Satellite Reign Review

It's a risky operation, but the mercs have some valuable tech in their armory and the bosses want us to snag it. I paid off the security guards. They're going to leave a couple of gates unlocked. We're going in quiet. We shut down the cameras. We silence a stray guard here and there, but a lone mech-bot catches us because our inept soldier decides to go his own way instead of staying with the group. A camera catches the fiasco, and enemy guards close in on our position. But we find a little hiding hole, and five minutes later, it's like a gang of heavily armed thieves didn't just break into the largest gun-running operation in the Industrial District.

Satellite Reign lets you loose in a metropolis, where you're free to murder, sneak, and bribe your way to the top of the corporate ladder. Before it's all said and done, your squad might be equipped with poison-immune lungs, hive mind-hacking tech, cloaks, and cyber legs or laser shotguns with energy shields and high explosives. It's your team; it's your call. When Satellite Reign is at its tightest and most focused, it delivers the thrill and tension of leading a small squad into a rat's nest of traps and more enemies than you can ever kill on your own. Satellite Reign is also never more than one click away from ruining your mission with poor pathfinding or encounters with enemies with fleeting attention spans.

Starting a firefight in the hotel courtyard was probably a mistake.

Satellite Reign's approach to plot is bare bones; it's more about dropping you into open areas and teasing new sandbox environments than telling an actual story. You control a squad of four mercenaries, each from a different classic cyberpunk archetype. You work your way through the game's city in pursuit of evil Dracogenics employees whose control over resurrection technology -- uploading your mind into someone else's body -- makes them the most powerful corp on the planet.

The beginning of Satellite Reign is brutal and not especially satisfying. There isn't much in the way of "story" missions. Beyond gaining the credentials to move from one district in the city to the other, your only required objective in Satellite Reign is to infiltrate Dracogenics Tower. So, you begin the game relatively directionless as you take on random tasks, get new gear, and level up the skills of your mercs. This is problematic because Satellite Reign is designed for you to take advantage of specific character builds and to vary the tech of your squad members, but it took me nearly six hours with the game before I felt like I had a squad that was equipped and properly leveled to manage the tasks given to me.

When Satellite Reign is at its tightest and most focused, it delivers the thrill and tension of leading a small squad into a rat's nest of traps and more enemies than you can ever kill on your own.

Each enemy compound is a playground-like puzzle that tests your ability to manage your team's tools and abilities. My infiltrator (a stealth-specced sniper) became a core member of my team. I connected her mind with my hacker, and she was zipping in and out of compounds all by herself in the early stages thanks to her invisibility. I could have her in and out of early areas without setting off a single alarm, but later stages require more teamwork. You send your infiltrator in to turn off the initial security, and you bring in everybody else to clear out guards and disable traps. Poison gas floods your stealthy point of entry? The soldier can take care of that. Doors don’t open when you turn off the security system? Time for your support to scan the electronics network of the compound. Each area offers something for each member of your team to do no matter which builds you've chosen for your squad.

The future's so bright I have to wear shades

In its best moments, Satellite Reign keeps you on your toes -- particularly if you go with a stealth build. Enemies are everywhere, and although the game offers shadows for you to crawl to, the combination of cameras, enemy patrols, turrets, and massive tanks means the window of opportunity to escape unnoticed is thin if you aren't spamming your cloaking skill, which I wound up doing a lot. Sometimes, the only way to move through an area without drawing the attention of enemies is to create a major distraction elsewhere on the base. I had an infiltrator stuck in a compound, and I had to cause a ruckus at the base's entrance so she could sneak out the front door with the valuable prototypes she was carrying.

This all assumes that Satellite Reign is working; however, it often doesn't. Satellite Reign's pathfinding is often poor, getting you into trouble when you least deserve it. Your teammates are either bunched together so tightly that their character models are indistinguishable or they've adopted a laissez-faire attitude while moving as a group, walking into plain sight on their own accord. To move from district to district, you have to pass through tight checkpoints, and stepping over certain lines causes every enemy in the city to come bearing down on you at once. At the first checkpoint, my team consistently stepped over those lines despite being told to go another way, and countless stealth missions were complicated when one of my teammates decided he just didn't want to go through the vent with everyone else.

Your teammates are either bunched together so tightly that their character models are indistinguishable or they've adopted a laissez-faire attitude while moving as a group, walking into plain sight on their own accord.

The pathfinding is bad, but its faults are overshadowed by the game's AI, which is simple and easily fooled. Although enemies are capable of some sophisticated sweep maneuvers when they've spotted you, it's far too easy to reset a failed stealth run by just sprinting to some dark corner of the base and hiding there til you get the all clear. In the beginning of the game, sending your soldiers into a base and shooting out every last camera before enemies open fire is a totally viable tactic. When your brazen infiltration is met with an enemy assault, don't worry, because after your sacrificial run into enemy territory ends in death, nobody bothers to fix or reset the security cameras, making your next run easier than it should be. It's far too easy to undermine Satellite Reign's threats by exploiting its simple AI systems.

All those cameras & drones would be more intimidating if I couldn't turn invisible.

Satellite Reign also refuses to engage with its cyberpunk milieu in a meaningful way, and when it does, it embraces the worst elements of the genre with little commentary or self-awareness. Though the neon-streaked city you explore is reminiscent of Blade Runner and your squad is equipped with enough ridiculous tech to make Hiro Protagonist blush, Satellite Reign is cyberpunk at a surface level. Conceptually, it has the chance to explore gaping wealth disparities, but the game does nothing with it. At it's worst, Satellite Reign relishes in cruelty. Though you're free to play many missions stealthily, others require you to kill people, some of whom are innocent citizens. In a particularly uncomfortable moment, you're ordered to murder the female neighbor of a corrupt executive to ensure that he cooperates, but there's never any evidence that she deserves to be dragged into the conflict and ultimately killed. It may be haphazard, but that sort of violence is borderline misogynistic and ultimately leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

When Satellite Reign is on and all the parts decide they want to work together, it is a blast. Infiltrating a base without setting off any alarms and stealing new guns and money from under the enemy's nose is tense and satisfying, and you have to be willing to take risks to succeed. I just wish you didn't have to slog through the uninviting early hours and the game's regularly busted AI to find those thrills.

