Ryan McBride's Reviews Archives - GamersHeroes https://www.gamersheroes.com/category/honest-game-reviews/ryan-mcbrides-reviews/ 100% honest game reviews. The very latest games guided. The hottest cosplay, a weekly podcast and more! Mon, 30 Aug 2021 20:20:40 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.3 https://www.gamersheroes.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/cropped-Gamers-Heroes-Site-Icon-32x32.jpg Ryan McBride's Reviews Archives - GamersHeroes https://www.gamersheroes.com/category/honest-game-reviews/ryan-mcbrides-reviews/ 32 32 Daylight Review https://www.gamersheroes.com/honest-game-reviews/daylight-review/ https://www.gamersheroes.com/honest-game-reviews/daylight-review/#respond Thu, 08 May 2014 06:12:19 +0000 https://www.gamersheroes.com/?p=35929 Zombie Studios set out to do something that is extremely difficult. Daylight does give scares to the player, but more often than not they are not from the main antagonist or the witches that are meant to cause problems. The story overall doesn't hold up over multiple playthoughs which directly goes against the game design. An interesting piece and an overall good experience that does interesting things but falls short in the end.

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Daylight is an ambitious game that tries to do something exceptionally hard to do. Horror games are usually not playable after the first experience because the inherent fact is that horror is just not as scary a second time through. Zombie Studios looks to challenge that fact and make a scary game that is full of story as well as unique experiences every time a player starts a new session. The hope is that the player will understand the world around Daylight a little more through each play through. Does Daylight shine a light on an area of the horror genre that has been lacking, or should Zombie Studios return to their Blacklight Retribution days?

Dropped into a medical hospital that doubles as some sort of prison ward for some people, the main character Sarah, wakes up at the entrance and must make her way through the building. A main antagonist narrator/spooky voice in the dark pokes at Sarah as she finds clues to where she is and why she is there. The ambiance in the game is no doubt one that Zombie Studios has nailed. The eerie bumps in the night, the creepy distopic violin scratches and the screams of women that used to inhabit the facility all do an effective job of setting the mood.

The practice of the game, however, is nowhere near as scary as the ambiance would have you believe. The true scares come from the ambiance and the quick interactions of ceiling tiles falling, chairs bumping around and loud sounds interacting with the player. The main “ghosts” of the story that are supposed to be scary, and cause player death, actually come across more as a nuisance rather than a scary being. The experience is supposed to be replayable and can be finished in almost an hour. Every time the player restarts the game the halls are randomly rearranged and new clues are supposed to be dropped in to give the game a unique feel.

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The main character essentially only has three tools at her disposal. When Sarah wakes up she finds a cell phone that acts as the map and illuminates the dark halls of Daylight. She can also pick up glow sticks and flares that are used to find clues and ward away the ghosts. The one problem I had with this tool set, because it does seem like a good tool set built for horror, is that there seems to be glow sticks and flares hidden everywhere. I understand that the developers want to make sure that the player gets through the game and sees all of the content, but limiting the resources of the player might have caused the ghosts to be a little scarier and less annoying if flares weren’t always readily available.

Daylight is one of the first Unreal Engine 4 games to hit the market. The unique thing the developers talked about before launch was the ability for the game to generate unique tile sets for rooms, halls, and environments so that every playthrough felt different. The reality of the situation is that every playthrough doesn’t however. Sure there map isn’t exactly the same, but similar rooms, similar hallways and word for word repeated store notes do not hold up over time. The repetitiveness is noticeable, and although things do change, it isn’t enough to keep things fresh. Making a replayable horror game just sounds like a mountain of a task, and Zombie Studios worked hard to make it happen I have no doubt, but the reused assets eventually do wear thin.

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One thing that might give the game more replay ability is the twitch commands that go along with the PlayStation 4 version of the game. Players watching PS4 players of Daylight will have options in the chat to mess around with the player. They can do things like spawn a witch, make Sarah scream, flicker the light on her phone and many others by typing corresponding commands into the chat. This is an interesting addition to the game that makes interacting with a community more enjoyable and makes the game more interesting. People who love to stream may want to pick this game up just for the scares and interaction with a twitch community and that makes the game relevant moving forward.

The overall experience is one that is enjoyable, but multiple playthoughs without the Twitch experience leaves a flat undertone. Finding the same pages over and over again gets annoying to a point and the ghosts that are supposed to be haunting come across as an agitation. It’s no doubt that horror is a hard genre to develop for and there are a lot of really good ideas in Daylight, but in the end the game just feels lacking which is a darn shame.

Gamers Heroes Honest Daylight Review was done on the Steam version on PC. A code was provided by the developer.

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Bravely Default Review https://www.gamersheroes.com/honest-game-reviews/bravely-default-review/ https://www.gamersheroes.com/honest-game-reviews/bravely-default-review/#respond Tue, 18 Mar 2014 21:44:22 +0000 https://www.gamersheroes.com/?p=34144 Bravely Default is a JRPG through and through. From the story elements to the battle system the whole game reeks of Final Fantasy. Whether it is because there hasn't been a good version of those games recently, or this game is actually good, the fact remains that this game is a 80-100 hour blast from the past that RPG fans will gobble up.

