Tag: PlayStation

  • Console Review: Frostpunk 2 (Xbox Series)

    Console Review: Frostpunk 2 (Xbox Series)

    Although I enjoyed my first experience with the Frostpunk IP on console, I had a feeling the port of Frostpunk 2 would prove more challenging. Despite sharing many core mechanics, Frostpunk 2 is far more menu-driven, with a focus on tweaking supply lines and juggling resource allocation across multiple Frostland sites, rather than restrictive city-building in one location. The result is an engrossing sequel with far greater scope and complexity, but it doesn’t always gel with a controller.

    That said, Frostpunk 2 is still a great sequel so long as you’re not after more of the same. The campaign and sandbox-style missions begin with the familiar task of building up a settlement around a generator and exploiting local resources, but it takes less time to establish a logistics hub and dispatch Frostland teams to explore a sprawling over-world map. There are technology paths that focus on fortifying and sustaining a single mega-city by tapping into unlimited resource deposits, but the branching campaign chapters will still force you to explore the Frostlands to either settle or loot distant locations.

    Frostpunk 2 Console Whiteout Storm

    Frostpunk 2 feels considerably more epic in scope thanks to new mechanics and an accelerated timeframe. The in-game clock hurtles forward through days and weeks, so it plays out over years and decades, rather than the days and months of the original. The city-building elements – which now involve sprawling districts, hubs, and key buildings – feels less exacting. In contrast, menu-driven systems that control the flow of heat and workers across your city are vital, and so too are Frostland supply lines let you balance the flow of colonists, food, fuel, and goods between settlements and outposts.

    Some may find the reduced focus on city-building disappointing, but there are new and expanded mechanics to keep you engaged. The most obvious is the new council and enhanced interplay of factions within your city. It starts with a simple vote to keep your player on as a steward (which can trigger an early game-over screen) but you’ll soon find yourself using these council sessions to vote on introducing new laws. These govern everything from education and social support, to policing and healthcare – all of which come with pros, cons, and faction preferences. If you play your cards right, there is even a path to entrench yourself as an autocratic leader who rules by edict.

    Frostpunk 2 Console Council Votes

    Factions can organically support your decisions, negotiate over future policy and research goals, or force you into a vote if you’ve ignored their requests for too long. If a faction gains dominance, they can start claiming housing districts, offer more support if you’re aligned with them, develop potentially problematic rituals, and even rebel against you – damaging structures and your economy. There is plenty of leniency on the lower difficulties, but a combination of social unrest, fanatics, sabotage, and the elements can conspire to destroy your settlement if problems are left to fester.

    It is a complex and sometimes overwhelming interplay of systems, but it is incredibly satisfying to keep your city thriving on the edge of disaster – especially when you are reaping the rewards of an earlier narrative decision or newly researched technology. Gameplay can feel dry as you simply define development zones, flip between information overlays, and shift sliders, but the audiovisual elements are immersive. The city announcer, citizen comments, and short narrative vignettes convey the impact of your choices. Machines clear the ice, basic foundations grow into bustling districts, and well-lit paths and heat pipes connect them. Better still, you can zoom right out into the Frostlands view, zoom back into secondary settlements, or pan across the over-world map to track approaching Whiteout storms that still threaten your settlements from time to time and cut off distant outposts.

    Frostpunk 2 Console Overlays

    Unfortunately, all that complexity means playing Frostpunk 2 on console (or on PC using a gamepad) will have you fighting the controls just often enough to be frustrating. Selecting the wrong structure in a radial menu or placing a district in the wrong spot is annoying but manageable. Struggling to navigate the screen overlay icons or struggling to shift sliders in sensible increments is far more impactful as the game goes on. When you throw in other annoyances – like repeatedly zooming into a settlement while trying to connect Frostland supply lines, or tutorial pop-ups that won’t close – Frostpunk 2 can begin to grate. I just hope 11 bit Studios is still working on refining the control scheme as the rest of the package is an excellent choice for fans of the city-builders and management games with a survival twist.

    Pros:

    • It’s easier to establish interconnected cities and settlements
    • Managing political factions is almost as stressful as managing resources and the elements
    • The choice-driven campaign changes up how later chapters play out
    • Generator cities, settlements, and the Frostlands all look and sound more beautiful than ever

    Cons:

    • The gamepad control scheme feels smartly designed but is awkward and sometimes frustrating in practice
    • It can feel like a pure management game at times as you navigate menus, overlays, and maps

    Score: 7/10

    Frostpunk 2 was reviewed on Xbox Series S|X using a code provided to gameblur by the publisher. It is also available on PC and PS5.

  • Editorial: Kvark offers a taste of Half-Life that’s increasingly hard to find on console

    Editorial: Kvark offers a taste of Half-Life that’s increasingly hard to find on console

    Looking at Kvark’s retro-styled visuals, industrial complex setting, and science-gone-wrong premise, it is easy enough to make Half-Life comparisons – but those features could apply to hundreds of games released since 1998. The Half-Life characteristic that Kvark emulates best is that satisfying, cyclic rhythm between exploration, environmental puzzles, and brief, brutal firefights. Kvark released on PC near the end of last year, but I wanted to replay the console port as there are few games that capture the essence of Half-Life on console, and Valve seems disinterested in preserving access to their Xbox 360- and PS3-era ports like The Orange Box collection and the Left 4 Dead games.

    Having turned off subtitles for the propaganda videos that play between chapters, this was more or less my thoughts on the narrative throughout.

    Unlike Half-Life‘s unexpectedly strong narrative thread, Kvark sticks to the classic retro-FPS approach of providing some light context and leaving the rest up to the player. It takes place in an alternate-history Czech Republic, under Soviet-style rule during the Cold War period. The titular “Kvark” corporation has moved on from nuclear power, to nuclear weapons, and finally a dubious injectable substance – “anethium” – to create super-workers and super-soldiers. It’s a videogame setup we’ve seen a hundred times before, so it should come as no surprise your prisoner protagonist wakes up in a cell to discover both human clean-up teams and grotesque mutants are out to kill them.

    There are entertaining propaganda videos that reveal what the corporation has been up to and hint at the threats you’ll face in the upcoming chapter, but the bulk of the storytelling is handled by scattered notes or hidden drawings that reveal the ineptitude of the government and staff, or provide the odd code or hint to access secret areas. Survival is your primary goal, and as the Kvark complex was relocated far underground to avoid the gaze of Western imperialist spies, that means an 8–10-hour gauntlet through prisons, sewers, manufacturing facilities, mines, laboratories, and quarantine zones. The overall tone is one of dark, cynical humour, but it can feel suitably oppressive and tense, with open skies only appearing in the final third of the game.

