Recent reviews by Snoob

Even now, I can't find a game in this setting, at this scale, which does this type of gameplay better than Red Dragon does. Being a massive fan of Cold War hardware, taking the time to understand all the systems at work has been extremely rewarding and led to a better realization of real-life tactics (although the game is still very "video-gamey" in more than a few respects).

If I had to issue complaint, my first would be that the focus on Asia in this edition somewhat diminishes the experience; With the previous two games focusing on Europe, it seems somewhat trivial to me to port maps over from the previous games, allowing for a "best of both worlds" situation. The second would be that more campaigns should have been worked on as the game matured. These two flaws detract very little from the meat of the gameplay, however, which is multiplayer battles and interesting army compositions.

This game, to put it colloquially, is “a banger”. Mixing the loot mania of games like Diablo and Borderlands with over-the-shoulder combat and a pace somewhere between Bloodborne and Dark Souls, Nioh is a wonderful send-up to Sengoku-era Japan asking a rather interesting question: What if all that crazy Japanese folklore had a basis in reality, and had just been covered up after the fact? Playing as William, an Irish sailor on a course for Zipangu to find something important to you, the setting will end up playing host to one of the most endearing experiences I’ve had all year.

I’d like to offer a disclaimer now that you’ve read the cookie-cutter “it’s like Dark Souls” phrase: I said that, but it’s not entirely true. On top of having a three-layered “stance” system where changes affect your weapon’s entire moveset, fights must be met with confidence and skill as every enemy poses a different risk to your life. Each of the seven weapons shines in a different way, and investing in “samurai skills” will unlock their true potential. Also unlike in “SoulsBorne”, the enemies you’ll face have their own “stamina meters” (called “Ki”), and they follow the same rules you do (well, Yokai will get staggered every time you strike them after they run out, but it’s the same basic idea). Further complicating things is that every weapon has its own set of special bonuses, can have an elemental attack, and drops in a variety of rarities. Anyway, selecting which two weapons you wish to bring with you is crucial, almost as crucial as your choice of Guardian Spirit. Each of these mythical creatures (most of them of Japanese origin, though a few aren’t) allow William to activate a powerful technique called “Living Weapon” once he’s collected enough Amrita (a magical crystal you would be forgiven for referring to as “souls” throughout your gameplay), rendering him almost invulnerable for a short length of time while augmenting his attacks and allowing him to summon his current guardian for a host of effects (whether it be providing armor buffs, giving him some breathing room, or just delivering a beat-down of their own). This sounds like an “easy mode” button at first, but the game will soon throw enough obstacles in your way that you will be glad for a chance to level the playing field a bit. Each Spirit also provides a host of passive bonuses (the Southern Guardian Suzaku, for instance, allows the player to rise like a phoenix from the grave if they were able to activate Living Weapon when they died, while rainbow-feathered Tengen Kujaku provides its host with knowledge of the map in addition to being the only Spirit whose element changes) that help augment whatever build you might be pursuing, and they also serve to watch over your grave when you die at the cost of your ability to summon them (giving you a “last chance” to recover your Amrita not unlike the Souls games).

