The age of darkness has descended upon the world of DOOM with id Software’s latest chapter in the decades long first person shooter franchise.

With a focus more on combat than the hectic fast paced slaughter we have seen in prior games, DOOM: The Dark Ages is a slower jaunt through hellish planets.

Storywise this is a prequel to 2016’s DOOM and furthers the story of the rise of the Doom Slayer, being the Kingdom’s last hope.

Still retaining the first person play and gore fest that we know and love in this mech-tech / horror crossover you are eqipped with the Gauntlet for some up and close melee, an array of automatic weapons and a few new editions such as the bone firing Skull Crusher and Shield Saw for blocking and long range.

Take downs of larger enemies, especially the ‘Leaders’ offer the opportunity to enact a brutal finisher and the environments (Planets) you find yourself in are mostly free roam.

Kill a ‘Leader’ and reap their essence for vitality upgrades and more.

There’s pick ups everywhere, but to find the real good stuff you need to look out for hidden spots, and most are not easily discovered. But there are secrets everywhere, but nowhere. From Codex, gold, chests through to DOOM collectables and more to be located.

Gold can also be gained from completing Mission Challenges.

Finding Sentinel shrines enable upgrades of armor and weapons. You need gold, rubies or wraithstones to spend

Life sigils are another hidden goodie. These if needed will ressurect you on the spot, without, you’ll restart at the last checkpoint if you’re taken down.

DOOM: The Dark Ages is a solid play, if you don’t spend the time to look around for hidden treasures it can also be a quick playthrough to with 22 chapters in total.

The game also has unlockable cosmetics include unlockable or secret skins for your character and weapons and there’s a Milestones from the main menu where you can track your play.

At the end of each chapter you are given a summary on your exploits. Something Milestones does not do is allow you to warp back to a Planet you have previously finished, to do this, you need to go to Chapter Select so us completists can revisit an area to find hidden secrets that were missed.

In all DOOM: The Dark Ages gives us the demon filled, blood-lust that we love from the DOOM games, but it paces itself without the chaos and plays out like a satisfying mech, tech, hellish gore fest.

The post Doom: The Dark Ages (PlayStation 5) Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Sniper Elite: Resistance is the sixth mainline instalment in Rebellion’s long-running WW2 sniper series. It’s the first to have an unnumbered title and only the second second game to revisit a previously covered theatre of war.

Like Sniper Elite 5, Sniper Elite: Resistance is set in Nazi-occupied France. But instead of playing as the series regular, Karl Fairburne, players take on the Germans as Harry Hawker. The campaign is set in 1944 running parallel to Sniper Elite 5.

For those not familiar with the series, the game is a third-person stealth shooter that uses an over-the-shoulder view for hip shooting and pistols, and the rifle optics when sniping. Taking out targets, one by one, from a distance is encouraged as going in all gung-ho with close combat can get a bit overwhelming. Using environmental noises to cover gunfire helps to keep Hawker’s location secret. Getting seen raises alarms and can result in an overwhelming number of reinforcements descending on the player’s location.

The game is broken up into a series of open-world environments each with sequential mission objectives, and optional targets. Players are required to move around the map, preferably avoiding direct contact with the enemy.

The open-world nature of the game promotes replay, as there are often several different options available to players to complete goals. Reaching certain points unlocks alternative start points for use in future attempts.

In previous games, I’ve felt that all the different approaches available to players have been equally curated to make for some exciting gameplay. This time, events seem a lot more random and haphazard and don’t fit together quite as well.

There are nine mission areas in the game. From dams to train depots, to open countryside and towns, the scenarios offer a variety of environments meaning that no mission area is the same. You could be infiltrating an enemy HQ surrounded by farmland or sabotaging an installation in the middle of a quarry. The are also occasional optional additional targets and objectives available for extra rewards.

These large open areas offer players plenty of variety. The freedom that the game gives players can be overwhelming at first, but this translates into opportunities to adapt according to the situation. Many a time, as I’ve been discovered and the enemy alerted, I’ve been able to traverse the map and lose my pursuers.

As well as the opportunity for some impressive long-range sniping, there are plenty of stealth options available for some up-close and personal guerrilla tactics. This is often the best way, with a bit of patience, to sneak about and clear the field, so to speak, when faced with seemingly overwhelming odds.

