Author - JonAutopsy

TMNT Shredder’s Revenge Review on PC/Steam

2022/06/29
JonAutopsy
Geek News, News, Reviews, Windows PC News, Windows PC Review

“PIZZA TIME!!”

Nostalgia (noun) – a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations.

I was a big Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fan as a kid. The cartoon and arcade game dropped right in the middle of my childhood and I have many fond memories of the toys, the games, and everything else that came with TMNT fever. And TMNT Shredder’s Revenge brought all those great memories roaring back!

Right off the bat, TMNT Shredder’s Revenge opens up with the intro from the cartoon. It looks and sounds great and totally brings you back to those days in the arcade where TMNT was one of the first games where you could drop a quarter in at any time and join the fight with whichever turtle was still available. Shredder’s Revenge adds two more playable characters as both Splinter and April O’Neil are available to fight the Foot Clan (and believe me, April is one of the stronger fighters to choose from.

Shredder’s Revenge throws you right into the fight as you pursue the TMNT rogue’s gallery while they rush to steal and reassemble the Krang robot. A lot of levels are going to have a familiar feel including the office building (this time not on fire) and the city streets, along with the broken down Technodrome and many other familiar locations from the cartoon and games. They all looks much sharper with the updated graphics yet still give you that Mode 7 feel from the Super Nintendo days.

The controls are a lot smoother than the days of the TMNT arcade game which means you’re not always guaranteed to take a hit from behind if you’re in the middle of wrapping up a combo against an enemy. There’s over 20 different move combinations, holds, throws, and other offensive maneuvers to master in an attempt to make the game a little more accessible to today’s players. They’re not overly difficult combos like Mortal Kombat however so picking up on how best to stick and move around enemies is easy to pick up without being overly frustrating as the game itself is just as action packed as previous TMNT titles from days gone where the Foot Clan and other villains are always popping up ready to slice up some ingredients for Shredder’s turtle soup.

Speaking of villains, you’re going to recognize a lot of familiar faces just how they looked from the cartoon days. The Rat King, Bebop and Rocksteady, Baxter Stockman (and his mice catchers) and many others look awesome and not only that, they all sound almost exactly like they did in the cartoon. And speaking of, Cam Clarke (Leonardo), Townsend Coleman (Michelangelo), Barry Gordon (Donatello), and Rob Paulsen (Raphael), the original voices of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles from the cartoons all reprise their roles as the voices of the Turtles and it’s instantly nostalgia city to hear all four of them again.

You’ll get a lot of eye candy as well as the levels are packed full of TMNT and villain vehicles, whether in the background like the Turtle Blimp or front and center like The Rat King’s sewer tank. The makers of Shredder’s Revenge really took time to make this game something special and you can absolutely tell they were big fans of the original cartoon and games as well.

Along with the story mode, Shredder’s Revenge also offers an arcade mode where it’s just like it sounds: Once you’re out of credits, the game is over and you have to start all the way back at the beginning. The enemies are a bit tougher too and this gives you that challenge of actually playing TMNT Shredder’s Revenge as an arcade console, almost like a “Hardcore Mode”. There’s also multiplayer options for Shredder’s Revenge and I’m really looking excited to teaming up with a group of friends and bringing everyone out for the fight; four turtles, Splinter, and April.

The sound design and music for the game has that classic TMNT game feel to them with a feel levels getting some tongue-in-cheek lyrical tracks that were actually very well done and added to the fun of the game. Many of the original sound bites from TMNT arcade and Super NES games are utilized in Shredder’s Revenge so you’ll get that nice warm TMNT audio blanket wrapped around you that you’re familiar with, including the epic “PIZZA TIME!!” shout when a turtle picks up an energy replenishing box of pizza. The music from level to level doesn’t stray too far from the beats and rhythm of TMNT games of the past so you get that fun and classic TMNT music feeling, even when the Foot Clan may be getting the better of you.

If you’re looking for that classic arcade TMNT feel with a few quality of life upgrades like sharper visuals, clear (and fantastic) voiceovers, and just an all-around fun time that’ll bring you back to the days that TMNT fever was sweeping the nation, look no further. TMNT Shredder’s Revenge is an incredibly fun time whether you’re a fan of the originals or have never had the chance to play the side-scrolling TMNT beat’em ups of the past and is easily accessible to even the most novice of those old-school “walk right to left” arcade titles. This game is incredibly fun and if you were even just a little bit of a fan of the cartoons and the original side-scrolling TMNT games, do not hesitate to pick up TMNT Shredder’s Revenge. You will not regret it in the least!

Overall Rating:  5 out of 5

V Rising Early Access Review

2022/05/17
JonAutopsy
Geek News, News, Reviews, Windows PC News, Windows PC Review

The ultimate gothic dream: Living in your own castle, feeding off the blood of the living, at one with the night life, and sleeping all day. Okay, maybe doing a little bit more than just sleeping all day, at least, that’s just one of the many things to do as a vampire in V Rising, an upcoming MMORPG from Stunlock Studios now on Steam.

V Rising starts you off with a highly customizable vampire and a selection of PVE and PVP. Only the basic modes were available during my preview but I ventured through both, easily selecting PVE after a while to avoid unnecessary kills from other players. From there, you’re tossed right into the action the moment you step outside, fighting off skeleton warriors as your journey begins. V Rising follows you along with a solid starting tutorial which begins early on with simple crafting and slowly brings you to building your very first castle. This doesn’t take long at all and it’s easy to pick a spot close to your starting area in the East or West Woods but be sure to journey out a bit, that way you’re not right next door to another vampire’s castle. This will help with resource management later on, saving you from fighting for nearby resources with a vampire you can see right out your front gate.

Resource management is a huge part of V Rising as it not only takes Blood Essence (taken from killing flesh and blood creatures and animals) to power your Castle, but it also takes significant amounts of Lumber, Stone, Bones, and a plethora of other reagents and resources found across the map, from killing monsters and other things, or simply from venturing around and discovering things hidden in treasure chests or stashed away in lock boxes. The more resources gathered, the bigger and more advanced you can build your castle, set the boundaries of your land, and create machines and other items to assist in refining goods and keeping you and your castle safe. Keep in mind when you finally start acquiring enough resources to build at will is that you can only make each castle so big as there’s a limit on the amount of space each castle can use. As you need to lay down borders before you can build anything on top of them, be sure you construct those borders in such a way that not only makes future building for your castle as easy as possible, but also allows for easy traversal within. You always want to have enough space to maneuver to and from your structures inside your borders like your Saw Mill, Blood Altar, Equipment Bench, and other things to build. Giving these certain parts of your castle enough room can make using the tools like turning Lumber into wooden planks or Animal Skins into Leather faster and more efficient. Oh, and one solid tip: ALWAYS close your castle doors when you go out because anyone can walk in and drop your whole structure in a matter of minutes due to someone not locking up on their way out.

