Uncharted 4: A Thief's End

"We receive the due reward of our deeds." So reads the inscription on an artifact discovered in the early hours of Uncharted 4: A Thief's End. It's a passage from the Bible, spoken by Saint Dismas, a man crucified on the same day as Jesus. He spent years robbing and murdering innocent people before being sentenced to death for his crimes. And with those last words of revelation, Dismas earned the title of the Penitent Thief.

This anecdote sets the tone for a powerful game about loss, betrayal, regret, and redemption. In both its momentous set pieces and its intimate, personal moments, Uncharted 4 drives its narrative forward with a rare understanding of its characters, its world, and the gameplay tying them all together. It's a stunning combination of disparate parts. It's a breathtaking marvel of a game.

By this point in the series, developer Naughty Dog has led us across the globe in search of famous treasures from equally famous legends: we unearthed El Dorado in the Amazon rainforest, found the Cintamani Stone deep in the Himalayas, and entered Iram of the Pillars, a sandswept city with a religious history of its own. In Uncharted 4, however, we find protagonist Nathan Drake leading a quiet life with freelance journalist Elena Fisher, who happens to be his wife. They live in New Orleans. They have a three-bedroom house. They play video games together.

But this all changes with the return of Nathan's older brother Sam, who was presumed dead for 15 years. Not only is he alive and well, but he's fallen in with criminals, and needs help paying a debt. He also has a lead on one of history's greatest treasures: the loot of the pirate Henry Avery, which the brothers have sought since their early days of treasure hunting. Now, with Nathan forced out of his calm life, they set off to chase their elusive white whale.

Elena and Nathan are leading a quiet life at the beginning of Uncharted 4.

Sam's arrival not only upends Nathan's newfound domestication, but complicates his emotional life as well. Uncharted 4 gives us insight into his past, and the way it shaped his psyche: how he despises authority; how he uses humor as a shield; how he long ago accepted violence as a justifiable means to an end. Uncharted 4 tells this story with affection, showing an expert attention to detail in the way Nathan's voice falters when discussing his childhood, or how he stares at Elena when she's not looking. These details are painfully human. They bring the characters to life.

This nuanced take on Nathan's personality is reflected in Uncharted 4's gameplay, too. As with previous titles, Uncharted 4 revolves around third-person combat, climbing, and puzzle-solving. But, unlike its predecessors, this game often lets you sneak past enemy soldiers without doing any harm at all. This is a clear influence from The Last of Us, developer Naughty Dog's darker take on a third-person adventure. Stealth requires a patient, measured approach--but it feeds into the idea of a more reserved Nathan. Uncharted 4's action flows seamlessly alongside its narrative. It's a fluid, believable experience when it all comes together.

There are minor mechanical problems: the cover mechanic can send you to the wrong obstacle or wall in the middle of firefights, and rarely, Nathan will grab the wrong ledge when climbing. But these observations wash away within the grand scheme of things. There's always something incredible around the corner to erase the momentary annoyances.

Uncharted 4's action flows seamlessly along with its narrative.

The game borrows from The Last of Us in terms of structure as well. Much like its cousin, Uncharted 4 embraces a more open approach with much of its level design. There are small sandboxes where you climb towers, learn the layout, mark enemies, and choose to fight through them, or circumvent the group in the interest of a quiet escape. These areas would hurt the pace of a lesser game, but Uncharted 4 keeps tension alive even in its calculated moments, transitioning from open areas to action sequences without halting the momentum.

Speaking of: Uncharted 4's set-pieces are the best in the series, and among the best-coordinated stunts in the medium. There's a heist in Tuscany. There's an acrobatic escape along the cliffs of Scotland. There's a chase through a busy marketplace, and it opens onto farmland as you leap between trucks, slide through the mud, and crash through shacks in the Madagascar countryside. Just when you think Uncharted 4 might settle into a steady rhythm, it throws something new at you with high velocity and incredible power.

One of the game's massive puzzles.

These sequences give you agency, but also enough guidance to maintain the euphoric rush of a car chase without constantly dying. I'm reminded of Half-Life 2's escape from City 17, where you sprint through apartments and over rooftops, controlling your character while the game directs you without sacrificing tension in the process.

The key difference with Uncharted 4 is how it directs you with its camera and lighting, guiding you to the correct ledge or doorway or crumbling wall as you leap through explosions and plumes of smoke. Audio cues also aid you--characters shout over the din of gunfire, telling you when to fight and when to keep running. The dialogue makes sense within the moment.

