A New Cave

G'day!
If you're reading this, chances are you found this from my many, maaaaaany links over my time of using this site, or just randomly. Either way, hello!

After almost a decade of using this website, I'm sad to report it has come to an end. Blogspot has been very accommodating to my needs, but safe to say, change is good, especially as over time, this site has lost track too many times. I've used the same background, the same format, the same...everything, for almost nine years, not to mention countless hours of work for zero feedback. To quote one of my favourite games, "History is the study of change. Change is life. When things become stagnant, it means they're dead.". I'm hoping with that change, I can connect more with my fellow gamers.
So the site is changing, but the reviews are not stopping just yet! I can't throw away nine years of reviewing games. The games aren't changing, but I'm certainly swapping caves.

Keep up to date with my latest reviews over on WordPress. Follow the link below!

I hope to see you there, and from the bottom on my heart, thank you.

https://thegamecavereviews.wordpress.com/
Allan. 

Review: A Plague Tale: Innocence

2019 has not been a kindly year to gamers. There has been flop after flop, a lack of games being released and a lot of shady moves by developers. The first half of 2019 for us has basically been the final scene between Anakin and Obi in Episode 3. All year long it has been so hard to recommend any games on this page, as I prefer to sing to the skies about awesome games that I'd like you to try, which has resulted in this page being very quiet this year.

A Plague Tale: Innocence is a quaint game. It is a simple game. But it's one that absolutely deserves your attention, your money, and your time.

Set in the 14th century France, you play as a Amicia, a noble lady living a simple life. Her little brother Hugo is sick and she has barely ever seen him. But suddenly, out in the forest, there are signs of something sinister brewing, and the Inquisition come knocking on the De Rune family door asking questions. Tasked with protecting her baby brother, Amicia and Hugo take off into the countryside, looking for help, safety from the Inquisition and to see what has truly been set upon France in all its horror.
I can't talk about this game without mention just how gorgeous it is. It's dark and full of gore, but also light and beauty at times, it truly captures what it's like to walk through a forest during the day and what its like walking into a dark basement, capturing that childlike horror where we have all latched onto something we hear in the dark and are terrified. The atmosphere is utterly stupendous. I cannot sing its praises enough.
The voice acting is fairly well done, a tad melodramatic at times, but still impressive considering the cast of relatively unknown actors to the voice acting world. The relationship between Hugo and Amicia is wonderful; speaking as a little brother with a big sister, I can absolutely vouch that some scenes in particular had emotions running high. Sound effects were greatly done, especially when it comes to the plague in question (which gives a zombie vibe but twists it into their own gruesome sound and feel when it comes to the game.

Lastly I want to mention gameplay; slightly above I mentioned the simplicity, but there's a little more to it. Playing as Amicia, you must take Hugo along with you, sneaking around guards, causing distractions with rocks and pots, knocking out guards with your slingshot, and always making sure your brother remains healthy and comfortable. Leave him alone or get out of his line of sight and he will panic, screaming and calling for you and alerting every single enemy nearby to your location. Amicia isn't covered in armor, her slingshot is her only weapon but it's going to do nothing against armored knights. One hit, one wrong step and you're done for, Hugo is done for. Every choice you make, be it staying crouched or pushing Hugo through a gap first will determine if you live or die.
You can also craft upgrades for Amicia; higher inventory numbers, upgrades to her sling and sneaking ability and so on. This comes within the first quarter of the game and helps with the exploration of a corridor type game. 

There's not much more I can say about this game without spoiling key story moments, but the game starts and ends in quite different places with a meaningful overall arc for the characters, world and how it shapes France. Amicia and Hugo are not the same people as they were when they first set out, but I leave their story in your hands. Roughly a 20 hour experience for less than the standard asking price, a great story and great twist on a plague story (with a few vibes of Dishonored here and there, but you can't avoid that with rats), A Plague Tale is yet another excellent example of what a small company can do with a passion project with a talented team behind it.