    Kvark is excessively gory, with improbably huge blood splatters and abundant severed limbs, but it’s more comical than gruesome.

    Gameplaywise, Kvark focusses on what all good first-person shooters should: responsive movement; weapons that look, sound, and feel good to use; and hand-crafted combat encounters against a variety of enemy types that force you to use your full arsenal. There’s nothing inherently novel about the shooting or the traditional weapon categories – ranging from a mostly ceremonial wrench through a pistol, shotguns, rifles, a crossbow, an energy weapon, a grenade, and a minigun – but they all have a situational use and limited ammunition reserves that prevent you from just sticking to an allrounder. Even the perfunctory skill tree, which encourages you to hunt for anethium injectables, offers mostly incremental buffs and one risk-reward perk that reduces total health and healing efficiency in exchange for health gain through kills.

    With solid but familiar foundations, it’s that aforementioned rhythm of exploration and environmental puzzling, interspersed with bouts of violent combat, that channel Half-Life vibes. Aside from a few short-lived platforming sections in the second chapter, both the level design and variety feel good given its length, with many looping back, over, or under themselves to give an impressive sense of scale. Within the ruined corridors, rooms, and vents of the facility you’ll scrounge for weapons, ammunition, and secrets; you’ll flip switches, connect cables, ride carts, and activate machinery to open the way forward; and you’ll deal with clean-up squads and hordes of mutants by staying mobile, kiting melee enemies, prioritising those with ranged attacks, and making use of explosives (or explosive hazards) – all before shifting back to exploring for more resources in preparation for the next combat encounter.

    Anethium-mutated creatures are uniformly irritating and a pain to fight in tight spaces.

    Kvark feels more forgiving than it did during early access period, but the checkpoints and resource stashes still feel balanced around surviving a handful of significant encounters each level – encouraging a more methodical and tactical approach to firefights on all but the easiest difficulty. As the game progresses, you’ll encounter larger mobs in bigger and more hazardous arenas that’ll test your shooting skills or your ability to scavenge resources mid-battle. Mutated rats, spiders, and zombies rush you or spew glowing goo and webbing that make fighting in tight spaces a pain. Clean-up squads force you to use cover as they evolve from baton- and pistol-wielding goons supported by flying drones, into armoured squads with shotguns, flamethrowers, miniguns, and robot support. With the action confined to an arena, it was only the three boss encounters that felt more annoying than challenging, with the focus on dealing with mobs while avoiding AoE attacks and hitting weak-points.

    When it comes to the presentation, Kvark will likely be divisive. I enjoy the clean, retro-styled visuals imitating early fully-3D environments and the ability to interact with so many objects, but there is a lot of asset reuse to build out the more sprawling levels. Every other element feels near-perfect, from the blocky character models, crude weapon animations, and chunky gore effects, to the ambient audio, roar of gunfire, and a mostly subdued electronic soundtrack that ramps up during combat. It also ran smoothly on an Xbox Series X – performance that’ll likely hold true for current-gen consoles – with a helpful touch of auto-aim and some decent rumble feedback for gunfire and footsteps. The only notable issues I found (as of this review going up) were several crashes during the second level of the first chapter, and the placement of some checkpoints at the entrance of restock rooms instead of at the exit, so you have to collect everything again after reloading.

    The boss fights are a mix of traditional and weird, but I never found them as exciting as most common combat scenarios.

    Taken as a whole, Kvark doesn’t offer much novelty when it comes to the premise, mechanics, or visual style, but it has something so many modern games lack – rhythm and pacing. You could go back and call Half-Life dated based on the visuals, limited set-pieces, and no progression mechanics, but I’d challenge anyone to play it and claim it’s not fun. Kvark is not as timeless, sure, but it finds a similar groove by ensuring you’re constantly cycling between exploration, light puzzling, and brutal firefights, all before hitting the next checkpoint and starting the cycle anew. As such, Kvark is easy to recommend – especially at an indie price-point – to fans of the genre that play on console and want a taste of that classic Half-Life formula.

    Kvark was played on Xbox Series S|X using a code provided to gameblur by the publisher. It is also available on PC, Xbox One, PS4/5, and Nintendo Switch.

  • Review: Crow Country (Xbox Series)

    Review: Crow Country (Xbox Series)

    Crow Country is an accessible retro-inspired survival-horror game that does an impressive job capturing the look and feel of early 3D isometric games that came out on the PS1 or SEGA Saturn during the late-‘90s. The structure and gameplay feel like Resident Evil with a hint of Parasite Eve II, while the environments feel like a mix of Silent Hill and any number of chunky JRPGs from that period. It’s a distinctly cute but creepy vibe. Viewed as a love letter to those classic games, it’s brilliant, but being dependent on those associations is also a mixed blessing. It’s smartly made and polished – but without that nostalgic hook, I’m not sure it has a unique identity like Lone Survivor or Signalis had.

    That said, Crow Country hits all the right notes as the opening leaves the player feeling vulnerable, unsettled, and confused. Mara – special agent Mara Forest apparently – is a capable but unreadable protagonist who is clearly keeping secrets from the player and the supporting cast. Arriving at the abandoned Crow Country amusement park, 2-years after an incident shut it down, she’s quick to shoot her way in through a padlocked gate; shrug off horrific encounters; wield a myriad of weapons; and solve convoluted puzzles that leave the other survivors stumped. Her connection to the park is unclear, and neither is the reason behind her pursuit of the missing owner, Edward Crow. She’s evasive in dialogue and even her comments on environmental details give only the slightest inkling of her personality and past.

    It’s not just Mara though, as many of cast were former staff and clearly complicit in the unfolding events. As a result, simply unravelling the mystery was a strong motivator to keep playing. What was the nature of the incident that shut down the park and drew the attention of a photojournalist and lawyer? Why have Edward Crow’s daughter, former colleagues, and a detective all arrived on this specific evening? What does an American amusement park have to do with a Brazilian gold mine? What are these bizarre creatures that the former staff refer to as “guests”? And who is Mara really? It’s a solid setup with some predictable and some unexpected twists. The environment changes over the course of the night, hinting more and more as to the nature of the threat – though the ending sequence is a bit of an exposition dump that expects you to read a note, midway through the final encounter, if you want all the details.

    After the narrative, it was the mandatory puzzles and over a dozen hidden secrets that hooked me. The amusement park setting, and an increasingly paranoid Edward Crow provide narrative context for the Resident Evil-style structure. As with that game, Crow Country gets a lot of mileage out of a small but dense location, so you’ll often know exactly where you’re trying to go – though you’ll only get there several hours later after jumping through an inordinate number of hoops. Thankfully, Crow Country has some great interconnected puzzles, rather than just hiding keys and data discs behind boss fights. They are present, I guess, but you can run away from everything (outside of the final encounter) and still make progress.