And then there's the presentation of it all. The cinematography, both in-game and during cutscenes, amplifies the wonder of this gorgeous world. It's not enough to call the jungles lush. They're vibrant. It's not enough to call the game's version of Scotland vast. It's majestic. There's also incredible animation at play, and it sets a new watermark for games in the way it can illustrate subtle emotions like distrust and yearning.

Sweeping camera shots and intimate close-ups tie the characters to the beautiful locales, as Drake gazes toward mythical places he only dreamed of as a kid. Uncharted 4 doesn't root its visuals in the hues of realism, but rather, paints the world as it might look to someone intent on exploring every inch of it--someone intoxicated by the prospect of adventure.

Uncharted 4's cinematography, both in cutscenes and out, amplifies the wonder of its gorgeous world.

Uncharted 4's multiplayer, though, ditches grounded storytelling in favor of all-out chaos: Nathan Drake clones swing from grappling hooks. Victor Sullivans pistol-whip each other. The villains of past Uncharted games lob grenades and fire RPGs and beat one another into a pulp.

This all plays out in multiplayer mode staples such as team deathmatch and zone control. But then there are Mysticals--attacks that make use of the artifacts we've become familiar with throughout the series. El Dorado summons aggressive spectres to attack your foes, the Cintamani Stone revives fallen teammates, and the Djinn lets you teleport short distances, blinking from spot to spot for a tactical advantage. In addition to these fantastical elements, you can earn gold through kills and revives, and find it scattered across multiplayer maps. It lets you add Mysticals to your inventory, but also lets you summon AI snipers and medics to aid your team's efforts. Uncharted 4's multiplayer exhibits the necessary creativity to elevate its already fluid third-person mechanics.

But although the multiplayer works well, and features a progression system that can keep you playing past your first few matches, it is not the primary draw.

The world is bathed in vibrant hues and gorgeous detail.

The draw of Uncharted 4 is its remarkable single-player journey. How each of its parts feeds into the same cohesive whole. This is a narrative that continues in its gameplay, as Nathan places a reassuring hand on his brother's shoulder, or mutters a joke in Elena's ear. Uncharted 4 is so meticulous, you get the sense that its characters are thinking things we'll never hear out loud. "We have a lot of ground to cover," one person says. Is that in reference to the journey, or the first uncertain step toward forgiveness? We can read it however we want.

Uncharted 4's gameplay pushes the narrative forward, the narrative feeds off its gameplay, and every detail coalesces to create something bigger. Uncharted 4 bounces between set pieces and personal moments with such grace, with such skill and poise and affection for its characters, that you don't mind when the guns stop firing, and the smoke clears, and Nathan gets a moment to breathe.

Yes, this is a thrilling adventure through exotic locations, with spectacular action sequences and a pacing that pulls you through with ease. I had a smile on my face the second it began. But it's also a story about family. It's a story about self-examination. It's a story about making sacrifices for the ones you care about.

And most of all, as its final moments make clear, this is a story about storytelling--the importance we lend our idols, legends, and myths. How we pass down the ones that inspire us. How an old photo of three friends sitting on a pile of gold can unleash a flood of memories. Uncharted 4 is a challenge to the medium. In its writing, in its design, in its understanding of what makes games unique, Uncharted 4 is something to aspire to. It's a shining example. And we'll be talking about it for years to come.

Read More

Just Cause 3

Just Cause 3 makes no apologies for its outrageous nature. It's a power fantasy in every sense of the phrase, placing you in a world rife with destructible environments and giving you creative instruments with which to destroy them. There are intermittent technical problems, and scripted moments detract from the freedom found elsewhere, but in the end, Just Cause 3 provides a spectacular, explosive sandbox experience.

The plot revolves around returning protagonist Rico Rodriguez, who's arrived in the fictional Republic of Medici during the height of Sebastiano Di Ravello's military dictatorship. The story here is forgettable, but delivers an effective invitation: dozens of military installations cover the world map, and it's your job to blow them up for the rebel forces.

Rodriguez himself is a mashup of masculine action stars and comic book characters, so it makes sense that I often felt like a superhero in his shoes. By supplying you with a wingsuit, parachute, and grappling hook, Just Cause 3 gives you an effective means of transportation, as well as a smooth, nuanced traversal system.

