battles, these are the single boss fights with the iconic summons from the Final Fantasy series. These can be pretty difficult fights which is not done correctly can lead to the party failing quite quickly. More so with your first Primal fight being at Level 20 in the form of Ifrit, which like Dungeons have to be completed once to progress with content.

The Primals and the Dungeons do highlight a minor issue with difficulty spikes during the story content as certain dungeons do have complex bosses with a high failure rate if done incorrectly and each Primal if going in blind will kill you straight away if you aren't expecting an attack. This can lead to one or two frustrating moments but none I have seen so far has been deemed 'unfair' by the player base, despite a few latency issues that have lead to attacks hitting despite players avoiding the attack on screen, but these have been continued to be ironed out as the game goes on.

Return to the realm in part 2 where I will cover the social aspects of the game via Free Companies,  later stages of the game and how Square Enix intend to support it with content updates and finally how the cross platform systems work as well as my final thoughts.

Penny Dreadful – Mini TV review/preview Episode 1

Penny Dreadful the TV series is an 8-part continuous drama made by Showtime set in 19^th century London that utilises various fictional characters of the period all together in a single common narrative. It is unashamedly a horror show and strays up to the limits of what can be shown in a TV series. The period London setting allows it is a wide canvas to play with.

The title comes from the Penny Dreadful; this was the name given to the cheap disposable British publications from the 19^th century that were continued to be published under various guises until the early half of the 20^th century. Inside there would be serialised adaptions of sensational or lurid stories. These journals were aimed at the lower classes (usually adolescent boys) and each would cost a penny or less.

Some notable stories we know today originate from these periodicals; Sweeney Tod being the most well-known but other characters owe their start to the Penny dreadful such as Sexton Blake.

Since a wide variety of stories (particularly of the fantastical and gruesome variety) are synonymous with the name it is quite surprising that it hadn’t been used before.

Now this is going to be spoiler free review. When I watched this I was only peripherally aware of the shows premise which did make for a better experience so I have no wish to spoil it for others.

I had been aware of this series for a while (it was made in Ireland and features a very accomplished UK cast) and every so often a preview image would float past on my news feed so it was with delight that I was able to catch the first episode. The easy route is to say what this show is like the X-Files crossed with’ the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. As a description I think that that is fairly good but with the emphasis being more on the League than the ‘X’ Files.

The first episode manages the feat of getting many principle characters up and in play very quickly with each new addition getting a decent share of the spotlight. In fact they get more than you would think possible within the allotted running time. Various backstory elements are floated to tease the audience and also help to make the characters become more interesting.

Now this isn’t a spoiler but those who have ready Volume 1 and 2 of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen will find this show very much to their liking. As I was watching I started to mentally allocate characters to their league equivalent and since the likelihood that there will never be another League film than this is a worthy substitute.

As I write this only the first episode has been aired in the US but hopefully the remaining 7 episodes will maintain the momentum.

Penny Dreadful will begin on Sky Atlantic on the 20^th May at 9pm

Daylight - Randomly Generated Scares!

Daylight starts promisingly with a haunting soundtrack which leaves you feeling unsure what lies ahead, though the suspense is destroyed a little bit by the fact it takes a very long time to load. This is no doubt because of the randomly generated maps

You play as a character called Sarah who awakens in a darkened room, unsure of where you are with a voice telling you that ‘you must succeed’. You have a mobile phone which acts as your map and is primary light source. It appears as though you are in some kind of abandoned building.

Quickly into the game you stumble across some glow sticks which do offer some light and also highlight objects you can interact with. These sticks also show where you have walked so that you can retrace your steps if you need to double back because you have got lost in the labyrinthine corridors. Unfortunately, the glow sticks are entirely pants at lighting the surroundings and offer none of the security of Outlast’s night-vision mode. Even with glow stick in hand, you are stumbling around aimlessly in the dark. Clearly Sarah isn’t the most physical person in the world as she can only carry 4 glow sticks at any one time before her inventory is full. Surely, if you are stuck in an abandoned asylum you would be shoving as many glow sticks as you could into your pockets.

The objective of the game is very similar to that of Slender, in which you have to find 6 fragments of memories hidden around the stage before you can make your way to the exit. All the while, trying to not be killed by sinister supernatural witches. These will kill you if you look at them too long, not entirely unlike the Slender Man. Your ways of combating these are either running for your life, or igniting a flare which for some reason destroys the paranormal threat. Unfortunately, like the glow sticks you can only carry a limited number of these.

