Diablo 3

Title: Diablo 3
Developed by: Blizzard Entertainment & Square Enix
Released: 2012 (Windows) 2013 (Xbox360 & PS3) 2014 (PS4)

Diablo III is an action role playing game which, despite its DRM, was the biggest seller of 2012.

Non-split screen multiplayer games are difficult to create well and can easily become frustrating if someone either races ahead or falls behind. The maps within Diablo 3 eliminate this quite well, leaving only a few exceptions.

On the first load: I’m impressed. The intro was amazing, though pre-rendered, and it doesn’t look like Runescape either. So far it seems a lot like Dragon’s Dogma, without the customization. You pick your character type from Witch Doctor, Barbarian, Wizard, Monk and Demon Hunter before starting your whimsical journey. In my case there were 3 other players which were nicely labelled via colours and numbers around their feet, which is surely nicer than floating tags which can be lost in perspective. However, the game did assume I knew the controls. 

Finding my way around the pause menus was frustrating every so often as I didn't want to appear “slow” as everyone else waited.

The graphics of diablo 3 are great. It’s set in a dark atmosphere but no one felt the need to close the curtains. Colours are sharp and vibrant. Areas are free of camera-blocking clutter on the most part and targets were clear. Even in multiplayer, the HUD was concise and wasn’t forced into the corners.

I did find myself confused as characters ran around me and the scenery but that’s just me. The combat system was direct and easy to handle with confirmations on ‘debuffs’. I especially liked the interactive environments and damage. Crashing chandeliers on skulls and smashing open caskets gave a nice immersion factor and the hacking and slashing a rest. Nothing beats teamwork and having two monks debuffing and charging forwards, swinging like a windmill, was a moment I haven’t felt since BC2:’Nam.

Greatly presented game with some silly snags for a game that’s been ported so many times.

With great standards brings great expectations and what I didn't like was the camera’s strict direction. The camera in multiplayer would block progression if players were behind and push you along if you happened to be that one person slacking. I felt that this destroyed the open-ness of the experience. It was nice that friendlies wouldn't stray too far but at times we found that alcoves in the map would cause players to become trapped until the others found they couldn't move onwards: A little more flexibility would have been welcome. Another issue was the collection of items and selecting them, along with enabling special abilities. Every so often all the players would scrum for items and then all pause, one by one, to access such. This broke the fluency of it all and became frustrating as people found they collected items they couldn't even use - causing another stint of collect and enable. The menu system is beautiful, fantastic during single player, but needs better co-op optimization.

The game is so well presented that the odd annoyances stick-out like a sore thumb – which is unfair on this title: If you like this genre, get it - 8.1

Naruto shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm 3

Title: Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm 3Developed by: CyberConnect2 & Namco Bandai gamesReleased: 2013 on Xbox 360, PlayStation3 & Windows.

Naruto Shippity-doo-dah Ultimate Path of Neo Storm 3 is an anime-faithful martial arts game featuring beyond-human powers. The game offers complicated power-attacks from button combinations within custom made tournaments, online or split screen.

On first thought, yet again, I felt the controller cringe as it expected me to bash every button in desperation – it was right. Our fear aside, I was surprised how many characters there were and that didn't count the variations of each or the variations of the variations, in case someone else had picked the same variation – that makes sense, right? This is nice as I would hate to be unable to use an extra costume I had paid for just because some other micro-transaction-phallic did too. On match start, I was bombarded by bars, bars changing colours on depletion and blocked-out expanding bars. 

All I could think was how right my Dad was: “Manuals are for the idiots who don’t read them”, as I prepared myself for a knight Rider Cameo.

The graphics are true to the form of anime: A nice cel-shaded visual style with vibrant, non-vulgar, colours. The images are crisp with very little in the terms of clutter. I’ve always liked wisps of air shown in games and this game doesn’t abuse them. The arena is contrasted nicely to the characters for clarity so players can see what’s happening. 