    In authentically classic fashion, you’ll be scouring the environment for key items, clues, and notes – with a handy map that marks the location of unsolved puzzles or points-of-interest to guide you. There are keypads and locks that just require the right code or key; there are logic puzzles that require entering the right sequence of events or the correct values; and there are arcade mini-games and plenty of weird use-item-on-object puzzles befitting the setting. The rest of the cast also have a role to play beyond storytelling as they sometimes provide you with clues or assist in a puzzle – though even if you completely ignore the few you aren’t forced to talk to, the ending variations are negligible.

    Of course, this is a survival-horror game and Mara is packing heat, so shooting your way through the park is a viable strategy if you’re methodical, tactical, and cautious. Sadly, while I love classic resource management, the combat is my least favourite element and goes hand-in-hand with the camera issues. The close isometric viewpoint is appropriately claustrophobic, but you’ve got to combine stand-and-aim shooting mechanics that use the left thumbstick, with camera rotation on the right thumbstick to track enemies. The system allows for precision targeting of item crates, weak-points, and environmental hazards well enough, but it snaps the camera in the direction Mara is facing, which is a real pain in the arse when you’re trying to clear some distance before turning around to shoot again. An option for classic tank controls provides a more reliable option for Mara’s movement, but my brain struggled to coordinate orienting by d-pad while simultaneously rotating the camera.

    Thankfully, Crow Country is not a particularly hard game, even if more monsters, traps, and even fake pick-ups appear as the night progresses – almost Parasite Eve II-style. There’s an “Exploration Mode” that keeps enemies passive, but even the ranked “Survival Horror” mode features an abundance of resources, easy to avoid enemies, and very few high-damage or insta-kill encounters. There are all the basics you would expect from the genre – useful shortcuts and smartly distributed safe rooms with soothing music and sources of fire that serve as manual save points – but you can also get hints from a fortune teller machine, refill pistol bullets from Mara’s car, rummage through dustbins and vending machines for supplies when you’re running low, and several secrets include overpowered weapons and upgrades. Playtime and the number of saves you make don’t affect the ranking score, so you can be super cautious and use the rewards from lower ranks to make subsequent runs much easier if you’re chasing an S+ rank or speed-running the game.

    Looping back to the start, Crow Country does a phenomenal job of emulating late-’90s survival-horror games, nailing the look, sound, and claustrophobic terror that those early 3D environments excelled at. It’s got an intriguing narrative and fantastic puzzles to keep you engaged during a brisk 5–6-hour initial run, though the wonky gunplay and camera control are more likely to frustrate than generate tension. As Crow Country can feel like a greatest hits collection of classic IP, it’ll most likely resonate with retro-gaming fans or those who grew up playing early survival-horror games – but given it’s so accessible, it might also be a good choice for those wanting just a taste of how classic survival-horror games played.

    Pros:

    • It does an great job capturing the look and feel of early 3D isometric games from the PS1 and Saturn era
    • The unravelling plot is intriguing and well-paced
    • The puzzles and secrets are smartly designed
    • It gets a lot of mileage out of a small but dense environment

    Cons:

    • The gunplay and camera are more likely to frustrate than generate tension
    • It can feel more like a homage to the classics than its own thing

    Score: 8/10

    Crow Country was played on Xbox Series S|X using a code provided to gameblur by the publisher. It is also available on PC and PS5.

  • Retrospective: The Last Guardian (2016)

    Retrospective: The Last Guardian (2016)

    There are many games I enjoy that are objectively average or bad, and quite a few I dislike that consensus tells me are good. The Last Guardian sits somewhere in the middle as one of the rare games I desperately wanted to like more than I did.

    Coming from the now defunct Studio Japan and director Fumito Ueda – of Ico and Shadow of the Colossus fame – and having gone through a tortuous development cycle going back to the PlayStation 3 era, The Last Guardian is an unevenly paced journey, with incredible storytelling and audiovisual spectacle shackled to clunky and often frustrating gameplay.

    The Last Guardian follows the trials and tribulations of a young boy who awakens in a cave alongside a wounded chimera, “Trico”, with no idea where he is, how he got there, or what the tattoos that now cover his body mean. Just like Ueda’s prior games, it features a compelling mix of oppressive isolation, risky platforming, and wondrous discovery that only makes sense from the perspective of a child.

    The ancient ruins are sprawling but also vertical and continuous, ensuring you can often see where you need to be and look back from whence you came. Despite the scale, there’s plenty of fine detail as both environmental storytelling and character interactions carry the story, with limited narration – much of it for guidance if you get stuck – and only a handful of cutscenes that eventually reveal past events.

    It’s not the most original story of a child and beast bonding and saving one another from a shared threat, but it is beautifully told through the aforementioned cutscenes and evolving in-game interactions. The journey is full of literal ups and downs as the boy and Trico try to access a mysterious tower that dominates the ruins – a tower seemingly protected by other aggressive chimera and a source of much pain for Trico.

    After key moments in the story, their bond grows and the boy gains more direct control of Trico through a series of simple, exaggerated gestures. Simultaneously, Trico regrows its feathers and horns, becomes more assertive in pointing out the way forward, and acts without needing player input – but it also becomes more tender and protective of the boy.

    If nothing else, The Last Guardian is a game for pet lovers – so long as you can take the emotional highs and with the gut-punching lows. Trico feels like a mix of kitten and dog – clumsy, playful, and nimble, but also loyal, protective, and food-obsessed. Interactions are wonderfully animated, as Trico investigates and prods the environment, fixates on barrels of blue food, and nuzzles the boy playfully if you remain idle. On the other hand, it’s devastating to watch Trico limp around and whimper when injured, or become manic and uncontrollable when frightened or enraged.

    Feeding and calming Trico are in-game mechanics, and the boy can stroke it in several spots to elicit different reactions. Despite the increasingly weird and fantastical setting, these small and significant animation details make their evolving relationship feel real.

    Unfortunately, The Last Guardian rarely plays as well as it looks and sounds – especially during an opening half that features gameplay scenarios frustrating by design. For the first few hours, the boy can only call Trico towards a location; cling to Trico’s flank or leap from its back to reach high places; and very briefly use a shield to clear obstacles with tail-spawned lightning before it disappears until the final act.

    Given Trico’s often erratic movement in confined spaces and around jump points, far too much time is spent repeatedly shuffling the boy around and spamming the “call” button, then desperately clambering onto Trico’s back while praying it doesn’t start moving.

    Now, given Trico becomes more controllable and helpful over time – saving the boy from certain doom multiple times thanks to his indestructible shirt and wrists of steel – it’s much easier to forgive this design when The Last Guardian can be completed in a dozen hours.

