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Category Archives: First Impressions

First impression videos to give you a flavour of a game, not a review though!!!!!

Sony E3 Conference Impressions

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Here are my Sony E3 Conference Impressions now I’ve had a couple of days to calm down and absorb all the gaming goodness we were subjected to.

There is no doubt that the Sony E3 Conference was one hell of a ride, with some surprising announcements and some cool games.

I have put a load of videos from the conference at the bottom of the page so you can check them out.

Firstly how did my prediction match reality and secondly what I am most excited for.

My Predictions and how did the match up?

Sony E3 Conference Impressions

Media Molucule’s new IP – Dreams

5: The 1tb PlayStation will be officially announced with price drop.

Nope got this wrong, no announcements.  But with the strong showing of games and exclusive content I don’t think a price drop is needed.

4: Media Molecule will do a live demo of their new game, it will be PS4 only and will probably integrate Morpheus. Release window Q1/2 2016

1 out of 3 – Yes we saw it, no it wasn’t a live demo, no release date yet. Looked cool but what the hell is it!!!!!!!

3: To counter the slightly barren 1st party line-up PS4 will announce PS4 exclusive content for Star Wars Battlefront and Destiny.

Ha ha, totally on the money and an exclusive deal with CoD Black Ops 3 as well. Awesome!!

Sony E3 Conference Impressions

It’s coming in 2016. Yay!!

2: There will be a 10 minute section concentrating solely on Indie Developers, it will kick off with Volume and finish with a live demo of No Man’s Sky. Also No Man’s Sky will get a pre-Christmas release date.

Nope – only a tiny reference to 4 indies coming from Devolve studio, 90 seconds tops.  No Mike Bithell (boo). Yes a live demo of No Man’s Sky. No release date for No Man’s Sky for now. It could still be 2015… we’ll see.

1: The Last Guardian will be played on stage and it will have a release date for October or November this year.

 

Oh hell YES!! Alright so it wasn’t a live demo, but a demo none the less, release next year.  The thing to take away form this is THE LAST GUARDIAN IS HAPPENING!!!!

Right so I didn’t do very well actually, but the Sony E3 Conference was stunning.

Sony E3 Conference Impressions, Recap:

The Line up:

 

Sony E3 Conference Impressions

Geurrilla Games new Action RPG. My favourite game of E3

  • The Last Guardian
  • Final Fantasy VII Remake
  • Shenmue 3
  • Horizon – Zero Dawn
  • No Man’s Sky
  • Destiny Exclusive Content
  • Star Wars Battle Front – Exclusive Content
  • Disney Infinity Star Wars – Exclusive content
  • Batman Arkham Knight – Exclusive Content
  • CoD Black Ops – Exclusive Content – Exclusive beta
  • Media Molecule New IP
  • Uncharted 4 live gameplay

I’ve missed a load of stuff I’m sure, but what a line up. Yes most of the exclusive content is timed but it really shows that developers have confidence in the PlayStation 4.  That confidence can only be a good thing for Sony and PS4 gamers in general.

Highlights

Here are my top 5 highlight from the show (reverse order):

5) Final Fantasy VII Remake – I am playing the original on my Vita right now and it is a class game. Not my favourite FF, that honour goes to IX, but this is something that fans have been clamoring for and it looks like PS4 gets it first.

4) The Last Guardian – Considering my last post you may have through this would be higher.  It is here now, that what I wanted from this year’s E3, now the game has to be delivered.

3) No Man’s Sky – Sean Murray is such a passionate and awkwardly engaging character and I just want his game to be great.  I am not going to listen to anything more about it as I want to dive in when it is released and just discover the game.  It seems that’s what Hello Games wants us to do.

2) Uncharted 4 – The live demo (despite a bit of a blip to start) looked utterly incredible.  Obviously it looked great and of course the banter between Sully and Nate was hilarious, I mean duh! The thing that got me was the sheer scale of it, the gunfight, the jeep chase, the non linear levels.  Holy crap it took me straight back to the train section of Uncharted 2 but twice as excited. March 2016 cannot come soon enough.