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Bravely Default is a game that feels like a memory ripped out of the consciousness of every old school JRPG. It feels like a game that desperately wants to relive days gone by with spells, equipment, inns to sleep at, airships to take to the land and sky, and maybe a few new tricks. Although the title doesn’t begin with a Final Fantasy prefix, Bravely Default may be the best Final Fantasy game Square Enix has released to the market in quite some time. Can the old trope of the world needing saved still make a fantastic game, or does Square Enix need to rethink their formula that gave us the buster sword and epic summons.

The game starts in a pretty stereotypical way. Tiz, a young man, walks with his brother and something terrible happens. Tiz then joins together with a rag tag bunch of heroes as they stumble their way through fighting enemies and clearing dungeons. Honestly, the story is pretty typical for anyone that has played a Square Enix or Final Fantasy RPG anytime since forever. All of the tropes, memory loss, giant crystals and a twist or two along the way are all there. But the weirdest part about the story how it doesn’t seem to feel too terrible even though these tropes have been used forever. Maybe because it’s been so long since a RPG wasn’t over the top with crazy convoluted crap that a good, old fashioned, save the day story felt fine. In fact, it almost felt good.

I say almost because there is still a few RPG tropes that felt less like coming home, and more like coming home to a pile of dog poop in the kitchen. When the story does fall, it falls hard. For example, going on a quest line to get one of the heroin’s a pretty dress so she can win the fashion show is not an appealing hour or more, especially when the payoff is less than rewarding. Also some of the scripting for the story seems, oddly adult in some areas to say the least. One of the side quests has you defeating a man that drugs women and takes them to his dungeon to steal their beauty. A weird, and almost offensive idea, to someone that understands the underlying context under.

Airship from Bravely Default

So the story has some good and some bad, but all of that didn’t really matter too much because the meat of the game, the combat, is some of the best turn based combat I have played in quite some time. The brave and default system is an interesting one that feels good and makes turn based battles interesting again. When fighting players can choose to brave, which uses an extra turn right now for the trade off of having to wait the next turn, or defaulting which is basically blocking, but gives you an extra turn next time around as well as all of the stereotypical Final Fantasy attacks. These options give players a multitude of different options for approaching battles and changes the formula enough to make things interesting.

Another thing that changes battles quite a lot is the ability to mess with almost everything in the game when it comes to the frequency or agency in battles. Players have a slider where they can increase, or completely turn off random encounters. This gives players an option to grind in some areas or to run through others as quickly as they choose. There also is a fully automatic battle system that will just take the last commands and do the same attacks at every encounter. This again makes grinding much easier and much less painful unlike past RPG games that I hope gets incorporated into other titles.

Combat in Bravely Default

One of the best parts about the combat system in Bravely Default is the Job system. Players assign each character in their party to fill certain jobs that are pretty similar to other Final Fantasy job systems in the past. White Mage heals, Black Mage does magic damage, Knights are heavy hitters with lots of defense and so on. The thing that makes the job system so interesting is there is actually a primary and secondary job. This rewards players for switching out jobs and mastering each job to expand the abilities characters can have.

There are a few interesting things that Square Enix has incorporated that can only be done on the 3DS. The 3D when in town has a beautiful painted world that will pull out if any time is spent not pressing buttons. Also the streetpass additions to the game are phenomenally addicting and will keep players checking their 3DS as often as they can. Streetpasses nets villagers in the main characters town that will be able to build shops for upgrades, weapons, armor and other special items. Bravely Default is about as perfectly built for the 3DS as any other Nintendo game is for the platform and this leads to a great overall experience for a person looking for a 3DS title.

For good or for bad, Bravely Default is an old fashioned RPG. The story can be hit and miss at the same time introducing fantastical and cringe worthy dialog. If you are looking for something to sink your teeth into for 80-100 hours this unabashedly Final Fantasy like game isn’t a bad way to do it.

Gamers Heroes’ honest game review of Bravely Default was done on the Nintendo 3DS. A review code was provided by the publisher.

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Forza Motorsport 5 Review https://www.gamersheroes.com/honest-game-reviews/forza-motorsport-5-review/ https://www.gamersheroes.com/honest-game-reviews/forza-motorsport-5-review/#respond Fri, 06 Dec 2013 06:25:23 +0000 http://www.gamersheroes.info/?p=32819 Forza Motorsport 5 is by no means the pinnacle of video gaming. There are some issues with the new lighting effects, crowd sprites on the sidelines and drivatar aggressiveness but these mistakes are quite hilarious and almost charming to me. Tracks and cars from games past are missing and a little bit more variation would have been nice.

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Cars are beautiful, awe aspiring, speed machines that are around us practically every day of our lives. It takes a special game to take the regular interactions of a person’s day and makes it interesting. Forza Motorsport 5 is a launch title and one of the first triple A games to hit the new console generation for the Xbox One and it might just be that game. Racing titles, for me, are usually a little bit lack luster at best and boring at worst, but Forza uses the new hardware and new features of the Xbox One to bring a new experience that should be noticed for early adopters.