    What doesn’t improve, however, are the loose and inconsistent controls, which make platforming and puzzle elements feel too unpredictable. A big part of the problem is how The Last Guardian frequently shifts between free- and semi-fixed camera control, which makes it difficult to predict which direction the boy will jump, and often sends Trico leaping back across a chasm you just struggled to clear. Mercifully, checkpoints were frequent enough to limit time lost.

    Unfortunately, there are other gameplay issues. The first is a common problem with all cinematic games – not doing what the developers expected. A prime example was a cave-in that had me clambering around trying to free Trico, when what I needed to do was abandon Trico and walk away down a corridor until I encountered hostile spectral armour, triggering a scripted sequence.

    Talking of spectral armour, Trico is quick to smash them apart but, when separated, they chase down the boy and attempt to carry him off. It’s a fate easily circumvented by mashing buttons, but while it initially added tension to puzzle sequences, these encounters soon become annoying. You either run loops to clear space or just accept endless button-mashing disruptions.

    To The Last Guardian’s credit, there is a cutscene around two-thirds of the way through the game that felt like a pay-off, followed soon after by the reappearance of the shield and the catharsis that comes from blasting them apart with lightning.

    Now returning to my point about wanting to like The Last Guardian more than I did, it is still a game I’d recommend everyone try despite my issues with it – and not least of all because it’s frequently discounted, still looks incredible, and has a 60fps update for the PS5 that make it feel smoother but does little to remedy the control issues.

    Aside from being an intensely cinematic, audiovisual spectacle the PlayStation brand has become renowned for, The Last Guardian is one of the few games that manages to capture the subtleties of human-animal bonds by smartly working into the narrative, animations, and gameplay mechanics. Animal companions have become ubiquitous in modern games, but most are little more than easily marketable gimmicks that function as cute accessories you can pet when you’re bored. Despite the potential for frustration, The Last Guardian‘s mythical Trico feels more real than any other animal companion in video games that came before it or since.

    The Last Guardian is available on PS4 and PS5.

  • Review: Song of Horror (PS4)

    Review: Song of Horror (PS4)

    Travel with me, if you will, back to the 1990’s when survival horror titles were all the rage. When pre-rendered backdrops presented an immense amount of world depth and tank controls were just another challenge to be overcome. To the days when Resident Evil and all its sundry impersonators were the juggernauts of our nightmares and thrilled us late into the night.

    Time has moved on since then, with the likes of Resident Evil reinventing itself into a brand new Juggernaut, yet the thrill of those games remains ever vigilant in our nostalgic memories, providing moments and scenarios that we still talk about enthusiastically today. Even if replaying them in the light of modern amenities removes some of their sheen and lets us realise that some things were best left in the afterglow of our memories. Not that we would ever really admit that.

    If this longing for the gloried past of survival horror games still has a hold on you, then look no further than Song of Horror for this retro-inspired title has all the goods. Developer Protocol Games brings back the heyday of 90’s survival horror games, warts and all.

    Set during 1998, Song of Horror begins with the disappearance of author Sebastian Husher. Sent by his publisher to find him, Daniel Noyer soon disappears as well and it’s up to a varied group of individuals to find both him and what happened to Husher and how it all seems to tie into a missing music box. Before long our protagonists find themselves haunted by a malignant supernatural presence. Spanning five episodes, it’s up to you to find the origin of the curse and hopefully, some way to nullify it, before you’re dragged screaming into the darkness.

    If you’ve played any survival horror game in the last two decades, then you’ll know exactly how Song of Horror plays. You’ll investigate each location for clues and items to use to solve the puzzles around you while reading the notes left behind to further the story and explain why each location is devoid of human life. Because Song of Horror focuses on a cursed music box, sound plays a vital role in the game. If you choose to run, the noise you make can attract the entity, known as The Presence, to your location. This adds a wrinkle to how fast you can get through each location to the game’s overall mechanics. Paying attention to the noises around you are vital to your survival. One of the mechanics of listening at a door to what’s behind it before you open a room, will save you from many instant death moments.

    And these moments are frequent, depending on the difficulty you choose. Song of Horror is littered with instant death moments and trap locations. If you hear crying behind a door, then it’s not a good idea to enter the room, as is pulling the tarp off a strangely covered mirror in a storage room or sticking your hand into a bathtub full of grotty water. Song of Horror is designed with permadeath in mind, meaning you can lose the character you’re playing with permanently if you’re not careful. Lose all the characters or the main one for the game and you’ll have to restart the episode. When a new character enters the fray, you can pick up the previous characters items where they perished.

    With four difficulty settings to choose from, each named after a horror writer such as M. R. James and Edgar Allen Poe, determine the games severity. Higher difficulties have more shock encounters and permadeath is a feature of all, with one caveat. The easiest difficulty lets you load up a checkpoint save when a character dies to just before that fatal moment if you’re not in the mood to lose anyone. With Trophies for completing each episode without losing a character and for completing each episode with every character available for that scenario, gives completionists a reason to replay.

    The game has no combat as you can’t fight The Presence. The most you can do is hide from it or interact in mini-games that have you trying to slam a door closed in time while it’s trying to break through or to control your breathing while hiding from one of its manifestations. Knowing your surroundings is important so that you can get to a cupboard or beneath a table in time. Hiding spots do get scarcer as the game progresses.

    Song of Horror places you in familiar haunted locales; an abandoned manor, a mental hospital, an empty apartment block, etc. The scares are also of the traditional haunted house variety, though there’s definitely an Asian horror vibe to many of the manifestations and blink and you miss it moments.

    Though the game uses static camera angles for its environment, the environment itself is fully 3d modelled and is one of the games strongest assets. The set dressing is absolutely superb with Husher Mansion and an antique shop looking absolutely gorgeous in the amount of detail and clutter present. Character models look good, but don’t quite measure up to the environment around them.

    Sadly, for a horror title, Song of Horror isn’t actually scary. Dealing with The Presences attacks becomes rote unfortunately. However, where the game does succeed wonderfully, along with its sumptuous environment details, is in atmosphere. With the use of sound as a warning trigger, the developers have managed to craft a sense of tension and expectancy that permeates each area as you’re always waiting for the shoe to drop, as it were. The palpable sense of dread and suspense is wonderfully realised, something even movies often struggle to get right.

    Song of Horror does have some issues though. First is the character’s movement and speed. Close to “Tank Controls” are the order of the day, making characters a bit of a chore to get used to. Controlling them is tricky with a turn radius that can get you stuck on objects in tight locations or go the wrong way at times, especially when a camera change occurs. Then there’s the character speed which can be frustrating. When you’re being chased by a nigh unstoppable force that can disembowel you with ease, you should be taking off like the Road Runner and not like a geriatric on a Sunday walk down by the lake. This is a peeve I have even with modern horror titles that feel like a slow walk through a museum when you should hot-footing it for your life.

