Dispatch: A Tale-Told, 1 Million Sold.

Some of you may have seen Dispatch making a really big splash on the Steam store lately. It is a combination of a traditional police dispatch game, where you solve quirky citizens’ problems, and the intrigue and choice-based system of a Telltale game. Add in a sprinkle of Superheroes, and you've got yourself Dispatch.

Usually, I would find a hidden layer to a game's creation, but today, there is none. You've got yourself a very true-to-form, but expertly crafted, Superhero redemption experience. There's no real push to break the mold in this game, no political agenda, nor even any sort of new innovation. This is, without a doubt, the best use of the existing formula you would see in the modern day, except perhaps Telltale’s The Walking Dead, which the developers of this game also worked on, now working for Adhoc Studio.

Robert is given employment with SDN as a Hero Dispatcher — How Robert became a Hero dispatcher

First, let's talk about the story, graphics and cutscenes. They're all very well animated, and the style is incredibly close to the show Invincible in its charm and fluid movements. The main character, Robert, resembles Iron Man in a lot of ways: he's a techy hero who uses a Mech suit his dad left him. Upon his suit being destroyed and becoming destitute, he begins to work for a superhero dispatching firm, working with a group of "reformed" villains, hoping to resolve their debt to society through hero work.

Characters will often give very authentic and adult reactions to situations and your choices, but they will also give in to childish humour when it's relevant to the character it applies to. For instance, the serious and larger-than-life character Blonde Blazer will never engage in tomfoolery, whilst the tomboyish and smart-talking Invisigal will always drag the conversation into the gutter somehow. Did I also mention that the voice acting in this game may as well be industry royalty? With the likes of Laura Bailey, Matt Mercer and Travis Willingham joining on the veteran VA side, and beloved celebrity figures such as Aaron Paul of Breaking Bad fame, Charles "MoistCr1TiKaL" White, Alanah Pearce, JackSepticEye of YouTube fame, and a musician called THOT SQUAD. You're pretty much spoiled when it comes to the performance levels of actors in Dispatch.

The team celebrate catching a villain — Another successful day at the office

Within your group of fledgling ex-villains, the more you play, the more you come to understand and enjoy their company. Despite most of them having very deep flaws, the narrative does an incredible job of getting you to love and care for all of them. It's honestly amazing how likable this cast is, and I don't know whether it was the writing or the godlike voice performances, but there was not a single character in the gang of heroes that I got sick of.

That is kind of brutal when you consider that our choices can lead to different characters still being around to participate in the story or not. This is a game of choices with real consequences, and, much like in Telltale games, you get to compare exactly what you've done against others playing at the same time as you. It's a great tool for reflection and to know whether you're thinking the same way as the majority, or the 6% of people who made a rare choice in the narrative.

A choice I made in game on who to fire — I made this choice and honestly, I kind of regretted it. Sonar is a very funny character.

Special mention to your best friend Royd in the game, who looks very similar to Maui from Moana. He turns out to be the science guy, but I frequently thought, "Why can't I have this guy on my team," especially with how the relationship between him and the main guy, Robert, blossoms. They have a real shared interest in heroics and helping the team to grow into their best selves.

Gameplay is where the fun really begins. You have to decide where your heroes should go and help them through common sense reasoning. For example, Malevola, a portal-creating demon woman, cannot be sent to churches or religious places, but is really good at scaring children into behaving, while your bat friend Sonar is an accomplished grifter and businessman, so he would be a good choice to send on diplomatic missions and to deal with politicians.

A choice in the Dispatching segment to see who should be sent out — Sometimes, you have to send a giant Bat-man, sometimes you have to send a diva. Your choice.

Every Hero has traits and skills you can develop that can help in a variety of situations, and it was a true joy to work out who fits best in each puzzle. It took a little while to realise that your Firebender, who was previously an arsonist, might actually be the best fit to put fires out, due to his pyrokinetic abilities going both ways. It was a great experience to really get to know these heroes both socially and the depths of their power sets, and I'm sure if I did a second playthrough, my knowledge would greatly benefit me in making the right choices next time.

A moment of peace in the gameplay segments — Your full cast of misfits will chat with you while you save the city of Torrence

Next, let's talk about how your experience can be customized. Throughout the cutscenes, you have the opportunity to engage with quick-time events. This turns your viewing experience into more of a video game, pressing prompts and sliding buttons during the narrative to make you feel like you're controlling Robert’s Mecha suit or his civilian form. Or you can choose to leave them turned off. This removes the ability for you to see funny fails should you decide Robert actually isn't a good superhero and deliberately fail the prompts, but this generally only results in him being saved by another character or, in rare cases, watching him get beaten up. I like that you can tailor your game like this. It lets the more impulsive player have something to do, whilst the more story-driven player can sit back and enjoy.

The one part I was not as much in love with was the hacking mini-game. You sort of just roll a ball around a cyber grid and try to get to the access point to trigger various electronics in the real world, but it got kind of ridiculous at points. I don't really understand how someone on a very low-grade PC can hack the sprinklers at a donut shop. It just didn't make much sense and felt like an attempt to make Robert more integral, but I was enjoying the dispatching aspect far more. More to the point, your success in the story may depend on you successfully hacking to aid your team, which means that if you don't like this sort of gameplay, you may just have to put up with it, despite your enjoyment possibly being non-existent.

A hacking segment screenshot — Urgh…grids…

Finally, let's talk about the game's antagonists. Something the writers did which I absolutely loved, was that Shroud, the game's main villain, is an expert at predicting people. This means he can see and adapt to your decisions in-game. Whenever you make a decision, you can guarantee that Shroud has an answer for it. Only your previous actions and teammates can help you deal with him, and it's quite satisfying to try to play against this guy who is treating your decision-making as his personal manipulation game. He's a very fitting villain for a choice-based game like this, and I really enjoyed his aura of "I’m ten steps ahead of you". It's the cherry on top of an already stellar game, and it helps that he's voiced by Critical Role legend Matt Mercer.

A picture of Shroud, the main antagonist. — 500 steps ahead of your character.

So there we have it. Dispatch is to me the best narrative-driven game to come out since Telltale’s The Walking Dead, and I would highly recommend anyone interested in games like this to try it out, even if you don't particularly like superhero stories. It's definitely worth it.

I give Dispatch a Solid 9.5/10

Final France-ity: How Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 reinvigorated Role Playing Games.

There are very few games that can claim to be genre-defining. Street Fighter 2 for fighting games, Grand Theft Auto III for Sandbox games, and Final Fantasy 7 for roleplaying games, and I've come to think that perhaps, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, should definitely be in the conversation now.

Expedition 33 is a rare game. One that was made with a sole purpose in mind. To alleviate the boredom of Guillame Broche, the head of Sandfall Interactive, developers of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. To this end, we find a tale of a talented and dedicated individual who took on other talented but inexperienced developers. Those who always dreamed of creating a game like those they grew up with and created something far better. Expedition 33 has become another example of what makes a game tick. Creative genius, determined to push its own potential. And with this foundation, we have the building blocks for something incredibly special.

But to talk about this game, I first need to talk about Metaphor: ReFantazio and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. Because if you looked at the discourse surrounding this game, you'd be led to believe turn-based JRPG games haven't existed since 2002. Of course they have, and they've been of amazing quality. But the feeling of quality returning, that is the essence of 33.

Not because it's better than these games, or that those games are discounted for being modernized, but because 33 has somehow, someway, returned that feeling of awe and wonder that a 30-year-old man like me thought was long lost back in the days of the 2000s. Not because of a fall in quality, but because of seeing it all before. No game can return to me the feeling of first playing Final Fantasy 9 at nine-years-old. That's what I thought, but I was wrong. 33 has somehow done that. And now I have to try to go through my thoughts with you and discuss why.

"Shall we begin" said by a gestral in-game — "Shall we begin"

1. Characters

Expedition 33 is a master class in character work. From the start, you're shown exactly what a character is about, and it doesn't matter if a character is about to be forcibly ejected from the story or if they're with you to the end; they will treat them with all the grace and attention of a main character. When you behold them, they are the focus.

There is no such thing as a worthless character in this game. If an antagonist turns up, the entire environment twists around their agenda; if a hero is performing an attack, every inch of that attack is detailed and flawlessly rendered. If a character is around for a substantial amount of time, a very appropriate and amazing voice actor will accompany them. Ben Starr provides his iconic voice as Verso, Maelle's VA is Jennifer English of Baldur's Gate 3 fame, Charlie Cox as Gustave from Daredevil fame, and Andy Serkis makes a hefty appearance too, from too many amazing projects to count. It's a very surprising level of quality; even Final Fantasy has the odd character you'd rather not see. Not one character in this game is wasted or a pointless inclusion.

