Recent reviews by TankCatapult

If you're a fan of the classic CMR and V-Rally games, Old School Rally (Henceforth referred to as OSR) is the early-access game for you, combining classic PS1/N64/Dreamcast visuals with a simple-to-learn, hard-to-master gameplay loop, all at the low, low, low price of roughly ten dollars or whatever your local equivalent is! That said, there are some minor hiccups (For me, at least):

- Every car sounds the same. Something that I think could help in the future is giving each car a unique sound (ex, the Taurus having a boxer engine note, the Libra Diana sounding like a V4, the cars that are supposed to have turbochargers having lift-off flutter, that kind of thing), serving to both give the game a little more flair and get each car to feel like its own car.

- Every car *drives* the same. Not necessarily a *bad* thing, mind you - I would rather have every car in a video game drive the same and feel great versus all drive differently and feel terrible - But I feel having each car have a drivetrain that reflects how its real-world counterpart was would, like with the sounds, help the cars feel more special to drive - The all-wheel drive cars (Taurus, Lionne S and D26, Gemini T2000, etc.) should be more stable at speed and have better acceleration, rear-wheel drive cars (Gemini ZR, Avalanche A1, Zeta TK10, etc.) should be less stable and more prone to oversteer, front-wheel drive cars (Libra Diana, Tiny S, etc.) should be easier to drive, more stable than the AWD and RWD cars, but more prone to understeer.

- Clarified pacenotes - Nothing super detailed, but a simple, "Easy right into medium left blind." Keeping in mind that this isn't Richard Burns, nor is it Dirt Rally/EA WRC, but something with a touch more detail would be nice.

- A proper *race* mode, with AI rivals, a-la V-Rally 1 and 2. Either on Super Special Stages or closed circuits using the different regional themes.

- In-car camera. The in-car camera's too low and pointed too high. The option to adjust it for a better seating position would be a godsend.

All in all, though, OSR is a quaint, slick little gem of a rally game that's more than worth the price of admission in its early state.

Solid 8/10 so far.

Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown is a video game about planes blowing each other up. You probably figured that out by looking at it. This game got a fair number of negative reviews at first, and while that can be justified, I'd like to point out people's major mistakes when they negatively reviewed the game, and that is applying their own personal preferences as universal.

To explain, some people out there only play games of this sort with a HOTAS set up (HOTAS being short for Hand-On-Throttle-And-Stick) and wouldn't dare swap their Thrustmaster flight stick and pedal setup for an Xbox 360 controller. While this preference is fine on paper, the human element is where it often gets muddied, because people can and will try to justify their own interests and try to apply them to everyone around them – It’s like saying that nobody likes a certain car just because you don’t like that car.

And yes, while this game does have HOTAS support, it isn’t very broad. This isn’t because Namco hates flight stick users (Ace Combat 5 was developed with stick usage in mind, after all, with a stick to match)), it’s because the controller to flight stick user ratio is very heavily lopsided toward controllers. Ace Combat 7 is, at its core, an arcade flight simulator, not a stick-and-pedal combat simulator – Anyone complaining about the lack of realism because they can’t use their specific model of flight stick on account of immersion should be complaining about the fact that an F-15C can hold, in addition to 104 missiles and laser cannons.

In short, don't review bomb a game because it lacks a feature. Improvise. Adapt. Overcome.

(And please keep in mind that I hold no ill-will toward the flight-sim community and, if anything, hold immense respect toward those who can to the tunnel flight in this game on a stick and pedals)

Full disclosure: I got this game for free as a result of backing it for $20AUD on Kickstarter on the 29th of May, 2018. This was with the assumption that the game would come out the following year. When it didn't, I was a little saddened, but held my head high. I was expecting a fun, action-packed adventure wherein I play as a mercenary fighter pilot, a-la Ace Combat.

What I got was so, so much more.

Project Wingman is like the lost Ace Combat game. It does everything Combat does just as good, and some things better.

The big draw, for me at least, is sense of scale. Missions in this game feel like actual, genuine battles, and while it doesn't have cutscenes to help the story flow along, said story flows naturally enough to be told in situ, to where cutscenes would be almost superfluous. Gameplay is about what you'd expect from the genre - A grounded yet exaggerated showcase of how fighter jets perform, with hilariously high missile counts (184 standard missiles across all aircraft - which is a lot even for the genre). What Project Wingman does differently compared to, say, Ace Combat, Vector Thrust or HAWX, is that your aircraft can have multiple special weapons at a time, each corresponding to a direction on the D-pad - Left is standard missiles, up is Hardpoint 1, right is Hardpoint 2, and if your craft has the provision, down is Hardpoint 3.

