12 weeks, 12 games, Year 3

   Numerous things to say before I start. Firstly, I started this on Saturday the 2nd January but due to a broken computer I was unable to turn it in to words, like I am now, that you are reading here. Another thing to say is that I could really do with renaming this as it's more turned in to me getting through my back log of old PS plus and Games with Gold games plus of course my array of 20p Steam games. This is aided by the fact that in general I'm getting bored of long AAA titles now and want shorter games with fresh ideas. The third thing to say is that I'm well aware that the last 2 times I've done this barely anyone read it, so this is essentially becoming me talking to myself now and making references to things that are personal to me. Never mind, Onwards!

Tranformers Devastation

   So, Platinum games and a license is a warning sign before you even start, and I wasn't really a big fan of the cartoon as a kid (which this is based on with the art direction, story and all the voice actors (though unfortunately no wildly varying changing of character sizes)), it always seemed pretty boring. Also, this is one of those fighting games like Devil May Cry or Bayonetta, which I'm neither a big fan of nor particularly good at, yet here was me playing it.
   So, the graphics are disappointing, the story is instantly forgettable and there are sections of awful platforming and yet still I enjoyed the game as a whole. It was a very simple example of a combo fighting game, but due to its simplicity it makes it way more fun (to me at least) than any of the games of this type I've ever played before (pretty much all named earlier). As I'm getting older I'm becoming a lazier gamer (and just lazier in general) and I'm not going to be learning massive button combos, but when there are about 3 combos to learn, of 3 buttons or so then great, I can cope with that (I think). The main issue it the very slow start to the game, it's a short game anyway (like, 5 hours or so) but the second half of the game is far better than the first, and sure, I know that goes for most games that the second half of games is better as you get more used to the systems and so on, but this game is definitely a game of two halves (and no, I'm not talking about every Villa match this last couple of months (as for some reason we don't start trying until the second half)).
   It's cheap anyway but give it a chance and some time and you'll enjoy it, trust me

Unmechanical

   And so on to the masses of free games I've got sitting around, this one was a PS Plus game from some point last year and is a 2D puzzle game, although not a platformer. You play a little floating dude with a tractor beam with some pretty standard puzzles to solve. It's nothing new and only a couple of hours long and forgettable, but as it was free I enjoyed it enough for its brief length. The main issue that I have is that at times it can be a bit too much style over substance and it's hard to tell what's background and what's part of the game, and once made me look around for 5 minutes for a vital puzzle piece only to realise I kept passing it thinking it wasn't involved. As I said, it's all been done before, but it got me some easy trophies (though I'm more of an achievements guy) and passed a couple of hours. It's fine for what it is (provided what it is, is that you got it free).

Xeodrfiter

   Like Megaman? great, play this. I, however have never played a single Megaman game and was thusly terrible at this. I know in the past I've talked of my love of 2D platformers but I'm not a big fan of guns in them, like Megaman (sorry I keep talking about Megaman but it seems like the most obvious comparison). So, it's a simple platformer with 4 slightly different planets that you have to travel between (which you can do at will (sort of)) to unlock different abilities to advance in the game. It's only a couple of hours long (or so everyone else seems to think, after 3 hours I wasn't even half way though due to many, many deaths)for experienced players. Yes, I haven't finished this game so it will go on to the 'underway' list although the chances of me finishing are very low as I got very stuck on the fourth boss, and I'd have to do it many more times as the same boss is repeated every time but with a different move added and more health, and I can't get past the current iteration.

Pneuma

   From 2 PS Plus games on to a Game with gold. This is a first person puzzle game that has some good ideas but is unfortunately not executed very well. It's all about the eyes that look at you and figuring out how that effects the world around you. In theory it's a good, and fresh idea, but some poor controls, unclear puzzles and repetition leaves it somewhat disappointing. It's a shame too as it looks really good and I'm a big fan of fresh ideas, but between these issues, and the annoying voice over that, yet again, discovers he's a fictional character in a game, which seems to happen all the time these days and I'm sick of it. Anyway, point is, of all the games I've mentioned here, I would definitely say this is the one you can leave off from playing, even though it gave me some easy Acheivment points.