I want to give special attention to the character Sciel. A character who, in a normal game, would be given the treatment of a hard and tough female character, and not delve deeper into her personal story. But in Expedition 33, she provides such an amazing foil to the nihilistic themes that overwhelm certain parts of the story that you have to honestly just admire how deep and well-written her story becomes. I don't want to spoil anything at all with this game, because this experience is something you'll only get to see for the first time once. I still feel like these characters are vital to my own personal growth, understanding of human grief, and the will to press on. That's how highly I rate these characters.

A picture of a masked enemy waxing philosophical about masks — A lot of the characters in this game use masks, I feel this quote is a brilliant way to describe them.

2. Music

If there was ever a tale of being noticed by the right people, this would be it. Lorien Testard, the game's main composer, was found on SoundCloud, and they gave him everything: an extremely talented lead vocalist in Alice Duport-Percier, an industry-revered male vocalist in Victor Borba (Of Devil May Cry 5 fame). Backing vocals from the production team and an entire orchestra. And this soundtrack takes no prisoners. Every single track is oozing with passion and nostalgic wonder. If I had to describe it, it would be modern video game beats meet traditional French operatics. It's a soundtrack that will be remembered fondly for years to come.

Also, there's a fun little language bonus if you happen to know French; the soundtrack gives hints as to the true nature of the world in which the characters inhabit. Even going so far as to be the opening area name drops a late-game antagonist and hints at his origins. But given that said name is shared with a famous artist, you would be none the wiser without the additional context.

The soundtrack cover looks insanely good too.

3. Story

Expedition 33 loves to explore different levels of its own universe, revealing more and more outside of the box as you go on. You start as mild-mannered and incredibly likeable Gustave, meet with fiery Lune, and ambitious Maelle, and set sail to a continent filled to the brim with dangerous enemies to uncover the mysteries of the paintress, a giant woman who changes a number on her monolith every year. The lower the number gets, the more people of that age and above pop out of existence. From the get-go, the stakes are the entirety of your world, but… somehow this game's story succeeds in making that into an inconsequential point.

The strength of this game's story is managing to change your priorities as a player, based on how you interact with the characters. The ethical themes and your attachment to the characters dictate how you respond to the world. Everyone comes away with a different idea about the morality and the importance of key story points, but at the same time, we can all agree on who the characters are and why they do what they do. It's what we value as players that the game respects in a way that only others with an honest passion for gaming could understand.

Interestingly, this game has the ability to tell many, many different experiences within its narrative. Expedition 33 is only one of 67 previous expeditions; a lot of these expeditions are told and explained throughout our own journey, and there's a rather impressive story told through the story's antagonist, which breaches the realms of your own character's world. The most impressive thing this game did in my eyes was to widen the scope so immensely, but maintain the powerful energy needed to tell a very human, and very sorrowful story of grief and loss.

A picture of Renoir with a cryptic quote — This is Renoir, you'll love or hate him, but in a good way.

4. Combat

Combat in this game is something that works along a few interesting systems. Firstly, you have pictos, which can customize your characters with different stat boosts, afflictions, or simply being able to deal far more damage than they should. Pictos are collected from the environment and boss encounters and are generally very satisfying to obtain and mess around with.

Outside of that, every character has a full and robust skill set that meshes rather harmoniously with the pictos within the game. Everyone has a ranged attack and a melee attack, with some specializing in one or the other depending on their abilities.

Finally, we have enemy attacks that all follow increasingly complicated patterns that can be dodged or parried. Dodging does nothing, and I would recommend trying to parry everything. The timing is more difficult, but the reward is far more substantial.

Every single enemy is unique in this regard, and there is little to no repetition, making every encounter in this game fluid, engaging and not at all boring. Every fight was a new thing to try, and I honestly feel like the music accompaniment created such hype and insane moments that you can't help but feel accomplished when you finally take down that one dude who won't stop reviving because he wants to impress a girl. (You know the one if you've played)

A picture of a character parrying an attack — Gotta counter em all!

5. Graphics

The game is gorgeous, but not in the usual way. It knows how to hold back on being flashy for the sake of being impressive, but more than that, Obscur wants to channel the spirit of nihilistic paintings and classical French artwork into a mixture that truly reflects the spirit of the story within it.
Enemy design will occasionally dip into a disturbing level of lacking, creating a very repelling sense of dread and disgust at your adversaries. While at the same time, you'll find that enemies that are treated with significance will have attention to detail that accompanies them. Except for one enemy that I want to talk about, called Sprong. Sprong is one of the strongest enemies in the game, and his design is a really sad tale. Essentially, it's a discarded music fork, and its simplicity, yet giant stature and sheer power, is related to a certain character's lament and sadness at being unable to pursue their personal dream of music. As such, the rather simplistic design tells a very ferocious insight into this character and how they view their own desires.

This is how graphical intensity is used to the game's ultimate benefit. Any and all designs are used to tell a story, either from the viewpoint of another character or from the sad, unrelenting truth of the world around it. This is where graphical mastery becomes a tool for story depth and understanding.

Granted the combat UI is far more of a love letter to the development team's personal loves and obsessions within gaming. It's one of the very few parts of the game where inspiration and lack of originality is even the slightest bit apparent, and even then, it's taken inspiration from a game like Persona 5, one of the best RPGs ever made.

A still of the game in Unreal Engine 5. — The game is REALLY pretty.

6. Finale

Talking about how a story should end without spoiling the events that make it up is a difficult idea, but in this regard, I feel as though I cannot adequately explain this game without talking about its conclusion.

You will find the conclusion bears similarities with another French-made game, called Life is Strange. A choice between two endings, where both endings give context and enrich the other, no matter which you choose first. And the endings themselves are ones that you yourself can accept or reject.

Experiencing the endings is the choice you make, but acceptance of the endings is something different. You will learn something intrinsic about yourself by playing this game to its conclusion. You will come to understand how you grieve and what you hold as important. And whether certain parts of your life matter, or should matter to you. This is what Expedition 33 will lead you to.
And that's not even a matter of saying "You will learn the message the game is trying to teach you", because that wouldn't be correct. Expedition 33 will teach you what your Light is and what your Dark is. What you feel is the right way to cope with loss, and the wrong way. And you will get to decide that for yourself. There is no holding hand. Just a choice, that you can accept, or reject and choose another. And through that. You'll know yourself a little bit better. The aptly named Clair Obscur, which means Light, Darkness, in our language.

If you've never played an RPG before, I would encourage you to play this one. It's an experience you will keep with you, I promise you that.

A picture of Gustave and Sophie's painting in-game. — A painting made in game, just as beautiful as a real work of art.

Doctor Who's Mrs. Flood: "The" Reveal

WARNING: SPOILERS FOR DOCTOR WHO SEASON 2!

Hoo boy, well, this week's episode ended on quite an interesting cliffhanger. Fresh off the Doctor’s latest foray into dark territory, we were treated to the reintroduction of one of his classic villains: The Rani, and it has been Mrs Flood all along, played by Anita Dobson! That’s not all, because Mrs. Flood undergoes a bi-generation of her own at the episode’s conclusion. The second Rani, played by Archie Panjabi, establishes herself as "The" Rani whilst Mrs Flood is more than happy to play second fiddle. The villainous disgust from the new Rani towards the old one is readily apparent, leading us into the two-part climax of the season airing next week.

Who is The Rani?

But just who is The Rani exactly? Well, she was a renegade Time Lord, much the same as the Doctor and The Master. However, her exploits generally involved scientific research that pushed ethical boundaries, usually of a chemical nature. An obsessed Time Lord who simply wanted to do things because she could, believing the ends always justify the means. She was cruel and manipulative, at one point posing as companion, Mel (Bonnie Langford), to influence a recently regenerated Doctor. She's also mentioned in the audiobooks with the Eleventh Doctor, believing her to be dead with the rest of the Time Lords.

The Second Rani, with The Seventh Doctor and Mel from "Time of the Rani"

Her relationship with the Doctor is one of exploitation. She believes the Doctor's traveling and antics could be used to further her research, looking for ways to use his intellect for her own gains, and usually with dire consequences for those around him. The Doctor, of course, sees her experiments and machinations as needing to be stopped.

What you can expect from The Rani is an opportunistic personality. Someone who knows what's going on, observes, and then uses current events to her own benefit. Usually, she has her own Tardis and can employ her considerable intellect for particular cruelty to anyone who gets in her way.

Whilst the Doctor mentioned that Bi-generation is a Time Lord legend, a scientist like The Rani would absolutely be able to replicate the circumstances after having confirmed its existence. This is a cruel but calculating villain. You can always count on her to be laser-focused, and that obsessive nature has led to her downfall in the past.

