Remember when Microsoft announced it was bringing (limited) mod support to the Xbox One? Well they did it, and a few games now have the ability to use the most popular PC mods on the console. This has raised a never been seen issue with console gamers, but one that PC gamers are intimately familiar with, stolen mods.
Some of these stories are pretty benign. for example the inclusion of DogtoothCG’s NCR Ranger Veteran Armor in Spawn Item was passed off as an accident and quickly removed, the files purportedly having been obtained in an email exchange. Other have not been so accidental.
This type of thievery is fairly common in the modding world but seeing it spread to consoles is pretty disheartening. In response to the issue Bethesda have cooked up this document which is meant to tell people how to have unauthorized copies of their mods removed from the Xbox. Dont expect that link to be anything easy, its a full DMCA request, but what it does do is hopefully give the mods creators an avenue to get their products back from the offending uploaders. But hey, at least you don’t have to pay for these mods right?
Parkour wunderkind Faith Connors returns in this reboot of the 2008 classic, Mirror’s Edge which is out today on PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4. I got the chance to sit down with the game for six hours this past weekend and jump into Faith‘s shoes as she runs, runs, zip lines and slides around the City of Glass. DICE’s latest entry in the franchise not only tinkers with the narrative but also opens up the gameplay with a gigantic open world environment that players of the last game could have only dreamed of on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Here are my initial impressions.
Mirror’s Edge Catalyst is not a straight retelling of the original title, DICE has decided to tinker with key elements of the game’s narrative – when things kick off we meet the defiant young Faith as she is about to be released from juvenile prison. This technologically advanced prison features futuristic neon displays that advocate for the various corporations around the City of Glass and reminds prisoners that they “should reform and consider employment with any corporation of their choosing.” Once Faith is released from prison she is informed that she was two weeks from release to find employment with one of these corporations or she will be locked back up for an extended period. This version of Faith is very different from the one we saw in 2008, In the 2008 game she was driven by the need to clear her sister’s name for framed murder the plot of Catalyst centers more on corporate espionage than the bond between sisters. This lack of a key motivator and a change in voice actress makes Faith less of a compelling protagonist based upon the time I spent with the game.
Once released from prison the bulk of Faith‘s early story in Mirror’s Edge centers around her reconnecting with the group of runners that she was once acquainted with. In the world of Mirror’s Edge runners are an anti-corporate movement that believe that the average citizenry have been become complacent thanks in part to advanced augmented reality technology that provides the user with a constant stream of corporate approved information. Runners try to subvert this system of iron fisted control on the citizenry visa hacking billboards with anti-corporate messages, trafficing prohibited information to the lower class citizens of the City of Glass and partaking in the more than occasional corporate espionage adventure. Ideologically it is very clear where the runners are and how the player is supposed to react to the presence of these large corporations. While the game stays on point when it comes to underlying political messaging and themes, unfortunately, the cast of side characters don’t convey a lot of personality to the player. Faith’s former contacts serve as Mirror’s Edge Catalyst’s method for providing new story missions and none of these side characters feel like fully developed human beings and could probably be swapped out for one another if it wasn’t for the fact that certain NPCs deliver certain types of activities.
The City of Glass is a gleaming white futuristic monolith to the advancements of technologies that have been produced by the various corporations in Mirror’s Edge Catalyst. Tall, seemingly never-ending skyscrapers shimmer as their glass reflect the in-world light sources while yellow accents adorn the area’s that Faith is able to traverse when running from rooftop to rooftop. Top this very pleasing visual aesthetic is topped off with colorful cars and pedestrians which can sometimes be tiny specks below from some of the higher vantage of points available in the game. Combine this with a slightly punk look for some of Faith‘s fellow runners, and her initial outfit at the beginning of the story, and you have a game that knows how to visually define itself.