   I also played about half of Killzone: Shadowfall that week, but finished in the second week, so I'll write about it then. Hopefully by the time week 4 is out I'll be back up to date as at the moment Week 3 is nearly over and I've forgotten half the stuff from the games and, as usual, can't read my own hand written notes because I write like a 5 year old.

Completed

Transformers: Devastation
Unmechanical
Pneuma

Underway

Xeodrifter

Game of the Year 2015

   I'm back to write about vidoegames, the thing that no one reads about when I do so. I've been unable to do this properly over the last few months due to my condition (read previous post) and return to work and all Christmas stuff. Obviously I had to come back for this though, the all important award of Andrew Pearsall's game of the year (what could me more important?). Who can take the reigns from 2014's winner South Park the Stick of Truth and of course the inaugural winner The Last of us. Let's find out (as I also haven't decided yet whilst writing this).

The Nominee's are:

Rise of The Tomb Raider

   If you were to think Fallout 4 was the best game that came out on November 13th you would be very wrong. It is this. Granted not many people played it due to some foolishness on Square Enix and Microsoft's part for making it an Xbox exclusive and releasing it on the same day as the aforementioned Fallout 4. On to the game itself though. If you played the first game in the rebooted Tomb Raider series (which is more likely) you'll know what the deal is here, this is just better. It's an action game that involves a bit of everything, sneaking, hunting, shooting, platforming and probably the best action cut scene moments I've ever played (suck it Tomb Raider copycat Uncharted). Everything works so well though, there's not a bad part in the game, it all runs great, it's so much fun to play. There's plenty more to do as well, such as the returning Challenge tombs from the first game as well as repayable challenge runs outside of the story if you want to play more. Yet again it's beautiful and Lara is a fantastic character and brilliantly acted/ mo capped. My only issue with the game would have to be the open area sections of the game, I really didn't want them there. Can't we just have 8-14 hour story driven games that don't make you do extra stuff. I don't need it.
   I would probably say this is my favourite action game of all time, beating the likes of Uncharted 2, Assassins Creed 2 and the other games I've probably forgotten. On the unlikelihood you have an Xbox One, you have to get this game, if not, wait a year, It'll come to Playstation eventually.


Rocket League

   Car football. The 8 year old version of me playing a version of Subbuteo with toy cars by myself would have lost his shit, and frankly, I have. A game that I might not have played had it not been free on PS plus, but it was and it's probably the most addictive game I've ever played (granted I've said that hundreds of times before (I imagine)). It's as simple as it sounds, 2 teams of cars, from 1 v 1 up to 4 v 4, 1 Ball, 2 goals. There's boosts to pick up and jumps and flips, it's simple to pick up but difficult to master (like many good games). It does have a single player season mode but it's true home is online multiplayer. If this game had come out 5 years ago when me and my friends spent hundreds of hours playing Call of Duty and Fifa online it would have taken over my world, but those days have passed, We've all grown up (though that mostly applies to everyone else and not me) and we can rarely get together at the same time to play online (plus we don't all have the same systems).
   Playing online can be a mixed bag at times, oftentimes someone in the game has lag, plus without communicating with your team it's hard to put moves together, but many players seem to figure it out. Of course, the game does suffer from the same issue that every online game suffers from, some people online are arseholes, unfortunately there's not much anyone can do about that, but as long as you chill out there's no need to worry, ignore them, just like always. I'm making this sound pants now but rest assured it's anything but. What's greater than putting in a great performance and leaving your team to victory whilst the losers moan about each other? Quality.


