Our favorite WW2 Sniper has moved on from Africa and has been deployed to Italy in Sniper Elite 4. Is he as fun and deadly as always, or should he have hung up his boots?

Read our review to find out

The Sniper Elite series, developed by Rebellion Developments, first launched back in 2005 and is a third-person, tactical and stealth shooter. The series has always tried to give the player an alternative to direct combat and puts a heavy emphasis on being smart about engaging the enemy. You are always outnumbered, so just going in to a situation like Rambo usually doesn’t end well.

Sniper Elite 4 is set in Italy in 1943 as a direct sequel to Sniper Elite III. Players control Karl Fairburne, an Office of Strategic Services agent, who is tasked to assist the Italian resistance force to fight against the Fascists in World War II. As you progress through the game, different story elements are revealed to show that the Nazis aren’t working alone and it’s up to you to gather the much needed intel to figure out who they are in collaboration with.

The story for the game is kind of all over the place and hard to follow at times. It is well written, with decent character development for a few NPCs, but it could have been a little deeper. As you progress through a level, tagging an enemy and then focusing on that soldier will reveal little tidbits of information about them that actually gives them a touch of humanity, or in-humanity in some cases. Some of these Nazi soldiers are not bad people, they are just in a bad situation, while others are ruthless killers that could not possibly care less about who they kill or maim.

The graphics for the game are top notch, with environments that really feel alive. Sneaking through some weeds shows the level of detail that the developer achieved, and the grass and plant movement is exceptional. Level design is different than the rest of the games in the series, in that the game no longer plays in a linear fashion. You are given a set of objectives from the opening of a level and it is up to you with how you proceed to accomplish them. This open world style gives you a tactical advantage while using stealth as you can eliminate enemies in a methodical fashion.

Along with a great level design comes a nifty AI feature utilizing a command structure with Nazi officers and their minions. The minions, once alerted to your presence, work together to try to take you out, flanking you while others keep you busy with a frontal assault. Unless, of course, you take out an area’s given officer. If you eliminate that guy, the minions seem to lose a few IQ points and/or the balls to continue their attack on you. They may not run and hide, but they will spend more time in cover and give you ample opportunities to pick them off one by one.

The weapons for the game are classic WW2 rifles, machine guns, handguns, and shotguns. These can be unlocked with in-game earnings and as you progress through the ranks and complete different tasks with each weapon (i.e. accumulated kill distances, stealth kills, etc.) these weapons can be upgraded to work better for you. Depending on the difficulty you play at, ammo can be hard to come by and is separated into regular ammo and silenced ammo. Silenced ammo is hard to find regardless of your difficulty, so always keep that in mind. You can use ambient noise to cover the sound of your shots at times, so only use that silenced ammo when you have no other choice.

Returning to the series is the always gruesome, but yet disturbingly enjoyable, x-ray kill cam. Whether you are aiming for the brain, the heart, the liver, or even the testicles, these kill cam shots are incredibly anatomically accurate.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

The main story can be played co-op with a friend, but that’s not the only multi-player aspect to the game. You can play a 4v4 match akin to zones where a radio is dropped and you and your teammates must capture the area it is in and hold it against another team of killers. Team work is key as you only need one player to stay in the area around the radio while the other three can sit back and pick the other team off. there’s also a horde mode like MP mode where you have to defend against twelve waves of enemies that get progressively harder to kill and attack in progressively higher numbers.

Developer Rebellion Developments was smart in that they didn’t try to re-invent the wheel with Sniper Elite 4 and stuck to the basics that made the other games in the series great. The killcam is awesome, the maps being open world was genius, and the graphics are top notch.

Well done Rebellion, well done.

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The much anticipated release of Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands is finally upon us. We spent all weekend playing and you can read our review to find out what we though of it.

The Ghost Recon series has seen nine previous installments, dating back to 2001, and most releases were reviewed favorably. The series has always been a third person tactical shooter, with first person aiming and a wide variety of firearms to choose from. Stealth has also always been an option for game play and Wildlands follows this same formula and adds in a huge open world map. The series had been moving progressively farther and farther into the future, with the last release making it to 2024 and, in turn, had some not-quite available tech and weapons in use. Developer Ubisoft Paris decided to come back to the present, somewhat (2019 anyway), and in turn decided to go with present weapons that are currently readily available on battlefields around the world.

The game takes place in Bolivia in July 2019. The country has become increasingly unstable as the Santa Blanca, a previously minor Mexican drug cartel, gains more power and influence within the county to the point where Bolivia has become a narco-state and the world’s largest producer of cocaine. The rise in power of this drug cartel concerns the United States Government, as Santa Blanca’s influence has begun to spread beyond Bolivia. The last straw comes when a bomb targets the U.S. embassy in La Paz and its intended target, DEA agent Ricardo “Ricky” Sandoval, is kidnapped, tortured and then killed by the Santa Blanca.As a result, the United States initiates Operation Kingslayer, a joint operation between the CIA, DEA and JSOC, whose goal is to take down Santa Blanca cartel.

The story itself is well written, with deep characters and plot lines that could very well be seen in real world situations (it is a work of fiction, though). From the top of the chain, and all the way down to the bottom, each cartel character’s backstory led you to feel little remorse for their final outcome, and a few of these folks deserved much worse. There was one dim witted fella that we almost felt sorry for due to his low IQ, but his apparent lack of morals was enough to outweigh any feelings of empathy we may have had.

The game is meant to be played with up to three friends in multiplayer co-op, but that shouldn’t give the developer an excuse to not give us some backstory for our AI teammates if we decide to go it alone. These three guys should be our closest friends in the world since we are living with them 24/7, but yet we have no real interactions with them in-game. other than directing them where to go and what to do. The AI seems competent enough as long as you give them simple directions, but we felt they should have at least had some friendly banter with ‘inside joke’ type of feelings. In a game with such a great story, the developer missed the mark on this one point.

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands is first and foremost a tactical shooter. With that being said, it’s also so much more than that. The game being set in a huge open world, with an upgradeable character, team, weapons, and gadgets makes the game seem more like a true RPG than any shooter we’ve ever played, with maybe the exception of the Metal Gear series. Your character starts out fully competent, but earning or finding and spending skill points will make your soldier even better. Things like Increasing stamina, steadier aim and stealthier running, to name a few, make your soldier a better all around killer. Having teammates that are tougher and can revive you faster is always a plus, and you can spend skill points on them as well.

A soldier is only effective if he or she has good intel and can recon areas in advance of any attack. You are given a basic drone to start with that is fully upgradeable and can eventually become lethal. Its range and battery life are limited to begin with, but once you start spending those skill points, the thing should become a major strategy tool as you’ll be able to mark up to three enemies for a Sync Shot (where you and all three of your teammates take out four bad guys at once), or you can just find and track all enemies in a given location, allowing you to stealthily move through that area. Your drone is probably the second most important tool at your disposal, second only to your firearm of choice, so you might want to get that thing upgraded as quick as possible.

Whether you decide to go it alone or play co-op with friends online, you can also have the rebels backing you up in a variety of ways by completing side missions. These folks can bring you cars and choppers, launch mortar attacks, fight along side you, or help you spot all of the bad guys in a given location. Finding and completing all of the side missions for these Rebel Ops makes your rebels stronger and gives you access to more and better items. All you have to do to find these missions is to find a Lieutenant and force him to spill the beans, or find a laptop to hack, or just ask a friendly citizen with inside information. 

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands is the first game in the series to have side missions, and if you are a completionist, you will be busy for quite some time. Side missions are unlocked by finding intel and interrogating the Lieutenants we mentioned. The intel can also reveal hidden skill points and Rebel Ops as well as gun cases containing special weapons and bonus medals that grant you improved stats. You could just bull rush your way through the game, just completing the story missions, and be done pretty quick, or you could take your time and find all of these missions, completing them as you go. Most people will probably fall somewhere in between, but finding those skill points and bonus medals should be a top priority.

Upgrades also require different resources such as fuel, food, medicine and communication tools. these things can be found all over Bolivia and you’ll need to tag these items for the rebels to come pick up. If you have time to kill and aren’t able to jump in the full game, there’s a cool mobile app called Ghost Recon Wildlands HQ for iOS and Android, that you can earn unlocks and resources in, and then send those resources and items into the game via your local network. The guerilla game is text based and ties into the main storyline. While it’s not necessary to know the info in the mobile game, having the extra resources sent into the full game is a plus.

The world of Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands is huge. Luckily for us there are plenty of vehicles to get around in and these range from dirt bikes to small planes, to full on Blackhawk like helicopters. Getting across the map can take a while if you are trying to drive a car or a truck, but jump in a chopper and you’ll be flying across it in no time. Unlock the parachute and you can drop in on a target quickly and effectively, and if it’s dark, quietly and unseen. Attack choppers can be an effective weapon as well, but beware of the ground based defenses in some more advanced areas of Bolivia. Surface to air missiles are around and that’s not usually something you want flying towards you.

Ghost Recon Wildlands HQ Mobile

The graphics for the game are gorgeous with a level of detail that brings the county of Bolivia to life. From the snow capped peaks, to the creeks and rivers of the valleys, the game really looks and feels like it’s set in a living, breathing country.

Developer Ubisoft Paris has taken a well known franchise and redefined it. Instead of moving farther into the future, they created a present day country, in the throws of a revolution, and dropped you right into the middle of it, and we are glad they did. Well done Ubisoft Paris. Well done.