So, if the gameplay is about typical for this type of game, what isn't?

The music.

I cannot stress this enough, the music in this *one game* is some of the best in the entire pesudo-realistic arcade flight sim genre, up there with the likes of Ace Combat 4, Zero and 7. Composer Jose Pavli, who has previously done work on the soundtrack for Vector Thrust, was able to knock it out of the park with this game's OST, of which notable highlights are Calamity, Showdown and Kings.

To summarise this review: Buy the damn game already. It's $25.99. Just do it.

Where to begin? Call of Duty 4 is one of the all-time classics, a first-person shooter comparable in importance with Doom, Quake and Half-Life. Something simple in concept that is complex in practice and legendary in experience. This is, quite genuinely, one of my favorite games of all time, and as a result of its success, spawned one of the most well action-packed trilogies in action gaming history, telling the tale of Captain John Price, John "What the hell kinda name is Soap anyway?" MacTavish and a cast of truly memorable characters.

At twelve years old, one should expect the game to look like... Well, a twelve year old FPS, which isn't to say it looks bad. Even compared to more recent examples of the genre, it still looks passable, maybe as a budget title made for the last dash of PS3 games before the previous generation went out. Make no mistake though, this game has -soul,- it has -charm,- and most importantly, it has one of the most haunting quotes ever put into a game in the last 20 years:

"50'000 people used to live here. Now it's a ghost town. I've never seen anything like it."

The fact that CoD 4 is set in modern (read: eight years ago) times certainly helps with the boots-on-the-ground nature of gameplay, with guns that tick all three FPS gun boxes:

[x] Flashy

[x] Satisfying

[x] Easy to use

To put it simply, I wholeheartedly recommend this game and its 2017 remaster, though do keep in mind that this review applies to the campaign of both respective games and has no bearing on my (lack of) experience in the multiplayer portion of the game.

Ciao!

Before we begin, I'd just like to say that, overall, I'd rate the good parts of Duke Nukem Forever (In other words, any part of the game that does not involve the plot or boss fights) a solid six out of ten. That's like a C+, which in most school systems is a passing grade. Anyway, now for why I think this is quite possibly the single worst AAA first-person shooter of all time.

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Duke Nukem. It's a name that carries around a fair bit of weight, isn't it? The stoagie chomping, one-liner droping All-American mountain of machismo himself, and his... Let's just say varyingly successful game series. Well, how many people out there could say, in total honesty, that they thought Duke Nukem Forever was an amazing game? No rush, I'll give you a couple seconds. If you said "Not many", you'd be correct.

At its core, much like 2012's Doom 3: BFG Edition (Which I previously reviewed), Duke Nukem Forever is a game that has a good idea, and one that should be impossible to fudge up - A bombastic, balls-to-the-wall thrill ride starring none other than Duke "I Ripped Off Ash Williams" Nukem and a cast of characters mainly thrown together to be either cannon fodder, or exposititory elements. Oh, and the alien invaders, let's not forget them. There's a line, at the very start of the game, that rather ironically tells the entire story of Duke Nukem Forever's development:

"What about the game, Duke? Was it any good?"

Duke: "After twelve fragging years, it should be."

Now, that quip would have been funny - if it were true. See, Duke Nukem Forever started with a good idea, like I mentioned above. It was 1997, and 3D Realms was on a gosh darn roll with Duke Nukem 3D, third child in their Duke Nukem franchise (and the one people think of most when they think Duke Nukem), so they announced Duke Nukem Forever, for a release date that infamously devolved into the phrase, "When it's done."

"Wait, did he just-?" You may ask. "Surely, he put the wrong year." Nope. Development of what would become Duke Nukem Forever started right after 3D's release, and from the start it was meant to be bigger - Better graphics, better gameplay, level interactivity beyond that of even 3D. Then 2001 rolled around, and while a trailer was released, there was nothing to show upon the game's scheduled release date. It wouldn't be until TEN. YEARS. LATER. That Duke Nukem Forever was released, as the dated, yet reasonably polished turd that it was, for PS3, Xbox 360 and finally, PC. For most of its development, Duke Nukem Forever was in a state known as "Development Hell", wherein an ip has a rather protracted development cycle, with Duke Forever being the poster child of the phrase, at least in the gaming world.

