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OxenFree- Uzzy
Oxenfree, the first game from independent developers Night School Studio, is not a sequel to OlliOlli. It is, however, an adventure game/supernatural coming of age drama. You play as Alex, who along with her new step brother Jonas, go to an overnight party on a deserted island with a few other friends, listening to music on the radio, drinking and chatting around the campfire. However, it's when the kids decide to explore the caves on the island, radio in tow, that things get weird.
A new year and a new indie game for me to gush profusely about. Oxenfree's been on my radar since I first saw the trailer in March for a multitude of reasons. It's approach to dialogue is pretty unique, aping Sorkin's iconic 'walk and talk', rather than going into a cutscene. As you explore the area, you engage very well written, natural dialogue, choices appearing in the form of speech bubbles above your character's head. There's no cut to take you out of the scene, which is wonderful and I hope more games copy the technique. Similar to Life is Strange, Oxenfree looks as if it blends real life issues, the kinds teenagers would talk about, with the weird in quite an effortless way. Speaking of the weird, Oxenfree has quite the gloomy, oppressive atmosphere in it's aesthetics and soundtrack. You use your radio to find the frequency of weird things to interact with them, and end up encountering all kinds of supernatural, reality bending phenomena as you explore the island. It looks to be very unnerving. Just any coming of age drama.
Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen - Dr Dogg
The wait has been long, the struggle has been real but finally Dragon’s Dogma is on PC. Now I’ve already played this 2 times on 360 and 1 and a half times on PS3 but can’t wait to throw my PC at this beast. So for its PC appearance we have the Dark Arisen update of the game which includes the original release, the Dark Arisen expansion and all the original game’s DLC as well as some of the loyalty bonuses too. By nature of being on PC now the letterboxing is gone, arbitrary resolution support is a go and the framerate will top out at 150 (if you’ve the hardware obviously). Plus seeing how well MT Framework runs it should put in a good show even on modest hardware and have the option to tweak some of the settings further than the console versions (ie draw distance, shadow quality etc). If that’s not enough to entice you preorders also have the full 312 page Official Design Works (which Capcom are modestly calling an art book) which has every morsel of information a Dragon’s Dogma fan could want and more as well as a whopping 53 track soundtrack in mp3 and FLAC.
So the story. Well our plucky hero (who can be a man or a lady, whom you make with a pretty great character creator) is part of a community of the fishing village of Cassardis in the world of Gransys, which right at the start of the game is attacked by a huge dragon. Our hero takes up their sword and attempts to slay the beast but as you may guess things don’t go so well. But much to our surprise despite being left for dead our hero actually survives the dragon attack and is now dubbed The Arisen. Now yeah there is more to it than that but I’d rather not spoil things and to be fair after the prologue and intro the story takes awhile to get going. But by the third part it really ramps up, the ending is pretty much flips the script on you and then bam! you’re in to New Game+ where you can power to max level and are take on some of the bastard hard foes in the end game content.
There are gameplay mechanics galore though (which realistically I’m only going to be able to touch on here). While Dragon’s Dogma is a single player game you don’t go out into the world of Gransys alone. Early on you encounter a mysterious humanlike character known as a Pawn who joins you on your quest. After a quick jog up the road you get to make your own personal Pawn which you can customise just like you did your own character. Your Pawn isn’t just for your party though as you can send them out into other peoples games for other to add to their party. You can also recruit 2 other Pawns that like your own that have been made by other players. Pawns gain experience, level up and offer ‘helpful’ advice depending on their knowledge of quests or adversaries (and thank fuck you can shut them up now in the PC version).