Multiplayer is catered for via the usual deathmatch (Free-For-All), team deathmatch (Team Match) and squad deathmatch (the four teams of four players Squad Match). No Cross is a mode that has snipers shooting at each other across a no man’s land. There’s also a co-op survival mode with a team facing off against waves of enemies.

The campaign can also be played multiplayer either as a two-person co-op or via the Axis Invasion mode. Invasion mode has a player-controlled enemy sniper entering your otherwise single-player campaign.

The visuals are decent if a bit dated, with the anti-aliasing on PC leaving much to be desired. Whilst the series’ signature x-ray bullet cam impressed back in the day, it doesn’t have the same impact now and looks a bit unrealistic.

Sniper Elite: Resistance is a worthwhile distraction for fans of the series who want more of the same. It does seem to be more of a recycle of Sniper Elite 5 than its own thing, like the publisher has just packaged up some of the last game’s potential DLC and made a standalone entry. Still, it is a fun game with plenty of replay value.

The post Sniper Elite: Resistance (PC) Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Another year another installment of Activision’s long-running Call of Duty first-person shooter series. This year it’s a continuation of the rebooted Black Ops storyline.

Just as they did with the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare reboot, 2020’s Black Ops: Cold War drew a line underneath the previous instalments. Whilst the game retained some of the characters and the feel of the earlier games, it was a new beginning.

This new game drops the subtitle and returns to the regular series numbering, whilst continuing the story from Black Ops: Cold War. Call of Duty: Black Ops 6’s campaign, jumps from the Cold War era of the 1980s to the 1990s and Operation Desert Storm.

The story is on-brand for a Black Ops game. Instead of a straight shooter (literally and figuratively), Black Ops campaigns feature convoluted plots heavy on conspiracy and subterfuge. There’s the intrigue, the dark underbelly of covert ops works in a grey area, international espionage and double-crossing. It’s more of a spy setting than playing as a black op commando unit but the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare games have kinda co-opted that.

The campaign game starts in 1991 with the player taking on the role of William “Case” Calderon, a CIA operative, charged with extracting a high-ranking Iraqi politician. After engaging Iraqi forces and apprehending the target, the CIA team comes under fire from a paramilitary group called Pantheon. Defeating the attackers and reaching safety, a Humvee pulls up. Out gets the unpredictable rogue CIA operative, Russel Adler, from Black Ops: Cold War who promptly dispatches the captured Iraqi politician, before being apprehended. Adler has a message for his former teammate, Frank Woods.

With the CIA team suspended, Frank Woods, Troy Marshall and Case follow up on Adler’s message leading them to a safe house in Bulgaria. The safe house is a hub area where players are free to roam around and explore.

Whilst for the most part Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is a linear affair. The safe house hub area is where you can train, look for clues and converse with other characters as if you are playing a role-playing game.

At the safe house, we learn what Adler’s been up to. And that a team needs to be assembled just like in a heist movie. Over the next few missions, using Adler’s notes in the safe house, tech operative Felix Neuman and assassin Sevati Duma are recruited to join the team. On breaking out Adler, the plot unfolds, revealing that Pantheon is trying to sell a US-development chemical weapon, the Cradle, to Saddam Hussein.

For me, the appeal of the Call of Duty campaigns is the linear first-person shooter gameplay, with its set pieces coming across like a no-hold-barred action movie. In recent years Activision has, via its team of rotating developers, tried to spice things up, altering the recipe with what I consider to be so-so results. Whilst I can dig the desire for non-linear open-world gameplay, that’s what we’ve got Ghost Recon for (now) and to a lighter extent, EA’s Battlefield games.

One of the missions is a huge open-world area where you get to kill Iraqis during the dubious Desert Storm 1 (there’s even a not-so-subtle reference to WMDs- the only WMDs in the game being the fictional ones, just like in real life). It’s bold mission choice, a mini open-world game within a game. Whilst very well done, it exposes the joins between the various teams that worked on the game.

Whilst not exactly my cup of tea, the developers have also managed to weave the popular Call of Duty zombie multiplayer gameplay into the campaign story. It’s cleverly done, but it’s another sequence that sticks out a bit.

There are, of course, some breathtaking moments, such as when you first call in for air support during the Iraq level. Fans of Modern Warfare’s Danger Close level will likely enjoy guiding bombs to their targets. Then there’s calling in the British SAS attack helicopter with the player manning the guns.

