Team Sonic Racing review (PS4 version)

Team Sonic Racing is an absolute blast, and so much fun to play. It’s the follow up to Sonic & All Stars Racing Transformed from 2012, which was a great game on its own terms. This will be the only time I will make a comparison to Mario Kart, but the two come from similar DNA. In that both are relatively simple, arcade games that are easy to pick up, with very little complexity to them. Which is what I personally look for in a racing game.

As the title suggests, the game has one ace up his sleeve that makes it unique and different from its competition, and that is its focus on team dynamics. Each race will have four teams of three, and the aim is to still win by each member finishing as high as possible, thereby getting higher points at the end. But to do so you must work as a team by trading items and building up your ultimate meter, which gives you the best power up in the game. For example, instead of wasting a power up if you are in first place, you can offer it to another member of your team. The power ups are a bit dull to be honest, it is your typical boost and firing projectiles that you'll pick up. I wish they would have made the power ups more closely attributed to the characters themselves.

I was a bit sceptical of this new direction, but it works perfectly and adds tension to the races, as well as an element of tactical thought that is missing from other games of the genre. The team aspect of the game also works wonders in the online multiplayer races, it makes for an unpredictable and infuriating experience, but in a good way.

For those who want something more familiar, there is an option to play most modes as a solo racer. But be aware that the game is stripped of its chaotic fun and design nuance in the process.

There are twelve characters and twenty-one tracks in total. The characters are entirely taken from the Sonic franchise, so aside from Sonic and Tails, you have the lesser known Silver and Rogue, amongst others. The roster is a bit of disappointment to be honest, I find it baffling that characters from Sega’s large IP catalogue were not included. The racers are split into three different classes, speed, technique and power. Speed and technique are the easiest to use, with the slower power classes the hardest to master.

You can customise your vehicles with the credits you are rewarded with, you use these to open mod pods that give you random skins, paint palettes and car parts. These are basically loot boxes in all but name, but don't worry, there are no paid micro-transactions here. There is a lot to play around with, far more than I anticipated, so I pretty much redesigned every character's default vehicle at some point.   

The racetracks are good for the most part, they are multi layered with twists and loops, much like the levels in a modern Sonic game. With that said, although they are visually elegant, they do look reasonably similar to one another because there are a set of four tracks within the same locale. Much like the character roster, I think it would have been so much better if they had created tracks from other Sega IP, it feels like a bit of a missed opportunity.

Overall, there is a decent amount of content, the basic stuff you might expect from a racing game, with a grand prix mode with three difficulty levels, normal, hard and expert. The game is not difficult once you have a grasp of things, even on expert mode it’s not overly challenging, which is another minor negative that I have towards the game. There are time trials for each track, where you can try and beat your own best times and those that have already been set by the game. The multiplayer online mode has team racing as well as solo races, you can take part in both casual and ranked modes. As soon as you have joined a lobby you get the choice of picking from four tracks, whichever one is picked the most is chosen for the race.

Finally, there is the Team Adventure mode, which has a bare-bones story that is nothing to rave about. In the simplest terms, an alien called Dodon Pa asks Sonic and his friends to come and race on his tracks. It really isn't worth going into the details of the plot, but you will get to experience all the tracks and extra challenges on offer, most of which will have a timer attached to them. The mode is best used as a tutorial, I would recommend starting the game from here. The further you progress the more difficulty levels that you will unlock, and I found it more challenging than the grand prix mode.

Team Sonic Racing is a bundle of joy, and there is a layer of depth that you don’t often get with these types of games. But it is not an excellent game, which is a shame because it could have been with more ambition in its character roster and track designs. And while there is a decent amount of content for what you are paying for, it is nothing more than my minimal expectations. But this last point is just a minor gripe that I had. So in conclusion, I would certainly recommend buying this game, the engaging team mechanics and customisation extras are worth it alone.

