gameplay – BabelTechReviews https://babeltechreviews.com Tech News & Reviews Wed, 03 May 2023 21:01:37 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.6.1 https://babeltechreviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/BTR-logo-blue-square.svg gameplay – BabelTechReviews https://babeltechreviews.com 32 32 Redfall Review – A Bloody Awful Mess https://babeltechreviews.com/redfall-review-the-bloody-performance/ Mon, 01 May 2023 20:00:00 +0000 https://babeltechreviews.com/?p=33606 Read more]]>

Redfall : Redfall provides some great gameplay elements to sink your teeth and time into but it also lacks direction and its vision is muddied with formulaic systems and some glaring issues. Editor's Note: After completing this review-in-progress, without spoilers, the full experience does not improve and the ending is extremely disappointing. We have changed the score from a 6 to a 5. Mario Vasquez

5
von 10
2023-05-01T20:00:00+0000

Vampires are a horror genre staple so it’s quite shocking we haven’t really had an amazing game release featuring them as the central villain in quite some time. So when Arkane, the makers of amazing games like Prey and Dishonored, announced Redfall in June of 2021, it captured my bloodlust. Xbox’s current weak place in the market is begging for a great release which puts a ton of extra pressure for Redfall to exceed expectations.

The excitement for Redfall’s hero-based looter-shooter gameplay centering around vampires has such a high ceiling because of this atmosphere. Microsoft needs a win. It’s Arkane, so we know they have a history of hitting it out of the park with combat, stealth, and a great story. But after delays, the announcement that consoles would be locked to 30fps at launch, and after a quiet launch week, some concern set in.

The press embargo was set right before tomorrow’s release at 8:01 PM ET today. A red flag went up instantly. This is a review-in-progress as we were provided a key close to release and have not had time to complete the entire story but have completed the majority of its major missions. In fact, a 69.4GB patch dropped this morning adding DLC.

After playing, I understand the fear of reviewers about gameplay spoiling major elements of the latter half of the game. For FPS fans, Redfall provides some great gameplay elements to sink your teeth and time into, but it also lacks direction and its vision is muddied with formulaic systems and some glaring issues. Let’s take a deeper look at Redfall in our review of the PC version for Steam. Thank you to Nvidia and to Arkane for providing a review copy for our coverage!

Characters

Redfall has you choose one of four main characters which is one of the biggest draws for me upon release. Going in with friends to experience a 4-player massacre of vampires and their minions could be a real blast. Central to Redfall is its first person and hero shooter design. The four playable characters at launch are cryptozoologist inventor, Devinder Crousley; telekinetic student, Layla Ellison; combat engineer, Remi de la Rosa; and special forces sniper, veteran Jacob Boyer. Redfall has more character releases planned later.

Each character has a trio of upgradable special powers, two are useable for limited times, and an “ultimate” that recharges more slowly over time. Each power has its own unique spin on combat and abilities to play with. Vampires invade the area known as Redfall, and after some opening events, there is no physical way to escape from the area. You and the town’s citizens are fish trapped in a bucket being saved for feeding time.

The opening sequence is pretty great and sets the tone well. The massive cascade of frozen water serves as an ominous foreshadowing of the immense power our enemies hold. Our characters had previous run-ins with the main antagonists that provided them with their abilities.

I really disliked that Bungie made us go to their website to read “grimoire” cards to understand the lore. The same thing is done here with Redfall – most of the backstory ends up by being briefly told in side conversations, and if you want more, you need to read one of the many, many notes strewn across the world or by gathering 100 items that provide more exposition from a central character. It is hard to describe how grandiose the game can be and yet so small at the same time before you actually jump in to play.

Disappointingly, Redfall at times can feel paper thin, and I believe it could have been truly great with more time in the coffin until it was ready to withstand the heat of the sun and its place in the current landscape. Gamers will notice.

We want the deep world-building and narrative that Arkane is known for, and if more time was needed for a sophisticated presentation, I would have begged for it. Without going into later story spoilers, Redfall’s premise is that a biotech corporation known as Aevum was working with a scientist seeking immortality, an experiment went wrong and the vampire hoard was unleashed. Almost immediately, many of the town’s residents became cultists who wanted this same immortality and began to worship and defend the vampires with the promise that once they die they would be reincarnated as all-powerful beings.

A once idyllic island town is now the center for survivors, and you are someone luckily granted special powers that you have right off the bat. Conceptually, its a great setting for this game and it was very interesting to explore. With vampire nests to destroy, bosses to defeat, safehouses to set free, and so much loot to gather for upgrades – the base systems are there for a great time.

But while Redfall’s premise does an amazing job of setting up some great missions, the presentation feels extremely dated. So much so I am not sure that most players will stay long enough to experience the latter half of the game which begins to feel incredible at times.

Let’s take a deeper look at the gameplay.

Gameplay

After the opening sequence, your first mission is to approach a surrounded firehouse with survivors inside. Cultists are standing outside, literally, not banging on the walls or trying to break in – they are standing there in groups just waiting to pick survivors off. This is the same immersion-breaking feeling most of the encounters have in the game. Something feels like it was missed or changed in development.

Most gamers won’t care about small details as they may just care about the overall story and the gunplay. Well, after first picking off the cultists, you meet your first set of survivors for your new home base. There is little to no backstory for the characters without reading interactable letters, and they sort of just fall into place as expert base builders with a doctor, a gun expert, a clergywoman, and more. Redfall is shockingly light on explanations and barebones in so many other similar places that lowered our expectations for the rest of the game.

This base is never attacked and is literally just a place you come back to get supplies, make occasional small talk, and interact with a missions table to get photo cutscenes between your custom character and the survivors. I believe the reason for this is because of only having four characters and it may have been easier to just replace their skin for the cutscenes. I understand that the visuals needed to be presented, but with such barebones characters it would have made me care more about them if they actually talked to you.

Between missions, they will talk to each other and then later you get in-game conversations with dynamic character movements and interactions that I really enjoyed especially near the end of the first half of the game. If this was more fleshed out, I would have cared much more about these characters and saving them.

However, none of it matters as once a major defeat occurs, in order to progress the story you have to leave the main island and can never return. I’d prefer to go back and experience those levels again when I want to and have fun in the sandbox that was created, but its completely shut off.