Chroma Squad

   Keeping on the indie front, I'll move on to a not very well known game. Chroma Squad is a turn based strategy game (Xcom style) based on a Power Rangers style. The story is brilliantly crazy. You start as the director of the Chroma Squad TV show, picking your cast, character names and uniforms. You begin to film the shows but over the course of 6 seasons (#nomovie) shit becomes real and you have to save the Earth. I don't want to go in to details because the story really is great (plus it involves story changing decisions so we probably won't have the same story anyway).
   My only real issue with the game is that I couldn't finish it. I hit a bug on the final boss and could not complete the game. I was going to restart it over but just watched the ending on Youtube instead. I should say the gamely is good too, it's strategic without being too complicated as the story is the most important thing going on here. Extra abilities and moves are slowly put in throughout the game but give you every change to master them and it's got some neet little RPG elements mixed in too. It's only on Steam but only costs £6.79 as of writing. Buy it now!

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

   I've not put as many hours in to any story game since Fallout 3 (I recon) as I did in this. Sure, there aren't as many things to discover and the area isn't so big as there is in an Elder scrolls game but the story is so deep and engaging that it doesn't matter. That's not to say there isn't anything else to do, there are plenty of random events to encounter and of course Witcher contracts to complete, and Gwent of course, which is even more addictive than Pokemon cards, and I actually understand Gwent too.
   There is a nicely varied world to travel, and for such a big game it really does look fantastic. There's a wealth of different types of enemies to fight and it's fun to change the fighting style against different types of enemies you encounter rather than them all being samey. This is the only game on this list I already reviewed so there's more there.


And the Winner is...

It's a tough one, there has been a lot of great games, including ones not making the shortlist (metal gear 5 springs to mind), with two all time greats (in my eyes anyway). But for me the winner has to be Rocket League, it's sucked me back in for a second time and I'm obsessed again. Congratulations.

Brain Surgery

   As many of you know, on Friday, 9th October, I had brain surgery to remover a cavernoma (an expanded blood vessel), it has been a hard couple of weeks and I thought I should tell people how it's been for me, if you care?

   It was Thursday the 8th that I went in and had to stay in the hospital overnight before it all kicked off the next day. I got in the hospital gown, got a catheter and morphine and fell asleep. some 3 hours in I awoke in the middle (as planned)  so I could take a series of tests to make sure that nothing was going wrong. It was things such as disciple this picture, finish the sentence and things like that. It was also very uncomfortable, dead legs, sore arm, cramp, and the notion that I had a guy digging in my head.

   I got out and returned to my hospital bed, not feeling to bad except for a headache, but painkillers were helping. Sleep was tough though, with the catheter and cannula and very uncomfortable bed. The next 5 days in the hospital were awful, the headache got much worse, become unbearable after a few days, and getting to sleep due o the quality of the bed, plus of course, it's very boring, not aided by the fact that I could barely read, it took about 10 minutes to read a paragraph. Finally, on Wednesday the 14th, with the worst headache I've ever had, I got to leave and go to my mothers.

   The headache got worse, and I spent the next 24 hours with terrible pain and throwing up constantly, so I went to A&E. I got a bunch of scans and had to go back to a room for the night. At that time, I also started to not understand things. I could really speak as I couldn't understand anything people were saying nor what I was saying. This would go on for 4 days, and was awful as I couldn't really do anything because I couldn't understand anything. I also had to spend the majority of the next day in the hospital waiting for the pharmacy to drop me some steroids and anti sickness tablets, it's not very efficient. After that I went back to my mothers house.

   The steroids weren't great either. They did calm down my sickness and headache but I basically couldn't sleep for more than 3 hours the whole week I was on them, I was tired all the time but just couldn't sleep. I spent the whole of the next week sitting on my arse as I had no energy (this wasn't as fun as it sounds) and with the difficulty in talking/ thinking/ reading and headache it was awful. The headache has calmed down massively now, I still have a slight one, but it's not head splitting anymore. I can also think and talk again now thankfully although I do still have trouble reading and find it hard to concentrate on anything.

   I went off the steroids on Friday, so am still concerned with the fact the problems could come back up, but only time will tell. Finally, today, I have been allowed back to my own flat. I now have to relax for 4 weeks, and just hopes everything goes well. If there's spelling issues in here or if some of it makes no sense, that's the reading issues.

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...