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Danganronpa Another Episode: A New Hope

Children, by nature, have a tendency to be greedy, self-absorbed, and inconsiderate. They can even be downright violent. But it's also believed that, as ill-mannered and temperamental as they can be, kids still have a base morality that prevents them from causing grievous harm. While the thought of children turning homicidal is enough to send chills down your spine, it's a reality in Ultra Despair Girls, a third-person action spin-off from the Danganronpa series.

Ultra Despair Girls begins with a scene of an average, completely non-noteworthy high school girl, Komaru Naegi, lounging around her apartment in Towa City. Though she is a normal girl, her situation isn’t: she’s been held captive in this apartment by unseen forces for quite some time. The day finally comes when she is freed from her captivity, but this kicks off another struggle for Komaru. Towa City is overrun by a massive army of deadly, bear-like robots called Monokuma, and a group of children calling themselves the Warriors of Hope are staging the bloody revolution, inciting the city’s youth to murder adults and transform the city into a “paradise” for kids, free of the rules of their elders.

A deadly Monokuma robot in action.

Plot-wise, the game is an emotional roller coaster. Since Danganronpa is a series that's notorious for not pulling any punches, you know everyone and anyone can be a target of unspeakable cruelty or have disturbing ulterior motives--yet it’s difficult to not get attached to these characters and their individual plights. There were points in the game where I felt my heart race and palms sweat--not from a challenging gameplay sequence, but from tense, emotionally charged story moments that shook me out of my comfort zone and into the harsh reality of Ultra Despair Girls’ world. Given its “kids murdering adults” concept, you can expect more than a few distressing revelations about certain characters and their motivations. Even when the action sections falter, it’s finding out what happens next in the story that will keep you eagerly playing.

Ultra Despair Girls is connected to the Danganronpa series thematically and narratively, but the gameplay is quite different--the previous titles in the saga were mystery adventure games that dealt with a murder among high school students. Ultra Despair Girls takes place right in-between Danganronpa 1 and 2 and plays off many of the characters and plot concepts introduced in those games. Otherwise, it introduces third-person shooting action into the mix, to varied degrees of success.

Komaru, being a typical high-schooler, isn’t quite as mobile or well-armed as your average shooter hero, but she still packs heat--a hacking gun that disarms the robots terrorizing Towa City. On top of that, her hacking gun isn’t terribly effective at first, and unless she hits a Monokuma square in its glowing red eye, it takes several shots before it goes down. Fortunately, she’s got a special friend in Toko Fukawa; you may remember Fukawa as the bitter, anti-social authoress Toko from the original Danganronpa. She has special abilities that make her an invaluable asset, but she also relies on battery power to flex these skills and occasionally needs a break in order to recharge.

Ultra Despair Girls' unlikely hero, Komaru

Komaru's hacking gun has multiple capabilities: the Move bullet allows you to operate machines from a distance; Dance stuns an enemy briefly by making them dance uncontrollably; Knockback sends enemies and objects flying, and Reveal shows hidden messages and secrets. As the gun grows more versatile, the game begins to introduce more and more complex puzzles, which typically revolve around exterminating enemies by using all of your skills, often challenging you to find ways to destroy entire groups with a single shot. These puzzles make for a clever challenge, though every so often there's a key point of frustration that proves annoying, such as enemies being able to detect you in an area that seemed to be out of their range.

While Ultra Despair Girls offers a good mix between puzzle-solving and pure action sections, the latter are often the weakest part of the game. Komaru's feebleness seems intentional, but in some sequences--such as areas where you fight multiple enemies in a big, open map, and boss fights against larger foes--Komaru’s lack of mobility really begins to punish the player. Because you don't move very fast, it’s hard to cover a wide area or dodge attacks, and Toko's limited usage means you can’t rely on her to carry you through lengthier fights. Bugs occasionally crop up during big battles, too. Enemies called Monokuma Balls have an obnoxious sound effect that can continue playing even after you take them down, and twice the game crashed during particularly taxing fights, necessitating a complete system reset. In one case, I saved just before a fight, but in the other, there were numerous (thankfully skippable) cutscenes and short action sequences beforehand that I had to replay.

Something's afoot here.

But ultimately, it’s not the gameplay that will keep you engaged with Ultra Despair Girls. Despite the shift in genre, the game's is almost as text-heavy as the two games that preceded it. The story is every bit as excellently written and engaging as the previous titles. In particular, Toko really works well as a co-star to Komaru with her weird brand of aloofness--she wasn’t a character I had pegged as one who could carry a spin-off when I first finished the original game, but the writers have done a fantastic job making her shine here.

The visuals and music add to the chaos of Despair Girls' world to great effect. Though the characters are true 3D models, unlike Danganronpa’s 2D pop art, they’re every bit as lively and strange and appealing. Likewise, the game makes use of a lot of similar stylistic choices to the main DR titles; for instance, the hot-pink blood returns, becoming a key part of the vibrant color-scheme that dresses many of the game’s environments. Bodies of the slain are bright red and blue, making the human toll of the children’s revolution all that much more apparent. Music-wise, the game uses a mix of new tunes and familiar Danganronpa themes, with the weirdly off-kilter, pop-inspired main tune giving a stark contrast to the awfulness happening around you. The only issue with the presentation comes during the game’s cutscenes. They utilize a mix of pre-rendered CG, anime, and flash-style animations from scene to scene, that feels inconsistent and somewhat lessens their impact.