Verdict:

7.5

Mortal Kombat 11 review (PS4 version)

Mortal Kombat 11 was not a game I planned on buying on the first day it was released, over the last year I have tried numerous fighting games to get my kicks from. This has especially been the case since my play time on For Honor has drastically declined in the last six months. Aside from a brief month or so with Dead or Alive 6, most have not held my attention for too long, for various reasons that I have written about in a past blog post.

So I went into Mortal Kombat 11 through sheer hope that it would be different, and I'm pleased to say that it's one of the best fighters I have ever played, and I think it's going to keep me pleased for quite some time yet. Before I get onto the main body of my review, I'd just like to say that aside from a brief moment on my brother's copy of MK9, I have not really played a game in the franchise since the second entry on the Sega Mega Drive. I played it round my baby sitter's house, and I liked it without the urge to want my own copy. The violence was a bit nice at the time, and the fatalities were clever (I could never pull them off). Although Tekken would eventually become my favourite fighting game, Mortal Kombat always stood out from the competition by having unique looking character designs that were realist but fantastical at the same time.

And this is still the case with the latest entry, MK11 certainly has one of the best character designs of any fighter that I have ever played, and to top it off, they each have a unique fighting style. The moment to moment combat is a simple, old fashioned 2D left to right gameplay that's not overly complex, with a relatively slow pace at its core. I like this because it makes the fights more streamlined and tactical, you are not just reacting to your opponents next move. For new players there is an extensive but easy to understand set of tutorials for each character, that I found extremely helpful. Basic combos and special moves are fairly easy to pull off, but pulling off a combo chain can be tricky, especially if you are playing on harder difficulties or against a decent online opponent. I struggled to use the D-pad initially, which you will have to use because of the game's 2D design.

Like all fighting games there are characters that could do with some balancing, as well as those that have cheap move sets. But on the whole, the game is one of the better balanced fighters that I have played in recent times. A newly introduced 'Fatal Flaw' feature has changed the dynamics of the combat in a small way, it's a move you can use if you are down to the last quarter of your health. It's like a mini version of a fatality, if you pull it off it you can take away about a quarter of your opponents health. There is a part of me that really likes this because it makes the fights more tense, especially when it's close. But there is the other half of me that hates it because it gives bad and cheap players a lifeline they do not deserve. It is also the only part of the combat that reminds me of other fighting games on the market.

The twenty five character roster is impressive, they all have similar control configurations for their special moves and combo chains, but they play vastly different from one another. All of whom have their own pros and cons. After a while, I get to the point in most fighting games where there is only a few characters that I actually like playing as. To my surprise I like using nearly every character in MK11, I do have my favourites of course, but it's been fun learning to master the entire roster.

Old favourites such as Raiden, Liu Kang and Scorpion return amongst others. With new characters Frost and Geras joining the lineup. There is a nice blend of fantastical comic book type fighters, as well as those that are more grounded, which in turn gives you some imaginative fight stages. The game is visually elegant in all departments, with no hit box flashing clogging up the screen.

There is plenty of content for a fighting game at launch, there is an elaborate story mode that does not feel tacked on, which is too often the case with other games of the genre. To give a brief summary of the plot, we begin in a future where the main characters of the franchise have turned evil. Raiden kills Shinnok to protect Earthrealm, so his mother Kronika, the keeper of time tries to change this by interfering with time. This then creates anomalies that bring young versions of the characters into the future where they have to take on their older, eviler selves. It's all schlock but rather entertaining. The story plays out like one big cinematic movie with different narratives intertwining between characters, and an occasional fight that you have to take part in.

Then you have the Konquest towers, where the meat of the content is. You have the classic arcade towers that you have to get through to reach the final boss, Kronika. But then there is the Towers of Time, these towers are a different kind of challenge, and provide the bulk of the game's reward and grind system. Your opponents will now have particular abilities that you have to overcome, for example some will have improved fireballs or a move that turns the whole screen black.

