Welcome back to our ongoing Call of Duty review of Vanguard. In part 2, we’re discussing the campaign! Believe it or not, there are a lot of people out there still buying the game for the campaign only. I personally could care less for the campaigns, but I still play through them for principal reasons and obviously so I can complete the reviews. Moving forward, let’s discuss the storyline first. We kicked things off in 1945, during World War II. You are part of the Vanguard Task Force One and tasked with finding enemy intelligence and ultimately making sure the good guys win the war. Your team is made up of characters from the USA, Russia, England and Australia. A touch crew of misfits at that. As you play through the game, the story isn’t that great. I won’t spoil anything for you, as I try to avoid that, but I want to. I want to tell you exactly why I don’t like the sorry, but I’ll save that for a time where spoilers aren’t so much a concern anymore. Let’s just say, it’s rather mediocre and there isn’t very bonding with the characters. They are less than memorable. The graphics of the game irritate me because this game should look amazing. Unfortunately, it’s watered down and doesn’t look very next/current gen. This game was pushed back in 2020, and we got an underdeveloped version of Black Ops Cold War instead. Well, the extra year working on Vanguard didn’t help very much. Audio is definitely in good standing with me. Footsteps are where they should be and the sound effects aren’t overpowering each other like they do in Cold War and Warzone. A silenced weapon sounds silenced and you can still hear enemy and friendly footsteps over it. I typically turn the music level to zero and make other minor adjustments to fit my play style with little distraction. I use the same settings in the campaign as I do in Multiplayer. I probably shouldn’t as I’m sure I’m missing out on some things, but as I said earlier, I only play the campaign for principal and review reasons. Controls are tight and work flawlessly, but that’s definitely to be expected. Where the Call of Duty franchise falls short, one thing I can always count on is controls that aren’t clunky or wonky. Responsiveness is extremely important and Vanguard is no exception. The campaign is of course rather short. I managed to complete it in under 7 hours and that’s with looking around and taking my time to explore what I could when I could. Unfortunately, the storyline isn’t great and the campaign is easily forgettable. I just can’t imagine buying a game at full price and playing it for 7 hours and feeling like I got my money’s worth, but some do, so hopefully they’re satisfied with their purchase. All in all, I rate the Vanguard campaign a 6 out of … Read More
Aliens Fireteam Elite Review?
Some of you have been wondering where our Aliens Fireteam Elite review is. I’m here to clear that up for you. It just wasn’t good enough to bother publishing a review. No, it’s not a 1 out of 10 title, but it is closer to a 4 out of 10. It feels and looks unoriginal and doesn’t come close to providing a long run experience before it becomes repetitive. Graphics are bottom barrel and controls aren’t that tight. Sure, it costs less than your typical triple A title, but even a lower cost can’t justify paying full price. No matter the price (even if it was free), it would still be a disappointing third person shooter that would be better as a poster and not much more. Granted, that’s my opinion and not all of us will agree, but that’s my stance. 4 out of 10 and even that’s giving it too high of a score for my taste. What did you think of the Aliens Fireteam? Were you lucky enough to pass or did you play? Let me know your thoughts in the comments!
DeathLoop Review
DeathLoop is a masterpiece that should be played by anyone that has even the smallest interest. Playing through DeathLoop only saddens me further when I think about Microsoft buying Bethesda, but at least we got to play DeathLoop. Ok, enough of the sappy and more of the happy, right? Right! DeathLoop is a fun first person shooter that dives deep into the concept of time. It’s complicated in ways and can be confusing at times. It can drag on a little of the repetitive side, but for me at least, there is little to complain about. I have heard a lot of players complaining about how they had to try and keep up with unfolding the storyline through side missions and the main game and I kind of surprised anyone would think this is something to complain about. A lot of games use side missions to expand the game and offer more options to the player. You don’t have to play all the side missions to understand the story. Playing them just gives you a better understanding of the story on top of it. To sum it up, the story is really good. Well written and mind boggling at times. I would love to meet the minds behind the storyline because there was a lot of creativity with this one. I can respect that the storyline isn’t for everyone, but I think if someone wasn’t interested in a sci-fi story type about time and assassins and borderline rewind and try again scenarios, they probably wouldn’t pick up the game. That being said, it’s a good story… Let’s just leave it at that. Gameplay mechanics are responsive and not complicated to learn. This isn’t really a surprise because most games have tight responsive controls, it’s still important to mention. If the mechanics were not so up to par, I’d have to mention that too. Just sayin. Graphics… boy oh boy are the graphics something to whistle about. Now I know that if someone has a nice PC rig, they’re gonna find a way to mention it because they can’t help themselves, but this is about the PS5 and this machine can deliver quite the experience. DeathLoop is gorgeous on a million levels. Well, that’s an exaggeration, but it is beautiful to say the least. It really does take talent to put something like that together. Without spoiling the story, you are an assassin that is being antagonized by another assassin. You’re out to eliminate your enemies, while surviving everything in between. You will have to use your thinking cap to get ahead of the game (no pun intended) and solve a lot of puzzles to get there. Don’t worry though, you’ll be in a “death loop” that allows you to learn from your mistakes. It’s sci-fi fun with a lot of twists and I highly recommend anyone with a PS5 to try this game, unless of course you just don’t like First Person Shooters. … Read More
