G'day there guys and gals! This review has been a loooooong time in the works due to the massive undertaking that is Fallout 4: a giant world with many things to keep you going, addictive creative system and more side missions to shake your hat at. This was my first Fallout game that I've played straight on release, but I've experienced Bethesda's glitchy releases first hand before. But as a reviewer, I must be fair and judge each game for its merits as well as its faults. Fallout 4 is by far one of the best games you will play this year, but it is riddled with issues beyond bugs that may cost it its GOTY. For those unfamiliar with the world of Fallout, Fallout 4 would be the best game for you to pick and and enjoy as for the first time in the series, the game takes place shortly before the bombs falling on futuristic America. You play as either a male or female in the town of Sanctuary in Boston, basking in the glow of your loving family and newborn son when it is shortly interrupted by a Vault Tec worker asking you to officially sign up with the program. Either way, the warning goes out over the television that the bombing has begun and you race with your family to the vault and enter it in the nick of time. To avoid any further spoilers, skipping ahead, you have awoken to a destroyed world and the Commonwealth is holding together by its bare bones. Something very precious to you has been taken and lost and now you scavenge the outside to survive in an unfamiliar Boston and to find what has been taken from you. So let's begin with the standard. Storyline; overall I would personally say I am satisfied with the ending I made for myself (There are currently 4, which vary very slightly which is a small disappointment) but for the first time ever, I also both regret my choices and felt dirty. All the endings possible, in some way or another, never fully satisfy. It's clear that this is what is intended by the development of the game overall and to that, I tip my hat to the writers. Although the faction you choose to aid do make significant changes to the game, the ending you'll get will repeat only with slight dialogue differences. Voice acting is phenomenal; Bethesda has clearly taken the advice of the community and added a lot of detail into every character, from the main cast to the NPCs, every character is singled out for their own issues. Yes, their dialogue can repeat and the typical one-voice-guy does make a comeback (this time its Brandon Keener, better known as Garrus Vakarian) but you'll barely notice this in the midst of so many characters. A huge props to the voice of the Sole Survivor Brian T Delaney and Courtenay Taylor for their brilliant performances as the protagonist. While I generally play as paragon in many games, I couldn't help but choose the sarcastic voice option in some moments. Sound effects were beautifully done and I rarely came across a squish or a bullet sounding the same even being shot/punched multiple times. Musical score is also just as beautiful, I honestly turned off the radio just to enjoy the strings or piano during dramatic scenes; the hopelessness and struggle of the protagonist was captured to the point of sublimity. Graphics, while sometimes appearing off, on the whole were also incredible. While some in the fandom don't support the bright, colourful Wasteland, I fully support the new weathering system. Seeing a perfect blue sky change into a Radiation Storm for the first time is a beautiful yet terrifying experience. Character models are also greatly improved, especially the ghouls. A ghoul's melting skin is terrifying, even more so now that Ghouls have become a much bigger threat this time around. Finally, onto the main attraction, gameplay: admittedly, old fans of the series may be turned off by how the game now leans more towards a FPS standard, but the gameplay as a whole is a delight to enjoy. I was lost in the character crafting system for over an hour, creating my house and my base in Sanctuary became a ritual after every mission and for the first time ever, I became more dedicated to the side missions than to the main storyline. The sad point about this is that most of the side missions involve the Minutemen and after a while, they will repeat. A lot. I attempted to try to get the Minutemen missions out of the way, but the formula for their missions are just too similar: travel to a new area, take out a nest of Ghouls/Super Mutants/Raiders, tell the settlers, travel back to the Minutemen. This formula, and especially the dialogue, repeats WAAAAY too often to be enjoyable. Then if that isn't enough, eventually you'll be asked to travel back to an area and build new supplies or fend off an attack wave of enemies. There is also a glitch with some settlements where these missions will repeat even after immediately finishing them! But I digress. What about the other things in the gameplay? All enemies are now much harder than before; Feral Ghouls now charge and inflict Radiation damage, Deathclaws attack you and interrupt your attack with an animation, and the input of legendary/named enemies to indicate their level is a great move by Bethesda. Crafting