There are plenty of villages, mines, graveyards, and other such places to discover across an incredibly large map. Traversing it is not always easy with the amount and variety of enemies you come across as any time your vampire is killed, they in turn drop all their loot aside from the gear their wearing and any weapons they carried. Now dont worry as this isnt Elden Ring style where another kill before you can pick up the loot you dropped will erase that for good. This is much simpler where whenever your character perishes, they leave behind a container holding all their loot they held at the moment of death. All you have to do is go back and get it and it’s never too much of a chore or too dangerous to retrieve your gear, though it may take you some time to get back to where you died depending on how many Vampire Waygates you’ve discovered on the map. And believe me, they’re not always close and walking all the way back to where you died early on before you can start acquiring various forms to make you faster can be a bit of a chore.

Keeping not only your castle fed with blood but your vampire as well is crucial on your ride to becoming the most powerful vampire ever. When a vampire runs out of blood, they slowly but surely die so that leaves the player with the choice of how they want their vampire to conduct themselves. Do you want your vampire only living off the blood of animals; the deer and wolves and other animals that roam the countryside, leaving the humans as nothing more than an obstacle to get around? Or will your bloodlust take over every time a human walks by, waiting for their throat to be ripped open and your thirst quenched from the blood that gushes forth? You can play it any way you prefer as drawing blood from any flesh and blood creature on the map, human or otherwise, can allow bonuses to your vampire depending on how pure the blood is. While drinking blood from animals will give your vampire the Creature trait, drinking from the various humans such as Rogues, Brutes, and Warriors can grant additional benefits. The purity of each enemies blood and the type of blood they have are clearly shown so you can easily decide how you wish to approach each living creature you see.

The action and look of V Rising is very reminiscent of Diablo with that overhead style (with a moveable camera), destructible environments, as well as fighting against creatures and “V Blood” holding boss-types, V Blood being an essence you withdraw from them at the end of battle which grants various bonuses including new spells or new structures for your castle. Resource management in the game is as simple as walking up to any tree, rock, or bush and chopping away at them. The further along you get, the more you’ll notice newer resources to collect as most everything you pick up will have a use at some point, though some things like Leather are much more rare and sometimes take a boss fight in order to find easier ways to gather them. As well, building a Research Table can grant new weapon blueprints, armor layouts, or items to add to your castle like massive windows or stone walls. Collecting items that drop from enemies like Paper can help your vampire learn these abilities faster, without the hope of a recipe randomly dropping from an enemy (though that can happen as well!).

Now aside from the castle and the throat ripping and the gushing blood and what have you, let’s talk about the most important thing when being a vampire: The Day/Night cycle. V Rising runs on a long night (16 hours) and a short day (8 hours). Obviously these hours are not real-time hours as a typical in-game hour lasts a few minutes. The benefit of the long night cycle is you can choose to do more than just one thing in the evening. Say you need to do some upkeep in your castle and build up your current armor and weapons. If you have your castle set up in an efficient manor (yup, I went there), there’s no reason why you cant do all that and still head out to do some resource farming or perhaps some villager head-hunting. But fear not as the rising sun doesn’t spell certain death for your vampire if you’re caught out of bed when the big light comes on. You can do just as much damage to villagers, wildlife, or all the resources you wish in the daytime, just as long as you stay in the shadows. While you can make quick darts through the sunlight, staying in direct light for more than a few seconds will cause your vampire to burst into flames and quickly lose power. It’s incredibly easy to lose track of the moving shadows and the sun beams that make it between trees during a battle so make sure you know where the shadows are at all times or you’re BBQ. I’ve died quite a few times, especially during boss fights, just because I wandered too far into the sunlight. There was even once where I had defeated the boss and forgot all about the sun when I went to feed off him, killing myself instantly before I even had the chance to take his abilities.

I’m incredibly excited to play the full version of V Rising as I really believe they have something special here. The resource management is meaningful, the kills are satisfying especially once you get the hang of battles and are able to hold your own against hordes of enemies, and building your own castle that in itself grants buffs to your vampire and resources depending on how you build it is a really fun experience. I’m looking forward to really putting some time into it as V Rising definitely takes some dedication to get going but pays off once you start rising in the ranks of the vampires. The map is easy to make your way around and you rarely if ever run into deadends as a reward for exploring. There always seemed to be a way through, one way or another and not having that feeling that you ever had to backtrack just makes you want to explore more, especially once you’re able to do it faster than just on foot. V Rising is definitely one of those games to keep an eye on, there’s a lot of fun to be had here.

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5

Dune: Spice Wars Preview Impressions

2022/05/02
JonAutopsy
Geek News, News, Previews, Windows PC News, Windows PC Preview

Prepare to control the spice, and thus, the universe in the upcoming Dune: Spice Wars from Funcom and Shiro Games. If you’re at all familiar with the Real-Time Strategy game Dune II from the early 90’s, you’ll be happy to know that Dune: Spice Wars has not strayed too far from that original formula. Coming in as more of a Civilization type game, Dune: Spice Wars still holds its RTS roots as all players, AI or otherwise, operate at the same time, no turn-based rounds whatsoever. This means not only keeping an eye on your army, but also keeping aware of incoming villager raids and enemy houses or groups.

“My Desert, My Arrakis, My Dune”

The currently available sides to choose from are House Atreides, House Harkonnen, The Smugglers, and The Fremen. Each group comes with its own attributes and weaknesses and within the side that you choose are four high ranking members of each faction which you choose two of to take into war. Each faction member has their own personal bonuses that affect how your chosen side can operate from the very beginning of your game like being able to see all spice fields on the entire map or giving your army units an extra experience bonus. Each of these faction leaders also show the difficulty spike that bringing them with you can have on each match which in turn helps you decide early on how you’d like to approach the game as there’s definitely a lot to learn before really getting the hang of Dune: Spice Wars. Again, if you’re familiar with Civilization, grasping the various military and economic workings, bonuses, and detriments that can come with all aspects of a game of this scope should be no issue at all once you start picking up what various sections of the map are best used for.

