Alola New Horizons - Pokemon Sun & Moon

Hello beautiful people of the Internet! And not so beautiful ones... hehe. Grab your Hawaiian (Alolan) shirts folks because it's finally time! After years of waiting we finally once again have a new generation of pokemon! We've reached over 800 'unique' creatures now in the Pokemon universe now, and believe it or not, they're actually not all that bad. Despite first impressions and how watching the reveal videos we said "That one looks stupid" to each other countless times, when you play the game you just get that feeling: "Yep, these are definitely Pokemon". After 20 long years Pokemon has finally given us a game that 'feels' epic. A lot of things have changed so without any more of Ren's ramblings, let's get on with the party!

Taking place in the new region of Alola (It's based on like, Hawaii or something if you hadn't already guessed) Pokemon Sun and Moon versions sees you set out on your own Pokemon adventure once again. When you get down to it, Pokemon Sun and Moon were somewhat of a risk for the developers. The games shake up so much compared to the previous main series games we were a bit shaky going into these titles. Gone are the days of defeating 8 gym leaders and challenging the Pokemon League. Now we have trials, type-orientated challenges and puzzles that culminate in a battle against a special Totem Pokemon, with beefed up stats and some super strong moves that can decimate your entire team if you're not prepared. Our first thought that just having to faint a single Pokemon to pass the trial was that it would be too easy, but there's a lot more to the trials than that  and it makes for plenty of fresh new gameplay experience, and a new way of thinking about battles.

Palossand - You scream ridiculous, I scream geniu-
RIDICULOUS!

Sun and Moon are also a lot more story focused than previous games, featuring cinematic cutscenes and a more fleshed out and unique story. That's a really great thing and all, the story is genuinely entertaining and quite gripping, but the game takes FOREVER to get going and I really mean it. I think I was probably a good half an hour into the game when I finally got to battle with my first pokemon, and even after that point progress is really quite slow until all of the tutorials are out of the way. It's all well and good to make change for the better like this, particularly with a formula growing old after 20 years, but honestly I agree, if I was a new player getting into the series for the first time, I might have been put off it very early on not really understanding how much more interesting things would get.

As you would expect a whole heap of other new features have been added to the game, some great, and some not so much. A lot of the new features, as seems to be pretty common for the modern Pokemon game, are all about making the game generally easier for the players, which isn't really necessary considering Pokemon is a pretty lenient series to begin with. During battles you'll now be able to see which of your moves are effective against the opposing Pokemon if you've beaten one already. It's not really a big change considering most people who play have already memorised most type matchups, but there are a lot of more obscure ones that just takes more skill out of the game. Add in 'improved' EXP system and EXP share, which seem to reward more EXP the closer you are in level to the opponent, and all of a sudden the game doesn't really slow you down anymore. With EXP now being acquired much more easily our Pokedexes are full of gaps because we don't really need to go in the tall grass and grind anymore. Just beat all the trainers in an area and move on. Easy. It wouldn't be such a bad thing but honestly it just doesn't feel like you've really worked hard to make your Pokemon strong anymore. they just sorta are now.

R-Raticate... Are you okay? You really let yourself go there buddy...
Haha! He looks just like you now Ren!
Hey!

We're trying to talk less about new features and more about the games but let's be real here. It's Pokemon, what more do you need us to say? Now enough about that, let's talk about the biggest thing since Mega-Evolution: Z-Moves. Z-Moves are over the top super powerful moves that can be used by any Pokemon holding a special crystal of the correct type. The moves do an extreme amount of damage and look absolutely gorgeous. There's one move for each type and some special ones for specific Pokemon. That isn't to say they're a great feature though. You can use them once per battle just like with mega evolution, but turning a whole move into a colourful hellfire of explosions and giant shattering orbs wreaks havoc on pretty much everything. There's no reason to be conservative with these things just unleash them on anything you come across if you know you'll be out of the battle soon enough. You'll never have to worry about wild Pokemon or half of the games trainers with only one Pokemon anymore, because you can just overkill them with no real penalties. Again. Is Pokemon starting to get too easy?

You know, you could always Nuzloke if it's too easy for you Si- NO! NONO. I am not going through the pain of losing my darlings ever again you hear me!? Whoa whoa... Okay okay geez I'm sorry I mentioned it.

All these new wonders together with the now fully 3D (no more square based movement) world do bring with it a number of flaws though. The main one of these is how the game runs on the older 3DS systems. The boot up time is so long you start to worry if the game has crashed, and the framerate drops really noticeably any time there are more than two Pokemon on screen in a battle, which is very often seeing as wild Pokemon can now call in more wild Pokemon for help during a fight. It's a pretty nasty feature sometimes to be honest, but also a really fun and interesting as well.

These guys are actually the best. Finally a complete laughing stock of an 'evil team'

Unusually self aware too, dawg.