There are three kinds of currencies that you will be rewarded with when you complete these challenges. There are the gold Koins that are the most abundant, as well as Hearts and Soul fragments. All of these are used to open chest boxes of a varying kind in the Krypt. The Krypt is Shang Tsung's Island, every inch of it is full of these boxes to open. In these boxes are a range of random loot and cosmetics such as character skins, intros, augments, concept art, etc. The more expensive the box you open, the bigger the reward. I really like this idea but the execution is a bit flawed to say the least. It feels like a level within itself, with varying secrets to uncover by using items you have earned in the main game. There is also something slightly addictive about not knowing, but wanting to be rewarded with the currency you have grinded.

But there are just too many forms of currency, to have three feels convoluted and rather unnecessary, and it makes the progression feel like a mobile game. To be fair the game has been patched since its initial release, making the progression less egregious. But I still cannot help but think that it was designed in such a way to at least entice the player for monetary reasons.

Which brings me to the character customisation, where the execution is once again flawed and convoluted. You have your standard skins and abilities to toy with, but there are also augments that can be attached to your weapons, that give you specific upgrades. It's a great idea in theory because it provides an incentive to master one specific character at a time, but it just ends up feeling like busy work, and a tad superfluous. However, I can see why this might be different for players who want to play the game in the online ranked modes.

To sum up, Mortal Komabt 11 is an awesome fighting game that really took me by surprise, I have been having a blast with it. Aside from borrowing a few balancing issues that drag down most games of the genre, and a convoluted progression system. It is an absolute must buy for any fan of the genre, or someone who is looking for a competitive online experience.

Verdict:

8/10

The Division 2, the good and the bad (PS4 version)

I thoroughly enjoyed 2016s The Division, it was the first online focused game that I really dug my teeth into. I had initially played it on my brother’s XBOX One, and it was one of the reasons why I chose to purchase a PS4 after a bit of a hiatus from gaming.

Despite some obvious flaws that I won’t go into here, The Division was a fun cover based, third person shooter, with an added loot grind on top of it. I spent countless hours playing with friends in the main missions, as well as the broken but rewarding Dark Zone. Like Destiny, the moment to moment gameplay was engaging and joyous. The feel of the weapons was great and the bullets hit the target with a lot of weight and impact. The weapons might have looked a bit too similar to one another but you were always rewarded with better loot the further you progressed. The best thing about the game was that you could tailor your gear and skill loadout to way you wanted to approach the game.

So I’d been looking forward to The Division 2 since long before it was even announced, and I purchased it on day one. I’ve now completed the base game and experienced most of the endgame content, and my feelings are a bit mixed to be honest. It’s a better and more polished experience than the first game, but it doesn’t go beyond what I expected, and it doesn’t match the fun that I had on my first experience playing through the first Division. Which is understandable in some ways, because your first experience with a particular series will be more impressionable compared with a sequel that’s better but fundamentally the same.

I’ve decided to do this review in a different way, one, because I’d like to just get to the point and narrow down my positive and negatives. Two, because the game is still evolving as I write this, seeing as it is an online service game. So I’ll state the good and bad, starting with the bad on this occasion.

The bad  

Artificial difficulty

The enemies can be really clever, and they are certainly far more challenging than those in the first Division. Not only do they flank you but they are relentless once they have you in sight.  Despite all of the frustration I’m glad this is the case, however, the difficulty can feel extremely cheap and artificial. There are a couple of enemy types that feel unbalanced, I’m thinking of baton wielders who sprint and kill you within one or two hits, as well as armoured enemies who sprint at you with a jack hammer, like the baton enemies they can kill you in matter of seconds once they get hold of you. This isn’t helped when the enemies don’t generally react when you’re pumping bullets into them, and they have a knack of spawning from nowhere. Which makes it hard to react if you’re in the heat of a fire fight (especially if you’re in a bad team).  

This isn’t helped with the general clumsiness of the player movement, the cover system is perfect when you’re on the offensive but it’s a bit lacking when you have to retreat. Particularly if you’re in a position where there’s no immediate cover to get behind.