When William arrives in Japan, he finds the country embroiled in the aftermath of Oda Nobunaga’s death as Tokugawa Ieyasu tries to defend against enemies both within and without. As much as he doesn’t want to become involved in the foreign war, it must be done in order to find what he’s lost. This is the second big departure from the Souls series: Instead of traversing an open world (which is admittedly rather humbling and impressive in some respects), each mission has you focused like a laser on a specific part of Japan, where your goals are, for the most part, clear. This is not to say that the levels are linear, however, as it is rather easy to get lost within some of them and there are a glut of secrets just waiting for the ambitious explorer to find. Fighting off human enemies and Yokai (demonic spirits) alike, your goal (in the main missions, at least) is inevitably a boss of some sort at the end of the level, a powerful foe that will almost always test your mettle and force you back a few times before finally being vanquished. Each mission can easily take upwards of an hour the first time it’s attempted between having to become acquainted with the level and feeling the pain of dying again and again, but with time and practice can become easy enough to be accomplished in 30 minutes, or even 10 or less if following “speedrun tactics” (which I and the people playing alongside me at the same time took to calling them, among other things) if you need to revisit them for one reason or another. Between missions, you return to a base camp almost like those in Monster Hunter, managing, upgrading, and acquiring new gear in addition to leveling up. William’s adventures will take you all the way from Kyushu to Tohoku, with each region boasting its own environmental challenges and features, though many side missions will reuse those levels in one way or another (and boy, there are a lot of side missions; This game has tons of content). Should you feel too challenged, or just want a nice change of pace, you can either summon a visitor by offering a sacred sake cup at the shrines that serve as your bonfire equivalents, or choose to tackle the entire game in a more unique co-op focused mode that adds more and harder enemies, a new mechanic that allows one of you to die but get rescued a limited number of times, and enjoy almost all of the journey alongside one another (I say almost because the missions that take place in England to start the story and wrap it up are two notable omissions to this system, though they shouldn’t give you too much trouble).

Alright, I’ve been ranting on quite a bit, so I’ll wrap this up. Nioh had barely registered on my radar during its initial release, but I picked it up the day it launched on PC and played it more or less daily ever since. I’ve beaten the game “completely” three times, gone through three levels of “new game” (each of which adds new gear qualities, skills to master, enemy placement and AI improvements, on top of other obstacles to overcome) on top of that, and have been tackling The Abyss (a 999-floor-long dungeon that is part boss rush and part stage attack) in between all of that. It feels like there’s still a lot for me to do and learn. Has it crashed? Oh, sure, several times. Have I ever lost anything meaningful due to that? Not once. If you can deal with a little difficulty in your games, this is my recommendation for you. Everything about this game sparkles, and it was probably my favorite thing to come out of 2017.

Alright, so it’s not a secret that as I’m writing this, Warhammer 2 isn’t in the best spot right now. It’s a little rough around the edges, even if it’s not at Rome 2 levels. But this is a look at the game from a wide angle, to be sure, so let’s get started. With that out of the way: Warhammer 2 is (currently) the latest installment in the Total War series, which tasks you with managing vast campaigns and carrying out grand battles. This installment focuses on the New World of the Warhammer Fantasy universe, which brings two flavors of Elf (High and Dark), the rat-like Skaven, and the cold-blooded Lizardmen into the motley crew of races on offer so far (discounting the Tomb Kings, who aren’t out yet or part of the base game, but are shaping up to be really cool).

Opinions are pretty mixed about how the Vortex campaign works, and that’s fair. Personally, I’m a fan of it, even if I feel like it’s too easy to just ignore what’s supposed to be a failure condition (and believe me, you’ll need to ignore it on higher difficulties, where the AI outraces you to the end so quickly that you will be thanking the designers for making it almost impossible to lose due to a Vortex defeat even if it’s theoretically possible), but Mortal Empires was the more appealing draw for me. This secondary campaign requires you to own the original Warhammer, but then adds the entire Old World into the mix too, giving you a ridiculously massive set of continents to conquer as your chosen races. Alliances will form, unlikely superpowers will emerge, and because Norsca’s not included yet, Surtha Ek will send 18 chariots and an infantry unit at you. It has a few performance issues, but I will admit that I’m slightly under-spec, and it’s incredibly satisfying to be able to mess with the whole world (with a few omissions).

At the same time as I heap praise onto this title, it’s somewhat obvious that Creative Assembly are spreading themselves a little thin. Warhammer 2’s “FreeLC” offerings thus far are well behind the timetable set by the original, not to mention the DLC has been slimmer (Beastmen were out 2 months after release, while we’ve waited nearly 5 for the Tomb Kings). I suspect this is due to the somewhat-rough shape Mortal Empires put the game in when it released, and only time will tell if they will make good on their promises or cut their losses. For what it’s worth, I remain confident the former is the case, and the game as it stands is definitely worth the asking price to me, being one of my favorite releases of 2017.

