Tag: Release year: 2016

Quantum Break – You Got Time?

Decided to replay one of my favorite, semi-recent AAA-gaming releases – because the last time I played it, the engine the game runs on almost broke my old computer. Now, I’m on a new fresh one – so I thought it was time to play through this science-fiction time-travel epic in full graphical glory, and maximized FPS.

Let us continue on that note. The visuals, all these years later, are still absolutely fantastic beyond just having high-quality textures. With that I mean, lighting, location design, structures, and models, in general, make the game come alive. It just looks great, and realistic, yet, has this slight futuristic corporate vibe to it that is common in near-future settings – a bit similar to the modern Deus Ex games. Unfortunately, even now when I have “up-scaling” turned off, some areas are still looking blurry, which is disappointing. Otherwise, the game runs well on my new rig, but, unfortunately, I get drastic FPS drop in scene-transfers, and when cut-scenes change to gameplay. I don’t know why that is. It’s not too bad I guess, but still an annoyance since it happens fairly often. I assume it’s an issue with the engine, because CONTROL, a more recently released Remedy game, shares the same engine, and I didn’t have these kinds of issues here. The only thing I can assume from this is that the engine got better optimized between the games. Nonetheless, the game looks remarkable still, and will not disappoint on a modern computer with a good GPU.

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Mirror’s Edge Catalyst – Parkour Bore

I remember playing the first Mirror’s Edge many years ago on the Xbox 360. It wasn’t my favorite game or anything, but I did like the system of movement, and the general atmosphere of the city in which the game takes place. It had this cold, minimalist stylistic corporate vibe to it, that for some reason left a mark on me. So when I saw Mirror’s Edge Catalyst for sale on Steam for 2 euros the other day, I couldn’t help to dive in – I mean, what is 2 bucks even if it sucks? 

The first thing that hit me going in is that I don’t remember being thrown in prison from the first game, and apparently I needed to read some kind of comic to understand why I was. A huge negative stain on the game already, and I’m about 5 minutes into it. I hate when games do this, movies too for that matter. Expecting you to find/buy, and read media outside the game to understand the plot. Another thing that messed up my understanding of the story whilst it was ongoing, was that I had no idea that Catalyst is a reboot, and not a sequel, which I thought it was. I didn’t know this until after I finished the game. I discovered it when I was searching for answers to some questions I had about the plot. Apparently, it wasn’t a retcon or two, in the story, the whole thing had been retconned, huh!

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Arma 3 APEX – Jungle Fever

My buddy and I recently finished the official APEX expansion in cooperative mode for Arma 3. The story is a direct continuation of “East Wind” from the original game. At first, it does feel disconnected until something specific comes up, which I won’t spoil. It’s a cool touch having a narrative that connects with each other, considering it’s a war simulator and not your standard AAA-game series.

Instead of the usual all-out war, you play as a cloak-and-dagger special operations team that has the task of taking out a local warlord on the island paradise (for criminals) of Tanoa. This group is named “Syndikate” and is mostly equipped with old-fashioned AKs and equipment like that. Not the high-tech armies of past campaigns. However, later on in the campaign, you get to meet another faction that is equipped with more futuristic high-tech weaponry, like yourself. The story is presented in a very Tom Clancy-esque way, which to me is awesome. It instantly gets me into the clandestine thriller mood, so well done here!

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