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    Deadly Premonition 2: A Blessing In Disguise Review – Chasing Its Own Shadow

    in Game Reviews

    Posted

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    Publisher: Rising Star Games
    Developer: Toybox Inc.
    Reviewed on: Switch

    Some people think the appeal of 2010’s Deadly Premonition boiled down to “so bad it’s good,” but I don’t think that’s accurate. Back then, a lot of us unironically loved the game. It had an earnest charm, conveyed through a unique small-town setting and memorable characters like FBI special agent Francis York Morgan. Yes, it had technical issues, but fans saw past them and developed a genuine appreciation for the gameplay and story. Unfortunately, that degree of goodwill is practically impossible to extend to this sequel; much like the victim at the center of its story, Deadly Premonition 2: A Blessing in Disguise feels like a lifeless relic frozen in ice.
     
    The tale is split between two main sections. The first takes place in present day Boston, where a pair of FBI agents are investigating the recent reappearance of a murder victim’s missing body. As it turns out, this young lady was the central figure of one of York’s earlier cases, which took place in Le Carré, Louisiana. The agents are appropriately skeptical of York’s involvement, and his aversion to the color red and insistence on talking to an invisible fairy don’t do much to establish his credibility. These present-day portions play like a visual novel, with a bare minimum of interaction and loads of dialogue. It’s not a great way to kick off the adventure, and the pacing and line delivery is agonizingly slow.

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    These present-day sections feel plodding, but they don’t take up much playtime. The majority of the game flashes back to York’s time in Le Carré, where he investigates the gruesome murder of a young girl. Once York realizes its connection to a drug ring and the mysterious appearance of red seeds, he’s determined to take over the investigation. The case itself is strange and convoluted, and the investigation goes in directions that even the most ardent fans won’t expect.
     
    I really liked the tone and setting from the first Deadly Premonition, and much of that appeal – at least on the story front – is back in A Blessing in Disguise. Characters are never what they seem, and the setting gives director Hidetake “Swery” Suehiro and his team access to a variety of archetypes that aren’t just rehashes of Twin Peaks episodes. There are a few cringe-inducing moments, particularly focused around voodoo and trans people, but none of it feels mean-spirited.
     
    Le Carré is home to a robust cast of weirdos, which is probably why York seems to enjoy being there so much. The Casa Pineapple hotel, where York stays, is staffed by a chef, bellhop, and concierge that appear to be the same person. Melvin, the town Sheriff, enjoys recapping what’s going on in the style of a movie-trailer announcer. Patricia, Melvin’s daughter, tags along with York for much of the investigation, providing some sass and local insight. I always looked forward to meeting one of the town oddballs, since it’s one of those all-too-rare situations where you genuinely don’t know what’s coming next. In Swery’s world, anything truly is possible, no matter how dumb, silly, or outlandish.

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    Deadly Premonition 2 is a frustrating experience because it nails so many of the things that made the first game great. For instance, there’s a character named Emma who runs a skateboard shop in her garage. She also plays upright bass at the Owl’s Nest bar with her dad and the owner. Emma’s dad is the town’s pastor, and he also runs the medical clinic. All this is to say that Emma wears a layered shirt with stars on the sleeves and the word “baptize” printed on the front. I don’t know why, but it just about killed me the first time I saw it. It’s weird while being technically accurate, which is a tightrope walk Swery and his team nailed in the first game. I don’t even mind graphical oddities and glitches such as Emma occasionally being rendered in her garage in the same space as her instrument – arms jutting out of its sides like she’s wearing a bass-guitar costume. As a fan of the first game, I wasn’t expecting technical perfection, but my forgiving approach to these shortcomings ends when they affect gameplay. And boy, do they.
     
    Emma’s shop isn’t just for show. York had his car stolen when he arrived in town, and he’s been getting around on a skateboard. He’s a better skateboarder than he was a driver – or at least the controls are better. The framerate, however, just about kills it and everything else in Le Carré's open world. It’s a halting, stuttering slideshow that gets worse when using one of the most efficient means of travel. I had to take frequent breaks from playing because it made me nauseated, which has never once happened to me in the decades I’ve been playing games. It’s awful. The framerate problem isn’t limited to your time on the skateboard, either; regular on-foot exploration also pushed my tolerance to its limits. The issue also makes other tasks a complete guessing game; while bowling, the meters that govern your shot’s strength and spin are rendered nearly useless thanks to choppy performance.
     
    These technical complications are puzzling since Le Carré is one of the most empty and least engaging open worlds I’ve seen in years. You may see a pedestrian or two, and cars occasionally drive by, but there isn’t much else going on. The town is a vast expanse of identical trees and repeated buildings. Fortunately, I was able to avoid some nausea by taking advantage of the fast-travel system, which is available early on. Taking this shortcut means that you won’t hear some of York’s conversations with his alter-ego Zach – but they repeat themselves so frequently that you probably aren’t missing out. How many times do you really need to hear a recap of Forest Whitaker’s career, after all?

