Tag: Action

Fahrenheit: 15th Anniversary Edition to Release in January 2021

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Meridiem Games have announced that the special boxed edition of story driven interactive drama Fahrenheit: 15th Anniversary Edition will launch onon the 26th January 2021 for PlayStation®4.

This is the perfect opportunity to rediscover one of the first highly acclaimed titles from French developer and publisher Quantic Dream. For over two decades Quantic Dream, founded by industry visionary David Cage, is best known for their use of cutting-edge motion capture technology to create story driven interactive dramas including the critically acclaimed titles Heavy Rain™, Beyond: Two Souls™ and Detroit: Become Human™.

Fahrenheit: 15th Anniversary Edition will include aspecially created case and sleeve, a sticker set, high quality printed artbook and a thank-you letter written by the team at Quantic Dream. This boxed edition will retail for £24.99 / €29.99 and is available to pre-order in specialist gaming stores now.

Fahrenheit is astory driven interactive drama played in both first and third person perspectives. New York City is stunned by a series of brutal slayings that all follow the same pattern: ordinary people possessed by a supernatural force causing them to commit murder. The story follows Lucas Kane who finds himself hunted by police detectives Carla Valenti and Tyler Miles after fleeing the scene of one such murder with no memory of what happened. What follows, is a thrilling, story driven adventure where your choices have a direct effect on how the story unfolds.

The PlayStation®4 retail boxed version of Fahrenheit: 15th Anniversary Editionis available to pre-order in specialist gaming stores now for £24.99 / €29.99.

For more information on Meridiem Games please visit the official site at www.meridiem-games.com

Re:Turn – One Way Trip Review (PC)

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  • Genre: Horror, Puzzle, Action, Adventure, Role-Playing, Visual Novel
  • Platforms: Steam, xBox One (Switch and PS4 to come Nov 2020)
  • Developer | Publisher: Red Ego Games | Green Man Gaming Publishing
  • Age Rating: PEGI 18
  • Price: UK £9.99
  • Release Date: 14th October 2020

Review code used, with many thanks to Renaissance PR!

In Re:Turn – One Way Trip, you start by following a group of newly graduated college students. For the majority of the game, you will control Saki, as she searches for her friends.

Story/Characters

Kanae, Saki, Yuuta, Kazuki and Sen are camping in the woods, celebrating the end of their college days. All is well until, after an unfortunate misunderstanding with Saki’s fiancé Sen, Yuuta runs off, leaving the others go to sleep.

Saki wakes a little later, to find she’s suddenly all alone. After looking for her friends, she stumbles upon an abandoned train car in the forest. Obviously, Saki decides to check out the train, because she knows her friends are the type of people to explore something like this. As Saki makes her way in the first car, she becomes increasingly paranoid and skittish. She pushes away things that make her scared and pushes forward.

Gameplay

From here, you will need to solve puzzles. The puzzle are usually logical and make sense, they’re some pretty solid puzzles in Re:Turn. Most of the time, you’ll be moving slowly around the train cars, whether the situation is urgent or not. Fortunately, about 2/3 of the way through, Saki really does find it urgent enough to start running.

The time travelling is an interesting and cool mechanic that’s put to good use in Re:Turn; it adds so much more to the story, and makes for a fun adventure story at the same time. You will travel back and forth to the past to progress the story and to find out what actually happened on this luxurious train to leave it abandoned.

Unfortunately, the writing left a little to be desired. While it is easy to follow, and it’s not riddled with mistakes or anything, the writing just felt a little… simple, for a PEGI 18 game. Which is a shame, because the story was interesting and tense in places.

Graphics, Sound and Performance

The graphics are pretty good, it’s easy to see what items are, it’s easy to see the characteristics of the character models. The detail is outstanding. For being hand-drawn, this really blew my mind. The amount of attention to detail throughout is amazing of Red Ego Games, and it makes for a beautiful backdrop to the story.

The sounds are good enough to affect how I looked at what was happening. If I was supposed to be tense, the music saw to that fairly swiftly. If I was supposed to be sad, the music reflected this. Again, attention to detail, even in the music laced throughout, is spot on.

Difficulty

A couple of times I found myself trying everything I had on everything available. This always works, especially if you are stuck in one place with no way out. The puzzles themselves as stated before are usually logical, so it shouldn’t be too hard for anyone.

Conclusion

It’s a fun little game, for £9.99 you get a few hours of puzzles and time travel adventure. I enjoyed what I played although, as a horror fan, I was sad to find it wasn’t all that scary. Jump scares and dark themes pepper the game, making it possibly scary to some, or even most. I don’t know what level of ‘horror’ it really counts as to be honest.

Verdict
A fun horror, visual-novel/adventure game for an evening of jumps and scares in an abandoned train.

Die By the Blade Kickstarter is now Live!

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Publisher Grindstone and developers Triple Hill Interactive and Toko Midori have announced that the Kickstarter campaign for the highly anticipated one-hit-kill sword fighting game Die by the Blade is now live!

Die by the Blade is scheduled for a 2021 release for PC and consoles. With many pledge levels to choose from with fantastic game inspired rewards available, fans can get involved, become backers and in turn help shape the future of this highly anticipated, spiritual successor to some of the best classic sword fighting games ever released.

Drawing inspiration from legendary combat games like Bushido Blade and Way of the Samurai, Die by the Blade is a one-hit-kill sword fighting action game where players must take up their weapons and face off against deadly opponents. Choose your character, select your blade and engage in 1 vs 1 combat where the slightest mistake could seal your fate. Become a master of your craft and fight to the death with other players in tense, fast paced multiplayer matches or slash through tough AI enemies in the thrilling single player campaign.