Forza is at its best when it focuses on the cars. The level of detail on every single vehicle is astonishing. The Forzavista mode really highlights the detail to not only the outside of the car, but also the interior. The mode allows you to comb over every single inch of every car and has recorded dialog giving background information on every model. If you are even passively interested in cars this mode is a fascinating look into the motorsport world. Forzavista has been in past games, but this version with the expansive list of car backgrounds and updated graphics really advance the experience from the past titles.

Forza Motorsport 5 Video Review


Forza doesn’t only focus on detail in the visual department; it also takes a close eye to the mechanics of driving. Every car is like a puzzle to be unraveled. How is this car going to take corners? Should I have some extra assists on? These questions are different for practically every single car. The first time I fired up a supped up mustang and watched the back end playfully drift around corners and constantly lose traction from the power under the hood I was both terrified and delighted.

Racing in Forza 5 pretty much works exactly like it did in the past. The different levels of assists, the credits to unlock new cars and general racing habits all make a return from the past games. There is however one major difference that Forza 5 brings to the table. Everyone drives like an ass.

The new addition of drivatars is probably one of the most interesting, and worst named, features of the game. As you drive in Forza 5 the game will collect information about your driving habits. How you take a turn, how you pass and how closely you stay to the driving line. This is then interpreted and used as AI drivers for other peoples game with your gamertag attached to it. This leads to races that feel more like multiplayer races than anything else. The amount of people that are willing to cut corners, drive aggressively and stray away from the lines makes every race more interesting but might not be every player’s cup of tea. If you like clean races focusing on professional driving, this game might upset you every one in a while.

A nice thing to note is that the medal system is very forgiving for drivers. Depending on the race there is usually some wiggle room for new players to not necessarily come in first but still walk away with some decent experience. The medals, gold, silver and bronze are broken up into groups instead of just handed away to first place, second place and third. Drivers who come in between 1st and 3rd receive gold, 4th through 6th silver and 7th through 9th bronze. This makes the races more interesting and also puts less stress on the player removing the need to restart at the first corner just because you didn’t get it just right.

When I first saw the option for head tracking in the settings for Forza I started to get really excited. I figured the feature would be a great way to show off the effectiveness of the new Kinect 2.0. For the most part the feature is less of a head tracking feature and more of a body tracking feature. Leaning to the left and right will make the driver look through the driver and passenger side window. It is a fun little thing but overall doesn’t really do anything. There also was some issues every once in a while where the Kinect wouldn’t see movement correctly and would get stuck leaning one way. This always made me inadvertently crash and inevitably made me turn off a feature that could have been a step forward for the franchise.

The multiplayer also seems to be a little bit messy with the new system. Filling a full party of friends in Forza is somewhat annoying. There doesn’t seem to be quick ways to invite friends to the game and a lot of the multiplayer stuff seems to be hampered by the new Xbox One operating system. Launch games are always put at a disadvantage because of a new operating system and the wonkiness of Forza 5 is a perfect example of this. There also is no quick way to get into a race and races are split into a bunch of different categories. After playing multiple hours of Forza 5 multiplayer, I have still yet to have a race with a full roster of racers. Thankfully I would rather be playing single player with the drivatars anyways but I also feel like the multiplayer modes could be a letdown for some players.

Forza Motorsport 5 is by no means the pinnacle of video gaming. There are some issues with the new lighting effects, crowd sprites on the sidelines and drivatar aggressiveness but these mistakes are quite hilarious and almost charming to me. Tracks and cars from games past are missing and a little bit more variation would have been nice. But all of nitpicky stuff aside this is stills a fantastic game. The attention to details on the tracks and cars makes up for the omissions of days gone by and is a showcase for the new console generation.

Gamers Heroes’ honest game review of Forza Motorsport 5 was done on the Xbox One.

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Call of Duty: Ghosts Review https://www.gamersheroes.com/honest-game-reviews/call-of-duty-ghosts-review/ https://www.gamersheroes.com/honest-game-reviews/call-of-duty-ghosts-review/#respond Tue, 12 Nov 2013 13:40:55 +0000 https://www.gamersheroes.com/?p=22891 Call of Duty is probably one of the most reliable franchises in the video game world. It is always going to come out early November, always going to have a short but interesting campaign and multiplayer that tests even the most calm minded people to stay sane.

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Call of Duty is probably one of the most reliable franchises in the video game world. It is always going to come out early November, always going to have a short but interesting campaign and multiplayer that tests even the most calm minded people to stay sane. I guess there is something to be said about reliability. However, there are some serious steps backwards from the previous games specifically removing things that are glaring omissions. For yearly iterations of games to stay relevant they must keep improving upon themselves. Call of Duty: Ghosts is a solid experience, as Call of Duty always is, but also makes me want to play Black Ops II more than anything else.

