Review: "Borderlands: The Handsome Collection"

Borderlands 2 was one of the first games I ever played start to finish in Co-Op. The unique artistic style, dark comedy, stylish gunplay and sheer levels of dumb fun kept me fluttering around it like a moth to a flame. Even after my group of four disbanded and we parted ways to play other games, I still found myself being drawn back into the world of Pandora, wanting to beat the challenges, obliterate raid bosses and just get some god-damn better loot. It's fairly safe to say that at least Borderlands 2 has quite a sentimental place in my life, as it was a game that I played with some of my closest friends, and it also allowed me to drag my girlfriend, albeit reluctantly at first, into the world of video games.

Now, why am I bringing all of this up?

The steam summer sales rolled around, during which I bought Borderlands: The Pre-sequel and Borderlands with all of their respective DLC's. So I figured I might as well look back on the series as a whole, and see what went so incredibly right for the geniuses at Gearbox. For the sake of comparison, I won't be mentioning Tales from the Borderlands, as while I do have it, I'm yet to play it, plus its a completely different genre to the main body of the games themselves.

BORDERLANDS

So this is where it all began, being greeted by an annoying robot after I get off a bus. As far as shooters go, it's fairly innovative. The different element types, class variation and gun randomisation make the game far more interesting than it looks. However, its pretty easy to see where all the love for the series came from. The game itself is fairly challenging, requires a lot of patience and skill, and overall makes you feel like you've accomplished things when you beat certain bosses or done certain quests. The game has this nice feeling of steady progression, and with the constant need to upgrade and change your loadout, and therefore playstyle, it doesn't get stale quickly. The story is fairly captivating if albeit a little short compared to its sequels. The skill trees also feel a little stunted, but considering that this game was a new IP, I'm okay with it.

The DLCs, although not adding any new playable characters, makes for a good and fairly reasonable expansion to what already available, adding in some interesting new NPC's and locations. Overall the first game was a really good place to build from, allowing for the sequel to be even better.

BORDERLANDS 2

There is train-crash, and I'm greeted by the same annoying robot. First of all this game makes one hell of an impression as soon as you launch it. I love the way in which the entire story of the first game is summed up, and the all the consequences are delivered in the pre-start narration. Considering that I didn't play the original game before this, I felt going into it that it was a new game in its own right, which personally I thought was well reinforced by the introduction of new playable characters, and the original characters playing a pivotal role within the story, as NPC's, or in some cases providing an extra AI hand in combat. The introduction of a new elemental type, Slag, makes for an even greater reliance on both environmental damage as well as teamwork in multiplayer, as while it deals no damage itself, it causes damage received by those under the effect to be magnified significantly. This game does what the last game did really well, but even better than the last game did. The slightly oddball characters in the last game are now outright batshit crazy. The larger than life characters and pure charm alone carries the game so much further than the original. The inclusion of the customisation system that includes new head skins and colour collections rather than the choose your own colour scheme system in the original adds so much more personal depth to the player's characters than previously done in Borderlands. The DLC's are phenomenal, and that's not including the story or Headhunter DLC's, but also the two character DLC's that add new and exciting variation to an already varied class list.

Speaking of the story DLC's I couldn't resist singling out and mention one specific DLC. "Tiny Tina and the Assault on Dragon Keep". This one DLC is an absolute masterclass in storytelling. The setting is beautiful. The interjection from the characters makes the game so much better, as it makes it seem like the Dungeons and Dragons game imitation that it is. But it also does something that I wasn't expecting, it shows all the stages of grief through the eyes of the youngest NPC, as a final DLC to conclude the Borderlands 2 experience it so beautifully ties together all the mechanics, characters and gunplay that makes the game incredible.

BORDERLANDS: THE PRE-SEQUEL

Unfortunately, this game is a step in the wrong direction, in some aspects. Whilst the main mechanics are essentially the same as Borderlands 2, there are two additional mechanics which are a welcome addition to the game. First of all Cryo damage, this acts as a slag replacement, because in terms of the lore of Borderlands, slag damage doesn't exist yet. Cryo damage is easily better than Slag, as it makes enemies far more vulnerable to critical damage, as well as melee and explosive. Hopefully, there will be the co-existence of Cryo and Slag in, what I assume will be, the final instalment of this series. The other mechanic, that I'm not sure I'm sold on, is the low-gravity, double jumping, ground pounding, semi 'aerial' combat. Whilst the majority of the new combat adds much-needed variation to the series, allowing for the arenas to open up vertically, the majority of the game takes place within these low gravity areas, which in some cases makes everything just a tad more uncontrollable. One of the slight complaints I have is that nearly everyone who is on the moon is Australian, apart from, to my knowledge, a single random cockney ten-year-old. As far as I'm concerned, the story of Pre-Sequel is both good and necessary, as there was the entire backstory of the villain of Borderlands 2 to explore, and credit where credit is due, instead of giving us egregious amounts of exposition in the form of audio backstory, we actually get a game that develops five of the existing characters, introduces family of a fan favorite from Borderlands 2, and fills that gap between Borderlands 2 and 3.

I consider this game very much what Fallout: New Vegas is to Fallout 3. A large DLC, developed by another studio, released as its own game, with other DLC. Unlike Fallout: New Vegas, however, it's not better than in predecessor, that's not to say its bad, but it would be incredibly hard to live up to the phenomenal game that is Borderlands 2.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Its quite obvious that as a series Borderlands has been going from strength to strength, even if Pre-Sequel is a bit of a step backwards from Borderlands 2. I am very excited to see where the game takes us in the, technically fourth, but the third instalment, there is so much they could do. This however also leaves me cautious, as there is so much that could go wrong. With any luck, the game won't be overhyped, won't have a large number of its details leaked prior to release and won't make the mistake of not moving on from Handsome Jack. For once, there is a game series that I'm genuinely excited for, as it has colossal amounts of potential, but with that comes the danger to disappoint.

Review : Just Cause 3

Welcome to Olly's first post. The main things you gotta know is I tend to write a lot more about one thing and unlike Dan, I am one of those pesky console peasants with a subscription to online services and with it the selection of monthly free games. For PlayStation, August's top free game was Just Cause 3, the open world shooty boom bang game and I, in typical review fashion, have some thoughts. (Potential spoilers)

The main synopsis is that our hero Rico and his agency return to his home country to help a rebellion remove a militaristic dictator. Simple stuff, really. The game also thinks this is just enough to get you started, throwing you right into the middle of a battle and reuniting with all your old buddies that you've shared so many memories with. I was initially confused, but passed it off since I hadn't played the previous entries, I did a bit of research and yeah, no, this is the first time players have seen these people, despite them apparently being Rico's best friends and crucial allies. 