    Finally there’s the game’s bugs. While not game breaking at all, there were plenty of instances of enemies spawning in the floor, characters walking through doors and in one instance Daniel’s torch not syncing with the character as you walk.

    With an atmosphere seeped in tension and dread that can have you holding your breath, Song of Horror more than makes up for its lacklustre scares with gorgeous set dressing and an intriguing, Lovecraftian story.

    Pros:

    • Gorgeous set dressing and environment design
    • Intriguing story

    Cons:

    • Bugs
    • Tank controls
    • Slow movement speed

    Score: 9/10

    A review code for Song of Horror was provided to Gameblur by the publisher.

  • Review: Capcom Arcade Stadium (PS4)

    Review: Capcom Arcade Stadium (PS4)

    Capcom has a long, storied career in the gaming industry, pushing out some of gaming’s greatest titles that are still known today. But, as with many publishers, they have just as many titles that have been forgotten outside of the retro gaming community, and sometimes even there too. Retro compilations, such as Capcom Arcade Stadium, help to fill in those gaps while providing you with a way to play some of your favourite titles without hassle.

    Whether you have fond memories of playing some of these games in the arcades, or perhaps at home, if you were lucky enough to have a console as a kid, there’s no denying both the artistry and business acumen that went into making these games. Yes, they were meant to entertain and enjoy, but they were also meant to separate a child from his parent’s money. And they were very, very successful at it too.

    Now, with Capcom Arcade Stadium you can relive those fond moments again from the comfort of your home and without the need to spend, spend and spend some more on tokens just to finish one game. Instead, you’ll just have to spend on buying the games themselves as Arcade Stadium itself is a free download, the ROMs themselves, not so much.

    Running on Capcom’s RE Engine, Arcade Stadium has thirty-two of Capcom’s Arcade classics for you to enjoy. The gamut of titles runs roughly from 1984 to 2001 and Capcom have packaged them into three packs with ten games to a pack. Capcom’s classic Ghosts ‘n Goblins is a standalone paid-for download, though it was originally free on release for a limited time.

    The titles you’re looking at right now are: Ghosts ‘n Goblins, Section Z, Tatakai no Banka, Legendary Wings, Bionic Commando, 1943, Forgotten Worlds, Ghouls ‘n Ghosts, Strider, Dynasty Wars, Final Fight, 1941 – Counter Attack, Senjo no Okami II, Mega Twins, Carrier Air Wing, Street Fighter II, Captain Commando, Varth, Warriors of Fate, Street Fighter II – Hyper Fighting, Street Fighter Turbo, Powered Gear, Cyber Bots, 19XX, Battle Circuit, Giga Wing, 1944, Progear, Vulgus, Pirate Ship Higemaru, 1942 and Commando.

    There’s definitely a larger selection of beat-‘em ups and shmups in the line-up, though the releases more than likely will give you an insight into what was popular back in the arcades during each of those generations.

    What’s important to note though is just how well these games run, and how playable many of them still are. Whether you’re looking for some quick action to pass the time or to hone your fighting skills to perfection, there’s something here for you. Ghosts ‘n Goblins will still test your platforming patience while Street Fighter II (which I now seem to suck at) will remind you just how fantastic 2D sprite animation is, along with how much harder 2D fighters are. Strider is still a hard, action-platformer while the 1940’s series is still addictive twitch shooting action. And now you can finish them thanks to infinite credits too.

    As with any compilation of games, your mileage will vary on what’s in the collection. So with all the retro compilations that have come out, what is it that makes Capcom Arcade Stadium stand out from the rest?

    The answer to that comes down to two things. One, that Arcade Stadium is a dedicated platform to host Capcom’s arcade titles with substantial possibility for future growth, and two, the wealth of options built into the platform for you to tailor the gaming experience to suit you.

    With the RE Engine powering it and games treated as DLC, Capcom can bring even more of their titles to the platform in the future if it’s worth their while. So here’s hoping for some more of their classic titles, such as Knights of The Round, and more “recent” fair such as Powerstone, Cannon Spike, and my favourite Spawn game, Spawn: In The Demons Hand.

    Arcade Stadiums presentation is top-notch and Capcom have gone out of their way to ensure that you can have a modern, respect-your-time playing experience, or to make it as hardcore as you could want. Beyond changing the game’s difficulty, amount of lives you begin with, etc. you can also save your game at any time and reload whenever you choose to. Game speed can also be sped up or slowed down to suit you to the point where it feels like a Zack Snyder slow-mo shot. If you happen to mess up a section there’s also a handy rewind feature to take you back to just before your bungle and put it right. Of course, you can also play the games as they were meant to be played at their default setting and hope your controller can withstand the manhandling sure to follow. A nice feature is that most of the games, bar those that either didn’t get English translations or releases, have both their original Japanese roms and English versions included, switchable on the main menu screen.

    Before you load up a ROM, which is instantaneous, you can change a whole bunch of options along with viewing a digital manual for the game. Viewing options run the gamut from different backgrounds and wallpapers to a whole bunch of filters you can apply. My favourite backgrounds are the 3D tilted arcade cabinets which emulate the viewing experience you would have had in an actual arcade. It does make the game screen smaller but it’s absolutely classy. When you combine this with the various visual filters such as pixel smoothing, a CRT filter for that authentic look along with different screen types, such as oval, to further emulate screen shapes back in the day, you have yourself just about the perfect visual customisation service.

    Speaking of that menu screen, it really is gorgeous. Showcasing a digital line of arcade cabinets, each one home to a game as you scroll through the list. On the menu, games are broken up into various filters, such as action, fighting, etc. The only option missing is a list by alphabet tab which hopefully Capcom can include at a later date.

    While Capcom Arcade Stadium doesn’t include all the games you may want, when thinking of the gaming giant’s roster, it is a fantastic platform that can be further built upon. With a great presentation system, perfect emulation of the games on display, Capcom Arcade Stadium is the best retro platforming system I’ve seen and used from any of the collections released thus far.

    Pros:

    • Fantastic presentation
    • Wealth of options
    • CRT filters are the way
    • Ghosts ‘n Goblins and Street Fighter II, need I say more?

    Cons:

    • Can only purchase games in packs and not singularly at the moment

    Score: 8/10

  • Review: Ghosts ‘n Goblins Resurrection (PS4)

    Review: Ghosts ‘n Goblins Resurrection (PS4)

    After a hard day of knighting, you just want to get out of that stiff armour and lounge around in your boxers, hopefully while in the company of your dearest princess. But wouldn’t you know it, evil doesn’t care about your day off, or that princesses have better things to do than get abducted every second week. So off you go, grabbing that armour while, in the distance, your kingdom burns beneath a devilish assault.