The second area feels more like the real main game in almost every way. Characters are more vocal, the area feels more dense and packed with hidden items and more enemies to fight. The story is finally fleshed out and its vast world is begging to be explored. Only in the second half is where Redfall shines and becomes extremely fun.

Gunplay

We suggest not playing the healer characters during single-player as they won’t offer much utility. Some of the abilities become extremely powerful with later unlocks like Jacob’s raven damaging anyone in its path. However, the AI needs some serious work and I often found myself ignoring gun perks and upgrades as a necessity to improve my experience.

None of it is truly fundamental to the experience and most hero’s abilities would help multiplayer sessions. However, story progression is not shared due to the nature of the game’s design but the loot and levels you gain are.

Flawed AI is one of the biggest issues we ran into. It’s bad. I mean really bad especially for the poor cultists who get the short straw. They funnel in the same path, get stuck on rocks, have clunky animations, and have no real cognition or ability to flank and outsmart you while at the same time having god-aim. It’s a bad combo especially when being sniped at from a distance.

I am not sure any patches can address this, but with Jacob at launch, AI is broken and basically stuck in easy mode. Even on higher difficulties and with later invisibility unlocks, I could cycle between walking directly into a large group of enemies, grabbing the quest item, and then going invisible again, and they would just go on their way. The same could be said about shooting from a specific area – the AI just funnels directly to you and poses no real challenge ala Deathloop.

Other characters have similar “cheese” but I would recommend increasing the difficulty of the game for a better challenge. The shooting experience is still fantastic – from sniper rifles to UV lasers that petrify the enemy vampires – it is a blast to play.

In some well-designed areas like the vampire nests, it reminded us of entering the Elder Scroll’s Oblivion Gates. These moments however are few and far between if you love to fully explore the world. Some missions are surprisingly good but getting there is such a slog that some may never progress to experience them. The moment-to-moment gameplay constantly clashes badly with each other. It is tiring especially when combined with performance issues.

Speaking of vampire nests, these are some of the best gameplay areas in Redfall. They pack strong vampires in large numbers that can overwhelm you quickly even with Jacob’s invisibility and it requires careful planning. Conversely, there is little punishment for dying as progress does not reset and there are typically no timers, so if you can go in gun blazing.

Vampire nests reached another level that let me see the vision for Redfall which makes it hurt to see it ignored for the rest of the gameplay. The tone, the atmosphere, and with your back against the wall fighting off vampire hoards is such an amazing concept!

In one mission, you go to investigate a boat and as soon as the quest item is picked up it triggers an angry mob that immediately surrounds your only exits with deadly red mist, a mini-boss, and a mob of bloodthirsty vampires. You can see this all unfold beneath you from the boat’s windows. Your only option is to bite back and fight your way out. The game is filled with these bursts of incredible and stunning moments with fantastic and engaging gunplay that is then mixed with poor performance, bad lip-syncing, and horrible AI.

I am really reminded of Destiny 1’s live service launch which was obviously a victim of a large form of rewrite and rebuild. Perhaps Redfall had a similar fate but we will never know. Arkane has promised gamers that this will be their most supported game yet and we really hope so. The core gameplay is incredible but it reminds us of Cyberpunk 2077’s promise of a better future when all we need now is the vampire killing fun we have been salivating for.

The loot, the loot, the loot, the loot, the loot

Let’s talk loot. Vampire bosses keep repeating “the blood, the blood, the blood, the blood” but all I care about is if they will give me fun weapons to kill them with. Loot and gameplay can keep a game alive for a long time especially if there are fun quests or some great special weapons or “exotics” to chase. A community can grow quickly when secrets are found or the best load-outs to defeat bosses are found.

Redfall’s weapons scale with your level and just pump out higher numbers of damage. Pistols, shotguns, automatic rifles, UV lasers, stake launchers, snipers, and flare guns round out a fun and worthwhile experience. Unfortunately, as the game fleshes out you see how exploration is broken by other reward types. So build-crafting with the right perks and skill point selections doesn’t make much of a difference now.

Pistols are often one-shot minions, flare guns burn and stun lock vampires, and stake launchers massively chunk any boss or special vampire. It’s all amazing fun and the combo load-outs you run can really allow for great gameplay loops. Although the cultists are really bad enemies, they serve little to no threat until much later when their level just means their incredible accuracy can health-chunk you within a second or two if you get careless. I died a lot early being overrun in confined space by the fast vampire attacks as they surrounded me. Some enemy abilities can also one-shot you. This would not be much of an issue in multiplayer but it felt bad in single-player mode.

That said, you don’t have to worry about dying in a mission because no progress is lost and you have so much junk loot currency that you will likely never spend. You do not lose any progress from dying, any damage or defeated enemies stay dead, and your mission status is retained. Most of the world’s junk loot like bleach, toilet paper, water bottles, etc. that you pick up gets converted into a currency for purchases back at the home base.

Things like med kits, better guns, and lock picks can be purchased with converted drop currency. However, most of the rewire/hack kits just lead to more junk loot or heals, which enemies drop, and are strewn literally everywhere. Most of the lock picks do the same.

There was no master sword moment or a huge loot drop that I was super excited for. This is because they aren’t necessary because vampire nests and a later world event granted me the best loot in the game. Most of your old loot is junked as you move on to the next mission anyway.

The combos are fun though as you need to either stake, petrify, or burn vampires. You can mix using a UV gun to petrify groups of vampires and then shotgun them one by one to dispatch a large group easily. If you take too long as Jacob, you can just go invisible with no real danger. I did this for the first big boss and didn’t even lose 50% health because a large power weapon pumps out such large chunks of damage the boss gets health gated and frozen before they can even react. I broke the game rather easily. Balancing needs to occur and much more AI work is needed. There was a huge patch today that hopefully addresses some of these woes.

PC Performance


I am beginning to call DLSS 3 a godsend but it should not be necessary just to enjoy a major release. The industry has lately given PC gamers the short end of the stick, but that is a topic for another day. We started our playthrough with our Ryzen 7800x3D build with an RTX 4070 Ti and 32 GB of DDR5-6000mhz RAM on our TeamGroup 2TB NVMe drive. Ours is far beyond a typical system, but from the onset we had massive crashes, stuttering, bugs, and large frame dips. Microstutters and texture problems also occurred.