A Plague Tale: Innocence: 8/10

Byte Sized Review: Rage 2

RAGE was a terrific, but flawed, game. It had a simple but great storyline, fun mechanics and most of all, great gameplay. It was only set back by a bit of glitches, bad audio, tad bad voice acting at time and the now infamously ridiculed ending. There is a veeeeery bad review I wrote for it many years ago, but to put it in context, I gave it an 8/10, and honestly I'd stand by that. Maybe not the line of "It may very well be the Doom of this generation", but hey, it's still a great game. Especially worth it now for a cheap price and a 20-30 hour experience, longer if you do the side missions.

You may be wondering why I'm focusing on the original RAGE instead of its sequel. The reason being, I can bring myself to talk fondly of RAGE. I can't do that of RAGE 2.

RAGE 2 kicks off the action immediately; you choose your protagonist, and immediately set off to fight the Authority that's attacking your home, reducing it to rubble and twenty people left. You are the last Ranger, a bloodline of people from the Ark (that your OG protag opened) and can don special armor that gives your character abilities, such as extra jumps, groundpound, focus, etc. The world is massive and open for you to explore with your goal quite simply; kill the baddie, save the local communities.
And then it's over. The sequel for a 30 hour long game is barely 8 hours long, 6 if you discount the amount of grind. And yes, you will need to grind in order to continue playing story missions (much like how Saints Row required you to get Respect by doing certain tasks or in world activities). But taking that out, and just focusing on the story, for a full priced game...that's horrible. 
Don't get me wrong; the voice acting is pretty good, the graphics and sound effects look great, the gameplay is good too, but there's simply not enough or nothing innovative or new to keep me playing this long term. I barely managed to get through it because, in full honesty, the game is a generic shooter. I've been writing reviews for almost nine years, I've been playing a lot of games long since then, and this is as generic of a shooter as you'd find. The gameplay is DOOM (naturally speaking since Id made this game) mixed with a few others such as Saints Row, Infamous and a splash of Halo 5. I personally didn't find any bugs or problems with the game, so that's a small bonus to be had, 

It's fun, but it's nothing I haven't seen before. The story is lackluster, the open world is dead and repetitive (the extra tasks you need to do are mostly fetch quests or destruction based). If you're more of a casual gamer, barely played any shooters or mostly stick to one genre, you won't find many problems with this. Same if you're a giant DOOM fan or just don't care about stories or intricate details and rather blow/slam/explode/shoot things up. You'll have a blast.
But for the rest of us...wait until there's a price drop at the very least. If you have little curiosity, give it a pass all together. Nothing new to the genre is added, nothing of note can be said, and selling an 8 hour empty experience at full price is why I am dropping a point.
The original game is a TENTH of the original cost and almost four times longer. Spend your money there.

RAGE 2: 3/10

Review: Days Gone

Zombie games. Most definitely bulldozed into the public eye by the success of the Nazi Zombies mode in Call of Duty World At War. Ever since, zombie modes and zombie games have capitalised on this for the better half of a decade. In the last few years, the genre has seen better days, as the public has mostly moved on, while the core zombie fanatics remain, myself included. In full honesty however, the genre has grown stale, with too few games released capturing my attention for long. So many copy the same formula, the same concept, the same methods.

Days Gone is not one of them.