The campaign is like an action movie. Short, sweet and to the point. You play a character named Logan whose brother, father and I guess, dog, are all part of the armed forces. As you go throughout the story the main character acts as a silent protagonist, which can be done well, but isn’t necessarily done well here. The silence and interactions between Logan’s brother and father breaks the story instead of moving it forward and loses chances for emotional beats. I also wish that some of the story was explained a little bit more. The main enemy or collection of enemies that the United States is facing off against isn’t explained very well and the main antagonist is explained even less. I’m guessing that the Ghosts story line is going to be built upon in the upcoming Infinity Ward titles, but a stronger base would have been nice for understanding purposes.

Furthermore the campaign itself takes a step back from last years title. There is no branching story, no choices to make and nothing to really bring you back for more unless you enjoy the strait forward story. The emotional beats aren’t really earned and the story itself isn’t really anything special. That being said the cinematic experience of the game and the set pieces do look very nice and are sometimes awe inspiring, especially if you are playing on PC. All around the campaign is another Call of Duty campaign that is just missing a few touches from previous years.

Replacing zombies this year is a new wave-based horde mode called Extinction. Players will move from alien hive to alien hive with the goal of drilling through each hive. At each hive players will be completing challenges, buying weapons, unlocking perks and interacting with the map to build defenses against the aliens attacking the drill. I was never really a huge fan of zombies, I know, crazy, but this new Extinction mode is a nice mix of what I did like about zombies, Left 4 Dead and Call of Duty in general that is quite addicting. The challenges vary from different weapons to accuracy challenges and mixes up gameplay nicely. Finally running to get out of the alien infested zone gives of a rewarding feeling after holding down the fort literally so many times. Extinction is a good game mode and I hope that it gets built upon down the line.

But for all of these differences, negative and positive, all anyone really wants to hear about is the multiplayer. Thankfully, I can say, there are some serious changes. However, I don’t necessarily think they are for the better. I was very sad to load up multiplayer and find that my favorite mode, headquarters, is no longer in the playlist. A small complaint, but the new game modes that are put into the playlist called Cranked and Blitz trade slower strategy modes for fast paced bombardment.

There are a couple more things that have changed in the multiplayer mode and sometimes these changes aren’t explained very well. The knifing for one now takes a few more seconds to complete. In older titles in the series the knife was a quick kill. Now the knife actually jabs into another player and takes a second to pull out leaving a time period in which the player that knifes can be killed. It is only a small change to the knifing mechanic but one that drastically changes the speed of Call of Duty.

Another thing that is changed, as it usually is every year, is how the guns are unlocked. Now players are rewarded squad points by earning XP and can be spent in multiple ways. Unlocking guns, attachments, perks and different kill streak rewards with squad points feels good. It allows skilled players to fully pick a load out very quickly. For other less knowledgeable players this system may prove a little tricky to adjust to. Knowing what perks and what guns will service a specific play style can take some time to get used to.

All in all, Call of Duty is exactly what it has been before. Multiplayer is still twitchy, frustrating when things are going bad and glorious when on a run. The single player is kind of an afterthought but an interesting experience. The overall experience is going to be centered around whether or not you like the changes that have been made. It is worth noting that the PC version has known to have problems with frame rate and optimization even some of the heavy hitting rigs around.

Gamers Heroes’ honest game review of Call of Duty: Ghosts was done on the PC. A code was provided by the publisher.

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The Wolf Among Us Review In Progress https://www.gamersheroes.com/honest-game-reviews/the-wolf-among-us-review-in-progress/ https://www.gamersheroes.com/honest-game-reviews/the-wolf-among-us-review-in-progress/#respond Tue, 22 Oct 2013 17:02:48 +0000 https://www.gamersheroes.com/?p=22670 Telltale Games is coming off of the back of quite possibly one of the most successful downloadable episodic games, The Walking Dead. It received countless awards from sites all over as well as an award at the VGA’s. The Wolf Among Us takes concepts and mechanics from their previous title and uses them to tell …

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Telltale Games is coming off of the back of quite possibly one of the most successful downloadable episodic games, The Walking Dead. It received countless awards from sites all over as well as an award at the VGA’s. The Wolf Among Us takes concepts and mechanics from their previous title and uses them to tell a new type of story surrounding the Aesop’s Fables universe. Since the game is episodic, we will be adding to the review as the episodes come out. Each episode will get its own score as well as a final score for the complete collection once all of the episodes are released. Can this new title from Telltale grab the same amount of attention as its zombie counterpart, or is it the universe of The Walking Dead that carried the game to its popularity?

The Wolf Among Us Episode 1 Review

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The Wolf Among us does a good job telling you exactly what you are getting into right away. The opening sequences with a character named Toad, from the familiar Aesop’s Fables stories, spouting swear words and general cowardice really set a tone for a dark intense story immediately. It doesn’t take long to get to know the characters around the game as they are routed in a darker side of many childhood stories that should be familiar to most. Characters such as the Big Bad Wolf, which is your character, along with Snow White, Beauty and the Beast, Little Red Riding Hood and more mesh together well in the universe Telltale is building because they are all set in the same universe as Aesop’s Fables moved to a new location.