The loading screens featured layered 2D cut outs which were certainly interesting and reminded me of Captain Pugwash.

The sound is always a sore spot with me in these types of games but Naruto has enough variance and space between noises that your ears don’t become spammed with screams of battle-pleasure. The music reminds me of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon – very harmonic and doesn’t intrude.

As I am not very good at these kinds of games, I thought I would watch a few videos on youtube, some online tournaments. The tournaments are a great mechanic to expand the game play and there are people who upload videos of these tournaments; these people are very competitive. Something I did notice during battles was the strange camera angle. It’s confusing enough that I must press the opposite direction for an attack in other games but with Naruto’s angle, which avoids the standard side-on, I don’t even know which way I would start running after moving the analogue stick.

As a game faithful to its origins with such replay value, there are many reason to add this game to your collection. If I had a little more time I’d perhaps start learning the moves, like turning into a log and teleporting – like I did with the Mole-man in Bloody Raw.

Unusual for a spin-off to be faithful to its origins and fun – 7.4

Dynasty Warriors 3

Title: Dynasty Warriors 3 
Developed by: Omega Force & KoeiReleased: 2002 on PS2 & Xbox


Dynasty Warriors 3 is hack and slash video game which sends you into large battlefield stages alongside your superhuman warriors.

On starting the game, I was greeted by a character selection window which instantly made me cringe – I am completely incompetent when it comes to martial arts games. However, a map lit my eyes-up as I soon realized this was actually going to be a large battle with a story line, opposed to a ‘me versus someone’ massacre. After a short cut scene with old fashioned-dubbed voice acting, the match started.

On first impressions, I found myself confused why a PSone game was released on the PS2. The graphics looked very dated, from what I could see. The very short, foggy, draw distance didn’t help the game as, looking at the map, it was evident that a lot of the PS2’s power was being used to constantly compute the entire battle across a large area – this did impress me somewhat. What did frustrate me was that objects and buildings would load through the fog, leaving soldiers in battle to load last as you approached – this was confusing when looking for a good fight. Beyond the draw distance, models were clean but quite basic, leaving details to flat textures. This may sound bad but the optimization between models and textures has been done very well.

While playing the game, the camera is very smooth and steady as it follows the character in a relaxed fashion: Just because your character decides to spin around like Dougal from the magic round about, doesn’t mean your camera must too. Another neat camera feature was that any objects between you and your character would become transparent, I haven’t seen this since MGS3 and I wish other games would follow suit instead of pushing your face into the cheeks of your character – not you, Tomb Raider.

So far, through this review, you may be confused whether I like this game or not. So far everything seems fair on the scales of justice. However, if you closed your eyes while playing, you’d picture Samurais grunting and whacking each other with long pointy sticks. This isn't far from the impression you’d get keeping your eyes open, except the bit about not wearing any clothes. Dynasty warriors 3 has dreadful sound effects, to the point where you’d feel uncomfortable playing it at your Mum’s house. Even being in ear-shot is painful as it is so repetitive and annoying. The noises remind me of Metal Gear Online, which I was banned from playing for this same reason. The music however, sets a great tone adds to the ridiculous voice acting, which adds to the comedy factor and actually gives the game character.

Ignoring the other details, this is a game after all, is it fun to play? The character’s movement feels fluid and the controls don’t frustrate me as I attempt to score combos. There is quite a bit of travel trying to find small groups of enemies to slaughter but it’s nice to be de-railed now and again. I do like how repetitive onslaughts are broken up by a commentator and story cut scenes rather than QTE events which only frustratingly prolong deaths.

Definitely a concept more advanced than its platform but it is still very enjoyable with some likable quirks. We need more game innovation in this direction rather than graphics – keep an eye on this franchise.

6.6

God of War 3

God of war 3 is a Mythical, fixed camera, third person action adventure game released exclusively for the Playstation 3 in 2010.