Set in a modern day world in the American state of Oregon, you play as Deacon St. John, an Enforcer NOMAD of the Mongrels Club. All hell is set loose as the Freaks, the zombie-like plague, has hundreds of thousands of infected people bearing down on him, his biker brother Boozer (AKA Boozeman) and your wife, Sarah. Sustaining an injury, Sarah is placed on a helicoper by a Nero scientist inter O'Brien, while Deacon stays behind to protect his injured brother.
Fast forward over 700 days, Deacon and Boozer are Drifters, people who travel from camp to camp running errands, saving enough credits to buy upgrades for their bikes and finally travel north for a fresh start and escape their ghosts...until everything starts going right, and wrong, for Deacon.
The story here is incredibly deep and satisfying, on par with The Last of Us; never focusing on unnecessary exposition, but drip-feeding information at the right time. Stories and characters branch out and expand as time goes on, feeling organic with the time frame and how Deacon's position in teh world changes around him. After almost 40 hours of gameplay later, I was extremely happy with the conclusion, with the characters arcs being neatly wrapped up, and the appropriate questions being answered (and so many more being added with the secret ending, wink wink). The sound effects and musical score were also genius and fitted perfectly into the world, although I do wish there was more of a score to be had. The world was so open and large that it felt empty and dead; don't get me wrong, that's great for a zombie game, but not so great for players sitting on over 24 hours of gameplay and listening to the same dialogue lines, the same engine noise and same screams over and over. Graphics wise was nothing short of beautiful; so many times I stopped to just admire the view, especially when it began to snow or exploring snowy regions. As a man who has never seen snow, it was breathtaking to see it and experience it in such detail. It's scary when it wants to be scary, and jawdropping when it wants to be jawdropping.

Onto to the meat of the game - gameplay. The only way I can explain it is to compare it to a good mix of Dying Light and The Last of Us; players can explore a massive, maaaaasive open world, slaying Freaks, Horde of hundreds of Swarmers, Screamers, Breakers and more, traveling from place to place on their trusty motorbike. Being in a broken world, you're gonna need supplies, which can mostly be found in camps, but to make items, you'll need to find what you need (or wait for Boozer to do it). Finding most of what you need is easy enough, it's tracking down that last thing (looking at you Kerosene, WHY CAN'T I JUST USE PETROL?!) that completes the craft. But it doesn't stop there. Your bike breaks, you need scrap to fix it. Bike run dry? Better find a gas can. Out of bullets? Best hope you refilled your satchel, or your melee weapon isn't near breaking.
Then comes the world itself; it can be slightly empty in certain areas during the day, but at night it when they shine...with the dozens or hundreds of Freak bodies scrambling to come and consume you since you accidentally fired a shot nearby instead of using your bow. NERO injector sites to increase your health/stamina/focus, Horde locations, Ambush sites, marauder camps, camp objectives, there's plenty to keep you busy long after you've finished the game (or like me, in between missions). The one mistake to note is that doing all of this, you may sense a theme; your tactics never really change.
Go to a location, track/follow your target, take them/their group out, return for credit, repeat. This also follows for most of the main story. In short, there is a lot, a LOT, of simple gameplay.
BUT, simple doesn't mean bad. Repetitive is a bad thing, that is for sure, but repetitive isn't bad as long as the gameplay is fun, exhilarating or keeps your attention, which I'm glad to say Days Gone did for me in spades.
By far the biggest pull for this game was its voice acting. Sam Witwer takes the reigns of Deacon and once more, he steals the show. He truly creates Deacon as a living, breathing man; the additional effort in his vocal work to make Deacon sound paranoid, scared, angry, even exhausted after finishing a firefight is nothing short of phenomenal. The supporting cast was also fantastic in creating such a living world, feeding off the world around them; character emotions felt raw and electric when conflict came into play. 

Naturally, I do have to mention bugs and problems, sadly which this game does have in spades. Respawning after dying can put you in insta-kill areas, scenes will often keep motion blur at bizarre moments. Screen tearing and frame rate issues are incredibly frequent when Freak numbers are larger, world loading can also have problems after upgrading your bike to faster speeds, with camps never fully loading and being a hollow, empty mess of sinkholes. Graphics can also take a dip during these moments, with assets partially disappearing in areas or completely reverting to their Normals mapping (with a strong T pose quickly following after the load). 

In full honesty, I've been struggling to grade this game. When it comes to reviewing, I try to be as clear as I possibly can, showing what parts I believe most gamers will enjoy, while explaining others that most will dislike. This game has changed my opinion somewhat on buggy releases; there is a genuine mistake or things outside the creators control that occur, and then there's pushing a half baked game out the door to earn a quick buck. This is Bend Studio's first game release on the PS4 and their first main console release in almost 12 years. This studio poured their heart and soul into this game. There are parts that do hold this game back, but what's been released at launch is more than enough to deserve your attention, with hopefully more coming in the near future.
Days Gone is a love letter to the zombie genre, and while it is flawed, any gamer who enjoys the genre and is in need of a new good story heavy game in 2019 should look no further.