In this strategy game not-so-subtly inspired by the Russian Revolution, animals fight one another in order to avoid becoming food. There is a twist, however: You aren’t just a mouse, but the mouse cursor. By waving your flag, you rally your troops, tell them to attack specific targets, or move them across the randomly-generated maps. This is the most major way Tooth and Tail toys with the standards of the RTS genre, but a lot of other tweaks have been made. For example, your production structures activate automatically once you gather enough food, with each acting as a population building and barracks all at once. Instead of matches taking upwards of 20 minutes, the median time is roughly 7, and a starvation mechanic kicks in to make sure things don’t drag on excessively without collusion.

This probably sounds horrible. In practice, though, it’s great. As a veteran of countless strategy games, being able to see what your opponent is focusing their attention on opens up a new and unique level of mind-games, and being unable to effectively manage multiple forces at once allows every unit and tactic a chance to shine. As for the campaign, I cleared it in about 8 hours before a patch reduced how hard some of the most difficult missions were (Howling Veil, The Hungry Face a Stiff Wind, and one of the last missions in the game whose name escapes me being the biggest standouts). It is a story with ups and downs, and while it’s a little paint-by-numbers, the finale is an excellent payout that echoes the reality of civil war. Returning to a hub between missions allows you to gain insight into the game world, a setting which definitely has merit enough to be explored further. When you’re done with the campaign (or choose to skip out on it), split-screen and online multiplayer are available, allowing you to test your mettle in FFA, handicap matches, team games, and traditional 1v1.

With a meta that continues to evolve with several semi-regular tournaments and consistent balance patches, accessible gameplay that can appeal to everybody from those who grew up on Age of Empires to gamers who have never built a base before, and a surprising amount of character, Tooth and Tail really surprised me earlier this year. I certainly got my money’s worth out of it, but if you aren’t sold just yet, it’s probably better to wait for a sale.

Firaxis may do some things incorrectly, but one thing I’ve never been able to fault them on is the quality of their expansion packs (not to be confused with normal DLC). War of the Chosen raises the bar yet again by providing an experience so complete and feature-rich that, much like Enemy Within for the original XCOM reboot, you’ll ask yourself why you’d ever play the normal game again.

Adding various factions to court for benefits and unique soldiers helps to shake up the dynamics of the mid game quite a bit, taking gameplay from a straightforward tech and production arms race to perhaps picking and choosing your battles a little more carefully. Performance has been improved quite a bit, which is nice because I never felt like XCOM 2’s visuals were quite worth how difficult it appeared to be to run. Old systems like Dark Events were enhanced to make them more meaningful, there are more “Second Wave” options, and all the DLC has been integrated more smoothly into the storyline instead of being a very obvious tangent. Now, for the most part (see below), the difficulty escalation feels far better, with there always being something poised to knock you down a peg if you get too cocky. Most importantly, you can’t just rely on a team of “power rangers” to carry XCOM through every mission any more, as something approximating Long War 2’s “fatigue” system has been implemented (though it is a lot less harsh than it, so don’t fret too much).

Now for the negatives. I felt like the titular Chosen were a little too easy to take down when they showed up on missions, which is funny because the way Alien Rulers work now can feel a little frustrating (I had the Berserker Queen show up before I had run into normal Muton Berserkers, for instance, and when she has over 50 health and takes an action every time one of your soldiers does, it’s... not optimal). I also think it cost just a little much given that this is the “definitive version” of the game (it would cost you about 100 dollars to pick the game up from scratch when this first came out, although some prices have been lowered). If you can pick up the base game on the cheap, though, this is an almost mandatory pick-up. You will not regret playing the game like this, even if it’s your first time (although it may make it quite a bit more challenging if you’re going in blind). If you already own XCOM 2, this is one of the best values in gaming released all year, if you ask me, especially on sale.

Endless Space 2 is far and away an improvement on the original release that kicked off the whole setting (at least, to my knowledge). By taking what they learned from Endless Legend and adapting it back to the stars, Amplitude have managed to make a 4X game that only hasn’t eaten more of my time this year due to there being far more titles coming out. Balancing politics, diplomacy, warfare, trade, research, development, and the empire as a whole, it’s hard to imagine that this came out in Early Access the same month that Civ 6 released proper.

