The Order: 1886 (Game Review)

Set in an alternative steampunk England that is governed by The Order, a legion of knights based after King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Having found the Holy Grail, they have achieved a sense of immortality by using Blackwater, a liquid that prevents aging and heals wounds with amazing speed. As a member of The Order, you play as Sir Galahad, sent to deal with a growing uprising of rebels against The Order and the Monarchy. Things aren't as they seem as some of the rebels are lycans, humans that can turn into werewolves.

The plot thickens later and becomes the usual ordeal of rebels actually not so bad, corruption in government and vampire subterfuge. The story is decent, but it plays it safe and doesn't make any surprise twists. It progresses slowly though, and it feels very drawn out. Despite being cliché, the story does hold the game together well and is engaging enough to not leave you bored.

Visually, the game is amazing. It clearly demonstrates the graphics power of the PS4 and is amazing to look at. It has the grungy look of 1886 London, but the steampunk design adds a flair of colour and brightness to most levels. The motion capture and character design is probably the best feature of the game. It is amazing and beautiful to look at, completely faultless.

If I had to compare the combat system to another game, it would be Gears of War. It is incredibly similar, warts and all. Right down to the cover system, health regen and combat variety. It doesn't hurt the overall experience, but it doesn't help it either. It tries to do other things, like stealth sections and environment exploring, but it's spread far too thin. The stealth is a clunky quick-time event charade and the environment is messy and cluttered and I often couldn't find my way. The detail put into some areas that were completely inconsequential was astounding. I walked into a room that was so well detailed, but didn't lead anywhere. It was confusing and annoying to repeatedly get lost because of an over-complicated environment.

Although it features vampires and werewolves, it sadly overlooks any unique encounters with these creatures. Werewolves do a hit-and-run tactic repeatedly, easily overcome by sitting in a corner and waiting for them to charge you. The elder werewolf encounters are reduced to a quicktime fight, and the only werewolf you actually kill is trapped inside a cutscene. You will kill lots of human enemies though, oh so many. The AI is pretty average by today's standards, and it's easy to predict their movements. Shotgunners will charge you, snipers will sit at the back and everyone else runs for cover or tries to flank. Combat encounters are broken up with short environment crawls or cutscenes, often completely ruining the pacing.

The game wants to show you how pretty it is really badly. You can look at inconsequential pieces of paper, closely examine items in your hands or listen to audio recordings. I was so bored by the jarring and slow pacing that I ignored the audio files, eventually stopped looking at the papers and yelled in rage every time I was forced to spend ten seconds looking at something in my hand that I didn't really care about.

Visuals and mediocre story is the only thing holding this game together. Even with that said, the game gives a giant middle finger when the story ultimately doesn't resolve in any way and finishes with a disappointing quicktime fight. The combat is more of the same, but is horribly broken up by bad pacing and illogical encounters. I hated playing The Order so much, but thankfully you never have to pick it up again since it has no replay value, unless you're a completionist, in which case I feel sorry for you.

Dying Light (Game Review)

The zombies are back, or rather, they never really left 'cause of the whole 'undead' thing. Anyway, you know a really good way of dealing with zombies? Apparently parkour is excellent for escaping the undead hoards. If you currently aren't in the middle of a zombie apocalypse nor have the agility to learn parkour, then Dying Light is for you!

He just wants a hug, but give him one and his heart will pop!

As an agent for a government agency called the GRE (I never actually learnt what that stood for) you play Kyle Crane, a somewhat competent agent who is sent into the zombie infested city of Harran to recover a stolen file which contains something sensitive about the virus and/or cure which is being held by a vicious dictator. Minutes after being deployed, Kyle fucks up royally and is saved by the local survivors and scavengers. The entire premise is rather long-winded and most of what happens is simply a staging point for the actual story which a much more interesting man-o vs man-o war of personalities. When I say more interesting, I mean slightly less stereo-typical than its starting ideas.