Predictions for the Finale

What I believe we can expect from the last two episodes is that the events on May 24th may not actually be the Rani's doing. She is following the Doctor to gain access to that day, the day we were just told is the day the Earth disintegrates.

What we can deduce is:

Ruby Sunday is involved, as The Rani has been following her for a year now. Her plan requires Bi-generation, which was unlocked due to the Doctor's fight with the Toymaker.
Mrs. Flood's monologues were aimed towards her future self ("I told you we would bring the Doctor terror").
Whatever's about to happen, it involves using the vindicators to set her own plan in motion as the Doctor struggles to get Belinda home.
Finally, Conrad, Ruby's extremist ex-boyfriend, is involved somehow.

This level of preparation has me hyped for her grand scheme to come to fruition.

I’m sure it will be an exciting finale, as this season has been amazing from start to finish. I would like The Rani to swoop in and save the day, only to use the catastrophe befalling Earth for her own ends. I would love to see a season end with a villainous victory, but one that ultimately sets up the stakes for the future. A new Gallifrey, perhaps? Or even The Rani using the revelations from previous episodes to insert herself into the wider narrative. Only time will tell.

Monster Hunter Wilds: A Game that Cut Off its Own Tail

Today, I'm trying to convince you of something. I am going to try to convince you that the newest release in the Monster Hunter franchise is lying to you. I imagine this game to be presenting itself as a whole cake, with brand new monsters to hunt, an "Open world" atmosphere, beautiful immersive environments, and a natural wonder of a game. I've played 70 hours of this game since launch, and this is my honest review.

In a metaphorical sense, it is about six tiny cupcakes, all separated, that on their own still taste good, but the problem is, you've had cupcakes before. Monster Hunter: World was a massive cake-like experience; it was freshly baked. This game is more like smaller cupcakes but with sprinkles and some fancy icing. Wilds is an improvement in the places that matter; combat, graphics, gear appearance, and weapon specialization. However, it takes a massive step back in the areas that never mattered to Monster Hunter as a franchise but may matter to the gaming experience. Innovation has taken a back seat, with hand-waved improvements that don't do enough to push this game to new or interesting heights.

So we really get a bunch of cupcakes pretending to be a delicious cake filled to the brim with dopamine-giving sugar but lacking that new experience. The cupcakes are filled with what we already loved, but the effort to tie them all together into a decorated and quality-driven full product is absent, replaced by flimsy strings holding them together. So what I mean by this is that the marketing promised a cake, what they gave us was a bunch of cupcakes tied together with string. It's still good to eat, but you know something is not quite right while you play it.

Story

The story in Monster Hunter games always makes a secret deal with the player, that deal being, "You're not here for the story, right?" The story here is much the same, making some serviceable human characters (with one standout design in Gemma), applying the environments to the monsters, and making them feel much more legendary. The story for this game sort of boils down to a constant loop of "nature is going haywire, go hunt the monster wrecking havoc due to the natural changes," giving you the time and tested murder excuse of "they got out of the bed on the wrong side this morning."

Without going into spoilers, this story is a mess. Generally, they just fulfill the basic requirements 80% of the time. And the other 20% of the time is traumatising a local child into changing his viewpoints. Your character is portrayed like a rabid dog, just waiting for the chance to start killing monsters on his handler’s orders, which is honestly funny since I made mine sound like a chipmunk (you can change voice pitches). While the game tries to show that the guild you work for is careful about the environment and really wants the ecosystem to thrive, your character is just salivating at the thought of turning Balaharas into shish kabobs. It's a welcome difference from the attempts to pretend you're a nature-loving hunter who only kills for the greater good. Finally, there is a real insincerity in the dialogue and character motivations. Nobody seems to have any depth to them. Their motivations are unexplored, and the story seems to want to fit around the gameplay, regardless of how disharmonious the end result may be for the narrative.

There is another gimmick to monsters in this game, and I won't spoil it here. But it's probably the most interesting lore I've seen from these games for a specialized group of monsters. It requires a lot of buildup and the payoff is good for a while until it becomes apparent that these special monsters are indistinguishable from their counterparts aside from a few gameplay differences. A basic palette swap the story pretends is significant.

Story score: 5/10

This is about a monster invading an ecosystem and killing and eating everything in sight, the forced morality sub plot hurts when you know you're just going to kill it anyway.

Gameplay

This is the main meat of the game, and I'm going to separate this into two parts for the sake of clarity.

Combat

This is by far the reason you should play. Combat in Wilds is unique, intuitive, and filled with depth for all 14 weapon types, and it does not get boring easily. Monsters are strong and smart enough to challenge you and your friends at every skill level, with environments filled with strategic opportunities. You have every chance to fulfill the roles you want, as a supporter, a hammer-bonking enthusiast, as a ranged bow user, or even embrace your new identity as a dual blade-wielding blender.

The slinger is far more balanced here; in the last game, MH: Rise, the main complaint was that the wirebug made things too easy. Now, any advantage the slinger gives is gained from foresight, being alert to when a monster may drop strong slinger ammo after a wound break, and can be used for fun mobility options such as swinging from a stick bug on the ceiling to avoid a ground attack. Mounting a monster can still result in a collision for massive damage, but only in a strategic moment.

Tempered monsters provide a stat upgrade to your regular monsters to make previous hunts more dangerous and challenging, but with better rewards. This keeps the base game fresh for quite a long while after you have finished the main campaign. However, outside of this, I rarely saw any changes to move-set aside from a couple of late-game additions that seemingly hit differing combo strings. Still, the increased stats and damage were enough to justify a hunt..., or fifteen.

This game is fun, both solo and co-op; there's something for almost everyone.

How could you not get hyped up facing down something like this!

Gameplay score: 9.5/10

Exploration

This is where they've taken a step backward. The Seikret mechanic allows you to place a waypoint and automatically arrive at your destination, whether a monster or material. It's one of those quality-of-life additions that is too helpful to ignore. But at the same time, it removes the need to explore. Your slinger can grab materials while you auto-move towards your chosen monster target, meaning you never take the time to appreciate anything, but at the same time, material gathering becomes more efficient. I can see this being a massive improvement for a lot of players. Imagine being able to answer a text on your way to your monster, that's undeniably a good thing. But it's an improvement with unintended drawbacks. You can't exactly "hunt" a monster if you know where it is at all times, and so does your dinosaur pal. You can't feel accomplished for your efforts with an automatic system. In the game's quest to become more convenient, it's removed from its own exploration fantasy.

This game's most marketed new feature, "Herds," is relegated to only a few monsters, those not integral to the story or special armour sets. While these would be fun and interesting to hunt down and come across in the wild, the reality of it is that herds are sparse, rare, and inconsequential in almost every instance.

Getting materials is mechanical and uninteresting. Everything is marked on your map, and you can auto-move straight to it. It all just feels like the only thing between you and your required shiny object is either a monster fight or a dice roll, making the task of finding rare and hard-to-get materials trivial and monotonous. There is no finding secrets in this game that you aren't encouraged to explore. Everything is provided, everything is there from the start. You don't earn anything from exploring; you're just handed everything. It honestly doesn't add to the feeling of gathering together materials to prepare for a hunt; you just do the extra steps the game wants to waste a little bit of extra time. And with the base game providing only 5 open zones that show every "Secret" on the map from the start… exploration may as well not exist.

Yep, that's definitely a map with everything on it.

Exploration: 3/10

Music

The music in Wilds is filled with ambiance and the feeling of being surrounded by nature; every monster seems to have its own unique theme and feel to fight it. One minute, you're in a quiet desert, the next, the monster you’re hunting is filling up the environment with crackles, loud trumpets, and intimidating aura. You're not gonna go wrong with the music in this game; every fight is made to feel like a unique experience, and with yourself as a combatant against something typically much stronger than yourself. But you are a hunter, and you're going to surpass this beast.

Music: 9/10

Graphics

Graphics in this game are on par with any new release, beautiful and absolutely astounding, but the one thing about Wilds I found weird is that everything has a sort of weird sheen over it, like a dull gloss that makes you feel like you're in a place that isn't fantastical but more realistic. It's actually not really very much of a problem, but it irked me a little.

Character customization is also incredibly detailed, including for your pet bird!

Graphics: 8/10

All in all, Monster Hunter Wilds is a game where the effort goes into all the parts that matter to the player: combat, music, mechanics, and the spectacle of their creations. The gameplay is sublime; however, in the pursuit of this, Capcom took elements of the game it felt were surplus and downgraded them to the quality of an auto-play mobile title. The game knows you want to be in the fight, but I would have preferred they took the story and made it something worth playing. As it was, the first 20 hours of the game felt like a chore every time a story forced me into it.