A bit of fan service has players using an RC-XD remote-controlled car with a C4 payload. This is identical to the one included in the original Black Ops Prestige Edition, even down to the controller.

The stealthier missions are a lot of fun, with only some sequences forcing players to remain undetected. This means that whilst stealth is the best way, you can still go in guns blazing.

The Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 campaign ticks all the boxes and tries to do something new. It’s not the best campaign game in the series, but it does have a few levels that I’ll likely return to again and again, and a few I’d not. The disparity between the missions fits the more abstract clandestine storyline but is likely more to do with multiple development teams working in isolation and their work being stitched together. It’s a good effort, but not up to the standard of its predecessor.

The post Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 (PC) Campaign Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

An 80’s B-Grade schlock ‘horror’ film, turned pop culture favourite, Killer Klowns from Outer Space has now been adapted in to a video game.

For those that have never seen the film (you absolutely need to), the story is simple.

Clown (or ‘Klown’) aliens land in a small town and proceed to take out the citizens with killer candy-floss and zappy cartoonish guns. Humans are food.

Of course the humans fight back and figure out a weak point in the seemingly indestructible Killer Klowns.

A slapstick, dark humour film by the Chiodo Bros.

A long time in the making, Killer Klowns from Outer Space- The Video Game is an online PvP shooter with a heavy team-up flavour as mini-games are within gameplay.

You can choose a side, Klown or Human and proceed to roam about the small town looking for other players to take down. There’s varied Klowns and Humans to choose from, and if you’re playing as a Klown… harvest those Humans!

Clearly being a Klown is the more entertaining side of play.

Graphically for the Killer Klown characters, the game is on point. From the squeaky Klown shoes, the evil-yet-goofy Clown (Klown) character models through to their varied and super entertaining ways of taking out an opponent.

But getting in to a game, at times, is a game of patience as you wait in the lobby… and wait some more.

I also found that there were not enough players in a single environment, or perhaps for the size of the environment. I would be roaming around for a while (exploring is not always a bad thing I guess), before I finally encountered an opponent.

Much like the film, Killer Klowns the Video Game doesn’t offer up much other than what it is on the label, a PvP shooter.

Enjoyable once in you’re in a game. Team up or go solo, be a Klown or a Human, save or annihilate the town.

Grab your popcorn, wind up some candy floss and join in the deadly astral circus with Killer Klowns from Outer Space – The Video Game.

The post Killer Klowns from Outer Space – The Video Game (PC) Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

What a wild ride Helldivers 2 has been on.

When I first got the game to review, it came in as an interesting sequel to an underrated first entry (Helldivers 1 was secretly one of the best games for the beleaguered PS Vita).

But since then, Helldivers 2 has exploded in interest, success and internet virality to a point where the developers could not have even imagined. This Playstation-published but independently-developed title has seen unprecedented player numbers that put it up with some of the biggest games ever released.

The simultaneous release of the game on PC and Playstation also signals a new approach from Playstation, and perhaps, a new era and attitude towards how ever-more expensive to develop games are released. It certainly hasn’t hurt the game, and I have enjoyed being able to dive in on my platform of choice from day one.

But what is Helldivers 2?

In the most zoomed-out view it is not so different from the original entry into the now-franchise series. You, and preferably a squad of mates, land on an alien planet and are tasked with a variety of objectives that you must complete before successfully extracting within the set time limit. These objectives may be something as simple as defeating a number of the bug or robot enemies, to launching nukes at enemy infestations.

Maps, set on a variety of planets and times of day, are large, but not so big that you can get lost in them or separated for too long. There are enemy encampments, patrols, side missions and secrets to discover on each map, and the game slowly ramps up the intensity of each mission the longer you play, which, combined with the time limit, eventually encourages even the most distracted players to get on board with completing the mission objectives.

The true joy of the game is found in the combination of these missions, playing with a squad, and the wild interaction between these and what Helldivers 2 calls your ‘stratagems’. These are special abilities, set on a timer, that lets you call in support from a spaceship in orbit. This could be as simple as providing you with a powerful machine gun or mortar sentry, right up to enormous bombardments that can destroy entire enemy forts at once. Crucially, this also includes friendly reinforcements. See, players have relatively little health, and are subject to friendly fire. This results in hilarious interactions where you ‘unintentionally’ take out your friends with an aerial bombardment, or are desperately calling down backup while hordes of massive bugs pursue you across the map. Some of the fireworks on display at times is genuinely impressive, and truly gives the sense of the intensity of a battle, all set in the stylings and humour of Starship Troopers.

