Fans have been clamoring for a return to form on classic Sony IP which has been dormant. Particularly of interest are the PS3 library of franchises mainly on ice since the close of the seventh generation. With PlayStation 6 chipset already being talked about by Sony and AMD, fans want more single player content. Is it time for PS5 to start seeing a run of secret big budget exclusives coming out of the woodwork?
The Last of Us is a game that was known not only for its graphics, pushing the PS3 to its absolute limits when it was released, but also for its story, which was critically acclaimed. People fell in love with the characters known as Joel and Ellie during the duration of the game. The father/daughter bond they formed was groundbreaking and the extent to which Joel went to save Ellie was both empathizing but also incredibly controversial in that it asked a question, if it meant saving the world, would you let a loved one die in the hopes that a vaccine could be developed against a deadly disease that wiped out a majority of humanity? It is a question that absolutely makes you think, and one that considering the circumstances, absolutely made you empathize with Joel for what he did at the end of the first game. The game sold extremely well, to the point where fan demand for a sequel was made.
What’s up everybody welcome to RealGamerNewZ. Today the new Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War has released on PS4, Xbox, and PC platforms with next-gen upgrades on Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 as well. We’re playing on PC using high frame rate settings and noticing the many differences between this game and Modern Warfare 2019. For starters, there is far less recoil on the guns – virtually none in fact. The sound design is less realistic and the gameplay feel is ultra fast with less thought given to realism in the shooting, reloading, tossing of lethals, etc. to an interesting result. This game is very fun once you get used to it, but certainly a bit more cheesey and less skill based compared to Modern Warfare 2019.
For the first time ever, PlayStation, Xbox, and PC gamers can all join the fight together in Modern Warfare.
Fallout 76 is an online-only exploration and survival role playing shooter game quite unlike any other. This spin-off title was developed by BattleCry Studios (which was folded into Bethesda Game Studios in March 2018), and while the release has been marred by various controversies surrounding leaks, the game’s launch, and the handling of customer relations, this review will seek to discuss the actual game itself after an extensive amount of gameplay and deep dive on what this live experience has to offer for those who are still interested in playing.
Rockstar Games is finally back after last releasing Grand Theft Auto V in 2013. Red Dead Redemption 2 is the prequel to one of the last generation’s best games, Red Dead Redemption. Taking place in 1899 at the tail end of the age of the wild west, the end of the age of outlaws, players take on the role of Arthur Morgan, one of the gang’s longest running members. Arthur finds himself on the run from the law, other gangs, and is unsure of the situation he is in. Throughout his journey, and your journey, Arthur just may find himself on the road to redemption. Society and civilization versus the wild west and its infamous outlaws, a tale so old it can almost write itself…
Black Ops 4 marks the first Treyarch developed COD game since 2015 and the extra time taken for its development certainly shows. While not perfect, this year’s Call of Duty has taken on a lot of praise from skeptics and loyalists alike. There’s a reason why sales in the series have been going downhill whenever Treyarch isn’t involved, and with BO4 they’ve proven once again that they’re not to be underestimated. At the top of the priority list for BO4 is quality, performance, precision, and a brand-new take on battle royale.
An Odyssey awaits. Explore the past within the world of Ubisoft’s flagship Assassin’s Creed franchise. This time instead of running through streets in white hoods and being a blade to the crowd players head back to 431 BC in Ancient Greece. Assassin’s Creed Odyssey takes place during the Peloponnesian War which was fought by the city states of Sparta against Athens.
Vroom Kaboom is developed by Ratloop Games Canada and has a free to play model as well as a model where you can buy the entire game upfront. Vroom Kaboom is a tower rush game with cars that go fast and cause a lot of destruction in their wake. As cars are set on a straight path with simply trying to avoid obstacles until you reach the end while collecting mines and ammo along the way while trying to just cause as much destruction to the towers. You have a wide variety of vehicles and weapons to choose from. You can pick a basic dune buggy, a muscle car, sports car, and a decent variety of other vehicles. That’s the basic rundown, time to drive into the review.
The first DLC, a part of the The City that Never Sleeps storyline for Marvel’s Spider-Man, has dropped just a little over a month after the game has released. The Heist, features a story in which Spider-Man needs to help Black Cat get out of a situation with the old school mafia and Hammerhead who have risen up to try and take back the streets of New York City. This scenario gets Spider-Man caught up yet again in a story of emotional issues with his former flame Black Cat, dealing damage to various mafioso goons, and even other side quests along the way. Let’s be honest, everyone wants a to tag along with Black Cat no matter the occasion.
We Happy Few is a game that I have personally been very interested since it was shown off years ago at E3. It had that very weird feeling that a game like Bioshock can give you but was also seemingly new and unique, at least from a visual and story standpoint. It started as a Kickstarter project that gained traction fast, then was picked up by Gearbox for publishing rights. Now the game has been in early access on the Xbox preview program since mid-2016, but I have not played that build of the game, so I can’t speak on it.
