Critical Analysis: Dying Light, The Following

April 19, 2019 by dxe5083 1 Comment

The Beginning:

Dying Light, The Following Released in 2015 after a long run of zombie/slasher games. The game was told to bring a new imaginative story of a city that got hit with a virus that turns people into different types of zombies and bring parkour as one of the foremost major way to travel. An open world game with many side quests and the DLC The Following added in 2016. Dying Light brings more horror to the story with daytime and nighttime timeline which can increases scare tactics and level of zombies. A sequel to Dead Island, the bases of the story start as the you the main protagonist Kyle Crane, an undercover Global Relief Effort (GRE) agent meant to infiltrate the city of Harran Turkey to find and capture a rogue political figure Kadir “Rais” Suleiman. Rais is holding a file that could show light to the world and ruin the reputation of the organization. Once airdropped Kyle Crane gets jumped by some of Rais’s goons and uses his handgun, which attracts zombies, to protect himself. Kyle gets bit before he gets saved by two different “runners” part of the “Tower’s” members, Jade Aldemir and Amir Ghoreyshi. Unfortunately, Amir dies, and Jade takes you back to the Tower where you sleep for a couple days before hazelly waking up and learning about this refugee camp/tower. You learn how the city is very quickly and how-to parkour. You finally get to meet the leader of the Tower Brecken. You/Kyle must now earn the trust of the people while keeping your cover to find Rais and take the file.

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Forza Horizon 4 Critical Analysis

April 19, 2019 by fjm5126 Leave a Comment

Introduction

Forza Horizon 3 is an open world driving game developed by playground games. The game is based at a car festival with different people putting on different styles of racing all throughout the map. There are closed-circuit street style races, point to point races, off-road rally style races, and cross-country style races. Each race type requires different cars and skill sets. As you earn enough influence through different races and different tasks you progress through different seasons. These seasons change the physics of driving and provide new challenges such as snow rain driving.

The audience for this game is car and racing game fans. Beyond this, the game difficulty can easily be adjusted to cater to a wide variety of gamers ranging from casual to hardcore gamers. With the difficulty to the lowest settings the game is very easy and not challenging. With that said, when the difficulty is turned up to simulation level, the cars are very difficult to control. Couple this with increased opponent difficulty and the game can become almost impossible even for the most hardcore racing game fans.

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Super Smash Bros Ultimate

April 17, 2019 by Dylan Joseph Bolles 1 Comment

Super Smash Bros Ultimate is the latest release in a game series that has spanned since the original release on the Nintendo 64 in 1999. The Smash Bros franchise features various prominent Nintendo characters that can battle each other in a 2D “Street Fighter” kind of style. With every new release, more characters are featured, new in battle items are added, and new maps are created. Super Smash Bros Ultimate is the pinnacle of the franchise so it features over 70 Nintendo characters, over 80 in battle items, and over 90 maps. Every game in the Smash Bros series features a “Classic Mode” where characters have to play through a series of different battles and timed challenges to reach the final boss which is generally the series main antagonists Master hand and/or Crazy Hand. Smash Bros Ultimate built off this classic mode, giving each character their own unique battle sequence to play through and giving them a final enemy at the end that is an antagonist unique to the game series of the chosen character.

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Critical Analysis: The World Ends with You (2008)

April 17, 2019 by Jaime S Seaman 2 Comments

The title screen of The World Ends with You

Introduction

The World Ends with You (TWEwY) is a Nintendo DS game released in the United States in April 2008, featuring an antisocial teenager reluctantly fighting alongside his partners for his right to live in the deadly “Reapers’ Game”. TWEwY is an action RPG with a unique battle system designed to use the DS’s dual screens and touchscreen to their full effect. Placed in the trendy shopping center of Japan, Shibuya, TWEwY has a catchy electronica/hip-hop/rock soundtrack well-suited to the graffiti-heavy aesthetic of the game. Featuring distinctive character designs by Tetsuya Nomura of Kingdom Hearts fame, the game was well-positioned to appeal to teenagers, in addition to being well-received in general by game critics (e.g., 88 on Metacritic).

Due to technical difficulties, the game could not be replayed for the review. However, as a playthrough had been fully completed by the author in prior years, in combination with Orange Fluffy Sheep’s Let’s Play of TWEwY, the critical analysis could be completed with little disruption. Screenshots may also be assumed to come from the Let’s Play. The article contains moderate spoilers.

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Critical Analysis – God of War (2018)

April 17, 2019 by Dhananjay Ramachandran Leave a Comment

God of War was released on April 20^th2018 for the PS4 to rave reviews from critics and fans alike, was quickly nominated 2018 Game of The Year by numerous publications, and became the 4^thhighest selling Playstation 4 game of all time. The game was developed by SIE Santa Monica Studios to be a flagship PS4 exclusive for Sony, rebooting a beloved franchise with fresh gameplay and a new story anchored in Nordic mythology.