I mentioned that Monster Hunter is a game that cuts off its tail, but when it's attached to an immense juggernaut, I guess it doesn't feel that much. But I would still prefer to see it with the entire package. It's a good game, and you will have fun while you're playing. But everything else is below standard. Hence, I likened it to a bunch of cupcakes because a full cake has everything; a bunch of cupcakes aren't brought together in the same vision, and some of them may be squashed, made in a hurry or just from a batch that didn't see any love or care. Just a few choice decisions leaves the rest of the cohesion behind.

PlayStation's State Of Play Absolutely Cooked!

One of the biggest complaints I hear about the PlayStation 5 is how it has "no games." Well, this February's State of Play brought the games and then some. It's such a good feeling to watch one of these showcases and feel like it was filled with amazing content. So today I'm going to go through the showcase and let you know why you should be excited about these new games.

1. Monster Hunter Wilds

This one is coming out in a couple of weeks and we saw some really amazing locales, new monsters, some pretty generic characters and flashy weapon attacks that the game will have to offer. The main hype behind this trailer is confirmation that this title matches up to the franchise's golden child, Monster Hunter: World. The last entry MH Rise was a little bit of a stumble but these trailers and the beta show a promising return to the series heights. Quite a strong start for the showcase because this could very well be Game of the Year for 2025.

2. Shinobi: Art of Vengeance

This is another of Sega's recent attempts to revive their old IP's, Shinobi, a game infamous for breaching copyright on the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis. In those games you would use your ninja skills to fight against legally-distinct versions of Spiderman, Batman, The Terminator and ninja-inspired enemies. It was traditionally quite difficult, and this version looks to ride the new tide of fast 2D platformers made popular by the likes of The Messenger.

3. Sonic Racing: Crossworlds

I really do love Sonic games, and this game looks like it will be very good. In fact, this may be the best Kart racing game to buy for yourself this coming year if you are unable to get your hands on a Switch 2. I have worries that Mario Kart 9 will eclipse this in sales but I would honestly recommend this along with Crash Team Racing and Mario Kart as one of the three best kart racing franchises out there. The main gimmick of this game is using rings to change your environments at a moment's notice, which is really quite cool.

4. Digimon Story: Time Stranger

This game is my most anticipated from the whole showcase.The sequel to Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth promises another monster-raising game where you save the world with your digital buddies. Generally the story has darker undertones than its fellow monster-catchers, and this one looks like it will improve on its PlayStation 4 counterpart in big ways. Digimon fans have waited 7 years for this and it's amazing to see the franchise return in such a way.

5. Lost Soul Aside

This trailer reminded me a lot of Final Fantasy 16, and it seems to be a fast paced action RPG with some very flashy gimmicks, a hint of Asian culture, mixed with fantastical element based attacks. It could be promising.

6. Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii

Yakuza games are usually separated into two genres: the fun and goofy sections, and the serious crime drama sections. This game appears to be entirely goofy, but it is returning to the series' beat 'em up origins outside of the RPG gameplay of recent years. It feels like a spin off from the main series, like Yakuza Dead Souls but it will probably be a lot of fun, especially if they get ship combat right.

7. Splitgate 2

This game gives off the same energy of Multiversus returning after its initial shut down. Perhaps it is an attempt to revive the initial success that Splitgate 1 had when it first came out, but then fell victim to poor numbers and lost relevancy as it went on. This game will be fun with friends but I doubt a live service will survive very long in the current gaming climate. There's an Alpha on PS5 starting February 27th if you're interested in trying out this "Halo with portal guns" type of shooter.

8. WWE 2K25

This years' WWE grapple-fest wanted to show off its online multiplayer sandbox, The Island, that's very reminiscent of the Street Fighter 6 lobby system. It looks quite good, so it's a promising peek at the new features for this long running game series. If you're a wrestling fan, this is a great series to play out some dream matches in.

9. Borderlands 4

What can be said about Borderlands 4's trailer? Well it's Borderlands. Lots of looting, shooting and crazy psychos. There wasn't much else aside from a release date (September 23rd). Nothing really new but it's good to see it in the showcase.

10. Split Fiction

This is another game from the guys who brought us It Takes Two, Hazelight Studios. This looked similar to a movie trailer and it promises big things for the co-op gaming space. Most likely to be a Game of the Year contender, I would recommend you play this with the person closest to you. These games have this magical feeling of strengthening bonds with whoever you play it with.

11. Directive 8020 - A Dark Pictures Game

I am conflicted on this one. A space horror game sounds like an interesting premise, but Supermassive Games' current streak of lackluster titles leaves me less hyped, and more wishing for a return to form. I've played all the Dark Pictures games, but with the likes of The Quarry and The Casting of Frank Stone distracting from this title, I don't have much hope for this game reaching the series' former heights.

12. Five Nights at Freddies: Secret of the Mimic

Has this series ever had a bad game? I feel like these games have such a depth of lore, intrigue and fulfill basic horror needs on top of providing tons of hidden content to find and love. They will continue on for a long time. If you're a horror fan, this game will be for you. FNAF is the benchmark for reliably good horror experiences right now.

13. The Midnight Walk

This one is a really artistic game, a dark fantasy horror trip made entirely of clay. I love these little passion project games that go the extra mile with its graphical fidelity. Extremely gothic, maybe this will tide people over till Silksong finally releases next century. Oh it has VR too! Pretty good if you want to really immerse yourself in a dark universe.

14. Darwin's Paradox

A 2D platformer where you play as an octopus. It reminds me a bit of Oddworld. You seemingly engage in some sort of criminal shenanigans and have to navigate around humans. Could be interesting.

15. Warrior's: Abyss

Well, I have always loved Koei Techmo's Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors games, and now they've smooshed them into a Hades-style Roguelite. Separated from their historical origins, the characters delve into the depths of hell in this isometric action game. The art style of this one stands out, and it has heavy vibes of the Warriors Orochi games. Definitely not something you'd want to pass up if you like roguelites. It was released on the same day as the State of Play and is fairly cheap at $25.

16. Onimusha: Way Of The Sword

This game looks like it’s trying to show Nioh how it's done! With a sword-wielding, soul-absorbing samurai, this looks to fuse the feeling of Ghost of Tsushima with the action-packed weapon play of Devil May Cry. We are looking at a real treat in the making with this one. They announced a remaster of the classic Onimusha 2 is coming to the PS4 this year, which is also a good use of your money.

17. Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater

It's a remake of a classic game. If you've never played it before then I'd recommend it. MGS: Snake Eater is a stealth-espionage game with some pretty iconic characters and moments. You may remember the main character Snake from Super Smash Brothers. This isn't really my sort of game but it's an iconic entry of gaming history so it’s probably worth a look.

18. Hell Is Us

This one seemed more of a teaser, almost feeling like a fusion of a Resident Evil game and Jedi: Fallen Order. Interesting premise, so this is one to keep an eye on.

19. Dreams of Another

I don't really understand or get what the goal of this trailer was. In a surreal art style made of dots, it showed a guy in his pajamas shooting things with a machine gun in his dreams. Then it is revealed that he can shoot matter into existence. It didn't particularly strike me as a good looking game, but perhaps its unique selling point will be in how uneasy and distorted the artwork feels.

20. Tides of Annihilation

This was the most eye-catching and intriguing trailer. The main character is voiced by Baldur's Gate 3's Shadowheart VA, the graphics are insanely pretty and the game looks to be Soulslike but with a far bigger focus on female agency set in a dystopian vision of modern London. The trailer had all of the best aesthetics of both Bloodborne and Devil May Cry 5. We don't know who is doing the music yet, but I got serious Yoko Shimomura vibes, too. Definitely looks to be a smash-hit in the making.

21. Metal Eden

One thing about all of the trailers in the State of Play was that almost everything evokes feelings of amazing games of the past. This one brings to mind the high-speed gunplay of Doom, fused with some of the parkour of Mirror's Edge, with a hint of Cyberpunk goodness. Could be a good time, but only time will tell!

22. Saros

This was the big ending game. When it turned up I immediately thought "Returnal 2", and it's made by the same studio, Housemarque. A multi-armed demon arises from a sea with a massive blackhole backdrop while our main character, a Commander Shepard type, stares it down. The voiceover promises a replayability factor, of a struggle to escape a torturous time over and over again. If this game can build upon and perfect what Returnal set out to do, this could be another Game of the Year candidate.

And that's everything new from the PlayStation State of Play! What was your favourite? Do you think that anything on the list is a guaranteed hit? Or was there not enough farming simulators for your tastes? Let me know in the comments below!