Though going to war in Dune: Spice Wars is a big part of the game, the strategy portion is really where the game will make or break your conquest of Arrakis. While mining spice is key to surviving Dune as well as using it to pay the ever increasing monthly fees that the Imperium enforce on each faction, there are various elements on the map to gather in order to supply your faction. Ornithopters are used to discover uncovered parts of the map and scan for villages, spice fields, materials to harvest, as well as exploring various points of interest such as Arrakis ruins or crashed harvesters. Every faction starts with one Ornithopter but you can build more as well as find and repair crashed ornithopters that can be discovered during the game. Solaris, the main form of currency, is used to pay for soldiers, structure upkeep, as well as trading with Sietches discovered across the map. Plascrete is essential to the construction of not only your main base of operations but also to add to villages once your army captures them. You definitely need to keep an eye on the amount of Plascrete you have in your upkeep because it can disappear fast as you’re constructing buildings, especially the much needed Wind Traps which are used to collect water on the desert planet. It’s incredibly easy to watch a great House fall because their Plascrete upkeep dwindled and they weren’t able to supply enough water to all their soldiers and captured villages which can then lead to villager unrest and revolutions. Manpower is also an important commodity in Dune: Spice Wars. Having enough Manpower at all times means you have enough people to grow your army, increase spice production, as well as guard your villages with Militia members while your faction’s soldiers are away fighting for bigger parts of Arrakis. Much like running out of water can cause uprising, running out of Manpower, Plascrete, or Solaris can have a negative impact on your faction like your soldiers not being able to heal themselves in friendly villages because Manpower is at zero or building upkeep and construction being slowed due to a lack of Plascrete. Most importantly is Authority upkeep. Authority is used mainly to turn captured villages to your faction. Even if your army is successful at invading a new village, not having enough Authority (or water) prevents your army from taking ultimate control of that area. If your army then leaves a village without being able to capture it, they’ll have to fight more militia members upon returning once enough water and Authority has been gained. Last but certainly one of the the most important gains to make in Dune: Spice Wars is Hegemony, which determines your faction’s overall power on Dune. The higher your Hegemony, the more buildings you can add to your faction’s main base of operations. These buildings include massive buffs for your army and upkeep but come at a steep price, especially in Solaris so choose wisely which main base structures are going to have the greatest amount of positive influence on your faction.

To keep you on your toes, there’s monthly in-game voting for each faction imposed by the Landsraad Council, the governing body of Arrakis, on issues that can make or break a spiraling House. Three varying propositions are voted on each month by the factions in each match and each proposition can have a positive or negative return depending on which faction the voting results bend towards. An increase in Authority production for the month, or a higher than normal upkeep on the amount of Plascrete you’ve harvested can turn a faction on its head if they didn’t have the votes to sway the decision to one side or another and each faction’s amount of votes they can use each month varies not only between which House you choose but also the amount of Influence gained during the match. While House Atreides and House Harknonnen have a higher starting amount of votes than The Smugglers or The Fremen, gaining Influence through various means can greatly change your faction’s ability to vote on the issues that might have more of a positive or negative outcome. There may even be issues you don’t spend any votes on at all simply because the outcome wont have an effect on your particular playing style at that point in time. Just make sure you keep an eye on that upkeep after each voting session ends because that’s also an incredibly quick way to watch that economic spice train come off the rails. Keeping a positive reputation with the Landsraad Council (like consistently paying your spice dues each month) can help increase your amount of Influence and votes. Oh, and lets not forget about those Sandworms which can devour entire armies in a single gulp on anywhere across the map outside of your base and villages. Wormsigns pop up all the time so be sure to heed those warnings and clear your soldiers or harvesters before Shai Hulud takes them down as a permanent part of Arrakis.

Dune: Spice Wars is an incredible RTS that is closely tied to the recent Dune film and after 30 hours of playtime, I’m still hooked. While I’ve already achieved victory with both House Atreides and House Harkonnen, I’m now searching for the illusive wins while controlling The Fremen and The Smugglers. Matches can last hours at times so be ready to put that strategical mindset to work keeping an eye on everything that can be used to crush your enemies or implode your own faction. A match can turn at the drop of a dime due to poor upkeep or an unexpected vote that didn’t go your way so keep your head on a swivel while you mold Arrakis into your faction’s ultimate conquest.

Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy Review – Definitely Worth A Playthrough

2021/10/27
JonAutopsy
Geek News, News, PlayStation 4 News, PlayStation 5 News, Windows PC News, Xbox One News, Xbox Series X News

I remember when I first heard about Phase Two of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and how there was going to be a movie based on Guardians of the Galaxy, a comic book superhero group I was entirely unfamiliar with. And wow did it sound ridiculous: A racoon, a blue and red muscle man, and so on. It sounded incredibly out there for what I had come to expect from comic book / super hero movies at that time. Who would’ve known that Guardians of the Galaxy would become my favorite series and team of the MCU films. I was even skeptical about the Guardians of the Galaxy ride that eventually took over Tower of Terror at Disney’s California Adventure in Orange County CA but of course I loved that as well once I rode it. Marvel’s Guardian’s of the Galaxy for PS4 has been no exception.

“Groot, we’re gonna be rich!”

First off, without any doubt, Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy is hands down the most beautiful game I’ve ever seen on PS4. The colors are incredible and vibrant without being so much so that they become muddy or hard to look at when trying to focus on what’s going on right in front of you. Playing as Peter Quill, you are free to wander your surroundings as you wish so it’s good to look anywhere and everywhere, especially since there’s crafting materials and other things scattered around the environment to collect. Traversing inside The Milano, the ship that the Guardians of the Galaxy travel around in, is definitely a highlight to see just how amazing this game looks. You have full access to the ship at times and can look through portholes, or walk around the large crew cockpit that has a giant glass canopy looking out into space. As you’ll be travelling throughout the universe, the views are constantly changing so when you have the opportunity to walk around The Milano, definitely give the entire place a walkthrough to see what’s to see out in the galaxy. The scenery gets even better as you start visiting different planets and space stations. The story is set off by owing a massive debt to Nova Corp who arrest the Guardians of the Galaxy for smuggling contraband. The Nova Corp ship you’re taken aboard is just as amazing as the ground missions on moons and planets you visit both before and after you’re arrested. I’m honestly jealous of anyone who picks this up for PS5 because I bet it’s going to look insane.

While you’d think that Guardians of the Galaxy would lend itself to being an open-world type of experience, the gameplay is more along the lines of a cinematic adventure with just as many dialogue options to respond (or not respond) to as there is action. Let’s focus a bit on the first part. Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy does give off an essence of the Tell Tale Games from years back like their most famous The Walking Dead series where you played the role of Lee. Along with dialogue options, there are also QTEs that, although easy to deal with, more than often lack any consequence for a incorrect button push. Even if Peter dies, you’re instantly brought back to that moment to try again. Though these little breaks in between the action are fun, sometimes they run a bit too long without any action whatsoever. At least one chapter so far had no enemies in it whatsoever and was just dialog and QTEs. While still engaging, Guardians of the Galaxy is a very linear experience that very much feels like you’re watching and often interacting with a Guardians of the Galaxy film and taking part in the action whenever it comes around. Though the dialogue options can lead to positive or negative future consequences, at times I felt confused if I had made a correct dialogue choice or not based on the few times the game informs you in text that your actions had a specific affect on your team or the individuals you were speaking with.