The story picks up years after the end of God of War III with the main character Kratos living in Midgard (Earth in Nordic Mythology) mourning the death of his wife alongside their son (Atreus). The main story has you deposit her ashes upon the top of the highest peak in all the realms. What seems like a cinch for the former Greek God of War turns into one of the most enthralling 40+ hour campaigns video gaming has to offer.

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Critical Analysis: XCOM2

April 17, 2019 by bpm5329 Leave a Comment

XCOM2 is a turn-based tactical RPG. This is a sequel to XCOM: Enemy Unknown where the player was tasked with defending Earth from an alien invasion as the commander of XCOM, a multinational military force and humanities last defense against the alien threat. XCOM2 takes place 20 years after the Earth’s leaders capitulated to the alien invaders. The aliens now rule the Earth with most of humanity as willing subjects except for a few small guerilla resistance forces. The player is tasked with uniting these forces to rebuild XCOM and free humanity from their alien overlords.

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Rayman Origins Analysis

April 17, 2019 by rjb5791 Leave a Comment

Overview

Rayman Origins is a video game that was developed and published by Ubisoft Entertainment. Rayman Origins (2011) is the fourth release of the Rayman franchise. The Rayman franchise was first popularized in the early 2000’s with the releases of Rayman (1995) and Rayman 2 (1999). With the momentum of the Rayman franchise, Ubisoft started the Raving Rabbid series. This series of games included many of the popular characters from the Rayman franchise. Rayman Origins was Ubisoft’s first release back into the Rayman franchise since venturing into the Raving Rabbid series.

Rayman Origins is a 2D side-scroller platform game. The game was originally released for the Playstation 3, Xbox 360, and Wii game system. Later releases were made available for the Playstation Vita, Nintendo 3Ds, and Windows. For the scope of this analysis, it will be applicable to the game being played on the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. The Wii version has different input mechanics. This may lend to differences in areas as such as audience and difficulty which will not be covered in this analysis.

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Total War Warhammer: II – Critical Analysis

April 17, 2019 by Alexander Scott Paul 1 Comment

Total War: Warhammer II is the 11th game in the Total War franchise and is developed by Creative Assembly. Taking place in the fantasy universe of Warhammer, the game varies greatly from the traditional historical-based grand strategy game. Instead, TW:W2 provides an option to play factions within the Warhammer universe such as High Elves and Skaven that each have their own playstyle and win condition. As a grand strategy game, the objective is to defeat rival factions by using diplomacy, economics, and warfare while simultaneously combatting external challenges as they arise. This blog post will analyze the gameplay and player experience of Total War: Warhammer II.

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Critical Analysis of Red Dead Redemption 2

April 17, 2019 by jlo5258 Leave a Comment

Introduction

Red Dead Redemption 2 was released on October 26th, 2018 by Rockstar Game, Inc. as a prequel to its predecessor, Red Dead Redemption, that was released 8 years earlier. It is difficult to place Red Dead Redemption 2 into any traditional genre. Red Dead also features one of the largest open world maps to date. Red Dead can also be played in first- or third-person. The game is best described as an open world adventure game. The developers of RDR2 focused on making a game with a single-player story that made the player develop an emotional connection to the characters. The story is broken into 6 chapters and 2 epilogues, most of which is played as the main protagonist, Arthur Morgan. Along with the single-player story, RDR2 has an online multiplayer, similar to that of Rockstar’s GTA V, that was added shortly after the initial release. The multiplayer will not be addressed in this analysis. Given 8 years of development Red Dead Redemption 2 is an extremely detailed and beautiful game that cuts no corners. This analysis is written based on 78 hours of gameplay on the Xbox One with 84% Total Progression and 100% Story Progression.

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Critical Analysis of Red Dead Redemption II

April 17, 2019 by tbp5089 Leave a Comment

Introduction

Red Dead Redemption II is an immersive open world action adventure game with a great story. This game was released on October 26, 2018 and is a prequel to Red Dead Redemption I released nearly ten years earlier. Red Dead Redemption is published by Rockstar Games, Inc. a publisher that has also released titles such as Grand Theft Auto, Max Payne, Midnight Club, and L.A. Noire. The game has both single-player and multiplayer modes of play. However, only the single-player campaign will be addressed for this analysis. The game was played on the PlayStation 4 (PS4) for over twenty hours with 37 percent completion. The game’s protagonist is Arthur Morgan a gunslinging outlaw who rides along with the Van Der Linde gang including John Marston the protagonist of the preceding title Red Dead Redemption I. As with most Rockstar games, the story is very good and engaging with a craving to finish missions in the game. Once a mission is finished, it is very easy to start the next mission without realizing what you’ve just done.

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