This quick and simple pace continues in the cut-scenes, always taking place in a one shot camera motion, which while keeps things interesting, gets a bit much when its mostly just characters talking to each other in quick succession, no time to breath. The general story is harmless enough, a couple of twists, lots of action and a few funny lines. I was always looking forward to destroying bases as it meant receiving a radio message from a kidnapped celebrity forced to explain why the military was getting rid of all their strongholds. This character improved even more when I realized he was voiced by David Tennant. 

The story was never the main selling point however, the game play is where this game truly shines. Right off the bat it gives you access to the majority of your weapons, vehicles and gadgets including an infinite para-shoot and wing-suit. Travelling the world feels effortless, just grapple upwards, get some air and your off. I imagine most players spending their time off the ground. (Especially as the majority of the vehicles handle reaaaally badly.) It's the most fun I've had travelling to point A to point B in a game.

The larger part of the game comes from liberating military areas and towns by taking out individual assets such as statues, posters, gas tanks and electrical equipment. And yeah, this is what the game is really about, because pretty much everything that needs to go will go up in a massive explosion. Everything explodes. And you have plenty to explode things with. Tethers, grenades, tanks, jets - oh it all blows up eventually. Yeah it gets a bit samey over time, most towns and bases kinda look the same, but it blows up just the same. You can just blow it up. Just 'cause (Oh I get it now).

The side content is a little lacking, split into two categories; collectibles, which will reward you with some special weapon or vehicle, and challenges, complete a certain task and you'll get gears out of five, the more gears, the more mods you can apply to your game play. 

These challenges suck.

They're immensely frustrating, including incredibly specific goals and bullshit consequences. I admit when I've made a mistake in a game, but if a challenge just puts you in a truck on the top of a mountain and the end goal at the bottom you'd expect some difficultly but some general method of getting down. Nah this is just "good luck, try not to hit anything on the way down because it'll send you flying in the wrong direction and you'll lose precious seconds on your top score." Added with the load times that take just a bit too long for current gen games, restarting challenges over and over will really wear you down.

And while the game really does looks great; vibrant colours, shiny buildings and those huge fiery explosions, it really doesn't carry all this very well. During my play-through I suffered countless frame rate drops, a few game breaking glitches and once had the whole game crash 4 times in one session. This game came out in 2014 guys, can't they patch a few things?

On the whole this isn't a game you should go into with grand expectations. It's certainly a good game and absolutely tons of fun throughout, but I would recommend only playing a few hours at a time, maybe after a long day at work, unwind by soaring through fields or blowing shit up. 

Olly

Review: XCOM 2: War of the Chosen

When it was announced I was very happy, a new campaign, some additional layers of challenge, some special units belonging to both you and the enemy, seemingly freshly ironed of bugs, all wrapped up with some new mission types and some new voice acting to boot. Consider me hyped up. 

War of the Chosen (WoTC) came out on the back end of august. After sinking several hours into both the original XCOM and its expansion, as well as XCOM 2, I decided to buy it, cos if it’s awful, steam will let me have a refund, a feature that to date has been used once on a game I don’t care to remember. Thankfully, it remains unused as this game is good.

Now I want to make one thing painfully clear, it’s really unbelievably good. It takes all the good things about XCOM 2 and improves on them. I never got round to doing a review of XCOM 2 before it became redundant, but holy hell WoTC does an exemplary job of making me love the game more than I already did. The addition of the new fatigue mechanic as well as the AP and XCOM AP for special soldiers makes the game have a tonne more depth. Any of the Chosen actually present a threat and can easily beat up your best team if you slip up for more than a second.

The new classes do lend themselves to the occasionally overpowered moment, dropping whole ADVENT pods in a single turn. The Reaper is quite nice to play as they have a unique concealment mechanic called "shadow", that’s give them a chance to not be detected whenever they attack an enemy. The Skirmishers are just out and out lethal, in conjunction with a Grenadier I killed two high level enemies without even breaking a sweat. Their unique attack twice in one turn as well as their melee weapon essentially turns them into rangers on steroids. The final and favourite class of mine is the Templar, a psionic glass cannon that can end up being the single most powerful unit on the battlefield at any given time. I’m not sure what to call these, but they rely on killing enemies with a with a melee attack called "rend" to build focus, which in turn makes them stronger, but they can spend this focus to carry out some insanely strong psionic attacks, that in one of my missions killed all three members of a pod instantly. These classes are extremely well balanced with the rest of the game, and with the addition of the fatigue mechanic, it means that while they can be super-soldiers, if you don’t give them some rest time, they will suffer from a tonne of negative traits.

The Chosen are quite cookie cutter, pulling from a pool of abilities, some present in the base game, some added by WoTC. However the thing that makes them unique to every play through is that they have different strengths and weaknesses, and can develop new ones over time. They can be defeated, but respawn until you use one of the new rooms, The Circle, to hunt them down to their base and finish them once and for all. There didn’t seem to be a uniqueness to them. Sure they all look different, and do different things, but how beating the Chosen works is the same every time. Use their weakness against them until they die. Maybe if I had to discover their weaknesses and strengths whilst fighting them that would be better, as I would have to try literally every tactic to bring them down, instead of looking at the obvious neon signs telling me how to beat them.

Also am not going into any detail, as if you’re going to play this game, which I recommend you do, I want you to experience this for yourself. FUCK THE LOST. FUCK THE LOST AND ALL OF THE THIER FUCKING MISSIONS. The game added in the Lost, aka Zombies, which to be fair, are fucking quality. They provide this pressure, this unbeatable enemy, who forces you into situations where sometimes you have to decide which soldiers are more valuable, or if you want to fight advent, or you'd prefer to see your soldiers get ripped apart by some mouldy screaming motherfucker.

There’s several improvements to the research system. Namely the inspiration system, and breakthroughs. Inspiration makes research take a shorter amount of time, and breakthrough provided bonus that have to be priorities to gain them, otherwise the chance to get them goes. The Circle and its covert operations add use for soldiers who otherwise would never see the heat of combat, as well as a way to gain PCS's, weapon mods and supplies, and also give XP to your less used recruits. There is also propaganda system now, where you can make posters involving your soldiers, and their exploits.

Overall War of the Chosen is brilliant. It’s a well thought out, well executed, fun and generally rewarding gameplay experience. It’s made a game that was already quite enjoyable surpass literally every expectation I had, as I was expecting DLC akin to something like the previously released "Alien Hunters" or "Shen's Last Gift", and I was soooooooooooo fucking wrong. Honestly, it’s worth the £35 price tag, buy it.

Dan

Theres going be some changes...