The main character in The Wolf Among us, The Big Bad Wolf, is basically a cop/detective that protects different Fables as they live in the normal world. The Fable characters, such as Toad, Snow White, Beast and others use some kind of magic called Glamour to hide their real identity from normal people in a normal New York. Characters that can’t hide their identity are sent to live on “The Farm” that seems to be almost like a punishment to the Fables that live there. The first episode really is an introduction to a lot of these world building block ideas and then leads into the murder mystery.

The most stunning thing about the game is probably the art style that has returned from The Walking Dead game last year. The art style and Noir themes worked really well in The Walking Dead and almost seems to pop even a little bit better in this game. Multiple times throughout the story I caught myself staring at animations, characters and the surrounding just to take in everything to its fullest. I have always been a fan of the cell shaded art style and the visuals in this game do not disappoint.

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Many of the same mechanics from The Walking Dead are back and still feel relevant. The game follows a similar path and is surrounded by telling a story first and having basic sound mechanics backing it. Much of the interactions are dialog sequences that give players a choice on what they are going to say, if they choose to say anything at all. Based on your interactions with characters events will change drastically around you and certain characters will react to your actions and words. There was a few times when I felt like the inevitable was going to happen, but I still felt some agency in exactly how things were going to go down which is an important feeling to get out of a story based game.

The Wolf Among Us is Telltale using experience from all of its past games, but is obviously influenced by the recent success of The Walking Dead. And you know what? I think that is pretty darn ok. The story telling is rock solid and the game behind it, while basic, is more than serviceable for the experience that is to be had. I don’t know if this game will be able to get out of the shadow of The Walking Dead or if it can keep up an interesting story throughout later episodes, but as for now, I am sold. The characters are interesting and the plot is gripping. I wouldn’t ask for anything else for now.

Final Thoughts

The Wolf Among Us has started off strong and has a good base to be another smash hit.

8

OVERALL


Sidekick

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Splinter Cell Blacklist Review https://www.gamersheroes.com/honest-game-reviews/splinter-cell-blacklist-review/ https://www.gamersheroes.com/honest-game-reviews/splinter-cell-blacklist-review/#respond Wed, 18 Sep 2013 10:01:48 +0000 https://www.gamersheroes.com/?p=21559 Games that usually try to fit themselves in the stealth and action genre tend to fit neither of those categories very well. At first glance, stealth and action probably shouldn’t even fit together. Splinter Cell Blacklist, however, takes both of these categories and give players options for not only different play styles, but different play speeds

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Games that usually try to fit themselves in the stealth and action genre tend to fit neither of those categories very well. At first glance, stealth and action probably shouldn’t even fit together. Splinter Cell Blacklist, however, takes both of these categories and give players options for not only different play styles, but different play speeds. Do these options and different voice acting give Splinter Cell Blacklist a new rejuvenation or do these changes actually harm and deviate from the Sam Fisher everyone loved in the past?

Splinter Cell has been one of my favorite stealth games for a long time. Studying an area, looking at the enemies patterns and learning new tricks to bypass guards has always been fun to me. This new Splinter Cell game has all of the things that I loved and adored about the past games while using new gadgets and tricks to make the game flow even better. Moving from cover-to-cover, zapping enemies with a crossbow, and sneaking up behind people has never felt this smooth.

Moving, jumping and every other piece of fluidity in the game are obviously informed by other games in the Ubisoft publishing system and that is okay. When climbing rocks and moving over obstacles, it is easy to see the animations and systems from Assassin’s Creed peeking through, but it is used to make gameplay feel better. Most of the time when I see reused assets from other games it makes me cringe, but Splinter Cell Blacklist uses it to its advantage.

Another thing that Blacklist uses to its advantage is gamers playstyles. Instead of forcing players to play a certain way, it throws three different play styles at you and allows you to choose. For those who like super stealthy non-lethal kills, ghost play style will feel rewarding. For those who want the tense moments of stealth but the skill that comes with stealth kills, the panther style of play will scratch that itch. Finally the last play style, assault, is just a fun way to play killing everything in sight with a machine gun for the action oriented player. Giving these three options to players makes the game more rounded and an all-around better experience.

The levels themselves also feel very rounded. Old Splinter Cell games were often set in very similar environments for each mission. Blacklist, however, strays far from the dark, nighttime, industrial compounds of the past game and gives interesting level design for daytime and nighttime missions alike set in many different locals. The PC version of the game in particular looks absolutely beautiful in sections even though it is running on a modified Unreal Engine 2 (not 3) engine.

All of these things together make for interesting co-op missions as well. Infiltrating a base, taking out enemies and completing mission objectives with a friend brings out new aspects and makes players play together to take on objectives. Gadgets that normally would never see the light of day become infinitely more useful in co-op. Taking out a room of six people with a co-op mark and execute feels absolutely amazing.

The multiplayer Spies vs. Mercs game comes back in this incarnation of Splinter Cell with a few tweaks. There are a couple of different modes that include a 4v4 Spies vs. Mercs, 2v2 Spies vs. Mercs, Deathmatch and Classic Spies vs. Mercs modes that are all good. Players new to the multiplayer might feel a little lukewarm about the game mode because of all of the customization and strategy that are needed to be successful. If you do get invested in this game mode, there are plenty of rewarding, fun, hours of gameplay to be had.