The levels are randomly generated each time you play which keeps the game fresh on multiple play-throughs. However, this does make the layout of the stages a bit chaotic and without all the charms of Outlast’s lovingly crafted asylum. Another downside to random levels is that the game can get a bit laggy as it is generating the environments at the start of each stage. That is not to say the game isn’t scary, the music and sound design is very well done and there are still jumps a-plenty. It is just lacking that little ‘je ne sais quoi’ that other horror games on the market have. On a second play through we encountered an entire area much different to that of our first play through. This gave the game a distinctly different feel and kept up the tension as we couldn’t head through on auto-pilot. This is one element where the game does beat Outlast, but only if that level generates.

Interestingly, this is the first game to be released using the brand spanking new Unreal 4 engine. Disappointingly, it is hard to tell the difference between this and a last gen game and it certainly doesn’t use the console to its full potential.

As you are walking though the deserted environment the atmosphere becomes more tense when you hear the distant sound of running feet and the glimpse of a paranormal terror. Strange sounds and unsettling string do make this a creepy game, with strange moans and phones which ring as you pass. It is just a shame that the rest of the game isn’t as polished as the sound design.

The game would be better for the user if you were given a little more illumination. I understand why they wanted the game to be difficult to navigate, however, I do think just a touch more light would allow you to see more of the creepy set pieces. The fact that it has been released so close in time to Outlast means that it can’t avoid any inevitable comparisons to Red Barrel’s fright-fest.

“What the Hell is this?’ asks Sarah as she walks into a room filled with crazy markings on the walls. She experiences some kind of freaky flash back and is transported to a room with un-nerving photos on the wall. Not to forget the battered teddy which she is clutching in her left hand. No explanation is given, just that this is a key artifact in escaping the terror she is living through. Unfortunately, when holding said bear, you are unable to use glow sticks or flares. This does increase the terror as you are left with minimum vision.

At points in the game you feel like you are wandering aimlessly as you encounter dead end after dead end with nothing occurring in between.

If you are a fan of horror it’s definitely worth a play. Especially as there is currently a discount for PlayStation plus subscribers, however, in all honesty, your money is better spent on the truly terrifying Outlast and it’s recent expansion, Whistleblower.

Daylight is available on PlayStation 4 for £10.25 (£8.20 for PS+ members)

It is also available for PC on Steam for £11.99

Outlast: Whistleblower – “It’s as scary as HELL!!”

After the spine tingling chills I was left with after completing Outlast, I couldn’t wait to experience the next episode of TERROR from Red Barrels. Out today on PS4 and PC, Whistleblower continues the story begun in Outlast by showing us the events that happened in the lead up to the original game.

The game is set in the same Mount Massive Asylum. You play as a software engineer, Waylon Park, who is out to expose the sinister goings on of the Murkoff Corporation. The game begins with an email being composed to send to the journalist you play in the original game. However, things quickly spiral out of control and the player is once again left fighting for their life in a mission to escape in one piece!

All the controls are the same so that made it easy to play and navigate my way round the game. It doesn't hold you by the hand like the first game did. This game assumes you know what you are doing. If you've not played Outlast for a while then maybe it would be an idea to re-familiarise yourself with these before you jump into the expansion. The atmosphere is still so tense you could cut it with a discarded rusty scalpel. With a sinister sound track and nerve-wracking sound effects, the sections of the game where there is pure silence are even more un-nerving.

I survived for 14 minutes before my first death after meeting a stark-bollock naked man carrying what can only be described as a rotary buzz-saw. It's more of the same as Outlast, however, that is not necessarily a bad thing (possibly what the deranged psychiatric doctor ordered)! As I reloaded for take two it went straight to the scene with the aforementioned naked saw man saying "Feed me". I didn't last long. The inmates are much cleverer than last time. When they see you they don't give up. Hiding in the lockers will work, but you have to make sure they don’t see you hide. Many a panicked moment will be spent trembling in a locker unsure of what is happening outside the safety of a closed door.

As in the original game you have no weapons whatsoever and you are only armed with the trusty night-vision camcorder. This allows you to see in the pitch black environment, however, it guzzles batteries quicker than a Sega GameGear! You will spend most of your time frantically scrambling around the decrepit asylum searching obsessively for batteries. As the battery light flickers to alert you to its impending death, you are left wondering whether it safer see where you are moving to in the pitch black environment, or save those precious few seconds of illumination for when you might really need them.

