Category: PS4

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Game Ramblings #75 – Watch_Dogs 2

More Info from Ubisoft

  • Genre: Action/Adventure
  • Platform: PS4
  • Also Available On: Xbox One, Windows

TL;DR

  • Really good open-world action game with a great take on the San Francisco Bay area
  • Emphasis on hacking-based stealth over combat is a nice change from the typical GTA-style combat mechanics

Generally speaking I’m more of a fan of RPGs over action games, but I definitely don’t mind hopping into the action genre from time to time.  When I do though, I usually prefer games that emphasize stealth and planning over run and gun action, and I think this is where Watch_Dogs 2 hit for me in the best way.  While this game definitely doesn’t lack action sequences, the pure action moments feel very tailored, leaving enemy interactions to focus more on the stealth and hacking mechanics that the story itself wants to push forward.  In doing so, this became a very different take on the GTA-style city game formula, and for me was a format that I enjoyed more because of this change in focus.

While this isn’t a 1:1 San Francisco, people that are familiar with the city definitely won’t feel lost driving around.

It’s easy to assume that open world games in general will take liberties with the cities they exist in, but this one definitely feels like San Francisco through and through.  It’s a bit compressed, but the main sights are all there and relatively in the right spots, whether you’re driving across the Golden Gate Bridge, watching sea lions at Pier 39, or driving around by the Transamerica Pyramid, this feels a lot like San Francisco.  While it’s not important to the fun of the game, it ends up doing a great job of getting you into the game at the start, and for folks that have been to the city, an immediate sense of familiarity with where they are.

That said, it’s the gameplay that makes you stick around, and this one was a lot of fun for reasons that aren’t necessarily typical of open-world action games.

Hacking is the name of the game, and you end up doing that a lot throughout, including going in to mess around with some rockets.

Looking at screenshots or videos of this game, it’s easy to assume that this game is a real-world rip of Grand Theft Auto, since the player is completing story quests, going around fighting people, and generally just ramping up chaos as much as possible.  However, that’s just one way to play the game, and I’d argue it’s the wrong way to play the game.

At its core, the story of this game is built around a group of hackers exposing governmental and private-sector secrets that are affecting everyday people.  That can run the gamut from data protection to facial tracking and more.  It’s a lot of things that are hot topics today, so it ends up being a really compelling narrative to tie the group’s goal together.  Where this really becomes important is that the hacking capabilities of the player become the forward focus for an entire stealth style of playing the game.

It’s pretty close to guaranteed that any story mission will end up bringing you into an area that requires interaction with guards of some sort.  You can definitely go in guns blazing, taking everyone out and getting away.  However, you can also go full-stealth and hack your way through the game.  The tools at the player’s disposal even give you multiple paths above and beyond just going stealth.  Want to stay entirely out of the area?  Send in a little robot to do the work for you.  Want to cause some chaos and sneak in behind as that’s going on?  Send a false report in to draw gangs to the area to fight the guards.  Want to use vehicles to your advantage?  Hack a crane and have it carry you over the top of everything.

Each situation gives you a bunch of different ways to achieve the end goal, and its the exploration of this set of skills that really gave Watch_Dogs 2 its legs.   The depth of possibilities allowed me to always be trying something new and something fresh to get to the end.  In a lot of cases it also brought side entertainment in just watching how the systems worked together to achieve a result.  There’s something just inherently entertaining about hacking a robot to chase guards, then sending in a gang to attack them, and watching the entire thing unfold while I’m perched above on a rooftop with really very little outright control of what’s going on.

The game is also not lacking in action sequences, such as controlling a killer robot spider.

That’s not to say action sequences don’t work well.  There were more cases than I care to admit where I screwed up, got caught, and had to go in shooting.  In these cases the game still works well, giving you a wide variety of fun to use weapons and a pretty satisfying regenerating health mechanic.  There are also some really good tailored pure action sequences.  The spider fight above was one great example.  One of my favorites though was a sequence involving stealing a KITT-clone and driving around San Francisco running from the cops.  You drive around with the car talking to you, hacking the streets to cause explosions, and generally just causing mayhem.  It’s pure action-movie stupidity, and the sequences that are tailored to it are even better off for having  strong standalone focus.

This series in general has been pretty easy to dismiss as a GTA clone, but I don’t really think that does it justice.  Is it the best of open-world action games?  No, and I don’t think Ubisoft is ever going to want to actually compete with the type of budget Rockstar throws around for GTA.  However, this is a really good game on its own.
The inclusion of stealth and hacking mechanics is a great way for them to differentiate themselves from the pack, and really pushes this game into the realm of something that you should check out.  Given Rockstar also doesn’t look real keen on doing single player GTA content any time soon, this will at the very least scratch the itch in the genre while we seemingly wait forever.