In terms of basic plot, you are Duke Nukem, machismo personified and savior of mankind due to some shenanigans that happend "Twelve Years Ago" which resulted in the Los Angeles area being largely destroyed, heavily damaged, or otherwise rendered uninhabitable. Of course, this quick rundown of Duke Nukem 3D largely ignores the two-dimensional shenanigans of Duke Nukum and Duke Nukem 2, so... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I guess. After mucking about in your casino called the Ladykiller (I'm assuming Duke's super creative nickname for his dong), you descend into the bowels of the property and have a friendly little chit-chat with the President and General Graves (One of, like, two returning characters from the 2001 build of the game. Actually, I think he's the ONLY returning character), who inform you that the aliens have, indeed, returned but that you are NOT to engage. Duke, being Duke, says "Frack it, I'm taking matters into my own hands."

The combat in Duke Nukem Forever is, surprisingly enough, actually rather decent, once you get used to the inherently slightly-too-high-yet-not-high-enough mouse sensitivity and Duke's movement speed which is somewhere between "Geriatric Ninja" and "Obese Toddler". The weapons feel rather punchy (except for the fists, ironically enough), and they all deal a decent amount of damage, both to Duke and foe. It's rather difficult to play favorites for "Favorite Weapon in Duke Forever", since most of them are what one would expect from a mid-late 90s shooter - The pistol is practically useless, the Shotgun is a beast in close quarters and the Ripper is the game's dedicated assault rifle. New arrival the Railgun tries to add a bit of variety to the mix, but ultimately just doesn't make the gunplay as exciting as one would expect from the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Duke.

Actually, let's side track and as ourselves, "What happened to Duke Nukem after 3D but before Forever?" Well, Duke Nukem had quite the journey from 3D to Forever. First was his console exclusive adventures (Planet of the Babes, Time to Kill, Zero Hour, to name a few) and a return to the second-dimension with 2006's Manhattan Project, it was clear Duke was still alive and kicking, but for how much longer? Duke Nukem Forever was still in semi-active development by this time, with no clear release date set (Again, "When it's done."). Ultimately, Duke Nukem Forever was released in June of 2011, to middling and negative reviews.

So, where is Duke Nukem now? Making a cameo appearance in Bulletstorm, that other FPS with a protagonist who isn't Duke Nukem but may as well be Duke Nukem, albeit voiced by Steve Blum (Not Duke, not actual Duke). Will we see a Duke Nukem threequel? It's hard to say, but with the Michael Bay-helmed motion picture in active development (I'm not even joking here, there's a Duke Nukem -movie-), maybe the future is brigher for our steroid addicted action hero.

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Overall, like mentioned in the header, Duke Nukem Forever's good bits amount to a game which is a solid six out of ten, but because of how spread out they are, between horrid vehicle sections, the strip club sequence and an uninteresting, I'd argue boring campaign, it makes sense to see how one could forget this game.

Do you like cars? Do you like crashing? Do you like beams? If you answered "Yes, Yes and Hell Yes!" to those three, then BeamNG.Drive might just be the game for you.

THE CARS:

BeamNG Drive has an array of vehicles to choose from, from the humble yet reliable Gavril D-series pickup to the mind-bogglingly quick Hirochi SBR4 sports car, but there aren't just pickup trucks, sports cars and tractor trailers in this still-in-Early-Access soft body physics simulator. In fact, let's actually list off a couple of them, shall we?

1969-1971 GAVRIL BARSTOW: The Barstow, a true muscle car. Sporting a supercharged, 508hp big-block V8 in its ultimate road-going form, the Barstow is the go-to when it comes to reenacting 70's car chases. Based largely on the Ford Torino, the Barstow, when built properly, is a simple to drive muscle car, and one that makes a great dragster. It's also my personal favorite out of the entire roster.

1981-1988 CIVETTA BOLIDE: The only requirements for driving the Civetta Bolide are A) Being Tom Selleck and B) Having a moustache roughly equivalent to Tom Selleck when he played Magnum, P.I. Based primarily on the 80's Ferrari's, and featuring an engine line exclusively numbering in the 8's (3.2l V8, 3.5l V8 and a 3.9l V8), the Bolide is one of the faster cars in-game, with the top of the line model (the 390 GTR) topping out at 190mph. And yes, it does come in red.