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Steep was unleashed upon the world last December and has just added the slopes of Alaska to its open world playground that started out in the Alps. There’s a free trial all weekend long (starting on 3-10-2017) but is the game worth the download?

Read our review to find out

When one thinks of  a snow based game in this day and age, one immediately thinks about skiing or snowboarding down the slopes on a set course or on a set path. You wouldn’t expect to be able to just drop in anywhere on a map and shred that fresh powder from any point a chopper can reach. Of course, if you are playing Steep, an open world, extreme sports experience, you can do just that. If your chopper can reach it, you can start doing whichever activity you wish.

We say whichever activity because Steep isn’t just a skiing and snowboarding experience. The activities available in the game include skiing, wingsuit flying, snowboarding, and paragliding, all with your choice of either 3rd or 1st person viewing. Wingsuit flying down the Matterhorn is an incredible experience that we would NEVER want to attempt in real life due to our general love for life, but is an incredibly awesome experience in Steep with zero chance of you actually dying. Paragliding is fun and all, but that wingsuit just screams death and/or broken bones.

Skiing and snowboarding is fun as well and the trick system gives you ways to earn bonus XP and score bonus points on trick challenges. Load up pre-jump, launch off of a jump and flick the analog sticks while holding different shoulder buttons and you’ll be flipping out, backwards and forwards, spinning like a mad man, and nailing those challenges like a pro, earning gold medals and leveling up in order to take a shot at the higher rated challenges.

As you play through the game, you have six different playstyles you’ll work towards perfecting: Explorer, Extreme Rider, Freerider, Freestyler, Pro Rider, and Bone Collector. Each style has its own advantages and a combination of all of them is what you’ll end up with, regardless of how you choose to play. The Explorer style is what you’ll use to find new drop points that will unlock new challenges, and you have some binoculars that will help you scour the mountains for these spots. Our favorite to rack points up in is the Bone Collector, because the only way to collect those bones it seems is to smash them into the mountain.

The wingsuit is a great way to collect those bones, and missing a gap between rocks at full speed at 80 Gs of force will pretty much break every bone in your body. They should have added x-ray technology on impact, but maybe that would have made folks a bit queasy. Unlike real life, there is no real death in the game so you’ll be able to get up and try whichever activity you wish regardless of how many Gs you hit the mountain with, with no time needed for healing and rehab. That definitely beats real life right there.

Steep is not only fun to play, it’s also gorgeous to look at and listen to. While paragliding in Alaska or the Alps, try not to be mesmerized by the view or you might end up crashing into one of those beautiful mountains. The mountains are replicated with a lifelike realism that is impressive to behold. Whether you are hitting the slopes in Alps or in the newest area Alaska, you’ll see some gorgeous scenery.

The physics for the game tend to be skewed towards the arcade style, with trick performing and landing requiring a bit of trial and error to get that timing down just right. Luckily you can replay an event quickly and easily with the long press of a button, so retrying a course is a simple procedure. We’ve never flown a wingsuit so it’s hard for us to say anything about the physics of such, but that is, by far, the most intense aspect of the game. In complete contrast, paragliding is a great way to slow down the action and take a break from being an adrenaline junkie. In other words, paragliding is a slow task that some may find tedious and time consuming while others will appreciate the change of pace and incredible scenery.

Developer Ubisoft Annecy, along with studios in Kiev and Montpellier, did an incredible job with Steep, creating an open world playground of snow and rock that is both fun to play and gorgeous to look at.

Don’t just take our word for it, download it now and go play for free this weekend (3-10-2017).

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Developer Bioware is ready to unleash their latest title in the always popular Mass Effect series. We have traveled 600+ years into the future while traveling countless light years in the process. Is Mass Effect Andromeda worthy of your journey, or should it be left to drift off into space, screaming into the vacuum.

Read on to find out

The Mass Effect series has long followed the exploits of Commander Shepard and has seen some great games and great storylines through the years. The series is well known for great story telling, RPG elements, and a third person combat system using futuristic weapons and abilities. All of the previous titles created one long story arch, all centering on the Commander and had the player guiding him through all of it. Mass Effect Andromeda breaks away from his arch during the events of Mass Effect 2 and sends us on a 600 year journey across deep space, in search of a new home where civilization can reboot and start over fresh. The program is called the Andromeda Initiative and the target is the Heleus Cluster of stars and planets in the Andromeda Galaxy.

The Initiative created four large ships, known as arks, and each ark carries tens of thousands of cryogenically frozen people, each representing a different race or species, and each with their own specially trained leader, or Pathfinder. It is the pathfinder’s goal to wake up first, along with their team, and search for a viable planet to call home. It is their duty to do all they can to ensure the folks still asleep and frozen will have somewhere to go when the time comes for them to thaw out. Everything rests on the shoulders of the Pathfinder and in Mass Effect Andromeda, you are the pathfinder. Everything rests on you.

No pressure.

The storyline follows one of the two Ryder twins, Sarah and Scott, and you can choose which one you want to play as, or you can customize the playable character by using a first name of your choice and choose from the limited character selection to try to make it a little more personal. You are given the mantle of Pathfinder during a mission on the first planet you visit, and it turns out the data gleaned from the Heleus Cluster back on Earth 600+ years ago is badly outdated, and it also turns out you are not alone. You are first unsure about the aliens you encounter but when they shoot first and forego the questioning, it’s obvious the Kett aren’t very friendly and shooting back is your only option.

Once back on your ship the Hyperion, you get the bad news that there currently aren’t any viable planets in the cluster and it is up to you to travel to the ones in the golden zones to see what you can do to make them viable. You find each possibly golden planet was visited by a different race called the Remnant that was in the process of making each viable but their projects were never fully initialized and activated. Through a series of Sudoku like puzzles, using glyphs you’ll have to find, you’ll be able initialize three towers on a given planet and unlock an underground vault where you’ll have to work through even more puzzles to fire up the atmospheric stabilizing system the Remnant had set-up. Sounds easy enough, but the Remnant also left behind a defense system that pits armed robots against you and your chosen team.

Before you can fully start your job as Pathfinder, you must first deal with the politics and strife that comes with any given civilization. Your ark docks onto the space station Nexus and you are greeted by the leaders of the Initiative, who are already bickering and fighting among themselves for years and have hit a dead end due to the lack of viable places to live. You also find out that the other arks are missing with only rumors and whispers of where they may have ended up. What started out 600+ years ago in the Milky Way, with visions of peace, prosperity, and rainbows has turned into a major cluster mess and it’s up to you to clean it all up and create worlds where tens of thousands of lives can live.

Again, no pressure.

Each planet has its own set of challenges for you to deal with but if you can activate those towers and get into the vault as quickly as possible, you’ll save yourself some headaches by not having to worry too much about the unpleasant atmospheres and surface temperatures. As you work towards 100% viability on each planet, more challenges will become available, but you can progress through to the end the main story without reaching full viability on any planet. Finishing the main story is important, but the adventure really begins upon that completion.

The main story starts off slow but does get better as you progress through it. While not some of the best writing in the Mass Effect series (ME2 maybe?), it’s still right up there with what you would expect from the franchise. The Side missions you’ll encounter, and there are a bunch, are also decently written at times. You will have to make decisions that alter the outcome of the game. Decisions that will save some and condemn others to death (or fates worse than death) and you’ll have to face the repercussions of these decisions. You’ll get to choose how you want your character to play emotionally through a selective response system that will have lasting effects on your relationships with the other characters in the game. The story is why a lot of folks will want to play this game, and they won’t be disappointed, but they’ll want to keep playing after the credits roll because the fun is just beginning.

The RPG elements to the game are many, with upgrades not only for your main character, but upgrades for all of your teammates as well. You’ll earn upgrade points as you rank everyone up earning XP throughout your gameplay, and you can either micromanage your teammates upgrades or just let the system spend their points evenly. If you have a playstyle in mind, you might want to micromanage them and build them up accordingly. There are basic combat commands in the game so making these folks better soldiers is never a bad idea and can only benefit you.

The weapons in the game are varied and includes an awesome melee type of weapon, pistols, shotguns , and sniper rifles. Blueprints will be aquired through your game play and through Research and Development that will give you access to not only Kett weapons, but also Remnant weapons. Upgrades become available that make these weapons stronger and better and add on some weapon augmentations, and you can be one mean killing machine.

The graphics and animations for the game have been a much talked about topic on the internet in the week prior to the launch of the game, but we only ran across a few glitches ourselves throughout our 40+ hours of gameplay. This is a gorgeous game with intricate worlds and many intricate solar systems that are beautiful and entertaining to visit. While there are only a small number of planets you can actually land on, there are many more you can travel to and scan for resources and information. We found ourselves traveling from star system to star system just to see what was out there and to see what the views looked like, and we weren’t disappointed. An hour later and we still hadn’t visited half of them.

One of the multiplayer parts of the game ties in to the overall story of the game, which was a nice addition. After settling new worlds and getting them going in the right direction, Strike Teams become available. Strike teams can be teams you’ve created yourself and then send out on their own using AI to complete them, or you can take these missions on yourself. While these missions aren’t required for the story, they can help you out by earning you resources and blueprints for some pretty kick-ass weapons and tech. There’s also a horde mode you can play online with others, but we spent most of our time on strike missions.

The Mass Effect series has a very strong and outspoken following, and most of them will love Mass Effect Andromeda.

