Recent reviews by Goldblaze

There's not much to say really about the game in all honesty. It's an absolute blast to play with friends, either online or in the living room. The game selection is pretty good too. 5 games with a lot of replayability and each with their own quirks.

Let's start off with Drawful. Drawful is personally one of my favourite games in the collection, it's kind of like Pictionary in a way except with way wackier and more unusual things to draw. The game starts with you giving yourself a name as well as an avatar is your personal player colour that you draw yourself using your smartphone or tablet. Then once all players are ready, the fun begins. The game is divided into rounds and at the start of each round, every player is given their own thing to draw and are given a set amount of time to complete your drawing with, along with a button to confirm your drawing early. Once everyone submits their drawings, every player gets to see another player's drawings and give a fake answer to trick other players for the next part of the round. Next up, all players have to guess the correct word or phrase that the 'artist' was given to draw with and once all players have chosen their answer, each selected answers are analysed, with the correct answer being last. If you select the right answer, you get points. If you select the wrong answer, you gain no points, and if you select a false answer given by another player, then that player gains points instead. After this, points are tallied up and it goes to the next round. Once all rounds are over, points are added up in total for each player and a winner is decided on whoever has the most points.

Another one of my favourite games is Word Spud, an interesting game to say the least. Basically, once you choose your name, you head into the game. First a random word is chosen and then one player is chosen to add to that word to make a sentence. After that, the other players get to vote on whether they like the answer or not. For every person who votes in your favour, you get a point, and for every person who doesn't you lose a point. This has caused several moments for me when nobody in the game has gained any points due to us being in a group of 3 where all of us are trolls. As for the sentence you type, if the number of players who voted for you exceed those who voted against you, then your sentence is added to the greater sentence. After the first player has finished, it goes on to the next player and onto the next, etc. After the time is up, all the accepted additions to the sentence are collected together to make the abomination über sentence to read out at the end. When this happens, points are tallied up and whoever has the highest is declared the winner.

Lie swatter is rather simple as all the game really is at it's core is a true or false game where the game prompts you with a statement and you have to declare if it's true or false, you getting points for correct answers as well as bonus points for how quickly you answer them, kind of like Kahoot.

Fibbage is also an absolute blast with friends. The game starts off just like any other with you entering your player name, and is kind of similar to Drawful, except expanded on the lying mechanic of it. Fibbage is divided into rounds and sets, with there being so many rounds in a set, and each set offering different multipliers on points. At the start of each round, a statement or question is given with a word or phrase missing. I think you know where this is going. The players are prompted to give their believable answers to the question or statement and then once all are submitted, the players are prompted to choose an answer, with the truth swimming amongst the lies. If you select the truth, you get points, if you select someone else's answer, they gain points. Fun fact, if two players give the right answer and someone chooses that answer, both players who submitted the answer gain points. Another fun fact, you can't submit the correct answer. There have been several times where I've given an outrageous answer and it turned out to be the truth, I was then prompted to give a different answer, to which I did out of spite. After all is done, points are tallied, etc.

The final game is probably the most bombastic, You Don't Know Jack, and it's a very charming game show like game with different rounds with a comedic tone. There are bonus rounds, cool sound effects and for God's sake, please don't call yourself '♥♥♥♥ You', and please ALSO don't call yourself '♥♥♥♥ You' after restarting the game, trust me. The again is divided up into rounds and sets, much like Fibbage, except this time all answers are given by the game, you just have to choose the right one, and to make another Kahoot comparison becuase I like Kahoot and screw you, the faster you answer the question, the more bonus points you get if you answer correctly. You also get a screw which is a neat little power up which forces an opponent to answer the question immediately which can come in clutch in so many situations.

Overall I love this game pack to pieces, I've owned it on the Xbox One for a while and got it on PC a while back. It's a great game to play at parties and with your friends, on the couch or online. It gets my approval for sure!

This has to be one of the better remastered games out there on Steam today. I understand that some people may think that this game is boring and repetitive, however I disagree. I want to address this first before I get into the nitty gritty of this game. I understand that some levels (i.e. the helicopter and mech missions) people find repetitive, but repetetive level ideas happen in ALL games. Dishonored was assassin simulator, GTA is drive to this location and shoot people, and then there's Banjo Kazooie (Which I feel is very similar to Ty) which is collect random items and finish a level. Most games have the same level formulae.

Now that rant is out of the way, I think it's time we get into what makes Ty 2 good/bad depending on perception and preferences. I'm going to start off with the negatives first. I do agree that some of the controls (I.e. the mechs and fourbie) a bit poor. But considering that the game was released in 2004, I think that we can let it slide.