So admist "The Other 99%" and University and a myriad of other games. I have deceided to implement some changes around here.

There will be a potetially large increase in the number of posts, mostly due to the new guy, how has been suffering alongside me in the 99%, who has finally grown some testicles and decided to publish his own stuff onto this blog.

There may also be some changes in the layout of the site, as well as the name, URL .etc as Level Up was personal to me, and to reflect the nature of this now becoming a joint venture, i feel that changing the name of the site would be A) more accomodating of other authors and B) also reflect the attitude that we wish to have towards it, as we both want to take this project more seriously, as we both have a passion for gaming, and would like contribute to the community we've taken so much from.

This isnt a full time project for now, and it might never be a full time project. We will post as much as we can, however we both value the quality of the posts above the qantity of the posts, so there isnt a strict schedule, so between the two of us, there probably will be atleast one post a week, however during exams season at uni, or when deadlines approach, the blog may go quiet as we will both be very busy trying not to drown under the pressure of coursework and exams.

Thanks for sticking with me for so long, if any of you have stuck around at all. I hope you like the new content and arent too put off by any future changes.

Thanks again

Dan

The Other 99%: Destroy All Humans: Path of Furon

This game, actually isnt as bad as i was expecting.

We have a few issues with it. The parts designed to be "thrilling" arent, and the weapons being mostly useless, meaning we ended up using roughly 3 of them in the course of our playtime, as the first weapons were the ones we upgraded and used the most. Not like it matters however, because DNA, the games currency, is thrown at you left,right and center, making getting upgrades a matter of when, not a matter of if.

I think the main issue we have with the game that its not bad, it doesnt leave us feeling baffled and angry and confused, however its not good ethier, its full of bad sterotypes, shoddily cobbled together action sequences and main character who sounds like a bad Patty and Selma impression mixed with the slug lady from Monsters inc, mixed with Jack Nicholson. The game is far too repetitve as well. Each area us unique, but they all follow the mission formula of mind reading mission, kill some shit mission, do some other shit mission, boss fight. Its too rinse and repeat. It feels rushed.

The script for the game is just "eh", theres some funny lines, most of which are not said by the main character, leaving the "entertaining, funny" Alien character kinda just wasted and lost on us, because all the line delivery was just bad, and the main character is just uninteresting.

I think my view on this game isnt helped that the games that came before it were actually decent, like the first couple of games were well designed and the played really well. This game is just clunky and badly optimised, as shown when in the Not-France area (Belleville) the boss fight cutscene screamed at us, screen tore and crashed five times, and then finally system crashed after the boss fight. We didn't even finish the fucking thing because it kept crashing after the Not-France Boss fight. Not to mention after three chop and change cookie cutter levels prior to it, Not-France was just downright fucking boring.

One of the key features of the game is destroyable citites, but when we leveled an entire city, the game lagged awfully, its just not acceptable for a game released onto a system where the hardware doesnt change, optimise your fucking game.

Easily the best feature of the game is mind reading. Like honestly, thats where we genuinely laughed most. Some of the thoughts are brilliant, and they are unexpected, and they add a level of depth to the game that we find pretty good. The incorperation of the mind reading into the missions actually makes sense and is enjoyable. 

In total, its not bad, i dont hate it, but niether do i like it, but as bad as it is, its leaps and bounds better than Retribution, easily, because i actually enjoyed playing this game to an extent. Unlike that pile of shit it was actually playable and had potential to be decent, but it was too rushed and badly optimised to be a good game.

Dan

The Other 99%: A new thing to pass the summer.

Hi,

Im not dead.

Uni is done (for now)

Im unemployed (also for now)

So in the months till i return to Uni, im starting a new thing, a sort of series, based off an experience.

It all started with this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWxEwdGpIPQ

"Ride to Hell Retribution (1%)".

Yes, that fucking awful dog-shite game. On a day out with my friends, before we parted for uni, We found it, tucked away on the pre-owned shelf in CEX. That fucking god-awful dog shite bag of wank game. As per request in the video, we bought it, yes, me and my friend Oliver actually paid money for it. We split it, I spent £1.25 for 8 hours of gameplay and over the course of 4 separate days split over a year, we played it and i shit you not, i still feel ripped off. 

During this we encountered 4 system crashes, too many terrible awkward sex scenes, and enough explosions to give Michael Bay an seizure. But we beat it, despite it nearly beating us, nearly over a year since it came into our life.

But as the credits rolled, We felt this vaccum. It got us asking a question "is there anything just as bad as it, if not even worse? and if possible could we find it?".

So join us as we spend money we dont have, on games that arent worth it, for no apparent reason at all.

Because any game, AT ALL, has to be better than that steaming pile of horseshit. Probably.

Dan.

Fallout 4: lout...

Hark, a new year, and still the same shitty opinions of a teenager sat in his bedroom.

Fallout 4... (acquired from questionably legal means).

So yeah, back to the wasteland, that one in Boston. The premise is good. Totally not been done before... but it has. You know, in Fallout 3. With the whole missing parent thing. oh and the Brotherhood of steel shows up. like in Fallout 3, and there are other factions, like in Fallout 3, and there is a giant junk city, like in Fallout 3.The main plot is like Fallout 3 up until you find your father. You emerge from the vault journey across the wastes help/pissing on people to find your son/father, then you do shit with them, and then the game kicks off and throws some various spanners in the works.

By no means it the same, but its similar. Bethesda have expanded on the brilliant weapon modification system from New Vegas to levels of insanity, meaning that all weapons can now be modified to extreme levels, and all weapons are now viable into late game. For example , the 10mm pistol I first used has carried me safely to level 14 with few deaths. The modification system also works well as any mods you craft are attached to weapon, but you can remove them. and you can find weapons with random mods on. meaning you can access mods you cant currently craft by swapping them out with less powerful mods.

One thing that pisses me off about the game is the fact that everything can be used. So now looting buildings takes ages, and I end up carrying around more crap than an incontinent baby. In the early levels you need literally everything to progress, weapons, armour and junk. It takes the piss. Also the changes to the ghouls that make them zombie like is amazing, as they are much much more terrifying than they were in the past.

Settlement building is fairly easy. Within my first 8hrs, after saving the last minuteman and nearly being cleft in twain by a deathclaw, I had transformed sanctuary into walled and easily defendable place with a ton of food and water, power and other amenities. Then I just could not be arsed with the poxy other settlements. all I wanted to do in the end was just move everyone to sanctuary, but due to my computer having the processing power of the average potato, it was going to lag my game.