The fighting action can be a lot of fun when it does occur. As this Guardians of the Galaxy is definitely an exploration of the different places and their inhabitants across the galaxy, you’re going to encounter a lot of characters and enemies that you’d come to expect from the Guardians of the Galaxy universe. Various enemies have their weaknesses which can be exploited by power-ups and abilities earned by the team. While you can customize attacks per character at any given time, especially as you begin to upgrade team members, you’re only in control of Peter Quill so setting him up specifically to perform the way you want him to is an ideal way to start. While giving other characters new abilities like Gamora using her sword in one brutal attack on a single enemy or various moderate attacks on multiple enemies, it does take a lot to get the hang of. Since you’re not switching to directly control these characters like you would in say GTA5, it takes a lot of practice to select the team member you want, then make them perform the specific ability you want them to, all while in the heat of battle. As you add on abilities, you then have to remember which ability is locked to which character that you’re selecting. So in essence, while you’re being attacked and firing back as Peter Quill, you’re also pressing a button to bring up the team, pressing another button to select the correct team member, then another button push to activate the ability you want them to use. There were multiple times, especially once team members have multiple abilities where in the midst of being bombarded with enemy hits, I selected the wrong team member ability which lead to a lot of deaths and checkpoint restarts. I’m still getting used to it and I’m already leery on adding more abilities to team members until I lock down who can do what with which buttons. While some battles are relatively easy, some do turn into NES Silver Surfer playthroughs where there’s enemies and attacks coming from everywhere and it’s easy to become overwhelmed and just start button mashing. On top of all that, your team members will also need to be revived if they go down from loss of health or needing to be released from things like being frozen in place. While Groot does have a healing ability that can assist you with this down the road, he doesn’t start with that ability and thus you have to earn enough points to upgrade him. Again, Guardians of the Galaxy doesn’t lean entirely on the game being all action so you’re allowed plenty of time to breathe in between battles, sometimes more than I’d prefer.

The item crafting is incredibly dumbed down, sad to say. There are a total of 2 different crafting materials to find scattered around the environments to then use at work benches that can be found both on your ship as well as throughout the worlds. With the help of Rocket, you can upgrade both Peter Quill’s weapons as well as gear like armor, jet boots, etc. It’s incredibly basic and I would liked to have seen a lot more in the way of customization, not just for Quill but also for the team and The Milano. With how resourceful Rocket can be in the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, I expected almost everything used by the team to be upgraded in all sorts of ways. Again, the game isn’t all action so it’s understandable not having gone that route but the very simple crafting aspect of the game could’ve used more attention.

Of course, Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy comes with a rocking soundtrack. Not only does it have it’s own custom rock songs made specifically for the game, it also has it’s own Awesome Mix with plenty of licensed tracks like Motley Crue’s “Kickstart My Heart”, Soft Cell’s “Tainted Love”, and the Rick-rolling “Never Gonna Give You Up” by Rick Astley, just to name a few. While these songs can play at times in battle when you use the “Huddle Up” option to give your team a little boost in the fight, you can also interact with the radio on The Milano and play any of the songs on the soundtrack in their entirety through the ship’s speakers, which is another nice thing to do while you’re wandering the ship talking to the crew or working on upgrades with Rocket.

What really drives Guardians of the Galaxy home is the characters, both how they look as well as their voice acting performances. The characters themselves look absolutely flawless and while they might not entirely look like the Guardians of the Galaxy from the films, the movie character skins, as well as many other looks, are hidden all over the game so there’s lots of customization options once you track them down. And it’s not just the Guardians of the Galaxy themselves but also the friends, enemies, and otherwise that they come across. Lady Hellbender looks and acts like you’d expect a Guardians of the Galaxy villain to act. It’s incredible how great the characters’ motion capture created a believable cast and the voice acting along with it is nothing short of Hollywood quality. Even on a PS4 Pro, I was impressed by how far games have come on just this generation alone. Even though I’m not the biggest fan of linear, dialogue heavy cinematic games, the cast definitely kept me playing through what is an already great game. And you definitely get the feel with the Guardians of the Galaxy themselves that, while they’re a team, they’re not always in agreement and sometimes even get angry with each other, the way they interact with each other at all times, the way they interact with Peter as he talks to them individually at times, you really get a feel of each person’s feelings for each other in the group and how they have their own things going on, making them feel like actual people as opposed to just characters in a game. Rarely do I ever get a feeling in games where there’s genuine “feelings” going on with characters, that you’re actually invested in what’s going on in their lives, even if it has nothing to do with their current adventure.

Don’t get me wrong, just like I would love to see a super violent R-rated Rocket and Groot film, I would absolutely love to see the Guardians of the Galaxy license become a massive open-world game someday. But Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy has definitely hooked me even after the initial realization that the game wasn’t originally what I expected it to be. The visuals and sound are incredible, the characters are Hollywood blockbuster quality, and the story is something that even the movies would have a hard time putting together under a reasonable budget. It’s a fun, story-driven adventure with just as much action as there is dialogue and story development and while I wish there was much more to explore, Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy will definitely blow you away.

Poker Club Review (PC/Steam)

2020/12/04
JonAutopsy
Geek News, News, Reviews, Windows PC News, Windows PC Review

Texas Hold ‘Em is my absolute favorite card game. I’ve played for almost twenty years from small home games with friends to full on poker tournaments in Las Vegas. So when I heard how in-depth the brand new Poker Club was to be, I jumped on the opportunity to give it a go and see if the fun of Texas Hold’em translates in 2020 through a non-cash video game.

Poker Club delivers just that: Texas Hold ‘Em in different ways, be it a cash buy-in tournament, head-to-head one-on-one games, and a few other varieties that give Texas Hold’em a little more life than just your standard poker game. However, if you’re looking for anything else aside from Texas Hold’em, this isn’t the game for you. Only slight variances of the original game are offered in Poker Club.

One thing I noticed is how the tables and cards look incredibly realistic. Checking your cards will show actual lines in the paper cards much like real cards would have. It’s subtle but I noticed it instantly and thought things like that are an excellent touch to make it feel like you’re really there at a table. Aside from what goes on right at the table, other things however dont look as crispy. The character models are PS3 generational looking and many of them look identical. For a game that rewards things like in-game clothing and accessories for your character, I found myself bypassing unlockables altogether as there just wasn’t anything special about any of the items and no matter how much stuff you put on your character to look original, there’s a good chance he or she will look just like the person next to them with some slight changes in hair style and clothing colors. Plus, when an item is unlocked in the store, you still have to use the in-game currency to purchase them, the same currency purse you draw from to pay for tournament entry fees or to buy-in on games that might already be rolling. While the amounts to purchase the unlockables isn’t terrible, it’s pretty much pointless when player characters are constantly mirroring others from table to table.

