Forza Motorsport 6 Review

   The eagle-eyed among you may remember that I put Forza Horizon 2 in my game of the year list last year, it was fantastic after all, and so I figured it was time to dip my toe in to the main series for the first time. After all, I've got a long history with racing games. When I was younger Gan Turismo 1 and 2 were a couple of of my favourite games. It wasn't just the racing though (good job as looking back the AI on that was pants, but it was a PS1 game I guess), it was buying cars, handpicking races, speciality events, winning cars, different race types and all the other things that went along with it.
   Unfortunately as I've got older I got epilepsy and hence can't drive. so even though all that stuff seemed to awesome to me as a kid, I've grown up in to someone who couldn't give a hoot about cars, there's just no interest there, but as shown last year, I still enjoy racing games. The last straight track racing game I remember playing though was Project Gotham Racing 4 (Xbox's other (now defunct) racing series) and I really did enjoy that, mind you it did come out in 2007, still, I've always liked racing games, so I didn't see why it mattered. Turns out it did matter. I'm racing around these tracks and I just don't care. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate everything that's there and I will go in to more detail, but as I'm racing around these set routes, my mind wonders and I very quickly lose interest. I struggle to see what I used to find so exciting about them as it just seems like it's about learning when to break on corners, and that's it. Sure, you may be sitting there thinking to yourself 'that's what racing is' or 'all videogames are about learning a mechanic' but I think my lack of interest in the subject matter is leading me to boredom (or maybe you're thinking of your own boredom reading this hot mess).
   I want to be positive here though, so I will. If you like cars, I'm pretty sure you'll like this. For one, It looks great (as expected) and the car selection is excellent. Hell, there's plenty of 90's classics from me to choose from that I still have a minor knowledge of  them due to my interest in the past, plus, there's some great GT classics in there, what more could I want than reliving the glory days of GT in a GTO? There's a great tool for livery creating as well that's full of options, and, if like me that seems like too much effort but still want one, you can download livery's that other people have made as well. There's car modding as well that effect your stats that 'gearheads' (that's a term, right?) will appreciate (I assume), but you can also auto mod the car so the computer will do this for you and save the hassle, if like me, you don't care.
   On the positive and gaming side of things, the options are great. There's so many ways of modifying the difficulty for yourself and they've done a great job with this. From the simple aspect of turning the AI difficulty up or down, to things like adding/ removing a racing line, automatic or manual transmission, abs, auto break and plenty more. an added bonus here too is that the more modifiers you turn off, the more prize ( according to the spellcheck here, 'prize isn't a word) money you get for your races, so it pays to be good too (unfortunately only in game, not IRL (unless there's some tournament I don't know about)).
 

    On top of this there's so much to do (if you want). Just the basic game is 6 categories of increasingly powerful cars with multiple tournaments within each, then within these categories there's 6 categories, and you're not 100% complete on that until you win every tournament with a car from every category so if you want to, there's plenty to play. Of course, you can also just do each tournament once which has you complete the game the normal way too. Then there's dozens of special challenges to play too with the likes of car specific challenges, moments from history, side challenges and more to keep you busy.
   Back to my favourite bit now, criticism. Online is terrible. It's just down to luck as to who doesn't get involved in the first corner pileup and then hoping no-one takes you out on any other corner. Don't get me wrong, that's how I race with friends and against AI (as a last resort, I might add) but when there's 24 cars racing and they're all smashing in to each other constantly it's just a cluster...mess?
   Music, what's gone on there then? I can't think of any traditional racing game I've ever played before that hasn't had a proper soundtrack (at least playstation onwards), but this just has some in-house created general background music. Am I supposed to care about the sound of cars? because I don't. And then, there's Top Gear plastered all over the place. I hate Top Gear. What's the big deal, seriously? There's Top gear challenges and James May and Richard Hammond doing voice overs all over the place. I'm so glad that show fell apart

   So what's my recommendation? I guess if you like cars and/or racing games then go for it, the gameplay is about as good as you can get in a racer, but a lack of variety has bored me. If, like me, you've been out of racers for a while, I'd really recommend you don't bother. Because of what I see as a well deigned game for other people but not at all me, I'm going to be less harsh on a score than I could and give it 5/10. Will I get the presumed Horizon 3 next year? Maybe, I did like that last year, a lot, but this has left me with a our taste in my mouth.

