Swordsman First Impressions

First of all, let me remind you that this game is still in Beta, (even if it is an open beta), therefore, anything I will mention in this first impressions article will maybe be subject to change in the future.
Who am I kidding, any game that has an ACTIVE STORE is NOT in beta. A beta is a FREE phase to allow players to hard-test a game. If a store is active then a game is no longer in beta. This is a shameful attempt to try and conceal bad things about the game.

I'll be honest, this game starts off pretty bad and I expected better from Perfect World. It is NOT their first MMO, they have at least a couple, including Perfect World International, which I used to play myself.

I'm also gonna complain a bit about the fact that they decided create their own launcher launcher. This has to stop. Now. I'm fed up with origin, uplay and the like and I really would like all companies to stick to what everyone is using: Steam. You have no idea how frustrating it is to have to have Steam, Uplay and Origin on all at once! I will however say that on the contrary of EA's Origin, PWE's Arc is really well made and polished, I also think that they have an innovative way to do downloads, even though I haven't been able to check if it works myself, I think the download only half the file and then start playing while the rest downloads strategy is a good one and maybe one to explore further.

Now onto the game:
There are several things that will shock you in this game. First, there is absolutely NO voice acting.
Characters spout a few chinese words when you speak to them which in no way accounts for what is actually written in the dialogue box. (3 paragraphs of text = 3 seconds of non-English speech).
Second, When characters do speak, including your own, there is no mouth movement. I find that especially disturbing and I believe that this is really a requisite in any game.
Third, the character creation has pros and cons, in the pros, I appreciate the two edit modes: advanced and simple, this should be in every game as it simplifies your way of customisation a lot.
However, there is a very limited choice of hair textures and no eye color to choose from, why?

The game's quests work just like any other average MMO, you will meet your exclamation marks, again, so nothing innovative here. Most quests seem to be "go see that guy and then that guy, and then that other guy again" or "kill the enemies to drop the loot".

This game's graphics follow an anime/manga style and the world is quite nice to play in.
I wouldn't rate the graphics 10/ 10, but they deserve a 7 or an 8.
Animations on the other hand are perfect, this statement includes combat animations, moving animations and emote animations.

In terms of combat gameplay, as you might have heard, you have to choose one of ten classes, each with their own weapon and their own style (though many use swords it seems), there are two different damage types (endo/exo) plus four elements (earth, fire, ice and poison).
Combat is fluid and would be much better if it wasn't for bizarre game decisions:
First, the enemy AI is bugged and flawed. They will stop attacking you for no reason, not help their teammates when attacked right in front of them, and the fact that you can pass through anything doesn't make things easier, especially for big enemies you can actually be fully inside of.
Second, you start the game being waaaaaaaayyyy too overpowered to enjoy anything, it takes a hundred hits (perhaps more, I'm serious here) for an enemy of your level to kill you (that's including the bosses) and you kill any enemy in five hits. This is no way to properly start a game. Also, "monsters" -and by that term I mean all non-friendly NPCs, not literal monsters- are way too many on the field and nearly stack upon each other. It's just game breaking to be walking in a field and be surrounded by 30-40 enemies just walking by you. As I said before, non agressive monsters will not become agressive if one of their own is attacked right in front of them, which makes it a chore to accomplish combos as you have to hit each non agressive enemy once to bring them towards you and then finally activate your AOE (area of effect) powers.
Each class seems to have different unlockable paths which enhances customisation a bit more.

What's wrong with swordsman in a nutshell

Other than that, it does seem that the recurring problem is the lack of good loot drops from monsters which should allow for greater weapon and especially armor diversity. It's quite annoying to have every <lvl 10 in the exact same white robes.

Storywise, because yes, there is a story, prepare to not be amazed as the story in this game is just bad (after continuing in the story I can say that far from being bad, the story is unexplainably awful and I really mean it, it just doesn't make any sense, is full of stupid cliches and is really lacking anything a story should have. This is maybe the worst story I have ever seen in a video game before. They try to make you attached to your character but the sad scenes are simply laughable and the serious scenes don't fare any better). I'm not talking about the unusefulness of the many, many 5 second cutscenes, the fact that you can't understand a word of what is said because everything is in chinese, or even the fact that stuff actually written in English never stays on screen long enough for you to be able to read it (this happens a LOT), I'm talking about the plot which would have been funny had it been a parody of movies like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.

There are other than that lots of small bugs that may ruin your gaming experience, for example, you can not meditate without your game freezing for 5 seconds or the ease with which you can grab fallen objects is quite bad.