The game variations are fun and laid out in a menu style that reminded me a lot of Bugbear’s excellent demolition derby title “Wreckfest”, where all the different matches and tournaments are listed out that you can join and you’re free to play them as you choose, or skip some entirely. You dont need to plow through every table in order to unlock more which is good for those who may not want to play in a head-to-head match and would prefer more along the lines of a full table. One thing it doesn’t tell you though is what tournament or table you’re currently bought in for if you were to turn the game off then come back later. I cant count how many times I’ve loaded all the way into a table just to be ejected because it’s not the tournament I left when I last played. Going back to how Wreckfest laid out it’s similar menu, if you were to try and enter a race which was not the one you had last entered but not completed, the game will inform you that you’re already signed up for a race and that you can choose another one and lose your progression in the process of the one you’re already in. Poker Club doesn’t do that and instead allows you to sit there as the table loads up, just to be forced back to the main menu.

Speaking of times, be sure you have a lot of spare time to play Poker Stars because there’s quite a lot that adds to the time of just a single hand. The amount of time AFK players have before they’re skipped is a bit long but even such things as dealing out the flop after everyone has placed their bets take extra beats where nothing at all is happening on screen. While it’s just a few seconds, these seconds add up when it comes to players checking their hands, being AFK, taking their time in general to check, bet, or fold, and the like. Poker Stars can really up it’s game by cutting these seconds across the board and tightening up just how long it takes to play a single hand. While I was able to win an 18-person tournament at one point, it took about three hours for the game to complete and coming from having played massive Texas Hold’em tournaments, sometimes with upwards of 40 people, a tournament with that many people running at the speed Poker Club takes to deal out hands would cause those matches to be days long. Along with that, winning the tournament got me some $ towards more tournament entries and items, there wasn’t anything worth actually winning. I felt after hours of sitting there and being patient, playing my hands like I normally would, and actually winning the tournament, some sort of special cosmetic item might drop as a reward for taking the top prize in an 18-man tourney. Instead it was back out to the main menu to choose the next table. Winning something like a multi-table poker tournament in a video game should be much more rewarding than the same prize you get no matter what table or variant you play at. It honestly felt that, while I did win, that it had been a waste of time because where’s the fun in winning something like that in a videogame?

One thing I absolutely fault Poker Club for is a complete lack of a soundtrack worth listening to (Yes, it’s my typical gripe for any game). For a game that does indeed take hours at a time to play sometimes, some decent background music to listen would be fantastic. Instead, Poker Club offers generic sounding background noise and ambiance which of course puts you in the world of a poker tournament but do absolutely nothing to keep you entertained. I have Spotify constantly running in the background due to how long these matches can be so that I can have something actually decent to listen to while I play. Another stand out issue is that, while you are playing with real people (and a few bots at times), there’s no actual real money exchanging hands at any point so you’ll always get people going all in at strange times or with weird card combinations on the table, and I feel that some of these players might be doing this because the game itself is so slow and they just want to get the game moving and get people eliminated so a final table can be made earlier, the game can be finished faster, and the like. It’s almost too easy if you’ve got enough patience to simply wait people out to make bad plays simply because they’re impatient. It takes a lot of the realism away from a poker game that’s hampered by the fact that you’re not actually playing for real money.

Poker Club is a lot of fun if you’re a big Texas Hold’em player and have a lot of free time to burn while the game cranks away from one hand to the next. I did have fun playing Poker Club for a little while but the lack of rewards and creative options for your characters, as well as how slow the tables run once you’re actually sitting at them really made the game more of a chore after a while than something worth playing. If Poker Club can go back in with a lot of freshness added to character models, rewards, and accessories, and trim the time down from hand to hand, there’s definitely something special here and could be a lot of fun, especially for friends who want to get together in the age of COVID for a fun poker tournament.

Poker Club Review Score:
3 out of 5 ⭐⭐⭐

Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Don’t Dry Twice Review

2020/11/12
JonAutopsy
Geek News, News, Reviews, Windows PC News, Windows PC Review

It’s hard to believe Leisure Suit Larry is still alive and well in 2020. When I was asked to review this title for GamingShogun, my first thought was “They still make those games!?”. I remember back when I was still in junior high and visiting and friend’s house, playing one of the original Leisure Suit Larry games and laughing at all the insanely raunchy content (especially for a PC game back in the early 90s). Rest assured, if you’re a fan of Larry Laffer and his continuing schemes to get laid, things have only gotten better with Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Dry Twice.

Wet Dreams Dry Twice, begins where the previous Leisure Suit Larry title “Wet Dreams Don’t Dry” left off, Larry stranded on the conspicuously named island of Cancum, his lost love Faith missing and feared dead, and Larry being forced into an arranged marriage with the daughter of the island’s leader, El Rey. El Rey is there right at the start of the game to give you a full backstory on what occurrences left Larry to be stuck on Cancum (seriously, there’s no way to avoid how often that’s said at the beginning of the game so if you’re already over it by this point in the review, this game probably isn’t for you). El Rey’s dialogue is entirely optional and comes with a variety of choices if you’re already up to speed with Leisure Suit Larry’s backstory up to that point, which definitely helped for someone like myself who hasn’t played an Leisure Suit Larry title in over twenty years. It also gives you an example of how the dialogue options work. From there, you set off on your first tasks on the island to prepare for your wedding, guided by a smartphone Larry has access to at any point in time. The smartphone menu gives you an easy way to keep track of your inventory, your current tasks, as well as a running tutorial to assist you at whatever point you may be at. While it is an absolute essential part of the game with not only inventory control and quests, it’s easy to utilize quickly without having to switch to a different screen entirely to manage these different options, especially when it comes to following through and completing tasks that require items in your inventory to be used on parts of the in-game environment. While completing your first initial quests, you learn that Larry’s missing Faith is indeed alive, setting off the actual story line of Wet Dreams Dry Twice.

Point & Click games are one of the original types of games before graphics were good enough to follow sprites around and make them more interactive and if you’re looking for a callback to that era, Wet Dreams Dry Twice is absolutely what you’re looking for. It’s got wonderfully colorful graphics and characters and the environments Larry interacts in are easy to maneuver through and be able to tell quest items and various things explained out in a quest that you need to keep an eye out for apart from just static items that make up the rest of the areas. Early on when I was looking for a matchbook, it was easy to tell what and where the matchbook was in a room full of old junk, once I found it. Like previous point and click games, Maniac Mansion is always one that comes to mind first, you want to grab anything and everything you see that can be tossed into an inventory. A used tube of lube? Grab it. A brick oven pizza peel? Grab it! You never know when you might need some of this random stuff so pretty much if the game says you can take it, click on it and at least take a look. And unlike more challenging games in the same vein like Resident Evil where you dont know where an item might come in handy and you only have such a big inventory, Larry’s smartphone holds all the inventory you pick up along the way so dont stress about overloading or having to worry about future inventory management, especially when you’ll be utilizing and leaving behind these items once you’ve completed their usefulness.