There are areas of relative brightness in the game which do break up the oppressive darkness and give you a moment to gather yourself before you next venture into the unknown. Like the first game there are puzzle elements, such as finding the keys to open a set of handcuffs. These must be completed in order to continue further and usually involve a face off with a particularly nasty enemy. These quests are not too challenging but ensure you fully appreciate the game to its potential. These sections are mixed up with some frantic time-based antics too. Don’t want to give anything away, however, these will get your pulse racing!

As in the original game there are some epic set pieces which have you literally jumping off the chair and screaming like a girl! There are moments in the game which are clearly up there with the legendary dog scene from Resident Evil. Whilst not pushing the PS4 to the level of games such as Infamous, the game still looks great. There are some awesome lighting effects and great atmospheric environments. The night vision in particular really draws you into the game. I can only imagine how terrifying this thing would look on Oculus Rift or Project Morpheus! Hopefully, this is the kind of game that will end up on them when they are finally released.

If you want to see a taste of the original game, don’t forget you can still check out Mike and I scaring the crap out of ourselves in out Let’s Play Outlast Video Series!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lMVDPdxn0c

Whistleblower is available now on the PS4 Store at £7.69. It is also available for PC on Steam at £5.99, with the original game being on offer at £5.09.

App Monday - Catchphrase

"It's good... but it's not right!" This week the Blast Process team try their hand at Catchphrase - though I don't think they're the greatest at the classic TV show...

"What's Mr Chips doing? Say what you see!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUAtrcuK0GE

Hearthstone Review

Grab a keg of ale, pull up a chair and prepare yourself for a tavern filling amount of card based fun! Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft is a two player card battling game created by the World of Warcraft creators Blizzard Entertainment. The game, while completely different from the massive MMO is still based on the Warcraft lore, from the cards to the boards you play on, even the characters you play as.  The goal during a match on Hearthstone is to defeat your opponent by damaging them (each ‘player’ starts with 30 health points). Minions can be summoned to defend you and to attack your opponent. You spend mana crystals to use abilities/summon minions etc which steadily increase as the turns clock over (turn one you’ll have 1 crystal, turn two 2 crystals, and so on).

Regardless of your current level of experience when it comes to card-based battle games, such as the popular Magic The Gathering games (the original physical card game and the online offerings) you’ll soon get into the swing of how the gameplay works thanks to a comprehensive tutorial system. During the course of the tutorial you’ll play as Jaina Proudmoore, the Mage (one of a range of available ‘classes’ which I’ll discuss later). You’ll have to battle six different A.I controlled opponents which have all been programmed in specific ways to demonstrate key gameplay elements. For example the first of the six is Hogger, which will introduce you to the core basics of summoning minions and dealing damage to your opponent. By the end of the tutorial you’ll feel confident enough to delve into a competitive game and see how you fare.

In Hearthstone you have 9 different classes, each represented by a key player in the Warcraft lore, for example the previously mention Jaina along with Thrall, Ulther and others. The key thing about each class is their individual ability. Costing two Mana crystals they can vary between dealing damage (the Hunter can fire an Arcane Shot, which deals damage directly to the enemy player), summon additional minions (a Paladin can summon a 1/1 Recruit) or even heal yourself/one of your minions (Priest can heal 2 points of damage). As well as this key ability each class can level up by playing games against online opponents which unlocks class-specific cards. As mentioned you’ll start with the Mage unlocked so if you wish to unlock more classes you’ll have to beat the A.I in Practice mode, or play online and defeat a human player using a class you haven’t unlocked yet.

That leads me nicely onto the different modes available. ‘Practice’ mode is currently the only mode where you battle against A.I opponents. The ‘Play’ mode is where you’ll find yourself being pitted against human opponents in either a Casual game or a Ranked game. Finally you have the ‘Arena’ which is locked to begin with until you have unlocked all the different classes. By entering the Arena (which costs Gold) you’ll be given the choice of 3 classes at random, and then will have to create a deck again at random (the game which show you three cards, of which you choose one. This process repeats until you have a full deck of 30 cards). You rack up Gold as winnings based on consecutive victories in the Arena.