Ren, you could have spent your entire life in a fridge freezer and you would never be cool. Shut up

What more can you say, it's a Pokemon game and there's more everything. It's bigger, better and lots more fun than ever before! Pokemon will always be Pokemon, we can't really explain how great it is but if you've played and loved previous instalments you'll love this one even more. It is easily the best game in the series so far, even if your favourite Pokemon aren't available in it just yet. An absolute must for fans of the series.

... You know this doesn't feel like much of a review Ren. I know... Just how do you review Pokemon? It's the JRPG (other than Final Fantasy), and you should know what to expect by now. And hey you couldn't make this into much of a review either you know. Oh just shut up.

But Team Skull though.
Oh my God the best thing to happen to Pokemon ever. So funny.
Yo Sin what up letz go play some Poke-mons like bruh.
Ew why is this filth talking to me...
I-I was making a joke...
Was that supposed to be funny? 

*Sigh* Anyway. Until next time folks!
Alola!!!

Ren Score: 9/10
Sin Score: 8/10

A Mystery Of Max Potential? - Root Letter

Hello beautiful people of the Internet! And not so beautiful ones... hehe. Wait, what is this!? Could it be!? We're back!? Oh calm down, it's not like anyone actually cares that we're doing this. I'm only here because YOU got bored and were so sad without all your 'adoring fans'. Oh be quiet Sin you were practically begging for us to end our long hiatus and go back to reviewing. I-I was not! Ngh... Just shut up Ren and get on with it! Whoa hey! There's no need to push!

Enough fooling around! Let's get right into this! Root Letter is a recently released visual novel mystery game for the PS4 and PSVita. You play a 30-something male protagonist who sets out on a long trip from his hometown of Tokyo to Shimane in search of his penpal from 15 years ago, in the hopes of finally meeting her and maybe even more... The entire premise of this game actually really pisses me off. he exchanged like eleven letters or something with the girl 15 years ago and only now all of a sudden he's had this urge to go see her? If it were me I'd be more than a little creeped out. How do girls usually react when you're like that Ren? Hey I'm not some kind of creeper guy cut me some slack! Oh yeah...? Then will you now tell me what exactly you were doing in my room the other day? Th- That was... research! For this review! Yeah! ... Sure it was...

I'll make one guess as to what those other things are...
For God's sake Sin... Really?

M-Moving on! In his search to find his penpal, our protagonist... (We'll call him Max from now on, because it doesn't matter what name you enter at the beginning he's going to be called by this nickname Max for the ENTIRE FREAKING GAME). Ahem... Max only has a couple of clues to help find the whereabouts of Aya: her letters, they each explain details of some of her closes friends from her school days, who you try and track down looking for your answers. Just one catch though, she only ever referred to her friends with their nicknames, and with fifteen years of change behind you, who knows how accurate those descriptions will be. It's a great thing to add to the mystery by hiding the names of the people you're investigating, wouldn't be much of a mystery if you could just track them down by name would it? I just wish when you actually do learn one of the classmate's real names it was actually used for once. But no, everyone, even the classmates amongst themselves, after 15 years, do nothing but call each other by their nicknames. It's pretty infuriating honestly, I feel like the continued use of the nicknames really detracts from the realism of a game which prides itself on being realistic. You know Sin it's probably to make the characters be more memorable and give them more personality, after all, the point is they're just normal people after all. ... Even so...

This game is all about realism though, a realistic story (although at times you certainly wouldn't believe it), and all the locations featured in the game are real parts of Japan's Shimane Prefecture. There's even a handy little guidebook within the game that will teach you about the places you visit if you're interested. In that regard it feels more like a game for people interested in learning more about Shimane than those looking for a good mystery story, but honestly this game could have been set in the fictional land of Dundledooseldorf and little would be different. Real places is cool and all, but it doesn't actually mean anything in the context of the game.

At least it can be said that every aspect and place in this game looks absolutely stunning.

Progression in the game is also very linear, it takes you by the hand and tells you which locations to go to to progress the story pretty clearly, and there's a handy 'think' option in the menus that will be really specific if you're stuck. While there are a lot of locations in the game to visit, going anywhere that isn't the one place that will progress the story just means you've gone to a place and nothing happens. You can't really do anything at the other places, nor will anything you do accomplish anything. There are some little side quests which you can do by going to other places, but they're also pretty meaningless and not worth the effort.

The most fun from the game takes place in little interrogation sections as you use the clues you have gathered to reveal the identity of the former classmates. There's dialogue and you get to present evidence in a largely Phoenix Wright style gameplay sequence. Slapping evidence in someone's face feels equally impactful and the voice over dialogue does a great job of adding to this effect, however there's little punishment for being incorrect and other options are so un-obvious you'll be lucky to be right without some trial and error.

 

I know if I were there confronting this guy I'd be saying a lot more than just that the way these characters are.
Control yourself Sin, I thought we were past the days of making the postman cry every time he comes...