You could also mention that the english text is quite bad and filled with quite a few obvious grammar mistakes.

I think it is music-wise that I was deceived the most. I really expected some kind of great soundtracks, and any good MMORPG should have a great soundtrack, well I wasn't expecting a Jeremy Soule level of soundtrack but at least a functionning soundtrack, because the soundtrack in this game is broken, you only get to hear it a bit and then it cuts off for no reason and you are left in silence for the rest of your play session (BGM-wise, not SFX wise). In fact, if you listen well enough, you can easily hear that even the SFX is botched up with the enemies all having the same death sound and your sword strikes not sounding at all like sword strikes and all sounding exactly the same.

Finally, what is the deal with this game and health bars? I mean 10 health bars for one mob? seriously? was one not enough?

Overrall, in it's current state, I rate this game 6.5/10, it is a slightly above average Free to play MMO that doesnt stand out that much from the others except in terms of combat animations which are above perfect.

Warframe Game Review

Warframe = Epicness incarnate.

I mean who wouldn't want to play as NINJAS who fights with sabers and blazing guns in SPACE. NINJAS in SPACE.

There are however multiple problems with this game and in particular the fact that it lacks ANY KIND OF STORYLINE WHATSOEVER. There is no path to follow, you are free to do what you wish, however this is a double edge sword. The ONLY thing that keeps people going is the race for better weapons. Which is utter nonsense because a point of the game should be advancing in the game and continuing on the storyline by upgrading your weapons instead of simply upgrading your weapons for no reason. This game is therefore all about farming, and that CAN be a bit annoying.
(especially when you are with people who simply rush through missions, not even giving you enough time to stop a second)

One can also note that there is an obvious repetition of the scenery which I do not find very varied.
Using the same room in two different levels, ok, deja vu, but it's understandable. Using the same room twice in ONE level: are you kidding me?
Regarding the money spent (since this IS a F2P), I frankly think you can get by without wasting a single cent, and I'm probably right, but seriously, the WHOLE point of the game is the race for cool weapons, IS there a point in simply buying the weapons with real money? I don't think so.
I will however congratulate this game on three things:
First, it's weapon upgrade system, which is pretty nice, (set your ennemies on fire, make them freeze to death and electrocute them all in one weapon).

Second, I sincerely think that I have NEVER, and I mean NEVER seen a better guild hall editor in my life. It is incredible what you can do in there. Only problem is that you cant really edit the walls directly but you can see that they really thought out how they were gonna do this and they did it right! The system for clan halls really works! the time when your small guild of 10 members has to pay the same price as huge 300 player guilds is OVER. And THAT, THAT is something I respect. This innovative touch to make sure that even small groups of people have their fun and aren't forced to join bigger clans.

And third: The game has extremely well made animation and graphics.

That said, the game lacking a story and all, I can't really give it a rating above 7.5, but it's still definitely worth a try (especially since it's free).

Find out more about Warframe on its official website here or on Steam here.

Bastion Game Review

I don't really know why but bastion is a game that looks awesome, I love the art, the game type, everything.
However, I simply can't get myself to like this game, probably because there's that strange voice in the background that I really hate...

For me, this game is missing Multiplayer. I would play this game if it had some co-up options but it has nothing and I find that a bit sad.
The universe is as I said before, really nice and beautiful.
There are a few bugs when mapping powers though and I was actually quite annoyed by that.

I don't see really what else I could say about this game, it really doesnt stick out from the vast sea of games on steam, and I dont really get why people would play this.
This game is definitely not bad. But its not good either.

My final Rating for this game is 6/10, because it just doesnt stand out in any way, yes it has good graphics but that's not enough to make a nice game, the way to explain the story is original but I personally don't like it, and the customisation options of your character are EXTREMELY limited.


You can go on Bastion's Steam page here.

PlanetSide 2 Game Review

Planetside 2 is a free to play MMOFPS that came out late 2012 and is still vastly played for it's innovation in the FPS (First Person Shooter) genre. The game is special because you basically play it on a huge map in massive 400 Vs 400 Vs 400 battles between three factions.

The game offers many possiblities as not many FPS have gone that far in the massively multiplayer direction.

The game is based on massive battles to capture small outposts, towers and big facilities.

The game is based in the future and everything is of course upgraded to massive proportions.

Epic battles for a base...