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain Review

   This is the big one for this year, arguably. It's probably not the game I was most excited for but it was up there, and after many years in development and all the issues with Konami and Hideo Kojima it looked like it would never come out, but it's here now (well, 2 weeks ago).
   Before I start I'll go a bit in to my personal Metal Gear history. I never played Metal Gear Solid, Even though I owned a Playstation and it seems to be basically everyone who ever owned one's favourite game. I played the demo that came with OPUKM (Acronym meaning available on request) and liked it, but as you may know, Total Soccer also came on that disc, so... I have seen it be played many years later (like, 2012) but I'm still not really sure what the story was. Anyway, jump forward to the PS2, and I got MGS2, and loved it, easily one of my favourite games on the system, and might have been my favourite if not for the GTA 3 series. Couldn't get in to MGS3 though so gave up a couple of hours in. I never played any handheld games but I did play MGS4, but wasn't particularly keen, I didn't know what was going on in the story and the amount of respawning enemies was nuts.
   Jump forward to ground Zeroes, the overly expensive demo that came out last year and I didn't really like that either, I seemed to be spotted from the other side of the map constantly, and it nearly put me off buying this, but in the end I went for it and here we go.

   Stealth again is the name of the game, and just like every other mgs game (apart from 4 IMO) they've nailed it. Planning, timing, execution are all vital and when it all turns out how you planned it just feels great, I love it when a plan comes together. Of course, that happened to me about twice in the 31 missions in the main game, so, it's a rare feeling. I will be honest though, the majority of the times I was spotted were my own fault. In the first half of the game, I'd sneak expertly through the first 2/3 of the mission until I get spotted, but by that point there was few enough enemies for me to gun them down without issue. Then, as I got further in the game and my relationship with Quiet (your sniper buddy) got to a point where she could 'cover me' and I was able to get her to basically wipe out entire bases, or at least distract them to the point where I could just waltz through the middle and complete my objectives. Sure, I wasn't technically 'spotted' on these missions and I got a few S ranks on missions based on this, but the point was not to kill anyone, bu Quiet did all the biz and saved me time and effort, so I was all for that (do I even like games? I'm always trying to make them easier for myself somehow).
   On the subject of Quiet (although I've started a new paragraph so I guess this is bad grammar, kbfhsbd), the buddy system is of great use. You have to start with a horse, which is basically useless except for travelling slightly faster. Then you find a lost puppy, the cutest thing in a video game since Yoshi's Woolly World. Rescue him and you'll soon have another buddy, D-Dog. He's a lot better as he spots enemies for you and can distract them, the only problem he has is following you around to closely, and not very stealthily. Later you battle Quiet, beat her and after a while she's another Buddy, and IMO the best one, for all the reasons I've said above. The only weird thing is her back story, she's sort of part of the Skulls (more on that later) and doesn't eat and other such things, but more strangely she's really scantily clad. Don't know why, though I guess I should be used to it from other metal gears. You'll unlock other variants on her attire, like being silver, gold (for some reason) or covered in blood (more than once a month) to 'intimidate enemies'. The weird thing with all of these is she's a sniper, so she shouldn't really be seen, so it makes no real sense as the guff says it intimidates enemies. There is also a mini rideable Metal Gear, but I never used it as it can't do awesome stuff by itself like Quiet of DD, so no comment.
   Base management then. It's got these RPG elements, and although there's many aspects to it, ultimately everything is for the benefit of creating new equipment for you and your buddies. I have to mention the Fulton device here, which allows you to capture people, items, vehicles and animals in the form of a big balloon that shoots them in to the sky. It's a fun addition to the game that's just as crazy as you expect something in Metal Gear to be. If you can at some point, Fulton a sheep, the sound is hilarious.

   The Skulls then are a super powered group of soldiers that have massive health bars, deal massive damage that takes forever to recover from and can teleport. They always come in groups too and are  tough group, just make sure you're loaded up with exclusives and tat Quiet is in position. They also turn other soldiers in to sort of zombies, but they are way easier than regular enemies as they don't shoot, so that's helpful.
   Things that aren't so great then. There's some slow down t times. I was playing on Xbox so can't say if it's true for PC and PS4, but a few times I got spotted or missed a great opportunity due to this. I also found cover sometimes doesn't work great. Approaching cover is supposed to automatically put you in to cover but sometimes you end up just standing by the wall, a button press would have been more effective. I'm going to put the story in here, but not for the reasons you may expect. Sure, the prologue is classic metal gear where it makes no sense and is nuts, but after that there isn't much to it. Just a guy trying to control the world through language and metal gears, but it's very light. I've never been a big fan of the weird Metal Gear stories anyway, but it's still nuts, but there's not much to it. On language, there is a section towards the end of the game where many of your staff gets a disease based on what language they speak and have to quarantine them, individually. I had to individually check each of my 343 staff to see if they spoke Kikongo (whatever language that is) and the 153 that spoke i I had to individually move them in to quarantine. That was both time consuming and annoying.
   On to the final boss, where you fight a Metal Gear. It's very easy (though when he drew his sword I really wished I' researched a Dragon Dagger). Now, I'm not a lover of bosses as I've no doubt said several times before as they just seem to be a test of patience so I was glad for this, but it was a low point to end on as it felt an anticlimax, I much would have preferred a big infiltration mission like the penultimate level, that's where I'd have finished it.
   I am yet to complete 'chapter 2' of the game which takes place after the end of the main story and is mostly redoing old missions with difficulty modifiers. Now, never in my life have I finished a game and then played it through on a higher difficulty so unless I have nothing else to do I'll probably skip it and watch the 'true ending' on youtube, so nothing on that it.
   Overall then, it's a game of fantastic gameplay and well crafted missions that is great fun to play with a few annoying niggles that leave it for me at an 8/10. If you've enjoyed Metal Gear games in the past, play it.
 
   

The Deer God review

   So why am I playing this rather than Metal Gear? For one, as this is this months Xbox 'game with gold' (free for the month) I figured if I finished it quick and wrote it out fast some people may actually be interested in reading about a game that came out in February on Steam as some Xbox owners, somewhere, will wonder what this game is, and if it's any good, whereas if I were writing this in a month then nobody in the world would likely care. So that's one reason, the other? I'm intimidated by Metal Gear. From what I've read about the game so far it sounds so open and massive, with so many ways of doing everything that I'm sort of scared to start it because even for someone who' been playing games for about 25 years, I'm still worried I'll be in over my head.
   But what is 'The Deer God' actually like. A quick cover of what it is then, it's a 2D platformer done in an 8 bit style with 3D backgrounds (looks nice). You ply as a deer (as you may have got from the name) and have to complete a few missions through procedurally generated worlds. There aren't levels per-say, but different environments such as Forrest, mountain, desert, graveyard and others. They just repeat s you go around but each area has different bosses and you can clear each section within about 30 seconds when you get towards the end of the game.
   It's a pretty simple platformer to be honest just wrapped up in some extra bits to make it seem deeper. The actual gameplay is pretty simple for a platformer, jump, dash, shoot fireballs out of your antlers, just everyday deer stuff. There's a few bosses and puzzles to keep it mixed up, but the simple nature of it is fun, reminding me at times of the classic Mega Drive Sonic games as you dash through the areas. The problem with this comes in night times though (because there's day/ night cycles) when you can't really see the enemies and are often dealt damage unexpectedly.

   Some of these 'extra' bits include dealing with hunger, which can lead to a draining or filling on the health bar (and personal annoyance). Also, ageing. When you spawn you come back as a baby deer and aren't as bad ass, and have to wait to age. It's ok though, you can get offspring by meeting a lady deer and getting her to fawnicate ;-) (also there's extra life skulls).
 Ultimately it's worth giving it a go if you got it for free, but I wouldn't pay for it 5/10. It's alright but there's a lot of other platformers out there and you could pick a lot better (but it's free, so, y'know) (also, it's pretty short if that makes you feel any different towards it).

Until Dawn Review

   With Gears of War finally done I could move on to Until Dawn at last, a game I had been pretty excited about for a while now. Though I tend not to like horror games I do like horror movies and the modern rise in 'interactive story' type games, now that Telltale have really popularised that genre in he last few years. Obviously those games are made episodic and fairly cheaply so I was really looking forward to what a well financed, all in one version of those would be as written by horror writers plus voiced and motion captured by real actors (some of whom are fairly famous (Grant Ward)) in an interactive horror film.
   In many ways it lives up to what is to be expected of it, it looks great, the score is incredible, the acting, the voice and mo-cap is great and the setting is great and you get to control all the characters a fairly equal amount of time (provided you don't get them killed too quick), but unfortunately in an attempt to pull apart the slasher film tropes that we've come to expect, they fall headlong in to them.
   The set up is daft for a start (spoilers for the first 10 minutes of the game coming). Last year when the same group of friends went to the lodge, 2 of them got lost and were never found again, yet still their brother (of all people) wants them to go up again this year, and they do, of course. Why would you? As you meet the characters you see there's all the typical American teen horror genre staple characters, the 'cool' guy,the stupid whore, the bitch, the jock, the upbeat one, the nerd (although he's not really that nerdy, but in the bonus content I watched after the actor who played him seemed to think he was (then again a lot of the actors seemed to read more than there actually was in to their characters)), the suspicious one and the 'will they won't they' one. At first a lot of this is endearing as you get to control the characters you usually have to watch, but after a while you just want to kill off all the ones you typically get annoyed by, yet the backstabbing bitch still lived, dammit!
    I don't want to spoil the plot here, as that's basically the whole game, but needless to say it's full of twists, some of which are very predictable, and it's full of people making bad decisions, like going off from a room of 5 people on your own to find some keys on a guy that's probably being eaten in a monsters den because you can't wait 2 hours until dawn when the helicopter arrives, despite the fact you're perfectly safe where you are. Often times too when there are choices, they're both stupid, or it isn't clear what's different between the two.
   Most annoyingly of all though is some of the deaths. I rescued 5 of the 8 in the end, and I accept full responsibility for Ashley's death (such a shame too as I wanted her and Chris to get together) but the other 2 deaths were utterly stupid. I won't tell you who or how, but take heed that sometimes taking the safe paths isn't the best idea and also, see those millions of collectibles dotted around everywhere? well, better get collecting.

   I criticise a lot (I do enjoy it) but there's also quite a lot to like, it's a really strange game of great ideas that are well implemented, and terrible ideas that are terribly implemented. On the good side, they are great at building tension. You're often left walking around dark corridors or mountaintops with just 1 or 2 of you and a flashlight for company, most of the time in an inter gender pairing, hell, it's the best X files simulator I've ever played. Seriously though, these dark walks with eerie noises, wild animals, windy trees and a creepy soundtrack build the tension well. There are also these totems you can find, which are one of the far too many types of collectible, but these are actually good. They show you glimpses in to potential futures (depending on your actions) and clues to what actions you should take in order to not die/ get something useful or numerous other helpful hints. I recommend you watch these and remember them. There is also a great game menu system constantly tracking characters different relationships to each other (as in how they get along with the other individuals) based on the interactions you have between them as well as personality traits. What bearing these have on the game outside of the one on one interviews with the characters at the end I'm not sure but it's still interesting. The same menu also tracks your 'Butterfly effect' decisions so you know where you could have chose to do something else of note so if you wanted to play it again to get a better/ different ending, you'd know where to look (I bet Ashton Kutcher wished he had that handy device to hand).

      The story and characters aren't all bad as well, some are genuinely likeable and some grow on you, Mike for instance, in my mind, turned from being a dickhead 'cool guy' in to a genuine hero. And as for Dr. AJ Hill, urgh. He goes from asking simple questions to someone with a minor mental health problem to forcing a total breakdown on you and going insane. And he only appears to space out the game between chapters (still, he sure knows now I don't like snakes).
   In the end it was an interesting game, I'm glad I played it but I doubt I'll ever pick it back up again 5/10. I'd suggest for the future give Telltale more money to get all the great effects offered here in like acting, visuals and sound whilst leaving the story to them. Maybe supermassive games should give them a call. Thanks for reading cochise and remember, save the upbeat girl, save the lodge...