Being a RPG there are classes to chose from and the combat is real time and of the action variety. But when your dev team is made up of DMC, Monster Hunter and RE creators things are a little bit different than you’d expect. Class wise you have 3 base classes you pick at the start, then at level 10 can swap to the next tier of 3 classes which are a stronger variation of the first and finally the third tier of 3 is multiclassed based combining the traits of the other classes together. Though every skill, ability, augment or trait you learn is permanent and you can swap classes to your heart’s content with only equipped weapons dictating what skills can be used per class. In fact the game encourages and rewards mixing and matching. And of course having some DMC pedigree on the team the melee combat really flows well with some meaty attacks, varied skills depending on weapon type and possibilities of comboing these together. Magic abilities and spells as well as ranged combat are handled really well too and also because you can customise your own Pawn and swap their classes around as well (first two tiers only for them though) plus you can pick up two others Pawn with different classes and skills you can always cover all bases with your party.
And you need to mix up your party composition at times too. Quests are plentiful but there’s lots of side stuff and varied types to undertake like escort quests, kill x amount of y foe, character specific quest lines to specific powerful monsters to take down. And with a little dash of the Monster Hunter and RE guys you have some crazy monstrosities to take on. It’s true that a random Griffin encounter can be more exhilarating than the final boss fight in Skyrim. One mechanic that really comes to light when fighting the bigger foes is that you can grapple and climb them like in Shadow of the Colossus. Different foes have different weak spots and parts of them that can be attacked first or in order to do the most damage.
Now I may be anti-anime but while this game does have questionably old dragons they’re not the creepy sort. In fact Dragon’s Dogma is probably the Berserk game that folks have wanted forever. The setting is similar, various characters share likeness and backstories, some locations are eerily familiar and some monsters are spitting images for those found in Berserk too. Makes sense as in the console versions there was licenced armour sets for you to make your Arisen to look like Guts or Griffith. But sadly due to the nature of licensing they are no longer in the PC release but there is so much more that shares parallels with the series that any Berserk fan should check this out regardless.
I could go on but seeing this is probably the most ‘requested’ (read that as begged) title to be ported to PC outside of Red Dead that if you’ve always wanted to play this but don’t pick this up then you’ve failed as a PC gamer. Grief is doing the PC OT so go check that out for waaaay more info than I could put here.
Resident Evil Zero - Dusk Golem
Resident Evil Zero is the 'prequel' entry of the series, telling the story of young medical genius, Rebecca Chambers, who gets cooped up with a murderous escaped convict, known as Billy Coen. Featuring gorgeous and moody scenes (quite possible the nicest looking old-school horror game), with some fantastic puzzles, varied locales, likable protagonist, and some good bonus modes and costumes. It lacks some of the series punches, with a somewhat timid enemy selection and a sort of annoying item drop system, but is a solid entry to iconic series that I do hope some come to play and realize it's a solid RE game, maybe not the best in its series, but an enjoyable ride that begins one evening on the strangely abandoned Ecliptic Express passenger train...
Rise of the Tomb Raider - Dr Dogg
So the game that finally made me buy an Xbone is on its way to Steam... 3 months afterwards. It’s all good though as I really enjoyed my time with this and hopefully the wunderkinds at Nixxes has sprinkled some of their magic on this release with a few extra bells and whistles too.
So story wise the events take place about a year after TR13 with Lara still coming to terms with what happened to her on the island. So to find answers she looks to her late father’s research on the lost city of Kitezh. This initially leads her to Syria, much to the protest of her father’s partner Ana who tries to dissuade Lara as it had become an obsession for her father. Whilst there Lara uncovers the tomb of the Prophet of Constantinople although she isn’t the only one in Syria. A mysterious group named Trinity are also looking for the tomb as well. Unfortunately Lara finds the tomb to be empty just as she’s discovered by Trinty though this does aid in her escape from the now crumbling tomb no thanks to the lunatics who decided to blow it up with her in it. So one ‘cinematic’ chase sequence later and upon her fortunate escape Lara discovers a symbol she recognises from her father’s research which then sets the actions onwards Siberia where the rest of the game takes place.
The rest of the plot is a kind of by the numbers affair as you’d kind of expect from the series by now but it frames the game quite well and gives you enough motivation to push on and time to breath and explore when necessary. Also returning from TR13 is Jonah (though the rest of the gang of chucklefucks from the previous game are not even mentioned let alone present) as well as a cast of new allies indigenous to Siberia. They help push the story along as well as offer up some side missions but for the most part it’s Lara against the wild. Thankfully Lara is a much more experienced and confident explorer than the inexperienced shrieker in the previous game.
