One of the incredibly exciting titles coming at us from Nintendo is the latest The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Having seen the extended gameplay footage clips around E3, I was certainly happy to get some actual hands on experience with this title at the EB Games Expo this year.

The demo was quite lengthy in nature and consisted of two parts. A free range exploration section and a more story focussed one. Both displayed a beautiful world with vibrant palettes and a great art style that seems to resonate well with what we know and love as the Zelda franchise.

When you look a bit closer though, you start to see the Wii U showing its rather disappointing hardware limitations. It is missing the graphical detail and clarity that you would expect from the current generation. Hopefully Nintendo’s next console, the to be announced NX, will be able to do the visual style justice.

The open world exploration section almost felt like the start of Minecraft to me. You are dumped in the middle of nowhere with little to no explanation of what you can do. Like Minecraft there is plenty to do but unless you have the know-how, it’s going to be a bit of a learning curve. Not knowing what I could do left me roaming around somewhat aimlessly. While I could attack, collect and haphazardly craft things it didn’t provide the enjoyment it might have had if I had some more direction. I wasn’t exactly 100% sold on what I experienced despite a whole 20 minutes of game time. The most exciting thing I discovered is that you can set grasslands on fire. It all just became smoky from there.

The combat however, with a bit of warming up, was solid and it was easy to grasp the finer points when versing the different enemies. It does seem to have some departure from the typical Zelda games. Weapons seemed to be finite in the sense they would break and so a new one would be required. These weren’t too hard to come across as enemies drop their weapons which you can then equip. It was certainly something to take into consideration during battle.

The terrain didn’t vary dramatically here but what was around was pretty and certainly fun to explore. Comments were made that the game will be much larger and so I can imagine exploration of a bigger world that keeps up the pretty standards set here would likely be a rather enjoyable experience.

The second part allowed me to get some time with the story. Link is back, of course, and he has awoken after 100 years’ slumber. Whether he was dead or just frozen in time is not exactly clear at this point. You wake up in a cavern dubbed ‘Shrine of Resurrection’ (leading to my speculation he might have been dead) and find yourself hearing a soft but strange voice, which I’m sure is perfectly normal after a 100 years’ nap. Following the voice, you soon find a small rectangular tablet named a Sheikah Slate, and it seems to react to certain points within the world around you allowing you to unlock and activate things.

Upon leaving the cave, Link finds himself in a strange land and soon comes upon an odd old man who seems to briefly explain a few things like, Link is on the Great Plateau. The birth place of Hyrule. He also explains that you can set sticks on fire…well let’s just say the grass didn’t last long.

While it the demo didn’t end here it didn’t really provide much more information as to what is actually going on. There was a puzzle that I made it to in a shrine but was unable to actually test it out due to time constraints but overall the story seems to be quite intriguing and I would definitely be curious to see more of it.

While the preview didn’t focus on what I am most looking forward to about The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, it still showed off some rather cool aspects of the game like the crafting and combat mechanics. The game still is up there as one of my most anticipated games of 2017. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is set for a 2017 release on both Wii U and Nintendo’s next console, currently referred to as the NX.

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Project Zero: Maiden of the Black Water is the latest in the Fatal Frame franchise, which has finally made its way from Japan to overseas markets. It is the fifth in a series featuring the unique combat mechanic of the camera obscura, used to take photos of ghosts and spirits to defeat them.

Project Zero games have been known for their traditional survivor horror flavour, and this game is no different. The overwhelming feeling of Project Zero is of unending darkness. Finding hope is less of an issue than the simple need for survival in horrific circumstances. The game’s story doesn’t shy away from delving deep into potentially troubling themes, but it never really was able to engender much empathy with me. Most of the character’s performances are distant, with little that allows the player to relate to them much at all – there seems to be a strange disconnect between what’s happening in the story and in the environment and what the main characters actually do.

This is heightened by poor costume design of the main female characters. Thigh high stockings and miniskirts stand out starkly against the dank and dripping environments, and seem to be a photocopy of tropes routinely employed of the young female protagonist. We need to see games move beyond this. It is possible that in horror games we still have powerful, independent women.

In your time with this game you will fight enemies by taking photos of them.

A variety of film types and lenses to give you bonuses in combat. The game incorporates the Wii U’s Gamepad directly into fights, where you must physically raise your Gamepad and press ‘x’ to bring up the camera mode on the Gamepad’s screen. From there you can see a variety of HUD indicators around the ghosts in the frame. Choosing the right moment to take a photo is essential as each film strip take about 5-10 seconds to load, which at the wrong time can easily mean the difference between surviving and seeing the game over screen. Taking a photo at the right time however causes massively more damage to the ghosts, with the potential to take photos in a rapid series of succession.