Or simply enjoying the view

This game has pretty much everything you could want to conduct massive battles with integrated speech servers, the squad/platoon system (up to 48 players in a platoon) and weapon customisation that rivals battlefield's and C.o.D.'s.

Too bad a review can't only be a bunch of photos and three lines of text, however, I must say in this case, these pretty much speak for themselves.

Are there any negative points in this game?
- First off, what is sony's problem with the music in this game, or rather, where IS the music in this game??
Is it supposed to remain silent for days on end with only a small soundtrack that plays at minimum volume and lasts 20 seconds? I mean come on, you actually made one 3 minute theme for each faction which can only be heard in the main menu. Talk about waste.
- Secondly, where did you learn how to make money? seriously. because the money in this game allows you to buy skins (only with real money) or weapons (which can also be bought with in game money) but what did you do?? How come a SINGLE (permanent) skin costs 10 pounds (roughly 15 dollars) ?? are you out of your mind? it's not because microsoft sells its software for astonishing prices that you have to do it too !

Anyways, apart from that and a few bugs here and there, the game really is pretty good, If I were to congratulate something in particular it would be the devs who really listen to the players and the updates that really change a lot to the game so that it doesn't become boring.

You can download it here for free. (no trial version, it's entirely free).
The game is also available on Steam here.

Hawken Game Review

There are several reasons for which I don't like Hawken.

So, for those of you who don't know, (probably noone), Hawken is a Free To play First Person Shooter where you control a mech and fight against other mechs.

That seemed really cool to me so I gave it a try but this game is pasable, it isn't good.

The customisation options are average/poor, which is a shame given what you would expect of a mech game is being able to modify your mech, what it looks like, different parts, but that seems very limited to non existent in Hawken.

Well, that isn't really the worst part because for me, the gunplay is terrible. The gun models are static. This is unforgivable. No mech game should have static guns, I mean the huge badass guns is the whole point of the game, but here, guns are static and offer no satisfaction when shooting. In other words, this game also botched up the gunplay section.
Now there are different classes, although it seems to me that some classes are awful (One of them even has a shotgun that does no close range damage, I mean what's the point of that), while others are a bit better, pushing people to take the same classes.

Other than that, the general gameplay you'll get is "stay with your team or you'll die" so you can forget about being the guy behind the ennemy lines, taking them all out all by yourself, it is impossible to do as a 2 Vs 1 fight is extremely unfair for the solo mech.
I do however recognise an original way of restoring life points (though once again pushing the "stick together or die" gameplay)
And I will commend the game on it's well thought out tutorial (even if it bugged and asked me to do the whole thing twice)

Other than that, also a part of the gameplay are the maps, which at first glance seem okay but on second thought are extremely bad at bringing out the fact that you have a jetpack. There will always be unreachable ledges or stuff like that that will just simply break your immersion in the game (that's if you haven't noticed the static models).
The graphics (because that tends to be importnat in nowadays games too) are average, not good, not bad, maybe a bit blocky.
The level design is once again poor and it feels... square... I don't know if you get what I mean.

The matches I've played resumed to me running around the map in circles with an ally...

What else to say? (did I mention the static models? no. I really won't let go of that one.)

My final verdict is a 6/10, with great deception when starting to play, I expected (and wanted) better.

You can find out more about hawken on the official site here or go on it's Steam page here.

Rome Total War II Game Review

There are many reasons for which I would NOT recommend Rome Total War 2.

First because, as you all know, when this game came out, it wasn't full of bugs, it was literally broken. Of course it ran normally, but you could not do one thing without there being a bug to hinder you.
The AI: bugged.
All kinds of naval combat: bugged.
The real time combat gameplay: bugged.

In other words, the game was crap and I cant believe I paid the full price for such an unfinished game.


Second is due to the fact that Rome Total war I was in my opinion way better than this version (and I'm saying that even though the comp I had at the time wasnt powerful enough to run it and the game didnt stop crashing)


Third is because the DLC that come for this game should:
1: be free for those who got the pre ordered edition who had no idea how bad the game would be.
2; be free for all others because AM I THE ONLY ONE TO THINK THAT BLOOD AND GORE SHOULD BE IN THE GAME AT LAUNCH ??

I simply cannot forgive companies who think they can release a game as bad as that and STILL try to make extra profit out of it. Don't you get it? All sega obviously cares about is money. They dont give a damn about us the players (after all, we've already bought the game) and I sometimes wonder if the updates really change anything at all.

My final rating is a 5.5/10. I highly recommend you wait for this game to be at least at -50% (which is under 20 pounds) before buying it.