Successfully completing missions lets you access upgrades to new and improved weapons, stratagems, and available weaponry. There is a battle pass which is part of the cosmetic and weapon unlock experience, but this is cleverly split into a free one that contains pretty great stuff, and a premium one that feels less necessary but will be attractive to those dedicated to the full Helldivers experience. For once, the battle pass and monetisation system doesn’t feel abusive or predatory at all, and this should be a model that other games pursue.

The only time that I had a bad time with Helldivers 2 was when I was playing by myself. The solo experience is no fun at all, and all of the spontaneity, hilarity and unintended consequences are much more lonely and frustrating when not playing in a squad. Even in a matchmade squad your time with each mission is far better, so I encourage you to not spend too long playing without teammates if you can at all avoid it.

Another nitpick is the image quality when utilising the 60FPS mode on Playstation 5.

It is quite blurry, and the basic implementation of what looks like AMD’s FSR1 does little to tidy it up to any satisfactory degree. The developers have indicated that they are investigating a temporal upsampling technique (such as FSR2) but given they are using an ancient, deprecated game engine this is much more of an ask than if the game were using, say, Unreal Engine 5 so I don’t have high hopes. At least on PC it generally runs very well, so the base level of performance is quite good.

Helldivers 2 is uncomplicated fun. It provides genuinely hilarious emergent gameplay, all set within a framework that seems deliberately designed to remove some of the frustrations and speedbumps that other games sometimes deliberately put in your way. Missions are quick, snappy, and even if you don’t succeed it is not too strenuous to just go again. With a group of friends, Helldivers 2 provides some of the best hangout gameplay that you could ask for. This isn’t the sort of game that you need to keep on top of the meta for, or worry about new heroes coming in and massively changing the balance of the entire experience. And there are indications that even more is planned, with tanks and mech suits looking likely for inclusion shortly.

Whether on PC or PS5, Helldivers 2 is more than a competent follow up. The move to a third person perspective and the impressive but contained scale of each mission creates an environment in its experience that gamers have clearly taken to. I just hope the interest in the game isn’t short-lived. I certainly see myself returning to it again and again.

The post Helldivers 2 (PlayStation 5 / PC) Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Man is it good to see colour again.

Remember that era when game design was defined by waist high walls and everything being grey?

Well Cookie Cutter is the living proof that you can absolutely preserve a dark and gritty atmosphere without sacrificing vibrancy of environment.

Developed by Subcult Joint and published by Rogue Games, Cookie Cutter is a side scrolling key-and-door metroidvania with a comic art style and a grunge aesthetic that comes right off the pages of ‘Tank Girl’.

And that, before anything else, is what I’m leading with here.

Because the artwork is absolutely fantastic. 10/10.

Bold, thick, hand drawn line art that pops off the page from the intro cutscene.

A main menu with a side profile of our player character ‘Cherry’ occasionally flashing in X-Ray to show the terminator metal beneath the skin.

Menu options with that bleeding layered colour that reminds me of old skool 3D when you take the glasses off and enjoy the trippy blend of shades.

That main menu music caught me by surprise a little. Rather than the musical chainsaws I was expecting from the box art, we have a more groovy and introspective piece that wouldn’t be out of place in a mystery game.

But enough eye candy, lets actually play the game.

ACTUAL VOICE ACTING.

I’m sorry, this may not be a big deal to you, but I don’t think I’ve seen this in several reviewed games in a row at this point.

VA is pretty on point with the possible exception of our main character who tends to overplay it a bit. Sounds a little unnatural.

The intro cutscene was like reading a comic I would definitely pick up if I saw it in a store. Colourful art, intriguing story involving a corrupt megacorp delving secrets from within a primordial megastructure that may have been created at the beginning of the universe and a resistance movement fighting against an army of immortal slave robots.

The intro narration is done by Shinji, a scientist who builds (and subsequently falls into a lesbian romance with) a very unique gyanoid named Cherry she hopes will help break the unending cycle of tyranny from the one who dominates the megastructure.

Mid cutscene, her house is broken into and Cherry is beaten to a pulp. This cutscene transitions seamlessly into a disturbing section of dragging our broken selves over to our creator in the pouring rain while screaming in a damaged voice to give her back.