Traversing around the City of Glass is accomplished through the series’ signature first-person parkour. Unlike the last game, which gave Faith access to all of her abilities from the onset, Catalyst opts to give our heroine a basic set of movement, combat and defensive abilities from the get-go and locks the rest behind a progression system that is tied to an experience level. I could see why players who enjoyed the openness of the 2008 title would be disappointed with progression based unlocks, considering the fact that a number of abilities that were once standard are now locked behind the XP grind. However, I can also see how this would extend the life of the game and slowly teach players about their parkour maneuvers and allow them to master them before moving onto to more advanced skills.
So what abilities did Faith have access too over the course of the six hours that I played? The left bumper allows Faith to climb up objects, contextually jump off of nearby objects and climb up pipes or ladders. Left trigger allows Faith to kick descend ladders, jump down from ledges and slide along the ground. Like in the 2008 version running forward and then tapping the left trigger will launch Faith into a sliding forward dive that allows her to fit under narrow spaces and avoid combat with NPCs. More advanced techniques like rolling from tall heights by pressing the left trigger upon impact and using a wrist-mounted retractable rope become key to completing some of the side objectives and can be woven into Faith’s cityscape acrobatics as needed.
Here is a small sampling of some of the activities that await players in the brand new Mirror’s Edge:
Main Story Missions – These missions are delivered by Faith’s comrades in the Runner’s hideout, which also serves as the main safe zone, or by various NPCs located through the rooftops of the City of Glass. For the most part of the time I spent with these missions they typically revolve around corporate espionage or teaching Faith new game-play mechanics.
Package Delivery – Faith is able to pick up packages at automated drop-off points and then deliver them to a designated location with the time-limit. Really the package delivery missions are timed obstacle courses with various paths, failing the course will give the player the option to retry.
Hackable Billboards – Located throughout the City of Glass are billboards displaying corporate messages. Faith is able to hack these billboards to display messages for the runners in exchange for XP points.
User Created Trials – Using Faith’s augmented reality contacts users are able to create custom trials using up to 4 droppable checkpoints. These courses will then be populated randomly into other players games it seems. Once you’ve completed a user generated trial your score is placed on a leaderboard that is specific for that trial.
Mirror’s Edge Catalyst tries valiantly to take the parkour formula that was so well received with the original game and extend that 6 – 8 hour length into an open world experience that players could potentially lose 100s of hours in. There are dozens upon dozens of collectibles for Faith to collect and exchange for more moves, skills and pieces of gear. Longtime fans who enjoyed the first game might find the addition of an XP system and seemingly pointless collectibles to be padding used to lengthen the time spent with the game but honestly it feels like a fair tradeoff given the open world nature of the City of Glass..
Broken Joystick’s staff will be heading to E3 for the next 8 days but expect a full review of Mirror’s Edge Catalyst after our return!
If you grew up in the 90s you probably remember the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. They were spunky comic book turned Saturday morning TV show heroes on the half shell. TURTLE POWER! I still hear that in my head every time I read the name. Now nearly 20 years later, like all things ripe for nostalgic re-makes we are getting a set of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies, rebranded as TMNT (to sound cooler?) and as with most movies these days we are getting a tie in game. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan is that game. Created by developer Platinum Games (who also did the Transformers tie in game) and published by Activision this game takes a cell shaded look at the what a game that is meant to be the successor to all time classic beat em ups like Turtles in Time could be.
So let’s get this out of the way to start with, this is not a great game. I personally enjoy it because I am a HUGE fan of Ninja Turtles, Simple Combat, and two button beat em ups in general. Unfortunately not even I could look past the slew of problems that this game presents to call it a “good” game. Featuring 4 player co-op of AI controlled teammates this is a team brawler game. Co-op is limited to online only play, which is a HUGE mistake as the best part of previous 4 player turtles brawlers was playing with your friends. Its all about beating up huge numbers of enemies in Manhattan, around an open world concept then fighting a boss at the end of each level. there are 8 levels in all, and in between each level you will be able to use currency to upgrade your turtle and its abilities.