The latest Nvidia driver helped and DLSS 3 almost doubled our performance. This still did not address some areas of town where we would dip into the low teens. Entering the menu could often cause the game to crash. Glitches like this ruined some major moments of our playthrough but with patches this may be resolved soon.

DLSS looks incredible and is a must-have feature. It nearly doubled performance on the RTX 4090 which was already performing great except for the 1% lows. The same could be said for our RTX 4080 and 4070 Ti. The newly released RTX 4070 also performs well but the game really needs some serious performance improvements.

There was a large 69.4GB patch today so we redid our benchmarks. Here are our numbers using maxed/Epic settings:

Testbed 1:

Intel 13900KF/RTX 4090 FE/2x16GB DDR5 6400/Win 11 – 3840 x 2160

TAA high/No DLSS – 124.3 av /  42.1 1% low

Quality DLSS 3 – 178.0 av / 72.7 1% low

DLSS 3 in particular allows for stunning gameplay and steady framerates with comparable image quality to native. Unfortunately, Redfall is sadly locked at 30FPS for the console launch with 60 FPS mode coming soon but now we can understand why: It just needs more time in development.

Testbed 2:
Post-Day 1 Patch with AMD Ryzen 7800x3D, 2x16GB DDR6 6000, TeamGroup 2TB NVMe, Win 11.
3840×2160, Epic Preset DLSS comparison:

Post-Day 1 PatchAvg. FPS DLSS 2/3 OFFAvg. FPS DLSS 2/3 ON
RTX 307059.689.4
RTX 308077.2105.7
RTX 407076.8110.6
RTX 4071 Ti90.1122.8
RTX 4080112.5137.3
Redfall by Mario Vasquez

Conclusion – try if you have Game Pass

We can not recommend Redfall at launch. I was very excited for Arcane Austin’s Redfall, despite the console war chatter, the state of Xbox, and red flags coming out from the game development cycle. I still loved my time with it, and in many moments I was having a good deal of fun, but most of the time the world proved to be empty or uninteresting.

I would not have continued as far as I progressed if I did not enjoy some of the big set pieces so much. I believe anyone with Game Pass should play it, even at 30fps on console. However, it’s a messy mix of RPG, looter shooter, and a multiplayer game that lacks a cohesive and consistent presentation. Couple this with terrible AI and a plethora of bugs and there are very high highs and very, very low lows. 

Redfall can technically be played solo, but we recommend the experience with friends as it is much better. It is also not going to be the major release to start the Xbox renaissance that we so desperately need. This review score is going to be low, but I am still rooting for it. There is something there at the core that is clawing at the surface to come out and be enjoyed. It is your choice if you want to power through the mud to get to the meat of it.

If you can withstand some glitches, read the story in text form with barebones character development, and have friends to play with then you will have a decent time. That said, the world is already so empty that traversing its many roads with no vehicles or large enemy population it can feel lonely walking large swaths of areas as a solo player. At times, I grew so frustrated with the experience I found myself begging for a story, begging for those cool moments, and I often felt unrewarded and angry.

Redfall releases later today on Xbox Series consoles, PC, Game Pass, and is Steam Deck verified.

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Swords of Gargantua VR Review https://babeltechreviews.com/swords-of-gargantua-vr-review/ Sat, 15 Jun 2019 04:10:07 +0000 /?p=13954 Read more]]> Swords of Gargantua VR Review on the Oculus Rift

Last week gumi Inc. and Yomuneco Inc. launched the VR-based action title SWORDS of GARGANTUA for the HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, Windows Mixed Reality and Oculus Quest. We tested our own sword-wielding skills against Gargantua’s minions and this is our review of the game on the Oculus Rift platform.

Swords of Gargantua is now available for purchase at $19.99 from Steam or from the Oculus Store. Although we received a review code from the publisher we feel that the price is fair compared to much higher pricing of many other new VR titles. Swords of Gargantua swordplay is incredible and is perfectly suited for VR. The harder you swing your sword, the more damage you will do. There are single player “quests”, or really challenges, but it is not an RPG although you unlock better weapons as you progress. Swords of Gargantua is a wave fighter with a Dark Souls vibe.

Swords of Gargantua can be played either single player or in cross-platform co-op play so that players can engage with three other friends or strangers in multiplayer action regardless of their head mount display (HMD) choice. Oculus platform offers play with players either on the Oculus Quest or Oculus Rift HMDs.

We were able to play both single player and multiplayer, and we were happy to find that matching up from Quick Play only took an instant before we were thrust into the action with 3 other players as we fought to protect our station from attacking NPC minions.

Performance

Unfortunately, the Swords of Gargantua single player campaigns didn’t go as smoothly for us as multiplayer. After completing about 13 or so challenges successfully, we encountered some serious bugs, and the Rift tracking failed us so that as an NPC approached closely for combat, we got turned around and around, and we were thus unable to fight back effectively.

We searched through user comments on multiple forums but we could not find anything that resembled our issues, so perhaps it is specific to our PC’s configuration. Updating the drivers, changing out multiple video cards, uninstalling and reinstalling the game, resetting tracking, and deleting the saved games made no differences to single player. This event immediately happened after the Oculus Rift platform updated itself, so perhaps our tracking issues are related to a Rift bug that doesn’t affect other games or even Swords of Gargantua multiplayer.

We feel that we were able to progress far enough to give our impressions of the Swords of Gargantua gameplay. Normally BTR gives performance data for each VR game using FCAT-VR frametime measurements and unconstrained framerates (i.e. performance of a video card: what it would be able to produce if not locked to 90 FPS). However, using FCAT-VR prevented the game from launching, and starting it after launch immediately crashed the game. NVIDIA was unable to give us any immediate suggestions after we reported our FCAT-VR issue to them but we will update this review if/when we hear back.

Instead we used the Oculus Debug Tool to view the performance in the HMD overlay of our three test cards, the RTX 2080 Ti, the GTX 1080 Ti, and the GTX 1060-GB. There are no graphics options that we could see in the in-game options for Swords of Gargantua as it appears to be developed on the Unreal Engine and optimized for smooth multiplayer gameplay. It can be run as recommended on a GTX 970 or a RX 290. Lighting, effects, and graphics are very good.