For once, it's nice to play a character that has clear morals and intentions, who isn’t a two dimensional canvas for you to project yourself on. Kyle has real and well expressed emotions and reacts to situations like a 'normal' person. He scoffs at stupid fetch side quests, mocks idiots and has compassion for those who are suffering. It's been quite a while since I've seen such a well-developed character as the player character. The rest of the cast is nowhere near as developed, almost as if Kyle Crane got all his personality by sucking it out of everyone else like some hipster vampire. Everyone is replaceable and stock standard, even the main villain. The story and characters were predictable and the ending was rather lacklustre, though gratifying. I was climbing the ladder to meet the villain in a final showdown and I openly said "I feel a quick-time event waiting at the top of this ladder". I was right, which was disappointing.

But who cares about the story when there's a city full of zombies to chop into pieces? The game, made by the Dead Island developers, features their signature combat style of 'aim and swing'. You can take to the undead with a variety of clubs, hatchets, axes and swords, all can be upgraded with a variety of 'blueprints' that add extra effects to weapons. These are made by collecting crafting pieces in the environment and can increase a weapon's durability, handling or power while others add fire or electricity damage. While it is extremely satisfying to make a poisoned weapon make those annoying human enemies vomit their guts up, it's not all that realistic and did make it feel more of an arcade game. Over time, you learn a range of new skills that makes dispatching zombies easier, but that is where I found a problem with the difficulty curve. The game is brutal hard early game as you lack the abilities to deal with enemies fast before they overwhelm you, but once you get those skills then the game gets far easier. The introduction of other zombie types shakes things up, but not in any new or interesting ways. Perhaps the most unique feature is the day/night cycle and the nasties that come out at night. Initially, these zombies are fast and dangerous, but they lose all their thrill once you gain parkour skills. It feels wrong that a game simply gets easier as you play through. There are firearms, but they don't play a major feature until nearly all human enemies start to use them. Dying Light is a bad shooter. I don't even want to talk about how bad guns are.

The feature point of Dying Light is the parkour system. First-person free-running hasn't really been tried since Mirror's Edge and Dying Light certainly makes big steps in the right direction. It's still horrible trying to navigate a climbing section in a first-person camera, but it is satisfying enough to make it a lot of fun. Again, levelling up skills makes using the parkour even easier. It really feels like you become a hero among the mere mortals as you become so overpowered that it becomes borderline boring to play. Oh, and then you get the Batman grapple gun. Yeah. I feel that a lot of the skills are interesting to use once or twice, but you'll always revert to your simple ones. Being able to make shields, boosters and throwing weapons never felt necessary, and in fact, I never used them. I think it got to the point where they were adding skills to pad the oversized skills tree.

In the end, I found Dying Light a lot of fun to play. Not for the story, but because running around being the equivalent of Batman in a zombie game is bloody awesome. I didn't feel a sense of completion when the story ended, I just wanted to kill more zombies, which I did for a few days and then finally got bored with no missions to do. I honestly feel like I could single-handedly just kill every zombie in Hassan and end the whole disaster. I tried to do that too, but then night time came and I fucked up all the mutant zombies. I looked over the square full of body parts and thought about what I was doing. "Screw this, just nuke it" I said, and quit.

Note from Editor: I couldn't review the multiplayer content at the time of writing, but Dying Light also supports a coop system and an online player vs zombie player mode.

(Reviewed on PS4)

How Deep does the Basement Go?

Once upon a time, there was a boy named Issac who lived happily with his mother who spent all her time watching religious television programs. One day, while watching her programs, she heard the voice of God (or, most likely having an episode of Schizophrenia, that's what she thought she heard) that told her that her son was evil and had to be punished, so she locked him away in his room, never to come out. The next day she heard the voice again, Issac was still evil, so she took all his toys and left him with an empty room. Issac didn't understand why, but he knew there was something very wrong with his mother. On the third day, his mother heard the voice again, telling her that the only way to cleanse him was to sacrifice him, so she went to the kitchen and took a carving knife. Issac, peeking through the keyhole in his room, saw her coming and panicked, desperately searching for a way out. he discovered a trap door leading to the basement under a rug. Not knowing what was down there in the dark, but more afraid of his mother turning the key in the lock of his door, he jumped down into the darkness.