Days Gone: 8/10 

Review: Jump Force

Shonen Jump has reached fifty years of publication, which is a tremendous accomplishment. They are the staple of all things manga related and are widely known for their highly successful and popular series. In celebration of that, Jump Force is an amalgamation; the best of the best all cuddled together in a single fighter game. But at the end of its story, at the end of its 40 hours gameplay slog, it wasn't a celebration anymore. It was a grind. And a painful one at that.

Before I get into the gameplay aspects, I want to mention the games roster: at time of writing, forty two characters from multiple manga series (Dragonball, Bleach, Naruto, One Piece, My Hero Acadamia, etc) can be played and their abilities used by your protagonist in the story, which is an amazing feat. While many of them are missing their more modern abilities, they retain their classic and iconic attacks, which help you as the protagonist, feel just as powerful as them. With that aside, onto the game.
The story is quite simplistic; Universes and worlds are crashing and blending into one another.You as the protagonist, are hit by an attack by Frieza, hit in a crossfire. Trunks, seeing no alternative, pushes an Umbra Cube into your chest to heal you, and instead of becoming a Replica (cannonfodder former humans who follow the bad guys), you are bestowed with incredible strength, speed and the ability to fight using all sorts of powers from any universe.You go on to help out Naruto, Goku and Luffy at the Umbras Base, and vow to the Director to fight all the Replicas and beat whoever is behind this attack on the human world.
It's a typical bad guy VS good guy story with a few very predictable twists thrown in the middle. Characters will betray you, adhere to you, and heroes from each universe will slowly join you once they are free from the Umbra Cube's influence. The bad guys are your typical "Destroy universe, become the ruler" trope, and here is where the issues come into force. Classic bad guys are following your antagonist Kane because...chaos. Each of their reasons is very fleeting; from using him for further power to basically shrugging it off, there doesn't seem much reason why they're helping him. But bad guys gotta bad guy I guess. As for the endgame, it was highly unsatisfying, at least for my eyes. Forty hours of grind, gameplay and cramped hands for two cutscenes going from getting strong, being beaten (offscreen mind you), and a five second defeat cutscene? The ending seemed a little...rushed. But most people don't play fighting games for the story, they play for the fighting. How is it?

The gameplay, quite frankly, is incredibly good if not slightly flawed. Bandai Namco have neatly mixed many of their classic mechanics into a single game and it works fantastically. Players can unlock/buy any ability from any character in the game and use them during online and story mode fighting. Are you a big fan of Vegeta's Galeck Gun, but want to mix in some Detroit Smash in the mix? You're free to do so! Mixing and matching different abilities and elemental attacks is key to winning victory in fights. However, the biggest flaw of the combat mechanic would be the block button.
Blocking will eliminate all abilities and attacks, no matter how strong your attack is. Has the AI been kicking your butt, you've finally got your ultimate ready and prepared to Solar Kamehameha them to smitherines? Well he just used block and you took off a smidgen of health. Even when only one attack away from death, as long as you're blocking, your attack means nothing. The only way to break a block is by grappling them with a Throw, but they are incredibly easy to miss (With either high speed dodge or simply moving slightly with light dodging) and you're right back to either them pummeling you, or blocking. It makes me greatly miss the Block Break days of Naruto games.