The new power armour system is what the fallout games has needed for ever. It makes power armour expensive to use, but also makes it worth it, as it massively boosts all your stats. However my all time favourite combo of Power armour and fist is now not viable. However being able to fly and not take fall damage is fun, you become more like a space marine from warhammer than a survivor of a post apocalyptic event. (GET ON MAKING THIS A THING). The graphics are certainly an upgrade and the atmosphere is still there, so not all bad.

I cant help feeling too with the insane shitestorm of mechanics and factions that they throw your way, right from the start, kinda means that you pust finding your kid off, and the excellent "Yes, Yes, Sarcastic Yes, Yes" dialogue makes it even harder to stick to the main story. The whole game for me is just a bunch of side quests, some that effect the world more than other.

In short, its abit disappointing, or its too different, I don't know which. it took what made Fallout great and kinda when , "yeah that was good, but look, we expanded on the Hearthfire DLC and made it better, then added zombies and nukes". Now that's not to say its not enjoyable, Fallout 4 is a good game, but it isn't a good Fallout game.

Steam: http://store.steampowered.com/app/377160/

Level: 8/10

Dan

Rant: My Payday 2penneth/ aftermath.

So yeah, shit when down during this years crimefest, where overkill in their infinite fucking wisdom decided that adding micro-transactions was a good thing to do. This pissed people off for three main reasons.


1. They lied about including them, and their forum mods handles the criticisms poorly
2. Their current business model means that they are now raking it in
3. They added it during an annual community event

This is my take on those three:

1. Way back when Almir said that Payday 2 would never have micro transactions, and up until recently that seemed to be the case. Then they added them and the community went to shit. First there was feelings of betrayal, which seeing as Payday is "a community driven game", was to be expected, considering that the micro-transactions turned the game into "CounterPay DayStike 2", and the skins added in the safes changed stats, building on the already pay2win nature of the game with the countless DLC's. Then when the community of the "community driven game" responded badly, they didn't get listened to, they got silenced by moderators who wouldn't allow Overkill to get criticised for a blatant stab in the back.

2. Many of the successful games on steam run on a combination of 3 different models.
 - Free, with Micro-transactions.
 - Paid with DLC.
 - Paid with Micro-transactions.

Take Team Fortress 2 for example, the game is free to play, with no DLC and then Micro-Transactions being tacked on. Originally you had to buy it. Then they added in the Mann-conomy and they made it F2P, but also gave a free item to the players who bought the game, and gave them an "trader" status as they had invested some money. People were not annoyed by this as they were compensated and free players had to make a transaction in the store to get the ability to trade.

AND ALSO ALL MAPS, WEAPONS, CLASSES, CONTENT ARE FREE.

Payday 2 is now a Paid game, with DLC, that restricts play, i.e not just new masks.etc, but actually locks maps, weapons, most of which are terrible, but then there are some which are really OP and very useful, and perk decks. and as of Crime fest, Micro transactions. Now adding them was a pretty stupid move, but then adding skins which increased the stats of weapons was just pure un-bridled dumb-fuckery.

3. It was just awfully timed. It was like telling someone they had inoperable cancer while they were out celebrating their birthday.

TL;DR Summed up into three reasons. Betrayal of the community, Fucking stupid business model, bad timing.

I mean there has to be some sense in what im saying. The player base has dropped by over two thirds since the introduction of Micro-Transactions. Also the reddit forum moderators have refused to work now, annnd the top sub-reddit on the PAYDAY 2 reddit is named "Fuck you Overkill"

Dan.

Magicka 2, Episode 2: Attack of the Spell Balance Beta.

Yes, I am alive, I'm just A) Lazy, and B) Pinned under mountains of A-level work, hence the lack of reviews,  but onwards to 5 minutes of your life your never getting back...


For any of this gobshite to make sense you need  , in fact need is abit strong, I recommended that you read this : http://lvlupreviews.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/magicka-2-i-learned-to-spell-again-very.html

So as those of you who are unfortunate enough to read my reviews, y’all may know that I have a slight distaste for Magicka 2, slight being a massive understatement, as left me with a massive sense of disappointment and a feeling of resentment towards pre-ordering, only recently cured by XCOM 2.
But all my bitching and whining is now irrelevant, well not irrelevant, but less justified. As far as the base game which was delivered unto my arms like a ugly new-born goes, it still dislike it. But now the baby has had extensive cosmetic surgery and is now looking and feeling a lot better.


They fixed the issue where elements wouldn't combine to make one element (e.g Fire/Water to steam) and also apologised  by adding a new combo element, Poison (Death and Water). This has made me a very very happy person indeed. As a result they scaled the enemies, but I don't care, as now I feel like that Overpowered red robed psychopath from the first game. Weapon enchantments actually do something and actually can hit your enemies and do quite significant damage, unlike the first game where you might as well have tried to batter them with a sachet of Ketchup for what it was worth.


After giving it some time the moving while casting has actually grown on me, and combinations from the first game that cheese'd enemies now cheese them slightly less. The Steam and lightning combo has been balanced, which means its useful against crowds, but useless against single targets.


The devs listened to the annoyed people, and instead of silencing their criticisms, they responded, and have as a result fixed their , not broken, but damaged game. They have returned it to what made the first game great and then made this game good. It will by no means ever be better than the first iteration of hotdog wielding robed lunatics kill each other with magic, but god damn it ALOT better, to the point where I will 100% it, because its fun now, and I am an achievement whore.


REVISED LEVEL: 8-9/10
Commendations for the Devs.
Game link : http://store.steampowered.com/app/238370/


Dan.

Dishonored: Blink and you'll miss it.

Nearly another month has gone by, and i'm still here, I think monthly reviews will suit me better as it will give me time to play something, but yeah ill see.

Dishonored is from Bethesda, REVIEW DONE 10/10 FINISHED LETS GO HOME

Where to start?

Well the initial mission pisses me off. Its a lot of standing around and doing nothing, some stuff about this plague bollocks, then a short fight, before you are forced to watch your boss die and her kid abducted, before you get accused for it, hence the "Dishonored" title. It annoys me more because i feel like i have failed before i've even begun playing. The story however is immaculate and really well thought out, throwing a few twists in that even threw me, and it was good, because it allowed me to actually get invested in the storyline.

The way in which the world is effected by how you play is also a very nice addition, if you kill more people, then the plague spreads, if you don't kill alot of people and instead knock them out or just plain avoid them, the plague doesn't spread. All the missions up until you defeat the High overseer require the target to be assassinated or , now this is where i LOVE this game, neutralized in a non-lethal fashion, This means that  you can complete the game without killing anyone. Its really clever, the way in which it effects the endings actually makes a difference, as the percentage of death leads to High, Low and Medium Chaos endings, meaning its ether a peaceful final level, a slightly less peaceful final level or a complete an utter bloodbath where you come out the other side looking like you have taken a holiday inside a woman on her period. The three endings are unique and actually made me do a second play through, something which not many games have ever made me do.