This is the game’s defining feature, and makes a play at once again validating the Gamepad’s existence. Unfortunately it’s implementation is clumsy and at times inscrutable. In not so many words, the controls are terrible. Turning 180 degrees is a particular a bad experience. Pressing the ZL button is meant to move the camera behind you, but I found it very unreliable in practice.

Just keeping enemies in the frame is tough, especially as they move about you, staying out of frame.

This is made even more difficult as what’s on the Gamepad isn’t necessarily what’s shown on the TV.

More details about the camera obscura, your weapon, is shown on the Gamepad than on the TV. This means you’re constantly moving your eyes back and forth between the Gamepad for combat and the TV for movement, or that you simply play the entire game on the Gamepad itself. This makes combat either disconcerting and disorienting or limited to a low resolution display, making it difficult to see.

A wetness mechanic is also used to heighten tension and to make ghosts more difficult. Keeping dry is now essential, which you can do through a few limited items that you find amongst the forest floor. I found this frustrating, and ignored it mostly, probably to my peril.

There are some laughable moments in this game too, borne out of interesting game design choices.

To increase the spookiness factor, to pick up an item you must hold ZR as your character painstakingly bends down to pick it up. At any moment a ghost hand may appear, at which stage you need to release the button or be hurt. What it means in practice however is that every time you want to pick something up or open a door (even in a safe area!) it takes forever, and all tension is lost through repetition.

Yet for all of these complaints Maiden of the Black Water does have some good moments. For a Wii U game it looks pretty good.

This is probably aided by the fact most of the game is predominantly backdrops and set in small, contained spaces (even when outside). Most of your time in this title will be spent running through darkened corridors, even when in supposedly open environments such as a forest. The linear travel around these open areas was frustrating, especially when I thought I spied a path escaping an enemy, but ended up running against an invisible wall.

Luckily you can make the Gamepad show a map, which makes getting around a bit easier.

Hair and costumes seem relatively high texture for Nintendo’s console. That said, many character’s faces look incredibly doll-like and unlifelike. The Wii U’s incredibly outdated hardware is showing its age, especially as the newer consoles are really coming into their stride.

The game also allows you to play with Japanese or English audio, an option that I always appreciate from overseas titles, especially with titles such as these that are strongly tied to the host culture.

With a demo of Maiden of the Black Water available on the Wii U eShop containing the first two chapters, you have nothing to lose by trying the game. Note that the full game is about 18GB (split pretty evenly between the demo and the rest of the game), so you will probably need to connect an external hard drive to your Wii U to play digitally.

Project Zero:Maiden of the Black Water isn’t going to be the most noticed game this year, but if you want traditional horror survivor, and have enjoyed the previous entries in the series, this latest installment in the franchise will give you its best game yet.

The post Project Zero: Maiden of the Black Water Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Activision’s Guitar Hero is back, but, unlike the recently released Rock Band 4, it’s all changed for Guitar Hero Live.

Whilst the basic mechanics of Harmonix’s original Guitar Hero game have been preserved, FreeStyleGames’Guitar Hero Live has a new presentation, a new way of getting more music and a new guitar peripheral.

They’ve also dumped the drum kit, leaving players with only the lead and bass guitar, as well as vocals, for those so inclined.

Instead of a series of five coloured fret buttons, the new Guitar Hero axe has two rows of three fret buttons, allowing for an insane combination of notes and chords. Also missing are the touch-sensitive lower frets that, to be honest, I never got to work that well, anyway.

For those unfamiliar with the Guitar Hero franchise, the idea is to follow the note prompts as they proceed towards you on a “highway” by pressing the corresponding button(s) on the little plastic guitar peripheral whilst strumming the long button on the face. Special notes, correctly hit, unlocks hero power, enabling a x2 multiplier, which means more points, that is activated when the guitar is tilted up,

On the PS4, this all works due to a tiny little dongle that you plug into one of the console’s USB ports. Once synched, the guitar works as if it is a controller, with the frets, strummer and a little joystick on the guitar body mimicking the Dual Shock 4.

Rock Band 4 uses a virtually identical music catalogue as its predecessors, but this isn’t the case with Guitar Hero Live. None of your music purchased for previous Guitar Hero iterations will work with Guitar Hero Live.  For this outing Activision have made a rather controversial decision when it comes to music delivery.

There are two ways to play songs onGuitar Hero Live, either using the on-disc Live mode or the streamed online TV mode.

On the disc there are 43 songs which are unlocked as the player progress though the single-player campaign. It’s a good mix featuring tracks from Katy Perry to The Rolling Stones, something for everyone, to use the cliché.

The Live campaign places the player into a band performing at either of two iconic rock festivals: Rock the Block in Boulder City, USA or the SoundDial festival at Stoneford Castle, UK. The game is played from the player’s point-of-view, as the lead guitar in a band.