The story:

The story in the first Division game was hardly enthralling or even original, but its execution was at least interesting, and the characters you met were worth listening to. I just can’t say the same for The Division 2, I got to the point where I just didn’t even bother to take much notice of what was going on. This problem is further exacerbated by the stripped down connection you have with the base of operations. In the first game the base of operations was integral to the progression. In this game it’s still the place that you have to customise your character, but little else. With that said, having The White House as the base of operations was a great idea.

Repetition and telegraphed mechanics:

Although this point will be countered by one of my positives, the game’s gameplay mechanics eventually get repetitive. You gradually begin to notice a pattern in the way the missions and the enemies playout. The enemies will flank and duck out of cover at a precise moment in a certain way. For all of the game’s fun and thrill, after the initial opening of the game I couldn’t play the game for more than an hour or two at a time. Which is evidence that I liked the game, but I could play the first game endlessly and never get bored. With The Division 2 there came a point when I was playing it out of obligation rather than any form of investment.

Clunky UI and bugs:

These are minor issues I had compared with my other negatives, but the game quite frequently takes a while to load in properly when you spawn into the map. Causing the environmental textures to have a bizarre water palette look to them, as well as bad pop in.

The user interface is not the best, but it’s in no way detrimental to the experience. I just think there could have been a more cohesive way of layering the different gears together, and a better way of dismantling useless gear you don't need.

The Good:

The game is exhilaratingly fun, especially in a group:

Although I have complained about the artificial difficulty and the repetition, the game is still an absolute blast. The missions are far superior to those in the first game, and the locations are far more expansive. The weapons hit with real impact, and the shooting is excellent on the whole. The game gives you a lot of agency by allowing you to build your character with the weapons, gear and skills that suit your playstyle.   

While some of the side missions are a bit hit and miss, the main missions and strongholds are excellent. Playing in a full team is extremely gratifying, this is especially the case if you’re in a good team that coordinates together (this doesn’t have to be over group chat). The game goes out of its way to make sure that players use the environment to take on enemies in their own unique way. On higer difficulties this only works if you’re in a team that is at least competent, otherwise you're in for a struggle.

Plenty of endgame content that’s good:

For a live service game, The Division 2 has plenty of content to get through, from the base game to the endgame content. I won’t spoil anything but a new, tougher enemy faction comes along once you have completed the base game, and it just makes a lot of the repeated content you’ll go through a bit more immersive. There is an abundance amount of new loot to pick up too.

While Washington DC is full of content that feels a bit like filler, the main missions are great, and the strongholds will keep you busy for quite some time. Since release, new content has been dropped, and Ubisoft plan on dropping more in the near future.

And let’s not forget the Dark Zone, the PVP area, and where you can get a ton of gear. To be honest I haven’t really delved too deeply into it, but there are three of them, rather than just the one which was in the first game. It’s added content that you might want to explore if you’re up for something different.

Interesting map:

The first game was set in New York City, which was good but it began to get a little stale the further into the game you progressed. The Division 2 takes place in Washington DC and it provides a more suburban locale. This has allowed the missions to be a bit more immersive and multi layered compared with the streets of Manhattan. The first game often felt like a corridor to corridor shooting gallery, in this game the bigger environments make it an imperative to play with some form of tactical awareness.

Although the game is not particularly pretty in the visual departments, it’s a treat to explore and blast your way through historical locations such as the Lincoln memorial, the Capitol building as well as the Washington Monument. The overall setting feels much grander on this occasion.

Final Thoughts:

The Division 2 is a bittersweet experience, although it’s bigger and better than its predecessor, there are flaws that don’t make the overall package nearly as fun. The core gameplay loop is thrilling but becomes a little monotonous, and the game’s difficulty makes it far less enjoyable playing solo. If you enjoyed the first game then this is a must buy, but be aware that this is more like a reboot than a proper sequel.