Starting out on a single planet of a star system leaves a lot of room to grow, and as you do so, your empire will soon start to take a different path than expected. Decisions must be made that will influence the direction your people go, such as whether to hunt down a group of bandits or absorb them into the empire. Each offers two or three choices that result in distinct bonuses, with the biggest being the United Empire’s ability to crown a new emperor that completely overhauls how their race’s mechanics work. This is adding onto the already-radical changes that each race has over one another, such as buying out worlds with Dust (the setting’s currency) instead of food or being able to spend Influence to purchase ships and improvements instantly. There’s a playstyle for almost everybody to be had, even if it’s not immediately visible.

Naturally, I don’t think any game is without its flaws, and Endless Space 2 still has one or two. In my experience, the empire choices gently railroad you down a certain path, such as research or combat. Due to this, and how the political system works, you will definitely find it a bit hard to “shift gears” past about the early-middle stages of any match. I’m also more than a little disappointed that battles remain relatively “hands-off” instead of something like the tile-based combat we saw in Endless Legend. Ground battles work in much the same way, and while it keeps turns moving briskly no matter the size of your multiplayer group, I felt that it was one of the biggest points that could have been improved upon in a sequel. Both of these relatively minor complaints are not enough to ruin the experience by any means, which means that it’s definitely still a solid recommendation in my book.

From the same developers that went on to release Bayonetta and Metal Gear Rising comes Vanquish, a strange mix of character action games and “spectacle shooters”. Using a prototype suit designed by DARPA, you’re able to slide around at high speed and slow down time, both individually and simultaneously. These are both skills you will need in order to survive, as you have a rather realistic amount of regenerating health.

Once you get the controls and movement quirks under your belt, it feels rather satisfying to skate around the battlefields blasting anything that moves. Playing with a mouse and keyboard is not very bad at all, and was actually my preferred way to play. But where Vanquish really stands out are the boss fights; If you thought Platinum making Metal Gear RAY the tutorial boss in Revengeance was original, you clearly haven’t seen what’s in this one. Weapon variety is also incredibly good, although realistically speaking there are several weapons that seem like they only lend themselves well to self-imposed challenges, and it can be hard to find ammo for the rarer ones. Weapons also upgrade when you either fill them up and pick up ammo or find an upgrade kit, providing a somewhat-novel method of power creep without exactly reinventing the wheel.

Like with any Platinum game, the storyline is one of Vanquish’s weak points. It’s so corny that it might as well be set in Kansas instead of on a space station, and while that’s excusable, it’s just hard to take things seriously, and a rather important plot point feels like it was supposed to be written far more seriously with how jarring the shift in tone was. I also found the game to be rather hard, but that could be because I finished it before the patch that made running at 60 FPS not also double your received damage while halving your ARS gauge timer. At any rate, be prepared to die quite a bit until you either get good with the game or overcome whatever adversity you’re facing. Finally, it’s quite short (I’d guess about 4-5 hours), so if you don’t like replaying levels to get better scores or execute things more stylishly, maybe wait until a sale. With all that in mind, it certainly still gets a thumbs-up.

Streets of Rogue is another weird game that doesn’t have any obvious peers. In short, I’d say it’s a mash-up of “roguelike elements” and class-based RPGs; While combat is certainly a big part of the game’s mechanics, you can actually make it through the game without firing a shot, punching a person, or getting in any other sort of trouble. Choosing from many members of a motley crew of strange bedfellows, your goal is to climb the city... tower... thing to kill the mayor (or something like that). You do this by accomplishing missions on each floor, ranging from “neutralize this target” to “free this prisoner” to “blow up this entire building” and then some.

Where this gets a little nuts is in the execution. Every character has their own unique attributes. The Hacker, for example, can both interact with electronics at range and access additional options on them that other people can’t. The Soldier is very good with guns, starts with several, and even has a slight jab at regenerating health with their Modern Warfarer perk. The Cop gets handcuffs that can incapacitate anybody from behind, but also gets penalized for harming or cuffing innocents. In this regard your choice of character can radically impact how the game flows, although to be entirely honest, trying to play with others typically devolves into a “smash and grab” playstyle rather quickly. Speaking of which, the online play works surprisingly well for a title with this kind of budget, but there have definitely been some hiccups here and there (most of which were fixed a patch or two later).