The game just looks great, and the only graphics option would be to set the pixel density higher (akin to SuperSampling) using the Oculus toolset. It also ran butter smooth on a EVGA GTX 1060 SC with a performance headroom of above 60% in worst-case Single Player scenarios with multiple NPCs attacking at once. We would say that Swords of Gargantua is well-optimized for the Oculus Rift platform compared with many other VR games that we have played, and a high-end graphics card is unnecessary to really enjoy the game

The Story

Source: gumi

There isn’t much of a backstory to Swords of Gargantua. You are told in the introductory scenes of a time when the gods nearly destroyed their worlds and are now destroying yours. You have been resurrected by a goddess and chosen as her hero, and although you have few memories of your earlier life, you are considered essential to battle Gargantua to reclaim your world. You actually face Gargantua in the opening scene and are immediately smashed by him. This sets up being resurrected over-and-over as you relearn battle skills to become the hero you are destined to become.

Gameplay

Each battle feels great because there is some real depth to the fighting including blocking, parrying, and attacking, and you need real strategy and knowledge of the game’s mechanics to survive. There is also great haptic feedback from the Touch controllers, and it just feels right when your sword connects or as you block with your shield. The audio is quite good and the sounds of the swordplay are excellent.

It is absolutely necessary to pay careful attention to the short tutorial since flailing wildly will get you nowhere. Swords of Gargantua reminds me a bit of the fighting strategy necessary to succeed in the pancake games like For Honor or Kingdom Come: Deliverance. The big difference is that you are in VR and are inside the game swinging your arms. You attack, parry, block, back up, and even turn and run when it’s necessary just to survive. Timing is everything. You also have to attack specific weak points on the stronger enemies to damage them more quickly.

Certain enemy NPCs also have strong counter attacks that you must learn to defend against. Sometimes it is better to run or dodge as certain attacks appear to be unblockable and you can easily be stunned. Your weapons have stamina and they deteriorate with use, but can only regenerate when sheathed, making it an important gameplay mechanic. You can also grab a new shield, sword, or other weapon placed strategically around the battle room when the old one is destroyed in SP mode, or stoop down to pick up a better weapon from the ground in MP.

It is important to be aware of multiple things at once. You must safeguard your sword and repair it by sheathing it at critical times by keeping an eye on your simple HUD. If you fail to do so and if you lose your weapon by having it knocked out of your hand, or if it is destroyed, you have a choice of turning your back to your enemy and running (using the controller) – making you extremely vulnerable – or you can back at half-speed toward a new weapon, continuing to block attacks with your shield and a secondary weapon that is more akin to a little knife.

Parrying is just as important as attacking – multiple parries at a critical moments will stun a NPC rendering it motionless for an instant, and you can also use your shield and your sword together to block a huge enemy NPC’s weapon swing at you. If you are successful, there are enchantments available to strengthen your sword for a limited time period.

By completing quests, you’ll also gain stars which progress you toward unlocking more powerful weapons of which there are about 30. There are goals with additional objectives in each quest that encourage you to replay it which will gain you a higher score with additional stars. These quest challenges encourage you further to becoming a master swordsman and they add to the game’s replayability.

There are also healing orbs scattered about the room where you can partially heal yourself – all the while timing and coordinating your strategy, defense, and attacks against the multiple enemy NPCs attacking at once. Some more stationary NPCs fire off destructive energy orbs that you will have to get used to dodging or blocking. Occasionally, there is a friendly NPC that works for you in singleplayer as a meat shield to distract the larger opponents, while you sometimes can sneak up behind them for a strong attack. As in multiplayer, if you have a few seconds, you can revive your downed ally so he can live to fight on with you.

As a mobility-limited player, I really appreciate that Swords of Gargantua may be played seated. We found it a bit difficult to use the dash function because it requires that you move your head as there is no button press or controller function for it as there are for turning.

I used a gaming chair and found that turning physically was unnecessary as the same thing may be accomplished by using the Touch controller’s sticks. But that doesn’t mean that we weren’t occasionally caught up by the excitement of the realistic swordplay, and we often found ourselves physically turning.

We occasionally smacked some furniture just outside the Rift Guardian’s limits. Swords of Gargantua is that realistic and that much fun! It is also exhausting and I could barely play it for more than one-half hour at a time. You can get your exercise and fun at the same time.

Fortunately, the goddess will resurrect you over-and-over so you can live and learn to fight another round.

Swords of Gargantua is also a difficult and frustrating game which is a part of its fun. You can play it on easy, but unless you really learn the mechanics and exercise the patience required to win each round with maximum stars, you may see “play again?” quite often. One thing that we didn’t care for is that the game doesn’t appear to support smooth turning. So your view changes in steps which may be adjusted by the in-game settings. This is one reason why we preferred to turn physically at times (which sometimes got us into trouble with the furniture and with the HMD’s tether).

As a player progresses through the game, more powerful weapons unlock, and at an early stage you have a choice of a small and fast sword that breaks easily, or a heavier and slower sword which is much more sturdy. You can also choose and dual-wield a couple of swords or pick a mace instead of using a shield. Your main weapon hand can be either right or left.

Multiplayer

When you enter a room for co-op you very quickly join 3 other players. Swords of Gargantua seems to be well-populated at the time of writing. Although the game features native voice chat, it didn’t work for me, and I didn’t enable Discord which is also available. As a single defense wave or hoard fighter, the idea is to work together to protect your mana station which is under attack from progressively larger groups of up to 16 enemy NPCs which also include some larger bosses.

source: gumi

After each wave completes, higher difficulties unlock, and you will finally get to fight Gargantua himself. Hopefully, by then your allies will have developed a good team strategy to take him down.

Source: gumi

There isn’t a lot of multiplayer variety as you will fight in the same room to protect the same mana station but at increasing difficulty. It’s the same with single player. Although there are over 50 single player missions and with 30 weapons to unlock, your mostly large monochromatic battle room itself doesn’t change. Hopefully, this will be addressed by the developer with additional maps as it’s easy to see that the game can just become a grind to get better weapons.