If Ultra Despair Girls didn’t have so much else going for it, it would be a mostly-mediocre quasi-survival-horror-shooter with a few high points. But even with some very obvious gameplay issues, the sheer strength of the game’s setting, story, characters, and style manages to overshadow everything else, turning this into an absolute must-play for anyone already invested in the Danganronpa universe. As is a common theme in Danganronpa, the hope of more quality time with characters you grow to love overshadows the despair of crashes and a handful of poorly-thought-out gameplay sections.

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Act of Aggression Review

It’s a strange thing to know that you’re powerless. As the realization dawns, possibilities and options fall away, leaving you with one inevitable conclusion. While wave after wave of my bombers streak across the sky, I have to imagine that my opponent is feeling helpless. When the bombers drop their payload, it will mark my sixth consecutive multiplayer victory using the same tactic. But the more I play, the more I’ve come to realize that Act of Aggression builds itself on these moments. Each player probes his or her foes, poking for weaknesses before they inexorably find one. But even then, the end comes slowly, and the loser has time to reflect on what went wrong.

On paper, Act of Aggression isn’t that different from any other RTS. You have three basic functions that represent the three core tactics these sorts of games have always had: one for rushing an enemy before they can get themselves established, one for building up defenses until you can wait for superior (albeit more expensive) technology to overwhelm your foes, and one that’s a balance of the two. You gather resources, build bases, train units, and gain control of territory. None of this is new, and Act of Aggression doesn’t handle these ideas in any novel or particularly interesting ways. What makes Act of Aggression special is its rhythm.

Base layout and management is of the utmost importance.

Each match begins with a core base and one scouting unit. Pretty standard so far. Immediately, though, the formula begins to diverge. Because there's no central location where you'll find all the resources you need, nor any way to build out your base with larger and larger shells as in Age of Empires, you're forced to do things a little differently. First I'd rush with lightly armed troops, stretching out with vulnerable tendrils grabbing what I could. Then I'd hunker down and secure the position with big guns and long-term emplacements. Both of these tactics are common in other games, but here they are essential, and it means that outposts need to be self-sufficient.

Play, then, revolves around poking your opponents' units and buildings to see if they've been careless, to see what they've neglected. Any position can be overwhelmed with enough force, but if you're playing well you'll often spread yourself a bit too thin to secure everything. This makes for an interesting twist on the usual pattern of strategy game play, and one that always left me uneasy. I never felt safe or secure-- was always pushing and always repelling. By itself, that pattern of play is remarkable. It's exhilarating, and I found myself challenging my own tried and true tactics and algorithms I'd built and refined after years of competitive strategy gaming. But it doesn't take long for cracks to start showing in that veneer.

The first and by far the biggest problem Act of Aggression faces is that achieving a level of fluency

The first and by far the biggest problem Act of Aggression faces is that achieving a level of fluency, where play is comprehensible and more importantly manageable, takes some work. As yet, there's no proper tutorial, and the campaign follows some of the worst tropes of its genre. Act of Aggression locks units, buildings, and ideas behind arbitrary walls, only revealing them for isolated lessons that don't teach you how to use these tools and adapt to new challenges. Instead it holds you to a strict path without being able to explore the potential of its own design. If anything, I found that finishing the campaign left me worse off when it came time to square with others. That's exacerbated by abysmal voice work and a cliché plot torn straight from the pages of a Clancy novel.

Even when you do familiarize yourself with the proceedings, Act of Aggression bogs itself down with unnecessary fluff. Your typical battle will have you working with twenty or more buildings, for example, most of which look so similar that it's hard to keep each of them straight. It leads to odd situations where you'll build a "light vehicle" factory that can also make some of the strongest attack copters in the game, long before you have access to the ostensibly helicopter-centric "helipad." That'd be excusable, of course, if the latter building was strictly better, but I only used it once.

A broad range of multiplayer options keeps you engaged in ways the campaign fails to.

This is a complaint that runs throughout. Some units have niches so specific that it's a wonder their role wasn't condensed into something simpler. Yes, options are generally a great idea, but in a game that already struggles with a clean and effective user interface, this manifests as another frustration. It gives the impression that most of the game could have been condensed. It complicates affairs without adding anything of value into the mix.

Act of Aggression's user interface is similarly overwrought. The expand-hold-expand structure encourages waging several small battles across multiple fronts at once, but there's no persistent indication of where you need to direct your attention. There is a ticker in the upper-left hand corner of the screen, but clicking those notifications doesn't auto-snap to the event the game describes. It often led me to lose track of threats and left me ill-informed about the status of the battlefield. Despite these problems, Act of Aggression manages to find legs in multiplayer matches. In my time with the game, I played more than a dozen rounds with a bevy of opponents and each was an exhilarating slugfest.

Despite these problems, Act of Aggression manages to find legs in multiplayer matches.

Keeping to the rhythm I described earlier, I'd start by reaching out for critical points on the map and lock myself down, waiting for my foes' nascent probes. Countless times we'd start firefights that lasted the rest of the game. Banks--neutral buildings that provide a steady, constant stream of income to any player that holds them--were particularly contentious. When infantry takes refuge in a bank, they're well-defended, making them a difficult target for opposing soldiers to capture. Even with plenty of support, wresting an established foothold near a bank is almost impossible. Yet, the cost was low enough and the reward high enough to incentivize a constant, smoldering conflict.