FORECLOSED Review – Putting The Punk in Cyberpunk
While the term “cyberpunk” may remind most people of the rocky launch of Cyberpunk 2077, other games have leveraged the sub-genre over the years to great effect. It goes beyond a style, however, and invokes a deeper look into futuristic societies and the things that can happen if we’re not careful to keep the powers that be in check. FORECLOSED, a new comic book style cyberpunk action game, leverages the style to great effect, but does this sleek look translate to compelling gameplay? Let’s find out. Stylish Looks Can’t Hide Less Than Ideal Story and Gameplay One thing no one can fault FORECLOSED for is its style. The game oozes comic book cyberpunk style that’s immediately eye-catching. The premise too is interesting. You play as Evan Kapnos, who wakes up one morning to find out his company has gone bankrupt and as a result his entire identity has been, you guessed it, foreclosed. While he starts out trying to do the right thing, Evan is quickly pulled into a conspiracy that has him on the run and dodging bullets very quickly into the story. The story itself is solid, but not incredibly compelling. There are some moments of downtime where you can choose dialogue options, but the game goes through long stretches of fighting rooms of enemies between exposition, so it doesn’t quite have the narrative-focused feel the game’s official description would suggest. One thing that’s really exciting in the opening hours of the game, are the ways that it transistions between comic book styled cutscenes and gameplay. For example, you’ll often see the screen split into panels before transitioning seamlessly into gameplay. An early chase sequence also has you running from armed enemies through the perspective of security cameras, allowing for a visual treat beyond the standard third-person gameplay. FORECLOSED is stylish, and it knows it. For a while, that was enough for me to look past some gameplay issues, but when we stop and break it all down, there are a number of problems with how the game plays. For starters, there’s a sort of hacking minigame that involves pressing directional buttons in sequence. It works perfectly fine, but it never gets more complicated than that. The same goes for these hidden switches you can find inside of walls using your vision, or ones that are scattered across an area. You’ll need to find and hack them all to move forward once the enemies are down They’re interesting at first, but soon become a repetitive aspect of progression. Combat is a mixed bag as well. No matter how much I adjusted the aim sensitivity and aim assist in the options, I could never get the gunplay to feel responsive enough. It was always a little sluggish and difficult to make precise movements. More often than not, I would just resort to strafing to line up my shot. Enemies also flood areas and just stand in place, which leads to simple shootouts. On the default difficulty, you’ll also find … Read More
Black Ops: Cold War – The Harsh Review
Well, here are. After a month of the initial release, I can confidently share my thoughts on Call of Duty Black Ops: Cold War. I wanted to wait long enough for a couple of meaningful patches to update that game and see if the improvements would give it a better review or if the patches would give anything meaningful at all. The verdict? They kind of don’t. I try to keep in mind that this title was originally being made by the developers over at Sledgehammer and that Treyarch was called in to take over 2020’s release one year before the game dropped. I don’t know what happened. I don’t know if this game is made up of coding from one studio and mixed from another or if this game was built from the ground up in 12 months. All I know is, something is off about this game. I’m pretty good when I play Black Ops: Cold War. I don’t fare so well when I am obviously playing against a couple of cheaters on the enemy team, but even then, I manage to find ways to shut down the handful of jerks I come across that are using rapid fire mods, wall hacks and aimbots. Cheaters aside, I’m definitely above average with my strategies and gun gameplay. I can’t say I don’t like the game because I do. I like alright, but it is as they say, a step back. Treyarch is known for the more arcade playstyle in their games. You don’t expect too much realism with the fast pace movements, and that’s some of the charm Treyarch offers with their games. Unfortunately, the way the game looks and the long list bugs that dropped upon release and not to mention the large number of map exploits, it is clear that this game wasn’t ready and you know what? I don’t blame Treyarch. I blame Activision. Instead of taking a loss for the year and maybe even using Warzone as a backup for revenue, Activision forced this game out the door and put immense pressure on Developers involved with the game. If this was a launch PS4 title, it would seem to fit right in, but it’s a launch next gen title that was rushed out the door and took away any magic we fans might have seen with the first CoD title on a PS5 or Xbox Series X/S. The campaign is ok. The story was kind of dull, but it had it’s fun moments. I completed the story on the default difficulty mode in about 4-5 hours. It felt like I was playing through a bad 80’s action movie. I know that sounds like an insult, but a bad 80’s movie is kind of a compliment since so many of us think fondly on crappy over the top films that have bad writing and even worse dialogue. I guess it’s charming in its own right. I don’t play CoD games for their … Read More