This time, instead of using computer graphics, the other band members and the audience are all portrayed using live action footage. What’s more, they react to your performance. Play without dropping a note and your band will nod in appreciation of your awesomeness and the crowd will go wild. Screw up and the band will start abusing you and the audience shake their heads and boo. This all happens virtually seamlessly and is actually very cool.

During the festivals players will perform twenty-minute sets with a series of different bands. Successful completion of a set will unlock each song in quickplay mode and well as some bonus band info in the festival gallery.

The other way to play, Guitar Hero TV, turns your console into a streaming mixture of Karaoke and MTV. Selecting one of the many streaming channels allows players to jump into the scheduled playlist and start strumming. You can compare your performance with anyone else playing on the channel. You can’t choose your song, but the songs keep coming, with the official music video streaming in the background. For most players, the lack of immediate choice is more than made up for by the huge music catalogue.

The set playlists of the music channels are great for casual players who will likely enjoy playing the streamed songs as they come. Dedicated Guitar Hero aficionados wishing repeat the same song in order to nail it are not going to be so happy. There is a way to choose your own streamed playlist on Guitar Hero TV, but I can still see this still causing some upset for hardcore fans.

As you playGuitar Hero TV you earn tokens that can be used to buy Plays. Plays are exactly that, free plays of song of your choice. Three Plays will cost you 1,800 tokens and ten Plays 6,000 tokens. You get about 160 tokens per successful song.

Now for the controversial bit.

Running right through the middle of the Guitar Hero TV experience is a rather sneaky micro-transaction system. You can, rather than earn tokens to unlock songs, use Hero Cash. Those ten Plays can be unlocked for 450 in Hero Cash. You can buy Hero Cash in the PlayStation Store. 300 Hero Cash will cost you $1.95 AUD all the way up to 6900 Hero Cash for $25.95 AUD.

Not that expensive, but I can see a few people getting more than a little carried away, especially the aforementioned hardcore players wanting to master a song on the harder difficulty Levels.

As well as a shortcut to freeplays, Hero Cash is also required to access Guitar Hero TV premium content. Premium show grant players early access to new songs before they hit the free streaming channels.They only cost 210 Hero Cash but, again, restraint is required.

Overall, I was rather impressed with Guitar Hero Live and I take my hat off to Activision for reinvigorating the ailing Guitar Hero franchise with something new. The revised guitar design is welcome and adds a new challenge to the game. The live action footage in the Live mode is very well done. Micro-transactions aside, Guitar Hero TV works very well, with constantly updated music keeping the content fresh.

Guitar Hero Live is out now for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Wii U, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

The post Guitar Hero Live Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Infinite Mario. It’s one of those dreams of childhood and of platformer fans worldwide. Despite challengers from a number of indie games such as Super Meat Boy and N++, Nintendo and its affiliated studios remain the best at creating super tight yet never frustrating platforming experiences.

The Wii U is the best of the current generation consoles for platformers, with a comparatively wide variety of available titles starring Yoshi, Kirby and of course Mario himself in both 2D and 2.5D forms. With Super Mario Maker Nintendo is masterfully establishing one and for all that platformers, the genre that made the company famous are its best asset.

Super Mario Maker at its core allows you to do two different things, to play Mario Levels created by an already impressively diverse community, or to create Levels yourself.

Many of the current Levels created by others are automatically playable Levels aiming to show off the capabilities of the designer(s) ability to use the tools rather than to create a fun experience of the player. Compare the shredding of a metal band to the more nuanced and careful. It also highlights the restraint that Miyamoto and other Mario Levels designers have shown over the years, focusing on the “fun” rather than the extravagant or visually impressive.

Of course, this all may change after the game’s public release with a flood of pent-up new design skills on show. The ‘play’ side also features 10 or 100 Mario challenges where you have a limited number of lives to get through a certain amount of courses. These are a chance to randomly experience a variety of user generated courses.

What Nintendo has mastered here is the most approachable yet powerful game development kit in existence. Mario Level design websites and tools have been available for a while now, but none have matched the ease of use of Super Mario Maker.

It makes great use of the GamePad (where you design your course) with accessible tools ranging from bricks, pipes, powerups and almost every other familiar Mario-game item. These items unlock over time – originally over 9 days but since a recent patch (not available to me at time of review) at an as yet undetermined rate. I found myself designing a Level a night, incorporating the new tools released that day as I went.

It’s an extremely limiting way of introducing you to the game tools, but as someone who is often overwhelmed by open-ended games I appreciated the slow release. It was also fun to see how I had progressed over the course of just a few days from basic variations of World 1-1 to entirely new designs.

When creating a course you are able to choose from four Mario styles: the original Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World for SNES (personally my favourite) and New Super Mario Bros. U. The pixel-based styles have received a facelift and look fantastic in 1080p.