is addictive and fun, farming for food and creating buildings is also a bunch of fun and both the paragon and renegade options will leave you with a body count incredibly high. The mini-games on the Pip-Boy are reminiscent of old Arcade difficulty which I adore, and the radio is brilliantly done as well. While some songs do make a comeback this time around (Which admittedly felt a little cheap), the addition of more radio stations with varying music (from classical, strings, 50s rock and roll and beyond) is also a definitely plus. At this point of time, what else more can be said about Fallout 4? The game itself is a definite must buy; I had wracked up nearly 40 hours by the time I was done with the campaign and I still had a bunch of side missions to enjoy. Fallout 4 gives you way more than what you pay for the disc and then some. Sure, there are glitches and bugs and many issues with the game, but I haven't experienced any game crashes or freezes in the game as of yet. Believe me when I say this; it is near impossible to completely 100% bug proof sandbox games. All variables and scenarios are hard to track. But in saying that, it misses a perfect score because of this, purely out of fairness. HOWEVER, does that make it a bad game? Absolutely not! In my eyes, the game is worth your purchase, your time and your social life. Bethesda has made Fallout 4 an absolute necessity to own. Out of 10, I give Fallout 4 a 9/10 Fallout 4 is out now for the standard price of $90
G'day there guys and gals! I have been a long time fan of Telltale Games and have long since sang the praises of many of its other work such as The Wolf Among Us and especially The Walking Dead. And with the announcement of a Game of Thrones style Telltale game, I immediately jumped on the bandwagon and prepared to have my soul destroyed. Telltale, sticking true with the series, have retained what has made the books and show both incredibly addictive and fascinating; no character, not even the protagonist, is safe from death. Warning! Some slight book/show/game spoilers ahead! Without diving headfirst into spoiler territory, Telltale's Game of Thrones starts (in the show's timeline) at the end of Season 3 with the Red Wedding and ends roughly at the start of Season 5. The main focus of the story revolves House Forrester; a Northern house which resides roughly south east of Deepwood Motte. The protagonists you will be playing as are as follows: Gared Tuttle, Ethan Forrester, Mira Forrester, Rodrik Forrester and Asher Forrester. While the game does center around the North and Ironrath. the home of the Forresters, players will also see many other exotic locations such as Meereen and Essos in general, The Twins, King's Landing, The Wall and more. As I mentioned earlier, Telltale has perfectly captured the meaning of "no character is safe" by the ending of the first episode, however it does not stop there. Player choices can well result in the end of a character in question and choices made earlier on, even those slight ones, will have horrible results by the end of the game. Even telling you this much is well into spoiler territory so for now, that is where I'll leave the info behind. The storyline itself is utterly fantastic, once more Telltale as written a perfect set of characters who are unique to their own attributes and morals, even siblings are vastly different yet share some similarities, even with Gared Tuttle. The inclusion of more well known characters such as Tyrion and Cercei Lannister, Jon Snow and more, while including their actors as the voice roles, was a brilliant nice touch to the series overall and added a definite air of magnitude to your actions. Bits and pieces were a tad cliche at times but is easily overlooked by how much depth of character they have by the end of their screentime. Gameplay is, what we can now call, classic Telltale: basic point and click. However by episode 2, the gameplay is improved with well designed Quick Time Events. While ordinarily we as gamers groan at quick time events, these quick times almost always managed to bamboozle me with their speed, as they would slowly fade in or quickly appear. The constant change between these did indeed keep me on my toes, so for this, I do praise the change. Players can also experience some FPS, Hold and Move and QTE joystick movements from time to time. Musical score takes a nod to the show, especially by the end of Episode 6, but creates its own for the Forresters here and there, which gave their home and struggle a much more earthy, desperate feel to the game overall. Sound effects were also good, human grunts and groans do tend to be repeated oddly at times (especially in episode 1) but in the midst of an action scene, you won't notice it unless you pay close attention. Graphics are extremely well done, especially on the character models; the detail to each character (especially in the eyes, facial expressions and hair) looks exquisite. Areas and objects during gameplay can often give off the feel of an oil painting at times, almost as if the characters you're playing as are moving inside a painting. To me, at least, I enjoyed this look overall