1) Horizon Zero Dawn – Geurrilla Games, famous for Killzone, produce an incredible looking 3rd person action RPG.  The world was beautiful, the animation smooth, the character voice was dynamic and interesting.  The boss battle, utterly compelling.

Horizon Zero Dawn was the highlight of the show for me, yes of course Uncharted will be amazing, but this is brand new, from a good studio, with a post post apocalyptic setting and robo-dinosuars you fight with a bow. HELL YES!

This E3 has been amazing, the next 18 to 24 months are going to be a gamers paradise.



Abe’s Oddysee New ‘n’ Tasty PS4

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Abe’s Oddysee New ‘n’ Tasty

Abe's Oddysee New 'n' Tasty

It’s Abe! One of the weirdest yet most lovable game heroes ever.

Remaster Overload?

One thing that has been really prevalent over the last couple of years is the HD remake; Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, Strangers Wrath among many others on PS3 and we now have Tomb Raider Definitive Edition and The Last of Us Remastered for PS4.

I have no objection to these so long as they games are worth playing.  The list of games above are certainly in this category and, with the exception of Tomb Raider, I have got them all.

One of the most recent however is Abe’s Oddysee New ‘n’ Tasty a HD reworking of the sublime 1997 PS1 game from Lorne Lanning.

Abe’s Never Looked Better

I played the original in Abe’s Oddysee 1997 and loved it; the new iteration doesn’t have new features or game play mechanics it is just a brilliant graphical update to an already stellar game.  In the original you had static back grounds and Abe’s crossed the screen and the screen flipped when he got to the end, now you have a scrolling background and Abe is always in the centre.  This immediately makes the game a little easier and the more accurate controls also help make what was a very hard game just a hard game.

Puzzling Platforms

This is puzzle platforming at its best.  Abe has very little in the way of armament, he has the ability to possess Sligs (nasty squid faced soldiers) and get them to do his bidding but this has limitations to prevent it becoming over-powered.  Most of the game involves negotiating platforms, flitting switches and trying to escape Rupture Farms your place of work.

Processing Meat and Saving Staff

The story is simple, Abe works in Rupture Farms, a meat processing plant, and he discovers his species, Mudokons, are next on the lunch menu, hence an escape from the farm, a prophesy and a reckoning.  All of this is done with sharp humour and a lot of farting.

You can also choose to save the 299 Mudokon employees at Rupture Farms, this is not essential and to save them all will require you finding secret areas and solving fiendish puzzles. However there are two endings and the good ending requires you to save a good number of your friends.

Gaming Depth

With the huge number of new AAA titles coming out HD remakes or re-imaginings are very welcome and add depth to a good catalogue of games.  Give Abe some of your time because you will never play another game quite like this one and farting passwords is very funny.

I’ve popped a game play video below.  I hope you enjoy it and as always… Happy Gaming

Mike Checks Out… Abe’s Oddysee New ‘n’ Tasty

Mike Checks Out… Transistor

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Transistor by SuperGiant games

An exquisite game challenging and intelligent

Every so often a game is launched that is so unique, artful and intelligent that it takes your breath away.  right now for me that game is Transistor.

Created by SuperGiant Games, whose previous game Bastion was equally beguiling, Transistor tells the story of Red a singer in a dystopian digital world who has had her voice stolen by a shadowy agency.  She is accompanied by the Transistor, a huge sword that contains a living soul.  It is this soul that narrates the game and their relationship and how they came to be in this predicament is shrouded in mystery.

Transistor is certainly mysterious, SuperGiant Games grant their audience with the intelligent to piece the story together for themselves.  They don’t spoon feed you banalities like so many games but instead introduce characters and situations slowly to maintain the mystery and make you engage and connect with the characters fully.

The game is played from an asymmetric  view with a fixed camera which does very rarely hide the action, but never in a way that reduces immersion or makes the game unplayable.  Graphics are colourful, well animated and have a very unique feel; almost Blade Runner mixed with Tron.

Gameplay is a mix of exploration, real time combat and strategic planning.  You can pommel away at enemies with the sword in real time but this is not the most effective tactic you can employ.  With a tap of R2 time freezes and you can move Red freely around the environment to plan moves to best decimate your adversaries. Each action has a cost and once you have spent all your points tapping R2 again will unleash the pain. you will then have to engage or evade in real time until the action bar recharges allowing the next bit of strategic brilliance.