Sonic the Hedgehog 3: The Movie that Succeeds On All Fronts

If you asked me whether it would be worth going to see Sonic the Hedgehog 3 at the cinema, I would have first asked you two questions. The first would be if you had seen the previous two Sonic movie adaptations, and the second would be if you'd played Sonic Adventure 2. And if you answered no to both of these questions, I would've still recommended this movie. Usually, a movie like this would be directly tied to its previous material, whether that be source or direct prequels. Nevertheless, now that it has been released on digital, it is as good a time as any to talk about this movie!

This movie, despite being heart and soul intertwined with both, rewards those who have seen previous entries and introduces newcomers to its world. It's one of those rare movies that fails to squander a single moment of its run time. Every single actor in this delivers a stellar performance, and the script itself was fashioned out of gold, which is exactly what Jim Carrey said a script would have to be to coax him out of retirement.

Sonic 3 As An Adaptation

Sonic 3 is intended to be an adaptation of Sonic Adventure 2, a battle between the "Ultimate life form" Shadow (Keanu Reeves) and Sonic (Ben Schwartz), along with the background machinations of Eggman and his grandfather Gerald Robotnik (Jim Carrey). The game has certain key moments that are remembered and beloved by many. Sonic 3 takes these key moments and recreates them within its own universe flawlessly. Shadow's journey of revenge is tragic and understandable, whilst Gerald Robotnik's reaction to the same trauma becomes a loss of self. His personal selfish desire for revenge is too strong to contain, all whilst we see Shadow's struggles to contain his own grief. Gerald becomes a villain due to this, whilst Shadows' ability to come back from the brink is what defines him as a more heroic character. In the original story, Gerald is executed before events take place. However, in this movie, we find his inclusion and direct involvement with the plot fresh and intriguing to watch.

Shadow takes centre stage, played safely but powerfully by Keanu Reeves. His portrayal is honest, to the point and broody. It's a straight-man approach to the chaotic energy of both Robotniks, yet I find it to bring true gravitas to the film. Whenever Shadow is on screen, the jokes and humour stop and everyone is forced into his world of pain and loss. It's very true to his character, as his quips in-game have an air of intimidation and focus. It's the same here, perhaps even better considering Keanu Reeves's impressive vocal range.

We find that Sonic, Tails (Collen O'Shaughnessey), and Knuckles (Idris Elba) all flesh out their respective roles in this movie. Their essence becomes far more solid, with Tails being an invaluable support and Knuckle's reliable independence and sworn duty being established. Sonic, however, gets a very special form of character development here. He's introduced to emotions and feelings that, generally speaking, do not happen to his video game counterpart.

For the most part, Sonic is a wise-cracking, joke-spouting speed demon who saves the day time and again. Here, his relationship with Shadow allows him to grow, come to terms with loss, and experience the same grief as Shadow; it does a lot to humanise Sonic. In fact, he frequently loses in this movie. Only winning where it truly counts and empathising with his enemy to truly solve the situation. Sonic and Shadow's auras conflict beautifully.

Finally, Jim Carrey as both Gerald and Ivo Robotnik, becomes the star attraction of this movie. After Ivo is at his lowest point after his last defeat, he is forced into working with Sonic, finds his grandpa and launches into a crazy family reunion plot where they both prove they've lost their minds. But Ivo is genuinely happy to have a family member while Gerald manipulates him into his genocidal plan. However, with Ivo, we also see one of the core parts of his character from the games. It's best summed up with his character's line, "How can I take over the city and build my theme park if there is no city!".

Recently, Robotnik (commonly known as Eggman) has become family-orientated in the games, with Frontiers giving him an AI daughter. This movie takes his most recent character development and applies it beautifully. Incidentally, we see his love of theme parks in action briefly in a very astute cutaway. Fantastic!

I love the wardrobe department; that outfit is perfect.

Sonic 3 As A Sequel

This movie's historical knowledge of its own franchise is impressive. Not only does it pull from its source material in all the best ways, but it also takes its pre-existing material and weaves it into a narrative in a very immersive way. The events of the previous films are referenced, and events from the Knuckles TV show are briefly given a nod.

Another of this movie's impressive strengths is building upon its previous installments. Robotnik's continuing insanity is accompanied by his development into the beloved video game antagonist I've grown up with in my 30 years of life. From a sour-faced unchallenged robotics expert in the first film into a cartoonish genius in the second, and finally, in this film, gaining his occasional dips into his own brand of selfish heroism. This movie serves as the final transformation into his video game persona, giving fans the character development they've been clamouring for since the first movie solidifies this trilogy.
It's difficult to talk about Sonic the Hedgehog's development in any media. He's historically an unflinching cool guy, with little to no character changes outside of his iconic attitude. In this film, we have a slight change, where his relationship with James Marsden's Tom allows for a brief glimpse into a more angry and focused Sonic when Shadow unintentionally injures him. He does snap himself out of it quite fast, but it was interesting to see a version of the character that drew parallels to the Sonic of Archie comics and the destruction he'd be capable of if he followed a similar path to Shadow.

If they're Chaos Emeralds… Why aren't they all green?

Tails got far more of a chance to shine in this movie. Showing his smarts and resourceful nature. Knuckles also gets to play a role similar to Drax from Guardians of the Galaxy. Dumb but very strong and can be quite funny. He doesn't change much from the last film aside from being far more happy, but he has a TV mini-series, so he'll be fine. The movie definitely knows what to keep the same and what not to break.

My all-time favourite part of this movie is that there are no intrusive subplots that draw focus away from the film. Even minor characters like Tom's sister-in-law get referenced in ways that forward the story. Krysten Ritter plays a dubious army officer wanting to climb the ranks. The G.U.N commander (Tom Butler), regretful of what he did to Shadow, puts his faith in the team due to previous events. Wade (Adam Palley) is trusted by Knuckles to guard the Master Emerald. And finally, Agent Stone (Lee Majdoub) is just the best unconditional henchman ever. Eggman's rejection of him made for an emotional time, even for a guy like me in his 30s.

The iconic Chao garden, with a tiny bit of Five Nights at Freddy's flair.

Sonic 3 As A Standalone Movie

Shadow is expertly introduced, immediately establishing him as Sonic's equal and surpassing the rest of the cast. His backstory parallels Sonic's happy family life, and to see Sonic almost go down the same path is hurtful. We can understand that Shadow's grief and suffering are not only soul-crushing but also like a virus that can create more suffering as a result. And while Sonic is able to save Shadow from his grief, Gerald Robotnik is completely consumed by it. It tackles the very human condition of dealing with loss and trying to hold onto yourself through it. It tugs at the heartstrings, with Shadow and Sonic both being thrust into a strange world but having to live and learn on their own.

We have two tales of characters who are like mirrors of each other. The pairs of Sonic and Shadow and Gerald and Ivo Robotnik, their dysfunctions and loss repeatedly affect the people around them, and we see outside characters' reactions. Tails and Knuckles worried for Sonic while Agent Stone tries in vain to convince his boss of the dangers of his grandfather's behaviour. All of this culminates in numerous impressive set pieces with a real flair for production. The heist in London, The Eclipse Canon, and the volcano fight between the two hedgehogs all show how much this series benefits from exploring wild and diverse locales. And those fight scenes are beautiful, especially with the addition of the Chaos Emeralds, turning them into energy-filled pinballs smashing into each other in anger. The choreography was spot on, and that's without even mentioning the Jim Carrey double dance scene!

Robotnik's 3rd iconic dance scene with himself.

At times, the humour and dialogue are very much made for children, making the exposition sort of hamfisted, like when the commander reveals Shadow's backstory at dinner. However, the movie had the good sense of having the series mascot, the Chao, in the background to look at while it was happening. I appreciate that the movie knows when it might be losing the audience's attention for necessary plot points.

The music is serviceable for the most part, but they put in a song from Sonic Adventure 2 (Shadow's debut game) at the end of the film. This is the best piece of music on the soundtrack, but it sort of feels like very blatant fanservice. I'm half and half on the idea. It's fanservice, but I can't help but feel an original track might have been a better choice due to the need to use other works. This is probably my only worry about the film in general; honestly, it's not even a negative.

I was never expecting the Sonic movies to be this good. After the first two only dipped their toes into the franchise and filled the rest with human subplots, I was expecting half of this movie to be amazing and the other half tedious. I am happy to say that I was completely wrong, and this might just be the best video game adaptation ever made.

The cinematography on the Tokyo Sequence here will probably stick with me for a long time.

I would give this movie a 10/10 anytime.

