Cyber Manhunt 2: New World - Game Review

 

It's been many years since I've gamed on my PC with any degree of regularity, and as such there are certain types of games that I just never really play as they tend not to make the leap to consoles. Cyber Manhunt 2: New World falls squarely into this kind of category, being a point and click mystery game, and whilst I was unsure if it was going to be something that I'd enjoy when I started playing it I was very quickly sucked into the narrative and the fiendishly simple gameplay.

Cyber Manhunt 2: New World makes the player give up their humanity in order to play as an AI, created to assist Ashley Grayson, a senior team member at Titan, a company who specialises in tech advancement and the development of artificial intelligence. You get a little bit of freedom to decide what kind of AI you want to be at the start, when you get asked a number of questions about what you'd do in certain ethical situations. I don't know if this dictates any changes in the game itself, but it's at least nice to click on the options that say you won't harm humans (no Skynet here).

After a quick set-up you get put through a tutorial level, in which Grayson needs you to investigate another member of the Titan team who may be leaking information to a disgraced former colleague. Using their company information you're able to search for their social media accounts, where you can gather other important info such as their age and where they live, and who he's been having conversations with. Using the data you gather you can unlock more sources to hack, such as their instant messages and emails, where you can continue your search for clues and start ton build a bigger picture of what's going on. If you come across anyone else along the way that strikes you as possibly being a shady individual you can do the same process with them, further expanding the narrative. 

After this introduction to the basics of the game the story starts in earnest as a man enters the Titan lobby with a bomb strapped to his chest. He's screaming about getting even with the people at Titan, and claims that they've ruined his life. From here, you are able to start investigating the man, trying to find out if his claims of people being out to get him are true so that this can be passed on to the negotiators to try and deescalate things. However, it quickly becomes apparent that there is a lot more going on here than you first think, and a much larger story begins to form as you look into his life.

Cyber Manhunt 2: New World is not the kind of game that I normally play, and I've had some bad experiences in the past with puzzle games that are so obtuse that I would get stuck on relatively simple things (or at least simple if you know what you're doing). Looking at everything in the game, how you can hack into multiple different accounts, how you can break into phones, and even create fake voiceprints to trick people into talking about their crimes, it can all feel a little overwhelming. However, the game introduces you to a lot of these things very slowly, letting you get used to one area of the game before moving on to another. 

It also helps that there's not a huge amount to do other than to click on buttons and occasionally type some snippets of code. As you're playing an AI you don't exist in the real world, there's no environment for you to explore, and your domain is the computer display. As such, you simply point your mouse and click. It's incredibly simple, but thanks to the appearance of complexity you feel like you're achieving something. I can barely do more than post here to my blog in real life when it comes to tech, but the game let me feel like I was hacking my way through security code with a couple of simple command prompts and a click or two. 

The simplicity of the gameplay works brilliantly in conjunction with the complexity of the story. Very early on I thought I knew what was happening, why this man had entered a building ready to blow himself up and kill people. However, my assumptions were proven wrong, multiple times. During my investigation I would come up with a theory, and then the game would throw a curveball at me. I thought I understood a certain character, but then they'd shift and reveal a very different motivation that changed the entire trajectory of the story. There was never a time where I accurately guessed every twist or turn, but I also found that I wasn't trying to. By being involved and actively searching for the answers I was enjoying things on the fly, rather than trying to see the next stage. 

I knew the game had hooked me when I had to leave it for a while in order to go and do something else and all I could think about was getting back to it in order to find the next clue and to see what the story had in store. There are a lot of games I play that fail to hook me that way, and it's a large part of why I don't game nearly as much as I used to, but this game gave me that high, that drive to dive back into it.

Graphically, the game is very simple, and doesn't need to do anything flashy in order to get you invested. Instead of opting for a more realistic approach, the game has an animated flavour to it, with characters on screen represented by artwork, and cutscenes playing out like motion comics. It works well, and removes the game from reality somewhat by making it less real. I don't know how easy it is to hack into things, my experience of it is what film and TV tell me, and it's never really been something that has interested me; so I can't help but feel if the game tried to be realistic, or used real actors in filmed scenes it would be too close to reality to grab me in the same way. 

The final thing to talk about is the game's music. The music for Cyber Manhunt 2: New World is very subtle, and most of the time I didn't even realise it was there. The music is repetitive, sitting in the background as you search for clues, accompanying the tone of the game without overpowering it or distracting you. If anything, it helps to get you into the zone.

I'm glad I took a shot with Cyber Manhunt 2: New World as it's been a game that I've genuinely loved playing. Not only has it brought me a lot of enjoyment, but its made me consider an entire new genre of games to try out. I'll certainly be diving back into it soon, and can't wait to see what the team behind it does next. 

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Metroid: Zero Mission - Throwback 20

 

The Metroid series has been a popular staple of the Nintendo consoles since the very first game became a hit back in 1986. The combination of side scrolling exploration, puzzle solving, exploration, and intense action led it to become a formula that would prove to be incredibly popular. It was only a few months after its release that it would be joined by Castlevania, a game similar in style and flavour, yet forgoing the sci-fi setting for fantasy horror. Together, these two title would give birth to an entire genre of games whose name was taken from the two; Metroidvania. Having inspired an entire genre, of course Metroid would become a popular series with multiple releases.