So what is this about earning gold then I hear you cry? This is of course a card based game, so as you battle away with your decks you're going to want to add new cards into the mix. This can be done by either spending in-game winnings (winning in the Arena, completing Daily Quests, and winnings 3 games online playing casually or ranked earns you gold) or buy using your own real cash to purchase packs of cards. Card packs contain 5 cards, which 1 will always be a rare card. If you’re lucky you may get a couple of rares...maybe even an epic...or perhaps even a legendary card! The price of the cards is very reasonable when you consider the game is free, with two packs of cards costing £1.99. Thanks to daily quests and earning while you're winning you may even find yourself easily earning enough gold to never finding yourself having to spend any money to buy packs.

As you unlock cards via packs and via leveling up your class you’ll want to start really tinkering with your deck of cards. The card building menu (entitled ‘My Collection’) is easy to use, showing you at glance the balance in cost of each of your cards (for example, you may have lots of expensive cards which you won’t be able to use until you have enough crystals during a game compared to not having enough low-cost cards which you could use early on in the match).

You cannot trade cards with friends, which is an interesting note. This was obviously something Blizzard thought about and decided against to encourage in-game purchases. You can however disenchant cards you get in packs that you don’t want, giving you dust which you can spend on creating new cards.

The more you play of Hearthstone, the more you’ll understand the different combinations of cards that the game offers you. While some cards are great on their own, combined with another card it could become an absolute monster. With a wide variety of special moves on offer, with cards that includes buffs, heals and death rattles (an ability that triggers when that card is destroyed) you’ll soon start hanging back certain cards until the right moment. I played a game the other day against a Druid, which thanks to a copy of quick spells and a minion almost cost me all my life points in two turns. Two! Obviously, it does depend on how the cards are dealt, but there is a great deal of strategy on offer here.

Progressing up the Rank matches is fun. Depending on your skill level you’ll probably find the difficulty level starts to really spike at around rank 20/21. Up and around 15/16 you’ll soon start seeing lots of decks with multiple legendary cards, which aren’t unbeatable but are still very challenging. You can still progress up the ranks without paying to purchase cards with your own earned money, but you will find the process slightly quicker than having to earn in-game gold.

I started playing Hearthstone on my PC via Battle.net. As you’d expect from Blizzard, this title is polished up to the eyeballs and it runs brilliantly. With it being a card game it of course doesn’t need Crysis style graphics or a massive amount of RAM, however the game still looks gorgeous and vibrant. The matches are played out on a number of random Warcraft-inspired boards, which are interactable (you can turn the lights out in the church on the Stormwind board for example, or load a light a fire on the Stranglethorn one). I particularly like the little comments when you view your cards in your collection, for example the spell Holy Light when you select it to look at it in closer detail has written to the side of it “If you are often bathed in Holy Light you should consider sunscreen”. Little touches of polish that add to the overall high standards of presentation.

While I’ve wanted one for quite some time, it did encourage me to pick up an iPad. I decided to go with an iPad Mini (based on my needs) and it works great on the little tablet. It does on occasional have the odd bit of slowdown mid-match, and navigating round the menus is a slightly slower process, but we aren’t talking about a massive amount of time difference plus you’d expect such a thing when comparing a gaming PC to a tablet. It still looks great and none of the features are missing from the PC counterpart. It is of course cross compatible too, so it doesn’t matter what device you play it on. Since getting it on iPad I do warn, it is incredibly difficult to put down, so download it on your iPad at your own peril! Blizzard are planning an iPhone version for the second half of this year, while they are looking to release an Android version at some stage in the future.

Multiplayer matches against your friends are easy to set up thanks to Battle.net’s friend system, with both versions of the game having in-game access to a little menu where you can select from your friends to commence battle with, and of course add new ones too. There is also a function to battle nearby players who are signed in on Battle.net on the same network as you, encouraging people to take part and host local multiplayer Hearthstone meets (or as Blizzard call them, Fireside Gatherings).

If you like the idea of a free card battling game on your PC or iPad, then you really can’t go wrong. If you have any kind of interest in the Warcraft series then this is probably up there as a must download title. While card games aren’t always everyone's cup of tea, I’d highly recommend giving this one a go. It’ll cost you nothing and the tutorial is very user-friendly, even if you haven’t touched a card game before in your life. Veterans of Magic The Gathering and so on will be right at home with the gameplay mechanics on offer here.

In my opinion, a great PC game in its own right, whilst the portable nature of the iPad makes it a must download app if you have one.