When one of us did start to crack, though, it took time to restructure our war efforts and finish the job. And that's the biggest oddity here. For all of its speed, for all of its, well, aggression, the final moments of any given match are typically quiet. Even when players start wielding the earth-shattering super weapons, countermeasures are easy to deploy. Again, it means that you're waiting to find the one thing your opponent never considered, the one thing they ignored or thought they could do without if only for a little while.

Station troops inside of buildings to fortify choke points and help gather resources.

These kinds of games don't exist anymore. For better or worse, Act of Aggression isn't from this decade. It opens with riotous bombast backed with haughty metal riffs and maintains a jubilant, adolescent tone throughout. It's rough, it's incomplete, it's awful in places. But it's also raw and decadent. Soaked to the core in that quintessentially nineties cocktail of cynicism and an exultant love of violence, playing Act of Aggression feels like going back in time and returning to a home that only exists in your oldest memories. And that's special, even if it means dealing with some obtuse design issues.

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Mad Max Review

There's a good reason why the new Mad Max game occasionally resembles this year's Mad Max: Fury Road: it's a canonical prequel that pits you against Scabrous Scrotus--son of the film's sinister Immortan Joe. Mad Max's wasteland is greasy and dusty, a place where mechanical monstrosities clash against the natural beauty of the desert. You play the part of Max, an unfortunate wanderer with a troubling past. You charge across open roads in search of redemption, running over those who stand in your way. Driving is central to life in the wasteland, and it's the basis for the game's best moments, too. The combination of an intriguing world and great car combat make Mad Max an occasional joy to play, but shallow ground combat and a handful of other missteps ultimately drive the game off the road.

At the start, you find yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time when you're assaulted by Scrotus and a pack of his sinewy war boys. They steal your beloved car, the Interceptor, leaving you empty-handed. However, fortune smiles upon you when a Gollum-like mechanic by the name of Chumbucket crosses your path. He's convinced that you're a hero of legend, the "Angel," and he's a whiz with both a wrench and a harpoon, making him the perfect companion in the hard-driving and violent wasteland. You and Chum fend off desperate tribes and push back against Scrotus' forces as you take contracts and hunt down fresh parts for your new chariot, the Magnum Opus. Your ultimate goal is to build a vehicle that's strong enough to cross the void known as the Plains of Silence, where you'll either find freedom, or death on the other side.

When you're trying to survive in a violent wasteland, trimming facial hair is your last concern.

Together, Chum and Max are fast and lethal in the Magnum Opus, with Chum manning a small cache of weapons in the rear while you steer the car. Picking apart enemy vehicles and guard posts is a cinch with your harpoon, which is the most important weapon in your arsenal. While driving, press one button to slow down time and highlight nearby objects and people, and press another to launch a harpoon or explosive lance. Alternatively, you can tap the circle button to auto-fire at the closest target, but it's an unattractive option when it's vital that you target specific objects; there's no point in ripping off a car's tire when you can just as easily yank out the driver. It's normal to be confronted by three or four cars at once, and though some carry enemies that will try to hop onto your car, you can purchase spikes to deter hop-ons, resort to your trusty shotgun, or pull over and fight it out with your fists.

Max and Chumbucket ride into battle on the Magnum Opus.

Even when surrounded by enemies, you're an effective and brutal fighter. Watching Max man-handle thugs can be entertaining, but the part you play--controlling Max--isn't very interesting or rewarding. Mad Max's combat borrows from Warner Bros.' recent Batman and Shadow of Mordor games, where mashing one button dishes out contextual attacks, and another, when pressed while an icon appears over the head of an attacking enemy, initiates a parry maneuver. You can attack using your shotgun, but you rarely want to because bullets are hard to come by. You also have the ability to roll and evade incoming attacks, but only a few enemies ever justify the effort. The combat system is so simple at its core that nearly every fight can be won by alternately tapping attack and parry, save for a few boss battles where unblockable attacks are introduced. Watching Max make quick work of enemies is occasionally impressive, but when the majority of fights in the game can be easily exploited, there's no challenge to overcome, and no sense of accomplishment. When put side-by-side with car combat, which is complex, full of possibilities, and requires precision and skill to succeed, Mad Max's ground combat feels shallow.

Mad Max also doesn't do a good job of imposing desperation upon you, a feeling that is necessary if the wasteland's threats are to be taken seriously. It's true that water, fuel, and food are hard to come by, so when you find a can of dog food, you eat it. When you come across a family of maggots feasting on a corpse, you take advantage of your rank in the food chain. Water can come from many sources, but never in large supply. Eating and drinking are the only ways to revitalize yourself in the game, but you quickly learn that carrying an empty canteen isn't that scary. For one, beyond the occasional barrage of explosives that come from fortified camps, you rarely face dire situations, and though it may seem like you would need to rehydrate from time to time because you're going full-throttle in the middle of a hot desert, I never noticed any gradual, deleterious health impacts from exposure. Emergent vehicular battles in Mad Max's open world can jeopardize your car, but Chum quickly fixes it whenever you aren't moving, and a generous fast-travel mechanic lets you magically skip the experience of driving through enemy territory. It may be convenient, but adding fast travel to Mad Max is like adding a "skip" button to a fighting game that automatically takes you to the next round.

What lies beyond the flaming gates of Deep Friah's temple?