Shortly after the release of Metroid: Fusion, the first in the series released on the Game Boy Advance, development began on recreating the first game in the franchise for the new handheld console. Yoshi Sakamoto, who worked on the original game as a designer, and had worked on most of the games in the series, was tasked with directing the remake. The game engine that had been developed for Metroid: Fusion was used as the bones for Metroid: Zero Mission, allowing the team to skip the process of crafting a new engine from scratch. This instead allowed them to focus on the contents of the game itself.

It was decided that one of the ways in which the team wanted to update the original was by expanding the story. The first game was fairly light on plot, and contained little dialogue or text. This time around the game employed cutscenes to explore Samus' history and expand her character considerably over the first game. New cinematics were created to show her memories as they related to the main story, giving those who wanted to explore the origins of the series a more modern experience. 

The story itself followed the basic plot of the original game, with the player taking control of Samus Aran, one of the galaxy's greatest bounty hunters. When space pirates take over a research vessel containing the deadly Metroid organisms Samus is dispatched to their base of operation to stop them. The pirates are intending to mutate the Metroids, turning them into weapons that they can use on their enemies. 

It wasn't just the story that was expanded upon, however, as new gameplay elements and features were introduced to make the game feel different from the original, and to make the most of the new hardware innovations. The most notable of these was the inclusion of three difficulty settings; something that the original did not have. This allowed players to try out the game on lower difficulty to get used to the world of Metroid before jumping in on higher difficulty levels that were more in line with the original games challenge. To compliment this, the game also included the ability to unlock the original game in order for players to compare the two. 

Those who had experience with the original would find a lot of surprises waiting for them with the remake. New enemies, new locations, and entirely new parts of the story were included, meaning that even the most experienced Metroid player would find something in the game to keep them entertained and engaged. Improvements to the graphics also helped to improve the overall experience, allowing the developers to create a more detailed and realistic setting. Things became less devoid of detail, and the result was a game that felt much more a part of the rest of the series than the original did. 

The game was well received upon release, rating highly with most games publications at the time, resulting in a lot of near perfect scores. Some publications even went so far as to name it one of the best games on the Game Boy Advance, a sentiment that's hard to argue against now looking back at the entire console library. It was even voted as the fifth best video game remake by IGN in 2020, ranking above some of the most beloved remakes ever made. 

Whether Metroid: Zero Mission is your first time experiencing the beginning of Samus' journey, or if it was your chance to replay a beloved classic, it stands out as one of the best examples of treating a remake of an old game with care and respect. It is a prime (no Metroid pun intended) example of how to do it, and has resulted in a game that's still one of the best ways to experience Metroid, and a great reason to dust off your old Game Boy Advance.

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Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes – Throwback 20

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

Hideo Kojima is a well known name in the world of gaming, due to his 1998 game Metal Gear Solid. This wasn’t Kojima’s first game, and it wasn’t even the first game in the series that made him famous, as the previous two games in the franchise were released on older consoles.

However, it wasn’t until the leap to 3D graphics and full voice acting that the series gained international attention. Solid Snake quickly became on of the best known video game protagonists, due in part to the fantastic performance from David Hayter, and the game quickly became a best seller across the world and made the Playstation Platinum list.

As the years went on Kojima released further games in the series, with Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty being released in 2001 on the Playstation 2. However, thanks to the continued success of the series with the sequel, and the upgrades in hardware capabilities, Kojima was able to revisit Metal Gear Solid, and six years after its release was able to introduce the world the his remake, Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes.

A part of the reason why Kojima, who partnered with developer Silicon Knights for the remake, wanted to return to the first game was due to the reception to certain parts of the sequel. Whilst Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty was received well and was praised for the changes to the gameplay and the graphics, some fans and critics were less enthused about the story. There were complaints that the game didn’t hit as well as the first, and that the new protagonist, Raiden (Quinton Flynn) just wasn’t as good as Snake. With a third game on the horizon that would take things even further away from the first, shifting events back to the 1960s and puts players in control of Big Boss (also voiced by David Hayter), returning to Metal Gear Solid could be the perfect thing to get fans excited for the franchise once again.

Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes sticks closely to the story of the original, which sees special operative Solid Snake being sent to the remote Alaskan island of Shadow Moses, a nuclear weapon disposal facility that has been taken over by the rogue special forces unit FOXHOUND, of which Snake used to be a part.

It’s revealed that the facility is being used to create a deadly walking battle tank, capable of firing nuclear weapons, named Metal Gear REX. If the US government doesn’t give FOXHOUND the body of Big Boss, they will launch a deadly attack. Sent in alone, and unarmed, Snake must infiltrate the facility and stop FOXHOUND, a mission that will see him encountering their leader, Liquid Snake (Cam Clarke), and learning some shocking truths about his own origin.

The main changes to the story came in the forms of cutscenes expanding upon action. Thanks to the upgrade in both graphics and they way action games had developed in the years since the original release, the remake incorporated more dynamic cutscenes; though Kojima had to get the game’s director to tone down some of the action in places. Thanks to the success and popularity of The Matrix more games were trying to emulate the action, incorporating bullet-time like sequences in them, and whilst Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes does still contain some of these moments a number were removed at Kojima’s insistence.

Silicone Knights faithfully reconstructed the characters and environments from the original, expanding and adding details in some areas, but remained true to the spirit of Metal Gear Solid. Considering the most high profile game remake around this time was the Resident Evil remake on the GameCube (as was The Twin Snakes) made some sweeping changes to both overall tone, setting, and story, Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes remained much truer to what had come before; something that made fans of the original much happier than any larger changes would have done.