The mechanics of Stealth, Magic and Metal, are really well implemented, the Magic given to you by the Outsider allows you to teleport amongst other things. The "metal" is your basic combat gear of a sword, pistol, crossbow and various traps means you can combine them with "Magic" to be efficiently lethal. The stealth system is good, working off the principle of 'don't be seen', however the crouching when you sneak did cause me to sever more legs than the average Alton towers roller coaster.

The graphics are nice, on the highest setting they really do put some strain on your system, and they look amazing, Motion blur is in this game but its tastefully done, and its understandable as sometimes you are moving insanely fast, i.e 10ft in a second, and it doens't overwhelm you, so you can still feesably fight while moving insanely quick.

Audio is good, however some of the sounds,do sound like they were recorded down a corridor, and if you use a lower end sound transmitter, you will notice the difference, however its nothing that effects the game too badly, so its not really a "BOOO HATE IT" and more of a "Meh, could be better".

Controls are good,  Left for attack with Sword, CTRL for crouch, Right for Magic/Shooting, WASD/Space to move. Typical movement format and well implemented combat controls make this game very easy to learn to play, but insanely hard to master.

If i have one major complaint about it, its that its so damn short. Without the two DLC's i easily completed this in 5hrs, getting most of the collectibles and upgrades. I supposed playing on "I WANT YOUR FUCKING SOUL FOR BREAKFAST" difficulty will make it longer, and trying to stealth it would also do that, but i still can help feeling that a midget would be longer.

Overall its very deserving of the overwhelmingly positive it has on steam, and its another good game,but its got little to no replay-ability after the second time, and the DLC's are quite expensive, hopefully they go on sale soon.

Link: http://store.steampowered.com/app/205100

Level: 8/10

Dan

Hotline Miami: Brutal Murder Simulator 2012

Well, im back, after nearly a month of not typing anything.*yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay*, im unfortunately not dead, so back to the prayer mats everyone.

Hotline Miami, i can't really say much about this game. Its well made deserving of the 'Overwhelmingly Positive' it has on the Steam user reviews, as well as the 10/10 from Euro-gamer.
It is in short, and i don't use this word lightly, a masterpiece of a game.I suppose i better list somethings i like.

Firstly, it is obscenely violent, more bloody than the average period, yet the art style is amazing, so much so that it isn't on a level as bad a 'Manhunt', but it was bad enough to make the Australian government cry like babies and ban it sequel from sale in Australia. Its action packed, and it fits my play style well, which is "fuck it, ill improvise". The first level is easy enough, but by the final couple of levels you will break your "R" key restarting so many times. Levels are well designed, so i dont feel like im cleaning out the same apartment 30000000000 times.

The 8 bit style suits the game well, as it adds to the atmosphere, by adding quite significantly to the 80's theme of the game. It screams 80's and even thought art style is 'outdated' it still has the feel and pace of a modern game.

The story is surprisingly deep for on face value appears to be a version of "Whack 'em, Smack 'em Russians", Not putting any spoilers here, but the levels themselves are different, the Pre-level level and the After-level level for each level (Damn son, that's a lot of levels) sets you in your apartment, which changes in some small way for each Pre-level and a shop for each after-level, which again changes as you descend slowly into madness.

The Soundtrack is fairly funky, it has some nice music, always fun to listen to as its more of a background noise rather than a feature, as you become too focused on doing the level, and not on the minor details.

I suppose the only bad thing about it is the replayability, each level can only really be played once. This is unfortunate, but again it depends on the person playing, There are tons of achievements and masks to get meaning certain levels get more love than an easy girl at a party, as a fair amount of achievements require level specific weapons.etc.

Overall i love it, its fun, fast paced, easy to control, sounds good, doesn't lag, its an all round great play and recommended that you play/buy it. Remember if you are poor, wait for sales.

Link: http://store.steampowered.com/app/219150/

Level: 10/10

Dan

Payday 2: I caved to peer pressure...

So finally after 2 years of this game being in circulation, and my friends telling me "Hey Dan, you should get this" I finally caved in to peer pressure and bought it, and that was totally not down to the fact that the GOTY version was on sale for £7.50 *inconspicuous whistling*

Where to begin...

Well it wasn't what I was expecting, that's for sure. I assumed because of the mainly multiplayer focus of the game that it would actively punish me for not playing with friends. I was wrong. The AI is helpful, its not useless, can actually kill people, and as far as helping you up when you get downed is concerned they put their life above yours.

The gameplay is great, its nice to have a game which gives the players so many ways to achieve an objective (mission dependant). You can do the missions quiet or loud, meaning you can go in kill few people, steal the stuff you came for and leave without triggering the alarms, or you can go in all guns blazing, let the alarms trip, and fight wave after wave of police. My only real complain about the missions is they can get some what repetitive with a slight variation on the themes, but again its typical of my rocky relationship with the shooter genre, because I just get bored of it and stop playing. (Borderlands 2 for instance). The 5 different difficulty settings (Normal, Hard, Very Hard, Overkill, Death Wish) make each mission more replayable too, as well as the special quality of Pro Job, meaning that if you fail you cant restart it, but you get more reward if you succeed. It has the effect of adding a fresh layer of icing to a mouldy crumbling cake. You will however get increasingly frustrated at the drill.

The graphics, even on the lowest setting, as I cant go ultra high due to my PC having the gaming power of the average household toaster, still looks really nice. Its better than The Order 1886 as it doesn't put how the game looks over replayability, mechanics and playability. The game does crash more often than the average plane, but its nothing that I cant deal with, because it doesn't take 3 million years to boot up again, and if im in a heist when it happens I only loose the XP and Money gained up until that point.

The Classes are good enough to keep a nice variety to the play styles, some being more effective than others. The Skill trees make it worth investing in more than one otherwise you will end up being forced to struggle in certain missions. Perks are a nice addition, however I was disappointed that I couldn't respect them, as I could with the Skills. That and they were very ill advertised, as I only found them at level 40 after being told about them and how to get to them by another player (thanks again Tim).

The characters are, well, characters in their own right. to begin with you have the charismatic leader, Dallas, the token black guy, Chains, the charismatic leaders brother who replaces a guy from the first game, Houston, and the tech guy, Wolf. However the DLC for the game (Some free, some paid, some from pre-ordering other games) Adds:

Clover, the Irish lady
Bonnie, the Scottish Lady
Sokol, the Russian hockey player
John Wick, the film promotion
Dragan, the croatian cop
Jacket, the Hotline Miami 2 deluxe edition reward, and character from the first game

and last and by no means least

Hoxton, the British guy from Sheffield, Yorkshire, from the first game, whose voice actor was busy when the second game was being made, so they said he was arrested, and then you rescue him.