This Is The Police 2 is a very compulsive game and if you are into games that are very hard to put down then this is the game you’re looking for. The people from Weappy Studio have furthered their story of Jack Boyd as he runs from the feds and other organizations that want him either put away or dead.
If you’ve been playing shooter video games since the days of Quake and Unreal Tournament you may be finding the likes of Call of Duty or Battlefield too convoluted by kill-streaks, character classes, perks then you may enjoy MOTHERGUNSHIP. The creator behind Tower of Guns joins up with Grip Digital and Terrible Posture Games to produce the next chapter in the bullet hell genre.
Dead Cells is a rogue-like Metroid-vania style game developed by the studio Motion-Twin. So this game features procedurally generated areas which is something new to the genre of Metroid-vania since it’s usually all about remembering the layout of the map, finding secrets in it, and back tracking to older areas to unlock newer areas. Dead Cells throws all of that on its head with making everything well randomized. Survive long enough and you can play it like Metroid, but die and it’s time to start over. Sure, some of the areas are pre-designed, but they are constantly randomized, so you will never know where to go next whenever a new life begins.
Nothing is off limits to the elites. Hobbies, jobs, relationships, even the most benign conversation are all material to be documented while weighing your allegiance to the state. In Beholder, nothing is secret and nothing is sacred. It’s someone’s job to keep an eye on everything you do. It’s all for your own good, of course…
The mysterious travelling sage known only as The Mooseman is capable of interacting with the world in ways most mortals only dream of. In this brief but beautiful experience, players submerge themselves within the folklore and of the native Finno-Ugric culture. Released last year for PC to positive reception among PC Gamers worldwide (currently sitting at a 92% positive rating for all time and 75% positive rating for recent reviews), this title has received many game awards and will release tomorrow for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox globally.
While it’s something more of an artistic showcase rather than a traditional game, open-minded folks definitely love it. If you’re the type of person who puts gameplay above all else though, you might want to steer clear. You’d be missing out on an educational and interesting experience, but The Mooseman isn’t for everyone.
In the experience provided, we will see the journey of a mysterious figure known as “The Mooseman” in legends who will journey through the Middle World (land of the living), Lower World (land of the dead), and even the Upper World (land of the old gods), learning all kinds of esoteric knowledge along the way. We are taught a number of metaphysical lessons through the tales of old which would have perhaps been lost to history if not for this game. Although a lot of what is revealed would spoil the game’s experience, and a lot of the legends are given in an unclear way as to provoke the imagination, I will briefly describe some of the characters from them.
There are many more legendary characters in The Mooseman as well, mostly represented in artistic scenes with descriptions unlocked at each idol. Though these are essentially myths that often represent metaphors to explain the unknown back in ancient times, there is also some physical evidence given to select pieces throughout the artifacts that are found hidden in the game.
The Mooseman opens up by giving players control of a silhouette character who lights idols (resembling totems) to decipher myths that are based on the real life Finno-Ugric tales. These myths become expressed by gameplay elements on the screen. At one point your player will get a bow and arrow, but this isn’t a very action-heavy title and instead focuses on witnessing the spiritual world interacting with that of the physical via 2 – 4 hours of interactive story-telling.
For example, in one myth we are told that only “The Ones Who Know” may find a bridge between the Middle and Lower Worlds, which in this ancient culture’s belief system refers to the land of the living and the land of the dead respectively. When players take control of The Mooseman and observe this myth it causes a change in the environment enabling the myth to become reality or fade as needed. This means that some areas you’ll need to cross are covered by a bridge that only The Mooseman can find.
Other sections of this title similarly enact myths that are revealed to the player through idols. While these can be seen as puzzles, the actual complexity to be deemed a puzzle often isn’t there. These are very basic, vaguely shrouded moments that are figured out rather quickly with little effort. The whole experience does feel like a very interesting story-telling piece of art, but gameplay elements themselves are disappointingly lacking. At one point I thought I was meant to help guide souls from the Middle World to the Lower World only to find out I actually just needed to walk by them a certain way and avoid their death. Missed opportunities to marry deep gameplay with cultural awareness are prevalent and will put a bit of a damper on the overall product for gameplay-centric gamers.
Visuals in this title are very abstract, mood-setting, and artistic. As discussed elsewhere in this review, the game relies more on its narrative and sense of atmosphere than traditional gameplay. In regard to graphical quality, that’s actually a positive note. The title does well to provide watercolor and smokey charcoal style graphics that feel like a painting come to life. Performance-wise, The Mooseman maintains a steady but cinematic frame rate, without any glitches observed in our play-throughs although it does stutter slightly between loading some of its scenes.
The sound effects and music are a big part of what make up the game’s emotional tone. The general vibe given by the audio in the game is that of bewilderment, although at times sad, foreboding, or creepy. Lore and legends are discovered and displayed on-screen in the hieroglyphs of native culture while being read aloud by a Komi-Permian voice actress as the cryptic text fades into English for western gamers to read. This can be changed to Russian, French, or Deutsch as well.