The voice acting, whilst re-recorded to provide better quality, also went through the same level of care and attention. Though it almost didn’t. All of the original voice cast returned to rerecord their line, with the exception of the Cyborg Ninja character who was originally voiced by Greg Eagles now being voiced by Rob Paulsen so that Eagles did not voice two characters within the game. This change did draw some slight criticism from fans, who preferred the original version. However, the returning cast was not always guaranteed, and it was revealed by one of the actors, Paul Eiding, after the game was released that David Hayter had insisted that everyone else return and gave up half of his pay check to make sure that it could happen.

As with the original Metal Gear Solid, the remake received high praise, and high sales, despite only being released on the one console. It has landed itself on numerous best games lists for the Nintendo GameCube, and has become a firm favourite amongst fans of the franchise; a popularity that has led to copies of the game becoming increasingly sought after and increasing in price (yes, I’m mad I got rid of my original copy still as I really want it back). With a brand new entry in the series coming before the end of the year, Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes was a wonderful addition to the franchise, and the perfect thing to start off what might be the best year in Metal Gear Solid history.

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Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes – Throwback 10

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

The Metal Gear Solid series has had its ups and downs. Since the revamp of the series launched onto Playstation in 1998 fans have been in love with the weird and over-the-top stories, the unusual villains, and Solid Snake (David Hayter).

Of course, the removal of Snake as the main protagonist in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty led to grumblings from fans that resulted in that being one of the least favourably remembered entries. This is why Hideo Kojima was clever in having the prequel antagonist, Naked Snake/Big Boss, also played by Hayter to the point where they’re almost the same person. As such, even when Solid Snake’s story came to an end the series could continue in the past with Big Boss at the helm.

However, 2014’s preview of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, a small stand alone prequel called Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes, is where things really began to go wrong. Originally planned to be a part of the main game, Hideo Kojima made the decision to release Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes as a separate game in order to reduce the overall length of the finished piece; which considering the extensive length of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain it feels like next to nothing was portioned off as a time/space saver.

Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes put players into the role of Big Boss once again, this time with the iconic voice actor replaced by Hollywood actor Kiefer Sutherland. Allies of Big Boss have been captured by the US government, and are being held in a remote detention centre where they’re being subjected to torture, interrogation, and degrading conditions. Big Boss must infiltrate the Black Site, find his two allies, and extract them; all whilst the base for his private military force is being inspected by the UN for nuclear weapons. However, the mission goes awry, Big Boss’s base and forces are destroyed, and the small game ends with Big Boss being blown up and lost at sea, setting the stage for the main portion of Metal Gear Solid V.

Whilst the new game displayed a number of impressive new gameplay elements, and showed off the graphical quality that would be coming in the next years main release, there was relatively little in the game itself. The mission to save Big Boss’s allies could be completed very quickly, and after your first playthrough the mission could be finished in less than twenty minutes.

The game does unlock six more missions, all of which play out in the same location, but these are all equally as short and feature a great deal of repetition. Whilst a couple of fun modes were added to the Playstation and XBox versions, each getting their own different one, these failed to pad the game out in any significant way. Even with finding hidden audio files and searching for the extra bits and pieces around the map there’s relatively little in the game to justify releasing it on its own other than to perhaps create hype around the main game.

The question of whether or not it succeeded in creating that hype is hard to answer, however, as the game received very mixed reviews upon release. The new features that were added, along with the versatility of the Fox Engine, were singled out as high points, and it did promise new innovations to the series that would come in the follow-up. But the short length of the game was a key factor for many.

Even with repeated playthroughs and a few extra missions thrown in the game could be fully completed within a few days, with little there to encourage a re-visit. This, for some fans, had the result of leaving something of a sour taste behind, where it even lowered excitement for Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. The replacement of David Hayter for Kiefer Sutherland was also a factor, with almost all fans disappointed that Hayter had been dropped from the franchise he helped make a success for a big name replacement that was, at best, well below Hayter’s quality.

Another area in which the game caused itself some issues was in the depictions of sexual assault and rape within the game. At one point in the game the player is able to find an audio log, a log simply labelled as ‘Interrogation’, that goes into detail about the torture that characters Paz (Tara Strong) and Chico (Antony Del Rio) suffer at the hands of the main villain, Skullface (James Horan). The audio log depicts Chico, a child, being made to watch as the villain rapes Paz, before forcing Chico to then do so himself.

The game would later continue sexual violence against the character of Paz, as she’s ultimately killed by a bomb that is heavily implied to have been inserted into her genitals. The fact that the game only contains a warning of ‘violence’ and doesn’t include a content warning for sexual violence is discouraging. It’s also discouraging that sexual assault and the sexualisation of female characters is a staple of the Metal Gear Solid series, with a female character being sexually assaulted in the first game, and a focus on scantily clad women across all games, with the next release Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain having the most egregious example of this in the form of Silence. However, it’s the shocking inclusion of a child rape scene in Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes that is perhaps the most disgusting point in the series.

Having been a fan of the Metal Gear Solid series since I was eleven years old, with it being something I wanted to play so much that my mother bought me a Playstation for Christmas that year just so I could, I was hoping for great things from Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes. Unfortunately, it’s a game that I just didn’t enjoy, and it’s a game I even forget exists when I think about the franchise. More of a marketing stunt for the main game than a game in its own right, it was, for me, the beginning of the end of my love for new entries in the series.

