Recent reviews by Soul†Riven

STAR WARS Jedi: Fallen Order (SWJFO) is an action-adventure game with ideas/mechanics aped from other genres; the most obvious being Dark Souls. I have played just over 70 hours, exploring every inch of the map, collecting all collectables, achieving all achievements and have completed the game to 100% on multiple difficulties. What follows is my honest opinion of what I thought.

This game is a looker; beautiful even! The individual ‘worlds’ - explorable levels for all intents and purposes – are generally gorgeous. Each have a unique aesthetic which will have you traveling from a fractured grassy knoll planet to a verdant planet covered in rainforests to a barren tundra, all in true Star Wars fashion. Even Dathomir, with its wretched bogs, dilapidated ruins and predominantly red color palette was graphically satisfying and served to enhance the gameplay and story’s plotline. Similarly, everything from the character models to the customizable skins for various things really showed a depth of care on the part of the developers (Respawn Entertainment).

The storyline was painfully linear but fairly well done, self-contained and conveniently cannon. Convenient in the sense that the plot advances absolutely nothing in terms of the wider Star Wars story so saying it’s cannon is like saying a doodle I drew of Darth Vader drinking a milk shake is cannon… cool to know it took place but it means nothing. You begin the game as a ship-breaking scrapper, swiftly reveal your force powers to save your implied scrapper friend and all Hell breaks loose shortly thereafter… an Inquisitor named Trilla is now gunning for you. Fortunately, you’re saved by your future compatriots, escape and begin your quest of reestablishing the Jedi Order. To do this you’ll need to unlock a vault to gain the names of all the good Force-sensitive girls and boys… but you’ll need information… which points to a key… and you’ll need to find the person who knows where the key is located… all pretty standard stuff. Each chapter tells its portion of the story well without overstaying its welcome and the writers made a good effort at providing nuance… which is something Disney Star Wars does very infrequently these days it seems.

The interplay between characters is well done, in general, but what I loved was Cal’s interactions with BD-1, his little droid companion you pick up early in the game – because it aint Star Wars without a droid making endearing beeps and boops – and bond they develop throughout. I found myself having Cal talk to BD-1 (via the Scan button) just to hear their banter. The rest of the characters interact well with Cal and are well worth taking the time to interact with in order gain greater character/story nuance… Greez, the neurotic piolet and former gambler, as well as Merrin, a Force-wielding witch who is equal parts sarcastic and deadpan, were especially fun. Even Cere and your perceived nemesis Trilla are more fleshed out than other characters in the franchise! All that said, the character interactions and story can be… tenuous at times. Whether it was because of the way I progressed through the game or because it was as intended, the characters hinted at Greez’s gambling problem and associated debts at one point and an hour of exploration later, I was later jumped by a Bounty Hunter without preamble, ending up in a Bounty Hunter gladiatorial arena on an asteroid. Which feels like a good place to begin listing my issues.

While I understand that the game’s story is linear and scripted to be as such, creating enemies that have health bars that can’t be beaten isn’t cruise control for good design… though, I get how Disney Star Wars creams itself at the mere mention of subverting expectations at the moment. If you want a scripted scene, script the scene… don’t patronize players with ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ encounters and quick-time events that amount to exactly what you were going to do anyway. Since we’re on the topic of fighting mechanics, make the blocking/dodging work 100% of the time, every time… none of this Anchorman, Sex Panther bull. Varying difficulty settings – which you can change on the fly – within the game will demand a higher degree of timing while doing either but even after setting the difficulty down to lower levels to test the mechanic, encounters with bosses, those Electrobaton Purge Troopers and some creatures still led to getting stun-locked in combo moves that should have been blocked/dodged. This may have been due, in some part, to the insane tracking that enemies seem to have which are best demonstrated by the creature-type mobs. Some of the bigger creatures in the game have the ability to begin an unblockable pounce animation facing one direction, only to pivot 45 degrees to complete it while keeping you locked in. I get that the Force is everywhere and in everything but how about spiders and jotaz not be able to use it to pirouette like a ballerina in combat at least? Other smaller issues exist, like taking extra steps to move miniscule distances making minor movement adjustments aggravating as well as smashing up against invisible walls while exploring with annoying frequency… but those are minor in comparison.

Mechanically, SWJFO functions as a Star Wars-flavored, baby’s first Dark Souls game with better platforming. You collect your power-ups and gain new abilities through exploration and combat, saving your progress at campfires cleverly disguised as meditation circles. Should you wish to regain your health and consumable heals, you may do so but at the cost or respawning any non-story related mobs. From that point of view, it functions well enough and, if I’m honest, slicing through enemies with a lightsaber and throwing people around with the Force never got old for me. Unlike, Dark Souls, BD-1 comes with a holographic map of the level you’re on which will give you an indication of where to go next, what hasn’t been explored and what you don’t have access to with your current set of jedi skills. It’s a bit much at first glance but after you sort it all out and learn how to control the map functionality, it is a tremendous boon to your overall exploration.