Many people have called for the death of Sam Fisher and the Splinter Cell franchise after the past couple of games. Splinter Cell Blacklist takes a turn for the better with a butt load of content for single player, co-op and multiplayer experiences. The gameplay is tight and gives options for players to play how they want. I know this game will be in my system for quite some time and recommend it to anyone who wants to have a good time.

Splinter Cell Blacklist plays fantastic and is jam packed full of content.

This Splinter Cell Blacklist Review was based on a Xbox 360 copy. A copy was purchased.

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Rayman Legends Review https://www.gamersheroes.com/honest-game-reviews/rayman-legends-review/ https://www.gamersheroes.com/honest-game-reviews/rayman-legends-review/#respond Wed, 11 Sep 2013 21:27:30 +0000 https://www.gamersheroes.com/?p=21480 Extensive story, complicated game mechanics, edgy societal cues; these are all things that people are talking about in games today and Rayman Legends pays no attention. Instead of focusing on trying to make a statement or move a person, it focuses on being playful and fun. Rayman Origins released two years ago to massive critical …

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Extensive story, complicated game mechanics, edgy societal cues; these are all things that people are talking about in games today and Rayman Legends pays no attention. Instead of focusing on trying to make a statement or move a person, it focuses on being playful and fun. Rayman Origins released two years ago to massive critical acclaim. Does this colorful, playful sequel have what it takes to grab the same amount of attention as the past game, or is it time to take the gloo gloo noise effects and ukulele elsewhere?

Rayman Legends Launch Trailer



Rayman Legends Review: Beautiful Nonsense

This game, for me, can be summed up in one sentence. Everything is just so damn cute. I’m a 6’4”, pretty large, 25-year-old, masculine dude and at every turn I feel like I’m being turned into a 10-year-old school child. The sights and sounds of the game, from character animations to every bit of musical score, has me bopping up and down and yelling for anyone around me to come look. Usually focusing on the cute and happy gets old quickly, but Rayman Legends finds a way to keep it interesting every single step of the way.

One way in which the game achieves this fresh newness on every level is the always changing art style. I am almost at a loss for words for how beautiful the game actually is on every console. The crazy thing is, the game changes look while keeping a cohesive art style constantly. Every level looks different and somehow belongs in the universe that Ubisoft has created for Rayman and his pals. I found myself every time I started a new level excited to see what the world would have to offer.

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Stepping into each world doesn’t only bring beautiful sights but also a diverse, fun loving, soundtrack to back it up. Professional scores and orchestras mixed with playful character sounds and funny instruments fill each level with enjoyment. Some levels mix in familiar music such as “Eye of the Tiger” and “Black Betty” with running sequences to give platforming cues and do so while being some of the most enjoyable levels in the game. Rayman Origins had a fantastic soundtrack, and Rayman Legends steps it up a notch above its predecessor.

A new thing that Rayman Legends brings to the table is touch based levels for the Wii U and PlayStation Vita versions of the game. However, these touch based levels were probably the least enjoyable stages of an otherwise flawless playing platformer. The puzzles with a touch device are interesting at best and annoyingly awkward at their worst. The AI character runs along a level while you help them along touching levers, buttons and gyro turns to interact with the background. The stages become almost an escort mission. Escort missions are never fun, especially with an AI that refuses to act like a real player.

Rayman Legends: Mariachi Madness trailer - video

On other non-touch based platforms the levels are even more annoying. In these levels on the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC the touch based mechanics are put to a button press. A floating character, named “Murphy”, will interact with the obstacles as if someone was playing with a touch device. Unfortunately a lot of the touch-based mechanics are made for touch screens, so the gameplay mechanics don’t transfer over well. This leads to a lot of frustrating deaths and unnecessary retries. At least there is no AI right?

If you get a chance, a lot of the touch-based nonsense can be done away with by playing with some friends. The couch co-op gameplay is drop-in-drop-out and seamless. Playing with multiple people on the WII U is definitely the way to play these levels. On-screen action can get a little hectic at times but still a blast. There is a special competitive multiplayer game which is a blast at parties as well. Players smack, hack and jump around and play soccer like game that is fun for anyone, even the less game savvy.

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Thankfully, if you don’t have any friends, the touch based levels are outliers in the gameplay. The rest of the game might as well be a clinic for how to make a platformer enjoyable. The mechanics are simple, leaving the difficulty to level design which is a good move. I always felt like I was in complete control of my character and by the end of the game was able to perform death defying moves and feel good doing them.

Rayman Legends is a game that just seems to keep on giving. It’s enjoyable, plays like a dream, fantastically fun, and a must buy. The shear amount of content with daily challenges, amount of levels and a special Back to Origins mode brings easily 20-30 hours of content. For the crazy collectible fans out there, there is even Teensies (little blue creatures) to collect in each level to lengthen gameplay even further.