Zombicide - Bloodthirsty Kicks

Zombicide Fast paced, action packed board game with a lust for blood will keep you on the edge of your seat from start to finish. Crazed zombies, vicious weapons and chance all lead to a blood splatteringly good time, whether you achieve all objects or just die all guns blazing.

The Characters: Each character has different strengths and perks to help you through the game. Traits such as slippery (can exit a square which has zombies easily) and lock pick (can open doors silently without a weapon) can help you progress through the game easily. Traits can also be earned and chosen as you gain experience by killing zombies and picking up objective markers. Each character has different traits so pick according to your playing style. Do you want to go in all guns blazing? Then pick + 1 to weapon range. Do you want to attack with a chainsaw? + 1 dice roll to melee weapons. It's all about tactics, and everyone plays differently.

The Zombies: There are two expansion packs for this game, however I will be focusing on the original kickstarter to keep it simple for this review. There are three main types of zombie - the walkers, the runners and the fattys. The walkers: only move one space at a time and only need 1 damage to kill. The runners: move two spaces each turn but need 1 damage to kill. The fattys: only move one space each time but need 2damage to kill. Then there is the abomination. It may only move one space each time but it takes 3 damage to kill and for that there is only 1 weapon -The Molotov Cocktail. After each player takes their turn it is the zombies turn, for each spawn point you turn over one zombie card (yellow) to see what types of zombie and how many you will get. They will always move towards noise and visuals if they can see you.

The Weapons: There are a variety of weapons. Some awful (cue frying pan) and some fantastic (chainsaw!) but each are found by chance. Every character is given a weapon at random to start to game (normally rubbish ones) and others can be found by searching in empty rooms. You have 3 actions to complete each round (until you unlock more) and one of these can be a search. You must be either inside a building or car and there must be no zombies. You simply turn over a card (red) to see what you have found. The more dice it instructs you to use the better your chances, and the lower you need to score shows how easy it is to use. One dice and only 6+ (frying pan) is more difficult than 3 dice with 4+ (sub machine gun).

The rules may be complex and make take time to understand, but once understood they are quick to implement and is great fun to play. Though I would recommend a full afternoon or evening to play...it often lasts for hours -especially if you play with the Blast Process gang who love to talk tactics! All in all a fantastic game for a Sunday afternoon! (Or any other day of the week!)

Figures painted by James Brewerton

Mel

 

Titanfall Xbox 360 Review

When anyone utters the words ‘makers of Call of Duty’ and ‘giant robots’ in the same sentence, it’s only understandable that people get a little bit excited. Say what you will about Activision’s first person shooter franchise, but with a total of over 120 million units sold, Call of Duty’s reach and influence in the sphere of gaming is hard to deny. So large an influence perhaps, that Respawn Entertainment, the EA funded studio founded by Jason West & Vince Zampella, previously of Infinity Ward, must have felt the pressure of the colossal franchise they helped create, weighing down on them from the get go. The hypothetical question must have one day arisen – How do you take on a colossus? The answer seemed to be to simply bring a Titan. If anyone could do it, then who better than Respawn?

It was under the weight of this expectation that Titanfall, Respawn’s new futuristic FPS title hit the markets. The game’s packaging boasts of the title’s 60+ awards at E3, merely a feather in the cap of a game riding high on the shoulders of an aggressive marketing campaign and promised a next generation experience like no other. But after Titanfall’s March 11^th release for the Xbox One & PC, reviews were mixed to say the least. Critics expected the second coming of the modern first person shooter, but instead received a competent game that could never live up to, the carefully orchestrated symphony of hysteria-inducing hype that told of it’s coming.

But a month after the games initial release, when the dust has settled and Titanfall finds itself on Microsoft’s Xbox 360, what then? When those expecting the next generation of gaming, have seen the emperor naked of new clothes, can Titanfall be judged solely on its merits as a console first person shooter?

For starters, let us look at Titanfall’s campaign. After promising a single player-like experience in a multiplayer setting, Respawn hit their first hurdle. By making the game online only, Titanfall polarized potential players from the very beginning. While only 18% of players completed Call of Duty Black Ops’ campaign, it is still a very daunting thought not to have a campaign in a full retail title.

To some, the idea of paying full price for a multiplayer game, in a constantly shifting multiplayer environment and especially with a new IP, is a scary thought. What if months down the line, nobody is playing Titanfall online? Then the game has a sell by date, a prospect that alarms most gamers who primarily vote with their wallets.