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Final Fantasy VI - Throwback 30

 

Like a lot of people my age in the UK, my first experience of the Final Fantasy series was the PlayStation game Final Fantasy VII. Whilst this was my first real taste of a J-RPG, it wasn't my last, and it quickly developed a love of the genre, and the Final Fantasy titles in general. As such, it wasn't long before I branched out to try other titles; and one of those was Final Fantasy VI.

Whilst Final Fantasy VII may have been the game in the series that got the most attention, and is often called on of the best, that's not to mean that it's predecessor was not successful. Final Fantasy VI is often cited as one of the best in the series, and was lauded for it's gameplay improvements, graphics, and storytelling. 

Despite not having as much direct involvement from series creator Hironobu Sakaguchi, who had directed the five previous games, development began on the new game in December 1992 under co-directors Hiroyuki Ito and Yoshinori Kitase. Elements of the game development were split between the two directors, with one focusing on the story and plot elements of the game, whilst the other developed new battle mechanics and gameplay. The results is a game that feels somewhat unique amongst the series, where there is not only a huge roster of characters for players to choose from (fourteen in total), but that none of them are the direct, singular protagonist.

Due to the large number of protagonists, each of which has their own story and motivations, describing the plot of Final Fantasy VI is a little more complex than other titles in the franchise, but deals with a steam-punk fantasy world with warring empires, slave trades, and cataclysmic events that alter entire continents.

As with previous games in the series, Final Fantasy VI uses a similar gameplay mechanic of exploring locations and the over world, battling monsters that appear in randomly spawned encounters. The title saw the return of the Active Time Battle feature, which sees each character in the team recharge their chance to attack at different rates based on their stats, rather than a fixed turn based system. It did, however, create a new feature called the Desperation Attack, in which a character is able to unleash a powerful attack when their health is low. This feature would be used across several future entries, though under different names, and would become something of a staple of the series, allowing players to do more damage in certain fights, but having to weigh that boost with a greater chance of being knocked out. 

Whilst the game was releases under the title of Final Fantasy VI in Japan, it was changed to Final Fantasy III in the United States, as there had only been two other entries in the series released there to that date. There were no major changes to the gameplay itself (something that had been done in a previous release), but some censorship was done in order to remove things deemed sexual or adult. Some nudity was removed, and locations like bars were changed to cafes. Some references to death and killing were altered, changing character's lines. And most unusual of all, the spell Holy was re-named Pearl in order to not offend religious groups. 

At the time of release in Japan the game sold well, and received critical acclaim. It sold more than 2 million copies in Japan alone, and became the country's biggest selling game of 1994. Whilst it did not receive as much attention in other countries, it still sold well, and topped the charts in the US for sales in October, and became the 8th overall selling NES game of the year. Despite this, the game did not sell anywhere near as well outside of Japan, and the vast majority of the game's overall sales occurred there. However, over the years people's views on the title have changed, and the game has gone on to be considered a classic.

Some of this was down to a number of re-releases. The first of these was a re-release on the PlayStation in 1999. Thanks to the popularity of both Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy VIII on the console previous games in the series were given a re-release. Final Fantasy V and Final Fantasy VI were released together in the US as the Final Fantasy Collection whilst the game was released on it's own in Europe. This re-release was the edition that I owned, and my first experience with the game. This port also included brand new FMV sequences for the opening and conclusion of the game, but remained largely untouched and unaltered. 

A handheld version of the game was released on the Gameboy Advance, which lost the FMV's of the PlayStation release, but improved upon the graphics, and featured a new translation that brought the game more in line with the original script and names. It also featured a few new additions such new summons, dungeons, and spells. 2014, the 20th anniversary of the game, also saw it released onto mobile devices. And last year saw a release on the Nintendo Switch. 

The number of re-releases of the title, along with it's high critical acclaim places it as an important title in the franchise. Whilst it's the final 2D game in the series, and some younger gamers are quick to dismiss most 2D games, it shouldn't be held back by such views. Final Fantasy VI is perhaps one of the most enduring games in the series thanks to the chances it took. It's sprawling, non-linear story was ahead of it's time, and the new features it introduced informed many in later games. Whether it's a game that you played upon first release, or have only recently discovered, it's hard to argue that it's not a game that very much deserves attention. 

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Dark Souls II – Throwback 10

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

There are occasionally games that come out that feel like they change the landscape of gaming forever. Resident Evil changed the survival horror genre, Final Fantasy VII changed role playing games, Street Fighter II changed fighting games. Each one may not have been the first of their respective genres, but they did something that would make all other games that came after different, whether in an attempt to emulate, or an attempt to compete.

Dark Souls was not the first hugely punishing action adventure game (that would be Demon Souls), but Dark Souls is the one that ignited what would become known as the ‘Soulslike’ genre. Thanks to the popularity of Dark Souls other companies began trying to create their own version, but whilst they were all trying to catch hold of the wave FromSoftware did what the fans were hoping for for three years: they released a sequel.

Announced two years before, at the Video Game Awards in 2012, Dark Souls II took many elements from the previous game, and as such had a shorter development time. Staples of the series, such as the focus on combat difficulty, environmental storytelling, and monstrous enemies in a empty dark fantasy world, all made a return, with FromSoftware focusing on smaller innovations and changes rather than trying to change the things that fans had come to love. As such, even with an entirely new setting the game feels instantly familiar to those that have played the very first Dark Souls.