Arcane Season 2: A Backstep From a Masterpiece

When I watched Arcane's first season, I felt it was a masterpiece, a complete success in terms of story, themes, music and character building. It was difficult for me to imagine it away from the pantheon of animated giants like Toy Story and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.

Going into Season Two, I was very excited to dive back into the political spiderweb that Piltover and Zaun had made themself out to be, only to find that Arcane's second season has become rather muddled and entangled in concepts it perhaps shouldn't have been.

Now writing this after watching the end of the season. I can come to the conclusion that Arcane is a story about cycles and characters going through the same mistakes over and over again. Chasing after some magic cure to their ailments, but the truth of the matter is we are imperfect, and that's okay. Perhaps this has reached the form of an imperfect story that we can still love at times for its intrinsic value. Putting this into perspective, we can see how some of the writing doesn't measure up and that these cycles aren't maintained in a way that keeps the characters intact.

What's Wrong With the Story?

To answer this question, we have to understand that Season One had a masterpiece ending. A tragic climax that promised to irrevocably change the lives of every character in this series. But in Season Two, we find it really didn't. Some characters are revealed to have died: Jayce and Mel lived, Caitlyn's mom and some background councilors died. But Jinx's big gesture of never going back seems to have resulted in very little tangible meaning.

We don't get to see any sort of real Zaun and Piltover conflict; in fact, what we do see of this is manipulated by a hostile outside force and not a real conflict of ideologies that Season One reveled in. All that happens is that Caitlyn goes into manhunt mode and tries to catch Jinx, which is again manipulated by this outside force that, by all rights, should not have become such a prominent part of the narrative. Silco's revolution against Piltover just sort of vanishes, which is not okay. So, let's go into what is wrong with this season.

Vi is a Terrible Hero

Vi is, for all purposes, the character we are supposed to root for. Her sister goes crazy, commits terrorism, kidnaps and tortures her girlfriend, and her girlfriend then leaves her over her retained morality even in the face of all this. However, Vi's strength is an illusion, and her personality degrades to insufferable levels. She forgives Jinx incredibly easily, continually makes choices that place her loved ones at risk, cannot seem to ever win a fight despite being "The toughest person in Zaun," makes questionable decisions, and ultimately, betrays everyone she cares about at some point during the story.

I don't know how the Vi of Season One, who underwent the hero's journey and consistently struggled against the odds could become the victim of a character assassination. Vi has no loyalty, no care except for her own fear of being alone, and in my personal opinion, has very little relevance to the plot aside from being "Jinx's sister" or "Caitlyn's girlfriend". They really dropped the ball on this character. Vi is really just Chloe Price from Life is Strange with huge mallet hands.

Jinx's Motivation is Lost.

Last season, we saw Jinx say goodbye to Powder forever by launching a powerful missile straight at Piltover's government. As it stood, she seemed poised to take up Silco's mantle and destroy the topsiders in his honor after she killed him in a psychotic rage.

Whoops, sorry she's acting like Powder again and seems quite suicidal until she picks up a stray kid who she treats as her new sister. The kid idolizes her, and she decides to pack up the terrorism life to become, frankly, an amazing guardian to this child.

But what is wrong with that is that Jinx loses the progression she made at the end of Season 1. Her autonomy and strength are stripped away to double back on last season's painful truth that family can, in fact, save you despite family being the cause of all her grief. In the end, this need to be part of a family destroys her, both mentally and in the climax.

What made Jinx an effective villain was her righteous disregard for family as the cause of her psychosis. This season even reinforced this with episode seven, showing that in a world where Vi dies early, Powder completely flourishes. It's based on this revelation that her characterization becomes complicated. Turning her from a villain created by others into a redemption-driven-anti-hero, which, for me, is a tough pill to swallow.

She does get a killer outfit for the finale though.

Caitlyn Becomes a Dictator

There really isn't much to say about this one. Caitlyn is a devoted police officer who is dedicated to the rule of law and order. The people matter to her. But her mom dying and a laughably evil bad influence can cause her to become evil even for as little as a year? Even worse, what causes her to reverse course back to her regular self is being called cupcake. It just doesn't seem to make much sense for her. The reasons don't add up in a meaningful way.

Caitlyn's commander fit, as seen in League of Legends.

Ambessa is the Perfect Antagonist, But Not For This Series

Don't get me wrong, I love Ambessa; I think she's a militaristic despot who will sacrifice everything for power. That is good. But in this series about magic and the arcane? They had to bring in the Black Roses (Noxian mages) and tease the heck out of the League champion Leblanc to make her inclusion thematic enough. But she doesn't belong here. This is a Piltover and Zaun story; why would they decide to make her a focal point of this story when she only just got introduced to League of Legends lore herself? It's confusing and takes away from story points that need far more focus and love.

Her connection to Mel Medarda made her relevant; however, Mel herself gets shoved to the back of the room this season, making her plot much less interesting and irrelevant when compared to Ambessa, who was brought in to enhance her story but is now the other way around.

Go, my soldiers! We'll find the plot somewhere over there!

Ekko and Heimerdinger feel Sidelined

Undoubtedly, my favourite character in all of Arcane is Ekko. He and Heimerdinger prove that both sides can co-exist in a hugely positive way. In Arcane, most characters come in pairs. Ekko and Heimer are the most cohesive and loveable duo. The young prodigy and the old prodigy work together to create miracles. Ekko himself is so insanely cool, and I think his scenes must have gotten all the extra love in the world. And yet, you hardly see them. They're the focus of only one episode this season, the same as Ekko getting one episode to shine in Season One. I don't feel like these characters got enough attention. Heimerdinger himself is more of a mentor character, which means he has to "die." We don't know if he truly does, but it has incredible meaning, which is a positive for this story.

While Ekko does get a big moment in the finale, it does feel like that moment is undercut by other characters' stories always coming to fruition around him. Jayce and Viktor's big finale feels as though Ekko's moment only enables the climax of their story. He saves Jinx from her destructive mindset, allowing her to reach the end of her story. We don't get to see if his ending is happy or not, and his tale is left unfinished. He's just a cool guy who turns up, does what needs to be done, and then vanishes, at least in terms of the story. I hope that we can see him again in a future spin-off.

Jayce and Viktor's Unclear Relationship

I don't know what was going on with Jayce and Viktor this season. Are they together? Just really good friends? I couldn't even tell. Half the time, they seem to really hate each other, and the other half they can't live without each other. Jayce even kills him at one point citing that "Hextech is a curse on us all." Then it turns out Viktor from the future is backing past Jayce to stop his younger self because he's bored and made a mistake? Present-day Viktor only recovers so that he and Jayce can fight and disappear into a "magic void" where we don't know what happens.

One minute, they're killing each other; and the next, Jayce is like, "Waaa, I want my partner back." Then Viktor turns himself into Robocop and goes on about "Glorious evolutions" like he's a crazy Pokemon trainer.

Aren't these guys scientists? For a couple of scientists, they both flunked chemistry! At any time could these two sit down and talk through their experiences and actually come to a conclusion, but they're both so convinced the other one won't listen to them that they've gotta get out the test tube full of Phosphor-hate.

At any rate, Viktor made a cult this season, and Jayce turned into a homeless person after a trip to the ruined future. At least now with Jayce becoming the Terminator and Viktor becoming Robocop, we have that epic Robocop versus the Terminator TV show we always wanted.

"Please sir, can I have my robot revolution now?"

Maddie and other Background NPCs

This show made the vital mistake of bringing in an enforcer squad of people with distinguishable features and models. These people aren't champions in League of Legends. They're getting an uncomfortable amount of focus. They're going to die, aren't they?

Yep… all dead in the finale. Oh hey, the one called Maddie was a Noxian spy who slept with Caitlyn while she was in dictator mode. Hold on… her name is "Mad"-die. Was this character actually inserted just to make the fanbase mad by inserting herself in between their relationship? It doesn't seem like this plot point had any other use. I feel like her inclusion was to create talking points and fan reactions rather than any meaningful story beats.

Guess which characters will make it to the end of the season.

Warwick Exists For About Five Minutes

Warwick as a champion has always been quite loved. He's supposed to be a big wolf who sniffs out prey and rips them to pieces. Turning Vander into Warwick was a good idea.

Turning him into a beast with little to no control over himself, giving him some mental power to see what he was doing, and then taking it away again was not. As it is, a character who should have been given more time, love and attention is reverted to "Big wolf goes awoo" and serves as a rabid beast who keeps trying to kill the main cast. It's a case of massively wasted potential in my opinion. Poor Vander gets mind-controlled at least three times throughout the season. It feels like fanservice that could have been better used to create a sad tale for Vander, more than him being a mindless beast who just happened to once be a character we loved.

Local evil scientist Singed with Warwick, his creation meant to… make his daughter immortal?