Without going into too much detail and spoiling the game for anyone who does want to pick it up, the initial mystery of the game is amazing. You want to find the penpal you were talking to 15 years ago? Shame she died 25 years ago isn't it? Yeah try figuring that one out. The mystery itself wraps up and it is pretty satisfying to find out the whole truth across the 5 different ending the game has available. At the same time there's a certain disappointment there, as you get to the end and find out that the classmates were being all ominous and secretive over something that feels pretty petty. That's not to say the game or the mystery itself is bad, but there was potential to be so much more.

Overall the game is probably a bit too realistic and winds up coming off a bit mundane. The setup, while I disagree with a lot of the extremely convenient circumstances surrounding getting your information, is good; just executed somewhat poorly. Couple that together with an occasional translation error, max-cringiness protagonist and a cast of characters which seem to have kept an embodiment of teenage angst with them for 15 whole years and everything just falls a bit flat. Well hey at least the music is relaxing, they got the soundtrack down perfectly, so there's a small plus. There was so much potential here. Try harder next time Kadokawa Games.

... I mean I actually really enjoyed the game you know.
Oh come on you'll sit through anything and say it's great.
I do not!
... ET on the Atari.
... Shut the hell up.

Until next time friends!
We love you all!

Ren Score: 6/10
Sin Score: 3/10

The Crossover that Bricks It - LEGO: Dimensions

Hello beautiful people of the internet! And not so beautiful ones... hehe. Grab hold of your wallets folks because it's time to- uhh... Sin? What are you doing? I can't help it Ren look at them they're so cute and tiny and collectible and-! Whoaaaa, okay down girl. Put those aside now we have a blog to do! But... but... Ren... Don't get addicted to the figures while you hate the game. ...Oh god you're right... What am I saying!? We have to tell people about this monstrosity! Uh... yes, yes we do, that's why we're here. So without further ado, let's take a look at LEGO: Dimensions!

LEGO: Dimensions, released in late 2015 is the latest 'toys to life' cash cow game trying to capitalize on the popularity of Skylanders and Disney Infinity. The culprit this time being the LEGO company. Since these kinds of LEGO games began, back when the first LEGO Star Wars was released they were a fresh and comedic take on some of our favourite series. However as time has gone on, the LEGO games have been somewhat losing their luster, and fail to capture the original appeal of the first ones. We can't really say if this is because of the novelty of it all getting old or just not lending itself to a series properly, but regardless, we have a problem with this particular title for a different reason.

I wonder why the Wizard of Oz was something they wanted to use. Since when was this something you would want lego of?
What are you saying? I'd kill for those minifigures, a build of a small cottage and more little red flowers than I can count. Honest.

The basic plot sees some evil guy called Lord Vorton opening portals between a number of different world and recruiting a number of familiar villains in order to collect the Foundational Elements (read: the most iconic things from the particular series, i.e: some Ruby Slippers. Because those are totally a cornerstone of time and space.) When friends of the three characters that accompany the starter pack are sucked into vortexes because they each happen to be holding one, Batman, Wyldstyle and Gandalf jump into the portals to save them and end up in a dimension travelling wibbly-wobbly adventure across worlds. If you're sitting there thinking this plot sounds like a baddly written fanfiction from the depths of fanfic.net where all the teenagers that honestly believe they have writing prowess lurk, you're not exactly too far off the mark.

Don't get us wrong here, it's nowhere near as poorly executed as that. The main plot of the story has 'bricked it' a bit to say the least (Please tell me you're not going to be doing that throughout the whole review...) but at least the stories of the individual worlds are good enough, and the crossovers work very nicely. Take for example the Simpsons level pack which sees LEGO Movie villain President Business trying to take over Springfield. It's pretty cool to see these characters from very different universes reacting to and interacting with each other.

A sense of humour worthy only of Ren's idiocy.
(Excessive laughter)

So the crossovers are great but let's talk about level design here, and there's a hell of a lot to say. The base game and the level packs you can buy all have a couple of levels to play and a free roaming overworld to play around it. That's all well and good, but there are some things that really just piss me off! What seems to be a new feature of LEGO: Dimensions is the addition of mid-level save points. It's good to know the developers acknowledged the stupidly long time it can take to complete these levels and have planned accordingly. Well... While I admit it's a great feature to finally have implemented, I stand by the fact that it is poorly implemented. Some levels, such as the Portal 2 Level pack, have so many save points you could pop the game on for 20 minutes, do a test chamber and stop. Other Level packs, particularly the Doctor Who one, don't have any at all, despite having levels that can take over and hour and a half to complete first time round just because they're so convoluted. In fact we still haven't beaten the first level, because we don't have the time, and this game lacks a little something too much.