You can purchase new parts for the Magnum Opus and upgrades for Max that impact your abilities and appearance. You earn new car parts from the leaders of various regions, either by completing fetch quests or dismantling enemy outposts. After a new part is unlocked, you have to purchase it using scrap metal that you collect around the world. You'd think that any old metal would qualify as scrap, but you'd be wrong. You can occasionally collect large amounts of scrap by taking an enemy car back to base, but you normally acquire it from glowing piles of metal that are sparingly strewn about the wasteland. These piles can include items like a muffler, which you conveniently stick in your pocket. I suppose it's helpful that you can carry multiple cars worth of metal on your person, but it doesn't make much sense. We don't mind this in games where fantasy trumps reality, but Mad Max tries to sell you a world where characters are defined by their abilities and limitations, yet it constantly introduces things that contradict this message. It's also disappointing that Chum can't help you collect parts while you're driving the car. He can hang on to the back when you're driving incredibly fast, and repair the Magnum Opus when it's falling apart, but he can't hop off and help you gather items. Having to stop the car, get out, pick up the pieces, and get back in before hitting the road is a frustrating process that slows you down and exposes you to nearby enemies.

It may be convenient, but adding fast travel to Mad Max is like adding a "skip" button to a fighting game that automatically takes you to the next round.

As you perform certain feats in the game, such as killing multiple people using your car or pulling down enough sniper towers via harpoon, Max's reputation rises, and he can pick up new gear, facial hair, clothing, and an upgraded shotgun. More importantly, Max can increase his efficiency as a scavenger by trading in coins to a mystic that resides on top of certain cliffs. He's an odd duck, but like Chum, his peculiarities add to the world's mythology in a great way, as he speaks of your past and buried emotions. Save for a mother and daughter duo that you meet briefly towards the end of the game, this if the only time Max's past is a topic of discussion. The mystic always departs by blowing noxious powder in your face, putting you in the proper state to receive his "gifts," such as the ability to magically receive bonus portions of water when you refill your canteen from the game's limited water sources. The mystic is a worthy cast member, but his gifts stand in the face of your struggle to survive. A character stat shouldn't determine how much water you get from a small pail in the desert; the pail itself should.

A massive storm drapes the wasteland with wind and lightning. It's an impressive display that makes driving difficult yet exciting.

There are similar issues found throughout Mad Max, in fact. Fuel, like ammunition, is a rare commodity, or at least it should be according to the story. Oddly, it's not unusual to find fuel cans that repeatedly respawn in front of your eyes. You'd also think that being run over by a car would kill you outright if not seriously injure you, but Mad Max puts more weight behind the punch of a withered nomad than it does a three-ton war machine. If you're playing sloppily during a fight, a few punches is all it takes to bite the dust. Stand in front of oncoming traffic, however, and you can endure getting run over five or six times before you start to worry about your health. In fact, I got so good at being struck by cars that I eventually learned (unofficially) how to jump into the windshield of an oncoming car and perform a triple-misty-flip, landing gracefully on my feet. It's impossible in theory, silly to witness, and easily repeatable. You can also stand in fire without getting hurt, but only some fires; experience taught me that a burning car in the open-world isn't as hot as a flame-thrower that blocks your path during a mission, for example.

Chumbucket readies the harpoon.

Other rules are randomly imposed upon you by the game that take away your freedom with no justification within the story. You have a large, boundless open world to explore, but venture off the map for a few seconds, and a warning screen tells you to turn back, or its "game over." A particular mission wants you to explore an underground tunnel, but if you try to navigate narrow corridors on foot, rather than in your car, a similar warning screen appears. An open-world Mad Max game should force you to contend with the wasteland's harsh elements, but also give you the freedom to go where you please.

Mad Max fails to mix story and gameplay with finesse, but there are elements of the game that stand out as impressive, nonetheless. Raging, electrical storms set a new bar when it comes to weather effects, as fast winds carry tons of dust and debris. The chaos creates a deafening and blinding atmosphere that's occasionally illuminated by lighting bolts and the fires they light on the ground.

They may not hurt too much, but it's still a good idea to get out of the way of moving vehicles.

A late battle forces you to chase down a convoy and dismantle Scrotus' massive war rig. Regular car combat is fun, but the scale of the war rig and the relentless nature of Scrotus' horde make this battle truly memorable. You pick off small fries one by one as you try to keep up with the war rig. Occasional breakdowns may cause you to pull over and repair your car, which makes the chase all the more thrilling. The story sequences that follow attempt to teach you the cost of pursuing your dreams in the land of nightmares, and it's the best moment in the game's story, though that's not saying much.

Soon after, however, dead characters are magically brought back to life and your journey continues onward. The ending, like many of the game's minor faults, devalues your struggle to survive in the harsh wasteland. It's a shame because Mad Max's world in the game is beautiful, grim, and fascinating. Some interesting characters, impressive environments and great car combat draw you in and incentivise you to keep going, but it's when you get out of the car that things fall apart. Mad Max's combat system is too dumbed down to enjoy, and repetitive activities such as searching for scrap and invading small enemy camps gets old fast. Mad Max offers some great experiences, but for a game that tries to impose the realities of survival on you, it does a poor job of following up on this pressure. Mad Max is too focused on providing you with an open-world that's filled with missions, and not focused enough on making those missions worth your time.

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Pro Evolution Soccer 2016 Review

There is a quiet, almost imperceptible genius to PES 2016 that will leave players struggling to explain exactly why they have fallen in love with it.
This finely crafted soccer sim will be lauded by fans who, almost certainly, will base their judgements around the word "feel". As in, doing almost everything in PES 2016 feels fantastic, from fearless and desperate sliding tackles, to holding up the ball under pressure, to the heavenly wave of pride that comes with outthinking and turning a defender.
Such ethereal joys make PES 2016 wonderful in ways that its peers and predecessors are not. How developer PES Productions has delivered on this, however, is tricky to discern. Great design is transparent, goes the saying, and 2016's triumph does not come from a standout feature that can be snappily summarised on the back of the box. It's not your old smartphone but now with a fingerprint scanner. It's not Malibu Stacy with a new hat.
PES 2016 sings in your hands for more elaborate reasons, namely how it wonderfully converges two rather sexless elements: Physics and AI. The advances made in these fundamentals have achieved a more physical, smarter, strategic soccer sim for both football nerds and casual fans alike. It's more fluid, fluctuant, and alive than ever.
Above all else, the most meaningful stride forward is the new collision system, which so much now hinges on. Considering that soccer games live and die by their authenticity, and that dynamic physics systems almost inevitably throw up gif-worthy calamities, you have to commend the audacity of PES Productions for betting the whole farm on its new tech. What's quite remarkable is how faultless it has turned out to be, free from comical miscalculations and distorted momentum swings.