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Game Ramblings #73 – South Park: The Fractured but Hole

More Info from Ubisoft

  • Genre: RPG
  • Platform: PS4
  • Also Available On: Windows, Xbox One, Switch

TL;DR

  • Battle system is a phenomenal grid-based strategy system that heavily encourages the use of forced movement, ticking damage, and CC to eliminate enemies.
  • Like The Stick of Truth, does a fantastic job of integrating the player into the South Park universe, from the visual design to the way the story is written, especially when they straight up go at things they know will offend a lot of people.

I’m not kidding when I say they are not being shy about offending people, especially those worth offending.  For example:

This is a perfect example of why South Park as a multimedia franchise exists.  They’re crass, they don’t care about poking at things that others will shy away from, and they do it all with their own unique style.  Is it for everyone?  Not really.  However, if you’re a fan of this universe, The Fractured But Hole is another great entry that does more than just stand on its name for quality.

The visual style of characters is key to this universe, and this game absolutely nailed it.

South Park can be a lot of things, but one of the keys to the entire experience is the visual style that has existed since the first season of the show.  While past generations of games went with somewhat strange 3D representations of the world, the recent RPGs have gone all-in on making the unique style of the series work in real time in games.  Just the world alone is impressive, but the flexibility of the character creation system while fitting into this universe is a technical marvel.

The player character itself can be composed of a ton of different pieces: hair, facial hair, makeup add ons, multiple outfit pieces, etc.  They can all be mixed and matched with each other without limitation to create something that may or may not look good, but definitely is all your own, and definitely looks right out of the show.  Even more impressive is that all of this is done in a way that preserves the character’s appearance in all cutscenes.  You will always be seeing the character you wanted, and there’s no smoke and mirrors to keep it hidden in places where it would be inconvenient in a lot of games.  It’s phenomenally impressive to see in action, and a testament to how much the tech around this game was built to BE South Park.

While a lot different than the previous game, this game’s grid battles are a lot of fun.

None of the visuals would matter if the game’s core battle system wasn’t fun, and they definitely also nailed that.  While there’s some variety in size and obstacles, the core battle system is a turn-based system typically taking place on roughly a 5×10 play space.  Player turns are individually ordered, and that comes into play in some of the abilities at your disposal.  Abilities all have some grid space they can cover, whether it’s a 1×1 melee attack, a line ranged attack, or AoE grids that can be placed anywhere.  In a lot of ways it feels like placing magic attacks in the Disgaea series, and the strategy of where units are on the board is hugely important to maximizing each turn’s damage potential.

This is all backed up by some great effects beyond just simple damage.  You’ve definitely got your typical DoT type effects like poison, burn, bleed, etc.  However, this game places a heavy emphasis on relocation of enemies.  Knockbacks, pulls, location switches, and more are available to let you line up enemies for your future unit turns to really turn up the damage potential.  The turn ordering also comes in to play with some abilities causing turn loss or turn delay, allowing you to really lock down the enemy into not being able to take any actions.  It’s a fantastic set of functionality that all combines to add a ton of depth to what could have been a really simple battle system.  Despite all the depth, it’s also really easy to understand what’s going on, which allows the quick hitting battles to flow in a way that’s not typically of SRPG-style games.

Bosses play in the same battle system, but often have their own rules to throw things out of whack.

It’s also worth mentioning how much fun the bosses are in this game.  Generally speaking they live under the same rule set as normal battles, but throw their own curves.  Some of them are multi-space units that really change how the player has to position themselves both offensively and defensively.  One boss had you not actively attacking it, but instead using knockbacks to throw smaller enemy units into the boss’ eating range to cause damage.  Basically, while the core abilities are still there, the bosses throw enough curves to keep the player’s skill fresh in unique ways that aren’t just doing a battle with bigger numbers.

I’ll be the first to admit that the South Park wrapping on this game will definitely make this game a fairly niche product.  It is full of completely inappropriate humor that will make you burst out in laughter if you don’t take it too seriously.  Once you dig into it though, this game has a tremendously deep battle system that fans of RPGs in general will find a lot to love.  The rest of the wrapping on this, from the side quests to gearing to environment exploration provide the rest of the trappings that RPG fans expect, and give this game a level of quality that we’re thankfully starting to see common in many licensed games.

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Game Ramblings #70 – God of War

More Info from Sony

  • Genre: ARPG
  • Platform: PS4

TL;DR

  • Phenomenally well made game that brings the series out of its brawler roots and straight into a full blown action RPG.
  • Well written characters and story, to the point where they effectively make you hate the son when he’s acting like an ass.  Does a good job blending in Norse mythology to what was previously a Greek-focused series.