To be absolutely honest, I don't really have any other negative opinions about this game. The positives on the other hand expand far beyond the negatives. The voice acting in this game seems much better than the first (I know, controversial opinion), but it is, Ty seems more mature along with the other characters they don't sound like 10 year old Aussie kids hyped up on Pepsi. The variety of rangs is far better as well and their uses are sometimes vital for missions, which gives more meaning to collecting opals until you have all of the rangs and bunyips. The story and free-roam was appealing to me as a child and it still does now. The issue with the first game for me was that the missions were too cloase to each other and it made the game feel too short. The music in Ty 2 feels far more upbeat and joyful with the addition of more strings guitars and such whilst still retaining the Australian style. However, looking at the title music and some of the other music in places like Buramudgee, ir feels more laid back and encourages you to feel more at ease. One of the greatest things I find about this remaster however is the care and love the developers have for it. Most devs would rip the original and port it to PC with no change. Not Krome. Krome have added to this game extensively and made it what it was intended to be. They have fixed bugs that existed in the original games, added features not available on console due to memory limitations and have good contact with the community and fanbase. I say this from personal experience.

Personally I find that this release has only improved on the experience that Ty gave me as a lad. I can't wait for 2018 when Krome release Ty 3 and then improve on that. (Edit: Ty 3 is out and I am pleasantly surprised. It's pretty good!) I would rate this game a solid 9/10, only downfalling on some wonky PS2/Xbox/Gamecube controls (Which I'm not really using thanks to KB/M) and a tad repetitiveness in some levels (Only the helicopter/sub-bunyip ones really).

To be honest, I can't really find much wrong with the PC port of Chaos Theory. As a long fan of the series who has completed all games on their hardest difficulty, I can safely say that I know what I'm talking about.

The controls are a lot better than what people seem to think, having the mouse wheel to control your speed is extremely helpful as it allows you to maintain speed, whereas on console you would have to keep the analog stick in the same place and try not to either flick to far forward by accident or not go fast enough. The mouse aiming is extremely handy when using gadgets such as the airfoil rounds and the pistol's OCP, as those rely on extreme accuracy. Lockpicking has become a lot easier as you don't have to rely on getting the precise location on the analog stick to lockpick, all you have to do is spam the crap out of the correct WASD key. The game also allows you to bind keys (To an extent) so that you can get most of your gadgets around a confortable area. Notice however that I said to an extent. Some keys cannot be changed such as Ctrl, Shift and Enter which is quite unfortunate given that I need to take my hand off of my mouse to try and grab a guard. However, on a lighter note, the controls are compact (Excluding interacting and viewing the OPSAT), and all it takes to get used to them is a bit of muscle memory. In short, the main controls are built around WASD, goggles are keys 1-5, aiming your gun is E, crouching is C and jumping is Space (Surprise surprise).

Controls aside, let's talk gameplay. For those unfortunate few who never got to play the original Splinter Cell games, back in the day when Micheal Ironsides voiced our sneaky beaky spy friend, I'll give you a rundown of the plot. You're tasked with rescuing a Bruce Morgenholt from some Spanish fort in Peru. He's a computer programmer who with the help of some other dude finds out about these 'Masse Kernels' which can be used for all kinds of dodgy stuff, and when I say dodgy I'm not talking about heroin dealing behind your local Netto. Essentially they can be used to hack into things once thought unhackable and could be used to spark World War III (This time with North Korea, so you know it's gonna be good). So your job as our tall 'murican friend is to stop that. Now we've got the plot aside we can actually talk about the game itself. Chaos Theory does an amazing job of making stealth seem realistic and it has to be the most punishing for it out of all that I have played. The game encourages you to take your time and find alternate paths, or wait for them to appear if you wish to go stealth. Or if you don't even Splinter Cell, you can go in all guns blazing and kill everyone like a peasant. Even though the game gives you three options of loudout (Stealth, Assault and a balenced one) the game will prefer you go stealth, and I would too as it not only makes the game more rewarding and fun, but also eavesdropping on certain conversations or interrogating certain guards or civilians (In some cases) will reward you with door codes, medkit locations and other handy information that could even reveal the identity of one of the main antagonists later in the game.

On the subject of level design, nothing has been changed and that's not a bad thing. Chaos Theory's levels were certainly some of the best designed and rivial Pandora Tomorrow's in my opinion. The ideas were unique such as sneaking around on a cargo ship, breaking into a penthosue during a blackout or infiltrating a retrofitted North Korean missile battery. But all of these levels still allow for all styles of play and each have their own set of side objectives that will help you completionist legends out there, but this may require you to go stealthy you Call of Duty scrubs.

Some levels even make stealth harder by adding flooring that will make noise when walked on in a certain place, having broken glass or other obsticles that may make sneaking around harder. What's that? Sound matters in a stealth game? Yes. On your HUD you will find two meters, one representing light (Or your visibility in the current light you're in) as well as a sound meter. This is where Chaos Theory becomes one of the more superior stealth games as sound is key to sneaking around. You gain the ability to move around louder when there's a radio on nearby or a generator is active as it masks your sound. Making the stealth in Chaos Theory more enjoyable and realistic at the same time.

All in all, I still think to this day that Chaos Theory sets an example of what stealth games should be like and is very well deserving of its 92 rating on Metacritic. Well worth the £7.99 on Steam. 9.8/10 IGN - Not enough water ;D