This leads in nicely to the various extra tools and upgrades for RotTR. Right off the bat you start with an ice axe, well two in fact which are used to pry open specific boxes and doors as well as traverse certain walls and the torch is no longer needed as Lara has a magically unlimited supply of glow sticks to light the way. Upgrades and new weapons come thick and fast acquiring a bow very early on, a lock pick for other lockers and doors, a rope which combines with the bow to aid in traversal and puzzle solving, a wire spool which combines with the axe to allows Lara to fling it on to climbable surfaces from a distance as well as swing across specific gaps, a rebreather so Lara can breathe underwater and others like various types of arrows such as poison, fire and grenade which also are sues for combat and puzzle solving. Plus a few more tools as you progress though the story.
So about puzzles and tombs. Well they’re much more involved this time with tombs featuring as part of the story and as optional side content. Though they are more expanded that the one trick puzzle rooms of the previous title and usually have a small puzzle or traversal sequence to access they and then another set of puzzles for the tomb itself (though some are more involved than others). Each though rewards you with a unique trait quite like your unlockable skills but as the reward for completing the tomb. While not massively complicated and some requiring progress through the main story to unlock the gear required to solve, some did have me thinking with a nice smug sense of satisfaction when piecing the solution together with a satisfactory jingle from the game.
Environment wise there are various small inter connected playspaces with collectables, optional tombs and challenges to complete and your play through with 2 larger play spaces that have even more to explore and traverse. Some places and challenges you’ll need specific items of gear to complete but the same fast travel system from the previous game in camp sites return and they’re quite plentiful and spaced out well enough to get right to where you’re going fast (eg every tomb has a camp site right at the start of the tomb section).
The character skills and weapon upgrades systems from TR13 also features though are expanded a bit more this time. These are unlocked by xp you gain from completing practically any action in the game like combat, exploration and challenges and from gathering crafting materials from the environment or hunting. Weapons again can be upgraded as well as finding parts of new weapons from specific chests. This makes exploration and hunting more engaging than the previous title and the returning Survivor Vision more than just a tool to find your next objective as it helps you find items in the environment you need for crafting, point out threats and collectables, upgraded shows animals to hunt and with a certain tomb reward shows you the beating hearts of poor deer unaware of the impending fate.
Also new is the Expedition mode which is kind of like a score attack mode where you replay sections from the game to compete for the highest score. You can do this for specific combat encounters, cinematic sequences or tombs and to keep this fresh multiple times through are the inclusion of Expedition Cards which will affect your score positively or negatively depending on their use as well as goofy cards like big head modes for either enemies or Lara. The combat segments in RotTR are kind of like mini sandboxes so they have multiple approaches for different playstyles or upgrade paths you went down with stealth playing differently to going all out guns blazing. While not quite as limitless in possibilities as say MGS5 it’s quite comparable to MGS3 in that you have a small area with 5-10 guys to take down with some starting off with guards patrolling while others are on full alert and hunting you down from the get go. If you enjoyed the encounters or tombs in the main game this is quite a nice diversion to replay them again.
I think we can all agree it was a bonkers reveal and marketing deal that did more harm than good to the commercial success of the game but in spite of all that I found it to be much improved over TR13 and one of my favourite games of last year. Plus the Season Pass content on Xbox one (which will almost certainly be additional to the Steam release) has added a new mode, Enduance, which is like a hardcore survival mode where you start with nothing and much gather resources, supplies and equipment from the environment to see how long you can last against the wild (that and on the leaderboards of course) and two story expansions, Baba Yaga: The Temple Witch and Cold Darkness Awakened, coming out later this year. While more of an evolution of the reboot if you somewhat enjoyed that chances are you’ll love Rise of the Tomb Raider.[/QUOTE]
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Pm me a recommendation, thiis post is nearly hitting thread limit, so I'll post the list later.