It’s visceral, evocative and that was the moment I knew I was going to like this game. I was pulled in immediately.

GRUNGE.

That’s the tone.

Our main character is not some fishnet stockings and bikini armour warrior fighting in heels and a size 2. She’s THIQQ, angry, takes great delight in over-the-top violence and has a haircut that looks like she tripped and fell headfirst into a box of scissors.

Fighting mechanics are… eeeeh. There’s challenge in it I’ll put it that way.

The parry is a little jank and I can see that finishing animation getting a little stale after I do it twenty times, but it’s nice how the game manages your resources.

There’s a satisfying flow between gathering energy by hitting foes and using energy to hit foes harder then healing yourself post combat using yet more energy. Mastering the combat involves mastering this flow. A little basic, but if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I can see more mechanics and more threatening enemies adding on to a complex interplay later on.

Control mapping is done for an Xbox controller and as far as I can tell, there is no way to change this so if you are playing on a playstation controller you are going to have to do some running translations in your head.

Not a big deal if you have played both, but that does highlight the game’s lack of options.

Regina is our helpful assistant. She’s a distorted digital woman’s voice attached to a floating mechanical head that falls somewhere between ‘biblically accurate angel’ and ‘I have no mouth and I must scream’.

Raz is the mechanic who apparently dug our ass out of the junkyard and put us back together after that rough night.

Both are well voice acted, sounding appropriately eerie and suave respectively.

Overall, Cookie Cutter is worth your time.

I can see a delve into the unfolding guts of this megalithic superstructure through colourful blood and mechanical guts being a fun romp through the panels of a grungy comic book and can’t wait to see where it will take me next.

The post Cookie Cutter (PC) Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Revisit the 2000’s era of 64BIT gaming in 4K and 120FPS with the remastered Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion Remastered.

Originally released in the year 2000 by the long gone Acclaim Studios for the Nintendo 64, a console that at the time super rendered those pixels giving us a video gaming visual fest like never seen before.

Fast forward twenty three years and Nightdive Studios has remastered this classic for present day.

The third instalment in the Turok franchise Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion is a first person shooter where you take the role of either Danielle or Joseph, each having their own unique skills.

The game is a direct follow on from the second instalment; Turok 2: Seeds of Evil where Primagen’s Lightship was destroyed.

An explosion so devastatingly powerful it broke the Universe it was within, unleashing an interstellar entity that takes over the bodies of living folks, an entity that itself once reigned before the Universe existed. And this entity also bought along some of it’s Jurassic pals along for the ride.

You will collect all manner of weaponry as you play, in total 16 different types of weapons and you’ll start out with a pistol, a knife and bow and arrow.

Collectables and consumables are rife throughout the game, especially if you explore the mostly open environments. Your weapon selection is via a selector wheel assigned to a hot-key on your gamepad for easier swap outs.

This remastered version is not a complete graphical overhaul though. You still get those early Y2K squared edges, minimalistic environmental detail, but all is smoothed and fluid, retaining that sense of nostalgia.

However audio needs some work. At times the voice acting sound and in-game sound effects was distant and scratchy.

And, Nightdive did not include the Multiplayer modes, which really made the original game stand out at the time. Why Nightdive, why?!!

The main campaign play of Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion Remastered is still a substantial play, even by today’s standards.

So, if you’re wanting to relive that 64BIT era but not keen on playing through the pixels on our present day flat screen TVs (back then we all had CRT TVs), Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion Remastered is going to give you that ‘back in the day’ feel with present day SCIFI action.

Minus multiplayer.

The post Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion Remastered (Xbox Series X|S) Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Nobody here has a face.

We are short figures in patchwork dusters and wide brimmed hats.

We have guns but they don’t shoot bullets… at least, not the type you are used to.

Magic is in the air, literally in our case. We are in a flying ship with a few other arcane masters.

We travel a sea of broken islands floating above an unknown expanse of chaos.

Our mission is to save the world, which is going to be difficult since it ended five minutes ago.

Gonna need a time machine for this one.

Quick question, what do arcane magic and the western genre have in common?

If your answer was ‘not much’ then yeah, you got it right. This wasn’t a trick question.

Wizard with a Gun is the latest from Galvanic, published by Devolver Digital; and it’s the mashup we always wanted but never knew how to ask for.

Right from the word go, we tonally know what to expect.