God of War is one of those series that screams Sony first-party, but it’s been eight years since the Greek timeline games ended.  Ya we had Ascension, but that was a prequel and even that was give years ago.  After such a long gap, announcing a Norse reboot / sequel was already a head turner.  Announcing it as a drastic genre departure was another, with this game now being very much an action RPG with all the free roam trappings that come with it.  Side quests, item collection, crafting, upgrades, skill trees and more are all there.  Despite it all, this is both extremely fitting for the series, and quite possibly the best entry of them all.

The entire game is the story of Kratos and his son’s travels, and that’s where the differences begin.

This first screen shot says a lot about the differences in this game relative to the original.  For one thing, Kratos now has a son and he hasn’t managed to accidentally kill him in a rage.  Beyond that though, you start to see little details.  The son brings in a set of ranged combat possibilities that add some new depth to the core combat.  Kratos is wearing gear that was crafted at a vendor.  We’re clearly no longer romping around in Greece.  On the far left, Kratos is using an axe instead of blades (although the blades come back later).  Basically, this is still God of War, but it’s not quite what we’re used to.

The combat front straddles that line between familiar and new in a really good fashion.  This is still melee-chain combat, but it’s not quite as high speed as the original.  You still have your light and heavy attacks, but there’s a much larger focus on parrying and dodging.  Later on in the game, you end up juggling between frost and fire weapons based on the enemies that you are attacking, so there’s some built-in strategy.  The skill tree that is there brings in some familiar special attacks, but the risk of being hit during them is much higher, so their timed use becomes much more important.

It’s the son that ultimately brings in some of the big changes.  While his positioning isn’t directly controllable by the player, his basic move set is.  He’s got arrows that can be fired at enemies, sometimes for additional damage, sometimes for the use of crowd control, sometimes for the use of stunning to allow Kratos to get damage in.  He’s also got some special attacks that can be triggered on cooldowns.  However, it’s his passive skill growth that becomes the most useful.  By late game, he’s got skills that allow him to engage in melee combat more often, including things like hopping on enemies backs as distractions and doing his own quick hitting melee.  Basically, as the son grows as a plot device, he becomes inherently more useful as a combat device, and it eliminates the frustration that typically comes with escort-based secondary characters.

Now, that’s not to say that moving to more of a core RPG combat has removed some of the flashiness. Case in point:

The big flashy scenes are largely reserved for finishers in battle, and more specifically generally against bosses and minibosses.  Stun kills on trash enemies also have mini-cutscenes, but these are quick hitters and don’t try to keep you out of combat for very long.

Despite the changes, the flow of combat feels phenomenal overall.  Most engagements are going to be a heavy mix of attacking, watching for enemy tells to parry, or really large attacks to dodge.  Its a system of constant movement, rather than a system of waiting for moments, and it really works well.

If you want to, you can spend a lot of time in boats exploring

If you really have that RPG itch though, this is also a great game for that.  Beyond the main story line, there’s side quests and collection galore.  For the most part, these simply exist for purposes of getting more gear, but that becomes important for the post-game content.  The end boss is by a long shot easier than some of the creatures out in the world and some of those fights are among the most fun in the game to engage in, so you have a lot of reasons to get out there exploring.  If you’re a lore or collection nut, there’s also a lot there.  Shrines, treasure hunts, rare ingredients, dragons to free, and more are there for exploring.  If you’re really feeling brave, there’s also two realms that exist purely for the sake of side quests.  Basically, once you finish the game you aren’t really finished if you think you want to get a bunch of hours out of this one.

At this point in the game I wanted to kill the kid, and that’s a lot larger of a complement to the developers than it sounds.

However, the thing that kept me coming back is that this was a well told story.  The interplay between Kratos and his son starts off as somewhat hilarious on the surface as Kratos pretty much spends hours yelling BOY GET OVER HERE.  However, once the boy finds out what he really is, he becomes effectively a pompous ass for an arc of the game.  The fact that I was legitimately pissed at the kid says a lot about how effective their writing was.  The gods they meet throughout, the secrets beneath the surface, and to the end of the game the little plot twists that were thrown in were all part of what would make this one great, even for folks watching it like a movie alongside someone playing.

So, I guess I’m somewhat surprised even if I shouldn’t be.  The God of War series has always been somewhat of a hallmark for the quality of Sony’s first-party teams.  However, it always was kind of a brawler with a cool theme, and not necessarily a super deep experience.  This one turns all that on its head, giving us an extremely deep action RPG that still feels familiar despite all the changes.  The fact that they so fundamentally evolved this series is a phenomenal achievement.  This is the type of game that turns other platform traditionalists into PlayStation owners, and I can’t recommend it enough to go out and play it now.