Tag: Review

Mafia Definitive Edition [Review]

On By fonsoqIn GamingLeave a comment
  • Mafia : Definitive Edition
  • Rated M
  • Hanger 13
  • “Mafia Engine”
  • Xbox One, PS4, PC
  • Release: September 25, 2020
  • Purchased personal copy on Xbox One

Thomas Angelo is a cab driver in the city of Lost Heaven. Like many Americans in the year 1930, Tommy is struggling from the aftermath of the Great 2Depression. With many out of work, fares come far and few in-between. Meanwhile, organized crime is picking up with the demand of illegal alcohol sales during prohibition. One night, he is forced to cabbie for a couple of guys being chased down by their rivals, the Morello gang. His passengers thank him and offer him a job, but he declines as the life of crime is not for him. He is later tracked down by Morello’s gang and is forced to find help with the Salieri family. Tommy’s life has changed but will he let the life of crime consume him?

Mafia : Definitive Edition is a remake of 2002’s Mafia made in Mafia 3‘s engine. Modernizing the core gameplay and redoing the setting, voice acting, and expanding the story.

Mafia DE at its core is a cover based 3rd person shooter. Gameplay consists of a mix of driving and on foot combat with a small mix of melee and ranged weapons. In between combat sections, you’ll find yourself driving across the city of Lost Heaven in a variety of cars.

While Mafia : DE can be considered an open world game, it is very linear experience. The game is divided into chapters that guide you from point a to point b, with no real need to explore the city outside of the mission.

I’d like to start off with the fact that I have never played the original Mafia from 2002, but I have played 2 & 3. It definitely feels like an offshoot of Mafia 3, while retaining the feel of a game of a game from the early 2000’s. There isn’t a lot to do outside the main story,  but that isnt a problem here. Mafia 3 would have been better if it was condensed like Mafia DE. DE‘s totals game length is just right – little to no filler chapters, a handful of collectibles, and no extraneous side missions. It’s a straightforward experience.

The story is the best part of the game. Following Tommy’s journey from cabbie to his life in the mafia is great. Aside from the notorious racing chapter, I thoroughly enjoyed my time in Lost Heaven. I even enjoyed having to watch my speeding around town before calling unwanted attention from the law.

Despite being built on the foundation of Mafia 3, the gunplay and driving could have been better. These two things weren’t perfect in 3, but the shooting always feels a bit random as none of the weapons ever feel 100% accurate.

Driving feels what i assume driving a 30’s era car would feel like, not very fun at high speed. Which detracts a bit as you’ll often find yourself getting chased down by enemies. During the chases, turns will be your biggest obstacle. The game supplements this by adding road hazards that you bait the enemy into.

Mafia Definitive Edition is definitely a product of the early 2000’s, but it is a great story that is cleaned up and modernized that is still worth playing. It does just enough without getting too overwhelming.

  • + Great Story
  • + “Meat and Potatoes” kind of game.
  • – Combat/ Driving could be better

Great

Marvel’s Avengers [Review]

On By fonsoqIn GamingLeave a comment
  • Marvel’s Avengers
  • Rated T
  • Crystal Dynamics
  • Foundation Engine
  • Xbox One, PS4, PC
  • Release: September 3, 2020
  • Purchased personal copy on Xbox One

Marvel’s Avengers takes place after an event called “A-Day.” A day meant to celebrate the Avengers, but ultimately turns to tragedy. The aftermath of A-Day leaves many people to turn Inhuman, as they manifest strange powers and abilities. With the destruction of the city, the death of Captain America, and the cause of the “inhuman disease”, the Avengers were broken up and outlawed by the government. A.I.M. (Advanced Idea Mechanics) was granted the acquisition of Stark Industries and now leads in containing the inhuman spread. One of those people attending the A-Day festivities was Kamala Khan (Ms. Marvel). Five years after the disaster, Kamala is outed as an Inhuman and is set on the path to find the Inhuman resistance against A.I.M’s terror.

Marvel’s Avengers is a 3rd person action-adventure game that makes its Tomb Raider lineage very apparent. It retains the movement system and and adds a flavoring of super hero. Non-flying characters still retain the wall scramble and grapple swing like Lara Croft. Expanding upon the Tomb Raider formula, the game adds a support ability, an offensive ability, an ultimate ability, and a passive gauge to each character. These can be further modified with the skill points that are earned per character level.

While the character level is important, the more essential gauge is the gear score. Gear is randomly dropped by enemies and can be found in chests that dot the large map. Depending on rarity, you can upgrade items with crafting supplies that are earned from either breaking down old gear or finding it in game.

There is also a premium currency in game that can be used to buy cosmetics. Though you can also buy cosmetics with a different currency you earn ingame.

Marvel’s Avengers greatest strength is its story. Following Kamala’s path from kid from Jersey City to Ms. Marvel is great. Each story beat will pull you along and will leave you wondering to what happens next. Coupling the story is solid gameplay. Each Avenger brings their unique style of play to combat, which helps freshen up the gameplay loop once you unlock them. They offer a nice variety of combat abilities between them. Though not every character can complete all the side objectives found on the map. Some characters don’t have the ability to break down large doors/weak walls. Which is an annoyance when you play by yourself, but obviously not an issue when playing online. Beyond the main story beats, the side missions are nice padding but boil down to go to an area and wait for the timer to complete.