These grievances aside, what Titanfall offers in terms of a campaign is an ambitious idea, but on the whole will leave gamers wanting. For all its promises of user’s creating their own story, Titanfall’s campaign is simply Halo 4’s Spartan Ops. Small episodic chunks of story, which consist of nothing more than an in-engine cut scene and audio logs played over combat.

As for length, while the campaign is split into two opposing factions, the surprisingly well armed Frontier Militia, and the seeming evil Interstellar Manufacturing Corporation, both of which offer the perspective of each army and their struggles, not a lot changes. Win or lose, the story plods along to its slow and unsatisfactory conclusion. Though the story the game tells isn’t the most fascinating, its absence in the game’s regular multiplayer modes in noticeable, and even though the writing isn't the best, the contextualization of why these armies is fighting, feels strangely gratifying.

While only two of the game’s six multiplayer modes are playable here (Attrition, the game’s Team Deathmatch & Hardpoint, i.e. three point King of the Hill), experiencing them as part of the campaign is arguably more fun than without it.

In the campaign, the player takes the roll of a pilot, the game’s customisable soldier. Here a player experiences the game’s custom load outs and perks, as you would expect from any modern day shooter. However what Titanfall gets right is that like Halo, the weapon’s the player starts with are perfectly capable tools to play the game. The player is not penalized for their newness like in Call of Duty, or their lack of Premium Membership like in Battlefield 4. Even when fighting the game’s titular Titans, players start off with the right gun’s to make scrap metal of the metal mechs with ease, if they have enough skill to use them.

Where Titanfall’s game play differs from most modern FPS games is that in campaign and multiplayer, the player meets not only enemy players but AI with varying levels of skill, all of which gives XP. These AI make the seemingly limited 6 vs 6 experience feel on par with Battlefield 4’s 64 player Multiplayer. But more than simply filling up the numbers, these bots speed up the generation of the game’s selling point but also its biggest missed opportunity: The Titans.

Titans are mobile suits that offer the player further levels of customization of play, more powerful weapons and a personal robot killing machine to boot. Player’s can either pilot these Titans, or simply allow them to roam around the map, AI controlled killing enemy players for you. While Titan’s can be used strategically, using them guard a base in Hardpoint, or roam around covering your back in Attrition, I often found myself letting my Titan simply roam around scoring kills for me, as in an otherwise fast paced, no-nonsense FPS, Titan’s really slow things down. It’s both a blessing and a curse – the Titan’s speed restrictions stop them from being Battlefield’s Tanks and Choppers and dominating infantry, however it also derails what should be the selling point of the game, Titan vs. Titan action. Why would you ride a slow moving, large target into battle, when you can dispatch a Titan more efficiently with basic Anti-Titan weaponry? Especially when wall-running and the traversing of the environment is encouraged as a pilot?

The game’s Multiplayer options outside of campaign are also a mixed bag. While the game touts six modes, as well as Attrition & Hardpoint, there’s Last Titan Standing (a Titan vs. Titan mode which suffers from the pre-mentioned problems), Capture the Flag & Pilot Hunter (Team Deathmatch without AI kills counting).

The sixth mode is called ‘Variety Pack’ and is essentially a mixture of all other game modes. When you consider that Pilot hunter is simply a variant of Attrition, meaning the game only launched with four game types, Titanfall’s cracks start to show.

While there are certainly fun reasons to play Titanfall, and the game’s introduction of mechanics such as burn cards, cards that can be used for one spawn to deal extra damage or gain more XP, are fun, but they aren't essential to the experience. Despite supposedly being in development since 2010, Titanfall almost feels like a Beta game. With limited unlocks, the prospect that game modes that would have otherwise been on disk being included in downloadable content, as well as a seemingly limited lifespan. While there is the possibility of unlocking Generations, the game’s equivalent of prestige, this offers little but bragging rights, and makes Titanfall a great game that feels half cooked.