Conclusion

source: gumi

Overall, we rather like Swords of Gargantua. Since we have to score it, we will give it a 7.7/10 for all things considered – but not counting the issues we have with the SP bug that prevented us from progressing. We feel that Swords of Gargantua is a refreshing change from the usual as a unique VR wave fighter game with excellent mechanics. We can appreciate that it costs $19.99 which bucks the trend against very expensive VR games. It may take a player a lot of work to learn the mechanics of the game to be successful, but it is well-worth it in our opinion. If you just want a pretty but shallow hack and slash game, look elsewhere.

Swords of Gargantua has its flaws, most notable being the lack of variety in the map design, and we feel as it is, it can just become a grind for better weapons. To commemorate the release of Swords of Gargantua, the publisher has a campaign in which players can earn a special unique Red Sword. Each player who purchases and launches the game at least once will unlock this special sword at the end of the event. This event runs until Friday, June 21, and the unique Level 2 red-tinted sword (forged in the player’s virtual blood) will be delivered in-game in an update shortly after.

Happy VR gaming!

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Bannermen- PC Game Review https://babeltechreviews.com/bannermen-pc-game-review/ Sun, 10 Mar 2019 18:45:35 +0000 /?p=12955 Read more]]> Bannermen is an RTS game developed by Pathos Interactive that quite often boasts about it’s design being catered to fans of classic RTS titles. The classic gameplay that staples like Age of Empires, Warcraft III and many others have already given us are classics for a reason. Economy management, troop movement and interesting, fun technology trees make up the clone filled classic RTS genre. Bannermen’s development style designed to emulate some of these classic games may have hurt it. Before we take a deeper look, let’s look at what Bannerman is offering for $29.99.

Set in the fantasy world of Valtoria, the Bannerman story takes us on a journey told mostly through un-skippable dialogue between character models and rotating images with narration. The voice actor for the narrator is great and his delivery style has become pretty commonplace for these types of games.

The overall story here is quite simple and cliché for the time period – our Hero fails to defeat the enemy commander and is forced to start over from nothing and gather another army strong enough to try his hand at a final decisive battle. It’s a well-told story but pretty predictable.

Lord Berrian is your main hero throughout the campaign and if were not for him and the other heroes, the game would have little to no personality. Bannermen presents you with a single faction of medieval units. Spearmen, Knights, Footmen, Archers, Jesters, Convicts, and others make up a portion of the armies you will be using in Bannerman for multiplayer, in skirmishes against the AI, and throughout the campaign.

The journey taken throughout Bannermen’s campaign is told well enough to hold die-hard fans of the genre but it might turn newcomers away because of some tedious rescue missions and even the initial stealth mission where you have to avoid other units to survive through the map.

Unfortunately, we started experiencing so many small bugs and weirdness that the initial fondness we had for the game began to wane. We experienced no victory screen after defeating the AI in some missions, and also some annoying unskippable narration after failing to beat missions. Little things like this began to become frustrating and took away from the fun.

The enemy AI was defeated so fast I rarely needed to use my hero abilities to stay alive because the AI never truly fought back except for sending 4-5 units at a time to attack a random part of my base. Even with two Archer towers my base could probably hold up indefinitely.

This gameplay and weak AI might be really fun for some. Who does not love destroying AI forces or breezing through a campaign even on hard difficulty? I like a challenge and the online experience was that for sure, but I never wanted to invest much time in it because of Bannermen’s other pointless distractions caused by bugs and its unpolished UI.

I struggled more with the camera, buggy character pathing, and other small unpolished details than against the actual enemy that had supposedly just decimated Lord Berrian in battle at the beginning of our journey.

In the end, the gameplay felt like it lacked depth with only one single faction, and almost every campaign mission or computer skirmish could be won in the same way. Above is a perfect example in video form. I have already dried out the wood pile, one of two of the main resources in the game besides gold, and set up meager defenses. All I needed to do was repeatedly farm for 5 minutes for each mission, build a mass army whose composition does not matter, and it would end in victory every single time. There was never a sudden attack nor a mass army at the gates that I needed to defend again. The enemy AI just waited to be slaughtered.

Honestly, it was harder to build my base up then to attack and defend. For instance, I had to consistently tell the worker unit to build another house over and over until I realized the game was just failing to find a path to the build spot and the worker would just stand there doing nothing. You are forced to tediously path builders to their build spot or move armies to the desired attack again and again.

I even had some workers get stuck behind newly built buildings making them unusable units, or my mass army would get stuck at a choke point or bridge as if they were afraid to cross. It’s all so frustrating yet so avoidable with some additional polish by the devs.

The main narrator and the temple building are the two best parts of Bannermen. The temple building injects some life into the game as it allows you to use “nature powers” as an area of effect blast to defend yourself or summon a large bear unit to help defeat the enemy.

The rest of the technology tree and units are just too generic to be interesting. There is only one defense, an archer tower, and there are no walls and I never felt forced to build my way up to catapults to win. This means almost every game is the same with you quickly building the same army composition with a minor amount of archer towers to defend yourself.

This is a game that would only be better with the introduction of unique units in factions instead of just a different hero to differentiate the enemy. Even monsters or any creature-based armies would have brought some life to this game. More content, anything at all, to give Bannermen some flair and life is sorely needed.

I dislike holding classic games on a pedestal as if they are untouchable. They are not perfect. However, thinking of Age of Empires’ imperial age and other features, remembering Starcraft’s Terran voice acting and unit voice quips when being selected or moved, or hundreds of other classic things within the games of the RTS genre all helped build and keep a base of fans for various classics. It is the little things and the development time mixed with some unique flair that makes most of the classics really classic.

Bannermen’s consistent tagline of classic RTS gameplay in a new game for 2019 forces me to justify this purchase and compare it to those classic titles. This might serve as a good entry point for someone new to the genre with its simplistic gameplay, but anyone looking for a deep experience and a game that brings something new to the table will just have to look elsewhere or wait for a large content drop.

For $29.99, I struggle to recommend this game right now. I suggest checking back in a couple of months as the game can be polished with enough added content to make this a great game. The core gameplay of Bannermen is solid, it just needs some additional love and imagination.