Playing the story missions and the some of the side chapters will only net you around gear level 25 for a handful of your characters. The game however gives you additional ways to gear up with faction markets, but that in itself requires a grind to level up the relationship with each faction to get the best gear. Then the only other hope would be to get random loot drops in mission. While the random loot itself isn’t a problem, a character can only hold nine items per equipment slot. Any extra gear gets sent to the inventory locker, which is only accessible from either the home base or the mission prep screen. Since the items This results in a lot of time in the menu braking down old loot.

Later levels in the game will consistently drop frames as the combat gets more frantic. Occasionally, you’ll also find yourself stuck in a slow motion glitch. This’ll cause everything to slow down until you complete the section. Some outfits also have problems, some cause a weird glitch with the hair of characters causing a phantom shadow that follows the movement of the hair. While one specific outfit causes the facial animations to break with the eyes bugging out and the mouth to over animate. A shame too, its probably the best outfit for that character. [NOTE: Crystal Dynamics has pushed a patch after the writing of this review, thus fixing this issue.]

Overall

Marvel’s Avengers strong points is in its main story campaign with a strong gameplay base, however it wears down quickly with repetitive mission structure.

  • + Great Story
  • + Fun Gameplay
  • – Grindy Post Campaign
  • – Repetitive mission structure
  • – Loot System
  • – Graphical Issues

GOOD

Star Wars Jedi : Fallen Order [Review]

On By fonsoqIn Gaming
  • Star Wars Jedi : Fallen Order
  • Rated T
  • Respawn Entertainment
  • Xbox One, PS4, PC
  • Unreal Engine 4
  • Release: November 16, 2019
  • Purchased personal copy on Xbox One X

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order takes place during the time between Episode III and IV. In the aftermath of Order 66, you take control of Cal Kestis, a former Jedi Padawan on a quest to survive the Empire’s quest to hunt all Jedi.

The basic combat loop is similar to Dark Souls, in which you slowly make your way through an area defeating enemies that can provide a good challenge. While Fallen Order doesn’t incorporate an equipment buffs/debuffs system, it does include a stamina/poise system with refillable health stims. Each section of combat is broken up with rest areas known as meditation points. Here you can bank earned xp and assign earned talent points. Resting will refill your health packs, force meter, and respawn most enemies.

With enough XP, you can earn skill points to upgrade Cal through three paths. The force path will give you more force points and upgrade any powers you have unlocked. The lightsaber path will unlock new combat abilities. The survival path will give upgrades to health and other defensive abilities.

Outside of combat, the game includes an exploration system akin to Tomb Raider. Each map you travel to is filled with areas and paths locked behind the next ability upgrade. The game rewards exploration with extra bits of lore and customization options. You have the ability to customize Cal’s wardrobe, lightsaber, and ship. Most of these options are purely cosmetic and offer no gameplay bonuses, aside from finding more health stims.

While I’m not a big fan of the Souls games, Fallen Order is a blast to play. Through my playthrough on Jedi Master difficulty, this game doesn’t hold your hand. Aside from the basic tutorials, the game doesn’t shove hints and solutions in your face. It nutures the idea that the player is competent can think for themselves. Even in puzzle situations, the game doesn’t highlight every puzzle piece in gold nor does it immediately tell you the end goal. If you take enough time however, the game will ask if you need a hint. The only other break is on platforming. Where if you miss a jump, it only penalizes you a fraction of health instead of the respawn screen.

The movement system is very polished, running around the world feels great. Respawn Entertainment continues their reputation in having very fluid and fun movement systems. Chaining wallruns, jumps, and rope swings makes you feel like the agile Jedi you are. Each area has a nice variety of enemies and puzzles to solve. There are also optional paths to explore throughout the game. Exploration is rewarding, but trying to retread the entire map to 100% the game is a pain. Some maps eventually turn to spaghetti with new abilities unlocking new routes that add more map density. This makes trying to figure out your path difficult and not worth the headache of trying to remember which route you took to get to this specific part of the map.

Combat is challenging from start to end, but you earn alot of tools at your disposal that can give you the edge in battle. Where in the beginning, a single large crab creature can pose a significant threat and by the end you’re chaining combos, force powers, dodges, and parries on groups of enemies. Defeating enemies is exciting and finding the flow of complex Jedi combat is something that hasn’t really been done since The Force Unleashed. Like Cal, you eventually grow into becoming a more competent Jedi. While tough, I feel that it is very fair. Seldomly did I find myself saying that something was cheap. I also never found myself wanting to turn the difficulty down just to pass a section. Every death handed to me was from something I knew I could overcome the next time I tried.

Narratively, the game is great as well. Cal’s journey is filled with great characters and fantastic settings. Exploring a dark time of the Jedi that hasn’t been fleshed out too much in canon is refreshing. Going off the beaten path will reward you with extra bits of lore through Cal’s special ability to read the past from force echos or items with strong connections to the force.

Graphically, the Unreal Engine does a great job at rendering the Star Wars universe, especially in 4k on Xbox One X. The game will however, dip in frame rate and chug for brief moments in later stages. Another gripe I have is the occasional twitching of certain fabrics and strands of hair. While both are small, it is very distracting when it does happen it can pull you out of the moment. There is a performance mode in the settings that should stabalize the frame rate but it locks the game at 1080 instead of 4k. The game does a good job at hiding loading screens, though occasionally if you try to return to a previous section of a level too quickly after entering a new one, you are met with the game pausing itself to reload the section.

Overall

Fallen Order is a fantastic game but is blemished by a few problems. These small gripes though aren’t enough to overcome the great gameplay and a fantastic story.

  • +Great Challenging Combat
  • +Fantastic story
  • +Great upgrade system
  • +Doesn’t hold your hand
  • -Few technical problems
  • -Retreading areas can be a pain

Fantastic