My primary critique comes from Streets of Rogue still being a work in progress. More-or-less weekly patches typically either add major overhauls, items, entirely new sections of the game to progress through, and/or new characters to fool around with. That’s definitely a good thing. What’s less encouraging is that sometimes there isn’t quite a method to the madness. While communication has always been focused upon heavily both ways, there are still a few weak links in the game itself, and the biggest one is how it tries (or fails, really) to explain new mechanics. The first time you run into something new, you are almost definitely going to die or be seriously inconvenienced by it, and the exact usage of a few items isn’t made clear until risky experimentation or seeing somebody else use them well happens before your eyes. If you can tolerate that, it’s definitely worth checking out.

Stepping back into the shoes of Sniper Elite Lt. Carl Fairburne, Sniper Elite IV doesn’t exactly reinvent the wheel when it comes to the franchise. Shooting members of the Axis armies? Check. Watching individual killing shots unfold in slow motion with all kinds of cutaways into the human body? Check. A rather forgettable, paint-by-numbers plot where you’re stopping yet another Nazi doomsday device? Check times two after you factor in DLC missions!

What’s appealing about this installment is the length of its levels, the amount of objectives packed into them, and the simple bliss of finding a hidey-hole to click on heads within. The relatively-untouched landscapes of Italy are a much more appealing backdrop than war-torn Berlin streets and the oddly-vertical, conveniently-flat-topped plateaus of the African theatre, and like with previous games in the series, you can do every single mission cooperatively, including a few which rely on you and your partner being a sniper-spotter team that can only be done with another player.

Unfortunately, it feels like finding a tall spot to hide out in and rain death upon your enemies has been discouraged even more than before as enemies are both quicker to catch on to your antics and less likely to take any risks once they know you’re in the area. Gone are the days of Sniper Elite V2 where stealth basically only lasted until your first kill, or V3’s “stick and move” approach. For me, at least, this made me feel less like a veteran sniper and more like Sam Fisher’s grandfather as I creeped through levels with a silenced pistol in hand, plinking soldiers through their helmets and using my rifle only as a last resort. You can certainly still snipe eagerly, but on any true difficulty setting, it felt strongly discouraged. Despite that, the game is still well worth the price whenever it goes on sale (which is rather frequently, in my experience).

Mixing time management, skilled typing (when using a keyboard, at least), and memorization in a somewhat odd way, what comes out of the oven isn’t quite like anything else on the market. Serving as somebody that appears to be both the proprietor and/or sole employee of a variety of restaurants, you are tasked with handling food and chore orders as they stream in. The most obvious goal (besides survival) is scoring a perfect day by getting every order exactly right, and if you really want to over-achieve you can go for getting a Delicious on every order by having perfect orders paired with optional “side dishes”.

CSD 2 is a straight improvement over the original by this point. There is more complexity without it all feeling overwhelming, even if some of the themed restaurants can end up being stressful enough that you can’t help but let out a long sigh of relief when you hear the final whistle blow. Foods range from fire-and-forget button presses to elaborate affairs of 6 or more steps, the themed restaurants scale up in difficulty as you continue pursuing their chains, and there’s been a steady trickle of content both to keep things from getting too stale and to deliver on what the community has been asking for. If it all becomes too much for you, you can get a local friend in on the action to help keep the workload down.

Now for the caveats. This is definitely a game that will ask a lot of you when it comes to dexterity if you want to become really accomplished, and I still don’t like how multiple pages of a recipe can have the same key press do different things. Still, when you’re on a hot streak, you can really feel it, which makes breaking your combo feel even more disappointing; With the exception of a few foods, it’s always very clear that user input errors were the source of this disappointment, but for the most part the game doesn’t do much to incentivize you to seek out additional challenge without going for it yourself. That detail’s not a problem for me, but it might be for some people.