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Battlefield V Impressions https://babeltechreviews.com/battlefield-v-impressions/ Fri, 13 Jul 2018 07:04:55 +0000 /?p=10561 Read more]]> Battlefield V Alpha Impressions

First-person shooters are now going back to explore the conflicts of World War 2 with most gamers apparently growing tired of the modern shooters. It feels like the perfect time to revisit this era after EA’s soft-reset for the series with Battlefield 1. We got to dive into Battlefield V’s closed Alpha and had some serious fun. The game feels like a great step forward, but it’s not without its faults and has a severe need for balancing. While the series is introducing new mechanics into the game, it also falters on a lot of the core mechanics that hardcore fans love. Naturally, an Alpha is a good indication of where the series is headed and a good way for the developers to receive feedback. Let’s take a deeper look.

Major Changes to Core Systems

The most repeated comment in the in-game chat during the Alpha was that the game did not feel like the most recent entries in the series – instead, it harkened back to Bad Company with fast kill times and hectic gameplay. We will discuss gunplay later, but Battlefield classes fall into specific playstyles and each have their core benefits, while a team in Battlefield 1 could dominate games without ever needing a support-class player or medic.

The most prominent changes now are to these core classes and how dependent players may become on them. Battlefield 1 is a title that is extremely friendly to methodical squads or to lone-wolf players that can take over games. You have enough ammo, gadgets, and so on, to be able to enjoy the game at your own pace. Unfortunately, my lone-wolf play style cost me life after life in Battlefield V until I was forced to actually play with the squad next to me.

Mechanics that promote team gameplay has been the goal for the developers for some time. There are some notable changes to core systems:

1. Health

Medics are the class that I have often gravitated to the most. Long-range rifles and the ability to heal and revive injured or downed players has been rewarding and fun in previous titles. A major change to the health system for Battlefield V increases the need for a medic on your squad.

Once you get shot and take damage, your injuries will remain. You will no longer be able to heal to full health on your own, and you will typically regenerate health back to around 70%. Any class and any player can also now revive any downed member of your team, not just medics, albeit with a slower animation. This felt frustrating at times when “bleeding out” after being downed, as you just watch as three squad members run by you ignoring your scream for help. Your reliance on others and med and ammo stations change the pace of the game and promote slower and team-based play styles.

2. Ammo

Ammo was ridiculously low for all classes. I almost immediately stopped using any other class but assault or support because I would run out of ammo so quickly that I would almost immediately get gunned down from some random area without any means to fight back. If you are away from a support member, ammo stations at preset locations can also resupply you. This is a good and a bad thing. It will funnel most players to these stations or cause them to stick with someone who can continue to resupply them.

Using an LMG with the support class would be the obvious choice here. However, almost all weapons in the alpha were severely outclassed by the assault class and the default STG-44. We will talk about that more in a bit, but there was also one more new feature that is being introduced and shown off in the Alpha.

3. Fortifications

The Frostbite engine shines in Battlefield V with great environmental elements and building destruction. The developer has stated numerous times that they toned down destruction to prevent the field from becoming flattened and destroyed as in previous titles. The compromise was to allow dynamic destruction to occur while giving every class the ability to build fortifications.

Essentially, fortifications in Battlefield V are pre-set locations on the map where destruction has occurred and a player can essentially use sandbags to provide some cover. Every player has the ability to bring up a tool to build sandbags or walls in areas that have been destroyed to provide cover for teammates. You can build roadblocks for tanks, sandbags, barbed wire, board-up windows, and more. Support-class players can even build stationary machine guns in fortified areas. The possibilities are endless.

The problem? No one was using it. I often forgot it existed, and when I would use it, the outcome was not significant enough to make a difference with the fast time to kill in Battlefield V. With some tweaking, in time this feature can be fun and it may change the game tremendously.

These and other additions to the game all sound great on paper to increase the amount of time that players will turn to other classes to win. The squad size has been lowered to 4 which means that each teammate is even more important. However, gunplay is obviously the most important part of any shooter. So let’s talk about the powerhouse of the Alpha, the STG-44, and bullet drop.

Classes and Gunplay

ADS, hit registration, headshot damage, and animations all feel amazing. The addition of all the aforementioned changes to mechanics and polish to the engine are promising and can change the game enough so that it stands out from previous entries. A lot of players feel the game needs some work, and this is what the Alpha was for. But a major gripe that I immediately felt was with bullet drop and time to kill. With bullet drop removed, Battlefield V feels much more like Call of Duty or Bad Company 2.

Here’s a look at the classes available in the Alpha:

Weapons in Battlefield 1 overall are pretty balanced and it does not have 1 or 2 guns dominant, a problem titles like Call of Duty have always had. As mentioned previously, the medic class and others suffer from lower ammo counts coupled with weak-feeling guns. You could get a kill, miss some shots, and be essentially screwed with less than a full ammo clip left. Almost all players in the Alpha eventually stuck with the STG-44 and assault class because others often felt under-powered. Especially on PC, skilled players can cross-map tap fire you with an STG-44 before you can even react.

Other classes can become great with proper balancing and improvements. Support’s LMG offerings were fine when you went prone and used the bi-pod, but this wasn’t as fun or easy to use. For players with patience it will be great, but for those that are fans of running in and holding an area or objective may struggle. Medics have some potential depending on the guns available at release, and the new healing and revive mechanics will make this class an important one to have on any squad. Recon players and snipers felt extremely powerful with the removal of “sniper sweet spots”, and a skilled player can dominate even more than they did in the sniper haven that is Battlefield 1.

The Alpha is fun but it needs finessing and balancing to prevent just a few guns from dominating. It is polished and beautiful, and the game can become one of the best in the series. Bullet velocity is also something that affected the Alpha’s Recon class. The most fun and balanced sniping I have had is with Battlefield IV with its slower bullet speed and pronounced bullet drop that allow skilled players to use the class, and for most snipers it was a fun challenge. Sniping in the Alpha felt much too easy since the developer has removed full self-healing, removed sniper “sweet spots,” and even removed bullet drop. Interestingly, there is a trend towards the introduction of gamification even in this segment, namely, a well-known developer of Poki online games has begun to create a prototype that can influence and improve all these functions, which are discussed in this article.

Graphics and Audio

The Frostbite engine looks amazing in Battlefield V. The visuals really looks great, and I cannot wait to see what other maps will look like. The snow environment map ran very well, and while there were many bugs we ran into, the polish is apparent. We will have a full performance test when it launches later this year.