With the genre of the game in mind, and as I said previous, this game’s content is definitely not for everyone. If you’ve never heard of our pal Larry, him and his games define sexually crude. It’s a game filled (quite literally) with overly sexist and sexually related humor. It’s quite literally a search for Hidden Mickey’s, but instead it’s human reproductive organs. And they are in every scene, most likely multiple times. Along with that, the dialogue is FULL of sexual innuendos. Like loaded and engorged ready to explode puns that are in almost every single line of dialogue. While some of the jokes can be a bit dated here and there, or just overall so dumb that they’re really not funny at all, this is the type of game you’d expect when you’re gearing up Larry for an adventure. If you’re already thinking that this game might not be one for you, this game is most definitely not for you! Wet Dreams Dry Twice definitely isn’t a game that you’re going to want to play with your mother in the room. It’s incredibly sexually crude every step of the way. However, this is a classic Point & Click adventure from a classic Point & Click hall of famer named Leisure Suit Larry. Aside from some slightly dated graphics (even for a point and click), and dialogue that at times gets to be a bit cringe when you hear the same joke over and over, Wet Dreams Dry Twice is down-tempo and is something you can take your time playing without having to worry about a clock of any sort.

If Leisure Suit Larry is your go-to Point & Click sex-filled bag, pick him up and take him and his new adventure home with you tonight!

Final Score: 3.5 out of 5

World War Z Game of the Year Edition Review (PlayStation 4)

2020/05/28
JonAutopsy
Geek News, News, PlayStation 4 News, PlayStation 4 Review, Reviews

I don’t know a gamer that doesn’t have fond memories of Left 4 Dead. An incredible, intense game that gave up hours of incredibly fun gameplay and camaraderie. Thankfully, like its predecessor, World War Z Game of the Year Edition definitely has that magic, as long as your teammates are live human beings as opposed to the dreaded AI intelligence that comes with the single-player experience…

World War Z Game of the Year Edition, first off, is a great looking game. The music, sounds, and graphics all look and feel fresh and the world looks lived in, or died in depending on how you look at it. There’s a ton of characters to choose from, all with individual skills and specialties. As well, there’s a decent amount of customizable options for reskinning your character’s looks.

The world itself is definitely solid looking and the multitude of locations from around the world, as well as the variances of each location’s missions like being out in the city, inside a traffic tunnel, or wandering the wilderness. Though there are a few non-linear paths you can take during each mission, the levels keep you on a pre-determined path with little to drive you to explore down each alley knowing that no matter what, you’re going to end up in the right place without having to double back. There’s little reason to go exploring though so it doesn’t matter which paths you take, they’ll still have the same ammo boxes, weapons, and first aid along the way.

Speaking of weapons, one of World War Z Game of the Year Edition’s weakest points is the absolute vanilla variety of weapons. Granted, World War Z Game of the Year Edition has a much more serious tone. The music is dark and intense, the characters speak with urgency, and the setting really gives you a sense that “this could really happen” so the lack of weapon customization or any sort of armament that makes you feel like you picked up something better than you were already carrying is lacking. Only a couple weapons are definitely worth picking up if you come across them (like the crossbow) but with so many ammo boxes along the way, there’s really no reason to pick up something new once you get used to a weapon you like.

The “special” zombies as well definitely lack imagination and more often than not feel like they actually belong in a different, more campy zombie shooter. Some don’t even make any sense like zombies wearing suicide vests or undead in construction outfits who have a megaphone wrapped up around them and they “scream” into said megaphone, attracting more zombies to your location. The tacked on feel of the more aggressive zombies like these kind of takes you out of the serious tone World War Z Game of the Year Edition tries to convey and makes you wonder why a little extra time wasn’t put into these guys to make them more special to World War Z Game of the Year Edition as opposed to ones you’d see in any generic undead title.

The real experience of World War Z Game of the Year Edition relies on the actual co-op of the four person team. Playing online with a team that communicates is always going to be easier than jumping into a co-op of three AI players but World War Z Game of the Year Edition almost makes it dismal to play the game on your own. Being that zombies can literally come from all sides, the AI doesn’t warn you where you’re being attacked from so while you’re making your way forward to an objective, your entire team may stop and open a fire fight with zombies approaching from behind. Unfortunately none of the AI actually communicates where you’re being attacked from or that you’re even being attacked at all. As well, the AI has different names for the special zombies so starting out, you may have a difficult time learning and honing in on what zombies have special abilities and their particular names because while the AI does refer to some by their given name in the game (for instance, the Bull), they will never refer to others by their actual title (like always calling the Gasbag zombies “Hazmats”). That can be a bit frustrating early on when you’re still learning the ropes and have your head on a swivel because the AI seems to be mute when they’ve got a zombie on their back.

Hit detection is another issue that seems to be off, more often when you’re dealing with large hordes. It usually becomes just an ammo dump into a massive group, spraying and praying that you’re getting more kills than your teammates. Handling a handful of zombies at once isn’t an issue and the aiming is concise and you’re definitely able to tell who you’re hitting and where. But you get a horde of zombies, which happens at least once in every mission, just start throwing and hope you’re a better shot than your teammates. The one difference is explosive weapons catapult zombies from the explosion, you can definitely tell you’re doing actual damage there.

World War Z Game of the Year Edition is a fun throwback to the Left 4 Dead days as long as you have your friends with you. The missions to offer some but not variety. From holding a point to collecting a group of held down humans, to objective escorts, it’s the standard fare of missions you’d expect from a co-op title. Having your friends or actual online humans playing with you make World War Z Game of the Year Edition and its missions a lot more fun and definitely help curve the lack of variety in each level. Playing by yourself with AI can be a much more frustrating and troublesome experience as it definitely feels like the character you’re controlling has all the intelligence of the entire group with a total lack of communication from your bot teammates. Still, it’s a fun and exciting game that looks fantastic and though it doesn’t really follow the movie storyline (and don’t even ask about how the World War Z Game of the Year Edition novel fits into this), there’s a lot of classic co-op fun to be had here in a very pretty package.

Street Fighter V Champion Edition Review

2020/03/02
JonAutopsy
Geek News, News, PlayStation 4 News, PlayStation 4 Review, Reviews

It is crazy to think how far Street Fighter has come since it’s arcade days. I still remember the lines of people waiting to play, their quarters up in a row on the machine, it was incredible how popular a single game could be and it’s really no surprise to see it still alive and well in 2020.

Street Fighter V Champion Edition hits the ground running with an insane amount of fighters to choose from; 40 scattered over multiple Street Fighter and other Capcom titles, most notably the Final Fight series with many heroes and villains from Metro City. Along with the incredible amount of character choices are the amount of skins that come with them. There are literally hundreds of varieties of character skins for each fighter with varying choices, some as simple as basic costume color changes, seasonal skins from Halloween and Christmas, to complete character alterations like the fantastic Mega Man skins buried in some of the characters. And all the characters look incredible, regardless of what skin you put them in. The character select screen really shows off the work put into each fighter and their skins and the in-game reactions look really sharp and coincide with varying emotions depending on whether they’re winning or getting stomped out.