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Thrustmaster recently launched a line of gaming headsets designed for Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands. We got to take the PS4 version for a spin and we were very impressed.

Read on to find out what we thought of them.

There are countless headsets available to gamers and they range in price from $20 and upwards to $300+. As a general rule when it comes to anything sound or audio related, you usually get what you pay for. While $20 for a headset sounds like a great deal, the quality will not be great, the sound will be mediocre at best, and you would probably be better off just using the ear bud that came with your PS4. On the other end of the spectrum, Bose makes what we can assume is a pretty awesome headset with their A20 Aviation Model that runs more than $1,000.

Thrustmaster has been putting out some quality headsets lately, with prices ranging from $50  for their Y-300CPX (our review) and up. The Y-350P Ghost Recon Wildlands Headset, which we are reviewing here, will run you $129.99 at NewEgg (no amazon links yet). While not exactly a low priced headset, the build and sound you’ll be enjoying will make you think you paid considerably more for them. Out of the box, the headset is a little hefty but feels like it’s built to last. The packaging is very protective so no need to worry about damage due to shipping and careless UPS or FedEx guys throwing things around.

The headset is co-branded with Ghost Recon Wildlands (which we love and play daily) and a pretty cool Ghost icon on the side of it. The 60mm drivers inside of the memory foam headphones also have a Ghost icon and adds to the overall slick appearance to them when not in use. These are display worthy, all the while being some of the best sounding headphones available. These are sturdy and well built but might be a little heavier than what you are currently using. We were using the HyperX Cloud White headset for a while but these have now replaced them as our go-to headset. The reason being, the directional 7.1 surround sound and how well the sound isolation works.

The sound with the HyperX was great, don’t get me wrong, but with a game like Ghost Recon Wildlands, pinpointing exactly where a sound is coming from is paramount to survival. Thrustmaster achieves this with the Y Sound Commander: A control panel that plugs directly into the Dualshock 4 with 7.1 Virtual Surround Sound technology that allows gamers to precisely pinpoint the direction of each sound, ensuring maximum immersion on the battlefield. It also includes a bass power adjuster and volume adjuster with status lights for both. Add in the well cushioned, memory phone covered ear pieces and head rest, and the mic that only picks up your voice, and you’ll have a great headset for any PS4 game.

The Y Sound Commander also has an in-line, rechargeable battery built into it to give your headset the power boost it needs for that extra base and 7.1 surround sound. No charging cable included, but you can charge it the same way you charge your Dualshock 4. When we first started using it, prior to hitting that 7.1 button, the sound was great but we didn’t realize how much depth was missing until we activated it fully by pressing that button. The only thing missing is better way to differentiate between in-game sounds and chat. Luckily the PS4 has that option so you’ll have to play with it to get the balance between the two where you like it. Playing solo in GRW, we found ourselves cranking the audio up while sneaking onto a base that had jammers that made our drone useless. You could hear the bad guys breathing their last breath before taking them out.

When folks say you get what you pay for, they generally are saying be prepared to pay a bunch of cash. With the Thrustmaster Y-350P Ghost Recon Wildlands Headset, you’ll feel like you’ve spent a bunch more cash than you did.

Awesome job Thrustmaster and thanks for sending us our new, everyday headset.

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Developer CI Games’ Sniper: Ghost Warrior 3 is the first title in the series to get the AAA treatment. Was it treated fairly or should this title get lost in the wilderness?

Read our review to find out

The Sniper: Ghost Warrior series got its start back in 2010 and tried to ride the popularity of sniper TV shows being aired on the History Channel and the Military Channel. That title was followed up in 2013 with Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2 with one of the previous playable characters making the transition to the next installment. These were fun games, that used real world bullet ballistics and trajectories in their gameplay, and required a lot of stealth and tactical thinking. They both received mixed reviews and garnered review scores that averaged around 5.5/10.

In Sniper: Ghost Warrior 3, the player takes the role of Marine Captain Jonathan “Jon” North, who, along with his brother Robert, is sent to the Russian-Ukrainian border to destroy an abandoned stockpile of Soviet-era bio-weapons before they’re stolen by terrorists. The two succeed in their mission, but are ambushed by an unidentified group of special forces soldiers, led by a man named Vasilisk who plays a game of Russian roulette with Jon before knocking him out and kidnapping Robert.

Fast forward two years and we find Jon back in a nearby area of Georgia trying to destabilize a separatist movement by taking out key targets of the Georgian cells. The only reason he accepted this mission was so he could also continue his search for his missing little brother, whom he knows has to be alive somewhere in the region. Thrown into the mix is one Georgian Loyalist ex-special forces sniper and former lover named Lydia and a Mossad agent named Raquel who is only there to look for and recruit Sergei Flostov, a Russian scientist.

The way the story of the brothers is told will draw you into their relationship a little bit and was nicely done. You get flashbacks to when they were kids, with some foreshadowing of things to come, and you get a glimpse of how the younger brother looked up to Jon and idolized him. As you progress through the story you’ll learn more about their relationship and how that relationship affects the overall story. The length of the campaign will be determined by how many side ops you take a go at, and there’s a bunch, but if you wanted to streamline the story you can expect 8-10 hours of gameplay. The game is designed for the player to take on these side ops, but they aren’t necessary for completion of the campaign itself.

There is a lot to see and do in Sniper: Ghost Warrior 3, so in order to get the most bang for your buck, clearing all of the side ops becomes a must. Once you pull up your map of the region you are currently in, you’ll find question marks littered through out it. As you approach each of these areas, you’ll come across several different types of missions ranging from rescuing Georgian prisoners to taking out Most Wanted targets. make no mistake about it, you will be outnumbered and outgunned so taking a Rambo like approach will probably not end well for you. You have an upgradable drone at your disposal and we strongly urge you to use it to your full tactical advantage. It’s not the quietest thing around, though so be sure to keep it high enough so as not to alert the bad guys someone is doing some recon.

Knowing the location of all of the bad guys in a current area will make completing that side op much easier, and since you do have a handy little sniper rifle equipped with a silencer, you might as well lower their numbers and increase your odds of success by taking them out one by one. Keep an eye on the durability of those silencers, though, as they won’t last forever and will need to be repaired from time to time. Repair kits can be purchased in a safe house so make sure you have at least a few at any given time (you can carry up to 5).

Each region has its own safe house and this is where you’ll be able to change your load out and buy new weapons. There’s also a work bench that you’ll need to use to reload your ammo. Resources are found littered throughout the regions, so keep an eye out for them, as you’ll need these in order to keep your arsenal fully stocked. You can also sleep in your safe house, which will advance the current time to whatever time you want. Missions are usually a little easier at night as you’ll find some of the bad guys sleeping that might be patrolling if the sun is up, so don’t hesitate to let that sun set on them.

The game is not without its flaws, and this is where we find our disappointments. The first thing you’ll find is that the load times for starting the game and for changing regions is long. How long, you ask? We timed it and it clocks in around 4 minutes and 45 seconds, on average. Exactly why it takes so long isn’t exactly clear as the game uses the Cry Engine 4 gaming engine and most games that use that technology don’t have the same issues. The maps for each region aren’t exactly small, but they aren’t extremely large either, so the game must pre-load every little thing for that region before starting the game. It really is unacceptable to have to wait almost 5 minutes when changing regions or from just starting up the game. Thankfully the PS4 allows for game suspension so we can quickly get back to killing within the same region after giving the PS4 a rest.

We did run into a few freezes along our journey and that required us to quit the game entirely and endure that loading time again, but those freezes were few and far between. We also fell through the map once but all we had to do was reload the last checkpoint in order to remedy that situation. As far as technical issues, that was all we encountered. Any game freezing is disappointing, but game freezes happen and there is an acceptable limit, and Sniper: Ghost Warrior 3 fell within that range for us.

Sniper: Ghost Warrior 3 is a fun game. If anyone tries to tell you differently, they probably aren’t fans of this type of gameplay. While the game is not without its flaws, it eventually does exactly what is advertised. For a AAA title, it’s probably not quite there yet, but it is pretty damn close.

Once you fire up the game, take a restroom break, make a snack or sandwich, grab a soda, and get ready for some sniping fun. The game is worth the loading wait.

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Focus Home Interactive’s and Deck13’s science fiction RPG The Surge is ready to be powered up. Is the game worth your hard earned cash, or should it be tossed out on the scrap heap?

Read on to find out.

Deck 13’s The Surge is a brand new IP that started development back in 2015. The developer came right out and said the game is similar to Dark Souls and Bloodborne, both of which are hard-core and unforgiving RPGs that can be frustratingly difficult but insanely rewarding to play. The Surge follows that same overall pattern, but does so in a surprisingly fun and entertaining way, just don’t expect to find out much of the backstory.

The game opens up sometime in the future when our planet is in some serious trouble but the CREO Corporation is out to solve it. You play as Warren, a young man that enters into employment with CREO as an exoskeleton wearing worker. You’ll have to choose between two types of suits, The Lynx or the Rhino, with each having their own unique sets of abilities. The Lynx, or field technician, uses an agile and versatile design that gives the wearer more freedoms of movement, while lessening their defense and attack capabilities. The Rhino, or heavy operator, is designed to be more of a slower brute force type of suit that can dish out more damage and take more hits. Your gameplay style will be determined by the choice you make.

