Over the last few weeks, I’ve been spending some time catching up on my backlog of games and one I finally finished up was Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice
This game weaves a beautiful story together in a dark visual novel that highlights it’s main characters’ journey into a land called Northmen. You play a Celtic warrior named Senua who is on a mission to the mythological Norse land of the dead called Helheim. This game is loaded with mythological lore, historical fiction, and non-fiction that helps bring this story to life in a very dark but beautiful way.
This Norse based story is extremely impressive but the story isn’t the only thing that immerses you into this dark world as the designers brought together an impressive sensory mechanics system for the game as well. During the start of the game, you are given a prompt to play with headphones so you get the full effect of the simulated three dimensional sound environment. Once you throw those headphones on you will be immersed into a mass sound of voices that haunt Senua who constantly talk to her and brings a very creepy aspect to the game.
These voices Senua hears are a crucial part of the story, and also gameplay throughout as they can help with advice, and also such things as arguing with her, tear her down, and pick her up at just the right time. This mix of voices, paired with the soundtrack and visual story brings an experience that is worth every minute put into the game. Hellblade is also a visually gorgeous game full of darkness, strange lights, and mixed muted colors that fill the world. All aspects of what the creators did tell a beautiful story that truly brings a chill to the bones while playing. One way the developers immersed you further into the story was the mix of audio and visual distortion that brings a frightening effect of psychosis and hallucination that Senua is dealing with throughout the story.
Most of Hellblade seems to revolve around Senua’s senses in the environments and landscapes she is searching through. You as the player will have to search throughout the different areas and figure out multiple different puzzles in the game. These puzzles all have meaning within the game which takes on new layers of depth and opens up the world around you. A lot of these puzzle moments once figured out can be very rewarding as they open up things like hidden paths and because they are all reinforced by the overall story.
Combat was also a way that brought a lot of interaction with the world and things Senua was a part of. Hellblades combat was a great experience as well giving you multiple ways to interact with the world around you that paired beautifully with the story and progression system. I only encountered a few fights where I felt overwhelmed and unable to handle the battle but that was near the end of the story where enemy numbers and difficulty seemed to spike.
This game was beautifully done and the attention to detail that was placed within the atmosphere, storytelling, and mechanics made for a great experience. Playing as Senua and living out the insanity that was filled in her mind was a different take on a game of this style. All in all the six or so hour playthrough it took was well worth the time spent seeing what the developers created. Even though this game came out a couple years ago it’s still well worth a play if you have never experienced it yet.
I’ve waited a long time to write this review on a game series that has become one of my all-time favorite stories…ever!
On an episode by episode basis, I think the Final Season brings a good close to a great series and the studio that started it all. We get to see a mix of moments between dull and dragging, to cringe-worthy and exciting but the final destination of this game is well worth the time put in to get there. Each episode has at least two or three pivotal moments that made me feel like reloading my save and making the other choice, only to realize that either way would leave me with mixed emotions. When a story-based game can create hard decisions personally for you as the player then the developers have done an amazing job in my opinion! After knowing these characters in-game for so long it’s hard to make different choices aka break those cycles like we talked about earlier, but change is necessary for this game and the characters have a chance to change their ways and so do you as the player.
With all this said I think The Walking Dead: The Final Season does a fantastic job bringing you on a journey and discovering more about the relationship between Clementine and A.J. – Which honestly produced some of the craziest situations, and hardest decisions/choices ever in the game series to date. At times, the story gets clogged up with this new free-roaming gameplay feature, and the onslaught of new characters introduced that never get fully developed. Each episode though did have a very satisfying conclusion and wrap up that set up an amazing end to the final game. We ended the game on a bittersweet note especially since this was the last game TellTale worked on before shutting down, which really hit home in how they did the ending for Clem and this amazing story that’s unfolded over the last seven years.
Also new in the open world feel of Gears 5 comes a new toy you will get to roam around with. The wind-powered skiff, pictured here lets you tackle a huge open-world map and get to areas fairly quickly as well as going after those optional quests littered through the area. I found that these optional missions are worth the extra time as the rewards were usually upgrades for Jack. Along with some fresh new weapons, the open world feel, a wind-powered land cruiser and some very interesting boss fights, Gears 5 has become one of my favorites to date of the franchise!
A Crooked Mile slaps us right in the middle of some pretty amazing and memorable moments to date in this game. Around every corner Telltale succeeds at introducing new characters in almost every scene which keeps the interest up, and brings some more light and story to characters we’ve only just seen a small glimpse of over the past two episodes. This episode drops some tough choices on you and some crazy consequences to boot, so overall this episode really gives you the feeling of being these characters and owning the story itself!
Without going into many spoilers here, this episode brings us one of the biggest scenes to date. Watching Bigby finally bare his superpowers against an army of angry dwarfs is just a taste it seems of what you get to look forward to in future episodes. This incredible moment in the game lasted about as long as a blink of an eye, so the wait for episode 4 is going to be a nail biter for sure.
As great as this episode was to play through I had a little beef in a couple of the scenes as they decided to cut before I had a chance to fully explore the surroundings. Both of these scenes were packed full of things to explore and items to discover, so one moment I’m happily exploring, the next I was sliding right over into the start of the next scene which was disappointing.
First of all I have to start with WOW, as Ubisoft has achieved an art style with this game like none other I’ve ever seen! This game has some of the most intriguing and charming characters a game could ask for, but what makes this game stand out most is it’s earthy colors and use of a hand painted art style. This RPG gives a lot of love back to it’s predecessors as it pulls game mechanics such as exploration, crazy puzzles, and a fantastic combat system that’s become my favorite in the genre. If you enjoy the RPG games, then this one will quickly become a gem as it’s rewarding, fun, and quickly pulls you into it’s world of mystery, magic, and elegance!
The fairytale like plot holds your attention quite well, and the story, though at times is distracting was superb! There’s a traveling jester who can’t figure out how rhyming works, a love-sick mouse archer, and most importantly, the main character that you get to play, a young girl named Aurora who’s trying to save her father. Aurora’s transformation from a frightened child to the hero of her own story is a journey worthy of the beautiful art work it’s accompanied by. Some modern RPGs suffer by either abandoning too much of the choice and depth that first made the genre interesting, or by piling on needless systems that don’t add anything to the experience. Child of Light makes neither of these mistakes, giving it a very balanced play style across the board.
This games biggest win is the combat system though, as it mixes a classic turn based system with some very beautiful real time elements, like icons that move a long the bottom of the screen indicating when you or your opponents turn is. Battling in the game is more then just mindless button pressing, or repetitive skill spamming, as hitting an enemy in the middle of an attack will interrupt them. This element created a constant feeling of strategy and timing that had to be played, but also gave you a sense of great accomplishment which made it quite enjoyable!
A Hobbits Journey 