There is a steep learning curve, but with practice, I was leaping from helicopters, gliding through enemy bases, and floating over farmland with ease. It's thrilling to leap from a cliff, free-fall for 10 seconds, grapple to a nearby rock, and use the momentum to launch back into the air with parachute deployed. Rico actually felt like a hero learning his new skillset. It's as if Avalanche Studios combined Batman, Spider-Man, and The Punisher, and thrust its creation into a vivid Mediterranean landscape.

For a place soon to be covered in explosions, Medici is gorgeous.

What follows is a collision of spectacle and scale. Helicopters dot the sky. Explosions chain across the screen. Combining a parachute and grenade launcher transforms Rodriguez into a floating artillery battery from above. In a world teetering toward total destruction, Just Cause 3 grants you the tools to push it over the edge.

The traditional grenades, remote mines, and numerous land, air, and sea vehicles are all on call in the rebel arsenal. Then there's the tether: this grappling hook modification attaches two separate objects, and flings them toward each other, often with hilarious results. Rodriguez can reel enemies toward explosive barrels, collapse watchtowers, and pull attack helicopters into a fiery end. It's a testament to this game's creativity that guns were my last resort.

There's a sequence in Just Cause 3 in which a fleet of helicopters pursue you over a mountain range. In any other game, I may have resorted to the RPG slung across my back. But in keeping with this game's lack of convention, I grappled to the nearest attack chopper, pulled the pilot out, and assumed control in his place.

Just Cause 3 makes you feel like Batman, Spider-Man, and The Punisher combined.

But that somehow still felt too normal. So I evacuated my helicopter mid-air, opened my wingsuit, glided toward another nearby enemy, and grappled to his chopper door. By repeating the process, I ditched helicopter after helicopter, sending both pilots and machines soaring into the mountain range below, all without firing a single shot.

The game provided no hint to this approach. I just devised a plan and watched it unfold. Just Cause 3 doesn't nudge you in one direction or the other--it shows you the possibilities, and gets out of the way.

Like all of Just Cause 3's best moments, the tether encourages experimentation, rather than thoughtless reaction, and as the hours passed, the destruction remained creative and unpredictable. New domino reactions and car crashes were always on the horizon. It's a small mechanic, but its effects can be massive, and it encapsulates what makes Just Cause 3 so fun. Even now, after 30 hours in this idyllic sandbox, I'm sure I haven't seen every use for the tether.

And just when it seems the well of experiments might be running dry, Avalanche Studios adds variety to proceedings. As you liberate new provinces from enemy hands, challenges pop up across the map, including vehicle races, machine gun score contests, and wingsuit dives. They're fun on their own, but they're also well worth pursuing. By completing these, you'll unlock new gear mods, which change the functions of certain items.

Much of the action takes place mid-air.

While some of these are minor, such as increased grenade capacity or a nitrous boost for vehicles, others reveal dynamic new ways to experiment in Just Cause 3's sandbox.

Take the rocket boost mines, for example. Whereas previous iterations of the device just detonated at a chosen time, this modification sends objects careening into distant structures before exploding. I used this on cars numerous times, creating two-ton bombs that flew toward enemy fuel tanks with increased velocity after I dove from the driver’s seat.

This cascading structure is what makes Just Cause 3 so great. There's a cadence to how you approach its world: outpost liberation leads to challenges, which leads to gear mods, which leads to experimentation. And more often than not, each tier of this formula is entertaining in itself. That each flows so well into the next makes the overall experience all the more rewarding. Just Cause 3 excels because it adds variety to the equation throughout, making destruction and mayhem entertaining far past the early hours.

However, Just Cause 3 does deviate from its open-world freedom at times, and when it does, it falters. The scripted story missions progress the plot, but the actual gameplay involved is repetitive at best, and broken at worst.

Despite its spectacle, Just Cause 3 is filled with bugs, bad AI, and other rough edges.

The vast majority of these tasks are escort missions, in which you defend a plane, or boat, or caravan of jeeps. Protecting another character can be tiresome to begin with, and because their behavior is unpredictable and often unintelligent, I restarted checkpoints far more than felt fair. Halting progress because of my own mistakes is one thing, but when it was out of my hands, my patience grew thin.

Just Cause 3 is also filled with bugs and other rough edges. The parachute closed at random, cars disappeared while moving, and AI behavior made several story objectives impossible for a short time. One mission required me to steal a prototype combat tank from Di Ravello's forces, and extract it by boat to the hidden rebel base. However, the boat was too far from the dock for me to board it, and I had to reload the previous checkpoint. It repeated the same mistake twice more after that.