The Master League redesign adds in a calendar and news headlines, and the overall presentation will seem familiar to Football Manager fans.

Flaccid terms like "collision system" may not ignite the hype, but the tech is a godsend. It brings new life to challenges for possession; no longer are they binary exchanges where either a tackle works or doesn't. Here, fights for the ball are more organic, unpredictable, combative affairs. PES 2016 doesn't rely on canned animations of players giving up and falling over; instead players barge back, protect the ball, and scramble for balance when their shins are clipped. You have more control over your fate, and no longer do you feel anxious to pass the ball away when under pressure. Players can protect themselves, wait for options to unfold, and if fleet-footed enough, can dance out of trouble.
Those challenging for possession will prod and push, but reaching the ball does not equal automatic success. The player collision meshes are water-tight, which, combined with the brainpower of the physics system, means that erratic sliding tackles can result in tangled legs and the ball bobbling away. Meanwhile, the tech also gives smaller players the chance to disrupt towering centre-forwards as they jostle to connect with an oncoming cross. Ultimately it means that timing and canniness has become just as important as ferocity and speed, giving PES 2016 an excellent feel (that word again) of realism and fluidity. PES 2015's aggravating pass delay issue, meanwhile, has been fully resolved.
The outcome of such improvements might be considered a key moment for Konami's dethroned soccer series. PES 2016 proclaims that no longer do you have to play games of tactless scuffles for possession in search of that Hollywood goal. No longer should you settle for a robotic and clunky back-and-forth for control whilst you pray for that scintillating breakthrough. This is a game that converts the minute-by-minute battles for possession into micro-sized wars of glory and anguish. PES 2016 wants you to have fun between the highlights. This is a game that revels in its own scrappiness, with passes pinging wayward from the outstretched leg of a indomitable defender, with shots deflecting off shins and knees and into the opposite path of where the keeper was diving.
It's not perfect. In the transition to the new physics system, it appears that PES is not quite sure what a foul is. Any tackle is deemed fair game providing the ball is touched, and while that is an understandable baseline rule, in practice even the most perverse and dangerous sliding tackles are unpunished. One suspects the officials would allow E. Honda's Hundred-Hand Slap as long as he flicked the ball in the process. Meanwhile, assaulting a random player, accidentally or not, sometimes isn't even deemed a foul. There is a reasonable argument to be had in Konami's defence, in that the flow of a game shouldn't be disrupted by silly and inconsequential fingerslips, but nevertheless it breaks the illusion.

As ever, PES 2016 misses out on official licenses. Yet its community will rejoice at the editor on PS4 and Xbox One (you can upload images too).

But this is the only negative trade-off that comes with switching to a dynamic collision system. The positives are bountiful. Another is the marvellous job PES Productions has done crafting the individual physical traits of key players, many of which are now imbued with new layers of realism in how they move and interact. Tevez can bullishly dash into the box whilst hustling defenders in pursuit, Lewandowski can steamroll centrebacks, and Robben can perform his signature jink down the right, cutting inside, and placing the ball in the far post.
How these are animated is exceptional. You'd still know you were watching Robben even if he was wearing a wig. How he runs, twists, and curls his left leg when shooting is all faithfully recreated. Konami claims that PES 2016 amasses three times the volume of animations than its predecessor; a bold statement that invites cynicism, but a believable one nevertheless.
It's a shame, then, that the graphical fidelity does not quite match the standards set by the animations. Much of PES 2016 was built with the Fox Engine, and aside from how intriguing it is to see how Balotelli would look in Metal Gear Solid 5, sometimes the character models resemble animated cadavers when cast in unflattering light. They also can't smile properly, which results in unintentionally hilarious contract signing cut-scenes.
That's probably a little harsh on a game that has clearly improved its visuals from last year. The lighting is less washed out, the pitch and clothing textures are sharper, and the weather effects are fine. These improvements don't extend to the UI and menu system, however, which still carries a couple of nagging foibles, such as untidy text alignment on the formation and tactics pages.

Teams under pressure will park the bus, which in turn can trap them in their own half. Only cool heads will prevail.

Such trivialities wash away at kick-off, when the feel engulfs you. Matches are brought to life thanks to the AI, which sets a new benchmark for the genre. It's almost as if you and the computer have known each other for years; AI teammates move off the ball realistically, and signal where they want the pass, and run into the exact pocket of space that you hoped they would.
In each game you encounter dozens of these smart individual AI decisions, but just as impressive is how players work together as a unit. A deeper understanding of the sport runs throughout each team, which works hard to retain formation whilst adapting to opportunities and dangers. Fullbacks overlap, midfielders drop back, defenders close gaps, keepers dash out of the box, but in all cases, only when it makes sense. It inspires more calculated build-up play, where it's the better team that emerges victorious, as opposed to the one that had the most superstar moments.
Like with all recent editions of PES, a wealth of gameplay options await, with updates to modes such as Become A Legend, Master League, and MyClub (the latter was inaccessible during review due to the servers being down). Master League has been given a brilliant Football Manager-aping redesign, with a calendar view and news items all displayed on its home screen.
Yet there's little worth in assessing soccer sims by the weight of their game modes, or indeed, the breadth of their official licences. All that truly matters is what unfolds in those virtual ninety minutes, either against a friend, an online stranger, or the computer. On that test alone, PES 2016 represents the best game in the series since the PlayStation 2 era.