The ‘Arcade Mode’ is somewhat of a filler nostalgia trip, updating the art for each Street Fighter title, from the original Street Fighter, Street Fight II, Street Fighter Alpha, Street Fighter III, IV, and V. Each version of Arcade Mode simply adds characters from those timelines, adding more fights to each version as more fighters are added to each games respective rosters. It’s a fun little trip, especially Street Fighter II, as the fighters get progressively harder and harder as you fight your way to M.Bison. That was definitely a blast from the past for me, back to the days I was playing Street Fighter II on Super NES.

The character story lines that make up the bulk of the ‘Story Mode’ takes you on a small two to three fight journey, giving somewhat of a backstory to each fighter. Having played through each fighter’s story, I can say that unless you want to try and decipher the absolutely nuts storyline, you can pretty much skip this part of the game. Though it’s fun to knock out your few favorite fighters’ stories, I grew tired of having to fight the same characters over and over again (mainly F.A.N.G., Vega, and Bison whom you sometimes will fight twice with the same fighter). I expected a lot more variety in who you’d be fighting in each storyline, especially across forty different fighters to choose from. And speaking of characters, though there is a huge variety, I still missed fighters like T. Hawk and Fei Long, the latter whom is referenced in background art and various places in the story, but doesn’t actually appear currently as a playable character in SFVCE. I definitely would have taken them over a few of the fighters that simply seem like clones of more popular characters like Ryu, Guile, and Chun-Li. I’m not really sure if there’s anyone who actually knows all forty of the fighters in this game without having to look it up but there were some characters who I really have no clue if anyone actually knows who they are.

Though I didn’t play online since I really don’t need to play ranked matches to know how terrible I am at fighting games, the couch player-versus-player is still an absolute blast. Though it can sometimes take a bit for every character and their skins to load up when at the fighter select screen, it’s still a lot of fun going head-to-head, especially with the huge amount of maps to choose from, all of which also have a ton of skins to choose from (the Halloween maps were of course my absolute favorite). The characters are seamless and incredibly smooth and responsive to controls and looking up how to do each character’s moves is very easy to understand and accomplish in-game without being overloaded by too many moves and combinations that can overweigh some fighting games.

The loading times on SFVCE definitely need some patience and getting used to. At times, especially if there’s a new license to be applied in-game, it can take up to five minutes just to start playing. Loading times between fights can also be a pain after a while, especially when having to look at the same ad for upgrading to the Champion Edition, a game I obviously already own. Why the game doesn’t pick up on that licensing within the system is either a misstep or just one that was overlooked. Either way, even if it’s a loading screen, I’d rather look at fancy artwork than the same ad over and over for a game I already have.

Still, SFVCE is a great time and as much fun as Street Fighter has always been. The amount of characters can be a bit staggering and some seem to be clones of previous SF characters, the loading times and ads can put you to sleep, but when you’re in there fighting, SFVCE is a fantastic game. Everything in this game looks fantastic and sharp, from the character select screens to in-game fights. I’d love to have all my friends back together with a huge TV and battle it out tournament style with this one. It’s a lot of fun to play, and the characters and their variety of skins will definitely have you playing again and again.

Frostpunk Console Edition Review

2019/10/21
JonAutopsy
Geek News, News, PlayStation 4 News, PlayStation 4 Review, Reviews, Xbox One News

I’m a huge fan of post-apocalyptic scenarios. Be it Mad Max, Demolition Man, The Stand; I’m absolutely invested. When I first heard about Frostpunk coming to PCs a while back, and the fact that not only was that type of aftermath title, and being that I’m not a PC guy, I never expected to get the chance to play it. But now that it’s hit consoles, I jumped at the chance to see if I could save as many as I could from a rather chilly alternate future.

When someone asks me to describe Frostpunk, I say it’s Tropico and Snowpiercer put together with a big helping of The Road in there for good measure. And don’t get too invested in the fun, tongue-in-cheek humor that is Tropico because that’s definitely nowhere to be found in the Frostpunk world. It’s a cold, dark setting where a lot of bad thing happen and often. To almost a fault, Frostpunk is a bleak world-builder, accompanied with a soundtrack that strikes grief into the heart of the player, especially when your world begins to turn on you, the “captain”, as the bitter colds take hold with temperature drops randomly throughout the scenario.

Not to say that Frostpunk isn’t an addictive game to play. All sadness and darkness aside, Frostpunk can be a lot of fun to dive into, especially as you get the hang of constructing your civilization around the center-point generator, a towering monolith powered by the coal your workers mine and harvest from points scattered around the radius of your surroundings. I use the word radius because Frostpunk’s building schemes are all curved in a circular fashion, in order to be as close as possible to the warmth of the generator. The closer you are to the generator, the warmer your structures will be, especially with housing, medical buildings, and operations which involve the crating of raw food into edible sustenance, something which you will also need to keep up with as, just like the player, all your workers and villagers have to eat and sleep on the regular.

Keeping a balance between your workers, engineers (which are needed specifically to run a lot of the more technical structures like hospitals, workshops, etc), as well as the children in your civilization is always a constant juggling act, keeping everyone fed, along with harvesting crafting materials like the before mention coal, as well as wood, and steel, with more crafting options being opened up as you progress through the days and nights. These workers are also the ones who build structures as well as various researchable options like steam generators which can be use to keep structures farther away from your generator warm, like preventing frostbite from your workers in the coal mines, and such. If you don’t keep your workers warm, you’ll have to deal with their injuries, which could lead to amputations, quite literally cutting your work staff down. Like I said, Frostpunk can be rather dark at times.

Always being on your toes is essential to keeping order within your civilization. While you can control the speed of time that goes by, you need to keep an eye on the time, your materials, food, your ill citizens, as well as ones who are in need of proper shelter, the ‘Hope’ and ‘Discontent’ meters at the bottom of the screen are always moving based on the decisions you make, the laws you put forth to keep order, health and safety, work habits, along with spiritual or police-state options to keep your civilization and its people in order. Decisions might drop discontent but it also might cause hope to go along with it. Do you put the children to work in order to harvest and store enough coal to keep the generator warm? Do you start cutting off frostbitten limbs or care for the gravely ill until the right sort of treatment can be researched to keep them both alive and in working order? It’s completely up to the player to climb the various progression trees based on how they specifically want their citizens to follow their daily lives to survive in the cold. With these come the possibility that some of your population may band together to defy you, creating their own group with the intent to leave your civilization on their own, gaining followers with each passing day if you fail to keep up with the ever-changing needs of both your generator and the lives and structures that surround it. Along with that threat, not keeping your end of promises you have the option of making to your people could eventually lead to your own banishment from the safety and warmth of the generator by the very people you tried to keep safe. It does help that you can send groups of scouts out to search for other points of interest which come with their own various rewards but it does come at the risk of pulling workers from your various structures in order to make these scouting missions possible and they do of course take time the farther away they are from your settlement.