This mechanic works exceptionally well and keeps combat fresh and interesting.  There is also an upgrade system that means you can attach active and passive skills to the Transistor in any combination to match your playing style.

As you probably can guess I love this game and it is currently on PSN for £14.99, worth every penny in my opinion.

Check out my video below to see it in action

and as always… Happy Gaming

Mike Checks Out… Transistor

My First Impression Videos

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First Impression of... Stick it to the Man

Mind reading purple spaghetti arms are go!!!

 

Hi there all my lovely gaming pals.

I just wanted to blog about one on the first Impression playlist I have on my channel… Mike Checks Out.

The idea behind this is to play the game for the 15 minutes of recording time allowed by the PlayStation 4 Share button. This will give some insight into what the game is all about.

I have concentrated on Indy titles as they may be getting less coverage than the AAA games out there.

So far I have covered:

  • Fez
  • Mercenary Kings
  • Tiny Brains
  • Stick it to the Man
  • Child of Light
  • SteamWorld Dig

The PS4 is a brilliant place for these charming and challenging Indy games and if you don’t know about them you could be missing out of some complete gems.

So click on the link below to go to my playlist and I’ve popped the Child of Light video here as well as this is a superb game.

If you want to see more subscribe to the channel, follow me on Twitter and I will keep recording these titles so you can spend your money wisely!!

As always… Happy Gaming!!

Mike Checks Out… First Impression Playlist

Mike Checks Out… Child of Light

Mike Checks Out… Stick it to the Man

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Mike Checks Out... Stick it to the Man

Mind reading purple spaghetti arms are go!!!

 

Here is a little look at Stick it to the Man the Instant Game Collection title for PS4 in May 2014.  It is a very slightly insane point and click adventure .

Ray is an ordinary bloke working as a hard hat tester in a beautifully realised 2D paper world, he gets hit on the head and wakes up in hospital with a wierd purple spaghetti arm growing out of his head. Ray is the only person who can see it and it allows him to read the mind of anyone he wishes.

What follows is a game where you solve other people’s problems by reading their minds, whilst avoiding the attention of a shady organisation who want to bump you off.

what I have played of it so far has been really fun and the script is actually genuinely funny.

If you are a PS+ member you can download it during May at the extortionate price of FREE!! What better reason to get some purple spaghetti arm mind reading action onto your lovely PS4.

I hope you like the video, click the YouTube button on the right of the page to subscribe to more madness and check out PS Phwar on other social media as well.

As always… Happy Gaming!!

Mike Checks Out… Stick it to the Man

Mike Checks Out… Child Of Light

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Mike Checks Out... Child of Light

A beautiful title from UbiSoft the makers of Rayman

 

So here we are with Mike Checks Out… Child of Light, a new video in the occasional series where I spend 15 minutes with a game to give you a flavour of what it is all about.

It won’t take you long to realise that I love this game, the art design is stunning, the turn based combat is tactical and engaging and exploring the world is so much fun.

It plays like an Indy title but has been developed by UbiSoft using the Rayman engine.

Even though it has been developed by a AAA company they are retailing this at just £11.99 or your regional equivalent.  The game clocks in at about 12 hours, but there are a couple of DLC packs that introduce new characters and missions.  When you consider that InFAMOUS Second Son, at £49.99, is about the same length you can see that this is excellent value for money.

One thing to bare in mind is the story is told through rhyming couplets and although UbiSoft is an excellent game maker they are not going to win any poetry prizes!!

Final bit of info… I edited this video entirely within the PS4 using Sony’s new SHAREfactory.  This free app allows you to edit gameplay together, add commentary, music, text, visual effects and stickers.  It is very easy to use and can be uploaded to Facebook or saved on a memory stick and uploaded to YouTube.  I won’t be using it on a regular basis as I can’t add my own logo and titles, but it is an excellent tool if you want to share your awesome gameplay with your friends.

I hope you enjoy the video and as always… Happy Gaming

Mike Checks Out… Child of Light

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