As with the previous game, Dark Souls II begins with the player character becoming cursed, made into an undead creature that can never truly die. Assigned a mission to obtain four Great Souls in order to break this curse and free themselves from undeath, the player character travels to the new land of Drangleic. As with the first game, this results in the player exploring their way through danger filled environments as they try to find the next piece of the puzzle in their quest. The story leads from one place, one deadly foe, to another, slowly growing stronger as you have to take on ever increasingly monstrous creatures. Things haven’t changed much from the last game, and it’s instead in the smaller details that any real changes that the developers have made can be found.

One of the most obvious ways in which the game differs is in its locations. Dark Souls II offers a little more variety than the first game, and it incorporates environments such as seaside kingdoms, castles surrounded in lava, and danger filled marshlands. Whilst the first game created one giant, interconnected world that worked from a practical level, Dark Souls II does not. The locations don’t line up properly, they can’t be in the places they’re supposed to exist in. This is something that modders and data-miners have explored further in the years since its release, discovering that certain locations actually inhabit the same spaces at times. The result is a world that feels less real and more dreamlike at times, where the rules of reality don’t work, and the result is a more unsettling and confusing experience.

The combat was also tweaked somewhat, with the magic system having been altered to become less powerful than the previous game, and the parrying system (which was already somewhat difficult to master) was made even more unforgiving as timings were made much stricter. The system of dying over and over was also altered slightly. Whilst it was still expected that players would die frequently, using the death as a learning experience, this time there was also a penalty for dying. In Dark Souls II each time you die you incur a penalty to your maximum health, with each death slowly bringing down how much health you have to play with the next time you respawn. In a game where death is not just expected, but part of the process, this penalty felt harsh to some, and whilst it was welcomed by returning players who were used to the Dark Souls gameplay style it did result in the game being even harder for new players.

Upon release Dark Souls II received almost universal acclaim, being awarded near perfect scores from many media outlets and gaming magazines. The game was praised for the improvements to environments and lighting effects, with some pointing out that the combat tweaks and increase in difficulty was something of a detraction. Despite that, most reviewers still scored the game highly, and it would go on to win Game of the Year at the Golden Joystick Awards, as well as being nominated for Game of the Year at other awards.

Whilst over time some people have come to view Dark Souls II as the weaker of the three Dark Souls games, and possibly the weakest of the entire FromSoftware catalogue, it’s by no means hated or disliked. Fans of the series love Dark Souls II, and its success proved that the franchise could go on for multiple entries (something FromSoftware have yet to do for their other SoulsLike series). The success of Dark Souls II, and the series as a whole, also helped to make the SoulsLike genre one that’s guaranteed to stick around.

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South Park: The Stick of Truth – Throwback 10

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

South Park very quickly became an international hit when it first began, and there was a time where you could easily find merchandise for the show in the local high street; from posters to plushies, South Park was everywhere. One area where the series tried to make inroads pretty early on was the world of gaming, with their first game releasing on the Nintendo 64 within the first two years of the show’s release. Despite how popular South Park was the game didn’t do too well, and subsequent games like South Park: Chef’s Love Shack and South Park Rally, released over the next two years would get even worse reviews. Things didn’t look good for South Park gaming, and it wouldn’t be until more than a decade later that things would change for them.

South Park: The Stick of Truth may have released in 2014, but began life five years earlier as development began in 2009 after series creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone approached development studio Obsidian Entertainment to adapt the series to the video game medium. Obsidian was chosen as Parker and Stone wanted to create a roleplaying game, and Obsidian’s previous releases in this genre made them the main choice to develop the game. It’s been reported that the original aim of the game was to make a ‘South Park version of Skyrim‘ with the original script weighing it at 500 pages in length; an ambition that would need to be reigned in, as the game would face a number of difficulties during development.

Despite Parker and Stone pushing for the game’s development, and going through numerous hours long meetings with the creative team at Obsidian to help develop the look and feel of the game, things didn’t go smoothly. Due to the adult and often controversial nature of South Park, finding funding for the game was a difficulty, but eventually THQ agreed to back the development. However, when Microsoft cancelled a deal with Obsidian it resulted in job losses at the company, losses that would affect South Park’s development. This was compounded when THQ went into bankruptcy, which resulted in the rights to the game being auctioned off; eventually being bought by Ubisoft. Despite these difficulties, difficulties that have in the past cancelled games completely, South Park: The Stick of Truth somehow managed to reach release.

Taking on the role of a new kid in town, the player is able to create their own character, customising them throughout the game with equipment and cosmetic changes. The game plays like a fantasy RPG, and as such the player is asked to choose a class at the start of the game, picking from Fighter, Thief, Mage, and Jew. Each class has their own combat styles and abilities that will evolve and unlock as the game progresses. You’re picking one of these classes as the children of South Park are playing a fantasy LARP game, and your character finds themselves in the middle of it. But, this being South Park, things are never that simple. As the game progresses, more factions become involved as they battle for the titular Stick of Truth.

Played as a side scrolling 2.5D game, South Park: The Stick of Truth allows players to explore locations from the series, including parts of the town, and other locations that a normal person would likely not be able to predict. These locations have areas that can only be accessible at later points in the game once the player has unlocked new skills and abilities. There are also collectable items to be found that can increase character perks and abilities, as well as several mini games scattered throughout. The game, surprisingly, offers a decent level of variety and challenge that was lacking in previous South Park game titles.

Unlike previous games, South Park: The Stick of Truth received high praise from critics. Thanks to the technology being able to so seamlessly recreate the look and feel of the show it was called one of the most faithful gaming adaptations; something that was only helped by episodes of the show leading into the plot of the game. Filled with references and jokes from across the series, the game offered fans a deep dive into the South Park universe like never before, and it ended up being much loved because of that. During its first week of release it became the best selling game on all formats, and would go on to sell more than 1.6 million copies.