Graphics are quite decent, considering how they blended multiple different art styles. Scenery is especially gorgeous, while the character models can be either fantastic looking...ooooor just a tiny bit off. Admittedly, Luffy does look like a frog with those large, bulging eyes. Sound effects and musical score are absolutely wonderful and do a great job helping you feel heroic. Voice acting is great as always, with original voice actors returning to do their roles. There's something so enthralling about hearing your favourite childhood characters talking about eating food that you can't help feeling just so happy. Multiplayer is easy to pick up, and while it does have some connection issues (I'll touch on those later), any person who has used an online fighting HUD will pick it up easy.
Lastly I want to mention the amount of customisation in the game, to which I can only say, wow; creating your protagonist is a little difficult, considering all the options are based on the characters present. So while making a face isn't too hard, you'll be using your favourite characters hairdo or using a hat to cover it (although please Japanese Devs, please gimme beard options! Theres like one option and it was pencil thin!), but there are plenty of scars, facepaints and additional accessories to change that. Clothing accessories are particularly massive, giving players to mix and match their outfit to suit them and many can be unlocked via the additional mission base.

Despite all of this, this game is massively plagued by bugs and glitches as well. Logging in, every fifth time I will crash at the Communicating screen and be kicked back to dashboard. Framerate issues are also extremely common, from cutscenes to gameplay. It really breaks the immersion when a cutscene or even a fight slows to a crawl when your opponent releases an attack and then zooms directly into your face. Screen tears are also common, freezes and audio glitches too. I also want to mention how basic each mission seems to be. While its understandable for a fighting game to focus on nothing but fighting, to unlock everything that is all you get to do: new costume, ability, characters, elemental attacks, everything needs to include a fight to either unlock it, or earn the gold currency to buy it (and thank god they didn't introduce microtransations...). 
This turns a fun fighter into just a slog of battling increasingly harder enemies for that one move you've wanted since the beginning. It just feels like wasted potential. Another small issue that the community has had is the lack of its female characters. Out of forty two playable characters (Not counting your protagonist if you choose to play as a woman), only three of them are female. Four if you count the unplayable character Galena. In my eyes it was such as wasted opportunity by the devs but I hope to see some come into light with the Season Pass. 
And I may only be able to speak for myself, but why is Hisoka the hardest character to fight in the game? I struggled on no other person, just him. Each fight, no matter my tactics, he would just kick my butt over and over to the point of extreme anger. But I digress.

Jump Force is a love letter to every anime fan out there, no matter the series they enjoy. Die hard fans of both anime and fighting games will find no issue with this game, but for me, it was just so much wasted potential. Fighting over and over and over for forty hours for a mediocre story and plotline was simply...not worth it. With a bit of extra polish, more modes put into the mix, it could have been something a little more worth the asking price. Jump Force is a fun adventure, but its a ride full of bumps and potholes.

Jump Force: 6/10

Byte Sized Review premier!

Hello all!

This is just a quick update to the page to show off a small added feature; Byte Sized!
Essentially it is what the pun name suggests; a smaller, quicker review for the smaller, quicker games releasing. Instead of a fully developed, long and lengthy read of a normal review, these aim to be more personalised and give you the need to know information before you make a purchase of a game you may be interested in.
They're still reviews, just smaller!

I've tested these with Byte Sized reviews on Apex Legends and Far Cry New Dawn, which you can find below this post.
And if you folks enjoy them, I'll make more in the future!

Let me know your feedback via Twitter or right here, and I hope you enjoy!

Byte Sized Review: Far Cry New Dawn

I never got around to reviewing Far Cry 5, but if I had to sum it up, it would be "Enjoyable, classic Far Cry with a few new splashes of the easy life". So when I heard that Far Cry New Dawn was coming out, naturally I was skeptical about a separate release, and while it does have flaws, and I enjoyed my time here, I doubt I'll be coming back.

Gameplay wise, New Dawn delivers a great Far Cry experience; the combat is great with the inclusion of the leveling system on both enemies and weapons, but almost every weapon feels similar to their stronger counter parts (minus the Saw Launcher, the OP-est weapon there), same to the vehicles. The only enemies that create a true challenge are the Epic level enemies, but many are only featured right at the end. Sound effects and musical score were both fairly well done, graphics wise as well as the neon coloured wasteland was a unique twist to a nuclear apocalypse, and voice acting is decent and does the job for the most part (while some areas feel a little too melodramatic). However what I want to focus on is the story.