Hey remember these bad guys? Probably not, I know I don’t. (They are Bebop and Rocksteady)
Let’s start with the premise, it’s your standard Saturday morning cartoon style plot. Villains want to take over the world (or just Manhattan I guess?). This time is Kang and Shredder they have brought along with them a host of other characters, from well-known ones like Bebop and Rocksteady to some that will make you scratch your head and go who are they, like Wingnut and Armaggon. This rather diverse case of villains will use all of their knowledge of well telegraphed attacks, millions of generic enemies, and simple obstacles to try and stop you from saving your beloved home.
The first thing you are going to notice when you boot this game up, is the art style. Its cell shaded just the Transformers game was, so if you don’t like that style, then probably stay away from this game. Personally I loved the look of the game, its lines are dirty, and in that cell shaded style so popular these days, the characters look like they rolled right out of the a comic book on to the screen. The heavy nod to the origin of the characters (comics came before TV shows kids of the 90s) made me feel like maybe the game was going pay homage to the original and that I would enjoy it, sadly this was not the case.
The art style was basically the end of my enjoyment of this game. Beyond here this review is going to go quite heavy handed in to criticism of how the game plays, whats going on with its mechanics, and why it doesn’t work with the idea of my beloved Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, so if you don’t want to see your favorite team of green renaissance artists getting put to the sword, probably stop reading now. I will tell you that if this game ever goes sub 20$ its probably worth picking up for the story and dialog and art alone, since it does feel a lot like playing a comic book.
The game is very vibrant and the art style is great!
Ok disclaimer over, now let’s talk dirty. Remember Turtles in Time? The great classic arcade beat-em-up from the 80s? That’s what clearly inspired this game, I get it Platinum Games I do, there is a powerful market for nostalgia and you want to tap it. Sadly this is not how you do that. This game is at its core a two button beat em up. You will spend your time pressing either X or A (on an Xbox controller) or using what ever fucked keyboard combination Platinum decided on using instead. Oh, you were thinking of using a keyboard to play this game? No, that’s not a good idea at all. With a control scheme almost as dense as Dark Souls, it really seems like you should be able to figure out how to map TWO KEYS to a keyboard. However, Since your turtles also have to dodge, use combos, hit a button to bring up a a HUD, use parry’s, and do half a dozen other actions, instead of two buttons there are like twelve! A two button beat em up, HAS TWO BUTTONS! I dont need a button to lock on to enemies, or a button to make me go in to my shell, and dont even get me started on the stupid HUD thingy.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not berating games with complex combat systems – this game doesn’t have that – instead it has an incredibly simple combat system (light and heavy attacks, one button activated combos) with a bunch of useless shit you wont ever use tacked on. I have the option to block or parry, but why would I? Instead I can just hack my way through whatever I need to hit and hope I don’t die trying. The game should have been rescued by an arcade style combat system, and indeed it does have nice arcade scoring (counting combo hits etc) and pretty slashing motions, but that’s it. To activate combos you don’t need to press a set of buttons, you just hold left trigger and then press on button. This triggers an almost cut scenes like piece where you combo whatever is in front of you. which leads to some hilarious moments where I found myself using a combo, with no one to hit because my AI teammates had killed them already. The tedium of this combat is made even worse by the fact that every single enemy is just a sponge. No matter what you are fighting, and the game does have a bit of diversity for its enemies, featuring rock soldiers, foot ninja, and even some mousers, you will be able to just hack it apart with no skill needed. Enemy diversity is mostly limited to the three aforementioned types with a lot of pallet swaps, and some weapon changes.
Even the levels are repetitive, each level is semi-open-world, which basically means you run around a closed off level area doing something, until you finish it and then you come back and fight the areas boss. This format is terrible, and honestly makes me think im just checking boxes. While there is a story here and its fully voiced and features a nice cast of characters, its just lost among the repetitive boring gameplay. After playing just three levels, I was already feeling fatigued, and the game has 8! Each level longer than the last!