and liked the art direction, as it truly did well to match each area of Westeros and beyond: King's Landing was colourful, bright and warm, using many bronze and gold colours, while The Wall maintained is dark blue, and faded white look, the sense of a cold place was well captured. Finally, voice acting. In the past, we have seen many voice actors find their full careers ahead of them in previous Telltale titles and this time is no exception. The vocal cast did an absolutely beautiful job in bringing the world to life inside the world of Game of Thrones. I absolutely hated Gryff as a character, thanks to his voice actor Sasha Dhawan. The choices in every game were made easy or near impossible thanks to my love or hate for every character in this game. I will admit, Kit Harrington as Jon Snow was a teeeeeensy bit off at times (Almost as if he was reading the lines after just been woken up over the phone), but even the actors inside the show did a brilliant job in enhancing their characters through a video game, especially Emilia Clarke, Lena Headey, Peter Dinklage and ESPECIALLY Iwan Rheon. I highly expect that man to go on doing more voice overs for many games in the future, as he has a definite talent for it! Overall, it's easy to say that I am deeply impressed and enthralled by this game, but those words use too little description to how much I've come to love these characters. The ending itself teases at so much and gives so little into what we see and hear that a Season 2 is a definite must and I pray to the Old Gods and the New for a return for this series. Once more, Telltale has made a storytelling masterpiece in a gameplay style that anyone can play, book, show or new fan alike. Bravo! Out of 10, I give Telltale's Game of Thrones a 10/10 PERFECT SCORE! Telltale's Game of Thrones is out now for the standard price of $30
G'day there guys and gals! By now, you're probably wondering where my review for Fallout 4 is, and I'm here to tell you that it is most definitely on its way! This is my first absolutely fresh Fallout game and I'm trying to be as wide range with my experience as I possibly can to give you folks a better understanding. And yes, don't worry, I'm keeping track of my bugs so far. As for Telltale's Game of Thrones, I did originally write pieces for the first two parts but I decided against writing more due to my hiatus for University. I'll be doing a full review and score after the final episode is released in a few days. Past those two...I don't really have any other plans for the moment, but I'll be reviewing what I can, when I can. Don't forget to check out my twitter page for updates, news and just general tweeting. Otherwise, it's business as usual. I'll still be chugging along with University. I hope to be finished shortly after my next birthday, which is coming up in a few months. Speaking of birthdays, The GameCave will make its 5th birthday this coming Thursday! Despite beginning as a hobby, I'm so glad to see people still take an interest in this site over so many years. Perhaps one day I can make a career out of it, or better yet, someone could review one of my games for a change! All that aside, thank you for your continuing support and well wishes to you all. And as always, have fun and game on!
This has been a long time in the making, thank you all so much for your patience! For all links, check them out in the YT page. All disclaimers also in the video and the description. Enjoy!
G'day there guys and gals! Shortly before the year of 2002, I happened to win a competition from an Australian tv show called Cheez TV. The prize? A brand new Xbox. I received the console a few weeks before the Australian release date, and one of the games inside was Halo: CE, which I still have today. In my entire country, I was the first to play Halo publicly. By now you are most definitely asking yourself "Why are you talking about this? Review the damn game!" and to that, I will reply to you with all you need to know: the gameplay, the musical score, the multiplayer, all of these things are improved dramatically and if these are all you need to buy this game, go for it. But the fancy graphics and the choppy and the lack-there-of in depth story is definitely a major turn off for long time fans. For those unfamiliar with the upcoming plot, Halo 5 Guardians takes place a year after the events of Halo 4 and begins with Fireteam Osiris taking place on a rescue and assassination mission, which somewhat wraps up the events of the Spartan Ops (I say loosely because if you don't read the books, didn't play Spartan Ops or anything else secondary to the main games, you will be immediately lost). Soon after we also finally meet Blue Team and take control of Master Chief attempting to retake a facility, and it's here that the entire story takes over. (SPOILER ALERT) But it's in this that the massive faults begin to show; in playing as Chief, you discover that Cortana is alive and kicking and you being Chief, naturally, you go off in attempt to find her. In the game itself, the reason to why she's alive is barely glossed over further on in the gameplay. What makes this worse is that you'll have