They are however immediately distinguishable from the original games, while the New Super Mario Bros. U. style is indistinguishable from the professional, released games. You will have to keep in mind that there are real gameplay differences between the different Mario games though, which may come as a surprise at first. You will have to design your Level with these slight differences in mind. For example, the New Super Mario Bros. U Mario can wall jump, unlike his pixel progenitors.

Super Mario Maker gives you a great excuse to finally make use of your amiibo too. Touching an amiibo to the gamepad will add their pixelated likeness to your course as a powerup. You need the amiibo to add them to the game, but course players don’t need them to use them in a course, which is just as well. Many of these are demakes, with Fox McCloud a particularly nice demake of the original.

Of course as Nintendo gives an inch, I want to take the whole mile. I would love to be able to program simple ‘if this, then, that’ statements or set different rules up (such as always keeping Fire Mario’s costume active for example). I’m sure that designers will find creative ways to overcome these barriers though, and it undoubtedly would have created a more complicated interface that could have driven away those not technically inclined.

As wonderful as the game is there are also some notable omissions as it stands in Super Mario Maker.

You can’t add checkpoints to your course, so Levels tend to be short. In addition, there’s no way to link Levels to create worlds or set courses in a particular order. Nor can you create multiplayer courses. Finally, there’s no ability to set Luigi, Toad or Peach which have been staples of the series as playable characters for decades, as the starting player. Hopefully these shortcomings can be addressed in a future update.

I would also love to see a companion app for the 3DS where you could enjoy player-created courses, and a version for the upcoming NX console to ensure these courses aren’t lost to time and specific hardware requirements.

Playing with Super Mario Maker – or perhaps it is “using” it is more accurate – makes me think about all the possibilities for future games in a Maker series. Metroid, Legend of Zelda, Kirby and Donkey Kong game makers are suddenly a real possibility, one that I would pay good money to see come to fruition. Has Nintendo effectively created a new genre of games here?

There have been many game maker titles such as Little Big Planet before, but Super Mario Maker seems qualitatively different, due in no small part to the Wii U’s GamePad, and Nintendo’s unrelenting focus on polish, quality and accessibility.

This points to a risk for Nintendo: will a flood of bad Levels dilute the brand? Why buy a Nintendo game when there are infinite Mario Levels available? Nintendo will have to compete on quality, not simply its proprietary rights to its intellectual properties.

Super Mario Maker, and its endless amount of innovative challenges will ensure the Wii U stays connected to TVs for many years to come.

The post Super Mario Maker Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

It is safe to assume I have almost never played a game like this before and was never inclined to do so either.

Just Dance 2015, as the title would suggest is a dance game and is available on almost all platforms excluding, of course, PC. Call me old fashioned but I usually like to sit down to play a game. So this was a little bit out of my comfort zone on a few levels. It also doesn’t help that I simply don’t listen to music.

Starting up the game will have you creating a profile, choosing a little picture or sticker and that’s about it. Then it takes you straight to the song selection.

There are 70 songs to choose from, each with a different dance style. There are also different dance styles to unlock for the same song. This allows you, even if you didn’t like the particular dance style for your favourite song, to get a go at it with maybe a style that is more up your alley.

There is a decent selection of songs and more can be purchased from the store if you seriously go through them all. They have many of the recently popular songs and few older ones to give the oldies something to move to.

Playing songs earns you in-game money and stickers for each song played. The in-game money can unlock the bonus dance styles for songs or let you purchase new stickers so you can mix up your player card.

At least half of the songs are your generic ‘doof-doof’ dance music, with little to no variation. This doesn’t help one prepare for a change in dance moves very well.

There is a bar in the bottom right hand of the screen that vaguely shows upcoming moves but the stick figure action poses don’t exactly give a perfect translation of what is required next.

The game cruelly rewards you with a short playback video of yourself busting a move. It records at a few points during the song and then at the end it plays this back to you.

This mini remix is called an “Autodance”. In my case it showed me how inelegant my dancing is. I’m sure reflection is a helpful tool and if you can laugh at yourself it can be amusing but I’m not so keen to save and share these types of video, as the game encourages you to do.

The lack of difficulty rating means there is no way to gauge whether a song might be easier than another. Many times I picked a song, started and decided I was just too amateurish to continue. Some scale system would have been appreciated or even different levels of difficulty so then the game could be appealing to the less rhythmically coordinated.

Even mini lessons for a set of dance moves would have made it less intimidating. To go through a whole song to find out what in it you can’t do doesn’t encourage me to attempt others.

The social aspect is rather big. You can share your short dance snippets directly to Facebook and with the world.

People can view and like your dance moves and you can eventually (with enough likes) have it put into a remix of other dancers for the world to watch and dance to.

You are able to have dance-offs with players from around the world in challenges with multiple players or send and receive individual challenges between players.