The Mask collectable system and weapons collection  system are well implemented. Masks do fuck all, Weapons kill people, Weapons can have silencers .etc added to them to make them better at killing or easier to hide, masks can be customised, to look unique. Obviously some weapons are better than others... and this is where my problem is.

The best weapons come from DLC. This makes the game somewhat pay to win. However some of the worst weapons come from DLC too, making it pay to whine. I will say that even without the best weapons you can still do pretty good, but it does make the balance of the game unfair to some extent.
Also there is too much DLC for the game, although props to overkill for making a portion of it free.

In all, its a fun game, good with friends, good without, runs well, decent graphics, nice community

However as one Steam review put it

"The real heist is on your wallet"

and one more thing, FUCK THE DRILL.

Link: http: http://store.steampowered.com/app/218620/

Level: 8 (+1 for the inclusion of a character from my hometown)

Dan

Dino D-Day: *Insert pun here*

After some time neglecting this thing why not review a game that I was forcibly made to purchase to enjoy a couple nights of solid banter.

Dino D-day is a fps game, set in alternative world war II where Hitler and his little wizards manage to somehow resurrect dinosaurs and then use them in their war machine to kerb stomp the allies into submission.

Made by 800 North and Digital Ranch, an Indie games (you may have noticed a rather common theme with the games I review) its surprisingly not shit ,considering it emerged from the cess pool of the Dinosaur themed game shit pile that slops around on the bottom of the steam store ( I henceforth name them Dindie Games) . I think that its major success is that it managed to actually make a good game in Valve's Software source engine meaning that the way it handles is very much like stepping into Left 4 Dead or Half-Life 2.

As you can imagine Axis consists of mostly dinosaurs, (6 small, 2 massive ones, 3 humans) and the allies consist mostly of Humans (8 humans, 1 Dinosaur). Normally this would lead to a really massive imbalance and in some cases and on some maps this is the case, but overall the game isn't biased in favour of one team, and whoever manages to win only wins because of playing better than the other team, even the huge dinosaurs have a blind spot, where humans can melee them to death.

The graphics are somewhat dated, but as my reviews normal tell I don't give a rats ass how good it looks as long as it handles well. Yes graphics are important to a game with relatively no story (Thanks game dev tycoon), but id much rather prefer a FPS game where im able to shoot the enemy, because the hitboxes are reasonable and well planned and implemented rather than it looking nice for all of 5 seconds until I figure out how to put a comically large hole in their chest.

The controls are typical of the FPS genre, you now WASD, left click to shoot, keeps in nice and easy to play, cos you know, anyone who has played any game on the PC, is used to it. Goat kills are fun, which true to the name, you throw one of the many randomly placed goats at someone, as a dinosaur, or alternatively you can just play catch with your dino buddies.

This review is short, I know, but theres not much I can really say, the sound doesn't sound like it was recorded on a potato, its fun, worth the £6.99, but the I think that adding the Last Stand Mode as a DLC is abit stupid, but atleast its isn't the DLC quest that Payday 2 is (as I have been informed, yet to find out).

Its one of those games that isn't serious, its fun to piss around with mates or with strangers and its always got populated servers, its fun, fast paced, easy to play and more importantly, not crap, like the vast majority of the Dindie games available on steam.

Here is a store page link: http://store.steampowered.com/app/70000/

Level: 7.5/10 (cheeky wink for the inclusion of throwing goats at people for kills)
 Dan.

Project Zomboid: a dead good game.

After a suitably long period of time neglecting this again, I feel I should come back and throw my worthless two-penenth in the vast ocean of reviews that litter the internet.

Its made by The Indie Stone, yada yada yada, heres a link to the page
http://store.steampowered.com/app/108600/

Project Zomboid is, as you may see me say a lot in this, unbelievably cool.
First of all, its early access done right, you can download a demo, which allows you to see how well the game controls and how brown your pants will become once you start playing it, if you buy.

Yes, this game doesn't have AAA graphics, but its honestly the best survival game I have ever played. including Don't Starve, Minecraft and other assorted indie bollocks. The mandatory survival crafting system is well implemented, the building system is good, farming/fishing/scavenging all works brilliantly.

The biggest strength of this game is its lack of hand-holding, as its brutal. But coincidentally its biggest downfall is its lack of telling you the basics of how to build, level up and use the medicine system. There is more trial and error in this game than I would care for. However I can overlook this as it means you actually are semi pushed towards online play.

Online play is great, it reminds me of games like Rust and DayZ, where you have shirtless or naked people charging around, beating people to death. However, teamwork is advisable, as the zombies eventually form a massive horde and will kill you, no two ways about it. They also wont stop chasing after you, much like horny teenage girls after a manufactured boy band.

The food system reminds me of Don't starve in the way that food goes off unless its in a fridge. Or its canned. However I do pick some problems with it, the fact that they went to the lengths to not allowed you to eat canned food without having a can opener on your person. But when you eat the canned food, you also eat the can. The do a lot of real world things such as cooking .etc but cannot manage to give you a can after you eat from it. No you may say im being picky, but when you drink Soda/Whiskey/Water, you are left with an empty bottle.

Also the vision system is good, you can board up doors and windows, and cover windows with sheets, essentially building a safe house, which, against a horde, basically is like hitting a lego house with a sledge-hammer, you put all of your work into making it and building it, only to have it destroyed quickly and destroyed brutally.

Combat is sometimes flawed, but nothing that I cant deal with occasionally, Hit detection can be annoying leading to several untimely deaths, but meh, live and let die (quite literally). Tools can double as Weapons, Like Hammers, Sledgehammers, Axe's and Crowbars can be used to beat people or zombies to death, and also used to build walls or crates or fortifications, break walls, cut down trees, and open closed doors .etc. Each tool has a durability, that goes down with uses, can be repaired .etc

The UI annoys me, as its either too cluttered, or too minimal. I didn't even know that the game had a fucking levelling system until I accidentally stumbled upon it in a mad button mashing to escape from a massive horde of the undead. The glee I felt was the equivalent of finding a £5 in your jeans.

The injury system is a breath of fresh air, as each body is split into 8 pieces ( Forearm x2, Upper arm x2, Upper/Lower leg x2, Head, Torso), Wounds need to be disinfected, bandaged .etc to allow them to heal, unless they are minor wounds, such as scratches or shallow cuts. The deeper cuts/ bone breaks require splints, stitches and more advanced medical procedures. Making playing with other people and specialising in a 'profession' rewarding. As always, bites are 100% lethal.