Continuing from God of War 2, we are introduced into the game via a stunning cinematic, involving mythical Gods intercepting the ascending our character, Kratos, and Gaia with other ‘Titans’. When I say stunning visuals, I mean stunning. Moving rock people, Water-horse-crabs; this game is crazy.

On the instance we gain control of Kratos, a God with magic powers, for the first time, we are greeted by a hoard of enemy skeletons surrounding us with no idea of the controls. This is until we are further greeted by the same feature from Dragon’s Dogma: a more concise list form of attack controls. Upon finishing this short spout of a battle, an even shorter cinematic sets the next round where we find the forgiving AI soldiers stand by, in a crowd, waiting for us to button-bash to lift a tree for further route access. With carrying on, our world, which happens to be a rock person at this moment, gets turned upside down as we monkey climb the terrain to battling an incredible spectacle: A horse-crab.

It’ is worth noting that the game at this point is a series of boss battles which were designed by a god themselves. The battles do consist of a few quick time event (QTEs) but these often serve as epic finishers and avoid interrupting actual play. It’s a shame the recently developed Ryse didn’t carry the same flame.

I am willing to score this game, on my own scale, at an 8.5. Though this form isn't my forte, It’s hard to deny that God of War 3 was bound to show the prime of the PS3 system. The Innovative interface and great visual design is worthy of more than a tech-demo for consumers late to the platform.

Trackmania 2

Trackmania 2 is a remake of the original Track Mania with reimagined environments and improved versions of the favourites. The most favourable environment; between Island; Coast; Stunt; Desert and stadium was the later free “Nations Forever” Stadium. It would be wrong, however, to assume it was the favourite because it was free. It was the favourite because it had the most extensive amount of track parts (except the underground) with the most developers (perhaps because it was free) and the best cars with the craziest tracks. Island featured an insanely fast car, to the point where tracks were stretched-out and bland. Coast featured a car with exaggerated diesel acceleration and cornering you’d find on a shopping trolley; a good thing the scenery was nice. Stunt was more of a skateboard park in a 4x4. Desert was tolerable but ruined by a car which flipped sideways under hard cornering. So in 2013, Nadeo decided to remake the Stadium environment; perhaps in a bid to push other, new, unknown environments, like canyon, into publicity.

The original Track Mania had amazing graphics to even today’s standards, so improving them would be difficult. The major graphic improvements in TM2 were, in my opinion; the wall-ride sections, which featured a grid-like construction; stadium terrains (grass, water) and their interaction with vehicles; damage, which wasn’t a feature at all before, and finally, some smaller details pertaining to lighting. Upon the graphics was the addition of underground building blocks for stadium, which every other environment previously featured. These sections are nice, but nothing fantastic or ground-breaking.

As this game is based on community creation, whether that be tracks or cars, it would be worth mentioning the community developments. During the final hours of the original, the game was sadly destroyed by ‘Free’ servers. This new server system prevented non-full-game owners from joining their clan’s, or any other, server and instead forced them to join dedicated Nadeo ran servers. This not only tore apart communities within the game, but destroyed other unusual servers which pushed a different view onto the game’s mechanics. This would include FUN.LOL servers, which gave a cryptic lean towards gaining the fastest time, and maze tracks which involved shimmying across pipes delicately to reach checkpoints. These abstract rules and game-play ideas were sadly lost in the second translation. Thus legendary developers and artists, such as HotSeason AKA Summer of DLR, left the community; leaving the supply of great tracks at an all-time low. With a game built with creation in mind, the community is what makes the game: Nadeo killed its second rendition off before it was even born.

The original: 9.3 – The block construction system was simple yet had its limitations, this was later resolved by a modification which was known as “block mixing”. Track Mania 2 still does not allow this and no modification has been made as of yet to facilitate this.

Track Mania 2 stadium: 3.0 – I score this very low as there is nothing innovative about this new version compared to the last and Nadeo’s attempts to kill off the last game and force people to join their new iteration is a shame.