This idea is taken a step further with the “World Dance Floor”. Here you can join crews of parties and verse each other or dance against the very best as they have VIP celebrities (in the dance world it seems) to verse.

If you do not have a console camera (Kinect or PlayStation Camera), this time round  Ubisoft have adopted smartphone technology. Download the App for iOS or Android, connect into the same Wifi as your console and grip your phone tight as you shake your booty and flex your limbs to the bass fueled rhythms.

Just Dance 2015 supposedly has a Sweat Mode (this to me was every mode) where you can input a calorie count and put together a playlist to help beat those fat cells.

Now while any form of dance and/or strenuous activity is likely to be fat burning I don’t necessarily want to combine this process with gaming. If you seriously use this dance game to help you lose weight, well, each to their own.

This game, for those inclined, can offer fun and a chance to laugh at yourself. For the more rhythmically challenged it is not a friendly way to introduce one to dancing.

It is also a game, whether or not I was good at it, I would not want to play for too long for the simple fact you’re likely to start smelling soon.

For those established in the dance genre and with a copious amount of lounge space, I can see this being an enjoyable game. There are enough songs on offer and variety of dance styles to try. It isn’t something however I’d recommend to newcomers or those likely to suffer cardiac arrest from strenuous exercise.

The post Just Dance 2015 Xbox One – Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Project Cars however, despite not being my cup of tea, managed to impress.

It is only in the pre-beta stage but offered plenty to get excited about. For the hard-core driving simulator fans I can easily see this being the next big thing. It currently offers 60 to 70 cars and has a huge selection of well known tracks to race them on, including Bathurst.

If I didn’t have someone setting up the races for me I doubt I would have gotten very far as it is quite elaborate.

There are plenty of options to give quite an extensive level of modification, from real time day and night to dynamic weather changes. The power of choice has never been quite so well done in a racing car game. This is all well and good but it does make the user interface quite busy and difficult to navigate which thankfully I didn’t actually have to do.

Once in a race however, the experience is quite amazing. The sound of the engine, the gorgeous race tracks and the masterfully done cars all add the realism of the experience. There is even a view from within the driver’s helmet and when in this view sound becomes muffled as like in real life. The little things are all in place to give an overall realistic and dynamic racing car experience.

It offers a wide variety of races to participate in, from a career mode tournaments held online within the already large and growing community of Project Cars. The game even has a few big name race car drivers giving their input on the game, including the Top Gears ex “The Stig” Nicolas Hamilton.

The game is likely to appeal most to the hardcore fans of the genre.

Playing the game with a controller was somewhat inadequate as the controls are very responsive almost to the point of being too much so. I can see how having a wheel set up would allow for a better control and game play. It is both Morpheus and Oculus rift compatible and for those who have the setup is compatible for 4k and 12k.

Project Cars is due to be available later this year and while I can’t say I am particularly keen for it I feel many others will be. It is being described as “The Dark Souls of the racing game world”. I only hope for fans this title doesn’t bring them to their knees.

It will be coming to PC, PS4 and Xbox One in November 2014 with a late release on Wii U in 2015.

The post Project Cars – Preview appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

This latest entry by developer Ganbarion, One Piece: Unlimited World Red, provides a short yet enjoyable adventure into this bizarre universe.

The very unique and interesting One Piece universe oozes through every facet of the game from the visual style to the gameplay. If you are not familiar to this universe, you may find yourself confused at various parts of the game, especially at the beginning. There does seem to be an underlying assumption that you know who the characters are and how everything works.

For the uninitiated, there are two basic groups of enemies, the World Government’s military sea force, the Marines, as well as the widely divided Pirates.

The main protagonists of the One Piece universe is adventure seeking Monkey D. Luffy, leader of the Straw Hat Pirates. The goal of many pirates, including that of Luffy, is to find the fabled lost treasure One Piece which will enable them to become the Pirate King. Characters gain various super powers such as Luffy’s super stretchy body by eating a magical fruit known as Devil Fruit.

The characters in this One Piece universe, both good and evil, are the one of the biggest strengths of the game. Each character has their own distinct look, personality and super powers all of which reinforce the underlying light hearted and fun theme. You can select up to three of the Straw Hat Pirates in each mission, each having their own unique abilities and attacks. As individual characters only level up with use, there is very little incentive to try out new characters.

The story in One Piece: Unlimited World Red is engaging although a bit short. Your journey will take you through a wide variety of distinct levels and battling an equally diverse range of opponents. Due to a mix of different enemies, settings and Level design, the missions never become repetitive.

Between missions, you are taken to a town which acts as a central hub. You are able to expand your town by building new or upgrading existing buildings from items you collect during the missions. Each of these buildings have different uses such as selling certain items or providing different upgrades. Despite my initial enthusiasm, I found most of the facilities provided by the buildings to be relatively useless. The upgrades are generally too costly for what they actually give you and most items are not beneficial. The exception to this is health regeneration items which are purchased at the alchemist, one of the first buildings unlocked, at dirt cheap prices.