Thanks to the success, South Park would continue to create video games that would tie into the series, featuring heavy involvement from the series creators, with South Park: The Fractured But Whole being released in 2017, and South Park: Snow Day! set for a release on 26th March 2024. It may have taken them a while, but it would seem that South Park had finally cracked their formula, and have become a successful part of the gaming landscape.

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Thief - Throwback 10

 

When I was growing up there were two series that people would talk about as the main stealth games, Metal Gear Solid, and Thief. Having been more of a console player I ended up missing the original Thief games, but even then I was excited to see the series make a brief return in 2014.

Created by Eidos-Montreal and Square Enix, the game saw the return of master thief Garrett, who has been away from his homeland for a long time. Upon his return he finds his home, simply called The City, is now under the rule of a tyrannical and cruel new leader, Baron Northcrest. When Garrett is hired to steal from the Baron's home, along with an inexperienced thief called Erin, the job will end up changing his life, and The City, forever. When the mission goes wrong thanks to Erin, and a magic ritual being performed by the Baron and his men, Garrett falls into a coma.

Waking a year later, Garrett learns that The City is in the grips of a plague called The Gloom, with entire parts of the city in quarantine. As Garrett recovers he goes on a few missions to steal special items from across the city, and learns of a conspiracy to overthrow the Baron. Working with the resistance, Garrett finds himself caught up in a larger plot than he first thought; one with the fate of The City on the line.

Originally announced in 2009 as Thief 4, or Thi4f, the game went through a great deal of changes during its early development, including having a third person perspective at one time, and also having a completely new protagonist. Following the release of Deus Ex: Human Revolution in 2012 the team for Thief was expanded significantly, and work began on the game in earnest. 

The final game ended up being more in line with the original trilogy, though a number of newer gameplay elements that had become popular over recent years had been included. Despite that, stealth was still the order of the day. Whilst the game does include elements such as melee combat for those times when you get into trouble it's not the best implemented, and sneaking without being seen remains the best course of action throughout; even if it does take longer. Skulking in the shadows, learning guards patrol routes, and moving slowly are the keys to success, leading you to your objective.

Whilst Garrett is tasked with stealing specific items it doesn't mean that that is all you can take, and practically anything that isn't nailed down can be grabbed and thrown into Garrett's swag bag to trade on later. The only problem with this is that it does ruin the illusion that Garrett is a master thief, who gets in, grabs what he's been hired to steal, and gets out, and he becomes a petty looter at best. But, I can understand why the developers would include the ability to take anything the player wanted so as to avoid accusations of railroading or restricting gameplay.

One of the areas in which Thief excels is in it's lighting system. There have been many, many games where the stealth system is little more than crouching turning you invisible, with enemy AI having no way of looking down. There have been countless games where I've questioned the abilities of enemy guards as I walk two steps behind them in the bright light whilst they're oblivious to my presence. But thanks to the way that light and darkness work in Thief it does feel that you're actually using the darkness as a tool, rather than relying on guards being near sighted.

Upon its release Thief was received fairly well, with decent scores from many publications. Reviews criticised small issues with the gameplay, but rated it as a fun and enjoyable experience that fans of the originals would enjoy. One area in which it was called out a lot, however, was in the voice acting. Original voice actor Stephen Russell had been replaced by Romano Orzari, who was described as 'flat'; it also didn't help that the lip synching in the game's cut scenes was pretty poor, which further brought attention to lacklustre acting. 

Whilst the game was criticised on some points Thief received decent review scores, and was an enjoyable enough experience whilst playing it, there has been no further games in the series, making the time since Thief's release as long as the gap between it and the previous game in the series. With no news of another game coming, however, it looks like 2014's outing might be the last mission for Garrett. 

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Chronique des Silencieux – Game Review

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

Point and click adventure games are some of the oldest that have existed on the PC. Their simple interface of clicking on things with your mouse, trying to figure out the next part of the story and searching for things in the environment that will help get you to that point make them feel timeless, and whilst technology and graphics have changed over the decades the general gameplay hasn’t. The latest game to dip its toes into this much loved genre is Pierre Feuille Studios’ very first game, the historical mystery adventure Chronique des Silencieux.

Set during the 1970s, in the French town of Bordeaux, Chronique des Silencieux puts players in control of Eugene, a fifteen-year-old boy who travels to Brodeaux to find his uncle, following the recent passing of his mother. Arriving at the train station, alone and with not even a single piece of luggage, he finds no one waiting for him. Stepping out into the rain soaked streets, Eugene eventually finds the old antique shop where his uncle works and lives, only to be met by an angry Madame Solange, who tells him that his uncle has gone away. We soon learn that Uncle Flavio has been telling some lies about his life, and that he’s actually the security/pimp for Madam Solange’s brothel, and that he’s recently been arrested for fighting with One Armed Herve. Heading to the local police station, Eugene is recruited by an inspector to help look into the events.

Thus begins Eugene’s adventure into the seedy, criminal underbelly of Bordeaux, and a story that involves sex work, secret drug trades, organised crime, and murder. Whilst this sounds exciting, the actual execution of the game leads to it being anything but, and I was ready to pull my hair out and quit before I was even through the segment of the game quite unfairly called the ‘tutorial’.