That little something is clarity. Now we're not saying a game needs to hold your hand the whole way through, god no. But this game manages to give you so little information it is EXTREMELY difficult to figure out what to do next sometimes. The Doctor Who level pack is especially bad for this, offering multiple different areas with multiple different time periods all of which you have to do certain things in to progress. Playing through that level is hell on Earth, and while this is the most severe case by far, other parts still keep up a fair level of confusion. I sometimes marvel how this game can be aimed at kids when even adults are having trouble dealing with it.

Unlike in previous LEGO titles, if you want to find every hidden collectible in this one you'll want to have a good income. Most collectibles will be hidden behind some kind of barrier that can only be passed by characters with certain abilities, and there are a lot of them. While this was the same in previous LEGO games, the fact that you need to spend real money instead of just studs for these collectibles just feels like extra money-grabbing. There's the ability to 'Hire a hero' for a sum of studs in certain places, but you're not always given the option and it doesn't really feel the right way to play.

Dunno what you're smiling at, you couldn't figure out how to complete your own Level Pack either.
Is he... putting the moves on her?
... I'm not even gonna... Oh for the- You pervert!

Of course we can't forget the real reason you would choose this game, which is of course the LEGO figures themselves. They're all good quality and have lovely looking stands, but when it comes to building some of the accompanying toys, it is admittedly a lot harder than it should be. Each add on box only comes with the instructions for the character figures, and the other instructions all get displayed on screen. The main problem with this comes that this makes the instruction extremely tiny and difficult to see, couple that with the fact that every figure is made up of small and very similar looking parts you'll find yourself either making mistakes or rubbing your face on your screen just to see whether you're supposed to be using the white stud or the clear one. The instructions are also much simpler than those of a traditional LEGO set, while you could argue this is because of the size of the things you're creating, it doesn't halt the fact that placing basically a single block each step takes away significantly from the feeling of something epic come together.

When you put together all this with the fact that the games is possibly the worst optimised game we've played in a long time, it's a bitter pill to swallow. Perhaps it's because we've been playing the WiiU version, but loading times between levels takes ages, and for example activating certain characters rage mode abilities makes the game load a new bigger sprite of them for just as long. AND in general the game is the glitchiest one we've seen in a long time just from playing casually. Within 30 hours of playtime the game softlocked 5 times with characters being locked in respawn-instant death loops or being locked into a boss fight forever because taking figures off the pad to remove them from a spell doesn't work, and the game has flat out just crashed at least three times.

You know you're doing something wrong when building the portal out of bricks before you really start the game is the most epic feeling you have playing it.

Though we've done our best to enjoy this game, it's been a real struggle to say the least, which in itself is a big disappointment for game with so much potential. The figures may be a wonderful thing, but for gamers with such fond memories of the LEGO Star Wars games, this one leaves a bitter taste in the mouth.

It's a hard brick to swallow. Ow!
Shut it Ren!
Heheh...
Are you coming back to play with the figures again Ren?
Yep! they're more fun than the actual game anyway.
I know right? Anyway! Until next time folks!
We love you all!

Ren Score: 6/10
Sin Score: 2/10

Dancing All... Morning? - Persona 4: Dancing All Night

Hello beautiful people of the Internet! And not so beautiful ones... hehe. Put on your dancing shoes because it's time to- Wait a second Ren! What the hell is this!? Huh? Uhm... It's our blog Sin... you know, the one where we review games on a Friday... No no no no no Ren not that! I mean why the hell are we doing P4D AGAIN!? We already covered it once! Yes Sin, but just one thing... What are the two games we've been playing this week called again? ...P4D and Tales of Zestiria... Games we briefly covered in that previews post... Yayyy that's right, good girl you can have a treat later. Wait WHAT!? Okay so it's finally time to take a more in depth look at the PSVita rhythm game Persona 4: Dancing All Night! (Ren you are SUCH an asshole.)

P4D is yet another spinoff title from the increasingly popular Persona franchise by Atlus. Set after the events of Persona 4 it sees the Investigation team get dragged into a new case where a 'cursed' video that plays on a certain website at midnight is taking people to the 'other side'. It's a very Persona-esque plot, filled with themes of bonds and relationships. While the plot at it's heart is a good concept, it has a disproportionately long build up into a series of 4 sections taking place in the 'other side' (The Midnight Stage) which all feel extremely repetitive as they take the same structure with all of the kidnapped victims. There's a story that runs alongside the Midnight Stage segments that is a breath of fresh air to the story, showing the perspective of the outside investigation. That's all well and good but at the end of the day, there's always a kind of deja-vu about the story, as similar things are said and obvious points are raised throughout a very simple and linear storyline.

Featuring brand new and totally not extremely steriotypical and predictable new characters!

P4D is a very short game, reading all the dialogue and completing the songs first time will take no more than ten hours, and with a total song list of 29 songs (excluding paid DLC), a number of which are just remixes of the same song, leaving a track list that is disappointingly small compared to most rhythm titles, and is only barely if at all made up for by the quality of the music. Rest assured though, the music is quality, and the notes fit perfectly with the tunes as you would expect from a good rhythm game.