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]]> https://www.gamersheroes.com/honest-game-reviews/rayman-legends-review/feed/ 0 DuckTales Remastered Review https://www.gamersheroes.com/honest-game-reviews/ducktales-remastered-review/ https://www.gamersheroes.com/honest-game-reviews/ducktales-remastered-review/#respond Tue, 20 Aug 2013 07:42:16 +0000 https://www.gamersheroes.com/?p=21119 The original DuckTales game came out in 1989 for the Nintendo Entertainment System and seems to have quite the cult following. The old game is known for its snappy gameplay and awesome chip tunes that mirror the original show. The new, DuckTales Remastered, takes everything the old two button, jump and attack system has to …

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The original DuckTales game came out in 1989 for the Nintendo Entertainment System and seems to have quite the cult following. The old game is known for its snappy gameplay and awesome chip tunes that mirror the original show. The new, DuckTales Remastered, takes everything the old two button, jump and attack system has to offer and adds story bits to it. Does the new Remastered version of DuckTales hold up, or should the memory of this game remain a duckblur?

DuckTales Remastered Trailer

http://youtu.be/Egk8IusIzdI


As a big fan of the original title, I was super excited for the Remastered version. Booting up the game had me singing the intro music to DuckTales and had me hooked about as quickly as possible. The music in general for all of the levels brings back fond memories while being a nice upgrade from the chip tunes of the past. Unfortunately after actually playing DuckTales Remastered though, I wish I would have stopped at the loading screen and downloaded the soundtrack separately.

The gameplay is still almost exactly as I remember it. One button jumps and one button makes Scrooge McDuck pogo on his cane to hit enemies on the head. One of the greatest parts of the old game was the precision of these controls and I could feel the precision in this game as well… most of the time. Sometimes the hit detection or controls did feel a little bit off. It wasn’t very often, but taking damage from an enemy that should have been dead is frustrating no matter how infrequent it happens.

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Another thing that is frustrating is the amount of darn cut scenes that WayForward has elected to put in this new and “improved version” of the game. Each level has different things or objectives that will have to be collected and for some reason warrants a story bit that completely halts all of the pogoing action. These story bits didn’t enhance my experience or make me think fondly of DuckTales in any way shape or form. Worst yet, there is no easy way to skip the cut scenes. As the player you have to actually hit start to go to a menu to skip the duck nonsense.

Finally rounding off my complaints is the voice acting. Give credit where credit is due, the voice actors are all the original voice actors from the cartoon show. However, this means that some of the voice actors have seen their best days a long time ago. Launch Pad and Scrooge are both probably a few years to tired and just do not deliver a convincing or enjoyable dialog experience. In general, the game in my opinion would have been better if the story bits were thrown to the wayside.

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After all of these complaints, it is hard to see how I actually enjoyed the game. Maybe it is just nostalgia for the original game that clouds my memory and makes me pick out only the parts that frustrated me. The gameplay is still tight most of the time and there are a few new bits that are nice. For instance, diving into the money pit and swimming around is a good touch, but not one that makes up for the story nonsense. Likewise, unlockable backgrounds and artwork is a nice look back, but makes me yearn for an old copy of the game rather than the remasterd version.

Final Thoughts

DuckTales was a great game. The remastered version should have stuck to what the original had going for it.

Gamers Heroes’ honest game review of DuckTales Remastered was done on the PC version of the game through Steam.

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Pikmin 3 Review https://www.gamersheroes.com/honest-game-reviews/pikmin-3-review/ https://www.gamersheroes.com/honest-game-reviews/pikmin-3-review/#respond Tue, 20 Aug 2013 01:07:29 +0000 https://www.gamersheroes.com/?p=21104 It’s been almost 10 years since the adventures of Olimar on the Nintendo Gamecube brought Pikmin to a Nintendo console. Somehow though, Pikmin 3 seems to feel almost like a game in a long running series.

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It’s been almost 10 years since the adventures of Olimar on the Nintendo Gamecube brought Pikmin to a Nintendo console. Somehow though, Pikmin 3 seems to feel almost like a game in a long running series. The beautiful colored world, the funny looking Pikmin and the great feeling of loss when you make a mistake killing some of your vegetable like minions are all back, and if you ask me, are better than ever. Pikmin 3 is not the most complicated, difficult or intricate game on the Wii U, but it might just be one of the best games on the console to date.

If there is one thing that Nintendo does right, it is fun. I don’t know how they quite manage their mastery of fun, but it is very much so present in almost every ounce of Pikmin 3. From the moment that you land on PNF-404, to the moment you blast off after finishing the last boss, everything is just enjoyable. From the music, sounds, sights and little quirks to the game everything is for the enjoyment of the player.

Most of your days are spent in the story mode as three different crew mates, splitting up Pikmin, collecting more Pikmin and searching for fruit to be converted into juice as the main food source of the player’s people. As the player, you are running around in the environments trying to complete these objectives during a day/night cycle that lasts about 30 minutes per day. This time limit has been a staple of the Pikmin games in the past but for some reason feels kind of short.

These sessions mainly feels short because the game splits the days with long cut scenes, story bits and dairy entries that seem to take entirely too long. After playing 30 in game days of Pikmin 3, I just wanted to jump into the next day. The time it takes to juice fruits and tell a story about the previous day just seems a little bit too long and tedious. Having an option to skip all of the animations and nonsense would have been a nice touch for players that just want to keep the action going. There is nothing worse than being excited about taking on a boss and having to wait through what seems like 5 or so minutes of nonsense to get back into the game.