Immortals Fenyx Rising Review – PS5
Immortals Fenyx Rising is one of those games that come along once every blue moon. A game that just doesn’t have any real flaws to complain about. At least in regard to the PS5 version. I think it’s unfortunate that Fenyx Rising released when it did and Ubisoft didn’t put a lot into the advertising. Sure, we knew it was there, but it’s ultimately the timing that is wrong with this game. While it did release a week ago, it inevitably has to compete with all the hit titles that dropped in November and taking on Cyberpunk 2077, is enough to squander sales. That being said, let’s move onto what the majority is missing out on. Immortals Fenyx Rising is an open work RPG that looks cartoony in essence. I personally don’t opt for games that have this look, but this game has taught me that I cannot use that as a reason to pass on a game anymore. Fenyx Rising might not have the “real life” look I would normally want in a game, but everything about this game had me hooked from beginning to end. Taking elements from games such as The legend of Zelda and Monster Hunter world to name a couple, gives this game a great environment with simple gameplay mechanics that get slightly more complicated over time, but the transition comes easily. Immortals Fenyx Rising has a great story that is told in a way that keeps things interesting. You can stay focused on the main quest, but there is so much to do and see, it’s easy to get distracted and complete a bunch of side quests along the way. The story is initially told by Greek god Prometheus. He tells his brother Zeus, the story of Fenyx. As the story evolves plenty of conversation breaks out between the gods as they watch you play from above. I found the story to be fun, well told and it had a great ending!! I mean, endings can be difficult and sometimes they’re just ok, but this game has a great ending. I loved it and it came as a surprise to me because I really wasn’t expecting to enjoy that much. You really can’t judge a book by it’s cover. Graphically, this game is just fine. There is nothing I can really complain about. The style of art chosen to create the world and characters fits well with the story and how it is told. This is a game that you can take seriously and have a lot of fun at the same time. In the end, the cartoonish style gives the game some of the charm I enjoyed so much and I don’t think having it appear to be more live action, would make it any better. The audio is good in this game for sure. Music that plays through is often fitting for the scene. Playing through a Greek open world filled mythological creatures and puzzles, I often felt treated to my very … Read More
Demon’s Souls Remake Review – PS5
Demon’s Souls… Before the Dark Souls series grew the popularity it has today, there was Demon’s Souls on the PS3. I didn’t personally know a single person that enjoyed Demon’s Souls, but for me, it was a perfect fit. I didn’t mind dying repeatedly to learn my lessons and figure out how the game works. I sunk many hours into the original and the remake had managed to suck me back in. Demon’s Souls is just as it sounds. You are the slayer of Demons and other unruly creatures that need to be eradicated in order to bring peace and safety to the land of Boletaria once again. This is no simple task and this is no simple game. It is riddled with challenges and secrets that will call for a second, third or fourth playthrough, but this game is not for the faint of heart. Developer Bluepoint, has recreated the cult classic and they did do an excellent job keeping it true to its roots, but I am going to get this out of the way now. My personal opinion in regards to it being a PS5 exclusive, is that it really doesn’t live up to what I would expect from a next gen release. It is definitely a step up in regards to playability and graphically when compared to it’s PS3 predecessor, but feels like it would have been a better fit for the PS4 system and played with backward compatibility on the PS5. The game features a choice between fidelity and performance mode. I didn’t honestly see any difference in the graphics when playing on fidelity mode, but I did see a difference in gameplay when using performance mode. I highly recommend performance mode when playing. If there is any value to fidelity mode, it doesn’t compare to perks of performance when it comes to faster/consistent frame rates. The cinematics are excellent and very polished in detail. Watching a cutscene is generally short and is really where the next gen feeling comes in. When playing the game, it is nice to look at, but at the same time, it does again, look like a game that was released a few years ago. I know, I know, graphics don’t make up an entire game, but we can’t mention a PS5 exclusive without mentioning the graphics and being a PS5 exclusive makes the graphics a tad bit more important than usual this time. In regards to audio, I have to say that not all of the sound effects lineup in the game. Audio is a huge part of immersion and I really expected to hear something special from this game. I felt like some of the sound effects had a delay. The sound of my footsteps would continue for a second after I stopped walking. The sound of an enemy groaning or breathing heavily would make it appear as if they were right beside you, when in fact they were quite a ways away. … Read More
Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales Review on PS5
It has been a crazy week these last 7 days. With the release of the PS5 and a slew of new games, I can’t remember a time where I have been busier. That is why it has taken so long for my Miles Morales review. I am playing through a handful of titles right now and it’s not easy to juggle with so many at once. Anyway, let’s move onto the review, shall we? I just finished my first playthrough of Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales and I have to say, regardless of the short amount of time it actually takes to complete everything, this is top notch for me. Not even going to beat around the bush here. This game is an easy 9.5 out 10. EASY!!! You don’t have to be a fan of Spider-Man to know when there is a good game in front you, but being a fan of the friendly neighborhood spider, that just makes the game that much sweeter! Not to worry, no extra points here simply because of the game title. The game is as fluid if not more so than its predecessor Marvel’s Spider-Man from 2018. There is something to be said about an open world game that really feels open. Swinging around in the city of New York can be distracting just by how fun it is. One minute you’re web slinging around to your next objective and the next thing you know, you’re dropping in on a crime in progress and wipe the floor with some bad guys. Just another typical day in the life of Miles Morales. This game really hits home graphically. My opinion is that graphics are important. They aren’t everything, but in combination with a story, mechanics, frame rates, etc., it is an equal part of the equation. Insomniac did a stellar job with Miles Morales’ look. Playing the game in performance to keep faster frames running is great. It looks great and runs as smooth as you would imagine on the PS5. Playing in fidelity mode however, that’s where the game really hits it’s sweet spot. Fidelity mode gives the game better lighting and detail that you really need to take the time to experience. I would recommend playing through the first time if fidelity mode and then run a new game+ on performance. Best of both worlds, but of course, play however you want, just enjoy playing. The story is really well written. I always love a good story and Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales is no exception. I often find that games have a good storyline and they more often than not, ruin what could have been a great ending. Either by pulling too much of a cliffhanger (like Call of Duty Ghosts… What the hell happened? We may never know.) or they just botch the end and it doesn’t really make much sense. With Miles Morales, it is such a good ending. I won’t spoil it, but I will … Read More
The Last Of Us Part II Review – Let the argument begin
As you probably know, The Last Of Us Part 2 dropped last week. At his point, it has gone on to be the fastest selling PS4 exclusive to date. That’s pretty impressive, but not surprising to many of us. What is surprising though, is the argument that seems to be taking place over the internet. The argument is based on whether or not the game is good. While a lot of game news outlets have seemingly given The Last Of Us Part 2, a rather high score rating, many consumers seem to be voicing a different opinion. Many are saying the game is an utter disappointment. To be fair, that’s not to say the game is trash (although I have seen a good amount of that speech…), but more that the game may not live up to its predecessor. Quite a few gamers went back to play the first entry of TLOU right before part 2 was released. Remember the original? Such a good game. Great storyline, attention to detail and a good amount of actual gameplay. I went back and played it myself and I easily recalled why I enjoyed it so much. It got me even more hyped for part 2 and I couldn’t wait to see where the story would go from there. Well, I am sad to say that I was disappointed with Part 2’s story, Not just the story, there were a few other minor things I will mention throughout this piece. For now, I’ll start with my opinion on the story, but don’t worry, I will not spoil it for those that have not played it yet. I’d also like to stress that you should come up with your own opinion, but I am giving my honest feedback that I believe is relevant here. There are a million ways this story could have been written and played out and some of those other stories could have been better or worse, no doubt. After two playthroughs of the game, I have to say the story felt mediocre at best. I might sound harsh, but my disappointment lays within two things. How quickly things unfolded and how quickly I realized that I just couldn’t form a bond with our protagonist, Ellie. I mean, bits and pieces here and there, I felt some empathy and it could draw me in a little, but it got flat fairly quick. Mostly because the story was dragged out in unnecessary ways. Ways that made feel like it would be fun to watch some paint dry for a little while. Maybe I’m being too hard on the writers, but this entry doesn’t come close to delivering the same charm as the first one did. Sorry if you disagree. Before I go one, let me say that if this game was made by just about any other developer, I wouldn’t be judging nearly hard, but this Naughty Dog. I have come to have certain expectations from this more … Read More
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