So, what’s the conclusion? While I would usually rather get kicked squarely in the twig and berries than give a tip of the cap to EA or Disney Star Wars… in this case, I would be remiss and dishonest if I did not. The game is good for what it is and, if you wait for a sale (ALWAYS WAIT FOR A SALE!), represents a solid cost-to-entertainment investment. Get the game, have a weekend’s worth of fun – or a week’s worth, if you’re a 100% freak – and move on with a burgeoning hope that Star Wars will eventually become a good franchise again… with decent characters, solid writing and led by people passionate about source material. I mean they’ve already killed off all the OT characters and axed the expanded universe… how much worse could it really get? *sigh*

Horizon: Zero Dawn (HZD) is an open-world, action-adventure, RPG… in the same vein as Assassin’s Creed or Far Cry… or the Last of Us 2. I have played over 150 hours, exploring every inch of the map/associated dungeons, collecting all collectables and completing both the base game as well as its expansion to 100%. What follows is my honest opinion of what I thought.

Graphically, this game stands out. Sweeping vistas of varying ecological zones – what the terrain might look like in the American Northwest/Southwest if human development and population was minimal… and after an atomic world war – were quite beautiful. The terrain was well integrated and transitioned relatively smoothly into each various zone. The character models were more than serviceable as well, showing a great level of care and attention to detail from the developers... although some seemed to be inexplicably shiny for no apparent reason. And… that’s where the majority of the compliments end; it’s a very pretty game.

The storyline was your standard ‘humans build machines, machines kill humans’ fare leading to an ending anyone whose played a video game ever saw coming from the moment you bought Horizon. After the initial teen-angst portion – wherein our protagonist agonizes over where she’s from and what her place in the world is, the story verily FLYS through how: a mad king was deposed; a loyalist faction broke away to plot the retaking of the kingdom; the earth was destroyed; the earth was to be rebuilt by AI; a rogue AI is the rogue faction’s God which happens to be Hell-bent on destroying the earth once more. As it turns out… you are the only one who can save the world. So far, so trite... but solid enough.

The side-quests tended to be only tangentially relevant to the overall story but they provide, perhaps, the best examples of one of my biggest issues with the game as a whole. The blatantly obvious feminist themes were… well, blatantly obvious. If you are addressing a man, he is either pathetic, sinister, an addict or just generally wrong-headed and/or sleezy… or all of the above. Only Rost and Varl are spared... in a manner of speaking. If you are addressing a woman, she is either tragically set-upon by an evil man, a brilliant tactician, unaccountably badass (even though they do not simply do what you are being asked to do on the quest), unrealistically kind/charitable, an aggressive lesbian or simply in-command of everyone in a given radius because… reasons. But the snark…

Most every female character in the game went to the school of Twitter and learned how to be an ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ to absolutely everyone they talk to… for little to no reason or provocation… just like Twitter, in fact. The banter is laughably awful or cringe-inducing and the quips are unwarranted or needlessly harsh. I’d compare it to the way you hear a snotty, entitled pre-teen talk to their pussified, PC parents in a store when they’re not getting their way. Now imagine that… but for almost every female NPC. I’ve played video games where the protagonist was an inexplicable idiot – Miles Upshur from Outlast is a fine example with all of his retarded quips – and Aloy absolutely follows suit. There’s a brief interaction between Aloy and a much more interesting character, Sylens (future antagonist of HZD 2, one would assume), wherein he nailed how I felt about Aloy 30 min into the entire game: “It’s not that I don’t understand, Aloy. It’s that I don’t care”. For all her power and intellect (I chose all Insightful responses for Aloy hoping that thinking rationally would help… it didn’t), she’s a snarky child that, out-of-nowhere, does a complete 180 to become a messiah because reasons and I didn’t feel anything. Such a rushed, poorly executed and ultimately meaningless character arch for a character that could have been really something... it's really quite sad!

As Horizon is so much like others in its genre, in doing exactly as its predecessors do, it does a competent job. The running, jumping, fighting, scaling sheer cliffs with barely an effort are all… fine; no better or worse than what came before. “Hacking” robots to have a robot death battle was pretty fun… but only up until the 50th time or so. Other than the obvious aesthetic differences though, it’s all just Assassins Creed.