    So with armour clenched tight, lance in hand and a permanent scowl on his face, our hero Arthur prepares to face another manic Monday. . .

    Well okay, it’s not really Monday. I’m pretty sure what day it is doesn’t matter when your kingdom is burning. But what it is, is the day we welcome the Ghosts ‘n Goblins series back with Ghosts ‘n Goblins Resurrection. That’s right, the original rock hard, make you cry Dark Souls of its day has a new game and it’s here to show you what hard really is all about.

    Ghosts ‘n Goblins Resurrection originally launched earlier this year, February to be exact, on Nintendo Switch and now Capcom has finally brought it to PS4 with PS5 backwards compatibility, Xbox One and PC, letting the rest of the gaming community experience one of gaming’s toughest hard love franchises.

    As both a reboot and a remake of the original Ghosts ‘n Goblins, Resurrection yet again places you in the armour of put upon knight Arthur as his princess is kidnapped while a demonic invasion turns the kingdom into an overrun, twisted hellscape. You’re going to have to side-scroll and platform your way through one tough level after another in an attempt to beat the ever-loving snot out of the dastardly evil behind this plot while, hopefully, not breaking your controller in the process.

    Once you get past the stunning visual style that Capcom has employed for this reboot which makes the game look like a fable drawn from a storybook, you’ll find that Capcom has employed the old adage of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. Arthur moves exactly as he did in the older games, just with better animation. He possesses the same level of speed, making timing a critical choice and can only jump over and onto objects if you jump while moving. Jumping while standing still will merely propel Arthur straight up, meaning you have to unlearn many of the moves that modern platformers have brought to the table since then. Arthur can also attack in three directions: in front of him, above him by aiming up and below him if you attack while jumping and pressing down on the D-pad or directional buttons.

    The key to success in a level, beyond mastering the way Arthur controls and having twitch reflexes, is in memorising the level design and enemy attack patterns. Levels usually have moving parts to them, which adds a nice sense of dynamics to the environment. What weapon you wield is just as important as all of the above. Arthur’s arsenal has expanded since the first game though his trusty default lance is usually the best all-rounder. Picking the right tool for the job, as the saying goes, is tantamount to success. The hammer that unleashes a small arc of energy across distances requires you to get too close to enemies while the dual-shot crossbow requires a lot of jumping to hit an enemy because of the arrows diagonal shots. The holy water is still useless. Weapons can drop from chests or jar carrying enemies.

    Two big additions to this game are Umbra bees and a local two-player co-op mode. Collecting the bees scattered across the levels will unlock magic abilities for Arthur. Magic does need to be charged up for use so you with a brief cool down so you can’t just spam it, making its use more tactical than a Hail Mary when you suddenly find yourself surrounded. The two player co-op lets a second player use a ghostly ancestor of Arthur’s to help him through the levels. Controlling one of three spirits with their own abilities, player two can help Arthur through a level by carrying him around, for instance.

    The games visuals are gorgeous, employing a multi-layered approach to screen elements that make the characters seem like a combination of paper art and puppets with elements placed on top of one another. The animation is also wonderful and each enemy has their own distinct visual style and movement. The visuals, which look straight out of a storybook, can’t hide the games difficulty though.

    Because Resurrection, as befitting a GnG title, is hard. But not unbeatably so. Capcom has chosen to incorporate four difficulty settings, aiming at embracing modern gaming conventions while still attracting the hard-core crowd.

    Page lets you respawn at the exact spot you died at with no level time limit and a max of four hits you can take before crumbling to a skeleton. Squire gives you the same four hit limit, level checkpoint and mid-level rebirth checkpoints but throws back in the time limit. Knight takes you down to three hits, checkpoints, a time limit and an increase in enemy speed. Legend takes you back to the original GNG settings by dropping you down to a two hit maximum with no rebirth checkpoints and more enemies.

    Ghosts ‘n Goblins Resurrection is the perfect platform to showcase Arthur’s return to his own series. It’s both difficult enough to appeal to stalwart series veterans while making enough concessions that casual gamers too will be able to finish it. It’s also a wonderful showcase for the versatility of the RE Engine with its gorgeous visuals and animation. Whether you’re a GNG neophyte or accomplished devil slayer, this game should not be missed.

    Pros:

    • Not as difficult as the original Ghosts ‘n Goblins
    • Gorgeous storybook aesthetic
    • Full of character
    • Different difficulty levels

    Cons:

    • Magic takes a bit too long to activate

    Score: 9/10

    Ghosts ‘n Goblins Resurrection was reviewed using a code provided to gameblur by the publisher.

  • Retrospective: Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 (2014)

    Retrospective: Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 (2014)

    The origins of that undead scallywag Dracula was a story I never cared to see. You see, when you’re trying to give a beginning to some of entertainment’s truly big bads, it’s very difficult to create a story that can outdo the mystique around those characters.

    In 2010 developers Mercury Steam in conjunction with Kojima Productions managed to do just that. At least in the Castlevania universe they did. Players took on the role of Gabrielle Belmont in what was a dark and twisty narrative that saw him go from the right hand of God to, well, the Prince of Darkness. The game drew some fantastic voice acting from Robert Carlyle and Patrick Stewart as we saw how doing the right thing took Gabrielle down the dark path to becoming one of the greatest monsters who ever unlived.

    Coupled with some fantastic visuals in linear levels, that showcased exactly what classic 2D Castlevania levels would look like in 3D, the great combat in Castlevania: Lords of Shadow set up the beginnings of a fantastic series that was all too short lived.

    In 2014 Mercury Steam released Lords of Shadow 2. The game drew on what made the first game so great and then translated it into what I had always wanted from a Castlevania series: a sprawling, epic open 3D world.

    Now this wasn’t the first time that Konami had attempted to translate Castlevania from its 2D origins to 3D. The PS2 saw two 3D entries in the series while the N64 saw two 3D entries of its own. All four games are better left in the past and, in many ways, best not mentioned again either. Capcom’s original legendary Devil May Cry became the closest to a good 3D Castlevania game I ever thought I would get.

    Lords of Shadow 2 surpassed my expectations of what Mercury Steam would be able to develop. Set both in the modern day and the medieval past of the castle, Lords of Shadow 2 pulled out some fantastic vistas for you to stop and marvel at along your journey. The modern day sections were set in a city that was built upon the dessicated bones of Castle Dracula while the more supernaturally set medieval sections of the game were a triumph of epic, screenshot worthy vistas.