The storyline may not be anything special, but the fact there is a story is more of a bonus than anything, as it's not a common feature of the rhythm genre. We should be focusing on the actual rhythm game parts, which is a lot better than we initially thought through our breif encounter with the game way back when. Though the areas to hit the notes are still ways apart on the screen, they rotate round in a logical order so you can always look to see where the next note is coming from, it makes the game a lot easier to follow than before. If you're a real sadist like Sin (Hey.) though, you can get various challenge items that will increase your score, such as one that makes notes appear from random directions, and one that slows them down so much it's literally painful painful to play. The challenge items aren't anything new for a rhythm game but they still turn out pretty unique which is a plus.

The level of cute added by Nanako's dances is a really neat addition to the game
Oh what, so you're a pedophile as well as a pervert?
Uhm... I'm neither???

Something we didn't realize last time is that aside from the regular press button notes that fly out from the center of the screen, there are also ring notes (or 'scratches') which you hit by moving one of the analogue sticks as it hits the outer ring. The rings are deceptively hard to hit, while they may be very lenient on timings, moving from the buttons to the stick in a short enough space of time to keep a combo going is surprisingly tough when notes are closer together. But hey, you know even the game's developers thought they were too tough, since missing the ring notes won't break your combo, or deduct from the horrendous way the game determines whether you've beaten a song.

In case you missed our last coverage of this title, the game uses a scale representing the moods of the 'audience' you're performing to. Ranging from red, to yellow to white to green to rainbow, anything below the latter two levels will be a failed song. While generally something like that isn't an issue the way you have to climb back up levels is very unforgiving (at least on later difficulties) and for every note missed you'll find yourself needing to hit 25 or even 50 to get back up there. Don't get us wrong, these songs have a deceptively high number of notes, but when you miss a string of notes right at the end of a flawless song to not only lose that full combo, but fail the song too, it feels more than a little harsh.

When you clear a song, the dancer's persona comes out and plays an instrument into a really awesome finale
I get shivers every time
I'm pretty sure that's just you trembling with joy from actually clearing a song for once.
... C-Climbing that scale is hard Sin...

Speaking from experience there Ren?
... Yeah... God damned hard songs freaking (unintelligible gibberish)
Ahaha... Anyway. This game is all about being yourself, and not what people want you to be. It's kinda ironic really. This is basically just a simple rhythm game with the Persona logo strapped on for a bit of extra luck. It is simple in both story and gameplay and is exactly what it is: just a rhythm game.
Ultimately there's a bit of a disappointment here. Sure, the game is still good... But it's really not everything we wanted it to be.

Say Sin, why don't you try being the you everyone wants you to be? It would be cool to see you being nice for a change.
Wha- speak for yourself you jerk!
Oh relax, you're the bitchy one, that's what everyone wants anyway...
Reeeeennnnnnnnnnnnn!!!
Ahahah... ha.... Uhm... Until next time friends! We love you a- AAAAAHHHH!

Ren Score: 7/10
Sin Score: 4/10

Trucking Majestic - American Truck Simulator

Hello beautiful people of the Internet! And not so beautiful ones... hehe. Buckle up folks because it's time to hit the road! Ren! Don't throw our readers out already, we just started! Wh- Oh forget it... (heh...) Anyway! Let's head onto PC to check out the latest 'Simulator' game from SCS Software, American Truck Simulator!

Simulator games like this aren't for everyone. For the most part the only reason they exist is so people can experience what it's like to do a boring old job that they don't or can't do for whatever reason. There are two types of people in the world, people like Sin, who think they're pointless and wonder how playing them can be fun for anyone. And there's people like Ren, who for some strange reason enjoys experiencing boring everyday life through the medium we use to escape such things. American Truck Simulator is the newest release and a further improvement on the popular Euro Truck Simulator 2 game. If you could call any transition from Europe to America an 'improvement.' Hey. Down girl. All Sin's bias aside, let's take an in depth look at what's special about the American Dream sim.

Can't stop to play the tables in Vegas. Some great simulator this turned out to be.
Winners don't gamble Sin.
They don't exactly truck either Ren.

The quote-unquote, plot- Sin! Jeez... the plot of the game sees you starting your own trucking company in your chosen city in either California or Nevada (The only states currently in the game, yeah, should be called two-state truck simulator it'd be less misleading), do some odd jobs to earn money until you can eventually buy your own truck with hundreds of customization options. Jobs start with shorter routes until you gain experience to take on longer ones. Completing routes gives you EXP for level ups and you can use these to earn qualifications to enhance the jobs you can do and the money you earn, for example the ability to carry explosives or being entrusted with fragile cargo, jobs such as this are of course worth more money for completion. That's basically all there is to it, the goal is just to complete deliveries and get money for your business.