For a game that places death front and center, it was often inconsistent with whether I should die. I'm happy Just Cause 3 is lenient with its falling damage--considering I'm in the sky more often than not--but I survived a 500-foot fall at one point, only to die from a shorter one soon thereafter. These mishaps would be easy to overlook if they didn't disrupt an otherwise fluid experience too often.

Late-game upgrades make traversal even smoother.

When Just Cause 3 is consistent, however, it's a stunning display of cause and effect, as watchtowers topple into fuel tanks, which blow up nearby helicopters, which sail into oncoming vehicles. I often spent hours setting up outlandish chain reactions, or trying new gear mods, knowing full well I wasn't making any progress in the traditional sense. I was content to just sit back and marvel as it all happened.

But there's a more thoughtful undercurrent as well. Despite the explosions and instant gratification throughout, Just Cause 3 also encourages experimentation and foresight, planning and careful approaches. The results are as rewarding as they are entertaining.

Editor's Note: The majority of our time with Just Cause 3 was spent with the PC version, followed by several hours on both PS4 and Xbox One. Based on the review builds provided, the game performed better on PC, with higher and more stable frame rates, fewer bugs, and better looking environments. However, the problems did not affect the overall experience enough to impact individual scores.

Read More

DOOM

In Doom, I see a world brimming with demons, explosions, and hellfire. I see familiar faces screaming, with bloodthirsty eyes and unwavering stares. Playing it delivers the same cathartic craze the originalDoom and Doom II did in the early '90s: overwhelmed by the horrors around every turn, but empowered with an impressive collection of weapons at the ready.

But the new Doom is louder and faster than the old model. Its battles ask more of you, and its heavy-metal soundtrack causes your body to quiver from turbulent surges of adrenaline. From the outset two things are made immediately clear: you were born to kill demons, and you'll do anything it takes. You will wrench countless jaws from their joints and eviscerate the swollen flesh of your enemies between bouts of furious gunfire. These powerful moments carry what, at its core, is a simple game. The cadence of Doom's campaign is unwavering to the point of predictability as you make multiple round-trips between Mars and the depths of hell. Each location bears its own distinct but static identity, and your return trips inspire more deja vu than surprise as you tread familiar ground on either side of the dimensional portal you're charged with dismantling.

Into the belly of the beast we go.

You rarely take an unexpected turn, but any bothersome feelings this gives you are washed away the moment you enter battle. Doom equips you with a range of weapons that start simple and grow ever more elaborate. Not all are created equal, and there are some you will ignore for their lack of stopping power, but many are formidable, and a near constant stream of upgrades allows you to tweak your favorites in order to give them greater functionality and strength--more cause for attachment to, and wonder in, the power at your fingertips.

This power extends to Glory Kills, Doom's contextual dismemberment techniques that can be triggered when you cause an enemy to stagger. They are the embodiment of gore fetishization, offering multiple ways to tear enemies into pieces, dependant on your angle of approach. Glory Kills are also strategically valuable. Enemies occasionally drop health items and ammo when felled by a gun, but you're guaranteed an injection of health when you flay your opponents using your bare hands--and occasionally with a body part of their own. This incentivizes you to rush in even when on the brink, offering hope at the end of a potentially deadly tunnel. Similarly, you also collect a chainsaw that can rip demons in half as a one-hit kill, which causes ammo to spout from their corpses. Your chainsaw requires precious fuel and should be used sparingly, and figuring out the best time to use it becomes a tense mind game of its own.

The rhythm of combat--which almost always begins as a plainly presented lockdown in a room--grows increasingly hard and fast over the course of Doom's thirteen missions. Larger and more dangerous demons appear over time, and in greater numbers. As you weave and leap around maze-like arenas to improve your vantage and search for much-needed supplies, you function like a magnet, drawing enemies toward you. As you do, the once-disparate groups in an arena become concentrated. The effect of this is that you can put your explosive munitions to good use and inflict heaps of damage to multiple enemies at once. But there is a downside: you can quickly back yourself into a corner as you retreat. Despite this danger, herding enemies is par for the course in Doom as it's often the most viable tactic. This plays into the cyclical murderous bliss of Doom: round and round we go.