Despite being at heart a button masher, there was enough to the combat system to make me really enjoy it. One of the defining factors is the unique move set of each character. Temporary and permanent stat bonuses can be gained by equipping or using different Words. These Words are collected throughout your journey and can be upgraded at the town.

One of my pet peeves in other games like this is getting hit by enemies outside of view. One Piece: Unlimited World Red overcomes this by having a button prompt pop up over your character head to block or counter any incoming attack. Hitting the button in time requires quick reflexes and focus which makes combat feel a lot more skill based.

A major shortfall of the game is the very archaic save system. There is no auto save and the only way to save the game is to return to the town which can only be done at a couple of points in each mission.

The visual style is very colourful and vibrant. This outweighed the poor environmental models to make the game overall look great.

The voice acting is all done in Japanese with English subtitles showing below. Consequently, the cut-scenes were hard to follow which was disappointing as generally they seem really interesting.

One Piece: Unlimited World Red provides a short yet entertaining adventure in the very likeable One Piece universe. Although seemingly aimed at fans of the franchise, there is much here to enjoy for newcomers to the series.

The post One Piece: Unlimited World Red (PlayStation 3) – Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

I’ve been playing Activision’s Spider-Man games since the beginning. With the exception of a couple of entries, for the last ten years they’ve been startlingly consistent at providing an average gameplay experience.

Spider-Man 2, Ultimate Spider-Man, and a bit more recently, Spider-Man: Web of Shadows managed to impress me, but the rest just all merge into one. Even when trying out something different with the mission focused Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions and Spider-Man: Edge of Time they never really hit their mark. Whilst I’d not say that Activision have ever screwed up a Spider-Man game, they’ve always felt missing something.

With 2012’s rebooted movie tie-in, The Amazing Spider-Man, the games went back to their roots with Spider-Man freely swinging through New York City, traveling to story mission waypoints and doing a variety of side mission scattered about the city. The plot, as with the Toby Maguire Spider-Man games loosely followed the movie but with a lot of extra content and characters drawn from the Spider-Man comics.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 works exactly the same way. The main plot loosely follows the events in the movie of the same name, but also features a full roster of other characters and situations that Spider-Man has come across in his comics.

Not having seen the movie didn’t make a lot of difference to my experience as the game departs from its silver screen inspiration in the same way as the previous movie tie-ins. In the game, the inexperienced Spider-Man is taken under the wing of Kraven the Hunter, who acts as a sort of mentor.

Meanwhile the newly appointed CEO of Oscorp, Peter’s childhood friend, Harry Osborn, has formed an ironic alliance with Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin in the comics. Together they have formed a special task force to protect the city with Oscorp providing the technology and Fisk providing the muscle.

As the city locks down and Fisk’s competitors are put out of business, Spider-Man realises that both the city and he has been played by the aspiring Kingpin.

Whilst on the surface, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 looks very similar to its successor, the game’s developer’s Beenox have tried to reinvigorate the series somewhat by trying to sort out the web physics.

And about time too.

Both 2004’s Spider-Man 2 and to some extent (although dumbed-down a fair bit) 2005’s Ultimate Spider-Man used a realistic web-swinging mechanic whereby Spidey’s webs needed something to grab onto. They actually stuck to buildings. With practice, especially in Spider-Man 2, I was able to swing around skyscrapers – getting ever higher – in a realistic (or whatever passes for realistic in world were men stick to walls) fashion that made sense.

Since then the franchise has adopted a more relaxed attitude to web-swinging with Spider-Man’s webs seemingly sticking to the clouds above his head. It looked stupid and used to drive me nuts, especially over central park with him swinging above the treetops without a building in sight with to swing from.

I recall the developer saying the reason for removing the need for webs to stick to something was because it made aerial fighting difficult. But it also made web-swinging in the games fun.

Whilst the game seems to still be faking it a bit, there’s a peculiar upward web-zip that still needs nothing to tether webs to, still, at least there’s a bit of logic this time. Trying to shoot a web whilst too away from a building a Spidey will tell you that he can’t do it. It takes a little bit of getting used to, with Spider-Man doing the odd face-plant into buildings; but when you get the hang of it, it feels breath-taking.

To be honest, I could spend hours just swinging through the city picking up all the comic book page collectables spread about the city’s rooftops.

Beenox, obviously didn’t want us to get too much fun swinging through the city and have seen fit to litter the sky with annoying drones. These flying machines offer no challenge to destroy and just tiresomely fires bullets at you.

If you don’t like web-swinging, web rush returns from the last game enabling you to traverse the city via predefined points highlighted by holding the R1 button. Tapping the same button does a quick web rush that is also a good way to get around.

Web-rush is only one of a number of special abilities that you can enhance by spending XP. As with every other Spider-Man game, as you progress through the game you gain experience points which you can use to enhance Spidey’s abilities. You can improve his swing, his web-zips and various combat enhancements.

Early Spider-Man games had difficulty with interior Levels. After the more mission-based games Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions and Spider-Man: Edge of Time, this is no longer a problem. Interior and tight Levels require a bit more restraint and offer up their own type of fun away from the web-slinging through the city.

There’s loads to do. The quality of these tasks varies, however, there’s lame quick time controlled car chases, slightly more interesting tasks that have you rescuing citizens from fires or perilous situations and some all-out combat activities fighting Oscorp and Fisk’s dubious task force.

There’s also some interesting Russian hideout stealth missions, that if successful in getting to the target undetected gains Spidey with a new set of duds. Do enough of these missions and Peter Parker’s wardrobe will soon be packed with outfits from Spider-Man’s comic-book past including Miles Morales’ suit from Ultimate Spider-Man and the suit from Spider-Man 2099; each suit coming complete with its own abilities.

Combat is fun and very similar to the attack/counter-attack style employed by Batman in the Arkham games. It’s not as brutal, but with Spider-man’s aerial attacks and web shooting it’s a lot more kinetic.

You can also hone your combat skills playing the arcade game in Stan Lee’s comic shop. The comic shop is also the place to view the figurines, posters and comic books that you’ve unlocked.

Visually Spider-Man’s New York City has never looked better than on PS4. It’s not in the same league as inFAMOUS: Second Son, but it is an improvement on what has gone before. The visuals still have that Saturday morning cartoon vibe about them when compared to the likes of the Batman Arkham games. The textures on some of the buildings flicker a bit, but there’s a nice depth of field blur and plenty of car and pedestrians in the city to give it a bit of life.

Spider-Man, himself is nicely animated as he leaps, swings, crawls and beats up the bad guys. The same goes for the supporting cast and the enemy. Everything looks good. Not great, but good. Just north of adequate.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is a competent game that does its job. If you’ve played the last game then you will be intimately familiar with this one, as Activision have not really strayed that far from the formula that they established a decade ago. There’s nothing genre changing, but it is a decent effort. It looks OK, and performs the same. A good game without being great.

The post The Amazing Spider-Man 2 – Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

I’d already watched The Lego Movie before playing the game, and I think that is pretty much a mandatory requirement to get the most out of it.

The game follows the plot of the movie very closely, taking only a few liberties along the way for gameplay purposes. Not only do you get to check out faithfully recreated scenes from The Lego Movie, all the game’s cut scenes are culled from the film itself.

The movie lends itself to its videogame recreation so well it left me wondering if I’d actually watched the movie of the game rather than the other way around. As you would imagine, there’s never been a movie so bountifully full of gaming fodder.

Whilst I’ve had a lot of respect for previous Lego games, at some point every single one of them has left me cursing at the screen. I don’t know if it’s just me, but some of the puzzles, just seemed to defy all logic.

The Lego Movie Videogame is different. It’s the only Lego game that I can hand on heart say I’ve enjoyed from start to finish. Never once did I find the experience frustrating. Sure there’s a few challenging areas, but nothing absolutely perplexing. The game flowed nicely offering a good mix of puzzles and rewards.

The real charm of the Lego games is the way they work on two levels, there’s the slapstick comedy for the kids and then there’s the cheeky sly winks for the adults. The game, like the movie absolutely excels at delivering this two-tiered humour.

A mishap has a legendary Lego block, the Piece of Resistance, bonded to conformist Lego everyman and construction worker; Emmet’s back.

Streetwise Lego chick, Wyldstyle, believing Emmet to be the chosen one that will save them all, drags the reluctant hero to see the council of master builders. Along the way Emmet is pulled through Lego history, meeting a host of colourful and somewhat familiar characters.

As with the movie Lego characters from across a range of different Lego collections make an appearance in the game. Emmet and Lucy are joined by Batman, the spaceship-obsessed 80’s Spaceman, Benny, the sage-like Vitrovirus and the no-doubt bipolar Princess Unikitty.

Whilst they are occasionally joined by other characters, it is mainly this core group that you will switch between during the game.

Each character’s unique ability comes into play at various times during each level making switching between characters an essential part of the game. For Instance Emmet has a jack-hammer that is used to break up cracked concrete. Lucy can jump higher than other characters, Batman has his grappling hook and Vitrovirus can throw his staff (which is actually a lolly-stick) for Lucy to swing on. Vitrovirus can also enter areas of extreme danger due to him being blind; it’s a gag that is used to great effect in the game.

As well as having their own abilities some characters are the aforementioned Master Builders.