Feel the excitement boys and girls! This is a lot of what you'll see in this game. Miles and miles of nothing!
Empty... just like your heart.

The game has a lot of options for control methods. Using a keyboard and mouse is... generally fine, but if you want the real immersion you should be getting from Truck Sim you need to get a wheel and pedal to connect up. Those cost a lot of money though, so if feeling like a real mother trucker isn't important to you, work with keyboard controls like we did. The game controls very nicely with the keyboard... Sometimes too nicely even. I'm not sure if it's the same for all control styles but for god-knows-how-heavy trucks these things can turn unnaturally tightly. For a game that is supposed to be 'realistic' shall we say, there's a lot of things very unnatural about it.

Let's start with the first thing, which is specifically only for the keyboard control method (it's not something to rat on the game for, it's to be expected, but still remains annoying), it's impossible to keep a steady speed, which can cause troubles in a game were you get fined for speeding. You only have to contend with W to accelerate, and S to brake. This leaves you in either a state of constant acceleration, which will bring you over the speed limit pretty darn quickly, or slow deceleration, which just means yeah you're still going, but hey now you're gradually going slower. Now hey, I don't know if SCS Software know something about Cali and Nevada that we don't, but if you wait long enough at a junction because there's all this traffic coming you can start to pull out and everyone will stop to let you out... or you could keep waiting, and after a little while... All the traffic just suddenly stops! Even on the busiest roads. I get that this is like some kind of anti-frustration feature but you could have made it less obvious!

I assure you, at no point did I forget that Americans drive on the wrong side of the road.
Silly Ren! Everyone knows Americans drive on the 'RIGHT' side of the road, come on.

Yep roads follow some strange rules in this game. It feels as though you're traveling large distances in the US really quickly because of the way the map is scaled down in order to fit inside the game. Basically to my disappointment a lot of actual American roads are scaled down immensely, much more so than in Euro Truck Simulator might I add. The map scaling is much worse here, and it means there's a lot less of those long scenic drives that players of Euro Truck knew and loved.There are other problems kind of related to the scaling that arise too, most notably of which is the fact that speed limit signs are impossible to see if present at all, this often creates sudden changes of speed limit that sometimes results in an instant fine as soon as you cross the threshold because there happened to be a cop car that could just about see your left mirror moving too much from a mile away. Yeah some fines happen when the cops catch you doing something wrong, like driving in the dark without lights on. Notice how he said some. A lot of the others just sort of happen.

There's a strange kind of allure to this game in that it's strangely relaxing to ride the wide open roads with pretty much nothing either side of you. The American scenery isn't the prettiest thing to look at by far, but even I'll admit it's relaxing to drive along leisurely without having to worry about 'real' consequences for screwing up. Not to mention, the ability to add your own songs to play or listen to actual radio stations as you drive is a superb touch.

Shit.

Believe it or not there's also a multiplayer mode. Things are a bit different there, it's a lot faster as speed limits are much less strict, oh and all the non human traffic is gone too, did I mention that? I can see why they did it but hell now the maps are just even more empty! Players on Multiplayer aren't the nicest of people either. Some will honk as you pass to say 'hi!' and that's cool... But others will just try and ram you into walls like dicks. But other than the traffic being gone, multiplayer is basically the same as single player.

So what we have here is a very relaxing game that takes the stress out of driving and then some. There's not much to do other than driving and decorating your trucks, so if you're looking for a game full of action and excitement you've probably already guessed a Simulator game probably isn't the one for you. While this one may not be as polished world-wise as its predecessor, it's still a very strong Simulator game and is worth picking up for anyone wanting 'to start their new dream job:' being a mother trucker.'

You know, your driving is beyond horrible.
W-Well why do you think I like this game! Can you imagine me taking the helm of a REAL screaming metal deathtrap?
Oh god no. I don't want to die...
Heh... I think I've made my point. Until next time folks!
We love you all!

Ren Score: 8/10
Sin Score: 4/10

The Best Life Sentence - Freedom Wars

(To an outsider, this is a chaotic and difficult to understand box art, to a fan, it is a near perfect summary of 75% of the game)

Hello Sinners of the Internet! And not so- Wait a second... Get ready everybody, because you're going down! It's time to look at a brilliant Action-RPG from 2014 for the PSVita. Aimless chit-chat is a waste of resources! let's get on with it!

Set in a distant dystopian future Freedom Wars is a unique game that sees your fully customization character slammed with a 1,000,000 year sentence for the heinous crime of developing amnesia during a combat mission. In a world where everyone lives in giant complexes (Panopticons) built in the world's major cities, fighting over the few remaining resources as best they can, something like amnesia is a major drain on resources. By completing missions assigned to you by the higher ups, you gain pardons and shave years off your sentence. The game could easily have taken this theme and held it through the whole time, but there's a very solid underlying story surrounding conspiracies and cover-ups that develops later on. After snooping into restricted areas you find a girl that's been captured, and find the resolve to find out the mystery of why she's there. And it gets chaotic as hell.