The tension of facing increasingly durable enemies gives this system longevity despite its repetitiveness. Bipedal imps give way to towering, bloated monstrosities, powerful stampeding beasts, and disembodied flaming skulls. To keep up with the horde, you must use resources earned for your past feats to modify and upgrade your weapons with new capabilities. This steadily feeds into your brash and violent persona in order to maintain the high of combat in the face of your growing tolerance for all things brutal. Where a shotgun blast to the face was once satisfying and effective enough, you ultimately desire the thrill and power of unleashing a mortar-like cluster bomb from your double-barrelled best friend. When he's spent, you'll be thankful you upgraded your heavy assault rifle with micro-missiles that pierce the air with a subtle whistle before lodging under the skin of a demon and exploding, one after another.

Where a shotgun blast to the face was once satisfying and effective enough, you ultimately desire the thrill and power of unleashing a mortar-like cluster bomb from your double-barrelled best friend.

Upgrades can be earned by sweeping maps of demons, or discovered by exploring every inch of Doom's environments. Both techniques demand diligence. Secrets and hidden areas aren't new to Doom, but the variety of rewards you can reap are greater than ever. Every bit of hardware, including weapons, armor, and their underlying software, can be augmented in multiple ways. Nevertheless, you come across your fair share of upgrades even if you stay on the beaten path, and you'll probably want to as the thrill of combat gets under your skin. The process of awkwardly platforming your way across Doom's maps grows increasingly tiresome as your pulse drops to a murmur, and your patience for anything other than combat wears thin. The advent of Rune Challenges mixes this up a bit, offering self-contained tasks that momentarily take you out of missions and into tiny arenas where you need to defeat enemies under strict conditions. As enjoyable as these can be, they don't hold a candle to mission combat and eventually become an afterthought as you seek your next battle.

When Doom funnels you from one location to the next, it introduces brief moments that tell your story, and the story of the energy-obsessed Union Aerospace Corporation. It's the UAC's ill-conceived decision to tap into Hell's energy resources that created the portal between dimensions in the first place, and though you are an agent of the UAC in a way, yours is a reluctant enlistment. The tale of your involvement carries a certain gravitas in the way it speaks of legends and dark messiahs, but it ultimately amounts to little more than window dressing to justify your actions.

Say "hello" to my not-so-little friend.

When your journey comes to a close, you will have spent close to a dozen hours in the thick of it, the last of which are punctuated with riveting boss fights and seemingly impossible odds. With a flush arsenal and enhanced physical abilities, you may opt to return to previous missions and find items you may have missed, or lay waste at higher difficulty levels, but multiplayer awaits those who seek something new. Apart from a few multiplayer-exclusive weapons and the ability to play as demons during portions of a match, there's actually very little new about Doom's multiplayer. Its modes are few, delivering the expected assortment of match types, including team deathmatch and domination challenges, and a couple fun diversions like freeze tag. By and large, you won't find much in multiplayer that hasn't been done before, but what's there is enjoyable in small doses thanks to the fast pace of combat and the explosive nature of Doom's weaponry.

Doom is straightforward and simple, but it serves its purpose: to thrust you into increasingly dire scenarios fueled by rage and the spirit of heavy metal.

More impressive than multiplayer is Snap Map, a mode that allows you to create and share both multi- and single-player maps online. Tutorials walk you through the steps involved in creating a map, which is intuitive to begin with. Beyond ease-of-use, Snap Map will live or die through the creativeness of the community, which has already made a strong showing, delivering a range of maps that range from brutal to absurdly entertaining. More than multiplayer, Snap Map is the cherry on top of the new Doom.

But without a doubt, the loud and chaotic campaign is Doom's strongest component. It's straightforward and simple, but it serves its purpose: to thrust you into increasingly dire scenarios fueled by rage and the spirit of heavy metal. Many shooters chase the thrill Doom delivers, but few are as potent in their execution. It captures the essence of what made the classic Doom games touchstones of their day, and translates it to suit modern palates with impressively rendered hellscapes and a steady influx of tantalizing upgrades. Doom is the product of a tradition as old as shooters, and while it's not the model to follow in every case, modern shooters could learn a thing or two from Doom's honed and unadulterated identity.

Read More

Salt and Sanctuary Review

Ska Studios' predominantly hand drawn art in Salt and Sanctuary is deliberately rough around the edges, a stylistic carryover from its Dishwasher series. It leans on the darkest of earth tones, which is fitting for a game this gloomy and unwelcoming. You couldn’t fault a Ska fan for mistaking Salt and Sanctuary as a sequel to The Dishwasher, at least at first glance; beneath the familiar presentation lies a game that's more like Dark Souls than anything else.