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    I loved the play-at-your-own-pace philosophy the first game embraced, which is an important aspect that the sequel is missing. The minigames and sidequests just pad out the length; they don’t add insight to any of the characters. In one of the most egregious examples, you can go on a series of photo-based scavenger hunts by standing where a photo was taken in an album. Find all 20, and you get a small prize and a chance to do it four more times. Nope. Prizes for these side activities include components that you can use to craft special tokens and trinkets, which increase your various gun-handling stats, give you more stamina, or tweak any other number of behind-the-scenes meters. The game is so trivially easy and meeting York’s various food and maintenance requirements is so simple that there’s no reason to engage with any of these systems apart from your own sense of completion.
     
    In Le Carré proper, you can use York’s pellet gun to shoot bees, dogs, squirrels, and alligators that attack you. When York taps into his ability to access the Otherworld, combat becomes more of a focus. Here, he’s able to go back in time and witness what happened during pivotal moments. These parts are interesting, but you have to slog your way through some incredibly tedious action scenes to get there. You basically walk through an unchanging series of corridors while blasting the same three enemy types over and over again. Any tension is thwarted because the game pauses for a split second before these enemies spawn into the world, so you know when to expect them every time. From there, it’s a matter of shooting the creep in the face and moving on, whether they’re a scissors-wielding clown or creepy succubus. There are boss fights, but they’re such pushovers that I wondered why they bothered showing up.
     
    When the credits rolled, I was completely shocked. Not because I couldn’t believe who the culprit behind all of this was, or how messed up the final encounter was, but because it came out of nowhere. Characters are built up and then deflated without fanfare. There is a final confrontation, but it’s hollow and seems rushed. It’s a weird paradox overall – a game that is simultaneously too short and too padded out, but here we are. It’s bound to be another polarizing title, which ultimately shouldn’t come as a big surprise. I just wish I could have counted myself among its defenders this time. 

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    Score: 5

    Summary: Much like the victim at the center of its story, Deadly Premonition 2: A Blessing in Disguise feels like a lifeless relic frozen in ice.

    Concept: Catch up with FBI special agent Francis York Morgan and investigate a gruesome crime in the Louisiana town of Le Carré

    Graphics: The first game’s visuals were dated when it debuted 10 years ago, yet somehow the sequel looks and performs even worse

    Sound: The soundtrack is filled with undeniably catchy tunes, and voice performances fit the quirky atmosphere

    Playability: An unforgivable frame rate ruins much of the experience, rendering some minigames virtually unplayable and turning the simple act of walking around into a nauseating chore

    Entertainment: Revisiting Deadly Premonition’s unique sensibility is fun, but aggressively poor production values and shallow gameplay make it tough to stick around

    Replay: Low

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    Marvel's Iron Man VR Review – Not Quite Invincible

    in Game Reviews

    Posted

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    Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment
    Developer: Camouflaj
    Release: February 28, 2020
    Reviewed on: PlayStation VR

    As one of the most beloved superheroes, Iron Man is nearly as recognizable as any other character in pop culture today. Despite his success in films and comic books, video game prosperity has thus far eluded Marvel’s icon. With Iron Man VR, developer Camoflaj lets you step into Tony Stark’s power armor as you fly, blast, and quip your way through several missions spanning the globe. Iron Man VR gives you all the thrills of saving the day, but even early in the adventure, it’s easy to notice the cracks in the armor.

    You assume the role the popular Avenger who has served as one of Marvel’s most iconic characters for years. Once you don the Iron Man suit, you use PlayStation Move controllers and the PSVR headset itself to dictate how and where you fly. Tilt the controllers behind you and you hurtle forward, and change direction by adjusting the angle of your arms and where you’re looking. Flying forward feels intuitive and terrific; whenever I was speeding along a linear path, I truly felt like a capable hero.

    Combat in Iron Man VR is superb. Using the motion controllers to access Iron Man’s full arsenal of weapons truly made me feel like I was one of Earth’s mightiest heroes. Whether I was blasting waves of drones with Stark’s signature repulsors or unleashing a furious wave of lock-on missiles at a stunned adversary, Iron Man VR effectively makes you feel like the man in the suit. My favorite combination to pull off was to ground pound a hovertank from the sky, then while it’s airborne from the shockwave, melting away its armor with a chaingun, and finishing it off with a cluster bomb. Chaining together combos to take down ferocious foes never ceases to satisfy, and I always looked forward to testing my aim and improvisation in the more intense firefights. If things get too hairy, defeating enemies charges your unibeam, an awesome ultimate attack that can level the playing field and shift the odds in your favor regardless of the situation.