[Gameplay Video pending]

Even on our GTX 1060 or a GTX 980 Ti, it felt very hard in certain areas to even see who was shooting you, and with a lowered TTK (time-to-kill), you are often dead before you can react. Characters are much less visible in darker areas, and while that is a good thing, spotting has also been changed to move away from the 3D spotting in previous titles. Previously, you were able to mark a player and an obvious marker would follow them. Now the idea is to make this harder and only allow full-on 3D spotting for the recon class.

Tanks, planes, and guns all look and sound amazing. The audio design is very well done and I often just found myself listening to hear where enemies were firing from instead of relying on giant markers to find them.

Final Thoughts

Any mechanic that prevents camping is a great one but it may feel cumbersome to those with different play styles. Yes, we do want a title that is different from previous entries in the series, but arbitrarily forcing a player to stick with a teammate or next to a pre-set ammo station feels off. I think these core changes were meant to make Battlefield V a more modern squad shooter and Dice succeeds here. When using the assault class and the STG-44, the games felt extremely fun.

Balancing always occurs after Alphas and Betas, and throughout a game’s lifetime. The overall package of Battlefield V with an actual campaign, battle royale mode, along with core gamemodes, could become one the best shooters ever made, not only just in this series. It is still far from that right now and I hope we don’t need multiple patches before it finally meets its potential.

We will, of course, have a full performance and game review when it launches. EA and Origin Access players will be able to play on October 18, those who pre-order the Deluxe edition will have access from October 16, while the Standard edition will launch for everyone on October 19.

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Wulverblade Review: An Intense Brawler Set in the Roman Era https://babeltechreviews.com/wulverblade-review-intense-brawler-set-roman-era/ Tue, 06 Feb 2018 18:35:41 +0000 /?p=9315 Read more]]> Fully Illustrated’s Wulverblade is a new entry into the classic genre of beat-em-up games like Double Dragon and Battletoads. Brutally unforgiving gameplay with instantly classic characters and engaging enemies draw you immediately into Wulverblade. The cartoon art style is set in a dark, yet beautiful, era where players control British warriors as they defend their homeland from the invading Roman horde.

Caradoc, Brennus, Guinevere are the three warriors you are given to fight the Roman empire. Caradoc and his two companions are fierce and unwilling to bend to the will of the Romans. You defend a hardened group of tribes that will defend their land to the last man, however, the 9th legion is 5,000 strong. Without a leader, the barbaric tribes quickly become overwhelmed and sadly will turn their warriors into soldiers for the enemy. You fight brutally unforgiving enemies and powerful bosses set in real-life locations. Bosses and enemies are all taken directly from history and this is shown in-game in the form of collectibles, narration, and cut-scenes all mixed together with incredible art and music.

Gameplay

Wulverblade is addicting and fun, and it has enough violence and engaging enemies to keep you playing until the end of its relatively short 5+ hour campaign. Beat-em-up games like this are usually short and to the point but that is what often makes them so great. Wulverblade is a part of a genre that contains vast amounts of titles to enjoy but it sets itself apart immediately by the developers dedication to history, great music, fluid controls, and more.

Wulverblade is a side-scrolling, left to right, game originally designed as a title for the Nintendo Switch and ported to PC, PS4, and Xbox One. The game features a gritty and well-done cartoon art style optimized for 1920×1080@60Hz and maximum settings at 2715×1527@60Hz. The game can run well on limited setups, requiring only a GTX 680 or a Radeon R9 280 and above. The game has limited graphics options with anti-aliasing including NFAA (normal filter AA), texture and environment detail controls, and V-Sync.

The gameplay is simple and lends itself well to those who want to play casually and button-mash their way throughout the entire game. The game feels like a classic brawler with sword attacks, blocking, juggling enemies in the air, calling wolves to your aide – and it only offers three lives.

Wulverblade lacks some depth that some may want as there are no real upgrade paths and only three character archetypes. Your original weapon is the only one you get to fully utilize throughout the game. The game features classic one-weapon gameplay with defensive and offensive mechanics to master. You may also pick up enemies’ dropped swords, severed heads, or various other items to throw; or you can find heavy weapons like cleavers or shovels to string light and heavy attacks. Heavy weapons are fun but once you are hit enough times, the weapon gets dropped and can be forgotten.

Wulverblade features three well-designed characters. Caradoc is fierce and is your standard balanced character, Brennus is big and powerful but slow, and Guinevere became my favorite character as she is brutally fast and fun to use but is comparatively weak and can quickly die.

Speaking of death, Wulverblade keeps the blood flowing continuously with wave after wave of enemy NPCs attacking from both sides. You will have a variety of enemies to fend off with typical combos and special abilities. Here is some gameplay:

There are also single special moves for each character and options on the battlefield. When you become overwhelmed with enemies, your character can launch their own special attack that clears enemies around you while sacrificing a small amount of health. You can also call on your wolves to clear the battlefield once per level while you try to save your three lives. You can also pick up items on the field or string enough combos to raise a meter that allows you to go into berserk mode where can you become invincible and run straight through any enemy.

The mechanics are simple but remain exciting and fun throughout the entire game. Juggling enemies in the air while simultaneously blocking and rolling away from arrows or cinematically chopping your enemies’ heads off is satisfying and fun.

Co-op and Game modes

From the start, Wulverblade offers the standard Campaign mode with checkpoints and save states. There is also Arcade mode where you only have 3 lives and 3 continues just like in the golden days, or an Arena mode that acts as a horde mode of sorts that has you battle waves of enemies to challenge others on a leaderboard. There is an additional Secret mode that unlocks after finishing the campaign, but we will not spoil it here.

Without spoiling anything in the game, there are several Boss encounters that are difficult, and your three lives will be cut to shreds over and over. When you finally defeat that tough wave of enemies or a difficult boss it is truly a blast. While there is no variety in weapons or character abilities, the three different characters each have their strengths and will require practice to master. Those looking for a challenge can get it with the much more difficult and unforgiving Arcade mode.

Wulverblade’s biggest flaw is in its co-op modes as there are three awesome characters to use but only two-person co-op. There is also no online matchmaking for those that like to play with others. The game would be exponentially better with online co-op, otherwise you are left with two player co-op in your home which hinders the game’s potential. This game is fun and I would have loved to play it online with some friends.