a total of THREE missions as Chief. I'm all for new characters and storyline but if you're going to advertise for a two sided story, make it half and half! Also worth mentioning is that a further three missions with Fireteam Osiris are nothing but two minute talking missions! You begin, you run to your objective, talk to a person, talk to another person and get on a Pelican. This happens three times (two in the same area!) followed by either a cut to black or a short cutscene. Another major annoyance is the advertisements of the game itself have very little affect to the actual gameplay and story. Do you want a showdown between Loche and Chief? Well, I hope you like a cutscene cause that's all you'll get. ALL other moments between them are cutscenes; their conflict begins in a cutscene and is over in a cutscene? The advertisements of Chief or Locke bleeding out in front of their opponent? Never happens. Chief supposedly killing civillians? Never happens. The CLOSEST you'll get to that actually happening is due to another force entirely, one outside the Chief's control, which is irrelevantly obvious from the start. To see the advertisements for this major conflict, for Chief to be the bad guy, now it's clear that it was to hide who the real antagonist is. And for your sake, I will save you from that spoiler. (SPOILER END)
What does this all mean for the storyline itself? Well you're going to get lost. A lot. Many things are glossed over or barely explained, to the point where you'll be doing some major research to to understand what exactly is going on. All previous story development from Halo 4 and the Spartan Ops are dropped and basically ignored except for the pivotal plotpoint from the previous game and in classic Halo sequels, the game ends in a cliffhanger. Gameplay itself is excellent, despite it's brand new elements. Halo 5 introduces many new elements into the gameplay such as advanced melee and ground pounds, zoom in for all weapons, etc. The four player based co-op is also an incredibly nice touch, playing with friends is a definite bonus to breezing through the main campaign missions (15 in total) in ease. If you prefer the lone wolf style, you can still play on your own with AIs helping you out. Their movement and recovery can be a bit off at times (often getting stuck or killed, they have no sense of self preservation), but otherwise provide a decent amount of damage or distraction. Musical score and sound effects are typically what you'd expect out of a Halo game, the score definitely outshines the sound effects themselves, sometimes to the point of what's happening on screen. It does lack in a few areas but it is otherwise appealing. Voice acting for the most part...is acceptable. The main cast had strengths and weaknesses; Jen Taylor and Steven Downes are once more brilliantly done and add an incredible atmosphere into the game, while many of the additional characters tend to sound a little forced or out of place at times. Graphics are stunning, simply said. The world and scenery are especially breathtaking, while all character models look incredibly detailed. Spartans in armor do tend to look like a spotlight is constantly shining on them, but this helps show the added detail into the game. Finally, onto multiplayer; for anyone who read my Beta notes, you know I had a LOT of issues with the Beta and I'm happy to report many of them has been fixed! Players dying doesn't equal a killcam and a swell of music every time and no longer trap players in them, I've had very few issues with connectivity and playing overall and what is presented is well polished and maintained. I would be remiss to ignore my slight disappointment in the lack of many, many options for multiplayer (With most being variations of Team Deathmatch and Free For All), but I will admit the new mode Warzone (Where two teams of 18 people battling over a large area for control) is incredibly fun and addictive! Multiplayer also introduces the usage of bonuses, boosts and equipment for Warzone, some which you can unlock by furthering your experience or completing tasks, but the option to outright buy these boosts are there for those who wish to indulge. Overall, what the game presents is good from a technical standpoint; the game play beautifully, it runs excellently and overall it's had a smooth launch. However, while the campaign itself is fun to play, the storyline and the lack of plot movement is truly a massive disappointment. I've been struggling to give it an accurate scoring based on my experience, but I've manage to come to this conclusion: if you love multiplayer type games and can waste days playing them, you'll find little fault in this game. If you're wanting a deeper story for Chief, Locke and the continuation from Halo 4, what you'll get is a cut and dry, need-to-know only basis story to advance the plot with nothing explained and everything open ended, especially if you don't read the books, listen to the audio "Hunt The Truth" clips or anything else outside the main games. A good, although unsatisfying, addition to the Halo series. Out of 10, I give Halo 5: Guardians a 7/10
G'day there guys and gals!