A surprising amount of customization options, featuring Sin's foundation makeup palette.
Whoa. Gross. I wouldn't even wear clothes in those colours.
But... You only wear red clothes anyway...?

The game's plot is strongly sound, and the whole environment of the Panopticon and the places where fights take place all feel very right and immersive. Dilapidated cities and deserts burying large structures. The atmosphere of a world ripped to the bare bones for all its resources is all right there, and it's great. Atmosphere aside the 'feel' of the game has problems too. See, as you'd expect from a game working with this kind of theme, there's a large number of different missions to clear in order to reduce your sentence. Except pretty much all the missions are basically the same. And oh god do they feel like a grind. In order to fight for resources the Panopticons send in Sinners like you, along with the 'Accessories' that watch over them, to fight against enemy Abductors. Abductors are basically huge towering robots that can take a number of different forms from bipeds to spider-esque tanks, designed to capture and kidnap citizens from rival Panopticons. You'll be fighting them in almost every mission, right from the start of the game. The main problem with this though is that they're basically all raidbosses, albeit with attacks that probably won't oneshot you all the time. After 15 minutes of hacking away at the abductor to finally kill it and move onto the next mission, there's a pretty epic feel of achievement seeing that thing come crashing down at least. Well, until you realize that the next mission is almost exactly the same. Hope you like grinding because that's basically 80% of the game right there.

So the missions all kinda feel the same... At least they always still feel pretty damn epic.

There are other kinds of missions that act as a breath of fresh air at least. Breaking into the restricted areas for example usually take the form of stealth missions. Standard stuff, navigating paths around patrolling guards. Other missions, such as ones where you have to take out enemy Sinners are also much more enjoyable if you want to feel like you're actually doing damage for once. It offers the feel of a more multiplayer online game... Which is great if you like that kind of stuff, Freedom Wars actually lends itself to multiplayer very well. 

Combat controls are logical and responsive, if not somewhat basic. With melee weapons you can do light and heavy attacks, and there's a wide variety guns to fire depending on your situation. We personally preferred light melee weapons, as they are the only weapons that let you directly sever Abductor components which can then be collected to help upgrade your gear. But upgrades often require hard to acquire parts, so it can be a bit of a grind to get a powerful weapon you really want, and believe me, you'll need it. Additionally, going into battle you have a special kind of weapon called a Thorn. It's basically a grappling hook, and it really brings out the best in the game's combat system, allowing you to cling to and maneuver from walls, as well as latch onto enemy Abductors in order to get close for attacks, or drag them to the ground and temporarily immobilize them. Though it adds an astounding level of extra depth to the combat, it has limited use and can be a bit finicky to use, with the collision being so accurate you'll struggle to land it on particularly thin limbs so you can sever them off. Oh and did I mention that all severing is done by spamming the O button? If you'e like us your thumbs are gonna hurt, because those limbs don't come off easy, that's for sure.

The whole 'We're always watching' trope is starting to get pretty old.
It's kind of necessary though... Isn't it?
Yeah... It was disappointing that the Panopticon magazine was just five pages of a 24-Hour Surveillance banner though...

Okay, okay hold on a second. What? I just wanted to go back to the main reason we fell in love with this game, the way it really brings to life the dystopian future of the world that's been created. Oh yes well of course... First thing we did was walk around our cell a little to see what we could interact with... Then we got slapped with a 10 year extension on our sentence! Taking more than 5 steps in your cell is a violation of the People's Charter and a waste of valuable resources! Holy crap! In fact, if you're feeling a bit tired and your Accessory suggests you take a rest, Don't do it! Well, not unless you want another 20 years because you haven't purchased the right to recline yet. Seriously, you have to buy the right to recline... and the right to talk to people, to run for more than five seconds, the list goes on. That's the real thing that gets you thinking. That so much as the most trivial of things is such a waste of resources it's worth years of your life. Just let that sink in a second... despite repetitive combat at times, Freedom Wars has captured a beautiful dystopian society, and took great care in thinking of everything to make it feel as real and unfair as any dystopia should in a game.

... Well...
We uh... Knew the customization offered a lot but...
... (Sigh)

Okay Sinners! That's enough, we're done here, your break time is over! Get back to your pitiful cells you call a bedroom! Whoa... Sin... You're really into the whole Sinner abuse thing aren't you? You sadist. Oh shush, I'm just giving the readers what they deserve for wasting valuable res- Ow! You calling our blog a waste? O-Oh! n-no I wasn't doing that! Uhm... until next time Sinners! We love you all!
Ren Score: 9/10
Sin Score: 8/10

A Night To Forget... - Until Dawn

Hello beautiful people of the Internet! And not so beautiful ones... hehe. It's that time of the week again at last! And this time we're actually going to do a post because REN just plain forgot about it last week. I did n- Oh fine you can have that one... ugh.