Once you’ve made your choice, Warren is sat down in an operating chair so as to add his exoskeleton to his human body. What happens next is right out of someone’s nightmare, but we’ll let you experience that for yourself when you play the game. Once you wake up from your ordeal, you find that the exosuit you are wearing isn’t 100% in working order and you are in some old, run down looking medical bay.  The med bay, or Operations, is fully functional and now becomes your central location for gameplay and will be your respawn point every time you die, which will be often.

That’s pretty much it for the story the game gives you to begin with. There is no quick map at your disposal (there is one in the med bay though), no real HUD to speak of, and you’ll have to use your exploring skills to find out anything else the game wants to teach or tell you. Keep an eye out for lost audio files as these are the key to finding out exactly what happened in this place and these audio files aren’t always out in the open. Look for wooden crates that can be smashed or hard to reach areas.

Once you venture out into the game area, you’ll encounter other folks with exosuits as well, and all of these folks are hell bent on your death and destruction. Their suits are fully functional and complete with all of the parts you are supposed to have and you can use that to your advantage using the attack and targeting system. With the PS4, press L3 to lock onto an enemy and then use your right analog stick to target a specific body part or weapon. You can attack with either a vertical or horizontal method (R1 or R2), but either way keep an eye out for the prompt for the square button while attacking. Once the prompt appears, hold down square and you’ll chop off whichever part you were targeting and gain a schematic for it. This is the only way you’ll be able to get all of the gear your suit needs and you’ll also be able to grab new weapons as well.

As you take out the bad guys you’ll also earn tech scrap. This scrap is needed to upgrade your exosuit and to craft the armor schematics you’ve found and to build a suit that will, hopefully, keep you alive for more than a few battles. You’ll also find implants lying around that will give you the ability to heal yourself or give you energy boosts and these can be inserted only in the med bay. If and when you do die, any scrap you are carrying will be dropped at your death location and you’ll have a limited amount of time to retrieve it. Scrap can be banked at the med bay, so if you are close to it, you might as well drop some off, just remember that anytime you enter the med bay, all of the enemies are re-spawned.

The Surge is a very unforgiving game in that no matter how strong your suit has become, any of the bad guys can take you out if you aren’t careful. Heaven forbid you get double teamed as that is almost always an instant death. The bosses for the game are no joke either, and figuring out the best pattern to defeat them takes trial and error, and by trial and error I mean dying a lot. The game can go from wanting you to quit playing and delete it, to wanting to come back 15 minutes later to try and take that boss out again. Once you’ve taken that boss out though, there’s a sense of accomplishment that you don’t get with most games, and that is the ultimate draw for The Surge.

Deck 13 set out to create a title that plays like others, but in the end they created a title that goes beyond them in terms of gameplay and creativity.

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The post The Surge Review – Dismembering Your Next Weapon appeared first on Terminal Gamer - Gaming is our Passion | PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, WiiU.

We were recently invited to visit the Ubisoft offices in San Francisco for a very secretive unveiling that most thought would be another Assassin’s Creed game. We were pleasantly surprised to find out that none of those rumors and leaks were true and we were given a first-look at Far Cry 5 with Creative Director Dan Hay.

Welcome to Hope County, Montana. Big Sky Country. Where your freedom and faith are only guaranteed by your firearms and it’s up to you to save the Land of the Free.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

The Far Cry series is well known as a first person shooter franchise (with the exception of Far Cry Primal which was more of a first person cave man attack game which we thoroughly enjoyed) that has always been story driven with decent character development. Far Cry 5 follows that same formula as it delves into a rural open world set in a fictional area that’s based on a real world settings. Character development has quite a bit of resources already spent on it and below you’ll get to meet three of those characters.

Mary May

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Pastor Jerome Jeffries

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Nick Rye

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

The Far Cry series has always chosen locations that were wild and foreign to gamers. Maybe you’ve been to some islands in the Pacific or maybe you’ve been to places that look like Kyrat or maybe you’ve been to Africa, but it’s probably safe to say that most folks haven’t been to all of those types of places in real life but the Far Cry dev teams, over the years, have taken us to those locations and did a pretty damn good job of making us feel like we were there, at least virtually. While Montana might not be foreign to some of us living in the US, it might be to millions of folks around the world and might even be foreign to some that live here in the big cities that have never ventured out into the wilds of this country.

Before revealing the backstory of the game, Creative Director Dan Hay gave us some insight into how they chose the location and what thoughts they had while creating the story around the cult. They researched cults similar to the one they wanted to create specifically for Far Cry 5 and what they found was how these organizations can go from owning a small plot of land to owning hundreds of acres or more. Using what we would call a long game, they buy a small plot and build a simple compound on it, then start spreading their message around to neighboring areas, slowly bringing down property values and slowly driving others out, until they can create a larger footprint for themselves, all the while converting more and more folks to their twisted ideas, until eventually they are large enough to do whatever the hell they want.

The story of Far Cry 5 centers on a doomsday cult, like the one we described above, called the Project at Eden’s Gate. It is lead by a charismatic fanatic of a leader who wants total control of everything in Hope County and will use everything at his disposal to achieve that goal. As the new junior deputy of this fictional Hope County, Montana, players will find that their arrival accelerates a years-long silent coup, igniting a violent takeover of Hope County. It is up to you, the player (co-op with a friend will be available) to disrupt their plans and help ignite a resistance among those also trapped in this violent situation. Using the folks in the community will be key to liberating Hope County.

Upon initial release of a smaller version of the above photo, the Internet, in reference to Far Cry 5, went crazy talking about God and Politics and Donald Trump and some even went as far to say that the game will have gamers going against the alt-right. What people fail to understand is that these cultists in the game aren’t politically far right, they are politically in outer space. They reside in their own political region that I guess you could call alt-space or maybe alt-moon (and no they aren’t physically on the Moon). Anyway you look at it, the game didn’t seem to be trying to make a political or religious statement, it just looked like a great game with a great storyline. Could something like this happen here in the Good ‘Ol USA? Is the story believable? Very much so.

As time goes by more characters will be revealed and the bigger story will slowly unfold. If you are instantly thinking this game is bad because of politics or religion, think again. From what we saw, the underlying theme is Patriotism and you are the hero of that Patriotism, not the cult. If you are a fan of the Far Cry franchise, love the open world mayhem that can ensue, and want to be able to play with a friend, you are going to want this game. We really want to try out the Rent a Fang feature, but sadly we must wait for a later date.

We can’t wait to see and hear more about this game between now and its release on 2-27-2018.

The post Far Cry 5 Preview: Freedom – Faith – Firearms appeared first on Terminal Gamer - Gaming is our Passion | PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, WiiU.

Having been around for over 20 years, Bandai Namco’s massively popular Tekken series returns with a seventh entry in the main series. Does this entry deserve to be the King of the Iron Fist Tournament? 

Read on to find out.

When it comes to narrative in video games, there is always the question about why these characters are in the situation that they find themselves. What is it that pushes them forward? Yet, when it comes to games within the fighting game genre, we find that many develops try to glaze over driving forces in hopes that fans will simply latch onto the mechanics and character design behind the game. Thankfully, the Bandai Namco’s Tekken franchise has always made an effort to entwine a reason behind the King of the Iron Fist tournament, and their latest entry Tekken 7 looks to become more than just an end cap.

Tekken 7’s story revolves once again around the Mishima family and their never ending need to try and kill each other. As such, players will take the role of many fan favorites as they walk through the final bouts between a family at war. Sadly, while fans will enjoy the culmination of the story, the production behind the end product leaves quite a lot to desired. One of the most noteworthy issues that is nearly impossible to not notice is the atrocious voice work of the story’s narrator, whose deadpan performance is almost unbearable.

Besides that, the other issue that I found with Tekken 7’s production has to do with its inability to maintain a baseline for how it represents certain characters. This is in part due to its usage of classic footage, which ultimately reminds you of how dated the games have become, but it is more in that there are times when character model fidelity isn’t up to current standards. With the current generation of releases, high-end character models have become the standard, and Tekken 7 just seems to fall short of meeting those expectations. Whether it is characters who look like plastic or low-poly, there is just something left to be desired regarding Tekken 7’s production value.

While all of this may seem like Tekken 7 has far too many issues with it to be worth picking up that simply couldn’t be further from the truth. The reality behind game’s within the fighting genre is that all of these issues surround added content that is only layered on top of one of the most refined fighting engines I have seen from the franchise. One of the best aspects that, while seemingly minor, is just how well the Tekken 7’s hit detection works, as it is a fundamental aspect of what makes a quality fighting game.

This is best showcased during the final hits of a match, where just before a final hit connects, the match will slowdown and enter in a cinematic slow motion effect letting both players see how the move connected. Having played countless matches already, I have yet to see any instances where shots that should have connected didn’t, making this bold move pay off in spades.

Given that fighting games have their own set of standards, it is quite easy to bypass many of this minor issues, and with Tekken 7 this is especially true. The reason why is simply because this is one of the best entries for the franchise I have played in years. As a fighting game, Tekken 7 is bound to be a fan favorite with its excellent mechanics and performance. Adding to this, Tekken 7 now introduces a Rage Art mode which allows a player at low health to perform a massive attack, which could turn the tide of the fight.  As well as the Power Crush mechanic, which lets players continue a move even if damaged. At first glance these mechanics may seem like a grab to introduce a more cinematic feel into each bout, but the fact that no fight is predetermined, adds a great deal of intrigue into every round.

Overall, Tekken 7 is a great entry into the franchise and while it does stumble around as it steps outside of its base fighting platform, it provides enough content and depth that all fighting game fans should definitely take notice.  