Frostpunk has a bit of a learning curve. While the world-building mechanics and controls for what seems like a game much easier to play with mouse and keyboard, is very inspired and easy to use. However, not all of the buildings, research options, and their specific uses are very well explained which can easily lead to researching or building something you really don’t need at the moment, hence wasting valuable mats, which at times can be hard to come by, especially when dealing with extremely cold days which can sometimes last for half a week or more. It took a lot of trial and error for me really knowing what to build when and where. I do recommend saving often and to also make sure that auto-save is turned on because it’s set to off when you first start the game. Be sure to check your settings and enable that to your specific setting as it gives you the options of once an in-game day, every 3 days, and so on. If not, you risk making what can be critical mistakes in-game leading to a mass exodus of your population, or even worse, game crashes which happened a couple times to me and when that first crash hit, my auto-save wasn’t on and you all know how that went.

There’s also not too much replay value here, unfortunately. Until there’s a DLC option or patches that vary the various temperature drops, citizen needs, incoming outsiders, and other in-game actions, everything seems to always happen in the same order at the same time. While there are progression trees, the options are limited and aside from differently structured starting maps, there isn’t much variety to keep a player invested in more than a couple play-throughs which can easily be knocked out in a matter of days if one were so dedicated.

While Frostpunk can be not only depressing but also frustrating when figuring out what everything does while trying to keep your citizens alive and well – Once you get that angle down on how to really juggle the various needs and wants of your civilization, Frostpunk can be very rewarding and can keep you locked in trying to keep your people alive as the world grows darker around you. I wish there was more substance to keep me invested past two play-throughs but I did have fun with initial world-building and survival experience and keeping my citizens alive, though difficult at times, kept me trying multiple options building my world until I could get that near-perfect balance of life and living in the bitter cold world of Frostpunk.

Wreckfest Console Edition Review

2019/09/15
JonAutopsy
Geek News, News, PlayStation 4 News, PlayStation 4 Review, Reviews

It’s always kind of a bummer when you don’t see total destruction damage when getting into massive collisions in racing games. When damage is minimal from a crash that should’ve maimed both drivers, it takes some of the realism out of a generic racing title. This is why I’ve always gravitated towards more objective or power-up style racing like Wipeout, Mario Kart, and the like. However, ever since Destruction Derby back in the 90s, I’ve always loved some demolition derby games and Wreckfest definitely hits most of the marks.

Focusing on the career mode, there are various styles of races to choose from as you work your way up from the Juniors across the multiple unlockable leagues as you complete the point-limit for each one. Within each league are the races which range from demolition racing around an oval track, figure-8s, and many other variations as well as wide open arenas, there’s also riding lawn mower demolition derby, school bus races, pure survival, and many others. The variety of each league and their stages, all stages of which are unlockable as you progress within each league and though it’s easy to unlock all of them, you don’t necessarily have to compete in every single race of each league in order to progress to the next level, you just need to score enough points within each race all of which contain their own bonus objectives like spinning cars three times or causing a certain amount of damage to other racers.

The driving and action is fantastic with a real feel for speed in some of those long stretches where you know you’re going to have to use that E-brake at the next turn. The crashes are great looking and with up to 24 vehicles racing at a time, things can look incredibly visceral on some of those massive crashes on the more intense tracks. It definitely kept me interested with how great everything kept up, especially for the amount of action going on the screen with dozen car pile-ups occurring. It’s easy to translate the bonus you may receive along the way for wrecking other cars, hitting them in specific ways, or getting caught up with a “Rival Driver” which includes bonus points if you focus damage on them during the course of the race.

There’s a good amount of vehicles to unlock and choose from within the store, each with their own car class ranging from C, which is the class of the vehicle you start your career with, to B, and of course A which are the highest styles and strengths to purchase from the prize money you receive, each race. Each vehicle also has its own internal upgrades to purchase including engine and exhaust, wheels and armor, just to name a few. Though all custom paint styling to every vehicle you purchase is free, unfortunately the paint style choices, though fully customizable as far as whatever colors you want the art to be, are incredibly limited, usually only to about four or five different styles per vehicle. Along with that, there’s no customizing spray paint or words on your vehicle, nor can you assign your own number! That’s right, you’re locked into the number each art style comes with, along with spray painted words on the vehicle which aren’t in any way moveable or changeable, aside from what color they are. I’ve played demolition derby games years or even decades old where everything on the demo cars are customizable since that’s one of the fun things about real demolition derby is the custom spray paint jobs the drivers and crew take to their vehicles. It was definitely a let down not being able to have full control of what my vehicles looked like aside from a few preset selections.

One big problem in between matches is the load times. Loading up a course can sometimes take minutes of sitting there, watching a loading screen. A friend of mine who purchased the game recently mentioned the same issue so I know it wasn’t just something I was experiencing alone. As well, if the race involves a series of races where you need to finish within the top 8 to continue on, the loading in between races is so long and with no on-screen visual to inform you it’s loading, it literally seems as if the game has froze and you’re waiting for your system to blue-screen. I even went to the main PS4 menu the first time this happened and shut down Wreckfest thinking the game had locked up and I wanted to prevent my system from crashing entirely (just in case).

You really need to be conservative with in-game prize winning from races when spending it in the store. Don’t dump all your money into your starting vehicle (or a single vehicle) because you’ll need higher class cars (B and A classes) in order to access future races as you progress through the leagues. As each stages are previously locked, you cant see what each race needs as far as prerequisites and you could find yourself stuck behind races you cant race because you don’t have the cash to buy a new vehicle. A linked problem with that is you can only have one career mode going at a time so it auto-saves and instantly loads you back in each time you select career mode. The problem there is that for as long as I searched, I could not find a way to start a new career, even if it meant overriding the one I was currently in. The only way to start a new career is to manually go into your PS4 settings and delete the career save file. Until it gets patched, there’s currently no other way to start a new career.

The music is great. It definitely had a ring of modern day nu-metal which I felt was totally suitable for a game like this.  Still, no mention of the artists or their tracks playing was disappointing. As always, I will say every sports game, especially one involving a league where you’re going to put multiple hours into it, should have a TON more songs as well as easy ways to skip tracks. The EA FIFA series has always been great about their music and I’ve always used them as a great example of how lots of music choices and easy selection can make a game that much better.

Aside from it’s short-falls, Wreckfest is a lot of fun and if you’re a demolition derby racing fan, you will absolutely enjoy your time with this game. If there’s a sequel, I would definitely like to see a ton more custom paint options for every vehicle and an easier way to get around the leagues so you know what you have to prepare for within the game, financially. Still, I’ve enjoyed my time so far with Wreckfest.