Wulverblade’s location videos, in-game lore, and level design throughout are beautiful. For those who love the history of the era and love to read lore, Wulverblade’s developer did a fantastic job of creating development videos and gathering stunning photos of the locations used to inspire the game.

Conclusion:

Currently, Wulverblade features 8 campaign missions and the open ending allows the developer the option to include more missions in the future. The game’s aesthetics in many areas is stunning, and the narration and lore are both fun and entertaining. Wulverblade is a great indie developer title and worth the price of admission of $14.99 on Steam. At that price, Wulverblade is a steal and we highly recommend it.

Michael Held, the Creative Director for the game, includes so many fascinating real-life photos and history that were incorporated directly into the game that it allows you to become fully immersed in pushing back the Roman invasion. Wulverblade’s gameplay is addicting and engaging enough that we wanted to finish the game, and we never grew tired of the campaign but played it until it ended. The game sorely lacks 3 player co-op and online pla,y but the base game is extremely fun and those who like to master brawler games have a strong and challenging title to enjoy.

Wulverblade is available now on Steam, PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch.

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PlayUnknown’s Battlegrounds Review https://babeltechreviews.com/playunknowns-battlegrounds/ Fri, 29 Dec 2017 19:45:52 +0000 /?p=8948 Read more]]> Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) concept is simple: throw 100 people out of a plane onto a large map and let them all kill each other. Every single game is different, but you land and immediately run for the nearest building looking for any type of weapon to defend yourself before the other 100 people in your area find and kill you. It is strategic, random, addictive, and brutally unforgiving.

PUBG has been on the market in Early Access for about a year, and it finally saw it’s full release on December 20th, 2017. The path here for developer Brendan Greene has been long as he originally tried to realize his concept with his Dayz Battle Royale mod for Arma 2 way back in 2013. DayZ itself was a jumbled mess of ideas and tests but it resulted in huge popularity at the time. The Battle Royale genre is booming and PUBG is the current king.

The Experience

At the start of every match, 100 players are boarded onto a plane (in solo queue, squad play, or free-for-all) and thrown onto a massive map filled with military bases, small towns, caves, wilderness, and most importantly, guns. The only goal you have is to survive, and this is what makes PUBG so intense. You can decide to land in a densely populated area with guaranteed gun fights and immediate loot; or you can instead choose to parachute into a small group of isolated building where you may be stuck with just a pistol and some bandages.

Every player can choose to play how they want – whether it be with guns blazing, or by roasting a campfire in your own private hut. But no one can hide forever. The game will force you into a random spot on the map with what I like to call the “storm.” If you do not move towards the randomly generated “safe-zone” you will be slowly killed by the incoming electrical storm that drains your health.

RNG is truly what keeps me coming back to this game. I can land where I believe I will receive the most weapons, only to be left with a single shotgun or a pistol. Other times, I will land and be full looted within a minute only to be mowed down by an entire squad.

PUBG is brutal and addicting.

Gameplay after a year in Early Access

Concept, sound design, variety of weapons and vehicles, and a 100 gamers in every match are part of the recipe to create one the best games that we have ever played. Recipes also require proper execution and PUBG – while very good – still feels like it needs to be in the oven for a little bit longer.

Gunplay in PUBG is stellar. Whether it’s a shotgun or a full-auto AR, the guns feel beefy and powerful in the right hands. Attachments improve the guns slightly but are not necessary to win. Guns feel right, and when combined with the large map and the need for survival, the game comes together fantastically.

A player ultimately becomes victorious when they master navigating the field while gaining awareness for every death trap. You must choose when to fire a weapon, choose when to enter a building, or when to move from your current location. Ultimately, victory is extremely glorious and satisfying. Even in defeat, the thrill of hunting other players will bring you back each time.

Performance, which we will dive into a little later, has improved but there are many bugs and exploitations from players that often interferes severely with gameplay. We have personally landed into several matches and attempted to sprint to the nearest loot point only to experience a terrible rubber-banding bug or the inability to pick up a single weapon, only to be immediately shot by another gamer.

The rubber-banding bug has already been semi-patched by the developer. This is good news but game still has little issues like this that can ruin the experience.

Exploitation of the system and “teaming” in solo play is abundant enough to become aggravating. You can jump into a free-for-all match only to be met with 5 players working together who kill you instantly. Team, squad play, is there to remedy the loneliness, but even then I had trouble finding lobbies where the player was from my country or spoke English so there was never any good communication. Bring a friend and the fun will increase exponentially.

Performance

As mentioned earlier, the PUBG recipe is here to create a fantastic game. But the flaws in the experience reveal themselves rather quickly in PUBG. Server stability is still a major issue, and while the aforementioned rubber banding bug has been somewhat fixed, we are still experiencing major connection issues.

Glitches often happen and hilarity will ensue when you simply crash into the tiniest rock only to have your Jeep blown to the next world. However, constant disconnects on a fast connection or “network-lag” detected screens are often infuriating and uncontrollable.

Development is ongoing but PUBG is still one of the best overall experiences that we have had in a long time, but the ability to play a stable game for more than a single match would be welcome.

We tested PUBG on our AMD RX 480, GTX 1050 Ti, and our GTX 1060 6GB . PUBG and Nvidia declare that the GTX 1060 is the perfect card to experience a stable 60 FPS at 1080p, and we agree:

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PUBG performs well on every card we tested but we often saw severe frame drops on our Nvidia GTX 1050 Ti when playing on high details at 1920×1080. The AMD RX 480 and the GTX 1060 sometimes had similar issues with the game running at 1920×1080 on High, but issues were very rare and most likely the result of bugs in the game. The overall experience was positive and can be extremely enjoyable with some patches.

In conclusion, PUBG has its issues and everyone knows it. Yet, it is still one of the best experiences currently available in gaming. The Battle Royale genre has these bugs and glitches that we have learned to deal with. The game is intense and extremely fun especially when playing with friends. You will spend countless hours chasing the win, or the “Winner Winner, Chicken Dinner” end screen. Some may never attain it, but the chase is so addicting and journey to the top is the whole reason PUBG is so widely popular.

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