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The post Tekken 7 Review – Stutter Stepping to Victory appeared first on Terminal Gamer - Gaming is our Passion | PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, WiiU.

We spent several hours playing the Destiny 2 Beta, and even played a little futbol.

We are big fans of Destiny around here and some folks  have logged in over a thousand hours of game time. The lure of grabbing that next great weapon, or trying to get our Hunter to the highest light level, or trying to make our weapons as powerful as possible, kept drawing us back into the game to hit the Weekly Nightfall or maybe play the Daily Heroic level. It’s a draw that still has us logging an occasional gaming session back in the world of Destiny so getting those closed beta invites from a PR rep made some folks around here practically giddy as a school girl. Needless to say, we had the beta pre-loaded and folks were jumping in as soon as the servers went live last week.

We started out using a Hunter (a huntress in this case since the beta gave us a female character) and we jumped into the opening story sequence to the game. Our character was already maxed out at level 20 with max light of 200, and all of her armor and weapons were already maxed out as well. We were hoping for the ability to progress a little in the beta to maybe give it a little replayability, but nope. Already maxed out with no need to grind kills to reach new levels.

The opening story was told through cut scenes and chatter while you played through the level and it was intriguing. The introduction of the new bad guy Ghaul was enough to make you want to blast the guy right there as he totally stripped you of light, but all you could do was watch as the traveler was also blasted with a strange weapon. It was sad to see our ghost go down as it was drained of all its power, and it’s looking like Destiny 2 will have us starting out with no light, weak weapons, weak armor, and a dead ghost. Sounds like fun to us.

The few weapons we were introduced to in the beta were new and fun to play with. Each one seemed unique with its own quirks that you had to learn. One of the few exotic weapons we were given was a mini-gun that got better the longer you held the trigger, and would even reload itself if you were firing it and walked across an ammo pick-up. A new type of weapon for Destiny 2 is the grenade launcher, and that thing is a beast. Taking out a group of bad guys that were dumb enough to stand too close together is a breeze with that thing. Here are screenshots of nine of the new weapons, with two of the new exotics shown.

The main social space for the beta, called The Farm, was only available for a short time on two occasions, but we were able to dive into and explore the area. There wasn’t much to do as all of the interactive portions had been disabled, with the exception of the futbol pitch. With a goal on each end, and a goal counter built into each goal, you could play against other guardians with an oversized soccer ball. First team to three goals wins. We found a great place to relax and watch a match and recorded it for your viewing pleasure.

The game really needs an announcer and teams of three or four, but two-on-two works OK. The fireworks for the winning goal isn’t quite as dramatic we would like, but it will have to do.

As Destiny 2 gets closer to launch, we are hoping for another round of beta testing with even more folks jumping in to try it out. This is mainly for selfish reasons because the game’s initial success will be determined on how well the game handles the overall server load. We tried playing No Man’s Sky at launch and that didn’t go well as we couldn’t play more than 15 minutes without the game freezing our PS4. Turns out they didn’t plan very well for server load issues and avoidable errors ensued. Even Destiny ran into some server issues early on and we are hoping that developer Bungie is prepared to address any possible server issues promptly.

The Destiny 2 Beta gave us a glimpse of where Bungie is taking this franchise, and so far, we are ready to continue on with them. If you haven’t pre-ordered the game yet, you may want to do that.

Yakuza Kiwami is a throwback to the first installment of the series and has been remastered for the PS4. After ten years of aging, does the game make a successful time jump to 2017 or should it have stayed in the past?

Read on to find out.

Kazuma Kiryu is back and ready for more action. After taking the fall for his childhood friend and spending ten long years behind bars, he is back on the streets of Kamurocho and ready to shake the dust off of his fighting styles. The ex-Yakuza just wants to find his friends and live in peace, but what fun would that be for us, as he is dragged kicking and punching back into the life of the underworld.

If you’re looking for an perfect replication of the very first Yakuza game, you won’t find that here exactly. Sega reworked things that felt out of place or didn’t quite fit and created a story that is well written and entertaining, albeit slow to start. The story picks up where Yakuza 0 left off and the first couple of hours or so of Yakuza Kiwami felt almost tedious and uninspired as you had to find a ring, make a hostess happy, and feed a puppy. It’s all introductory as you meet the key players and learn the main storyline behind the game, as well as learn how to use the four different fighting styles available to Kiryu. Once you get past that, the game finally opens up the city of Kamurocho and really takes off.

Early on you find out that not only can Kiryu kick some serious ass and all the other Yakuza know it and respect him for it. Prior to his prison stint he was set to be a patriarch and head his own family so this guy is no slouch. Then along comes Mr. No Respect Goro Majima who wants nothing more than to continually try to kick your ass and test your skills. He’s basically a never ending tutorial level as you will see him again and again and again in all sorts of costumes and disguises as part of the Majima Everywhere system. That’s not a bad thing, though, as you’ll learn new moves and earn more combat points, which in turn are used to enhance Kiryu’s abilities and increase his health and endurance. Majima is a bit of a dick, but you’ll come to appreciate him over time.

Once you’ve reached the point in the game where Kamurocho opens up, there is much more to see and do. You can sing some karaoke, visit a hostess club, hit the batting cages, or check out a sexy lady wrestling game. The city, as in Yakuza 0, feels alive and fresh, with real world names and logos to see all over the place. The developer must have spent quite a bit of time reworking the city and making it feel fresh and new in order to reach the level they achieved. Impressive for a ‘remastered’ game and almost feels like it was built new for the PS4.

Yakuza Kiwami brings with it quite a bit of fun and excitement, but the story can occasionally be hard to follow. Time jumping back and forth can have you confused and wondering what exactly just happened and who did it happen to. Just remember to take mental notes anytime there’s a time jump and watch those cut scenes. While everything is spoken in Japanese, those subtitles are worth the read if you want to know the full story.

Yakuza Kiwami might be ten years old, but don’t tell Kiryu that as the game feels as young and vibrant as ever.

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We have spent the last week racing through the career of F1 2017 and taking on some classic car challenges. Does this year’s iteration warrant a new purchase, or are you better off just sticking to last years model?

Read on to find out

2017 Formula One cars are the epitome of the racing world and now are using technology and design aspects that were unheard of just a decade ago. Screaming V12 engines, extra wide tires, and cars that handled like they were high on amphetamines were the norm. These were skittish and temperamental beasts that  required a level of concentration and situational awareness that wasn’t aided by the computerized assistance that’s available today.

Codemasters’ F1 video game series has always been about realism, and trying to give you the real world feel of the F1 scene, both on the track and off. F1 2016 did a decent job of that and the developer created a beast of a game last time around and a firm foundation to expand on. The graphics for F1 2017 are some of the best around for a racing game and those of you with a PS4 Pro are in for an even better looking game. With 4K output at 60fps and HDR support the game looks incredible. Shiny cars show off reflections that are mirrored perfectly. Try not to take your eyes off the road for too long, though, as these cars are fast.

The F1 series introduced a career mode last year that was a nice start but felt a little short on substance. This year they give us a 10 year career mode that still starts you out as an F1 rookie. Why they couldn’t give us an option to start out as a kart racer, allowing us to earn our F1 stripes, is the same question we had last year. It is an F1 game, but having an option to earn your way into the ranks would give us a better sense of accomplishment and allow for our driver to create a personality and to give us a connection to that driver. This isn’t exactly a negative for the game, but would make for a future positive if it were to be implemented.

Rivalries have returned with this year’s game and now the rival is your teammate. You’ll start out as the number two driver on the team with the number one driver becoming your rival. Your goal is to unseat him and make yourself the number one driver. We found ourselves focusing almost as much on beating him as we did making sure we met our team goals. Just finishing ahead of the guy wasn’t enough for us as we wanted to also beat him on every sector and make sure he knew who the better driver was.

The length of a race weekend is chosen by you. We started out with three practice sessions and in the end, ended up skipping through the third one every time. Achieving team goals during these practice sessions are key to earning valuable R&D points that can then be used to make your car and team better. The game has an almost full on RPG feel to it with the handling of the R&D screens this year. That’s not a bad thing as it really makes you feel like part of the team, deciding on what areas you want these folks to be working on.

Codemasters added in some awesome classic cars this year and you will be given opportunities throughout the race season to get behind the wheel of them, if you so choose. These special events will have to chasing down your opponents and passing as many as possible in a set amount of time. Sounds simple enough, but depending on the where you have you difficulty slider set, it might be harder than you think. These are fast cars that handle a little differently than your current career machine and there are no practice laps to get the acquainted. Just jump in and go. You may opt to do some practice racing outside of career mode in order to get a better feel for the classic machines

The level of simulation is totally up to you, as you can turn off whichever assists you want, or just turn them down, as well as turning on damage and wear and tear. You can opt for five lap races in career mode or you can go with 25% length or more. If you opt for the longer races, tire wear and fuel consumption become factors and you’ll have to be ready to hit the pits, so working on your pit strategies becomes a must. If you are looking for a full on F1 immersion experience, the options are there to make this game as close to reality as possible in terms of timing and control.

If the standard season is too long for you, you can opt to create a custom Grand Prix using either a modern or classic F1 car and by choosing where and how many races to include from one to twenty four. All of the Formula One tracks are available and you can decide what the weather will be, from a beautiful sunny day to a torrential downpour. You can opt for quick weekends with or without practice and qualifying or go for the full experience with three full practices and three shots at qualifying. Race distances allows you to choose from 3 laps, 5 laps, 25%, 50%, or go for it all at 100%.