So, to conclude, all of this contributes to a giant jumbled mess of a show that honestly could have used a far better direction than what ended up happening. Characters just sort of turned on their own motivation and morals at will.

However, what we did get was a graphically astounding show, with amazing amounts of care put into the animations. The thought put into the little details, the focus on really cool moments, such as Ekkos creation of his time rewind device, or the pure cruel and dark landscapes as Jayce moved through the ruined future, giving real shades of the artistic beauty of something like Samurai Jack. This show is ascendant visually, and the music is not as good as the previous season, but still above par. Arcane Season Two is sadly let down by its lackluster story, random character decisions, and poor focus.

The Confusing Tale of Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero's Character Balance

Fighting games have a long history of characters that can be considered too powerful. Some are so powerful that their power seems far past the intended character balance. Marvel vs Capcom 2 is one of the best examples where 10% of the characters are so above the rest of the roster that they can't hold a candle in a professional setting.

Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero is an oddity in that regard due to the development team deliberately setting out to make characters that are leaps and bounds stronger than others, with this idea being that powerful characters should be powerful. Okay, I can understand that.

Except, it went wrong in a big way. In their attempts to make the game unbalanced in a fun way, they have made it unbalanced in a highly exploitative way, where some characters have possibly unintended advantages over the rest of the cast. I've been playing this game for at least 60 hours on ranked mode now, and the game is not working as intended because in their haste to make strong characters broken, they made some of the weakest characters insanely strong by accident. Let's go into some of the funny situations that have arisen from their vision for a Dragon Ball game:

1. Yajirobe - 2/10 DP power character

So, to go into how the game works, you have single battle, which is one versus one, and DP battle which is a team vs team situation. Yajirobe, at the time of writing, is the biggest menace to the PC DP ranked ladders. He's a weak, very low-stat character who deals little to no damage and does not have a proper energy blast. His specials are very short-range but a little hard to dodge, so he's usually in your face a lot.

But they gave him a move that instantly heals him back to a full three health bars in two seconds, which he can use as long as he has five skill points (skill points are gained through executing dodges, blocking, executing dodges, etc.) So what this means is this small, unassuming character can whittle down even the strongest of fighters, and should you get him close to death, if you get knocked back even once, Yajirobe can hit the reset button and you're fighting him as if he was a new character all over again. And with a ticking timer going on in the background, Yajirobe can cause timeout victories like nobody's business if the player is even half-competent at dodging. Stronger characters take around six seconds to heal/regenerate and only revive a small amount of health. I guess Yajirobe must have had a fan on the balance team.

Update: As of a recent patch, he was nerfed to two and a half health bars rather than three, and his heal move has been increased to six skill points rather than five. A really hefty nerf but honestly, I still find it funny that a potential winner of a hot dog eating contest was the first and only nerfed character.

2. Super Vegito (Super Saiyan 1) - 8/10 DP power character

Super Vegito has a 10 DP blue-haired variant that deserves the level of strength it exerts. What doesn't make any sense is that the skill move "Afterimage strike" is limited to his less powerful form and provides far more of a rage-inducing gimmick.

"Afterimage strike" takes three of your hard-earned skill points and turns on "Auto-Dodge", instantly teleporting Vegito behind your opponents for an easy free combo. Now, while the regular afterimage is used tactically, this version completely grabs you by the dragon balls and removes them. I estimate about twenty seconds of dodging every hit, super or explosion your opponent might try to hit you with, allowing you to immediately turn the battle to your favor, again and again.

While not immediately spammable, this move provides any Vegito user with an instant timeout where if you dare to try to damage him, you will be punished at any time after he has three skill points accrued. And with his naturally high hp pool, or fusion given five health bars. This guy can waste entire teams on his lonesome unless you lab extensively on how to survive during the period of time he can flash step into your house and take your last bagel from the bread bin mid-match.

3. Burter - 3/10 DP power character

Marketed as "The fastest in the universe", Burter more than lives up to this premise. Not in terms of actual speed, but from a naturally extended combo string, where his hits and strings perform dramatically differently from any other character. This means that when you fight Burter, your timings, counter potential and reaction speed are tested to the maximum. Looking for gaps in this man's offense is the same as looking for a person who enjoyed Concord unironically.

For such a low-cost character, Burter has a distinct advantage, and it isn't always going to be easy for a newer player to even hope to counter him like they would any other character except perhaps Super Saiyan 4 Gogeta.

4. Super Saiyan 4 Gogeta - 10/10 DP power character

A list like this wouldn't be the same without mentioning this dominating force in single battle mode. Extraordinarily fast normals, large health pool, and a skill that lets him enter Sparking mode instantly, (Sparking mode being access to longer combo strings, ultimate blasts and an extra ki bar.) this version of Gogeta has every tool needed stacked on top of each other to overwhelm everyone on the roster. This is more your naturally found overpowered character, similar to Vergil from Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3. While I feel someone has to fill the spot of top dog on every roster, his sheer dominance on the leaderboards made me feel he deserves to be on this list.

5. Every single giant character (Except Anilaza and Hirudegarn) - 4-5/10 DP power characters, typically

Sparking! Zero has this great gimmick of taking large bosses and making them playable as giant juggernauts of power. To achieve this effect, they gave all of them super armor, allowing them to tank weaker hits and continue with their attacks. On top of this, their slow, clumsy attacks are mixed in with a very fast, almost instant dash attack, and their grabs are uninterruptible by basic hits. What this amounts to is a large, spammable character who makes the camera go awkward and hard to see.

Let's pair this with someone like Janamba, who can transform out of being giant, or someone like Dr. Wheelo, who attacks faster, and we're left with a very difficult fight mainly due to the game's own mechanics being arbitrary and subject to rigorous testing before you can understand what does and does not stop them. During my 80 hours of playtime, I have found that every character has "Will they, won't they?" on breaking armor, and even on breaking parts of the stage.

Anilaza is left off this list because he has ridiculously high DP power, making them fair but also losing viability.

6. Android 19 and Android 20 (Doctor Gero) - 4/10 DP power characters

A lot of people have ignored the andoids, but not me. Android 19 is an android-type character, which means they don't charge to get energy; they usually gain it passively at a faster pace, but less than a character's charge.

What makes these two special is that their grabs absorb the energy of non-android characters. Meaning you can take your opponent's setups and turn them into yours, instantly gaining an upper hand.

But what makes them specifically unbalanced is the skill "False courage". This gives both of them temporary super armor allowing them to move up to a player and instantly grab them to steal their energy. They can do this repeatedly with little to no counter until their super armor runs out. At this point, the skill, costing one skill point, will have already been replenished, allowing them to do it again. Usually, to counter such skills you would use a beam to interrupt them, but in these cases, your energy has already been stolen.

This makes these characters infuriating to deal with because to counter their grab, you have to condition yourself to also attempt to grab and then win the little minigame to get them off you. The steps required to counter this strategy alone make this unbalanced.

7. Goku (Super) Ultra Instinct -Sign- - 8/10 DP power character

While this is for the -sign- variant of Goku, what really makes this unbalanced is that they provide a mid-battle transformation into Mastered Ultra Instinct Goku. This character provides ridiculous super range, insane speeds and debatably the strongest ultimate blast in the game. For eight Dp points, you can get the equivalent of a ten-power character with all the additional tools that -sign- can provide. -Sign- Goku is a monster who can transform into an even worse monster. It makes sense why this is one of the most favored characters in ranked at the time of writing.

This is the current state of the game; 80% of teams include some form of what you see above. With the clash between the games' intended power balance and unintentional balance issues, we've got to wonder if the game will lean more into its overpowered buffet style or calm down to become a game with a more varied character pool for the ranked setting. Only time will tell.

They're Just Giving Any Old Monkey GOTY Now: Black Myth: Wukong Review

I first heard about Wukong in 2022. It was one of those games where a trailer drops and is able to generate immediate excitement. The graphics looked crisp, the gameplay looked similar to From Software's popular Dark Souls series, and it was based on a story that we in the West scarcely have a chance to absorb in video game form. Possibly the most famous figure in Buddhist myth: Sun Wukong. The Monkey King that ascended to heaven and was inevitably cast out. Or, as I knew him, "That guy from League of Legends, Smite and every other MOBA that has ever released".

But to be honest, this game completely lived up to the hype. Playing this for myself was a real testament to a warrior's journey. You progress, die a few times, get back up and try again, work on yourself, find that you just have to power up from other means, stumble upon secrets, help really charming NPCs in their own struggles and at the end of every chapter, you get an animation that clearly took a gaggle of animators whipping out their ancient skill scrolls to make some of the most aesthetically pleasing little cutscenes of Chinese myth and culture. This game is made with love and has been the most powerful expression of culture I've seen in video gaming in a long time. So, let's get into the details of what made this a Game-of-the-Year contender.