Captain Marvel review

Directors: Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck
Running time: 124 minutes
Certificate: 12A


Captain Marvel is set in the mid 1990s, so it's a somewhat prequel to the other Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, it's also the first to be led by a female character. Centred on Carol Danvers (Brie Larson), who's a member of an elite force of Kree warriors. When a mission to rescue an intelligence operative goes wrong, she is captured and her memories are probed by a group of Skrulls, a shape shifting alien race that the Kree are at war with. She manages to escape but crash lands on Earth, or Los Angeles to be more precise. Where she comes to the attention of government agent Nick Fury, and the remaining Skrulls that landed along with her.

In many ways Captain Marvel is a rather by the numbers superhero movie that happens to revolve around a character who has a form of amnesia. There's nothing about it that's particularly memorable or compelling. The action scenes are entertaining but rather passable, there's little in the way of tension when someone is so powerful, so any form of set up has no pay off. It's visually well made but not distinctive enough to really set its mark when you put it alongside other superhero movies, let alone on its own merits.

I did like the sense of adventure and urgency in the plot, all of the characters had clear motivations, and the action was driven by all of this. And to be honest the plot is rather serviceable, which wouldn't be much of a problem if there was an emotional connection to Carol Danvers. Brie Larson is a fine actress, and I thought the character became more sympathetic towards the end of her story arc. But the performance is just lacking a spark that guides us through the narrative, and there's not much in the way of character development by the end of the movie. This isn't helped with the flashbacks that we see of her past, while they explain her motivations they're short scenes lacking any kind of meat to them. So they just come off as a bit two dimensional.

The surrounding cast elevate what is an otherwise serviceable script. Samuel Jackson is as good as ever as a young Nick Fury, even if his character has gone from being serious and imposing in the previous MCU entries to a laugh a minute comic relief in this one. Jude Law is impressive as Yon Rogg, who is Danvers mentor and commander. And Ben Mendelsohn adds layers and a sense of empathy to the Skrull villain, Talos.

The movie doesn't really add much to the wider MCU timeline, its connection to the recent Avengers: Infinity War is pretty minimal, but it's worth waiting around for the post credit scene that does link the character to present events. The character might turnout to be more interesting within a wider ensemble of heroes, but her powers are not particularly well defined at the moment, and she's probably a bit too powerful for my liking. Every superhero needs a flaw or a weakness, and Captain Marvel doesn't really have one that I can speak of.

Overall this is a mid range MCU movie, it's perfectly competent and entertaining but lacks the heart to really string something together that's more than the sum of its parts. It's still worth the ticket price, especially if you're a fan of superhero movies.

2.75/5

Far Cry: New Dawn review (PS4 version)

I played the first Far Cry game way back on the original XBOX, I can’t remember much of it other than the fact that I didn’t get too far into it before giving up. It wasn’t my copy and I think I might have been too young to play it at the time. So I never returned to the series until 5 came out in early 2018. I really enjoyed the game, the gunplay was fantastic and the open world was interesting as well as visually beautiful. But I never completed it, as much as I was enjoying the experience I was kind of getting tired of open world games at the time, so I quit late into the story.

Just one year later we have a new entry, and it is the first to be a direct sequel in the series. Far Cry: New Dawn is set seventeen years after the events of 5, in a post apocalyptic Hope County, Montana. Where a nasty, vigilante group called The Highwaymen, led by twin sisters Micky and Lou, are in control.

Although there are a few tweaks here and there, the general thrust of the game has not changed too much from your usual Far Cry title. You have a reasonably big open world to explore, where you have to liberate outposts, complete missions and hunt animals, all for the purpose of crafting material and finding resources to progress.

For a post apocalyptic setting the open world of Hope County is filled with bright fauna and sunshine. The visual elegance in certain narrative sections of the game, and in one particular part of the map were exceptional to say the least. This is a big contrast with the derelict and torn down buildings that make up most of the locations. Although there's nothing groundbreaking here, It’s refreshing to see a post apocalyptic setting that’s not a dark, barren wasteland.