Multiplayer returns with up to 22 racers per room with the host getting full access to a variety of options from room count to the level of damage. Running in a room with 22 folks seems a bit much, and we have seen upwards of 18 with little to no problems. This is really dependent on the connections of the users but the servers for the game ran smooth for us as we have had quite a few online races with zero problems.

Codemasters has been working on the F1 series since 2010 and have slowly added bells and whistles to fully immerse their fans in the world of Formula One. F1 2015 and F1 2016 were solid foundations for the next generation of Formula One gaming and F1 2017 grabs the baton proudly and takes the game truly to the next level.

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ARK: Survival Evolved has finally made it to the shores of consoles and PCs across the globe. Was the game worth the wait?

Read on to find out

When was the last time you ran into an “Early Access” version of a game that actually turned into a finished product and released? I honestly can not remember any off the top of my head. That is until  Ark: Survival Evolved. Early iterations of this game showed promise and players dedicated to spending copious amounts of time on it were rewarded. They even released somewhat of a companion or expansion in Scorched Earth. I can honestly say, I was not one of the few that was able to devote hundreds of hours to the early access versions of this game. I was, however, intrigued by the concept and the ambitiousness of all the content the game provided. After playing the full release version, I would wholeheartedly recommend giving this game a shot…

With a few caveats:

The biggest factor you should use when deciding to purchase this game should be whether you have hundreds of hours of time that you wish to devote to a new venture. The game starts out very slow and will take enormous amounts of patience and time to master it and get to the good stuff. All of the things you have heard about this game are true. People who complain that it takes too long to do things are right. People who say the payoff is worth it and to just do it are right.

When I first opened my eyes on the island and looked around, I didn’t really know where to start. I suggest finding a basic walkthrough. It can get you through the first few hours of the game and can get you set up and ready to start progressing. I also would suggest starting on single player and getting a feel for the game, I tried jumping into multi-player and just ended up being overwhelmed and dying over and over. When you die, you lose all of your items on your person. You do drop a box where you die and when you respawn you can go back to your body and pick up anything that you had, but depending on how far you strayed from your starting point or one of the beds you have crafted, that could be a chore.

The graphics are on par with some of the best games out there and considering how enormous the game is, that is very refreshing. The game play can be clunky at times and the combat can be frustrating at first, but overall it is completely satisfactory. You can tame animals to work for you and collect resources for you. There are ways to join Tribes with other players online and, depending on your play style, either work together to create an enormous city or raid other Tribes and kill other people (there are dedicated PVE and PVP servers.) Collect resources, cook food, craft armor and weapons, fight dinosaurs while mounted atop other dinosaurs! The best part of the game is that you can literally do whatever you want. You can spend 50 hours walking around and killing dinosaurs. You can spend all your time building the biggest home base with the best defenses you can muster. You can play online. You can play all by your lonesome. The only thing that limits you in what you would like to achieve is the amount of time you are able to put into the game.

Overall I would fully recommend it to anyone who has the time needed to play the game the way it is intended

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Get it? Boulder? If you don’t get it, I would assume you have never played Rock of Ages.

Should you play it? Read on to find out

So imagine you are the historical Atlas and you live in a Monty Python-esque universe. You accidentally drop the world. When you go to pick up said Earth, you accidentally grab a giant boulder. Then for some strange reason you decide to bring the boulder to Earth and challenge historical figures to a rolling boulder fight. That is the basic premise of Rock of Ages 2: Bigger and Boulder. You control the Boulder and you roll around and visit Ancient cities. At each city you are greeted by a low quality ripoff version of a historical figure. This historical figure wants to fight you, but with boulders.

The first level is a tutorial so even if you haven’t played the first iteration of this series from 2011, you will quickly get accustomed to the controls and goal of the game. Your goal in WAR is to roll your giant boulder through a series of obstacles on the tile set and smash it into the gates of Van Gogh’s screaming man’s castle (Yes. That is one of the villains.) The opponent places a veritable arsenal of towers or traps or elephants in your way to slow you down or damage your boulder. The more damaged your boulder is, the less damage it does. As you progress through the single player mode, you unlock different boulders as well as different defensive items. Each boulder has different speeds, strength and special abilities. One jumps higher, another can double jump to clear over obstacles. One is slow and weak but leaves tar on the ground and the opponent can not build anything on those spots.

The game supports up to four person multiplayer, both local and online. The versus modes are very similar to the story mode, but with different ways to play. WAR we already talked about. There is an obstacle course mode where you pit your boulder against another’s. There are traps and impediments along the way you must avoid to beat the other boulder to the finish line. The other mode is TIME TRIAL. A lot like obstacle course, but without the obstacles. Each level is very different and it can be difficult to navigate the holes in the ground as well as the cliffs and twists and turns.

The game surprisingly uses the Unreal 4 engine and although the cut scenes don’t necessarily utilize this very well, the game looks quite fantastic while playing. The gameplay does get a little repetitive at times, but with there being so many levels and different ways to play, it leaves room for a ton of playing time.

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In a private event, Terminal Gamer got a hands-on showcase of a number of Bandai Namco’s upcoming releases. While some releases left us wanting to never leave, some left us looking forward to the future, while others failed to impress and one of them failed to run correctly.

To find out which ones we are looking forward to, make sure to read on below:

*Remember, all opinions are based off of products not yet released, and many things can and probably will be changed prior to release.

Ni No Kuni 2: REVENANT KINGDOM (PS4/PC)

Having played quite a bit of the first Ni No Kuni game on the PS3, I was quite taken aback by how drastically different of a game Revenant Kingdom is. Set in an hundreds of years after Wrath of the White Witch, Revenant Kingdom stars Evan Pettiwhisker Tildrum, a child king who must reclaim his throne using magic and assistance from elemental creatures and allies he makes along the way.

Unlike the original Ni No Kuni, Revenant Kingdom plays and feels more like an action RPG similar to Zelda with gameplay elements similar to Total War, but with a youthful anime twist. Normal combat requires the player to hack and slash foes, while balancing out magic and allies, while another mode put you in on the battlefield, controlling a squad of melee soldiers and a squad of ranged soldiers, who you could actively rotate around your character. This concept allowed dynamic squad based combat in a simple format that didn’t bog gameplay elements down in convoluted control mechanics.

Overall, while it is still weird how different Ni No Kuni 2 feels compared to its first outing, I think Revenant Kingdom is doing a wonderful job marrying the magical visuals that it was known for with more lively and accessible gameplay. Which makes me interested to see how this game evolves as it prepares for launch early next year.

Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 (Switch)

While there isn’t much to say about Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 that most players don’t already know, as the game has been out for some time on other consoles, this is the first time we got to see the game being played on Nintendo’s new console, the Switch.

Depending on which mode players will be looking to try out Xenoverse 2, will greatly determine how much they might be getting out of it. In single player more, with the Joy-Con controllers attached to the Switch, Xenoverse 2 was a fantastic experience that felt wonderful to play and interact with. The controls were just as tight as they are on other consoles. Sadly, when splitting the Joy-Con’s into versus mode, where each player is using one in landscape, things do start to become more difficult. Due to the loss of a second analog, as well as the full sized shoulder buttons, trying to perform fast paced combat simply doesn’t feel right.

While the controls did seem to suffer when having to divide up the Switches controllers, Xenoverse 2 is very much what we have come to expect. Fans of the franchise may want to check out reviews when the game comes closer to launch, but I have a feeling they may have found the perfect way to play on the go.

Dragon Ball FighterZ (PS4/XBO/PC)

Welcome to the one game from this presentation that I simply haven’t stopped talking about since I got to get my hands on. Dragon Ball FighterZ (not Fighter_Z) is easily my favorite Dragon Ball games in the last decade, and this was based off of a short hands-on. Playing more like a Guilty Gear game than what we have come to see from Xenoverse, makes sense, as it is in development from the Arc Systems, the team behind the Guilty Gear franchise.

Combat is not only gorgeous; it flows very well and has the potential to actually be a deep 2D fighter that could take center stage for the IP. The mode we played had 3v3 combat, which let characters swap in and out, while being able to perform super moves, combos and everything 2D fighters have come to expect. Combat was solid, but the visuals held strong and even as an early build of the game, FighterZ is shaping up better than I could have expected.  

Sadly, there wasn’t much information about a story mode, or mechanics, but that could have been because I just never wanted to put down the controller. This really is going to be one of my most anticipated releases of 2018.

Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown (PS4/XBO/PC)

When it comes to arcade action flight games, Ace Combat has always been the perfect blend between arcade fun and realistic simulation. As the first of the series to be developed for the current generation of consoles, Skies Unknown looks fantastic and feels just as nice. Small touches in the controls gave the game a great sensation of flight and turbulence. The most interesting one that we saw was the addition of icing on the wings as you tried to fly through clouds, preventing players from hiding inside cover with impunity.

Sadly, there was not a VR demo of Skies Unknown at the demonstration we were at, but given how immersive it was on a television, I can only expect great things from a full setup. Sadly, while we will have to wait till 2018 to get a full hands-on, Skies Unknown does show us that there is still a lot to offer from this IP.

Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet (PS4/XBO)

Acting as one of the biggest surprises from the show, Fatal Bullet was shown off behind closed doors before its official announcement. While I was excited to see a new installment for the series, as I have seen part of the anime, Fatal Bullet does appear to take place after Hollow Realization and continue the story of Hollow Realization ( a game I have not played). So, I couldn’t help but feel a bit at a loss when checking the game out.