Other more minor issues abound. Riding a mount can be difficult in the steering department. The voice actors were hit-or-miss - either nailing their performance or being so off-base as to beg the question ‘who on the dev’s staff are you related to that you got that job’. Either that or the facial animations didn’t synch up with the performance. For some reason, I had an entire cut-scene conversation wherein the characters’ lips were out of synch with their words… like an old, bad Kung Fu movie dub. Aside from that, the character animation was generally fine but you really have to learn what is acceptable and not… falling from a cliff because Aloy didn’t lock on to a cliff-side, finger-hold like she had done every time before and not being in just the right place to hack a machine only to have it turn about to chew on your face was generally annoying.

The Frozen Wilds expansion is a cut above the actual game. With game play that is slightly more challenging (some of the more murderous machines are un-hackable), a storyline with as much effort put in as the original and the same beautiful landscapes (when the constant snowing takes a breather), it is truly well done. Obviously, the snarky quips and 'I am woman, hear me roar' criticism still applies but at least the men aren't all absolute clods. You'll also want to pay attention and fully explore the final act's dungeon if you're trying for a 100%; there's a very missable datapoint that can be overlooked and you can't re-enter to pick it up later. If you did buy HZD, it would be a shame to miss out on Frozen Wilds.

Overall, if you are a fan of Last of Us 2, you automatically hate this review and have already bought the game. If you enjoy open-world, action-adventure RPGs, the graphics and game mechanics may be enough to see you through. If you haven’t played it and are thinking about picking it up… either wait for a BIG sale (like I did) or give this a pass. If you want the same general experience, Far Cry Primal is well worth a look instead.

*Hunt: Showdown*

Part first-person shooter/battle royal and part zombie survival, Hunt: Showdown is perhaps the best game of either genre so far in 2018. Hunt is ostensibly set in Louisiana and sports a Wild Wild West feel as you battle hoards of zombies and specialized undead creatures to kill your main target and collect their bounty. These "boss" targets are currently a Demon Spider and Undead Butcher from the pits of Hell. Watch out, however, because you're not the only one attempting to cash in! Currently, there are ten 10 players - or 5 teams of 2 - that are looking to win that bounty … even if that means killing you and every other player in the game to do it! So watch your back … once you die, your hunter is dead forever!

Again, easily one of the best games on the market currently … full of suspense, "horror" and enough salt to fill an ocean when you die over and over and over until you "get gud". Check out what it's all about:

Instead of burying the take away in the last paragraph, let me start by saying: GET THIS GAME if the following sounds like even a little bit of fun. There is a learning curve but after a few games you’ll get the hang of things. The chances of meeting friends on this game to play with is extremely high if you’re a friendly person.

Dead by Daylight is an asymmetric, horror game which pits four survivors against one killer. The survivor's objective is to repair five of the eight generators - which spawn randomly at the beginning of each round - and make their way to the two exits - which also spawn randomly at the beginning of each round - to activate the doors and escape. The killer's objective is ostensibly to simply kill but the process is a bit more complicated than that. For a survivor to be taken out of the game, a killer must hit them twice to knock them down to the ground and hook them; it takes a maximum of three hooks to “kill” a survivor.

Due to the asymmetric nature of the game, the killer will be slightly faster, will have a weapon to damage survivors and use an ability specific to that killer to slay their victims. Survivors, while they cannot use weapons themselves can take advantage of certain items, barricades/pallets and use the terrain to their advantage. Both can use perks, add-ons (which augment an item or ability) and offerings which can dramatically alter the experience of the round for better or worse.

While there are a few bugs that can appear during gameplay, Dead by Daylight is an ever-evolving game as the developers seem genuinely interested in the game and its community. The love and attention that they put into everything they do as well as the amount of consideration they give to the gamers who play is astounding.
As stated in the beginning, if this is a genre that you’re interested in or are simply looking for a few friends to hang out with, this game is an excellent choice. I hope you’ll pull the trigger and get it … and if you do, I’ll see you in the fog.


~Ken Riven

Getting tired of how your survivors look? Feels like you've seen it all before? Would you like a Nia that looks like she's wearing a strawberry on her head, a Jake that looks reminisent of the infamous YouTuber/Twitchy The Montologist and a Dwight that looks like the douchbag we all know he really is?! Well you're in luck!

This DLC package is the most expansive to date, featuring new looks for all of the base model characters; two new looks each. Unfortunately, this DLC excludes the trademarked characters, Laurie and Bill, and also, sadly, the newest survivor, Feng. However, for the price tag (currently 2.99 USD at time of writing), this DLC is well worth the money and, I expect, will signal to the developers that selling more skins may be a good idea.

Conclusion: If you enjoy the game and enjoy variety in your survivors' looks, this DLC is something to give a long think over ... afterwhich you'll want to snap it up. Enjoy and ... see you all you Aces going with the Burt Reynolds look in the Mist!


~Voice of Riven~