Where New Dawn does slightly divert from its predecessors is with the introduction of base building. From the beginning you will start the game in Prosperity, a settlement at the bottom of the open world map, that becomes your base of operations. Outside of the story missions, building your base is essential to your progression. None of this is particularly complex, but from here you can unlock new weapons, new cars, improve your health as well as the amount of explosive ammunition that you can carry.

The only way that you can upgrade your base is by getting Ethanol, the bulk of this is collected when you liberate enemy outposts. You can also hijack enemy vehicles that are carrying it, but liberating outposts is where the overwhelming majority of it is found. Which brings me to one of the more drastic changes in the game, and that the outposts now have three tiers of difficulty. For example you can liberate an outpost and then hand it back to the enemy and then liberate it once again on a higher difficulty, which earns you a higher amount of Ethanol in reward.

This feeds in with the light RPG elements that have been introduced. Because It’s not just the outposts and your base of operations that have tier levels, so do the enemies. As expected, the enemies tier levels get higher as you progress through the main campaign.

I loved all of these new features, it streamlined the gameplay loop and gave a little guidance into the open world. Much of the reason why I eventually get bored of open world games is because they rely far too much on the player to find their own fun, which is a huge problem if neither the story or the open world are interesting. Which is not the case in this game.

There are also expeditions that have been added, there are three that you can take part in. These are big levels that aren’t set within the open world of Hope County, but other locations within America. The goal is to find an unmarked package on the map and extract it, to do this you have to go to a specific point on the map where a helicopter lands for you to get inside. As soon as you get to the extraction point a countdown will begin before the helicopter arrives. Once the countdown starts a horde of enemies will ambush you. The expeditions gave me some of the most frantic moments during my playthrough, and I say that as someone who doesn’t like games that force a timer on you, but it’s applied successfully here. The expeditions are ultimately a perfect way to test out your new weapons and gear.

As with other Far Cry games, the gunplay in New Dawn is superb, you really do feel the full weight of the trigger being pulled and the impact of the bullets hitting the target. The variety of weapons is pretty impressive, with a combination of sub machine guns, pistols and assault rifles. The best addition is the saw launcher, which does as the name implies and fires disks with sharp blades around around them. It’s a bit overpowered but fun to use in sticky situations. The weapons you have a choice of buying and equipping runs in line with how you want to approach the game’s combat. You can either go in all guns blazing or as stealthily as you like. I personally went down the latter route, by equipping a bow as a primary weapon and a silent sub machine gun as a secondary weapon. The game is more rewarding playing this way and less chaotic.

To help you along the way you have a perk system that you can upgrade by completing missions and challenges. This is the usual upgrading we’re used to, such as increasing your stamina, ammo capacity, and health. It’s something I don’t usually like in games, I’d rather you were able to carry as much as possible from the beginning, and any new skills you gain ought to be learned. But it does cut out a lot of chores that might have been in the game if the system wasn’t in place. You can also assign various side characters to join you in the open world, all of these have their own strengths. I sparingly used them because I lost count of the amount of times that they would get spotted by the enemy as I tried to infiltrate an outpost.

Despite my enjoyment of the game its lack of ambition and small scope stop it from being anything more than a good Far Cry game. The story is passable at best, the central antagonists, a staple of the series, are nothing special. As much as you can’t wait to get the chance to kill them off, they are kind of just two dimensional bad guys with little fleshed out in the way of personality. Joseph Seed, the antagonist from the previous game does return in a souped up but important cameo role, his significance only matters towards the last third of the game.

As interesting as the open world is, you get the feeling more could have been done to make it really stand out from the crowd. It’s still little more than a playground to mess about in, unlike those in an Assassin's Creed game, or Red Dead 2 for that matter. I think the game would have been better served with a longer production time and with the intent of creating a proper sequel to Far Cry 5 rather than just an expansion of it.