Story: 9/10

To me, the story is the most important part of any single-player experience. Here, the story is told through fables and spectacles. The opening cutscene shows Wukong defying Heaven and pits you against their champion from your first step. From here, we're treated to an epic back and forth, where Wukong basically gives them all the finger and insists he will kill them all for attacking his people to punish them. A really impressive fight results in something happening to Wukong, and is trapped beneath his mountain.

Nothing from here on is explained; you must progress and earn your context. Your character is a Monkey born on the same mountain as Wukong and tasked with gathering together his relics so that he may return (and fight some pretty difficult enemies).

Low-level demons, giant forest creatures, and even the gods themselves; you'll be facing them all. Every foe is known as "Yaoguai", and they all have stories told through dialogue and action. The more you fight and progress, the more you come to understand the depth of every being you come across. Special props to "Zhu Bajie", a boar Yaoguai who becomes your companion throughout the tale, giving witty banter and sass at every turn.

This huge fire bear was pretty early in the game.

I particularly liked how the game guided me into the small intricacies of how Buddhist hierarchy works and how nobody in the tale is exclusively good or evil. Even Wukong himself is subject to criticism, with you coming across those whose lives he's touched and how his storm of reckless behavior has eternally changed their path in life. On the opposite side of that, the heavenly courts are portrayed as paranoid and unwilling to compromise, coming after you, fearing that you may just succeed in becoming Wukong reborn.

Every story in this game is a handcrafted and polished retelling of the legend while also expanding on its consequences. My only gripe is that the animations at the end of each chapter can be confusing at times should you not have the context of something like Journey to the West or another story that details Wukong.

A still frame from one of the game's many animations.

Also, the dubbing voice actors all deserve bonuses. From start to finish, I was praising every single voice actor who uttered any lines. The VA who plays Sun Wukong is so good, and I cannot stress how immersive the voice cast is for the English dub.

Gameplay: 10/10

The thing about Black Myth Wukong is that the number of paths you can take to change your playstyle really opens up the more you play. You get three fighting styles, seemingly endless amounts of spells and transformations, and a focus system that is so satisfying once you can reliably get off max focus attacks (Since they take finesse and require you to use them in a timely manner).

You'll spend every battle finding new and inventive ways to get an advantage over your foes. The stronger you get, the more you'll have to choose where your mana goes and just what approach to take. A keen mind is your best ally, with all bosses having at least a weakness to a tool in your kit. For instance, one boss has an adverse reaction to a certain relic, which, when used, stops his super form. The depth is absolutely… bananas.

Outside of combat, you really have to give props for the design of fights and bosses. The rise in difficulty parallels the majesty and strength of those you fight. As you keep moving forward, you feel like you are taking on much bigger threats as you cultivate yourself as a warrior. One particular moment I knew that things were getting serious was when an end boss produces a dragon and sicks it on you. That was the moment I knew the game wanted me to know it wasn't messing around.

Wait, you mean this isn't from Monster Hunter?

End-of-chapter bosses consistently proved to be the biggest challenge. I felt the leap in difficulty the moment I got near anything that could be considered an end boss, and I was never in doubt of what the final challenge was in any one area. The game has a very precise way of letting you know just how powerful they are and how much thought you're going to need to put into each encounter. It's related mainly to the size of the opponent, their dialogue, and how integral they are to the in-game lore.

This guy even uses one of your own spells against you, and it isn't the only one

Every part of the game boasts secret areas with cinematic flair, providing context to the area you're in. They didn't have to do this, but they were always amazing to play through and allowed for fights in the past that Sun Wukong himself fought.

Graphics: 10/10

So… this game is beautiful. I mean really beautiful. Even on my outdated Nvidia 3060, everything popped, feeling otherworldly and pristine. This game should be praised as a work of art in itself. I really can't say much more other than the fact this game needs to be seen to fully embrace just how good it is.

They even went so far as to draw individual collision boxes around random rocks to the extent that you would actually feel like the rock was there, even down to the tiniest texture.

What a feat of graphical and gameplay interwoven beauty.

So many… individually rendered spiders. And they crawl all over you. Really impressive but I shudder

Music: 8/10

The soundtrack is very good. I wouldn't say it's anything remarkable, but it's very high quality. There aren't any tracks here that you would be playing to yourself in your spare time, but during the game, everything fits, creates great ambience, and you can hype yourself up during fights with it quite easily. You won't be disappointed. But with the likes of Elden Ring and Dark Souls soundtracks living rent-free in people's minds, I guess this one just falls short of that pedestal.

In Conclusion:

Wukong has everything it needs to be preserved in the gaming annals of history. It's one of those special labour of love type games that comes along with the budget you would expect of a masterpiece. China is often overlooked as a game developer treasure trove. Alongside other studios such as MiHoYo, we can probably expect that Game Science, the developers of this game, will become a major player in the gaming landscape. I will probably play Wukong a second time with a different fighting style, just because it's that interesting to see the variations of play offered to me. Black Myth: Wukong just has the bad luck to fall in the same year as many other massive releases. But in my opinion, this game deserves Game of the Year.

A Pretty Good Tactics RPG Dropped this Month and it Will Likely Go Ignored

There's a game out right now called Sword of Convallaria (SoC). It's a mobile RPG tactics Gatcha game that is also on Steam. People who like tactics games have games like Fire Emblem, Triangle Strategy, and Final Fantasy Tactics for retro fans. And everyone who likes Gatcha games is grinding away on Genshin Impact, or for some other bizarre reason, you're still playing Fate: Grand Order (You guys know you're suffering from Stockholm syndrome, right?) So I was thinking that this game would just be forgotten, right?

While on the surface, you may be looking at a cash grab, the reality is that this game houses an in-depth, multi-ending story with numerous branching paths, chances to change the story and a separate roster of characters from your main collection. Characters are given incredibly hefty characterization, and it all stems from the idea that your little mercenary group can now affect the world that may have been fated to perish in an all-encompassing conflict. It reminds me an awful lot of Radiant Historia, one of my all-time favorite time-travel-based RPG games from the Nintendo 3DS.

The beginning of a long branching path of story progression.

My experience with this game has been strange. On the one hand, you have the introduction where you die unexpectedly, characters with defined models are killed, and your character, recently freed from imprisonment, meets an undue end. From here, you are given a second chance by a deity that takes the form of a cat. Splitting the story into two halves.

The first half is your standard daily progression system, where you draw characters from a pool with decreased rates to get powerful characters. You take on increasingly difficult tactical challenges, free to use whatever resources you gain. This is all to protect the afterlife from calamities that keep on causing trouble and mayhem. Fighting the celestial cancerous beings and making your way through the story. This is, unfortunately, the surface level of this game, where it takes the form of an admittedly decent tactical fare filled to the brim with microtransactions and gating that encourage you to spend money. But that all changes when we get to the second half.

The second half, named spiral destinies, is a fully playable single-player experience with the cast of SoC. Upon being given the opportunity to return to the point of your demise, your characters are returned to their strength within the boundaries of the story. And the solution to saving your character's lives becomes waiting out the riot and the majority of the carnage and fleeing the city much later than usual. A very small change that results in your fights being much less lethal. From here, you join these mercenaries and are given units in a far more story-based pattern. The decisions you make become far less luck-based and far more dependent on your own decisions.

Your characters will be subject to training and experience based on in-game mechanics, not gathering resources to power up your previously accessible roster of characters. Everything in this mode is gained through gameplay exclusively.

Everything runs on resources, training and preparation in this mode only.

So we hit a rather strange situation. Your afterlife is a mobile game cash grab, and your Earthly life is fun, engaging and limited only by your own choices, cultivating your units and hiring choices, fighting against major characters and ultimately changing the fate of the world. All the while wondering if the events of the heavenly area might also require your attention every so often.

The single-player option isn't entirely playable from start to finish, though, with replays and different choices being locked behind weekly keys to either replay or play additional chapters. However, upon playing for four hours, I only used one key and played about 13 weeks of gameplay on single-player. It shows no signs of forcing me to use additional keys anytime soon, making me think that excessive playing of the story may be gated. I would most likely say this game is a really decent play, even if you avoid the gatcha elements. I would liken it to something like Triangle Strategy in terms of quality, in my personal opinion. It genuinely feels like they stuffed a Nintendo Switch-quality game into this 2.5D tactics game as "side content". And personally, I think it's criminal for this to go ignored.

Okay, that's all for now. If you try the game out, let me know what you think below! That's Sword of Convallaria: For this world of peace!