Speaking of Professions, during character creation you can choose a profession like a builder, which comes with free virtues, like increased carpentry and barricading skill, and harder skin.
Character traits such as Claustrophobia or being athletic, requiring a virtue to be counteracted with a vice, meaning you cannot make a overpowered character.

To conclude, well balanced game, fun, very difficult, great with friends, get it if you have the cash, but maybe if you don't enjoy stupidly difficult survival games, which you may have to play by yourself, but yeah fun, demanding, and hard to get to grips with.

Level: 7

Dan.

Guns of Icarus: I finally got arsed...

Firstly, before I start this thing, id like to say thank you to those who are reading my badly done work, im just coming up on 250 total page views. Now for an inconsistent side project, which I heavily neglect for large periods, that means a lot to me, thanks guys.

Now , enough of the soppy shite, I have eaten my man apples, lets get on with the review. Ready? , No?, Tough shit.

To start with im going to try interactivity, so go get a Pen.
Got it? Good
Now put it between your ring finger and that one this is next to your little finger
Squeeze hard.
Hurts doesn't it?


That's your punishment for not owning this game. Here is a link, BUY IT!!!.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/209080


Guns of Icarus is a First Person, Airship flying, Gun shooting game. Its made by a relatively small company (Compared to Valve, Microsoft .etc) Muse Games, and honestly its one of the best games I have ever played. Its really unique as it uses a dynamic I have never seen in any game before, a team of 4, working with up to another 3 teams (each made of 4), against another 4 teams of 4.

Now here's why I like it. It actively encourages and rewards specialisation as a certain class. However these rewards are not access to new items that increase your ability as a Captain, Gunner or Engineer. The rewards are customisation items. This game is 100% free of Pay2Win. This game is basically all in how long you play it for. The longer you play the better you become.

This game also encourages another thing that again wins it for me. Communication. Communication is the key to winning matches. Seriously if you don't communicate you will crash harder than a rollercoaster at Alton Towers (too soon?). I really cannot emphasise how much this is true. I have been on Airships piloted by level 4 pilots, and crewed by level 3-5 gunners and engineers, that have beaten level 45 (Max level) Pilots, with level 45 Crew.

Each Class has specific perks too, Gunner can bring 3 extra ammo types out of a list of 10 (I think), Engineer can bring 3 from a selection of buff and repair tools, including Mallets, Fire Extinguishers and Wrenches. The Pilot can bring 3 from a selection of tools designed to make flying a damn sight easier, such as speed increases etc. However each of the Gunner and Pilot tools also have negative effects, either be it damage reduction on a weapon when using a specific ammo type or damaging the ships balloon or engines when using a certain Pilot tool. A recent update also added a stamina bar, giving each class another bonus. Gunners can turn guns further and reload quicker, Engineers can sprint to get to broken or damaged ship pieces, Pilots can turn the ship faster with no negative effect.

The damage system in this game is nice too, as it isn't too hard to damage the ships.
The Ship is made of a varying number of components. (I shall list)

The Balloon
The Hull
The Hull Armour
Between 3-5 guns (Some ships have "Big Guns")
A Main Engine (Apart from the Squid)
2 Turning Engines (On all but Squid, which has 4, that replace having a main engine)

Shooting the engines makes it so the ship cannot move, shooting the guns means they are defenceless, popping the balloon makes them fall out of the sky, making the ship a sitting duck, Shooting the hull armour allows you to damage the hull which in turn breaks and lets you damage the ships health until it crumbles like Voldemort in the final Harry Potter film.

In conclusion, this game is without a doubt on of my favourites, however there isn't nearly enough players, the most I have ever seen is about 3000 at any one time. (but recently its been around 300 during the day, and 500-600 at night (UK TIME)). Which is a shame. as the Developers are really active and play the game. The Developers even have a competition against the public ever Tuesday and Thursday, aptly named "Fight the Devs". The Community in this game is amazing and the least toxic I have ever had the pleasure of being part of.

Honestly, buy it, tell your friends to buy it, get as many people as you can to buy it, its unbelievable how good it is, but how little people actually play it.

Also as a final comment, I really wanted to revert to my cynicism, and be horrible about this game, but A) im not a professional reviewer and B) its too hard to do it, its well made, it looks great, its not pay2win, no motion blur that makes me want to vomit, its really good.

Level: 9 (but it also gets a gold star and a kiss on the cheek)

Dan.

Team Fortress 2: Because i couldnt be arsed to do Guns of Icarus yet

Meh.. What can I say?

Firstly its really good. Like really really good. Its was the first game I sunk 1000 hrs into, and I would happily sink another 1000 into it. Its also made by Valve, makers of Portal and Half-Life.

Team Fortress 2 sees (typically) 16 players fighting another 16 players, to achieve an objective that usually involves either pushing a cart, capturing points or stealing a briefcase. You pick from nine classes.. yada yada yada, you get the gist.

The gameplay is fast, like stupid levels, you blink and in some cases you can miss entire fights, mainly due to some Soldier or Demoman clearing out the entirety of your team. Learning to be bad at the game is easy, I mean sure you can hold your own against new players, but if you come up against anyone with a) half a brain cell or b) some experience playing the game, you will get fucked. This actually makes the learning curve rather steep, unless you can find someone who is willing to help you get better, Karate Kid Style.

The graphics are nice, if somewhat cartoony, but that honestly is refreshing, and it thankfully weeds out all the COD fanboys who prefer the looks over the actual handling of the game. The art style is unique and distinctive, meaning it isn't one of many mass produced FPS clones. EVERY.SINGLE.FUCKING.YEAR.

Weapon variation between classes make an nice change, and with 3 of the classes having a sub class ( Demo-Knight, Huntsman Sniper and Mini-Sentry Engineer ) easily accessed by equipping certain weapons that are either uncrated, found, crafted or bought with real cash (Do the last one and I will call you a scrub ). Speaking of buying weapons the business model is fair, as you can only buy Keys to uncrate items, Cosmetics to make yourself look pretty fly for a white guy (unless your Demo) or Weapons as mentioned above.

One of the downsides of this game is the economy. The economy makes Greece in its current state look stable. It works on metal, gained through crafting class specific weapons together. Going into keys, Going into Buds. Im not going to explain it, its too hard, just have a link to a reliable site for this stuff ( https://backpack.tf/ )

The game mechanics are great too, especially the ability to Rocket Jump.
( imma leave this here so you get the idea https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uphATRHKIoo )
This makes playing the class, Soldier particularly rewarding as if you can do it well in most cases you can beat the opposing team harder than Chris Brown. Each Class comes with their own drawbacks and bonuses, which makes having a varied team advisable as having 10 snipers may seem like a great idea, but in short one guy will go spy and all you will have is 10 dead snipers and a lot of regret.