The controls felt alright for a third person shooter, but ultimately it was difficult to truly get into the experience as the demo only took place inside a warehouse. Fans of the series will probably want to stay tuned as the game comes closer to release early next year.

Little Witch Academia: Chamber of Time (PS4/PC)

An anime that has recently been getting some popularity due to Netflix, now has a game based off of it. Little Witch Academia is a side-scrolling 2D hack-and-slash that plays similar to Golden Axe or Dragon’s Crown. While it did have wonderful animations and looked like simple fun, the demo ran into some performance issues. Besides the frame rate drops , the biggest issue was one where I simply could not proceed past a certain point unless I restarted.

So, fans of the anime may want to keep an eye on this game, as it does look like it has potential. But as it is still early in development, it is hard to say how the final product will come out. Bugs happen.

Project Cars 2 (PS4/XBO/PC)

Having been a racing fan for years, and being an owner of a G28 racing wheel, I could not help but smile the second I saw Project Cars 2 on display with a steering wheel attached to it. From the short hands on with three different tracks and three different cars, it was easy to see that not only did PC2 look fantastic, it has seemingly evolved its ability to individualize each vehicle. While Project Cars 2 is a relative newcomer when it comes to the branded racing franchises, it is one that simulation fans are going to be wanting to keep an eye out for.

For more information on all of these great titles and more make sure to stay tuned to Terminal Gamer.

Thrustmaster sent us a T.Flight Hotas 4 Flight Stick for the PS4/PC to review. Did it improve our gaming experience and is it worth the cash or should you just stick to a regular controller?

Read on to find out

There aren’t too many flightstick controllers around that work for the PS4, and there aren’t many games that can fully utilize one either. If you are a fan of either War Thunder or Elite Dangerous, though, you are in for a treat if you pick up one of these controllers.

The full current list of games compatible with this controller as of 9-12-2017:

• Air Conflicts: Secret Wars – PS4
• Elite Dangerous – PS4
• EVE: Valkyrie™ – PS4
• Starblood Arena™ – PS4
• War Thunder – PS4

Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown should also support this controller when it’s released next year.

We have reviewed several Thrustmaster products in the past and one thing they know how to do is to make a quality product and the T.Flight Hotas 4 follows suit. The controller was packaged in Styrofoam so well that it would take a pretty mean FED EX or UPS driver extra time to cause any damage to it while en route to your game room. Once out of the box, the controller comes in two pieces held together by a decently sized wire.

For us, while sitting on the couch or in a chair, using the controller in two pieces didn’t work very well as the controller just had too much movement. Thrustmaster includes a small Allen wrench (even includes a nice little storage spot) so that you can hook the two pieces together for a more stable experience when not playing on a flat surface. The controller also works for the PC and had we been using this at our desk, two pieces would have been great. Hooking the two pieces together takes all of 2 minutes or less, though, so trying it out both ways doesn’t require much time.

Depending on which game you are playing, setting up the T.Flight Hotas 4 is pretty straightforward as both War Thunder and Elite Dangerous (where we tested it) had settings that used it by name. Once selected, you could go in and tweak the sensitivity for a more tailored experience and the controller also has a resistance knob on the bottom of it to customize it physically. There is also an add-on rudder pedal system available for those folks that want to go all-in, but the twist of the joystick also works as a rudder and that worked very well for us.

Our biggest problem with the controller was memorizing the location of each button, as there are so many available, right at your finger tips. That isn’t a bad thing, and War Thunder was nice enough to provide an image that works as a cheat sheet. You just have to print it out and keep it close by. Now if only Elite Dangerous would do the same, it would save us a lot of time making sure we don’t press the wrong button and start another intergalactic war.

The joystick feels and looks like a quality piece of equipment. While a wireless option would have been nice, the USB cable is over 8 feet long, and if that’s still too far for you, USB extensions are cheap and easy to find at any electronics store and work well without any issues. The USB cable is fairly heavy duty and looks and feels durable. The overall quality of the flight stick is what we have come to expect from a Thrustmaster product.

Games like War Thunder and Elite Dangerous can be played with a standard Dualshock controller, but after using the T.Flight Hotas 4 even for just a little while, we came to realize that those using a standard controller are missing out on the full experience that a flight stick has to offer. After using the flight stick for hours, we wouldn’t switch back to a standard controller now even if you tried to make us.

If you are looking for a great flight stick for your PS4, look no further.

It’s been 3 long years since the original Destiny launched, and through several expansions, and countless hours of gameplay, it is time to move on to the next game in the series. Can Destiny 2 build upon what turned out to be a great game, or will it fade out like an extinguished candle?

Read on to find out

The first Destiny game introduced us to a gaming world full of exotic weapons, exotic armor, and exotic places. The enemies were countless and some caves even made them seem never ending, but we vanquished them repeatedly, saving the world and the taking out bosses in raids from the Moon to Venus and back. With every expansion, Bungie did a great job of drawing players back in, even if they hadn’t played in a while. For those of us that wanted a weekly taste of Destiny, there were weekly Nightfall events to earn powerful gear and allowed us to spend some quality time with other guardians from around the real world. Now that Destiny 2 is finally upon us, it’s time to make the jump forward into this slightly different but very familiar world.

Destiny 2 can start out differently depending on if you were a D1 guardian or not. For those that played through the first game, you’ll get to walk down memory lane with an opening video that is literally customized to your personal history. It will not only show you where you’ve been, but also remind you of which guardians were there with you. It was an awesome and unexpected way for Bungie to remind you of what happened in the past and recap some of the previous story lines. Our video is below. For those that are new to the series, you are given a brief introduction and then tossed into the game.

Once you are into the game, you are thrown into a heated battle where the Earth and the Tower and are under extreme assault from the Red Legion of the Cabal. As you fight your way towards the three leaders of the Guardians, you learn about who is attacking. All three vanguards from the previous game return, and you’ll get to fight along side them briefly through this opening sequence. Once you’ve battled your way to a garden, a ship picks you up and transports you to a larger ship that you are tasked with disabling. You blast and fight your way to the generators, take them out, and escape back to the outside of the ship expecting to be victorious and a hero once again.

Your expectations aren’t met and you meet the new bad guy: Dominus Ghaul

He is a Cabal warlord and the leader of the Red Legion and strips you of the very thing that makes you a guardian: Your light. Through all 3 years of the original game, you had fought to bring that light level up to be as high as possible, and this guy comes in and takes it all away. His goal is to somehow take the light for himself and you are just standing in his way. With no light your ever constant companion, the little floating ghost, falls to the ground and then falls off of the ship, falling to the surface of the Earth. You end up falling as well and manage to survive the landing, but injured.

The opening sequence storytelling does a great job of tearing us down to almost nothing, first showing us  some of what we had earned and learned previously, and then taking away everything and having Ghaul casting us aside like garbage, weak and powerless with nothing but a damaged hand gun and no ammo. It is an introduction that not only needed to be done, but felt like a rebirth once we started our journey back to being a powerful guardian. Being cast down to Earth, hurt, weak, unarmed and barely able to move, introduces you to a basic human. It goes to show that under all of that armor, behind all of those weapons and bullets, and underneath all of that light, the only thing that stands between us and death is our humanity. This how your journey begins in Destiny 2, and it’s a journey well worth the investment.

For returning guardians, going through the story shows how Bungie must have been listening to our feedback over the life of the original game. No longer is it required to travel to orbit in order to move-on to another location. The Director gives you easy access to all of the available locations and you can even fast travel to points on your current planet. No need to beat a Public Event in one area and then race on your sparrow to the next one on the other side of the planet. You can just fast travel to a location nearest that public event and jump right into it, and it only takes a few seconds to get there. Interplanetary travel will take you a little bit longer, but that is just the nature of interplanetary travel.

Each planet has its own emissary that is there to assist you in not only new quests and missions, but can also give you better gear by trading for tokens you’ll earn on that planet and harvestable elements found lying around. Trading this items in can help you get to a higher level pretty quick and tokens can be found in loot chests and for completing patrol missions and Public Events. Our old buddy Cayde-6 has special maps for sale that can help you find these loot chests, so if you have some extra glimmer burning a hole in your pocket, grab a couple for each planet as they only last 4 hours.

Most of the things we loved about the original game have returned. The weekly Nightfall is back and while the first one was almost impossible due to the new time restrictions, completing it gave us some nice new armor that helped us get ready for the new raid. Regular strikes are back as well and are also a great way to earn new weapons and armor, the items just won’t be as powerful as what you can earn in the Nightfall, which is fitting since regular strikes are considerably easier.

For guardians that love to take out other guardians, the Crucible returns with new maps and new challenges. These PVP games can earn you some decent gear as well, even if you aren’t very good at them, so be sure to try a few of these matches out. The Destiny series has always been about team work, and even when playing PVP, a 4v4 game should have some teamwork involved and shouldn’t just 4 guardians running around like chickens with their heads cut off.

Once you’ve completed the main story line, the game is far from completed, and this is what gave the first game so much replayability. Even before the expansions for Destiny, the opening of the first Raid, and then the hard raid, added an immense amount of game time in both preparing for that raid and then working your way through it. With 6 players needed, you can eventually help others working through it for their first time, and teach them what you have already learned, all the while earning even better equipment than what you had. Destiny 2 brings with it it’s own raid and offers the same experience, with even more puzzles and challenges to complete.