    Mercury Steam managed to translate the Metroidvania style into 3D. As you once again took on the role of an underpowered Dracula, the more you explored and fought, the more powerful you would become and this in turn opened up new areas for you to explore, to both progress the game, and find secrets. It certainly could not have been an easy feat, but I always felt that Lords of Shadow 2 nailed this aspect of what made Castlevania so great. It was an absolute joy to explore the environment which added a grand sense of majesty to the narrative.

    While the exploration is the main reason I truly love this game, the combat was no slouch either. Dracula uses his own blood as a weapon, creating his own version of the now iconic Castlevania whip. However there are new offensive and defensive moves and weapons. The dash and counter system needed to be mastered to be truly effective, especially in later fights, while two new weapons, the Void Sword and Chaos Claws helped you to heal and deal with armored enemies respectively. Using them would drain your magic meters so there was some tactical play in when to use them.

    As much as I loved Lords of Shadow 2, it launched to rather mixed reception. In short, the game didn’t do well with low sales. Add a lot of apparent behind the scenes drama and negativity and Lords of Shadow 2 became the last entry in the series.

    Having replayed it yet again recently, Lords of Shadow 2 still holds up fantastically in environment design and combat, though, visually, its age is starting to show. The PS3 and Xbox 360 era games have a tendency to be rather… muddy. The fantastic exploration still remains highly addictive and the combat is chaotically cathartic and challenging still.

    While the story may have been definitely concluded, this is Castlevania and Dracula after all, who has more than once proven that you can’t keep a good Count down. That said, the chances for a series revival for this are non-existent. The chance of some sort of HD remastering is also non-existent considering the poor sales. Thankfully if you have either an Xbox 360 or PS3, you can still play the game. If you have an Xbox One or an Xbox Series machine, the Lords of Shadow series is part of the Backwards Compatibility program meaning you can still give it a go there, and I highly urge you to.

    Now if you’ll excuse me, I feel a need to explore a certain musty old castle again…

  • Review: Demon’s Souls (PS5)

    Review: Demon’s Souls (PS5)

    Bluepoint Games have proven two things thus far. One, they know how to use the PlayStation hardware, and two, they know how to remaster/remake a game for a new generation of hardware while retaining its soul and rekindling those special memories you may have of that title.

    Following hot on the heels of their stunning Shadow of The Colossus remake, Bluepoint have tackled the much-requested update of From Software’s original ‘Souls title, Demon’s Souls.

    At this point in time, even if you don’t play these games, you’ll know what a Souls or Souls-like game is. Which also means you’ll know whether or not this is up your alley. If it isn’t, well we won’t hold that against you, but if it is, then:

    Welcome to the land of Boletaria. Darkness has befallen the kingdom and you’re its last hope. Good luck. You’re going to need it. Cue sadistic laughter.

    In many ways, that simply sums up Demon’s Souls quite well. You’re going to need that luck, along with a boatload of skill, to make it through any of the Souls titles as you spelunk into its deep action-RPG world. Despite being the first game in the Souls series and almost twelve years old, Demon’s Souls is still as challenging as ever. At a time when games had been moving towards a more player-friendly focus, From Software decided to bring back ye good old age of gaming when they had been designed to munch your quarters with a difficulty – and oftentimes cheapness – that required true control mastery and memory recall.

    Demon’s Souls gleefully crushed our souls (no pun intended). And we loved it. So much so that we have three sequels and an entirely new genre filled to the brim with titles inspired by From Software’s masterful handling of the world and lore, to the sadistic, but not truly unfair gameplay. Now while many old school and retro gamers could pick out much harder games that could be called the original Souls-like – cough Ghosts ‘n Goblins cough – Demon’s Souls brought the art of getting wrecked to the modern gaming world.

    There’s a method to fighting each of the game’s enemies, which means learning their attack patterns and speeds and mastering the timing for that all-important parry. Downed enemies award you with souls, the game’s currency, and experience points, along with the occasional healing item. While dying doesn’t end the game, it transports you to the beginning of a level with all your collected souls dropped in the area where you died. This brought a thoughtful risk/reward scenario to the game in which you had to decide whether or not to risk another run to collect your dropped souls to add to your new tally or forego them by returning to the Nexus, the game’s hub.

    Initially, levelling up your various attributes, repairing and buying items doesn’t cost too much, but the costs quickly begin to skyrocket after the first couple of character levels; this creates the need for multiple runs through an area without returning to the Nexus and just using the various Archstones scattered across the level. Archstones act as waypoints for fast travel once unlocked and are the only way to get back into the Nexus, outside of an item that also sacrifices souls you’ve obtained for a quick dimensional escape.

    Throw in some truly epic and challenging boss fights and Demon’s Souls became an unexpected worldwide hit and is still my favourite game in the Souls series.

    For this remake/remaster, Bluepoint built the new game on the bones of the old, creating a slavish, lavish remake that leverages the PS5 hardware to great use with some jaw-dropping visuals and superb technical performance.

    And truly the visuals need to be commended. Boletaria looks absolutely, breathtakingly gorgeous from the ivy crowding splintered columns to the magnificent vistas evoking the games crushing scale, to the particle effects flowing across the screen to the character animations. Bluepoint have recreated the original game’s cutscenes shot-for-shot too.

    The character creator has also been enhanced, bringing the original game’s barebones character creator and somewhat ugly models more in line with what you would find in other games in 2020. So you can choose your gender while tweaking all the smaller details such as hair, scars, etc.

    Combat is still the same, though since this is the first game, it doesn’t quite have some of the refinements brought to the play systems in the sequels. You’ve got light and heavy attacks, magic attacks, ranged attacks, in addition to being able to block and parry while managing a stamina bar. Blocking, attacking and dodging all use up stamina, so careful play is required in order to make certain the bar doesn’t run dry during a fight, or you will be on the receiving end of hurt you can’t afford.

    One of the other amazing achievements that Demon’s Souls has in the combat department is that when I died, which was quite often, it usually felt like my own fault. Is there cheapness? Sure, but more often than not, death came through my own actions rather than through unfair game design. Design that subsequent Souls and Souls-like games have clearly forgotten about. . .

    Pro-tip: pay attention to the items you pick up in the field. A very useful fire-resistant shield that I didn’t know I had, simply because I didn’t read the descriptions while gleefully collecting loot, made all the difference in the Flamelurker boss fight once I found out I’d had it sitting in my inventory for ages.

    On the technical side, the game has performance and cinematic modes. Cinematic Mode runs in native 4k at 30fps while Performance Mode runs at 1440p and 60fps and I noticed no frame dips at all during my time with the game. Finally, there are the super-fast load times of perhaps 2-4 seconds when loading into the world from the main menu which is really game-changing.

    There are also some really cool quality-of-life extras that Bluepoint have added that are just neat touches, such as the animated postcards for each area at the Archstone selection screen. For those looking for a little something extra content-wise, there’s also a brand-new-to-this-version-of-the-game secret door for completionists to unlock.