The main thrust of Chronique des Silencieux is finding connections between discovered documents and witness testimonies. This is done by exploring environments in order to collect items such as police reports, stock certificates, and letters hidden in the backs of drawers that require you to shift around junk in order to find them, and by engaging in long conversations with multiple people. Connections are made in your inventory screen, where you can select a document you want to check out, and one of the testimonies you’ve collected. Then selecting a sentence in one it will generate a red string that you then connect to a sentence in the other to make a connection. In theory, this works absolutely fine, but in practice it’s one of the most frustrating aspects of the entire game.

The ‘tutorial’ segment tells you to find a connection between Uncle Flavio’s testimonies and the police report that you’ve got on the fight. Whilst this sounds simple enough, the game doesn’t make it clear if you are searching for something that confirmed his story, or something that proved a lie, and it took an incredible amount of trial and error to find the connection it wanted.

The fact that all of the various dialogue testimonies from Uncle Flavio gave me a few dozen sentences to pick from, and that each of them could connect to another dozen parts of the police report made finding the right connection something of a nightmare. Even some of the clues I found within both that proved a lie, such as how the fight started, or what One Arm Herve’s connection to one of the sex workers was. These turned out to not be the connections the game wanted, and kept flagging them up as wrong. The simple act of connecting the right two pieces of info ended up taking almost 20 minutes of examination and guess work that ended with me hating the main gameplay premise of the entire game.

From the long and obtuse tutorial the game opens up into the main mystery, and gets even more difficult. You’re let out into a small corner of the town to try and figure out why this fight with your uncle started, which is only further complicated when One Arm Herve turns up dead. You have to search through drawers in the brothel, talk to everyone there, and even go out into the streets to talk to people there. When you get enough information, new avenues of investigation open up, allowing you to talk to more people on more topics and collect more testimonies. Unfortunately, the game doesn’t tell you when these points happen, and there are multiple times where you feel like you’ve hit a brick wall with no way to progress things forward.

If you’re able to collect enough testimonies and clues and make the right wildly difficult to guess connections you can try to open locks in your inventory that lead to Eugene coming up with theories that he can then confront suspects with. During these confrontations you’ll have to challenge the suspect on what they’re saying based on the evidence you’ve collected, but if you get these wrong by failing to pick out the exact sentence needed you’ll end up ruining the investigation, which goes on to affect your eventual score. Difficult, frustrating, and obtuse are the main descriptors for the gameplay, unfortunately.

Graphically, the game looks good, and has a nice animated look to it that’s reminiscent of French comic art. The characters all have a distinct style, and stand out in the environments. The characters and the art style really comes to life in the animated cut scenes, where you get to see them in much more action than the rest of the game. However, as these parts are voiced in French with English subtitles, half of your attention will be on reading the text before it vanishes, meaning you won’t really be able to give the cut scene the attention it deserves. Speaking of the translation, with the game having been adapted from French to English you’d hope that attention would have been given to this in order to make sure the story and the mystery elements were translated correctly. However, the text is riddled with typos, broken English, and weird turns of phrase that make evaluating long passages of text to find connections even more difficult.

Chronique des Silencieux is Pierre Feuille Studios first game, and it was partly funded through a Kickstarter campaign. It’s clear that the people behind the game had a passion to create it, but I can’t help but feel some more development time would have helped. The game has some great ideas, and it could have worked well, but as it is in its current state, it’s about as far from being enjoyable as any game I’ve ever played and I simply can’t recommend it, even to hardcore point and click adventure fans.

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The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening – Throwback 30

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

Today it’s hard to think about The Legend of Zelda series and imagine it without handheld games. There are now roughly the same number of handheld games as there are console ones in the series. Depending on how you class the Switch alters that number too, and if you include spin-off games, the handhelds lead by quite a margin. But there was a time when Link and friends being on anything but a home console felt like a wild idea.

The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening was the first Zelda game to make the leap, but it was never really intended to be when it was first created. Unusually, the game began life as a side-project, one that some of the developers at the Nintendo Entertainment Analysis & Development division worked on after hours in an unofficial capacity. It originally started with programmer Kazuaki Morita, who played around with one of the first Game Boy development kits, creating a Zelda-like game. After the release of The Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past Nintendo looked at porting the game to the Game Boy, but soon decided that the unofficial side project felt more promising.

The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening is unusual for a Zelda game, as it was the first to not take place within the Kingdom of Hyrule, nor did it feature the titular Princess, or the evil Ganon. Instead, the game begins with Link, the hero of the previous instalment, caught in a fierce storm whilst out at sea. His ship is destroyed, and he wakes up on the remote Koholint Island. He learns that the only way off the island is to wake the mystical Wind Fish, a giant whale-like creature that lives inside a giant egg on the island’s mountaintop. In order to do so he will need to travel across the island, battling monsters inside eight dungeons, to collect the musical instruments needed to take the Wind Fish.

The game introduced a number of new features that would go on to become commonplace in the franchise, such as fishing, being able to map weapons and items to different buttons, and being able to play songs on the ocarina. These are game-play elements that fans of the series have likely now taken for granted, and may have first encountered in The Legends of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, but series producer Eiji Aonuma credits Link’s Awakening for introducing them, and has said that Ocarina of Time would likely have been a very different game without the handheld entry.

In the same interview he would also describe how the game drew influence from the popular television series Twin Peaks, especially in its approach to friendly NPC’s. The townspeople were made to be suspicious, again something that would carry over into other games, and the game would play around with the fourth wall and player expectations. Due to not being able to use characters like Zelda, the game instead featured characters from the Mario and Kirby franchises, and characters would break the fourth wall at times, talking directly to the player rather than Link.