Anyway we're back and ready to preach, readers, so here's a little look at Until Dawn.

Until Dawn is Supermassive Games' take on the Survival Horror and Interactive Drama genres and a much more spooky game compared to other similar titles such as Beyond: Two Souls and Heavy Rain. A take on the typical 'trapped in a secluded area with a maniac' plot, Until Dawn sees eight (very intelligent) college friends venture up to a snowy lodge on a mountain in the late evening for a party. One year ago two of their friends disappeared at this very same lodge. Great place for a party, right? Anyway they get trapped there and there's a psycho maniac trying to kill them because the lodge is built on sacred ground or something... There's a lot of mysteries to discover but we'll get to those later.

Ren's face in the morning is the stuff of nightmares
Hey.

Imagine if all the horror games got together for a party. Resident Evil and Silent Hill are the hosts, they know what they're doing and have been doing it for years, everyone loves them. Corpse Party is the new kid on the block, looking cute but desperately trying to fit in. And then there's Until Dawn, running around screaming "Look what I can do!" and trying to show off all it's 'unique' features to make everyone love it, which works on some people but not others.The way I see it, Until Dawn is a game that is so far up it's own arse it can see the light. The game prides itself on how your decisions and quick thinking influence the story, and it can't go more than ten minutes without shoving that fact in your face. The game is all about the Butterfly Effect, a principle from chaos theory which states that a small seemingly inconsequential thing, such as a butterfly flapping its wings, can have a huge influence in the future. Like making a hurricane.

Until Dawn makes use of this effect all throughout the story, in varying extremities. From causing petty arguments to... oh I don't know... flat out leaving one of your so called friends for dead. It's all in there. Take for example the early option to show off by shooting a squirrel instead of a bell. Shoot the squirrel and later on nature is out of balance and will conspire to get you killed as a consequence even hours later. The game loves to show you the consequences of your choices. There's also a strange scene between each chapter where you spend time with Dr Hill, who is presumably some kind of psychiatrist. Those parts are pretty damn surreal, but it get's you thinking about things you wouldn't exactly think about,  and at the same time hints at other, more sinister things. When you tell him your fears they'll appear in the story, and a picture he shows you in an early encounter, shows up in the main game a bit later. the game does a pretty good job of raising lots of questions.

Considering all the choices are made by you, these personality traits hardly matter since you basically bend them at will anyway.

There's a lot of clues littered throughout the various areas of the game that come together to reveal a number of conspiracies, from events 50 years ago to the truth about the missing girls and the identity and motives of the maniac, there's a surprising amount to discover in a game that lasts less than ten hours at best, but it all comes together very satisfyingly.

The game falls flat in some places of course, falling victim to silly flaws of the interactive movie genre. Interacting with items is done by pressing X to get close then R2 to hold them, and various other combinations of movement to do other things. Now why these games feel that the action of grabbing things has to be done by holding a button just feels silly, I'd say it was part of the whole immersion thing by making you grab when the character grabs, but it never really had that effect. Camera angles vary dramatically and change to complete different perspectives all the time. It can make controls hard and has received a lot of criticism from other reviewers. I actually like it though. It's revealed that there are hidden cameras around the area and the maniac is always watching the characters' actions. it would make sense that these often unusual camera angles were the eyes of that madman's cameras. Just let that sink in for a second. 

Girl in the bath, naked, listening to music... and you steal her clothes instead of killing her. Well they don't call you a madman for nothing. 
I dunno, I'd probably do that too you know...
You pervert!

Oh but no matter what you say, the way the characters walk around is beyond horrible. It's slow, the controls are relatively unresponsive and no matter what is going on, even when going after a potentially kidnapped friend, or following a trail of blood, they JUST. WALK. SLOWLY. EVERYWHERE. Like seriously, you're in danger of dying or losing a friend right here do you think you want to act like it at some point!?

Regardless of all that Sin has to say here though, we did enjoy Until Dawn. It is a very good example of horror game and there's a reason it won so many awards. It executes all it's tension well and has a cool way of manipulating the story in that any and every character can die through the course of the game, or none of them can, it's all about the choices you make. There's that god damned selling point again. The only real problem is that the game is best served up fresh. Once you start learning the consequences of various actions you'll know what's coming and what has to change in any future playthroughs, and the impact of the game is completely lost on any subsequent playthroughs as you know how to save (or kill) any of the characters. Of course, the whole time the lives of these 'kids' are in your hands... You psychopath.

So... We're finally all done with Until Dawn Sin! You uh... Can let go of my hand now...
S-Shut up Ren! I was just making sure you didn't poop yourself again.
What? I never- Oh whatever, the readers all know what's up anyway. Until next time friends!
We love you all!

Ren Score: 8/10
Sin Score: 6/10