The one aspect of this game that provides for replay-ability beyond just showing it to a friend / loved one or experiencing it for a second time is the collection of hidden artifacts. They aren’t frustratingly hard to find but do well to reward those who are used to checking every corner of a game’s world. Once obtained, each artifact in the collection will give real life evidence to the legends depicted in The Mooseman. These are based on academic literature and given as a sort of educational accompaniment to the rest of the title’s artistic portrayal of this mythology.
It’s really tough to score The Mooseman, as the developers have certainly done a great job telling the historical folklore of a tribal culture from the native ancestors of Finland and Russia. However, by choosing to stick to the folklore of their heritage as the primary content while advertising for the title suggests more of an adventure or puzzle game seems like it will mislead some folks.
The end result feels more like an interactive visual novel than a video game. While there’s nothing wrong with that, and we are excited to see a unique method to present culture has flourished here, it stops short of being worthy of our Bronze Game status. We do hope this format is continued and expanded on by this team in future projects. The Mooseman receives a 6 out of 10 from us and we recommend potential buyers research it as an art piece rather than game before jumping in.
Also Available on iOS and Android
*File Size (PS4): 619mb (708mb with updates)
*Original Price: $6.99 USD ($6.99 CAD, €6.99 EUR)
Review Copy Info: A digital copy of this game was provided to RGN for free by the publisher for the purpose of this review.
*File Size & Original Price noted at the time of the review may not reflect current size and pricing after a while as future updates get released.
Yes you’ve read that right, the 4K remaster of a classic game from the PlayStation 3 / Xbox 360 era has emerged from THQ Nordic, the lovechild of Nordic Games purchasing much of THQ’s old copyrights including classic gaming franchises as well as the actual THQ name and logo. Despite harsh criticisms leveled at their later years, Nordic Games were big fans of what THQ did for gaming throughout their long journey and decided to bring the brand back to glory while revamping some of their best games.
MLB The Show 17 came out recently and is one of the greatest baseball games in the series. The Show has been around since 2006 where developer SIE San Diego Studio has been working on the series since its inception on the PS2. They have put their feet in a few other games over the years such as: Modnation Racers, LittleBigPlanet Karting, and Kill Strain. They had some competition up until its last game in 2013 with Major League Baseball 2k13. This is also the first year that the developer has been able to create the game solely on PS4 and not have to do a copy of the PS3.
Until Dawn is a multiple ending game developed by Supermassive Games and published by Sony Computer Entertainment. It follows a group of friends vacationing at a mountain lodge in the midst of winter, who’ve come together on the one year anniversary of a tragedy, in hopes of gaining closure and remembering the lost.
Diablo III: Ultimate Evil Edition comes from Blizzard Entertainment. Blizzard has been around since 1994 and have been in the gaming industry for some time, they have created such games that have made a real big impression with the gaming community. One example of Blizzard’s work, perhaps the one they are best known for, is World of Warcraft which has over 6.8 million active subscribers. They are also responsible for developing the Starcraft series which is a real time strategy game that’s popular all over the world and is also a huge eSports game. Blizzard also releases Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, Diablo, and will be publishing the upcoming MOBA title Heroes of the Storm set in the Blizzard universe. Since Diablo has come out in 1996 it’s been one of the premier action role-playing hack and slash experiences on the market with iterations that have improved the story as well as add all kinds of multiplayer elements really working with the community to make the ultimate game which  has finally arrived with Ultimate Evil Edition today.
The zombies are once again threatening to destroy the world and the two pairs of sisters from the ancient Vampiric and Baneful clans have to team up in order to stop them. That’s the basic premise for Onechanbara Z2: Chaos, the latest title in the long-running hack-and-slash series. Originally released in Japan late last year, Z2 has now made its way to the West thanks to publisher XSEED. But did they do us a favor, or should they have not even bothered? Maybe.
The Legend of Kay is a game that is remembered by those who played it, especially on the PS2, as a cult classic of sorts; so much so that publisher Nordic Games had the game revamped for current generation consoles and PC in the form of The Legend of Kay Anniversary. Having never played the original, and barely even hearing of it; it’s no wonder I was going into this as a new experience rather than something I was already familiar with. Is it one of those classics that deserve to be remembered as one of the greats? Or is it one of those games that were probably better off being left untouched? These questions will be answered in the following review.
Be the Dark Knight in the highly anticipated sequel to Batman Arkham City. Follow Batman through the night as he strikes and fights fear. Face off against several of his greatest enemies featuring Scarecrow, The Riddler, Two Face, Harley Quinn, The Penguin, and the Arkham Knight. Batman is pushed to the limit to save Gotham, the city he loves, one last time.
In the final DLC of The Evil Within titled, The Executioner, surviving STEM takes a turn for the better. Enemies that once inspired fear received an unimpressed grunt before meeting their doom at the end of a massive spiked hammer. Areas that conjured dread at the notion of exploring were now comfortable and cozy. Playing as The Keeper made it all feel like home.