I’d also prefer it if you controlled a character that actually speaks, it’s a problem I had with Far Cry 5. I can see why a silent protagonist helps keep focus on the game’s setting and characters, but it takes away any emotional attachment to who you’re controlling and the events around you.

Although it feels too soon to have another Far Cry game hit the shelves, I thoroughly enjoyed myself throughout New Dawn. So I’d recommend this game if you’re really willing to go back to the series. It took me around twenty hours or so to complete it while doing most of the side activity, so it isn’t too lengthy. With a retail price in the £35-40 range, it's a fair price for what you're getting in return.

Verdict: 7.5/10

Alita: Battle Angel review

Director: Robert Rodriguez
Certificate: 12A
Running time: 122 minutes

Until halfway through I was thoroughly engrossed in this movie's characters, story and performances. The combination of the three was all drawing me into the world, but it got to a point where the story and character development hollowed out, resulting in a rather lacklustre ending that never really feels earned.

Set in the year 2563, three hundred years after 'The Fall', a war that ravaged the world, Dr Dyson (Christoph Waltz) discovers a cyborg body that has been dumped in the scrapyards of 'Iron City', from the more prosperous sky city of Zalem which sits above it. Dr Dyson takes the body back home, rebuilds it and names her Alita. It's not long before she falls in love, is introduced to the murky world of a violent sport called Motorball, and learns more about her warrior past.

If like me you've never read the manga the movie's based on, you'll still recognise the themes of futuristic dystopia and inequality that weave into its narrative and look. And to its credit the movie does look good without being visually overbearing. Its setting has a grim, physical presence that feels lived in rather than superficial.

There is a certain uncanny valley in the way Alita looks, but it never really distracted me, and a large part of this is the performance of Rosa Salazar, who really brings the character alive. Alita is naive and innocent, but ruthless when she has to be. While her transition from one to the other is not always convincing, I was always invested in her journey throughout.

The same cannot be said for the love story that becomes the central focus of the second half of the movie. It's believable at face value, but neither the script or the pacing ever give it enough weight to feel emotionally invested in.

The action scenes are imaginative and exciting enough to get some entertainment value, and to its credit the action always drives the plot forward, and they're edited in a way so that you know what's going on. Despite this, there's never any real tension or fear of danger when a character is so incredibly skilled and competent. There is another problem, outside of the Motorball scenes, the action is too precise and lacking in raw physicality to take you out of the fact that you're watching a high budget movie.

I enjoyed Alita for the most part, while the love story is too underdeveloped to care about, the ideas it tried to convey were fascinating, and it doesn't shove them down your throat. While the ending is anti-climatic, the last moments before the credits rolled were quite powerful to me. And I hope I get the chance to see this world again.

3/5

Resident Evil 2 (remake) review

(PS4 version, played on standard difficulty)

It’s hard to believe that the original Resident Evil 2 came out twenty one years ago, but it’s initial release was not my first experience with the game. A demo came with Resident Evil: Directors cut, the first title in the series that I played, the demo ended on a cliffhanger, which made me even more desperate to play the full game on release. Unfortunately I never had a PlayStation of my own, so I had to wait until it was released on the Nintendo 64 two years later to get my own copy.

This is not much of a remake, in truth it is far more of a re-imagining, everything from the locations to the supporting characters have been entirely revamped. It succeeds in making the familiar feel unfamiliar. Like the original, the story focuses on two strangers who end up in zombie ravaged, Raccoon city. First we have Claire Redfield (brother of Chris from the original Resident Evil game), and Leon Kennedy, a rookie cop on the first day of his new job. After their initial introduction to each other they’re separated for the majority of the game.

The fixed camera angles have been replaced with an over the shoulder third person view, allowing the game’s foreboding atmosphere to really grab and not let you go. And believe me, this game is tense as well as scary, the locations are by and large devoid of light outside of the torch you carry. Like its predecessors in the series, the settings are characters within themselves. The city is a burning chaos, and the police station is like a prison with no escape, suffocating you at every moment with its darkness and monsters lurking in your surroundings.