Destiny 2 already has two expansions announced for it, no date or content info as of yet, but we know that each expansion will have its own storyline and raid. The game is available on the PlayStation store in three flavors: The basic game, the game plus the future expansions, or the game, the expansions, and some extra DLC. The extra DLC includes a Kill Tracker Ghost that has a perk for the European Dead Zone that alerts you to when a loot chest is nearby, so it has some usefulness. The legendary sword and Exotic rifle are pretty nice as well, but all three of these can only be used once you reach level 20.

Bungie did a pretty great overall job with the original Destiny and laid a great foundation for a new IP. Three years later they release Destiny 2, a game polished so well it eclipses all others in the running for Game of the Year.

Well done BungieI Well Done!

10

** Possible spoilers in the images below **

NASCAR Heat 2 is on the track and ready to run, but the question is should you fire up your engine or stay in the pits?

Read on to find out

In 2016 developers Monster Games and 704Games released NASCAR Heat Evolution to mediocre reviews due to the game’s barebones approach to the NASCAR racing genre and some folks called it a step backwards in the game’s evolution. The developer tried to correct some of those mistakes with the release of NASCAR Heat 2, addressing the barebones by adding in a bunch of bells and whistles, but was it enough to give a full experience?

This being a NASCAR game, we had to hit the track in a quick race to see how the game looked and felt as we raced around the track. The quick race has you choosing between the Monster Energy series with 41 drivers to choose from, the XFinity series with 43 drivers, or the truck based Camping World series with 33 drivers. You can also create your own custom vehicle for each type of race, just don’t expect to use your own name. Not sure why you can’t have your own name in the game, but at least you can decide which brand of vehicle you drive (Ford, Chevy, or Toyota) and your racer’s gender and overall look. Having our own name on the side of the car would have been nice.

Quick race settings allows you to adjust the AI’s difficulty and the percentage of the race you want to run, but as for the car all you can do is turn the stability and/or damage on and off. Career mode offers you a wide variety of settings you can change so why they aren’t offered here is baffling. You do have the choice of having a quick weekend or a full weekend by choosing to just qualify and race,  practice and qualify and race, or just choosing to race which will put you at the back of the pack. Once at the track and ready to run, there’s nothing you can change on the car, even after a few practice runs if you want to change the stability setting, you’ll have to exit out of the race to do so.

The graphics for the game are very underwhelming. They aren’t bad when you’re sitting still, but at 150MPH+ we ran into choppy graphics that just weren’t easy on the eyes. Speed blur is one thing, but this goes beyond just that. Maybe we’re spoiled by games like F1 2017, Project Cars or even the Gran Turismo Sport beta, but whatever the case we expected more from the graphics in this game and felt disappointed by it on a graphical level. The driving physics for the game were great, and cars and trucks handled as we thought they should on asphalt, and that is a definite plus. Once we dove into the career mode and started playing with the chassis and such, we started to understand how deep the physics went and how much the game has grown since its last release.

Career mode is improved from the last release, but it still left a little to be desired. There is still no build up of your character from lower racing types and that would have been a nice addition. That would give you an option to feel more connected to your driver, as it is your first season will have you sitting around waiting to see if any teams need someone to fill out their roster and offer you a hot seat in the next calendar race. Meet their goals and chances are they will probably offer you a permanent car for the next season. After a season of waiting for hot seat offers, getting a few full season offers is a welcome change. For those that want to just race for a championship without committing to a full season, you can take on the Monster Energy series playoffs. 

Oddly enough, any money you win along your journey just accumulates as there is nothing to spend it on. There’s no research and development to worry about, no tires to buy, no engines to rebuild, or no teams to hire. You are a driver and that is pretty much all you will be doing. Is that a bad thing? That depends on how deep you want your experience. If you are just looking to race, you are in the right place. If you are looking for a full racing development type system, head on over to F1 2017 as you won’t find one here.

One of the new additions for the game is a dirt track for the Camping World Series. Honestly, iof they would have us start out in mini-karts or even Outlaw cars on this track, the game would have been improved overall quite a bit. Dirt track racing is all about drifting through the corners and having a great line coming out, and the trucks would have been easier to control if we would have started out in a less powerful vehicle in order to learn the difference between asphalt racing and dirt track racing.

Developers Monster Games and 704Games built upon their last release and did add quite a bit to a game that was pretty barebones before. NASCAR Heat 2 isn’t the best racing game on the market, but it is a fun game for those that are looking for some NASCAR fun and familiar names.

6

NASCAR Heat 2 review code provided by publisher. For more information on scoring, please read What our review scores really mean.

WRC 7: FIA World Rally Championship has been unleashed upon the world. Should you prepare to hit the track, or is it best left in the pits?

Read on to find out

The World Rally Championship series of video games has come a long ways since it was originally licensed to Sony back in 2001, making studio stops a long the way with Evolution Studios, Black Bean Games, Milestone, and now Big Ben Interactive’s Kylotonn. Big Ben picked up the license with WRC 5 and developer Kylotonn has made incremental improvements with each release. Last year’s release of WRC 6 received lukewarm reviews but was a step in the right direction. WRC 7 continues that journey and again makes some nice improvements.

The last few months has brought us quite a few driving games to play, and the genre covers the globe in racing locations and surface types. There’s F1 2017, NASCAR Heat 2, and Project Cars 2 (currently in the review process) to name a few.  The realism in today’s games shows how impressive the technology has become, and most of these racing games tap into that technology well and WRC 7 joins in on the fun.

One of the improvements over WRC 6 is the handling of the cars, depending on their current physical repair status of course. We very seldom use a controller for driving games, but for review purposes we will try the game out both with a regular controller and with our Thrustmaster T150 steering wheel setup using the Wheel Stand Pro. Either way you play, the controls for the game are pretty responsive and an improvement over previous releases. The force feedback on the T150 really gave us a nice feel for the track and had us gripping the wheel tightly.

Whether we were driving in snow, gravel, or on asphalt, the car handled nicely and depending on your difficulty settings, gave the game a nice feel of realism when using the wheel. Even with a controller the game was fun to drive and play, but felt more like an arcade game than a simulator. That is to be expected with a regular controller and we only played for a few hours that way. For us the game really shined when we were driving along with the wheel setup, but is still great both ways.

The graphics for the game are good. At high speeds, which you may not achieve very often in a rally game, the game still looked ok. There really wasn’t much improvement over WRC 6 in that area, but it is by no means a bad looking game. The car models look great, with a wide variety of make, models, and liveries to choose from. The environments are nicely detailed, with ruts in the snow and dirt being able to change the direction of your car if you let them. The folks on the sidelines don’t seem to care, though, and have seemingly no fear as you zip deathly close to them and/or their vehicles. A little interaction by them would be a nice touch, maybe having them jump back if you get too close, or dive out of the way if you hit a rail near them.

The game starts out by giving you a driver’s test in order to evaluate your driving level and then recommend settings based on your results. The Rally de Portugal is a nice introductory rally course with varying twists and turns but can be a little challenging for those that are new to the genre. One of the things that needs to be looked at is the 9 second time penalty you’ll get everytime you need the car reset to a track. Regardless of how far off the road you may veer, the penalty is always the same. The game should take a few things into account and then determine the penalty and not just arbitrarily dock you 9 seconds for even just a slight off-the-track experience.

This being the official game of the FIA World Rally Championship, every team, car, and driver can be found in the game, along with all of the tracks. The amount of content is pretty impressive and the recreation of each car is spot on. When you join a team in career mode, you’ll get to use your own name as well, and seeing that on the side of one of these cars is a real nice touch. The cars range from peppy little Fiestas up to some decently powered vehicles that will test your skills.

For rally enthusiasts, this game is a must-have title as it is the best rally racer around. If you aren’t into rally racers, you’ll probably want to find a genre that better fits your needs.

7

WRC 7: FIA World Rally Championship review code provided by publisher. For more information on scoring, please read What our review scores really mean.

Morphite, the atmospheric exploration sci-fi FPS from Crescent Moon Games, Blowfish Studios, and We’re Five Games, is out now available for PlayStation 4 but the question is, should you care.

You are Myrah Kale. In this universe there is a substance called Morphite that is supposed to be the rarest and most valuable of all the resources in existence. That sentence is the most interesting part of the entire game. This game has tons of bugs, the story is boring to the point of falling asleep, and the voice acting is beyond sub-par.

Let’s start with Morphite. They build this substance up as if owning just a small amount of it would lead you to be rich and/or powerful beyond comprehension. The first piece you get gives you a weapon upgrade and consequent pieces don’t make up for that failure. Each piece does give your main character some sort of visions that show the history of the universe. None of them lead to anything interesting or develop the story in a way that makes the game even remotely interesting.

The graphics aren’t a big selling point for the game so I won’t rip on them too bad, but they are bad. The problem isn’t with how the game looks, but rather all of the bugs. You constantly fall through rocks and get stuck in places. The game crashes every once in a while and when you are flying your space ship it is very clunky.

Almost everything that is said in the game is voiced by someone, but it is almost like they played the game and were so bored by it, they had no enthusiasm left. The music is actually pretty good. Not absolutely mesmerizing, but definitely one of the better parts of the game.

Overall, this game seemed unfinished and did not even try to keep me enthralled enough to want to play through it.

2

Morphite review code provided by publisher. For more information on scoring, please read What our review scores really mean.