Die by the Blade has been in development for some time, so the game will definitely launch next year under the current development plan and budget. However, with the support of the fans and the community, a successful Kickstarter campaign will further elevate Die by the Blade to an exceptional game, whilst delivering a unique gameplay experience. 

The money raised through Kickstarter will be used to expand on the current gameplay experience with higher quality animations using motion capture technology, expand the character roster and add in even more weapons. If the campaign hits the stretch goals, then additional exciting content could be added like ranged weapons and different combat styles. 

Take a look at the Die by the Blade official Kickstarter video by clicking here and get involved in this exciting project and reveal your inner warrior!

Partisans 1941 Review (PC)

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  • Genre: Strategy, Real-Time Tactics, Action, Resource Management
  • Platforms: Steam
  • Developer | Publisher: Alter Games | Daedalic Entertainment
  • Age Rating: TBC
  • Price: UK £25.99
  • Release Date: 14th October 2020

Review code used, with many thanks to Renaissance PR!

In Partisans 1941 you play as a Red Army commander in World War II, stuck behind enemy lines on the Eastern Front. Gather more Partisans and use guerrilla warfare against the German occupants.

Story/Characters

Play as Commander Alexey Zorin as you gain new Partisans as you journey forward. Meeting Sanek and Fetisov will give you a squad of three to use as you progress. Sanek is a local lad of 14, just wanting to stop the German invasion into his homeland. Fetisov is also part of the army, and is glad to be back fighting the good fight. Continue on and find more Partisans just waiting to join your team and fight against the German invaders.

Gameplay

Partisans 1941 brings a fun approach on the gameplay it involves. Using the real-time tactics, own the way forward with your way of playing. Use a mixture of stealth, combat, ambushes and a variety of special items to astound the enemies ahead of you.

The use of tactical mode is very helpful, being able to slow down time to figure out your next move in the middle of a fight is so fantastic a mechanic.

I have to admit, this game was harder than I could ever have expected; even on easy mode I’m really having to think about how to move forward, how to dodge that enemy or how to not get caught. Even the resource management in the camp takes some thinking, do I need food, materials, weapons, ammo or morale??

Speaking of the camp, it’s all on you to decide what gets built, what gets searched for or what missions you want to send your allies on. The only time you don’t get to decide what to spend your time on is when there is a story mission. Story missions are at a set time and your people will be automatically set to go.

Graphics, Sound and Performance

The graphics are pretty realistic, which I guess you’d hope for in a historical war game. The characters are fleshed out well, and really well designed. The scenery is beautiful, and the use of the scenery is a great mechanic for Partisans 1941.

My only issue with the sound is that no matter what you set the audio to in game, the opening is always at it’s full volume, which can catch me off guard.

Difficulty

Ok, so I touched on this briefly earlier, and wow, just wow. This game is incredibly difficult to a novice like me. I’m used to turn-based RPGs, so having real-time tactics took some getting used to. Even on easy, I am having to take my time to figure out the best way forward in missions, and even use trial and error to make the best moves I can.
I am stuck in a mission at the moment, but I will get past it, I am determined to push forward once again.

You can choose between three difficulty settings at the start of a New Game.
Easy mode, which is the recommended difficulty for a first playthrough.
Normal mode, which makes you and enemies have lower health, which in turn makes every combat even more dangerous than before, and dogs will be more dangerous again.
Hard mode, now your comrades can die if you don’t treat their wounds in time, you also can no longer save during missions and tactical mode will no longer slow time.

Conclusion

The gameplay makes Partisans 1941 worth playing for anyone that enjoys a challenge and to think about the moves they make in a game. I’m sure the story will attract fans of historical war games, and it might take others by surprise by how much they enjoy or get invested in the story. It’s a good game for when you want to challenge your brain into thinking in the ways it pushes you to think, and noticing any out of the box ways to complete missions.

Verdict
An interesting war story played out with fun and interesting mechanics makes for a good, albeit challenging game.

The Wonderful Balan Wonderworld Heads to the Switch

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This action platformer sees the stars of the show Emma and Leo use special abilities from a multitude of characterful costumes as they adventure in the bizarre and imaginary land of Wonderworld.

Twelve different tales await them in the Wonderworld, each with their own unique quirks, tricks and traps.

Bash your enemies, walk in the air, freeze time or manipulate all kinds of objects when you pick up a new costume. With over 80 different costumes to choose from the possibilities are endless!

Source: Nintendo

Sniper Elite 4 has its Target Set on Winter 2020

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Liberate World War 2 Italy from the grip of fascism in the latest installment of the Tactical Third-person shooter, heading to the Nintendo Switch this winter.

  • Experience tactical third-person combat, gameplay choice and epic sharpshooting across gigantic levels.
  • Unrivalled sniping freedom. Complete the campaign your way.
  • Epic longshots with bone-crushing X-ray kill cam.
  • Team-up or go head-to-head with local & online multiplayer.
  • Feel every shot with HD rumble & pan the battlefield with gyroscopic controls.

Source: Nintendo

Disgaea 6: Defiance of Destiny Demonstrates Delightful Destruction

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I’ve run out of useful Ds… Anyway the latest installment of the Disgaea series will be descending to the Switch in the Summer of 2021.

Follow Zed, the zombie, who has risen above them all, with the exception of the God of Destruction.

This game will have features such as Super Reincarnation, 3D visuals (a first for this series), and adjustable gameplay settings. Maings it ideal for both new and old DISGAEA fans!

Source: Nintendo