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Pro Evolution Soccer 2013 Review

At first glance the changes made to Pro Evolution Soccer 2013 might seem like a bunch of slight, almost superficial tweaks; you'd be hard pressed to find one standout feature from its long list of AI improvements, new tactical moves, or graphical revamps. And yet, on the pitch, it's one of the most rewarding football games out there. Where its predecessors struggled to find a place on the current generation of consoles--often simply playing catch-up with its competitors--PES 2013 embraces its past and plays a wonderfully technical and supremely satisfying game of football. No, it still doesn't come close to matching FIFA on features or graphical splendor, but when it comes to those unforgettable moments of edge-of-your-seat sporting drama, PES 2013 is sublime.

That's not to say PES 13 is without its challenges, though. Its learning curve is steeper than ever, thanks to an overhaul of its defense system, and the introduction of some highly technical moves. Like Tactical Defending in FIFA, the new defense system replaces the run-and-gun, automated tackles of old with thoughtful jockeying and tactical positioning. While it's simple to use--holding the opposition and ducking in for a sneaky, well-timed tackle are performed with the same button--nailing the correct timing for a tackle is very tricky, and takes a hefty amount of practice. The payoff is a defensive system that's more natural, more compelling, and far less frustrating in multiplayer matches than before.
Similarly compelling are PES 13's new player moves, which see a return to the technically challenging, well-timed commands of old. The improved dribbling system lets you hold the ball in front of players, teasing it with the left analogue stick to manoeuvre your way past defensive lines, while deft button presses let you volley the ball over the opposition's head in a gloriously cocky display of skill. Many moves make use of the triggers as a modifier, letting you turn regular passes into lofted passes and regular shots into controlled shots, and giving you manual control over the direction of your kicks, complete with a neat arrow beneath your player to point him in the right direction.
An overhauled training mode takes you through each of the new moves step-by-step, and includes a handy demonstration that shows which buttons to press and when to press them--not that you can just breeze through them all, mind. The timing is exacting, and there are moments of heated frustration as you battle against it. But when things click, it's satisfying to see those newfound skills spring to life--more so when you head out of training and onto the pitch for a match.

It's there that you can put those skills to use. There's no one feature that makes the game so entertaining, but rather PES 13's collection of refinements come together to create a sense of direction and purpose that has been sorely missing from recent entries in the series. Improved physics mean there's a weight and movement to the ball that just feels right, where it zips through the air the way you'd expect and smashes to the ground with a satisfyingly dull thud. Improved AI means players react better, making more intelligent runs for you to slip a cheeky through ball to, or jostling attackers as you sprint back to defense from an unfortunately timed shot.
The pace has been slowed down slightly, giving you more control over your players and the flow of the match. Indeed, that flow is what makes PES 13 so great, creating as it does some wonderfully scrappy football. There are moments where passes move effortlessly across the pitch, while strikers burst from midfield, hover outside the box, and wait for that expertly made cross to deliver a perfectly timed strike. The game is so responsive and captivating that it always feels like you're directly in control of the action, rather than forcing things forward with the slightly automated feel of FIFA.
While PES succeeds dramatically on the pitch, it's once again let down by a presentation that's woefully dated, even if there's a kind of sick, retro charm to it. Menus still have that pseudo-futuristic neon look to them, arranged as they are in the most illogical and frustrating of ways. There are some weird animation glitches too, as well as some frame rate issues during replays. And the less said about the awfully dull commentary from Jon Champion and Jim Beglin the better. PES lacks official licenses for the vast majority of teams too, so you're stuck with using the editor to create official teams or waiting for some enterprising individual to post a save file online.
PES 13's single-player modes are also in danger of becoming horribly outdated. You're treated to exactly the same modes as last year, including the officially licensed UEFA Champions League and South American Copa Libertadores tournaments, and unofficial tournaments such as League Cup and Community. The once genre-leading Become a Legend and Master League remain untouched too, and while it's still fun to guide a player through his career or perform the duties of a manager, the dreary visuals and outdated transfer system make them far less appealing than they used to be.

There's also little to celebrate online, with the same ranked and unranked matches available as in past years. The Master League returns, letting you compete against others for prize money, which you can use to buy new players for your squad. Modes remain largely untouched from previous versions. The only change here is that playing online now earns items that can be used in the offline Become a Legend and Master League modes, allowing you to modify your players' stats. It's a nice feature to have, and certainly makes online play a little more rewarding, but it's hardly the full makeover the online multiplayer sorely needs.
Still, while its presentation and game modes fall further behind the competition, PES 13 has made improvements where it really counts. There's a fabulously entertaining football game at its heart, one that finally lives up to the high standards of the PES games of old. Sure, it may have given up its pick-up-and-play accessibility to get there, but with such satisfying, thoughtful, and tactical gameplay on offer, it's well worth the effort.

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DMC 5 Review Edition

What a difference a frame rate makes. Say what you will about just how much people actually notice frame rate and resolution, but for games that value split-second timing, those extra 30 frames are essential. It's partly why I spent more time with the hack 'n' slash classic DmC: Devil May Cry on PC than with its slower console counterparts, the sharper visuals and general feeling of superiority being a nice added bonus. So here we are, two years on, and console owners can finally get a taste of that sweet 60fps action, courtesy of the Definitive Edition--and it's a fantastic thing. DmC is fiercely creative, and with its new features in tow, so much better than before.

