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Game Ramblings #22 – Forza Horizon 3

More Info from Turn 10

So, I like Forza.  Of the now 11 games I have for the Xbox One, 4 of them are Forzas.  It goes without saying that I was looking forward to this one.  This was also a bit of an experiment for me, as it’s the first of the new Xbox Play Anywhere titles I’ve gotten, so it was going to set the tone in how I considered those purchases going forward.

Let’s get this out of the way.  The PC port was rock solid.  Visually it didn’t look that incredibly different than the Xbox One version, but that was already a fairly solid looking title on its own.  What it did get right are the details.  It has really solid 21:9 aspect ratio support, which a lot of PC games still don’t get right.  It has both really solid quick configure video settings for more casual users (including a really solid dynamic visuals system to keep framerate steady), as well as highly configurable settings for your higher end users.  Even on ultra, getting 60 fps was not a problem.  Also of note, they added a bunch of wheel support with promises to continue adding more.  Having played some with the Logitech G27, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it, but it was definitely worth a laugh.  So, that out of the way, the question then is how good is the actual game?

The racing itself is about what is expected of a Horizon title.  The cars still have a pretty solid feel to them, with the actual steering, breaking, etc still feeling relatively realistic, even if it tilts more towards the arcadey side of things when it comes to drifting.  Different classes of cars are very obviously in different performance tiers, and it’s obvious to tell the difference between the handling and acceleration dynamics of various vehicles.  To some extent the amount of damage that vehicles can take, even with simulation damage on, is somewhat outlandish, but given the gameplay it feels pretty appropriate without being completely over the top.  That said, AI drivatars are still somewhat rubberbandy, and definitely exist purely to provide a mark of in-race progression, because they generally have a tendency to run their line to a fault, even if you are already in the middle of the race line.  Overall though, the speed of races, and continued hilarity of the cross country events provides an experience that stays fresh as you proceed through each event.

The progression system of Horizon 3’s meta game has definitely seen some improvements over 2.  Whereas 2 had you going through a fairly linear path of championships back to back, 3 really pushes the open world to the forefront.  The name of the game is gaining fans, and gaining more fans allows festival locations to be upgraded, unlocking events, PR stunts, and ultimately the Horizon showcases.  Because everything you do inherently gains fans, you are much less locked into a core path.  One minute you may be doing a race, then hopping to a Bucket List, or looking for speed traps and jumps.  You also aren’t locked to vehicles for non-championship events, so I was changing vehicles at a much higher frequency than in 2.  Overall the game provided a much better play as you want it experience than past games, despite the fact that the first 2 titles were already fairly open in their progression.

I guess if I were to end it with anything, it’s that this is probably a good game to jump into if you’re at all a racing game fan.  If you’re purely a PC gamer and haven’t played a Forza game, this would fall in line with recent Need for Speed games, or the older Burnout Paradise as comparable games that have made it to PC.  If you’re a console gamer the list is pretty similar.  Really, if the idea of plowing through a field doing 180 in a Ferrari, all while mowing down bushes and jumping off a cliff into a river sounds at all appealing, you’d probably dig this one.  Yes, that happens.  Regularly.

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Game Ramblings #21 – Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens

More Info from WB Games

  • Platform: PS4
  • Genre: Action/Adventure
  • Also Available On: Android, iOS, PC, 3DS, PS3, Vita, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One

I’m a glutton for punishment when it comes to games with tiny little icons all over the map.  Assassin’s Creed and its glut of side missions causes me to spend hours doing chores every time a new one of those comes out.  Any open world GTA-style game I’m almost guaranteed to get sidetracked from the story while doing random shit all over the world.  In Lego games, I have to collect every single little damn character minifig, and enjoy myself doing it.  Lego TFA is no different, with characters and vehicles galore to collect, and I made damn sure to get my platinum trophy doing it.

If you’ve never played a Lego game before, they generally follow the same pattern.  Take a movie, twist it a lot with comedic reinvisioning of the story, make everything explode into lego studs that act as currency, and good to go.  They’re generally light hearted games, with good puzzle elements, and surprisingly fun combat for a simple game.  They also generally have a LOT of side quests in open hub worlds, and upwards of a couple hundred character minifigs to find and purchase.  Short version; this is a Lego fan’s dream, even moreso if they are a Star Wars fan.

All that said, as a standalone experience, this is still easily worth recommending.  The combat is typical short-combo action game combat, but the variety of characters and difference in melee and ranged combat gives some nice flexibility.  In addition, all characters can activate unique powers to help solve puzzles, so having a large crew of characters for post-game completion is also a big benefit.  By the end, most free play levels going for completion, it wouldn’t be too uncommon for me to be rotating between 10-15 different characters to grab everything.

In the end, whether or not you’d like this style of game is entirely up to whether or not you enjoy sort of light-action and a lot of collecting.  I wouldn’t lie and say it doesn’t get monotonous at times, but this is one of the best of this type of game that I’ve played of late.

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Game Ramblings #20 – Xeodrifter

More info from Renegade Kid

  • Platform: PS4
  • Genre: Action/Platformer, Metroidvania
  • Also Available On: PC, 3DS, Vita, Wii U

I’ve been grabbing a lot of the releases by Limited Run Games for my collection of late, and being a fan of Metroidvania games, this one was at the top of my list.  While this isn’t the best Metroidvania I’ve ever played, it’s one of best in terms of its raw mechanics, and that props up the main issues that I had with the game.  In the end, I really had two main issues with the game; it’s length and repetition of boss battles.

Unlike Metroid’s generally single open world, Xeodrifter takes place on 4 smaller locations.  While there is a bit of revisiting to each location, the small size means there is not much in the way of secret paths to visit.  There are a handful of spots in each world with hidden health or weapon upgrades, but not the breadth of secret areas that the Metroid games use to open up entirely new paths for core traversal.

Like Metroid, each core upgrade is also given after a boss battle.  However, the bosses in Xeodrifter all have the same visual design, other than a color palette swap.  Each battle also builds on top of the previous, with largely the same mechanics, with generally a single addition using the skill learned from the previous battle.  By the end of the game, this makes the boss fights quite a lot easier, as you’ve generally already learned the pattern of how to beat the boss, and can generally make a pretty good guess at what the new mechanic will be.

That said, mechanically this game really does shine.  It’s core shooting and movement is extremely fluid, and at a generally faster pace than would be expected out of the bigger names titles in the genre.  The upgrades also add a lot of flexibility to the game, with the standout probably being the upgrade that allows you to pass between different depths in the scene, not unlike the 3D gameplay used in recent 3DS Kirby titles.  Combined with other abilities, such as the submarine and dashing, you’ll often be juggling movement and shooting across multiple planes of gameplay at the same time.

Also of note is the gun upgrade system.  This game ignores the more standard straight beam upgrades from Metroid in place of a point-based upgrade system.  The guns can be upgraded in 5 ways; bullet size, bullet speed, fire rate, fire spread, and movement wave width.  Because of this, the guns can be upgraded in a way that suits the player’s style, rather than just being a straight upgrade.  For example, I maxed bullet size and fire rate, while putting a few points into the movement wave.  What this gave me was effectively a machine gun shooting large pellets, while moving in a small wave pattern.  I could have just as easily made a powerful slow firing shotgun, or something akin to a rail gun depending on how I wanted to play.  It was a truly fun way for them to handle the hidden upgrades typical of the genre.

Generally speaking, if you’re a fan of Metroidvanias, this is probably worth a try.  The game has its issues, but it has great core mechnicas, and is relatively cheap, so for a bit of a time filler, it’s worth the play.