Maybe these breaks in action are so annoying because the gameplay is so good. Splitting up the three crew mates to complete different actions feels good and uses the gamepad very effectively. Even when using a different control scheme, like the wiimote or the pro controller, the gamepad becomes an overworld map where experience players can split up tasks and send members all across the lands of PNF-404. Experienced adventurers, or players coming a second time through the game, will almost feel like Pikmin gods completing tasks at lightning speeds. The best part about it is that Nintendo has limited the amount of Pikmin needed for a task and planned for the splitting up of jobs.

But this enjoyment and limitations on Pikmin needed comes as a double edged sword. People looking for a hardcore RTS game or hardcore puzzle game might feel a little bit of a lacking in challenge. Even on the first play through, none of the puzzles or bosses really felt that difficult. Even in the last boss battle, that lasted a couple days, ended with only like 25 or so Pikmin dead. The only time I lost a lot of Pikmin were my own fault and lack of paying attention. This is a huge change from the past games where one wrong move could have been very costly.

Thankfully there are challenge missions after the story is complete that are much more challenging and may be more a hardcore gamers style. These missions task players to collect treasure as quickly as possible with leaderboards and a stressful time limit. For people that have a couple of friends the local competitive multiplayer is also a blast. It would have been nice if Nintendo could have figured out a way to have online co-op or competitive multiplayer as an option though. It feels weird not having an online option these days.

Overall the game is a beautiful work that has a few slight problems that usually don’t exist in Nintendo games. The story rolls along at an enjoyable pace, but there could have been a couple of tweaks that would have made the game more enjoyable. The multiplayer is fun, but lacking with no online options. Pikmin 3 then is a great game that uses the hardware effectively while at the same time just missing the mark.

Pikmin 3 is a fantastic game for the Wii U a few brush strokes away from a masterpiece.

Gamers Heroes’ honest game review of Pikmin 3 was done on the Wii U version of the game

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Dark Review https://www.gamersheroes.com/honest-game-reviews/dark-review/ https://www.gamersheroes.com/honest-game-reviews/dark-review/#respond Fri, 26 Jul 2013 08:01:03 +0000 https://www.gamersheroes.com/?p=20624 There are a lot of games out there that know what they should do, and Dark is definitely one of those games. On paper the game has a conversation wheel, different stealth powers and an interesting art style. However, in practice, the game falls short. Is it a lack of quality? Is it a lack …

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There are a lot of games out there that know what they should do, and Dark is definitely one of those games. On paper the game has a conversation wheel, different stealth powers and an interesting art style. However, in practice, the game falls short. Is it a lack of quality? Is it a lack of attention? Whatever it is, Dark is just lacking something that should hold the fabric of the game together.

[iframe width=”560″ height=”315″ src=”//www.youtube.com/embed/hztbNpwtD6k” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen]



First off, vampires. The whole premise of the game is based around your character discovering that he is a vampire and must hone his powers. Again, this seems like something I would normally get behind on a stealth game. However, the story line turns out to be a bad gritty Twilight (I know, hard to imagine) story. Not in that there is a love triangle but more just that the story line barley holds itself together.

Dark, being a stealth game, also lacks all of the good qualities of a modern day stealth title. The AI is predictable in patterns, but unpredictable in when they will actually be able to detect you. This lead to me retrying sections over and over and over AND OVER again. A good stealth game has to communicate to the player the environment around them, and this is just not done well at all. With titles out there like Dishonored and Mark of the Ninja there are better examples of the stealth genre that are much more competent, and more coherent, than Dark.

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So, if Dark doesn’t do stealth well, then it must make up for it in combat right? Wrong… there is a plethora of skills and upgrade trees for the player to mess with, but it all lacks finesse or even value. Once the main character is found it is better just to restart than to try to fight your way through encounters. The powers also rely on blood from your victims, which is tedious and obviously just a limited factor so that the player isn’t allowed to spam abilities. For the life of me I can’t understand this choice. Why implement such a limiting factor on powers and abilities and then throw a huge power wheel full of options at a player? The two ideologies of gameplay mechanics clash and the overall experience is devastating for someone that wants to enjoy an action or stealth game.

All of this, and I mean all of the bad things I have mentioned, are all backed by floaty unresponsive controls. Preforming moves to stay stealthed led me to accidentally alarming guards and other enemies. This is just an unforgivable offense when it comes to stealth games and has to be extremely frustrating for any player. At some points in the game I had to set the controller down and walk away in anger, making it hard for me to enjoy the game for longer than an hour at a time.

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Dark is jam packed full of great ideas and is obviously made by a team that loves games. Unfortunately those ideas are not fully realized and are just not done right. Some more time and love put into the game could have done this game good. I look forward to seeing more from this team when they have time to hone their craft. Unfortunately that means Dark is a product of a team that needs to learn a little bit more about game design.

This review reflects play testing of the PC version on Steam provided by Kalypso Media.

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