Oddly, it's the story that's surpassed expectations here (excluding the still dire effort in the included Vergil's Downfall DLC)--not because it was ever bad, but it was always overshadowed by the stellar combat. Playing through it again, though, it's amazing to see just how ambitious and, at times, rather clever, it is. Let's not forget that, as a series, Devil May Cry didn't exactly set the world on fire with its schlocky tales of adolescent fantasy. But with DmC, Ninja Theory crafted a story with depth, (mostly) believable characters, and an ambitious assault on commercialism and modern media. The game's savage satirization of organisations like Fox News with the demonic Bob Barbas' Raptor News Network and Coca-Cola with the bile-infested and thoroughly deadly soft drink Virility is a great touch.

Small plot holes and a few heavy-handed moments of satire aside, DmC's story does a great job of crafting a foreboding atmosphere to back up its balls-to-the-wall action, especially when coupled with the excellent voice acting and effortless dialogue. The demon king Mundus and his mistress Lilith are particular highlights, their ruthless, profanity-filled crusade to enslave humankind being a hackneyed, yet effective way of adding a compelling goal to your hack 'n' slash antics.

DmC throws you from one action set piece to the next at a breakneck pace, only giving you time to stop and think during its tedious (but thankfully short-lived) platforming sections. But even in those sections and through its crumbling blood-red cityscapes, cavernous tunnels lined with a viscous green ooze and searing neon discos, it's hard to ignore DmC's stylistic triumphs. Its colorful, oversaturated look is not only visually stunning in its new 1080p guise but also strangely prescient of the direction that later Xbox One and PlayStation 4 games would take.

While it's hindsight that has made DmC's story more impressive, the already excellent combat has improved by a significant overhaul. Naturally, the move from 30 to 60 frames per second makes for a smoother, more responsive experience. With Dante's trifecta of light, medium, and heavy weapon types in tow, as well as guns for ranged shots, spectacular combos fly off the fingers with less effort than before. That's not to say that things are easier this time around: you still need to put in the effort in practice mode, carefully studying the command list, in order to graduate from simple button mashing. But it's worthwhile, and before long, staccato stabbing motions are replaced with elegant swipes, dodges, and uppercuts that chain together for near-endless combos in the air and on the ground.

60fps is only part of the story. One of the best additions is the optional turbo mode (a nod to Capcom's flagship franchise Street Fighter), which boosts game speed by a substantial 20 percent. It's not for the faint-hearted, but the additional speed makes for some furious and thoroughly enjoyable combat. There's also the optional Hardcore mode--which can be activated on any difficulty level--that rebalances the game. Some of the changes include a tweaked style system that quickly deteriorates, increased enemy damage, adjusted parry and evade windows, and a shorter devil trigger. The differences aren't drastic enough to be immediately noticeable, but soon, levels that might not have tested you in the past become far more difficult to beat. Annoyingly, if you've played through the game before on an older console and have already unlocked the harder difficulty levels, you can't transfer your save and skip, and you’ll have to play through the easier ones again.

Serious masochists can opt to turn on the Must Style modifier, which makes it so that you can't damage enemies until you've achieved an S or higher style ranking by pulling off sweet combos. Stack all the modes and modifiers together (Must Style, Hardcore, and Turbo Mode), then whack the game on the new Gods Must Die difficulty setting where enemies deal 2.5x damage and no items are allowed, and the game turns into a challenge worthy of even the most skilled of hack 'n' slash players. There's also the new Vergil's Bloody Palace mode, which eschews the easier difficulty levels of Dante's Bloody Palace and gives you 60 levels of hardcore arena battles. Veteran Devil May Cry fans can even choose to use manual lock-on throughout, which is a nice touch. Frankly, that level of challenge goes far beyond my own manual dexterity with a controller, even after buying new combos and weapon upgrades, but at least now, no one can cry foul about DmC not being as challenging as its predecessors.

Otherwise, DmC remains largely unchanged, which is no bad thing. The enemies remain neatly animated, drooling and sputtering with a grizzly black ooze as they wander through each level. Their varying attacks mean that you can't just sit back and hammer buttons to win. Some enemies have shields that can only be broken with a heavy weapon, while others need the gentler touch of a fast-paced scythe. Deformed cherubs that fling down explosive bombs are perhaps the most irritating of all of the enemies, but they're integral to maintaining the balance of combat. They also give you a good excuse to yank them down to Earth with a whip of your chain before sending them back to hell with a mighty swing of your axe.

Time has been kind to DmC's boss battles, too. They're still formulaic, making you learn a boss's repetitive movements in order to land an attack, but they're seriously impressive--both visually and narratively. An early encounter with the squishy succubus is a treat--not because of the basic platforming required to defeat her but because of her incredibly foul-mouthed tirades and involuntary neon vomiting. Then there's the battle against a holographic Bob Barbas, a fight that sees you transported to the heart of the Raptor News Network and directly into its live news reports, complete with the requisite TV commentary and helicopter shots. DmC's keen sense of style overcomes much of the boss battles' shortcomings, adding to the heady atmosphere of its brightly coloured world.

I imagine there are still some people out there put off by the direction that Ninja Theory took with DmC who still haven't given the game a shot because it so drastically changed the look of the series. This does the game a huge disservice. DmC in its Definitive Edition form isn't just a lick of paint and a technical upgrade. It's a hardcore twist on already impressive game, making the hack 'n' slash action more difficult, but also more compelling than before. The numerous tweaks and upgrades of DmC: Devil May Cry Definitive Edition have made a game that isn't just a better version of DmC, but a bonafide hack 'n' slash classic.

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