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    Most missions take place in open areas, requiring you to complete objectives while fending off waves of enemies. As you turn at all angles and adjust your height, the frantic pace can be disorienting. The controls are imprecise if you physically turn around (and away from the sensors), but the only alternative is using the buttons to manually turn and readjust the camera, which completely ruins the thrilling sense of presence the game is intended to create. Even near the end of the campaign, as I began to feel like an expert in the flight controls, I often went soaring into walls and struggled to keep up with the more nimble bosses, fighting in environments full of beams and pillars. These encounters rarely resulted in my defeat, but they went on far longer than they held my interest.

    Tony Stark is more than just Iron Man. Between missions, you take control of the complicated man behind the iron mask. In these sections, you move around by selecting waypoints in the environment and teleporting. While Stark’s mansion has fun Easter eggs and inconsequential minigames, the most valuable use of your time at home is customizing your armor. In addition to getting new paintjobs, you can use earned skill points to unlock upgrades. These improvements range from speed boosters and faster health regeneration to various new weapons. While I barely noticed the speed advantages granted by those upgrades, my two loadouts played very differently from each other by the end of the game thanks to the diverse selection of auxiliary bombs and guns available to equip.

    Click here to watch embedded media

    During these heavily restricted in-between moments, you get a glimpse into the life of Tony Stark, the internal struggles of reconciling his past as an international arms dealer with his desire to be a heroic beacon for the world, and how his decisions affect not only those he cares about, but those he doesn’t even know exist. That premise serves as the backdrop to the story, as the supervillain Ghost seeks to avenge those killed by Stark Industry weapons using her hacking skills and high-tech suit. This assault on both fronts of Tony’s life leads to compelling situations and fun moments, even if Ghost’s sidekick, Living Laser, feels ripped from a Saturday morning cartoon.

    As a huge fan of the iron Avenger, Iron Man VR has me torn. I love the feeling of putting on the iconic suit and destroying waves of enemies, but for every moment I felt like a seasoned superhero soaring into action and taking down the bad guys, the finicky flight controls made me feel more like someone who snuck into Stark’s workshop to take the suit for a spin with no prior training. Iron Man VR delivers a fun adventure for fans of Marvel’s iconic hero, but it too often feels hindered by the virtual-reality technology rather than elevated by it.

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    Score: 7.5

    Summary: Iron Man VR delivers thrilling combat and fun flight mechanics, but navigating big, open areas is frustrating.

    Concept: Don Tony Stark’s iconic Iron Man suit in VR as you soar through several missions to stop a revenge-driven adversary

    Graphics: Flying through the clouds and over water looks good, but the Shanghai map is a mess of fuzzy textures and poor sense of scale

    Sound: The signature repulsor effects sound terrific, and most of the voice acting is good

    Playability: Flying around and blasting enemies out of the sky is simple enough, but once the maps open up and the objectives become more complicated, the learning curve gets steep

    Entertainment: While trying to precisely navigate is frustrating, using Iron Man’s full arsenal in combat is satisfying

    Replay: Moderate

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    5.1.1 patch notes

    in Apex Legends

    Posted

    Patch Notes 5.1.1

     

    General
    - Removed Mobile Respawn Beacon out of the bunker area in Kings Canyon.
    - Fixed an issue with Legends being able to still shoot after being downed.
    - Fixed an issue where taking damage was interrupting revives.

     

    Wraith
    - Fixed an issue “The Marble Goddess” skin not having the correct hitbox.
    - Fixed an issue with wraith being able to get a speed boost by using her tactical, then her ult, then canceling her ult.

     

    Revenant
    - Fixed an issue where if death protection wears off during a revive, it cancels the revive.

     

    Octane
    - Octane will no longer be able to use stim while healing.
    - Fixed an issue with passive regen being delayed after the use of stim.
    - Fixed issues with being pulled out of ADS, weapon firing stopping when stim ends/landing from a jump pad.

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    Brigandine: The Legend of Runersia Review – Lacking The Excitement Of A Legend

    in Game Reviews

    Posted

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    Publisher: Happinent Corporation
    Developer: Matrix Software
    Rating: Teen
    Reviewed on: Switch

    Brigandine debuted over two decades ago on the original PlayStation, and only now is it getting a sequel. It may seem like an unlikely candidate for revival, but Brigandine: The Legend of Runersia comes at a time when the strategy/RPG genre is getting renewed attention – partially thanks to Fire Emblem’s success. For those who want something in that vein, this certainly scratches a similar itch. Brigandine: The Legend of Runersia personalizes the strategy/RPG experience by letting you recruit and get to know your combatants in side stories. Watching your team grow in strength and invading new areas makes you feel powerful, even if it lacks variety and gets repetitive. 