The main menu features a lone, faceless wizard cowboy tending a campfire at night.

A threadbare cloak and a big hat concealing a face shrouded in darkness but for two shining eyes sits on a log in quiet contemplation.

Eyes in the bushes watch from beyond.

The music lulls you in gently, giving you a moment to absorb the crackling of fire, the crickets at night, the hooting owl… then the western strings start up and balance is struck between haunted house and lone gunslinger.

Hovering over the menu options on the side produces the twang of a guitar chord. Strafing up and down makes it sound like you are running your fingers over the strings. A feature so simple and effortlessly cool I’m jealous I didn’t think of it.

The ambiance is complete.

After a brief cutscene showing a small group of wizards crashing a ship after some floating islands explode we start the tutorial as the only survivor of the crash.

We are told by a purple phantom of shifting digital noise that the world has basically already ended and our mission is to turn back time and try and stop it.

“If you fail, nobody will be around to blame you” Says the scruffy stranger we meet sitting on the edge of eternity.

Reassuring in a bittersweet way.

Wizard with a Gun’s artstyle is a bold, almost cartoonish drawn art in the same family as ‘Don’t Starve’ with thick lines and vibrant colour.

The entire game is played on floating islands amidst the end of days while the ghosts of a shattered land drift by in the background.

The shadows are the unsung champions of the game’s visual presentation, absolutely everything is cast in a blend of light and shadow that makes the scene come to life.

Speaking of Don’t Starve… gameplay.

We are a camera centred character on an isometric game world composed of defined squares.

On every expedition we launch from our wizards’ tower located somewhere outside of time we have five minutes to wander in relative safety before the world starts ending again and things get real dangerous real fast.

We can delay that moment by destroying the portals that pop up around us during the night cycle, but eventually toxic unlife energy is going to start falling from the sky and it’s time to call it quits.

This is, of course, the time when some of the best and rarest materials for gathering become available, making risk assessment one of the biggest elements at play.

Do you play it safe and make for the gate back home?

Or stay and kill a few more twisted chaos abominations and harvest their energy?

Crafting is the backbone of our misadventures.

There’s a library of upgrades, magic bullets, modifiers to those magic bullets, items and boosting potions we can make in the tower to help us claim greater rewards on the field so we can craft better gear in the tower.

I think of this type of cycle and repeated reward as the X-COM loop, even though the games couldn’t be more different otherwise.

Blame Yahtzee Croshaw.

Naturally for a game named ‘Wizard with a Gun’, the emphasis here is on… well the guns.

Living our daydream of the moment Gandalf gives up and pulls up with an AK we are here to live that blend of arcane wonder and gunslinging action.

We craft our first one out of nothing but a block of wood because wizards can just do that and from then on it’s our job to research and craft the weirdest and most destructive bullets we can get our hands on.

There’s your standard elemental interactions, fire burns, poison does tick damage, cold slows… you’ve all been here before. You can get charming bullets that can make enemies fight for you, bullets that summon walls, bullets that coat things in flammable oil. Everything can be upgraded and there are no class restrictions, your options are infinite.

Flavour text for the pile of stuff dropped on you seems limited at first glance.

There’s a couple of throwaway lines for common items, but nothing impressive.

Then you pick up a book that can scan things and are told the story of how books like this, made to write themselves and learn autonomously, almost destroyed the college that invented them after becoming self aware.

Now we are running around with the magical equivalent of the smartphone if it was running Skynet OS.

From then on in, story is trickled in. Details of the world whose ruins we stand in and the factions that once inhabited it.

The music is impeccable, excellent. I could sit here and listen to nothing else if it weren’t for the fact that I have only five minutes until existence begins to fall apart at the seams.

Magic bullets have their own associated sounds, oil bullets squelch, fire bullets flare.

You’re a wizard with a gun and Galvanic wanted to make sure you knew that.

This game sucked me in and didn’t let go.

Every step forward revealed five more steps I can take and I can already see myself doing multiple playthroughs to focus on different areas of gunmancy.

A few minor bugs here and there are easily forgiveable on my way to saving the world with guns and magic.

The post Wizard with a Gun (PC) Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

‘T’was the winter of 1927-28 when I rolled off the steamer and into the sleepy town of Orwell.

Beset by a labyrinth of worm eaten buildings and the blanket of apathy cast by a motley crew of benighted residents it was a mere stop from my true destination; alas… the train was held yet again and I was stuck.