Anyone who has played a Souls game before will immediately recognize how committed Ska was to creating a 2D version of From Software’s landmark series. You see it in the user interface, from the grid inventory system to the exhaustive character details that rates stats down to the decimal. You feel it when you stop pretending it’s a hack-and-slash game and embrace defense as much as offense, creating a more gratifying tactical experience.

Salt and Sanctuary successfully mimics Dark Souls' punishing yet rewarding style of combat.

It culminates when you reach the first boss, The Sodden Knight. He’s an apt introductory boss who trains and humbles you through hardship and death. Every boss encounter is a lesson in behavior and attack memorization, and it's rewarding when you learn to instinctively predict an incoming combo and come up with the right response in the blink of an eye. This form of reciprocity doesn’t always guarantee success. There are a few bosses that follow up combos with unexpected single strikes, which can throw you off your game if you were eager to pounce and lower your shield. While you can argue that it’s a cheap and frustrating boss maneuver, it’s thankfully not a common occurrence. Many of the tactics required for survival in Dark Souls--in particular the roll dodges and liberal use of shields--are just as necessary in Salt and Sanctuary. Upon a second play through, you wonder why you ever struggled with many of these bosses to begin with.

Salts are this game’s souls. You lose them when you die and you have only your next respawn to get them back from the place you perished prior. Carrying a lot of salt will present leveling opportunities as well as increased tension in a game where the risk of death is pervasive. Salt and Sanctuary also adheres to the classic JRPG resurrection economy where a mystery cleric takes a percentage of your gold after each death.

Salt and Sanctuary’s vague lore, from its weapon descriptions to character classes, adds a great deal of mystery.

Salt and Sanctuary’s world is both heavily gated and backtrack-intensive. The overall structure is made up of foreboding outdoor areas and labyrinthine interiors. It’s its own kind of Metroidvania world where progression involves a mix of straightforward advancement past bosses and the acquisition of new skills. There’s gratification in finding shortcuts to areas that were previously separated by hours of playtime. The same positive sensation is felt when you learn the ability to walk upside down. Numerous areas that were inaccessible are now within your reach and your hardest decision is choosing where to go first. It’s a lovely problem to have.

Salt and Sanctuary’s vague lore, from its weapon descriptions to character classes, adds a great deal of mystery. It’s intriguing to deduce the strengths, weaknesses, and weapon specialities of each class. Like test driving cars, spending hours just to find the right one for you feels like time well spent. There’s mystique to the names of the bosses like the Untouched Inquisitor and The Third Lamb. The process of mentally filling in the gaps with the clues goes hand-in-hand with the fiction you create for yourself as you pick up the game’s scant nuggets of exposition. Even the story itself starts off with an enigmatic tone, where the initial premise of rescuing a princess is not as straightforward as it seems.

Salt and Sanctuary is a wonderful experience despite its grim presentation.

Where ‘Salt’ represents the intensity of battle, ‘Sanctuary’ stands for the various safe havens that offer respite. These checkpoints primarily serve as hubs for the player to increase levels, stock up on items and gear, and activate co-op. Playing with a buddy is notably beneficial during boss fights, where one can serve as a decoy while the other friend takes point on offense.

Each sanctuary is tied to a particular faction--referred to as Creeds. In keeping with the game’s cryptic designs, studying the differences of each Creed is a process, but one worth completing. You can increase your devotion to a faction by offering the remains of the foes you’ve vanquished. Higher devotion results in improved vendor inventory, but there's a more important reason to choose your Creed wisely: leaving one in favor of another causes the jilted faction to turn hostile. I was inclined to keep the peace during my playthrough, content with one of the first Creeds I came across, whose wares were strong enough to help me complete my mission.

Salt and Sanctuary is wholly engrossing from every angle, from its happy marriage of combat and exploration to its ominously gripping art direction. Its world is rich in ambiguity, well designed to fill up message boards with discussions on the theoretical histories of its bosses to the origins of the seven Creeds. For as much as it unabashedly borrows from Dark Souls, it’s an achievement that Ska Studios managed to give its homage an identity of its own that can be appreciated on its own merits.

Read More

Ratchet & Clank (PS4)

Ratchet & Clank is proof there’s still a lot of mileage left in the 3D platformer genre. It’s less of a reboot and more of a return to form, revitalizing and updating the franchise while simultaneously keeping its use of inventive weapons, alien worlds, and quirky attitude intact. Resurrecting an older franchise can be a gamble, but here the payoff is plentiful.