Thankfully I cant really notice the motion blur, which means its there. BUT ITS TASTEFULLY DONE. (Take note Warframe). Meaning I don't have to vomit every 30 seconds from the fucking shitstorm of colour that violates my screen in other games (Im still looking at you Warframe).

In conclusion, Team Fortress 2 is a great FPS game and it rightly holds the top spot ( or second spot) on Steams most popular Free to Play leaderboard. Its great to play alone or with friends and can really just be used for taking your anger out on scrubs. Yes sometimes it can get repetitive, with the same format for some maps, with just a variation on a certain theme, but I mean all games can if you play them enough, so that critism looses most of its weight. But yeah, its free and its fun, so just get it (link below)

http://store.steampowered.com/app/440/

Level : 9/10

Dan.

Rant/Ramble: XCOM 2 trailer reaction: I just had to

So I had heard that Firaxis and 2K had announced XCOM 2 a few days ago, but seeing as I am a pessimistic bastard who has no faith in sequels anymore *Cough* thanks Magicka 2 *Cough*, I consigned this one to the might play it bin. First of all if you haven't watched it do so now:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2E_-2wIJIzQ

Now let me say one thing: I wasn't Hyped until the end, when I heard the beautiful gravely rough tones of the alliance leader from the first game.

The Premise is something I can get behind, as it assumes that the invasion you stopped 20 years previous wasn't the end of the Aliens attempts to invade earth. It makes sense, considering that one of the two the endings, the 'bad' one, was the coalition leader declaring that the XCOM project was being shut down and that they will now work with the Alien leaders.

This game goes off that, that 30 second cut scene that probably all of the XCOM: Enemy Unknown/Within players would have seen. Some features I really like about this new game (as announced they are subject to change) are :

Procedurally Generated missions
Mobile Base
YOU ARE THE INVADERS

The big thing that sold the last game to me was Enemy Within, as you could genetically modify and even transform your soldiers into mechs, Giant fuck-off soldiers that strolled onto the battlefield and reduced it and your enemies into smouldering piles of ash.  There is a small part of me that still is hoping they will not remove those features, but instead make them so you have to work towards them, as opposed to being relatively easy to gain.

Also can we please take a moment to just bask in the glory of that bit with the sword, im pretty fucking ecstatic about that, as I cannot count the amount of times I was caught in the shit playing the first game, as yes, the pistol had unlimted ammo and never needed reloading, but I would be a damn-sight happier if the soldiers could have used the bloody knife that was on their jacket.

All in all I cant really review this thing till it comes out November 2015, and I don't even know if I will be getting it the day it is released, as Magicka 2 did so much to knock my confidence about sequels it will take a miracle for me to pre-order something again, Perhaps this could be the night-nurse to my flu?, the amputation to my gangrenous wound?, I don't really know. But for the moment its all aboard the hype train.

I just really fucking hope it isn't like The Bureau: XCOM declassified.

Dan.

Magicka 2- I Learned to Spell again, very very badly

"Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!"

Was my initial thought when Paradox announced that their would be a Magicka 2, I was fucking ecstatic, I mean seriously like Child in sweet shop that has been told they can have whatever they want, happy. I was so excited to the point that I pre-ordered the game considering I had played its predecessor to no end racking up 45 hours playing mostly single player, as most of my friends are boring.

As you can probably tell I was reaaaaaaly looking forward to this game, and I legitimately had a calendar reminder set so it would come up on my phone the day it came out. I jumped aboard the Hype train and rode that son of a bitch as far as it would go. I was really looking forward to this game.

Emphasis on was. I downloaded it, and was greeted with the vaguely familiar menu (I had played the sneek peek) booted the first mission and played it. I enjoyed it. Then the second mission. and the Third. Then I got to the fourth and stopped. I realised that I wasn't having fun.

For you to understand this I must really explain why I became borderline obsessed with the original. In the first moments of the game you realised you were a wizard, and you could cast spells so overpowered you were in danger of killing yourself if you were not careful. It added an element of pure overpowered destructive danger to the game which could lead to stupidly hilarious deaths, such as an exploding ice wall launching you into the air to land on some lava, or simply being crushed to death by your own giant boulder.

I never really feel this in Magicka 2. Don't get me wrong, I by no means feel like I am not a powerful wizard. but I don't get the sense that I have the ability create dangerously destructive spells anymore.

The new casting system feels like it has been developed for console, and has been ported from Wizard Wars, Which I enjoyed but never really got into. You can now no longer create the elements of ice or steam, but instead Fire and water now take up 2 slots in your spell bar and cast steam when cast. This means my main spell from the original game, I aptly named  "Wet Lighting" no longer exists, as when you try to add lighting to the mix the water is cancelled out.

I like the addition of  now being able to collect staffs and robes and weapons, but that also detracts from the game, as now I no longer feel any real reason to be careful, as I can just respawn with my weapon, instead of having to slug all the way back to get it. I now feel like a fully disposable hero, whos death doesn't matter as I can just re-appear like jack shit happened.

The addition of new familiars is good too, as it provides even more variety than it predecessor, but I cant help feeling it was unnecessary to add the new ones. The Fairy from the original only resurrected you when you died, at the cost of its own life, in single player. The new ones do that, on top of providing bonuses, making the fairy absolutely 100% useless, as the Pit manager and this ghost thing (I CANT REMEMBER THE NAME) give bonuses, on top of the resurrection ability. The ability to take no Familiar with you is also new, meaning that the Xxx_MLGProWizard_xxX can try testing their skill as a wizard, with insta-death.

The Graphics have been fixed and the game is no longer as bugged as the one that came before it, but honestly, I think that was part of its charm, as bugged games can easily become cult classics, i.e Goat Simulator. Also im going to give it a whole level more for one little tiny reason. The semi-dated pop culture references, they are pretty funny, and they actually are probably the best thing about the Magicka series, as you can obviously see the studio standing up and giving the finger to pretty much everything.

In short the graphics are good, the music sounds okay, the gameplay is somewhat flawed, and the new casting system will never quite hold that special spot in my heart like the original did. I would seriously recommend playing the original over this, but Magicka 2 could have been a whole lot worse, and as far a sequels go it isn't half bad. I would take the Original over this any day however.

I don't feel I should but here, Store page link (for the sake of being fair): http://store.steampowered.com/app/238370/
Level: 6



I had a change of heart and updated my opinions, read it here : http://lvlupreviews.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/magicka-2-episode-2-attack-of-spell.html


Dan.