Thus I quested to clear my shrouded path onwards… but beneath that town in rat infested sewers where creatures unmentionable lurk in hidden depths of turgid water something was stirring.

Mysterious men in masks wielding powers unnatural stood in my path, and I can feel in my bones the movement of something down here with me.

Something huge, something that crawls and writhes and stares with inhuman eyes.

Good thing I have this gun that is also an umbrella’.

If there’s one thing Devolver Digital has down to a fine science at this point, it’s setting a tone.

The very home menu landing hits you with the only word you can expect to hear spoken to you in plain English. A growled ‘Gunbrella’ spoken like a Saturday morning cartoon villain putting on his best beastly voice.

The title is set to the backdrop of a steady descent to underground mines far below with a background music that is either a violin mimicking the buzzing of a fly, or an unusually musical insect.

Pixel blood splatter patterns cover the menu options and that theme is consistent because every selection sounds WET.

If you didn’t know what you were in for before, you would be now.

The game opens with a brief sequence explaining your onset motivation. A murdered wife and your only clue to that murder, the eponymous Gunbrella. The entire segment is filmed in the grainy black and white filter of those ye olde’ timey photos of unsmiling miners and small town folk looking at the photographer as if wondering how many shillings they could get for that fancy camera.

Then you are released into the game-world with a mission, a gun and a direction. Let the eldritch horror begin.

Gunbrella’s gameplay is fairly straightforward.

You wield the gunbrella, simultaneously a miraculous weapon capable of loading several different ammo types and an umbrella capable of acting as a parachute, jump boost and deflector shield.

Gotta get me one of those.

Items play the other half of your arsenal, with healing and temporary HP boosts as well as a pill that makes you find more money for a short period of time…

REALLY gotta get me one of those.

You can deflect ranged attacks by blocking with your umbrella and a timed block will reflect the projectile back at the attacker. Now you have all your tools, how well you can juggle them all will determine whether you come out the other end of Gunbrella looking like John Wick, or Super Meat Boy.

The introduction to the first enemies is somewhat jarring.

You encounter your first murderous robed cultist with very little fanfare; it will be some time yet before the first townspeople mention problems with the local cult.

For a man specifically out for answers it seems a bit slack of our protagonist not to have asked the first face he ran into about that.

Imagine if the narrator of ‘Shadow over Innsmouth’ got into a heated shotgun duel with a wandering band of slimy hobos in the city sewers and then immediately went back to being weirded out by fish people without mentioning the incident at all. A light smattering of ludo-narrative dissonance that wouldn’t be mentionable in a game that hadn’t done so much work building up its atmosphere.

Dialogue is delivered in that Charlie brown mumble of old, when voice actors were something that real studios had and video games were the domain of small time office nerds not knowing what cultural goldmine they were about to strike.

Small details matter here… speech bubbles float slightly as if breathing along with the character delivering them. Each hit of the next button is the keystroke of a typewriter. The checkpoints are glowing benches used by seating your trench-coated protagonist on to spend a moment in quiet brooding. Sound is masterfully presented on all angles.

Eerie background noises blend into the music until you aren’t really sure which is which, the ambiance fades when in menus, but never goes away entirely. The result is the constant tickling feeling at the back of your neck that something is out there you cannot see.

Something that may be watching you.

Then you interrupt a ritual in the heart of a cultist’s hideout where bodies are being sacrificed to an eldritch monstrosity called ‘the baby’ and before you know it, you are fighting a giant eyeball forming the nucleus of a writhing golem of flesh.

The more you shoot it, the more the room becomes drenched in blood. So much blood you can almost feel it seeping from your screen.

This is the part where I knew the game was going take a step away from the basis in reality it had established for itself.

We had begun the descent into a realm of elder gods twisting reality to their own incomprehensible ends. Where does this journey end?

Well now that would be telling.

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American sniper, Karl Fairburne continues his tour of WW2 theatres of war, having previously caused headaches for the Axis powers in Berlin, Africa and Italy.

With the Allied victory in sight, Sniper Elite 5 takes the action to Nazi-occupied France.

After Sniper Elite 4’s somewhat refreshing sojourn into Axis-controlled Italy, this fifth outing takes us to the familiar setting of being behind enemy lines just before the Normandy D-Day landings. It’s a scenario, that is almost as common as depicting the D-Day landings, themselves. Call of Duty: Vanguard covered the same setting late last year.