All promises aside, all hype deflated, Titanfall is the start of what proves to be a great first person shooter franchise. Despite its short comings, it is a strong basis for Respawn to build off of. The mechanics are there, they just need tweaking. The things it’s borrowed from other games, be it Mirrors Edge’s parkour or Left for Dead’s fighting for survival until extraction, are perhaps the right ones. That when combined with solid shooting and balanced weapons, feel new and exciting. While Titanfall doesn't deliver on its promise of a next gen experience like no other, but it’s certainly a fun, highly playable shooter that shows glimmers of greatness.

inFAMOUS Second Son Review

inFAMOUS Second Son is Sony’s first console exclusive game since launch. It is a game that has been raised high on the hulking shoulders of the Playstation 4. It promises a ‘next gen’ experience that will make the naysayers of this new generation of consoles, part with their hard earned pennies and shell out for Team Sony. But is this game truly the second coming of video gaming? Or like a second child, forced to play with the previous generations hand me down mechanics?

inFAMOUS Second Son follows Delsin Rowe, the titular Second Son, a graffiti artist delinquent, who like most super heroes, has greatness thrust upon him after discovering that he is a Conduit. Conduit is the term given to those in the inFAMOUS universe with powers, though the easiest comparison would be ‘mutant’ from the Marvel universe. Much like Marvel’s X-men series, ‘Conduits’ are treated like outsiders by society, who have labelled them ‘Bio-Terroists’ and assembled a department to track down & capture Conduits called the Department of Unified Protection (or D.U.P).

Despite how clichéd this story may sound, it brings about what is perhaps the most impressive thing about Second Son: the game’s interesting dialogue that actually matches the motion capture beat for beat. Even when characters say lines that sound somewhat forced, the facial expressions exhibited by the character anchors meaning to them, making them not only forgivable, but even believable. 

But even these flourishes of next generation narrative aren’t without their thorns. The game’s characters are interesting, but are painted with such broad strokes of cliché, that their flashback stories sometimes undermine the believability that the actors performances strive so hard to achieve. If the game exhibited a little more show than tell on character motives and histories, Second Son’s story could have raised the bar for storytelling in Triple A titles. 

Instead like a weight lifter with one arm weaker than the other, the game’s storytelling displays a muscular imbalance. Where the stronger arm of the game’s storytelling and facial recognition is ready to push things forward, the weaker arm of convention and its need to impart information on the player quickly holds it back. 

The game’s karma system leaves a lot to be desired however. While it was a key selling point of the original games, it falls into the Fable trap of not having so much impact on the game, other than visual aesthetics and slight changes in dialogue. There is no moral grey in the stories key choices; it’s always a polar opposite ultimatum of good or evil. The game even colour codes these choices, for those who couldn’t tell that ‘turning yourself in’ was the ‘good’ thing to do, over ‘sacrificing your tribe’ making you seem a little bit bastardly. Though perhaps if you’re in need of colour coded assurance of what you’re doing is right or wrong, there are bigger issues for you to tackle.

In terms of game play, short of an impressive representation of Seattle that is close to fully formed, inFAMOUS never really feels more like very well made, late  Playstation 3 title, rather than the next gen opus some had hoped for. 

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing however, as the game is fun to play for the most part. Combat is fluid and balanced. Even as the game progresses, you neither feel overpowered or nor completely outgunned, as the game’s Conduit powers offer a way to turn the tide. While these powers are upgradable, apart from the elements their composed of and some small changes to the amount of damage dealt & animation, each new power is based around the idea of a melee & ranged attack, a dash, a powerful attack and a special that can be triggered by using the game’s karma abilities, offering little varieties or reason to switch between powers. 

However, the game requires you learn each of these new powers in turn, forcing you into sticking with each of the individual powers for an extended period, rather than allowing the player to simply revert to an older power until later in the game. By the third power unlock, the ritualistic regaining of each attack after receiving a new power takes a lot of momentum out of the game. The game’s final boss encounter is even bogged down in the tedium, forcing you to play the game how Sucker Punch would like you to, rather than how you feel you should, shattering the illusion of player free will in service of the narrative’s natural conclusion, souring the games conclusion slightly and making it feel a little rushed.

The game also suffers from other minor irritations. NPCs will cheer at you one moment, and then the use of a power will make them freak out and run away. The game also punishes you for careless mistakes in combats very heavy handily. While trying to clear out the city of D.U.P agents to gain fast travel, the player can encounter large parking areas full of enemies. If you’re unfortunate enough to clear the whole building, a good 10 to 15 minutes of work, but get killed by the last, more powerful enemy, you’re sent back to the last checkpoint, sometimes at the other side of the city. It could be argued that this is the game attempting to balance risk vs. reward, but can leave Second Son prey to biggest cardinal sin of gaming: making the player feel like they’re wasting time.