With a limited inventory space you progress through the game by solving environmental puzzles that open up new areas of the map, which then leads you to important items such as files, keys and weapons. Item management is an integral part of the experience, and because of this there is a lot of backtracking, far more than I anticipated. Which is something I don’t usually enjoy in most games, but it works here because the game design is so great, and there’s a genuine satisfaction and reward in the moment to moment story progression. The maps you pick up will help with the backtracking, they’re an essential tool that you’ll be using from beginning to end, with items and locked doors marked down, as well as unexplored rooms which appear in red.

   

The puzzles aren’t particularly brain scratching, they just require a bit of observation and patience, some can be frustrating and feel like they’re there for the sake of it. But there’s always a great sense of engagement and reward when you’ve figured one out. There was only one puzzle that had me stumped for a while, and it was one of the few that required me to write down notes to help find the solution.

There is of course other obstacles that you will have to confront, and those are the monsters that make this a true survivor horror game. The most frequent of these are the zombies that have been in the series from the beginning. These zombies are not the type that sprint at you, these are the slow, lumbering kind. But don’t let that fool you, if you’re not careful they can be a nightmare. The best strategy is to avoid them as much as possible, save your ammo unless it’s absolutely necessary, but that’s easier said than done because they tend to be located in confined spaces and roam around in numbers. They can lunge at you with both arms if you’re too close, and they stagger forward making it bit tricky to aim for their weak spots. And even if you shoot them in the head, some can take between four to seven hits to kill off completely. Unless you get a lucky, perfect critical hit that blows their brains off.  

Zombies aren’t the only thing you have to worry about, there is an assortment of grotesque but wonderfully designed enemies. From the mutated lickers to the zombie dogs, these enemies might not show up as frequently but they are far harder to kill, and unlike the zombies they are extremely difficult to avoid. Thankfully there’s a good range of weapons that you can attain, these vary from one character to the other. Both start with a basic handgun, but in regards to heavy weapons, Leon gets a shotgun and a magnum, while claire gets a grenade launcher and a submachine gun. Which brings me to another change from the original, is that you can now aim as you move, but this isn’t always an advantage because the onscreen reticle gets bigger as you move, so your aim isn’t as steady, thus making it easier to miss your target. It can cause plenty of irritation and wasted bullets, but it adds an extra layer of challenge that I came to appreciate the more I played.

Which brings me to Mr X, a tall and formidable enemy that will stalk you until you manage to escape from his clutches, but even then you’ll hear the piercing sounds of his heavy footsteps as he looks for you. I can’t think of another game where a sudden rush of dread overwhelmed me as much as the first time I encountered him. For fans of the series, he plays a similar role to that of Nemesis in Resident Evil 3. This won’t be to everyone's taste, and although I think it’s one of the best aspects to the game, even I, after the initial encounter felt that it was too intrusive. But you’ll learn to overcome and appreciate the small doses of terrifying urgency that he brings to the experience. Just make sure you run away from him the second he appears, do not waste ammo trying to kill him off because you can’t.

Not everything I feel about the game is positive, the boss battles which are a staple of the series are unfortunately contrived and quite bad, they are designed and scripted in a way so that you have to get hit to succeed. There is also one other nitpick that I had, and this is more of a personal gripe. I was rather disappointed that the story was a straight up copy of the original game, outside of the additional and expanded locations, the narrative adds nothing to the lore of the series. This is one area even the Resident Evil 1 remake changed with the inclusion of the Trevor family, giving the terrifying mansion extra depth.

Resident Evil 2 is nothing short of astounding, for me it's a must buy, and for £39.99 you get a decent amount of content. Both characters have an A and B story mode, each of which bring a variety of differences to make each campaign feel a little fresh. It all culminates in a brilliantly modern survival horror game that ought to please both old and new fans alike.

9.5/10