    It may be twelve years old now, but Bluepoints work has breathed life back into a game that I didn’t see myself revisiting for quite some time. In many ways, this is a brand new look at Boletaria, at times feeling like a brand new game hiding new secrets whilst been familiar. As a showcase for the power of the PS5, this remake of a much loved classic stuns with its gorgeous visuals while enrapturing you with its deep, obsessive combat, more than proving its worth in your gaming library. Just try not to break your controller while you’re at it, okay.

    Pros:

    • Hard-as-nails combat
    • Amazing world design
    • Gorgeous visuals
    • Stupendously fast load times

    Cons:

    • There are cheap moments
    • AI bugs from the original game still exist

    Score: 9/10

    Demon Soul’s was reviewed by Gameblur using a PS5 retail copy.

  • Review: Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales (PS5)

    Review: Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales (PS5)

    If you thought that Miles Morales was just a glorified expansion for Insomniacs phenomenal Marvels’ Spider-Man, then you would be right. But you would also be wrong because unlike the DLC for Spider-Man that eventually made up The City That Never Sleeps expansion, Miles Morales is so much more.

    Set after the events of both the main Spider-Man title and the City That Never Sleeps DLC, Miles Morales throws you into the shoes of, well, Miles as he has now officially taken on the mantle of Spider-Man. Some months have clearly passed with Miles joining his mentor, Peter, on various wall crawling shenanigans but it’s still early in Miles career and he’s greener than evergreen lawn. Thanks to some convenient plotting, Miles is left to look after the Big Apple on his own and so begins a trial by fire that encompasses all the things that have made Spider-Man stories so great and endearing coupled with more of the same amazing gameplay from the main title.

    After a bombastic opening that, in many ways, mirrors Spider-Man’s takedown of Wilson Fisk in the main game and which serves as a primer, Miles slows down to pop you into “a day in the life of” for Miles himself. As with Spider-Man, the story takes centre stage in this tale with some fantastic characterisations and a narrative that, while having twists that are easily seen, is just as emotionally wrenching as Peters was.

    Family, friendship, revenge, vengeance, all these themes are explored and demonstrate that the curse of being Spider-Man isn’t only borne by one person and is, in many ways, a chosen mantle. By the end of the tale we have betrayal and heartbreak, validation and redemption. If the road to being Spider-Man is traveled through tragedy, then by the end Miles has certainly earned his running shoes.

    From a gameplay perspective, Miles is definitely more of the same. While Harlem is a primary focus for Miles story, you still have all of New York to run around. There are the usual items to collect, in the form of time capsules that flesh out Miles and his friend Phin’s past, and challenge points that unlock new skill buffs for Miles. Insomniac opted to flesh out some of Peter’s backstory as well by tying this to completing the challenges. Villain hideouts return for the two new bads, The Underground and the corporate nightmare, Roxxon, each with their own mini-objectives to complete to earn Tokens. As with the main campaign, Insomniac slowly doles new additions out over the course of the campaign to break up the pacing between the story and upgrading.

    Mechanically Miles plays and handles the same as Peter. Web-slinging, dodging, combat combos are all the same, meaning that you don’t have to learn a whole new movement system.

    What sets Miles apart though are the different combat animations, his new Venom and camouflage power set and his pure speed. Miles ricochets between enemies like a rogue pinball making the combat a lot faster than Peter. Miles’s new Venom power sets, which include a Venom Punch, Venom Dash for quick Flash level speed strikes and Venom Blasts not only add some needed variety to combat, but can also help Miles in traversal. The new camouflage system works wonders for stealth runs but has a quickly depleting ability bar, keeping it from been an OP move for stealth aficionados.

    Production design across the board is stellar. Miles is animated wonderfully, especially his awkward web-swinging that looks like a disaster waiting to happen, to the unlockable Into The Spider-Verse movie suit which is animated at a lower frame rate to match the movies animation speed. Visually Miles is absolutely gorgeous. New York looks wonderful during the snowy winter and the games visuals look amazing thanks to the PS5’s power and loads just as quickly too.

    The game sports three visual modes, one of which was added in a patch after release. You’re looking at Fidelity mode, Performance Mode and Performance RT.

    Fidelity presents the best visual experience for Miles Morales with a rock steady 30fps, new lighting systems and, of course, ray-tracing. The level of detail overall is just mindboggling, from the crowded streets to the individual fibres on the main characters outfits and the particle systems flashing around. Most noticeable is the ray traced lighting that adds a wonderful sense of vibrancy to the game, which is saying a lot when you consider that the original game on PS4 is still a total stunner. Ray-traced reflections are fantastic as well. New York is full of reflective surfaces, from passing cars to glass windows, to the metal and glass lenses on Miles’s suits and even on the ice packed surfaces. And all of it running super smoothly too.

    Performance Mode is more in line with what you would have on the PS4. So while the game still looks stunning, ray-tracing has been disabled meaning you’re losing out on reflections and the new stunning lighting models. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that the game doesn’t still look good though. What you do gain is 60fps gameplay.

    Finally there’s Performance RT which strikes a balance between the two modes. Limited ray-tracing is enabled in this mode to keep it running at 60fps. There’s also a notable differences in crowd amounts and there are fewer pedestrians and cars in total.

    Overall, I opted for the fidelity mode for my entire eight hour play through and didn’t regret it one bit.

    Miles isn’t entirely perfect though. There are some bugs that I noticed. Most notable was that occasionally, especially in the game’s final fight, the game didn’t recognise my inputs. Second, there are plenty of moments when you head to street level and the crowds just stand still and stare at Miles like extras from Invasion of The Body Snatchers. It looks super weird. And lastly, the wall crawling just feels off. It’s fine when you’re running straight up a building but try to crawl in any other direction and the controls kind of spaz out since the camera doesn’t lock behind Miles but chooses to focus on him head on. These are small issues in what is otherwise a polished package.

    With Marvel’s Spider-Man, Insomniac proved that they understood Spider-Man and what it was that made him such an endearing and popular character. They proved, too, that they understood what gamers want from a Spider-Man game. With Miles Morales, Insomniac prove this yet again by creating an expansion that hits all the right notes that you will want to play again while providing a wonderful homage to a heart-warming scene from Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2. I’m excited for further games in this series, especially for a full length one starring Miles himself.

    Pros:

    • Gorgeous visuals
    • Super-fast load times
    • Fantastic story
    • Great combat
    • Into The Spider-Verse suit

    Cons:

    • Creepy pedestrian bug
    • Wall crawling is awkward
    • I wanted more. . .

    Score: 9/10

    Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales was reviewed by Gameblur using a PS5 retail copy.