The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening was hugely popular upon releases, and topped sales charts. It was the top selling Game Boy game of its release month in both Japan and the US, and even helped to boost sales of the Game Boy itself. The game would remain on the bestseller list for seven and a half years, and would receive a re-release in the Players Choice series. The sales and critical reception were so high that when the Game Boy Color was released the game received an overhaul with The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening DX version in 1998. This new version was presented in full colour, with an extra dungeon introduced into the game that made use of the colour mechanics. This version would sell more than 2.2 million copies, on top of the original’s 3.8 million. The colour version would also tackle the chief complaint about the game, that the grey-scale graphics sometimes made things harder to see.

The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening didn’t end there though. When the game was released on the virtual console for the Nintendo 3DS it became the top-selling downloadable game that year. This proved that there was still a lot of love for the game, and in 2019 it got the biggest overhaul yet. Released on the Nintendo Switch, this new version was a ground-up remake. It stayed true to the spirit of the original, keeping the top-down view, and used a ‘retro-modern’ style, making the characters look toy-like. The remake was a fantastic adaptation of the original, and would receive positive reviews, as well as a number of awards, and would go on to sell more than 6.4 million copies.

Whilst The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild often get held up as examples of the series at its best The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening deserves similar praise. It brought the franchise to the handheld consoles, and it created innovations that are still felt across the games to this day. And, as a personal note, it’s the very first Zelda game I ever played and completed. It might not be the first game that comes to mind when thinking of the franchise, but I’ll always argue that it’s one of the best.

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The Hobbit – Throwback 20

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

The beginning of the millennium was a time when the works of J.R.R. Tolkien were big business. Thanks to the Peter Jackson directed films, The Lord of the Rings was a hot commodity. This beloved, but still niche, fantasy book was available in almost every shop; you could find action figures, t-shirts, lunch boxes and more. People had Middle-earth fever, and as the Oscar winning film trilogy was nearing its conclusion other companies were doing whatever they could to try and cash in on the hype train. This is how we got the 2003 video game The Hobbit.

Long before a movie executive had the wild, and frankly terrible, idea to turn a short children’s story into a three film, nine-hour epic that would reportedly damage the New Zealand film industry, The Hobbit was the part of Tolkien’s catalogue that most tied into The Lord of the Rings, but one that tended to be overlooked. It’s needed so that Bilbo gets the ring, but most people who discovered The Lord of the Rings via the movies didn’t engage with The Hobbit, learning what they needed through in film context clues. As such, there was an almost untapped market when it came to The Hobbit, and making it more accessible would surely result in big money for the people doing that, right?

Sierra Entertainment believed that to be the case, and whilst the films were taking the box office by storm began work on their own piece of the Tolkien pie. Originally, Sierra began work on a Fellowship of the Ring game that would have had no connection to the films, but shifted onto The Hobbit. The Fellowship of the Ring game was released, having been finished by another developer, and was pretty panned in reviews and audience reactions. Despite having no connection to the films, a lot of people bought the game thinking it was a tie in, and it led to angry and disappointed fans. As such, Sierra made it clear early on that their game has zero connection to the film universe, instead hyping up the fact that it was based upon the original novel.

The game puts players in control of Bilbo Baggins (Michael Beattie), a hobbit who is recruited onto a mission to help a group of dwarves travel across Middle-earth to their ancestral home of the Lonely Mountain, where they would defeat an ancient dragon and reclaim the treasure it holds. The game follows the plot of the book fairly well, keeping most of the main beats of the story intact, building around what was in the book without adding too much that changed the basic structure. This was done under the supervision of Tolkien Enterprises, who had veto rights on any part of the development they felt strayed too far from the source material.

The game-play itself was based around platforming and combat, taking a few inspirations from The Legend of Zelda series. Played via third-person view, players take Bilbo through 3-D environments that you’re able to jump, climb, and sneak your way through. Each level has enemies for you to fight, using basic weapons like a stick and throwable rocks, until you eventually gain Bilbo’s sword Sting, as well as collectable items to discover in order to unlock and purchase upgrades. Each level also has quests to complete, some of which are needed to progress the story, whilst others are optional.

The game takes players to several locations from the book, such as dealing with Smaug inside the Lonely Mountain, freeing the dwarves from the dungeons of Mirkwood, and of course, the iconic encounter with Gollum deep within the Misty mountains. And like the book it was based upon, the game took a much lighter tone to the rest of Tolkien’s works. The visual style of the game seemed geared towards younger players, with a more cartoonish and fantastical design element to it that also helped to differentiate it from the Jackson film aesthetic.

When it was released The Hobbit received mixed, but positive reviews. The game was praised for sticking close to the source material, yet managing to expand it out in ways that allowed for a fuller game experience. The visual style and music were also noted as a positive in a lot of reviews, but many found the simplistic game-play to be an issue. It was felt that the game was too similar to The Legend of Zelda series, yet lacked any of the flair those games possessed. Some people also complained that the game was aimed at too young an audience for adult gamers to really enjoy, whilst being too challenging to be squarely for kids.

The Hobbit may have been trying to cash in on the hype surrounding the big screen versions of Tolkien’s work, but managed to be at least a few steps away from being a soulless cash grab. There are some interesting elements in the game, with a fun art design that sets it apart from other Tolkien adaptations at the time. It might be one for hardcore Tolkien fans, but there’s a fair amount of fun to be found with it.

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