    The gameplay offers a lot of customization and freedom in how you build an army for world conquest. You begin your journey by selecting from one of six nations, each with its own leader, storyline, and strategic slant. I picked the Republic of Guimoule, where my leader has been performing under a secret identity as a ballerina, but must step up into a leadership role once her country is endangered. The game positions you well to think and feel for your nation, since each one has hopes and expectations riding on success, such as the Mana Saleesia Theocracy who is fighting a holy war in an attempt to convert everyone to his religion. As you pursue power, you see it reflected back in a satisfying way in the size of your army and occupied bases across a vast map. 

    Your goal is to occupy opposing bases, recruit allies, gather new weaponry, and train your combatants – all in the name of total domination. The action is split into organization and action phases for each turn. In the organization phase, you decide where to move your army, who to send on quests for experience or items, and how you want to manage your troops, upgrading their classes and summoning monsters for assistance. These decisions are a balancing act, and I enjoyed deciding when to be aggressive or defensive before even stepping on the battlefield. Positioning is key, as you need to be adjacent to an area to invade it, but you also can’t leave your bases undefended. If you send troops off to do quests, they are unavailable to fight if the base becomes besieged. The challenge comes in needing to do all things, and the push-and-pull is handled well; you can’t advance your power without trying to aggressively take over enemy forts, nor can you ignore quests due to their wondrous rewards. 

    When you reach the attack phase, you can invade rival nations’ bases, each with their own power level to consider. You can still win if you’re under-leveled, but you’re likely to lose monsters that you’d rather keep alive for future encounters. Battles play out on hexagonal grids, where you position your troops and select their actions. You can pick up to three leaders for each invasion, accompanied by a corresponding party of dragons, fairies, and ghouls with their own unique abilities. To finish your engagement, you can dole out enough damage and force an enemy to retreat, completely annihilate the leader and get any of their leftover monsters, or retreat yourself to save face.

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    Watching your units grow and building parties to fit different strategic needs is a fun gameplay layer. Sometimes I had my leader was a mage surrounded by tanky golems or dragons for protection. I assembled groups entirely focused on healing, relying on my two other factions to do the dirty work. Your approach to combat has a lot of flexibility, and once you start leveling up your units, you really see the fruits of your labor as their skills grow in number and power. That’s especially true as you upgrade their classes, which often branch and have elemental variants. It’s a lot to tinker with, but also the most fun part of the game, since you have an expansive roster of different classes and unit types with distinct abilities to pursue. I had everything including sea serpents, high centaurs, pegasi, and more in my ranks.

    Unfortunately, the battles themselves don’t play out in exciting ways. Every invasion feels similar, and the action unfolds slowly, so combat feels lethargic instead of energized. In fact, it usually takes a few turns before you even reach the enemy to fight. Brigandine: The Legend of Runersia boasts about the different terrain being a difference-maker on the battlefield and shaking things up, as certain classes get bonuses or penalties based on their preference, but it didn’t do much for me. I factored it into my strategy when I could, but battles don’t play out that dramatically, nor did it feel like such a great tool I could exploit to my advantage.

    Enemies are rarely pushovers, and completing a battle with your full team intact is rare. A lot of your success comes down to positioning, whether that’s keeping some units together or spaced apart – but which approach is correct often depends on pure luck. This is frustrating, and I can’t tell you how many battles I started over due to an unfortunate turn rather than any flaw in my strategy. The presence of permadeath makes this all the more annoying. You can revive monsters with their levels intact if you have a special item, but these are pretty scarce. When you consider all the time it takes to grind and upgrade these units into something satisfying, losing them can feel downright punishing, and I wish these items weren’t so hard to come to by. 

    Brigandine: The Legend of Runersia does everything pretty adequately, but there’s also nothing all that remarkable about the experience. I felt like I was going through the motions without anything meaningful to keep bringing me back for these tedious takeovers. The repetition just dulls the adventure, and everything plays out predictably. The game is decent and functional, but it doesn’t have any surprises, big innovations, or memorable moments. 

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    Score: 7.5

    Summary: Watching your team grow in strength and invading new areas makes you feel powerful, even if the game lacks variety and gets repetitive. 

    Concept: Pick a nation and work toward dominating a continent via grid-based battles

    Graphics: Environments could use more variety, but the character models are beautifully drawn, showcasing the flavor of different nations

    Sound: The music is not especially memorable. Also, be aware that the voice acting is only in Japanese with subtitles

    Playability: Tutorials ease you into the mechanics well, but advanced features require more trial and error

    Entertainment: Brigandine: The Legend of Runersia allows you to see your influence and dominance grow across its vast world, but isn’t varied enough to keep you invested

    Replay: Moderate

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