Recent reviews by Berazzler

For me, this was a welcome return to the world of half walls. I haven't really been thrilled with cover mechanic games since Vanquish, but this I enjoyed. It shares a lot of similarites with Gears of War based on mechanics, all the same joys and ills. However, my biggest complaint with Gears, is the overly drab, too much machismo, stupidity that permeates the characters, the story and the gameplay. The sci-fi paranoia of this is much more engaging, and doesn't turn me off. The colour palette and retro feel is more refreshing, too.

Additionally, The Bureau distances itself from Gears with squad controls, and various perks. The perks are almost all fun and engaging to deploy across all the various classes, and there were a couple of missions where I just let my squad and their perks take charge. However, with every squad command game there are issues: here too, your squad will move from the cover you've placed them to freelance a bit, even if they've taken minimal fire, hopping into the open to get roasted. If they manage to survive this gambit out from cover, another issue comes into play. Whether its moving a squadmate, or deploying a perk, it must be steered across a path that a human can travel. This sometimes means you can't get your squad to quickly hop back over a wall they just jumped, and sometimes you can't trhow deployables over half walls.

Overall though, this is a very competent cover mechanic game with light squad strategies, playing somewhat similarly, but perhpas more robust than the later Mass Effects.

For those who dismiss it because it isn't XCOM, or XCOM: Enemy Unknown, you're right, it isn't, not even nearly, but that's gaming royalty, too. You'll see some familiar aliens from the franchise, and be told a decent narrative that is almost so disconnected from XCOM that it won't impact your experiences with that game either way. I say sit back, enjoy a fun, light romp through alien paranoia of the atomic age.

It really tries to be good, it does. It does admirably well as far as most mouse-click, item-find games go, and the central mystery is decent enough. There's just a few outstanding issues it faces. One, finding the correct items is unbearable, not because of any sense of ingenuity or cleverness, but because the graphics are shoddy, and necessary objects can often times just blend in to their surroundings. Two, once you do manage to claim all the right inventory, what to do with them, and where to put them is painfully simple. Three, while the game is no difficult in the sense that it will not test your mettle, it is needlessly complicated by timed sections and other hoops to jump through that aren't properly explained. This combined with occasional crashes makes forward progress slightly more difficult. Voice acting, sound and pretty much all presentational elements or subpar.

Started here as I progress my way through the Frogware Sherlock games. Nowhere to go but up, right?

I desperately want to recommend Just Cause 2 because it DOES have a lot of positives, and inventive wrinkles on the sandbox genre, but unfortunately, for me, the negatives just slightly outpace the positives.

One of these inventive wrinkles is of course, traversal. Armed with grappling hook and parachute, the player can zip and glide around not only the map, but the verticality of the world with speed and ease. Well, ease when it works. I'd say about 25% of the time the grappling hook doesn't work, or will attach itself to something, but either not pull Rico in, or pull him toward something, only to not stick him to that surface. This has resulted in countless deaths. This severly handicaps what is arguably Just Cause 2's most distinguishable feature, leaving the player weighing whether the usefulnjess of doing it.

Another irritating takeaway from this feature is that on his own, the player can barely jump, often forcing them to use the grappling hook to get over simple walls or other obstacles. The fluidity of traversal would have felt much smoother and enjoyable if the player had the ability to mantle objects, or at worse, grab hold of ledges at the top of a jump and pull themselves up.

Similarly the concept of traversal is amped up via the ability to crawl around the exteriors of vehicles quickly, and bounce from vehicle to vehicle with a single button press. Unfortunately, the usability of this feature is extremely hampered by imprecision. Going from vehicle to vehicle is rather simple, true, but if it's a military vehicle, the player is forced into a quicktime event that—while simple—is annoying because vehicle health in this game is next to nil. By the time the player has completed the easy quicktime event, it is time to hop to the next vehicle.

It's funny that Sleeping Dogs offers a similar mechanic to its vehicle traversal, and while making the initial jump to another vehicle is mor complicated than it is here, the benefit is far greater than in Just Cause 2. In Sleeping Dogs, you're granted a new ride, quickly, and a dip in your notoriety. That is a Square Enix title, too, and I think the team learned. Here, you're just sat atop the car in surfing position, and have to press a button and then complete the quicktime, all while still getting shot by trailing military on motorcycles who are deadly accurate.

The ability to crawl around the outside of the car, while pulse-pounding cinemtography, isn't very useful, either. It provides momentary cover from those aforementioned deadeye motorcyclists, but presents a whole other issue when going from one side to another is often unresponsive, and as far as I can tell, the player cannot always go from the side of the car directly into the vehicle, which means they first need to complete the step of returning to the "car-surf position" before getting in (or changing cars). This is again, complicated by the unresponsive controls when crawling. Compounded with the slim vehicle health and the player will find themselves riding the front bumper of a car as it sets on fire and explodes. This makes it virtually useless for most gameplay except for the one long, awesome chase mission I've seen in ten hours of play.

To be continued as I clock more hours. More in-depth discussion of the notority (heat system), the gunplay, draw distance, vehicle controls and monster closets.

I love Sandbox games, so long as they aren't GTA, and while my favourite franchise is Saints Row, Sleeping Dogs is actually one of my favourite indiviudal titles. Perhaps I'm a sucker for Sleeping Dogs' indulgent, fully fleshed Hong Kong setting. However, it's such a joy to traverse this map, and have admittedly stale mini-games and expected mechnaics rethemed as a Kar-wai, To or Woo film.

One way, however, that Sleeping Dogs rises above its competitors, and the myraid of gang-related snaboxers beyond the setting and theme is how your character traverses the world. It was a stroke of genius to have the game open on an adrenaline-pumping, parkour-inspired chase scene. It sets the tone for the rest of the game, begging the player to rely on these skills far more than other games as they fluidly bound across the map.

It was also refreshing that the game constantly forced the player to ask which side of the line they were really on: are you more a cop or a gangster?

Loved it. Pure and simple.

Run and gun platformer in the vein of Contra, but instead of frenetic and fun, I found it to be tedious, with pointless rocketing mini-game like levels mixed in to break up the tedium. Some interesting mechanics are introduced, i.e. mind control, but ultimately, I found this game fairly stale and the 80's action flick, avian bro-isms a little tiresome.

This is more of the same Lego universe stuff we've come to know and love (or grow weary of). The production values are obviously muich higher here (except for the same shoddy typography and UI), and the fully voiced cast is appreciated. All in all, if you love the Lego games, you'll love this. If you love Marvel, you love the wide representation and in-jokes all over this game. That said, I've found a few of the puzzles strangely esoteric. I once sat in one spot early in the game waiting for a prompt that never showed up until I scooted over an almost negligble amount. I think the Lego-building rube-goldberg nature of the puzzles are more "complicated" which is a little more problematic as the controls aren't often tight enough for the slight hike in complexity.

A very welcome addition is the New York City Hub which plays like a Lego sandbox game steeped in Marvel lore. This is probably the best and most faithful Marvel game out there, odd as that might sound, with easter eggs and little Marvel secrets around every corner.