Exploring the city is also a blessing and a curse. Traversing a large city that is fully at your disposal feels as next gen as console gaming has got. Running up walls and bouncing up walls is thrilling, but when mixed with poor climbing mechanics & the inability to swim, Delsin feels a lot less super than he should. 

But it must be noted - standing on top of a tall building and seeing a city move all around you is really a sight to behold. For a second, you could be forgiven in thinking that Second Son’s Seattle wasn’t the real thing.

It’s not until you get down on the street that this is abolished. There’s not the feeling of life a next gen city should have. While cars drive & NPC’s shout random lines of dialogue based on your character’s moral choices, there are no background noise, no fleeting whispers of conversation, and the distinct hum of traffic isn’t there but an occasional car horn, making the game’s Seattle a city without soul. The city is also for the most part, also indestructible. You can’t bring down buildings or destroy walls, other than DUP structures that are removable from the environment once districts are freed, adding to the feeling the city is no more but a sandbox. 

While there is little replay offered rather than freeing the districts, the gimmicky graffiti mini-game or taking part in the 6 part, weekly mission cum transmedia campaign in inFAMOUS Paper Trail, there’s not a lot to keep you coming back on Delsin’s story is done.

While Paper Trail is a fun experiment into using an external device & your own detective skills, to solve a murder both at the console & away from it, these extra missions won’t be everyone’s cup of tea. The post-story city is also more for those aiming for trophies than a rewarding end game experience. You could always replay the game from the opposite karmic stance, but this offers less variety than you would expect.

So is inFAMOUS worth playing at all? Absolutely. While this review is perhaps rather scathing of Sucker Punches’ efforts, Second Son is a glimpse at the future. It’s a solid game by the standards set in the last generation that gives Playstation 4 owners a look at things to come. It’s vast open world, fast and enjoyable combat, combined with a competent story & incredible character performances makes Second Son perhaps the truest experience of this console generation so far. It’s problems lie in the expectations of what it means to be a game on a new console, instead of defining them, it only theories at what an Xbox One or Playstation 4 game should be, rather than what one is. 

inFAMOUS is one of the first games of the generation to hint at what’s to come. If you own a PS4 and are curious about Second Son, by all means pick it up. While the game perhaps shouldn’t be the reason for shifting consoles that it undoubtedly will be, it’s undoubtedly Sony’s best offering. But be warned - like the game’s karma system, you need to take the good with the bad. It’s not a flawless experience, but it’s story, cool powers & artificial sense of freedom make inFAMOUS Second Son a game that, at least in this point of the console generation, a worthy addition to your games library.

App Review |Phantom Radar The Ghost Detector

Don't be fooled by inferior paranormal detection tools on the app store. Phantom Radar is the original ghost dector.

Join Matt and Mike in this weeks App Review of Ghost Detector for the iPhone. It's all fun and games untill you see something...

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJGyShMdF4w&w=560&h=315]

Tune in every Monday at 8PM GMT as we take a look at the standard and not so standard apps that you can find on the Apple App store!

On Board Processing is back! | Pass The Pigs

Has it really been that long since we first launched On Board Processing! We decided to root through our cupboards and attics to find some old Board Games and bring back this feature.

So why not join us every Friday night at 8PM GMT where we will be taking a look at some classic Board Games with a few odd variety's thrown in!

This week's On Board Processing episode sees Matt and Mike play Pass the Pigs. A game of skill or luck?

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFU8hUEOWLs&w=560&h=315]

App Review | Horror Movie Maker

Each Monday we will be taking a look at the iOS app store in search of a hidden tresure to share with you. So why not follow us on our YouTube page and tune in to see what we uncover!

Join Mike and Matt as they test out Horror Movie Maker. A App that lets YOU become a scary and gruesome horror icon or play as the scared victim.

No acting skills required but it'll help!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uh-3LRtnELg&w=560&h=315]

You can download the App here. Remember to share you're videos with us!

Mat's Apps - Threes

Another new video feature! Yay!

Join the Welsh half of Tom + Mat as we explore the world of mobile gaming in bite sized chunks! Looking at the latest and greatest in mobile gaming, with a no Flappy Bird guarantee!

This week Mat looks at Threes! A game by Three people, focusing around multiples of Three! Is this addictive math based puzzler worth your hard earned dollar? Watch and find out! (Spoilers... It is)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwKIRyYefvM