Inside

   Happy 25th Anniversary to my childhood videogame hero, Sonic the Hedgehog, as of last Friday. This is a not so subtle of a hint at what I mentioned in passing last time that I have ideas, so look forward to some Sonic the hedgehog based posts coming soon. What more could anyone want? I've been trying to get through a few of the Sonic games I'd never played before or only in passing, but I can tell you right now it won't be every single game ever, there's not enough time in the world, no matter how fast I gotta go. That's still to come though, because I had to stop right now to talk about Inside. This is going to be a short one in order to avoid spoiling anything but I'll try and encourage you to play it. Warning, no more jokes coming (though it's arguable if there ever are any).

 I hope you've played Limbo before because Inside is the second game made by Playdead (the developer) which has arrived 6 years after Limbo, and even though it's only 3 hours long, it's been worth the wait. Much like Limbo, it's an atmospheric puzzle platformer but they seemed to have learned some lessons from Limbo, which itself was a great game, but they've fixed some of the very few minor issues (some frustrating puzzles with hidden objects got really annoying at times in Limbo) and perfected the art form.

   At different parts of this game it can feel creepy, scary, sad and joyous through the change it atmosphere with a deep story told without a single word of text (written, spoken or otherwise). The main thing to expect though is an unnerving atmosphere, as you're never specifically told what's going on, but you know it's something very wrong, and you just know, with everything that's going on in the game that the unnamed protagonist is ultimately going to fail in his quest, at least to an extent, though it's never clear what that quest is (so I guess he might have succeeded).
   I am not trying to spoil this game, honestly. It really is best to play it for yourself. I don't want to say more than 'fantastically atmospheric puzzle platformer' in order to describe the game. You really have to play this for yourself to appreciate it (also so I can discuss it as I doubt I know anyone else who will), unfortunately (for most people (me not included)) it's console exclusive to Xbox one, though it is available on Steam as well, so there's really no excuse. You need to play this like I need to play the Witness (downloading now), so what are you waiting for?

   New idea for a section. With every 'review' if you wish to call these that, I will include a recommendation or two from me as to what you may also like based on the game in mention. I won't just be googling and copying and pasting, nor recommending games I haven't played, nor sticking to the same exact genre, developer, publisher or so on. Also nor will I say the answers you could obviously figure out for yourself. For example in here I could put 'Limbo' and 'Portal' and have done with it, but I wont. (also, I might go and add these to some of my most recent 'reviews' as well as I have no desire to play Mighty Number 9. (top tip, it's bad) while I wait for this download to complete) With that in mind...

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                                Thomas was alone
                                Transistor

Games with Gold June 2016

   Normally if I'm talking about free games for a month. I talk about PS Plus. Now, I'm an Xbox guy (an Xbot if you will) but I (obviously) have a PS4 as well, and as a whole, ps plus is infinitely better than games with gold, but not this time. Actually, that's probably no even true. Gone home is an amazing game, but I already played it when it came out on Steam a short 3 years ago. I also hear that the nba 2k series is probably the best sports game franchise out there. I however, have no interest in that sport whatsoever, so have no plans on playing it. These 2 for games with gold though are games I wanted to buy in the past, but never did.

Goat Simulator

   So, this was always supposed to be a simple game. A sandbox where you're a goat doing ridiculous things like flying jet packs, going to space, sacrificing humans to the devil and more. There isn't really a game here beyond wondering around and finding silly things to do. It's full of bugs but the creators don't want to change it as they find it part of the fun.
   The whole thing is ridiculous and it's a case of wondering aimlessly around until you find something silly to do or another bizare easter egg. I wouldn't pay for it, but as it's free why not go and look around. You could however just see clips of the silliest things on Youtube, I ended up having to do that to try and get some of the achievements.

The Crew

   Okay, this is the one I really care about. You may have heard of this one yourself, it was marketed enough to burn your eyeballs out at the time of release, but the mediocre reviews and online bias put me off, but now it's free! The real hook in this one is the condensed map of America. It's an open world racer and you can drive from one end of America to the other, sort of. Okay, so they've fit it all in to 70-80 miles, which still takes a hell of a long time to drive across in a videogame (don't worry, there's fast travel (after you've already been there before..)) but has all the landmarks and areas of country. There are the main cities that make up the basis of the game, New York, Chicago, Miami, Detroit, Las Vegas and LA, but there are smaller representations of many of the other cities of America, like New Orleans, Dallas, Bosston Seattle and others (as an English person I don't really know which are more important than others off this secondary list). You can travel up the Rockies, through the everglades and the sort of deserty bits where nothing really is (like around Vegas) It does make for an interesting setting for a game.
   The gameplay is pretty good as well. As the game advances from city to city you get new types of car, from street racing, to off roading, performance cars and more (that's as far as I've got so far), all of which handle differently. That said, they all drift too much. Apart from just the drifting, something else that impacts on the generally good control of the game is the traffic. It seems to just pop in when you're in the middle of a street race and wipes you out. Thankfully you can make up for it with the ridiculous levels of rubber-banding in the game, though of course if you're ahead that's some bullshit right there.
   I'm not sure why the game got such bad scores really, on top of the good things I've explained before there are challenges around the map that give you parts to improve your car, landmarks to see, hidden car parts to build classic cars and a nice array of customisable cars to buy and mod (but more importantly give the most ridiculous paint job to). On the other hand, there's multiplayer all up in your face. The game desperately wants you to play in a team of 4 the whole way though, but I can't, this isn't 2008 anymore when me and my friends had all the time in the world, life moves on and I'm the only one left strongly clutching on to the gaming stick (not a metaphore for a penis). Nearly all the achievements in the game (unfortunately I do care about them, yes) are tied around you doing things in groups. If you are to play it alone like I am, you'll find it's got a story that couldn't be any less engrossing. someone killed your brother and framed you for it, and your out for revenge. Sure, sounds interesting but it's presented terribly, so I've skipped it since the first hour. While I'm on a similar subject (not really, but whatever) why has no car based open world game had a good soundtrack since GTA San Andreas. All I needed in that game (and Vice city for that matter) was the in game radio, I can't remember the last time I thought that about a game. Has anyone else seen the Watchdogs 2 trailer? The soundtrack makes me want to kill myself!
  On top of this, it seems like there's been a large DLC pack introduced in to this game at some point that isn't included as part of the free deal that games with gold offers. Now, that's fine in theory, but the game doesn't tell you that things aren't actually in the version you have, challenges, garages and more appear on the map as if you have access, only to turn out you need to buy dlc to access it. On top of this, some of the cars you have on offer to buy are ridiculously expensive and unless you want to spend the next year of your life doing challenges, you mwill have to do microtransactions. This wouldn't bother me so much were the game just straight up free, but these were in here when the game was new. In my eyes it's an absolutely piss taking way of trying to get more money out of someone who would have already paid full price for the game, just like Fifa before it (and no doubt many others), it's becoming a situtation where an already full price retail game is trying to dupe unsuspecting parents (and just general morons) out of money. Boo to you Ubisoft (and EA in Fifa's case).
   Ignoring my anger about that, as long as you don't spend any money on this you can have a fun time. If you're young enough to have friends available to play games you could probably have a fantastic time. It's a decent racing game, especially for free and I'm glad I've played it, but I'm unlikely to finish it, give it a go though, it's pretty good. (that was convoulted).

Right, come on England, I've still believed since 1998

Doom

   During all this time the Euro's have been on and I haven't had time to write any of these for all you lucky people, I've filled myself with ideas for it. More on all of that later, as I'm here, almost 2 months late, to talk about Doom. You can mostly blame that on Uncharted (which I can't even be bothered to talk about (other than to say I don't get the hype)) and the Euro's, but with Portugal vs Austria in the background, here I am.

   I'd hope you would know what Doom is, but in case you don't, it's basically the game that launched the FPS genre (yes, I know it's not the first one, but it's the one everybody jumped on and has fond memories of) in the mid 90's, Yes, there has been sequels, but Doom 3, the last major game in the series was initially released 12 years ago mow, so, they're back, without a number in the title (which is the 'in' thing right now) with a new offering, and it looks like they haven't played an fps since Doom 3 came out, and that is a fantastic thing.
   Before I explain that weird sentence I'll give a brief overview of the plot (potential spoilers, but they're not that important). You are the Doom slayer, awoken from being frozen by Samuel Hayden in a facility on Mars to end the invasion of demons from hell which they have been using as an energy source, but whoops, Olivia Pierce, one of the researchers looking to help improve the situation has turned heel and now more hell is being raised (literally) that Stone Cold Steve Austin in the 90's. Luckily the Doom slayer feels alright in the noise and the light of mars and hell, and slaying demons lights his fire.
   Okay, what I meant before was this is a classic FPS. I myself didn't play Doom, or Quake, or Unreal, or Goldeneye, or Wolfenstein, or perfect dark, but what I did play, to an insane level, was Timesplitters (and Timesplitters 2 &3). This had the same qualities that Doom 2016 (not an official title btw) is offering though, and that's how my nostalgia was peaked. That's because there's no regenerating health and no ducking and covering. Just charge down your enemies and blow their faces off. In this game, classic controls play the ultimate roll in gameplay, and I didn't know how much I missed it, and loved it (and still do), and that's what lights MY fire.
   What is it that differentiates it from the likes of COD, Battlefield and so on. As i said, ever since Halo we have expected to have regenerating health, and hell, I'm happy with that, games are so, so much easier than when I was a kid, with limited lives, no saves and game overs, which wound up in many broken controllers for me and still would today were it still the case (btw, there is unlimited lives in this, thankfully (unless you play the hardest level)). What was I on about? oh yeah, so, health pick ups, yes, there are a few around, but it's all about the glory kills on enemies, with some beautifully gruesome actions (achieved by finishing an enemy with a melee attack) that give you the big payout in health, shields (also not regenerative) and ammo (the bigger the enemy, the bigger the payout). Couple this with the run and gun style that this game wants you to play and it's made to go together, charging around the battle areas and wiping out what you can, towards the end of the game you're facing enormous amounts of enemies, with a high amount of them being extremely hard to kill, I kept thinking it was getting too much, but I knew I was lying to myself, It made me feel like a badass.
   Some other added elements, light RPG elements where gear is advanced through kills and weapon challenges, but mostly through exploration, which is interesting at times, and I did it a fair bit, but found no where near all of the secrets, so if you want everything, you're going to be at that for a while. There's the nostalgia there for Doom fans as well. All the classic enemies and weapons return, and I did have fun googling images of enemies from the original and comparing them to now (seems like a good point to add that I love the artistic direction of this game) which is interesting. There are bosses though, and you know my thoughts on them. They weren't too bad here to be fair, and there's only 3 (or was it 4?) in the game, and though sometimes it didn't seem right, and wound my nerves up with continual restarts, mostly it came to waiting to figure out the best time to use the BFG (top tip, save your ammo for that for when you really need it). Hmm, long paragraph.
   The multiplayer is very forgettable unfortunately, and right around the time of Overwatch so can't see anyone playing it for any reason beyond getting a few achievements/ trophies (that's the only reason I tried it), but that's not what I bought it for anyway. If you just want to go around shooting things in the head, you're in here. Sometimes it seemed tough but i couldn't get enough of it, it scratched an itch I didn't know I had, and if you remember any of these 90's FPS' and have any love for them, you have to play this. Doom 2016 kicked ass, and that's the bottom line.