See that silly headset? Its the games primary story mechanic, you talk to April on it and she tells you where to go punch people next.
One such mission early in the game found me spending three minutes protecting a pizza stand. Imagine the worst escort mission ever, and then make it even worse. I stood on top of the pizza stand as my AI controlled team mates killed wave after wave of easily disposable enemies, then the boss of the area spawned INSIDE THE PIZZA STAND, making it so I could neither see him, nor damage him. So after 3 minutes of standing around doing nothing while the AI killed enemies, I lost the mission to an enemy I could not see, because he was inside the missions objective.
Each mission is formulaic and they all end up felling like a tedium after the first couple. I would rather have had a long hallway full of enemies I needed to beat up to get to a boss than the current format. That would make sense in a classic beat-em-up sense. Instead, each level features a limited pallet of subway, sewer, and city buildings, which all start to blend together as you go on. Despite the amount of unique architecture in Manhattan, you will see none of it here, and the tallest buildings seem to be just a few stories so my hero’s can easily climb them. The game also has an odd nonsensical system of rail riding, where you can ride a series of rails that are inexplicably on the top of every single building, or across power lines strung from building to building. But be careful, random motes of electricity (i think?) roam around these trying to knock you off because reasons? It really doesn’t make any sense at all and I just stuck to the ground to avoid it entirely.
The game is saved from total mediocrity by the combat system. Yes, you will press A and X until your enemy dies. The monotony of this is broken up by a ninjitsu system where you hold a trigger and then press a button to fire off a combo, or a ranged attack , or a heal. These abilities make things interesting during combat and in particular the boss battles. Bosses have a lot of health, and you can’t just hack your way through them. They are the only enemies in game that require even a ounce of strategy to beat. One warning to those who would come face the bosses, the spike in difficulty is severe. Imagine going from say, walking one mile to running a marathon overnight. I liked it, but I’m a bit of a masochist. More easily frustrated players could easily get fed up with the spikes in difficulty and end up quitting.
Platinum have tried to help with this curve by giving player an upgrade system where they can spend the games in game currency on more powerful combos, weapons, and items, but it all feels sort of hollow. I haven’t beat the game yet, but I’m more than 80% of the way through and the enemies difficulty curve is very flat, so as soon as I started getting upgrades and figured out which items and combos were best, it started to just get too easy for me. Bosses are now the only thing that really offers any sort of resistance to my blades (I chose Leonardo to play of course!).
Overall this game feels like it could have been great, but it just lacks something. It has such a high bar to meet, the Turtles have starred in some of the best beat em up games of all time after all, and it just doesn’t make it there. I don’t mind the two button combat, the skill ceiling, or the upgrades, but I do mind the way the levels are laid out, the forced open world, and the lack of coherent plot. If this game ever drops to the 10-15$ range it would be a great value for a fan, but at 40$ it feel a bit like your getting taken for a ride.
It looks like the cat is out of the bag for one of Capcom’s big reveals at Microsoft’s E3 press briefing. The infected shall rise again, facing off against longtime Zombie slayer Frank West in a Xbox One / Windows Store exclusive Dead Rising 4 according to leaked screenshots and promotional material that appeared online yesterday.
Despite its’ title Dead Rising 4 will reportedly be a reboot/alternate telling of the Willamette Incident that introduced us to the world of Phenotrans, Zombrex and those pesky wasps that cause necrotic flesh to come back to life. Reportedly the game will also shift the time period of the Willamette Incident from late Summer to Christmas time. Unlike the other games in the franchise, DR4 will run on Epic’s Unreal Engine 4, ditching the proprietary engine that has powered the series since Capcom Vancouver’s Dead Rising 2.
Dead Rising 4is expected to be revealed next week and now confirmed information has been released just yet. Check out te quite convincing leaked assets below:
