Saints Row has been a series of increasing silliness – to where, by the time of the most recent entry Gat Out of Hell, it reached perhaps beyond the zenith of what made for an enjoyable game.

The open world city simulation action game went perhaps too far in the direction of insanity, that it forgot to stop to ask whether the core game was any fun.

So, the inevitable: a spin off, or series reboot. Developer Volition went with the first, initially, the poorly-received Agents of Mayhem.

So then, to the reboot that we’re looking at today. Saints Row 2022 sets you up as the leader of a nascent gang called the Saints, set in the open-world desert city of Santo Ileso. When each of your friends are thrown out of their respective gangs, you form up to take over the city, one wacky mission at a time. The game’s story is quite serviceable, and in fact I found the main missions the most compelling content of the experience.

Close alongside them however, are the businesses. See, to take over Santo Ileso, you need to set up a variety of shady businesses to build reputation, bring in cash and establish territorial dominance over the city’s other gangs. Doing so sets up what I would call a bunch of side missions or challenges. Doing some of these is necessary to complete the game, and I’m glad it’s not all, because after a while you end up with so much money that you don’t have much left to spend it on.

Most missions of all types end up in shooting or driving matches – and most often both.

The third-person shooting feels fine, though the distinct lack of a cover mechanic does seem a bit like a miss. There are many places and ways to upgrade your weapons, but ultimately I stuck with a pretty consistent loadout throughout my time with the game, once I had bought enough to get to a place where I had options for nearly any situation.

Complementing the shooting are a number of selectable skills you unlock – activated somewhat clumsily with the RB+face buttons – that mix up combat by throwing a grenade, flame punching an enemy or boosting your health, to name an example. The game also rewards getting up close and personal with an instant takedown mechanic, on a fairly generous time, that also fills up one of your health bars.

Ultimately, most encounters felt relatively easy, and it was only on some particularly bullet-spongey enemies that I felt the shooting mechanics pushing up against its limits.

Already released as a standalone teaser for the full game, Saints Row includes a detailed character creator, including options for different genders and yes, genitalia size (although the bottoms are censored, unlike for example, Conan Exiles).

You can save templates to swap freely between during gameplay, and there’s a bevy of shops to purchase new outfit items from. You will get a lot of money during your time with the game, and the bevy of options here are fantastic.

A nice inclusion for PC players is that of Ray-traced Ambient Occlusion for owners of newer GPUs. While perhaps not the most significant ray tracing effect that could have been included (RTGI, for example, would have worked extremely well in the harsh southwestern setting) – it does provide for a level of realism over and above the standard HBAO+ effect.

I had understood that the game would feature both NVIDIA’s DLSS and AMD’s FSR 2.0 temporal upscaling techniques – where you can claw back some FPS for relatively minor downgrades in visual quality. But these two options weren’t available in the Press review version of the game at launch – instead offering standard TAA or TSSA8x.

On my review PC featuring an i9-9900k and an RTX 3070, I was able to run the game well at 60FPS on a 3440x1440p display. That’s not to say the game was bug-free however. During my time with the game I spotted quite a few areas that could do with a bit of polish. The temporal anti-aliasing solution, for example, has, at times, extreme ghost trails, leading to fast camera movement in particular looking like it was inspired by Alucard in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.

Shadows always appeared extremely low quality for me, even set to high, characters would occasionally miss weaponry and even the RTAO would occasionally look quite wonky. Hopefully these issues get ironed out post-release, otherwise know what you’re getting in for before you purchase the game.

One bit of praise I have for Saints Row’s PC version is the decision to pre-compile a bunch of shaders, and then continue pre-compiling them during the initial hours of the game.

This saves on some of the stuttering PC games can experience, and is a smart decision in the face of games like Ghostwire Tokyo which aren’t pleasant for large chunks of the game PC because of this issue. Also included is drop-in cooperative play, though unfortunately I didn’t have time to test this during the review period.

So is Saints Row a successful reboot?

As a standalone 3rd-person open world action game, it is fine. It retains some of the outlandishness that sets the series apart from its competitors such as Grand Theft Auto, but in its welcome move away from the puerile humour and dream logic of Saints Row 3 and 4, it has not yet found itself a really solid differentiating factor.

My biggest issue however, is that while the artists and level designers have created an interestingly-designed city, I didn’t feel compelled to explore it beyond driving to specific mission points. As a setting it works, as a game sandbox, less so.

Developers Volition have taken the Saints Row formula, recontextualised it into a more appropriate setting for 2022, but failed to really deliver on a compelling product. Nevertheless, the main story is enjoyable, the main mechanics feel good, and if you want a less serious open world sandbox, one that is slightly positive in comparison to the dreariness of most others, it is a solid option.

The good news is that there is plenty to explore in a future Saints Row 2, and I hope Volition gets the chance to do so.

The post Saints Row (PC) Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Publisher Deep Silver together with developer Deep Silver FISHLABS has announced new IP Chorus, a dark space-combat shooter.

Exclusively revealed during the Inside Xbox event, Chorus will support Smart Delivery on the Xbox family of consoles, ensuring players get the best experience on both Xbox One and Xbox Series X with a single purchase.

In Chorus,  players will take control of dual protagonists: ex-cultist Nara, an ace pilot with a haunted past, and Forsaken – a sentient AI starfighter and her closest ally, with a mysterious backstory of his own to unravel. This story-driven single-player experience invites gamers to unlock devastating weapons and mind-bending abilities as they fight to free the galaxy from the Circle: an oppressive cult that will stop at nothing to ensure complete subjugation.

Tobias Severin, Studio Director at Deep Silver FISHLABS said: “We’re delighted to announce this exciting new IP. From the beginning our focus has been on delivering amazing moment to moment gameplay to evolve the spirit of classic space flight shooters. We are fully leveraging the power of gen 9 hardware, allowing us to create richer, more detailed, ray traced environments, all at 4K and 60FPS.”

Take control of Nara, once the Circle’s deadliest warrior, now their most wanted fugitive, on a quest to destroy the dark cult that created her. Unlock devastating weapons and mind-bending abilities in a true evolution of the space-combat shooter. Along with Forsaken, her sentient starfighter, explore ancient temples, engage in exhilarating zero-g combat, and venture beyond our waking reality.

A journey of redemption. Lead Nara, an ace pilot facing her haunted past, and Forsaken, her sentient ship. Their quest for redemption will take them across the galaxy and beyond the boundaries of reality, as they fight to unite resistance forces against the Circle and their leader, the Great Prophet, at all costs.

Entering a dark new universe, teeming with mystery and rife with conflict. Explore epic locations such as sprawling space stations and strange planes of existence beyond our own. Engage in exhilarating zero-g dogfights from epic cosmic vistas to tight crystalline corridors. Chorus balances the scale and spectacle of space exploration with frenetic, fast-paced action.

Attain powerful and distinct weapons and combat upgrades. Master your ship’s unique drift mechanic and deadly mind-bending abilities, including extra-sensory perception, teleportation and telekinesis, to overcome massive hordes of enemies and take down titanic battleships. Chain your powers together to become the ultimate living weapon.

Chorus launches on Xbox Series X, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Google Stadia and PC in 2021.

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The post DEEP SILVER ANNOUNCES ‘CHORUS’ appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Saints Row ‘Switches’ it up.

The chaotic carnage video game series, originally published by the defunct THQ went from an initial serious offering with its first GTA-like clone release, then went very over the top and even fused in a Broadway musical number during gameplay.

Yep, Saints Row is a gritty yet light hearted take on the super-action genre. It’s third instalment, which originally released in 2011 on PC, PS4 and Xbox 360 has now been remastered and squished down to Nintendo Switch.

In an open world, go anywhere, do anything, you take the lead of the Third Street Saints Gang with the objective of taking down any rival gangs by any means possible.

Various objectives will flicker on your map of Steelport, a neon infused dirty city of sex, drugs, crime… and you. But there’s no need to rush from one mission to the next – take your time, see the sights, cause carnage and pillage as you go. Heat things up with a vast array of both ‘normal’ and super weapons – there’s never a task too small for a rocket launcher…

Saints Row The Third – The Full Package on Switch takes the now aging console explosive experience and almost like a fresh coat of paint teams with an almost endless play. Included are 30+ items of DLC and three additional maps and a few unique bonuses.

I remember when the very first Saints Row released – and while I was not a huge fan of it, it was the sequels that won me over as Saints row came in to its own and found a niche in the genre, fusing serious action with blatant and deliberate to-the-extremes.

Now, you can re-experience The Full Package on the go, and if somehow you have missed the Saints Row series (you’ve played Agents of Mayhem, right??), The Third is the best one to start with.

You alone can own the city – wherever you go.

The post Saints Row The Third – The Full Package (Switch) Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

The acclaimed fantasy role playing franchise Sacred is about to advance onto mobile with Sacred Legends. Developed by Chimera Entertainment from Munich and published by Deep Silver FISHLABS from Hamburg, the new RPG will bring addictive PvE and PvP battles to smartphones and tablets.

And today, Deep Silver FISHLABS and Chimera Entertainment lifted the veil on their first conjoint project Sacred Legends. Exclusively developed for mobile devices, the app will mark the tradition-rich Sacred brand’s debut on the App Store and Google Play. Sacred Legends will go live globally in summer 2016.

The gripping story of Sacred Legends takes place in the demon-plagued kingdom of Ancaria – a rich game world with a deep lore. The title’s gameplay focuses on hero development, loot collection and fierce battles against monsters, creatures and other deadly enemies.

In the roles of warriors, archers or seraphim, the players set forth to save an ill-fated kingdom from the onslaught of unrelenting Demon Lords. In battle, they will be accompanied by their fellow players’ characters with whom they form hard-hitting teams.

In addition to asynchronous co-op features and multi-layered gameplay, the app features console-quality production values and native touchscreen controls. Its engaging story ties into the narrative of Sacred Underworld, the acclaimed add-on to the original Sacred game on Windows PC.

The post The Gate to the Underworld is Opening… appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Deep Silver FISHLABS is glad to announce the mobile release of OKAM Studio’s graphic adventure The Interactive Adventures of Dog Mendonça & PizzaBoy.

The crowd-funded game based on Dark Horse’s fan-favorite comic books series will go live on the Apple App Store by the beginning of April 2016. Only a few weeks later, the game will also launch on Google Play. A classic “point-and-click” adventure with a gruesomely-good twist, The Interactive Adventures of Dog Mendonça & PizzaBoy not only features hand-crafted graphics with a unique art style and astonishing attention to detail but also hilarious dialogues, fun-to-solve riddles, and a gripping narrative.

The Interactive Adventures of Dog Mendonça & PizzaBoy takes its players to the dusky streets of Lisbon, Mediterranean metropolis and monster capital of the world. Yes, you’re right. All the creatures you have been afraid of as a child are real and they live side by side with the fine people of Lisbon.

But suddenly they disappear one after another. And that is where supernatural sleuth Dog Mendonça and his unpaid apprentice PizzaBoy come into play. Together with an unearthly posse consisting of the severed head of a moody gargoyle and a thousand-years old demon trapped inside the body of a little girl, they hit the scene and (hopefully) save the day.

A full-fledged premium app from day one, The Interactive Adventures of Dog Mendonça & PizzaBoy will be available on the App Store with the initial purchase grants full access to all content and features as well as the complete story, which is not split up into fee-based chapters.

The post The Interactive Adventures of Dog Mendonça & PizzaBoy! appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Deep Silver FISHLABS is proud to announce its next high-quality publishing project. In cooperation with Tama Games and Mutant Games from Spain, the Hamburg-based mobile unit of publishing giant Deep Silver will soon release an innovative blend of autorunner and 2D platformer called Stranded – Mars ONE.

The deal with the Valencia and Palma de Mallorca-based app developers marks the North-German company’s fifth collaboration with external partners in 2015. Previously, Deep Silver FISHLABS already announced co-operations with ISBIT Games from Sweden and OKAM Studio from Argentina as well as Animation Arts and Chimera Entertainment, both located in Germany.

Stranded – Mars ONE tells the story of a little astronaut desperately trying to find a way back home from Mars, where his spacecraft crash-landed during a recon mission.

With only limited oxygen at his disposal and the components of his ship scattered all across the scenery, the courageous hero-in-exile has to run, dodge, jump and somersault every which way across the Red Planet in order to fill up his air supplies and repair his vessel.

While Stranded’s oldschool pixel graphics and cute presentation might suggest a light-hearted casual gaming experience at first, its ambitious Level designs and skill-based gameplay mechanics make it a tough nut to crack even for well-versed mid- to hardcore gamers.

“Set in the autorunner genre and jam-packed with addictive retro gaming charm, Stranded – Mars ONE has all the right ingredients of a real indie hit”, says Daniel Hericks, Publishing Producer at Deep Silver FISHLABS. “Besides a unique look and sound, it also features a particularly clever level design that is pretty exceptional for an autorunner and bears more than just a few surprises. If you’re eager to try something new in the autorunner genre, you have to give Stranded – Mars ONE a try.”

Stranded – Mars ONE is scheduled to be released on the App Store as a F2P game in Q3 of 2015. An Android version is planned too and will follow at a later point in time.

The post Prepare to be Exiled on the Red Planet appeared first on Shane the Gamer.