1984-1988 BRUCKELL LeGRAN: The only vehicle in the game that is as miserable to drive as it is to look at, the Bruckell LeGran is a known source of PTSD for people whose grandmother owned a 1984-1990 Chrysler LeBaron (Or comparable vehicle). Nothing about the LeGran speaks sheer, raw performance and it shows. It is, however, a joy to crash. Which is always nice.

THE PHYSICS:

Simply put, BeamNG.Drive is a simulator first, racing game second. If you try to drift the SBR4 TTS2 on a keyboard, or any car for that matter, you're gonna have a bad time. Negative reviews have pointed out the fact that the controls on keyboard suck, and boy do they - But, it isn't all bad, as the game has full wheel and controller support.

THE GAME ITSELF:

All-in-all, the learning curve (No pun intended) can be steep for beginners, but after a short while (10-15 minutes if you vaguely know what you're doing), you'll be able to crash like the best of 'em. Just... Don't play this game like Need For Speed or The Crew. You're gonna have a bad time.

MODS (Yay or Nay?):

Yay. It does have mod support, via the official website. A personal favorite mod of mine is the Civetta Bolide Corse, which turns the Bolide into an F40 looking dream car.

VERDICT:

I recommend this game. It's a lot of fun.

Look, I'm not gonna sugar coat it: Doom 3: BFG Edition is not a good game. Now that we have that out of the way, let's begin.
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Released in October of 2012 and working as a sort of "Doom Anthology", Doom 3: BFG Edition was released at a peak moment of worry for fans of id Software's seminal shooter; The last game in the series came out in 2005, with Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil, and Doom 4 (later simply titled DOOM) was extant only in rumors and hearsay, not physical content. Those who have played the original, both on its native PC and the Xbox console will know that it was a remarkably frightening game, with a slower pace, pitch black lighting and enemies that literally jumped out at you, with RoE adding to that. Despite that, BFG Edition feels... Bland. Blase, almost BORING in how it's presented - a simple application of id Tech 5's superior lighting model to the old, almost decrepit halls of the id Tech 4 tech demo. Don't get me wrong, however, I appreciate what this game did for Doom 3, though I feel they went a little too far. But what do I mean by that?

For starters, the opening hour or so of the vanilla Doom 3 campaign is FAR too easy compared to the original. I don't know the full reasoning behind this, but I'm sure it was to make Doom 3, which would strangle players who used ammo supplies too recklessly, a more welcoming game to start. At its core, this makes sense - the majority of people who would buy this game are going to do so on console, where they might not have lightning quick reaction times. Normally, I would't have a problem with this if NOT for the fact that Doom 3, albeit with minor alterations, was released on the Xbox with no changes to the difficulty. In addition, the campaign for RoE is neutered as well, for there is a section of that game where you must traverse a dank, wet sewer system wearing a gasmask using O2 bottles scavanged from your slain enemies. Later on, an entire segment of Hell was carved out of the game, a segment that WAS LEFT UNCHANGED in RoE Xbox, again for perceived difficulty, which I find mind boggling.

But enough about that. In addition to Doom 3 and Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil, BFG Edition includes a new campaign of seven levels titled "The lost Mission", which... Is nothing to write home about. Aside from a new story and new characters, it's nothing special. On top of that, the Xbox Live Arcade versions of Doom and Doom II are included, but even THEY have problems, such as a wonky soundfont for the music and weird audio balancing for the weapon SFX. In closing, Doom 3: BFG Edition is a nice gift from Bethesda, made with the intention to keep Doom alive, but in the end it was pointless, at most forgettable, which wasn't helped by the fact that the Doom modding and multiplayer scene was still alive and well at the time of release.

Doom 3: BFG Edition. An unecessary installment with the intent to revive a franchise that was never dead to begin with. While it's a good launching point for those new to Doom, I personally don't recommend it.

"How do we keep our fanbase thriving?"

"Get rid of mod support!"

"Good idea!"

- Take Two Interactive, 2017.

I joined the Aeroforce when I was 18. They wanted pilots, so I thought I'd sign right up. It didn't take long for War to break out. The Greater Belkan Republic fired the first shots, blitzing a city in the beating heart of Usea. My home, my family... Gone. From that day forward, I was out for blood. I was given a Rogue, and I made my first kill soon after.