The Binding of Issac is definitely one of the more disturbing games, but that's what makes it fun to play. Everything is warped and wrong in so many kinds of ways that you can't help but feel an ominous presence hang over you while you guide Issac through the dark depths. Enemies are horrible, disfigured creatures and the dozen or so bosses are some of the most gruesome and horrid creature you'll ever see.

Issac himself is not defenceless; he shoots his tears as projectile weapons while dodging the ranged and melee attacks from enemies. Issac can't defend himself, so you have to avoid getting hit by the blood globs and touching any enemies. There are, however, literally dozens of items that Issac can find throughout the basement; each one gives him a stat boost or a new power entirely. Unfortunately, each one usually represents itself on Issac in some bizarre or gruesome way, and when they start to stack it will transform Issac into an equally disfigured character compared to the rest of the denizens of the basement.

There are also other items that require activation that you'll be able to collect and hang on to until you need them. Issac can carry one type of pill which gives a randomised effect, but they’re not always good. Tarot cards can be found and give a specific effect, but you’ll have to learn for yourself what each one does by using it. Finally, you can carry one useable item that can be used repeatedly but must recharge between rooms. These items are usually the most powerful in the game, but the more powerful it is, the longer it takes to recharge.

The best thing about The Binding of Issac is that each playthrough is completely randomised and you can (usually) complete a playthrough in half an hour, unless you did well enough and manage to get access to Sheol and attempt to defeat Satan himself; good luck with that. I only managed to get that far once and the game completely crushed me like a snail. This game is brutal and unforgiving; only quick fingers, quick thinking and a little bit of luck will get you anywhere near the big final bosses. And there is so much more to do within the game by unlocking special characters, even more items and then there are the special challenges to complete.

The Binding of Issac is completely wrong and disturbing on many, many levels. I won't deny that some may be dubious about its content. I was a bit uncomfortable with some elements myself, but they are never the focus of the game, usually simple items that you are free to ignore. With that said, most of the game makes you feel uncomfortable regardless, even with "Questionable religious content" (Nintendo's response on a possible 3DS version) aside.

With the sheer randomness, the massive content of items, enemies and rooms you’ll find, make playing each time like playing a whole different game

The Binding of Issac: Rebirth is an upcoming re-production of the original game to switch the platform from Flash to a more stable engine that will fix several bug that could not be fixed on the Flash platform. It will also feature co-op support, and add even more items and enemies to the colossal stack. It will be coming to PS4, Vita and Steam sometime in 2014.

Art by Blckwht (http://blckwht.deviantart.com/)

The Dayz Cometh

Open world zombie survival. It all kicked off with the Arma 2 mod, DayZ. It set a very different stage for gaming, and also brought up a great many issues when it came to discerning what kind of gamer you are. With the much anticipated DayZ Standalone almost out of Private Alpha and said to be entering a Public Alpha soon, New Bohemia and mod creator, Dean Hall, released some info on what to look forward to.

Although the visuals in the DayZ mod were good when cranked way up, they have been much improved for the standalone. They have introduced many new assets and buildings, and 90% of buildings are now enterable according to New Bohemia. New items, including combinable items such as purifying pills to clean dirty drinking water and the gunplay has been significantly improved. While the game is still running on the Arma 2 engine, it is much improved for DayZ.

There is also some chatter about Sony picking up DayZ for the PS4, assuming the PC launch doesn't collapse. Despite that, there is no announced release date for DayZ, but we've been told it should only cost about $20-$25USD. I'm looking forward to it, DayZ was a great experience, despite the 'human' nature of some players, but the fact that zombies are a real threat, as is cold, heat and illness, it makes the world just that more hostile for everyone.