Taking place seventeen years into the future, you play as Captain, a survivor traveling up the coast via train to Hope County, but are ambushed by the Highwaymen, a collective of survivors who profit off travelers and taking over settlements. Rescued by Camilla Rye, you set off to Prosperity to recruit new followers, rebuild and take back Hope County from the Highwaymen.
But the Highwaymen...are simply not there. Far Cry has always prided themselves on strong antagonists, but here these antagonists are little more than NPCs until 90% of the game. Hearing them as you recruit members and villages, they talk of revenge and beating you and hurting you, but outside two missions (really one since they only get involved with one), and a bunch of cutscenes, our big baddies Mickey and Lou are just...never there. You take over a settlement, they don't try taking it back unless you release it (just to reclaim it back for bigger rewards). You recruit new members, they don't retaliate (with the exception of one mission-which admittedly anyone can see coming a mile away). When your previous Far Cry antagonist has more pull to your game as an ally than your main villains, something has gone wrong in the story aspect.
The simple rule applies; don't talk about how badarse they are, don't mention how evil they are, don't explain how bad they are, show us.
Show us how evil they can be, show us the terrible things they get up to, show us what atrocities they can do to our allies.

I still enjoyed what was here for what its worth; for a $70 game, it still holds a lot of fun for a generic shooter, and long time fans of the series won't mind. But even for $70, I still feel like that is a little too much. Outside the forced gathering for supplies (which I did beforehand because I prefer getting them out of the way), this game is incredibly short. Twenty two missions (Each Part having roughly seven each), 8 side missions, six of which are Guns for Hire (half being less than five minutes, one simply shooting a lock off and killing some guys), there is just way too little here to keep you here long term, and not a lot to make you come back.

Far Cry New Dawn: 5/10

Byte Sized Review: Apex Legends

It's been a couple of weeks since Apex Legends has been released, to heavily positive feedback from its rapidly growing community. Hitting 25 million players in its first week alone, it has been the first game to knock out Fortnite from the top spot of Battle Royal shooters. But does it deserve its praise?
Personally speaking, it's earned the right to brag. 

Of course there isn't much to report on this game, as what little story there is resides in the set up of the world; taking place in the Titanfall universe, Apex Legends sets itself on the outer edge of the galaxy where legends of the battlefield compete in small teams to become Champion and achieve fame and glory among their peers.
Players can choose up to six legends (with two locked away until bought/earned through gameplay) with various skills and abilities that range from scanning nearby enemies, healing teammates, creating ziplines for faster movement and so on. 

Gameplay is surprisingly fun; the Titanfall controls make a comeback (with some slight alterations), so anyone who has played those games or any shooter will pick it up quite fast. Titanfall has always prided itself on its fast paced and fluid combat, which is also present. Some were worried about the lack of key features from said games, such as wall running and Titans, but I'm happy to say that their lack of presence here doesn't detract from the fun.
Musical score, for what's there, is fairly well done and does well to make those moments epic and massive. Sound effects are tight and well balanced, voice acting is surprisingly well done with some high named voice actors. Graphics are bright and while a little simplistic, suit the world and make it seem almost comical.
While I haven't found any major game breaking bugs, the closest I've experienced is a KTD after being inactive on the main screen for too long, and have clipped through the world twice (both at Airbase) when downed.

In full honesty, I've never been one for Battle Royal games. I played Fortnite and was unimpressed, the same for Black Ops 4. But it seems the genre has finally found its fit for me in this release. Although it features heavy microtransactions, all can be unlocked or created with loot boxes, earned naturally every time you level up or bought. For whats here, addictive and fun gameplay, all for a completely free game, I find myself thoroughly impressed. Jazz it up with Titan included battles, or similar modes, and I see a long life for this game ahead. 
But please don't let this replace Titanfall 3. I beg you EA.

Apex Legends: 8/10