But here we are again, playing as a crack marksman, alone, and in enemy territory. Rebellion has not really stepped out of its comfort zone with this latest instalment of the celebrated Sniper Elite franchise. And, to be honest, I don’t blame them. Players familiar with the gameplay of the previous games will find themselves very much at home. Sniper Elite 5 takes the winning formula and polishes it up rather than reinventing it, the result is a game that is every bit as thrilling as its predecessors.

As is the way with any game from Rebellion, it takes a while to get used to the weird, slightly stiff, way the game’s movement control mechanic works. It’s been like it for years across the Sniper Elite games and even the developer’s fun Strange Brigade game.

Teaming up with British commandos and the French resistance, Fairburne must make his way from the coast inland. He is initially charged with taking out the Nazi coastal defences and early warning system ready for the Allied D-Day invasion. It becomes clear, however, that the Germans are plotting something big. Whilst trapped behind enemy lines, Fairburne decides to go after Ubergruppenführer Abelard Möller and find out what he is up to. This leads him on the trail of a top-secret Nazi project called Operation Kraken.

For a sniping game, I spent plenty of time running away and hiding from Nazis.

Sniper Elite 5 is all about patience. Gung-ho heroes will quickly find themselves the subject of a very effective manhunt.  Unlike in other games, the enemy will hunt you down rather than just duck with their little head peeking out ready to receive a shot of lead. The AI is notably crafty. The Nazis are not shy to raise the alarm and will seek to flank you if they know where you are.

This includes the odd tank and armoured car which you need to be particularly careful with.

There are plenty of weapons to choose from. As well as his sniper rifle, Fairburne carries a sidearm and a machine gun. The pistol can be silenced for stealth kills, with the machine gun reserved for when things go pear-shaped. As I mentioned, the game’s AI is very astute and will investigate loud noises. In some circumstances sneaking up for a melee kill is the best option. All the weapons can be upgraded if you have the parts via workbenches handily dotted around the game.

The visuals are a bit last-gen. Not bad last-gen, just last-gen.

It’s still a very polished game, it’s just the character models could do with an overhaul. That being said, the series’ renowned, and very gory, slow-motion x-ray bullet cams are still a treat, offering a gratuitous, but guiltily satisfying, moment of triumph when a carefully aimed bullet hits its mark.

The huge maps offer diverse gameplay that is as much about stealthy infiltration as sniping. Players will find themselves in open countryside dotted with checkpoints and artillery batteries, as well as Nazi installations and fortresses, and occupied French towns. These open maps of Sniper Elite 5 are the game’s strongest attribute. With players able to navigate to targets as they wish, it’s a unique experience every time. The detailed environments require thought and care when traversing.

On completion of each level’s main mission, you must guide Fairburne to the exfiltration point. A summary page then details the approach that you used to carry out the assignment.

With each map easily taking a couple of hours, the game has plenty of longevity. The game invites players to revisit the levels by unlocking alternative starting points to spice things up. There are also collectables and side missions that you may have missed the first time around.

After nine missions having revealed and dealt with both Operation Kraken and its Nazi mastermind Möller, the credits roll. The tenth mission is premium, day one DLC. I’m not a fan of this sort of profiteering. But it is a Sniper Elite tradition to release a DLC pack that has you going after Hitler, and that’s exactly what the Wolf Mountain level has you doing.

The game is further extended via some inspired multiplayer modes. The campaign can also be played co-op by either hosting or finding a game. For an interesting bit of PvP, Axis Invasion allows players to infiltrate other players’ campaigns as an elite German sniper. Survival is a horde-style mode that can be played solo or with up to four other players facing off waves of enemies.

There’s also a more traditional 16-player multiplayer deathmatch that can be played free-for-all, with two teams or four squads. Matches can be modified with different rule sets for extra variety. The multiplayer mode support cross-play, which can be turned off, if you wish, for platform-specific matches.

Whilst Sniper Elite 5 doesn’t change much of the formula of its forebears, it is probably the best in the series to date. The massive open-world maps are full of detail and competent enemies. The game invites players to approach the game as they like, making for some intense gunfights and nail-biting stealth, depending on what floats your boat.

It’s a game that’ll have you continuing to play, and returning to, long after the credits have rolled.

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