Master Builders can repurpose a combination of special highlighted pieces to create useful objects. Like instruction book pages, these special pieces are often hidden away in the scene and need to be discovered in order to proceed.

Being a Lego game, it is made for replays or free-play. As you traverse the game you collect coins which you can use to unlock additional characters each with their own abilities. These characters can be used to unlock different areas and routes, granting extra rewards for completionists.

Often, you will need to collect pieces of an instruction book which Emmet can use at special construction area to build the structure required to proceed.

This triggers a mini-game whereby the object is built up from the very familiar blue and yellow instruction book with players having to quickly identify the missing piece in order to get the maximum bonus. It’s a nice touch and really drives home that fact that this game, unlike the others really is about Lego itself.

The game looks great, probably the nicest-looking of all the Lego games so far.

Also, the game features some pretty meticulous reproductions of the Lego models from the movie. And, of course, using footage from the movie is a nice touch.

The movie’s voice cast have returned to voice the game. It’s mainly from dialogue culled from the movie soundtrack, but the game’s got quite a few extra lines that must have been specially recorded.

It wouldn’t be The Lego Movie Videogame without its own rendition of “Everything is Awesome”. Don’t worry fans of repetitive 1980s-style pop irony, you will come across Tegan and Sara’s satirical song on more than one occasion. The annoyingly addictive ditty is accompanied with a Lego-style dancing mini-game and guaranteed to keep you spontaneously humming the tune for weeks afterwards.

The Lego Movie Videogame is the first Lego game that I’ve not found annoying. The plot is fantastic and fitting tribute to one of the world’s best-loved toys. Being a game about Lego rather than a Lego take on another property, it sits a lot closer to the construction focus of the toys.

It looks and plays great, with the same humour and cast from the movie. You don’t have to have seen the movie before you play, but you will get a hell of a lot more from the game if you have.

I never thought that I would highly recommend a Lego game, but there you have it, I just did. Everything IS awesome!

The post The Lego Movie Videogame – Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

As we saw with Origins the bright cartoony visage makes a comeback and at first glance it would almost seem that it is this game disc that you just put on in your console or loaded up on your PC.

However this is where the comparisons stop. Almost.

Set after 100 years from the previous game, Rayman and his pals are re-awoken to once again save as many Teensies as possible from evil factions.

The richly detailed 2D side scroll gameplay sees Rayman go up against both environmental hazards and familiar foes, with approximately 10 Teensies to save in each world.

Some Levels are solely dedicated to Globox. On Wii U (which also uses the Touch controller extensively) and Vita these have an added difficulty factor, as the game will take over the controlling of Globox for the most part and you control the twitchy, airborne Murphy to switch switches, move platforms and, er, tickle enemies.

The Levels are stylized as Paintings, and within the select arena, there are many different areas.

Asides from the differing Levels on offer which are all themed off well known classics such as Moby Dick, Jack & the Beanstalk and so on and even an entire area dedicated to the Día de Muertos (Mexican Day of the Dead).

Lums are still the collectables, and you want these.

The more of these that you collect (and the more Teensies that you save), the ore Levels open up for you.

Gathering enough Lums in each Level also rewards with varying Cups, Bronze, Silver and Gold. Get Gold and usually you’ve done a perfect game.

Between the Silver and Gold Cups is the Lucky Ticket. If you have enough Lums, you will earn one of these.

Scratch it (on Wii U and Vita it is touch control) and win a Prize.

Lucky Ticket Prizes can be a Creature (these go into an Inventory of sorts, located in a special room and they produce Lums for you), extra Lums or, even cooler, you can win Levels of the original Origins game.

All characters make their respective comebacks, and additional variations of characters can be unlocked by entering specified Paintings and rescuing them.

You can switch characters within the Heroes Room.

The longevity and playability of Rayman Legends is exactly that of its predecessor. One of those games that you cannot put down.

A game that even though you may have completed it, you’ll go back for more, time and time again.

There is also multiplayer, both offline and online, with Global Daily Challenges and the ability to host a game yourself.

It’s interesting to have watched the development of Rayman over the past decade.

First having appeared on the SEGA Saturn then at a later point on the PSOne, the no limbed Fraggle Rock look-alike character has stayed true over the years to the very original 1996 title.

After brandishing a sequel to Rayman and a few spin offs, such as the short lived playable Rayman Rush, Ubisoft made the right decision to reinvent the franchise by going retro-ish and turning it into a 2D side scroll.

Ironically this set it back to it’s original formula of the very first Rayman, before the series went 3D semi free-roam.

This not only saved Rayman – but also in my opinion saved the series from becoming just another platformer.

It’s made Rayman unique, in a class and genre almost of it’s own. Rayman Legends, you’ll get a lot of mileage out of it and it’s a game that keeps on giving.

The post Rayman Legends – Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.