"You're ready for take-off, Ace. Remember, you represent the last hope for peace."

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Sky Rogue is one of those few games that is a mis-mash of a couple different genres that actually works. What do I mean? Well, it's an arcade-flight sim similar to games like Ace Combat and Crimson Skies, with many many planes and a lot of action. It has a fairly unique randomly generated system where the various islands and missions are completely randomized. While this normally is a good thing, randomly-generated missions does have its drawbacks, meaning that you could either have a mission where you have to shoot down multiple Kondor bombers, followed by a mission where you have to destroy a flying corvette (not the car, but the ship), followed by a mission where you have to shoot down a Gryphon AWACS plane, etc etc. OOOOOOR, you can have multiple missions in a row dedicated to destroying command buildings or X-Labs. Which, that can just get boring after a while. However, that doesn't detract from the overall experience of playing Sky Rogue. It is a game DESIGNED to be quick to pick up, but difficult to master. And if you've ever played either Ace Combat or Crimson Skies, you should be right at home with this game. The art style is fairly unique, with bright, colorful aircraft signifying the enemy, and a slew of different paint schemes for your entire fleet of planes. Oh, and you get MANY planes. From fighters, interceptors and even HEAVY BOMBERS. I would love to see this game evolve over time, maybe with more useable aircraft added, and an actual plot. Speaking of, what IS the plot of Sky Rogue, anyway? It... Doesn't exist. It may be because this game is still in early access (and it's one of the more complete early access games out there to boot!), but as of right now, March 19, 2017 (for those reading this review on dates that are NOT March 19, 2017), this game has no discernable plot. Which, really is a shame, because this is the kind of game that NEEDS a plot besides mindlessly blowing sh*t up. The soundtrack is very good, and fits the overall tone of the game, with the same style.

Overall, I'd strongly advise spending the $17.80 to get both the game and OST.

In a world ravaged by man kind, a lone road warrior stands alone, as the final bastion for hope and peace. He goes only by one name. And that name... Is Max. The Warrior, Max.

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While most people would say Mad Max is just another case of Hollywood cashgrabbery, it really isn't. Whereas most movie tie-in games are thrown together in a few months by the Budget Studio. Mad Max, on the other hand, grabbed the entire attention of Avalanche Studios, famous for the off-the-rails Just Cause series, while an affiliate studio was working on Just Cause 3. That's right - Avalanche's main franchise was handed to an affiliate, while Mad Max got the five star treatment. That's pretty friggin' cool, as it is.

For those expecting Grand Theft Auto: New South Wales, you aren't going to get it here, as you'll only really be driving one vehicle throughout the game: The Magnum Opus. If I were to make a top ten list of fictional vehicles, The Magnum Opus would rank higher than the V8 Interceptor, one of the most famous Wasteland Rollers. The Magnum Opus, unlike most video game cars, is completely and fully customizable, from the body, down to the side-mounted flamethrowers. That being said, the number of car bodies is... Lacking. There are six available, five if you don't possess one of the three DLC packs for the PC version. However, you can do just about anything with them. Want to have a double-stack supercharger married to a gold-plated Chevy Deuce Cupe? Go for it! Wanna have a nitro-boosted tank with the body of a Rolls-Royce? Mad Max has you, fam.

The gameplay, while not original, is very engaging for a game of this calibre, with an extreme emphasis on vehicular combat. It just wouldn't be Mad Max without being able to send a car into a triple barrel roll and then blow the ♥♥♥♥ up, would it? The controls are relatively simple, using mostly standard controls if one is using a controller, and the industry standard WASD + Mouse if one is not using a controller, though I would strongly recommend a controller. Included with the game is a rather intuitive photo editor, which is accessed by pushing both thumbsticks on a controller. Using weapons is simple, as well, with the standard aiming and firing controls as one would expect from a game with weapons, though the game's combat is primarily hand-to-hand, with ammunition exceedingly scarce.

And lastly, the graphics. This was easily one of the best looking games of 2015, and it is still very good looking, even in the face of games such as The Crew, Need For Speed 2015, and Doom 2016. While I personally don't think this game will remain one of the prettiest out there, it's still a welcome breath of fresh air, compared to most dark, drab and dreary post-apocalyptic games.

In short, while this isn't the greatest game out there, I highly recommend checking it out, even if just for a few short minutes.