Ratchet & Clank is a technically rejuvenated version of the PS2 classic. It returns to the same alien universe, taking both Ratchet and his robot friend Clank to multiple planets during their adventure. True to the series' history, there’s a large arsenal of weapons to play with, many of which have multiple applications in combat. The Pixelizer is a powerful blaster converting enemies into their 8-bit forms, causing them to burst into a mess of colored squares when defeated. The bomb glove returns as a helpful grenade-tossing weapon capable of devastating large groups of enemies. The Groovitron kicks out a funky beat and distracts enemies from attacking by launching them into a dance frenzy. Each weapon is distinct, and all of them have robust upgrade trees to make them all the more effective against the many different enemy types.

Ratchet prepares for the Galactic Ranger trials.

There’s a generous offering of gadgets as well, including a modification that turns Clank into a jetpack and the Tresspasser device that grants Ratchet access to new areas through a hacking minigame. Items are arguably more important than the weapons, since a majority of each level is built to utilize different combinations of the items Ratchet has collected. In an effort to streamline the process, necessary items are automatically equipped to Ratchet via interaction points in each level, allowing you to focus on building up your weapon upgrades and tinkering with the guns that best suit your play style.

As a bonus, there are benefits to backtracking to older levels and using newfound items to gain access to previously unavailable areas. Although it maintains the same tight and restricted environments of its predecessors, there’s a great deal of verticality, hidden elements, and side objectives in each level to lend players more content to dig through.

Each environment features beautifully detailed worlds teeming with life.

A level’s objective flow sticks to its traditional format of visiting planets, defeating enemies, and moving on to save another planet in peril while continuing the story. While the objective rarely changes, however, the way things are accomplished do. One level may be a dogfight in the sky in which Ratchet has to take down enemy warships; another may be a smaller, more puzzle-focused challenge for Clank to resolve. They’re not as prevalent as the standard third-person shooter/platformer levels, but they do serve as a nice challenge in between.

Ratchet & Clank is delightfully self-aware. The story begins with an imprisoned Captain Qwark, the egomaniac leader of the Galactic Rangers with whom Ratchet has a somewhat colorful history. Throughout, Qwark narrates the story while telling a fellow inmate about how he first met Ratchet. Qwark is endearing for a narcissistic buffoon, and his narration is central to Ratchet & Clank’s charm. He’s sometimes unreliable, embellishing parts of the story to make it seem more grandiose and heroic. Other times, he comments on the player’s in-game actions with Ratchet, making small remarks about Ratchet’s lack of gadgets or movement, which is as entertaining as it is helpful.

He’s not the only standout performer, either. Virtually every character in the game has a generous amount of quirk poured into their personalities. After helping him repair his ship, one technician tells Ratchet he’ll see him in the next reboot. Another character is an aloof professional athlete with a demeanor not unlike competitors in the early years of the X-Games. And one of the main villains, Chairman Drek, is the wonderfully greedy and smarmy uber-executive he’s always been.

Ratchet celebrates accomplishing a lifelong dream.

The strength of each character is important, because the story itself is probably Ratchet & Clank’s weakest point. It’s a basic story about two hapless misfits who set out to achieve a dream and save the galaxy from catastrophe at the hands of greedy and mad antagonists. Other than a rushed and awkward ending, there’s nothing unforgivable about it. It just serves more as a vehicle for the characters who outshine everything else in the narrative.

Ratchet & Clank’s finest attribute is its visuals. Nearly everything about it is absolutely stunning, from the environmental design to the character animations. Each planet visited in-game looks different from any other, with brilliant color and texture popping on the screen. Characters’ distinct designs are borrowed from aspects of their personalities, from the goofy soul patch and sunglasses of Skid McMarx to the sickly pallor of the evil Chairman Drek.

The animations are beautiful, lending characters an elasticity in their movement, making them appear both cartoony and fluid. This, along with detailed particle effects and vibrant environments, make the game visually spectacular.

Ratchet & Clank is every bit as dynamic and fun as the 2002 original. It’s endearing and entertaining, a veritable power fantasy fueled by rockets and carried by specialty gadgets. Re-introducing a classic franchise to a new generation is a difficult task indeed, but Ratchet & Clank is a shining example of how it can be done.

Read More