Recent reviews by Trent

Video games are an interactive, audio-visual medium. As such, visuals matter. Before you catch even a minute of footage, the game will introduce itself through still images, screenshots or thumbnails. It's quite telling that developers will pour a lot of resources into making the visuals stand out from the competition. Presentation is important. But are visuals enough to carry a game?

Scorn has been infamous for several things, one of them being its troubled development history. Serbian developer Ebb Software was formed in 2013 and Scorn has been effectively in development ever since. The idea was to create a game with the aesthetics of two particular artists - one being H.R. Giger, most famous for his xenomorph creations, and the other being Zdzislaw Beksinski, a surrealist painter. Giger's biomechanical designs dominate the visuals. Interiors and machinery are made out of organic matter and fuse with the player character, blurrying the lines between one and the other. Traces of Beksinski's nightmarish, decaying visions can be found as well. The art style does a fantastic job of evoking both influences while maintaining its own personality. It's strange, it's disgusting and it looks unlike any other current release.

Praise for Scorn's interactive elements is much harder to come by. Playing Scorn, you can't shake the feeling it was designed with visuals in mind first. The actual game part seems like a mere afterthought. When you're not trying to find your way through the maze-like environments, you solve logic puzzles or engage in combat. While functional, you've seen it all before and most likely better executed elsewhere. Especially the combat stands out due to its exaggerated sluggishness. Simply dodging a slow-moving enemy projectile can become a nuisance, especially when there's more than one enemy present. Most of those encounters don't feel tense or exciting. They feel like annoying obstacles you want to get done with.

Scorn is strange by design. You get thrown into its bizarre world without any explanation. Everything about it feels alien and weird, and yet you are expected to function in it. Except for a few button mappings, there are no hints. No objective marker and no map will guide your way. No NPC will blabber in your ear and tell you what to do. There won't be any audio logs to collect providing any sort of backstory or context. You don't even get item descriptions. You are pretty much left to your own devices in a world you don't understand. In a way, this approach feels refreshing in how radical and uncompromising it is. It certainly helps conveying a bleak and strange atmosphere, something the developers were clearly after.

So Scorn is just an interactive art exhibition then? How much you value art is certainly a factor in how you will experience the game. It is glaring that Ebb Software failed to marry their artistic vision with the interactive elements of a video game. As a game, Scorn is rather mediocre. Regardless, I'm still giving Scorn a recommendation because there is nothing like it out there. So many games have the tendency to explain themselves away, so many writers can't help themselves oversharing insights they deem valuable. Meanwhile, Scorn simply exists in its nightmarish aesthetic - cryptic and alien, indifferent to the player or tired horror conventions. In an industry where so many releases are barely distinguishable from one another, that alone is a quality worth praising.

Elden Ring is Dark Souls if it was an open world game. In that regard, it's pretty much what you would expect: an action RPG featuring dodge-heavy combat, stamina management, stat progression, cryptic lore and creepy NPCs. Elden Ring has it all. However, it comes with the benefits of an open world game. Meaning that if you do see that mountain, you CAN climb it. The whole scale of this game is flat-out insanity. Areas are not just interconnected anymore. They are parts of a much larger world that seems to stretch on eternally. As a result upgrades, spells and weapons that used to be carefully placed around major dungeons now get their own mini-dungeons, which are sprinkled all over the map. Apart from combat, exploration is what really sells Elden Ring because there's always one spot on the map you could have missed.

Unfortunately, Elden Ring inherits some of the less likeable traits of an open world game as well. Due to the game's ridiculous size, recycling assets can't be entirely avoided. It also means not every area has the same level of detail or care put into it. While the visual quality of the levels ranges from pretty to downright impressive, it tends to fluctuate a bit into the nether regions as well. The mini-dungeons in particular feel uninspired at times. Due to the new format, progression also feels weird at times: you enter a new area and the enemies make you eat ♥♥♥♥ relentlessly, making you seriously question your skills or wonder if you were supposed to be there in the first place. Turns out you don't have to do anything and you can just go somewhere else until you found better gear or leveled up a bit.

A word on difficulty: I played a pure melee build and managed to breeze through most of the game. People enjoy a good challenge and winning when the odds aren't stacked in their favor. Generally it felt like Elden Ring followed the unspoken credo of Dark Souls: "challenging, but fair." At some point however, the game abandons that approach. The last stretches of Elden Ring feel like an exercise in frustration filled with every cheap shot in the book. To give you a taste: you're in a tight area littered with enemies capable of killing you comfortably in two blows or less, even with your vigor stat at soft cap. There are environmental hazards like poison, or you are in constant danger of falling to your death. The enemies have large health bars and thick armor while you deal very little damage. Fighting one alone already seems tough because of that. When you fight them, they flail around erratically or they delay their strikes seemingly at random. Their strikes cover a large area around them and often they use aoe attacks. They bridge gaps with ease, they have projectiles and they work in teams. All while a sub-boss turned regular enemy is patrolling the area.

In a way, it makes sense. We've all played Dark Souls several times now and we're used to the fun stuff From Software puts in their games. Individually, that is. It feels a bit like they're struggling to keep things challenging and show players something they haven't seen before. So they go through their greatest hits and stack them up.

It genuinely soured the experience for me. What I enjoyed about Dark Souls is in here. In fact, Elden Ring feels like three Dark Souls games in one. But too much of something nice can still feel awful. Don't get me wrong, Elden Ring is a phenomenal game. But towards the end, its crap got so tiresome to deal with. After a long honeymoon period, I only wanted it to be over. So if you venture into The Lands Between, you better pace yourself, or you might burn yourself out on the game.

Sekiro is not a Souls game. This can't be stressed enough. Attempt to i-frame dodge through the game and you will get your ass slapped all the way back to Lordran. While it borrows certain elements from Souls, like the checkpoint system or cryptic NPC questlines, it's pretty much its own beast. And what a beast it is.

It's one of those good news, bad news situations. Good news: the days when you needed to keep an eye on your stamina for every attack, block or dodge are over. Bad news: that doesn't mean the game is any less challenging. Quite the opposite, actually. Wolfie goes down in two hits tops, and at all times he's either heavily outnumbered or he gets crushed in the health bar measuring contest. And the absence of stats, gear and online co-op means there are no shortcuts. You won't be able to overlevel, no Solaire will come to your aid. It's either nut up or shut up.

Luckily, there are ways to put you at a lesser disadvantage. Sekiro features a rudimentary stealth system and enough freedom to thin out your enemies' ranks one by one. Most of the times you can clear entire areas just by being sneaky. Apparently, Sekiro started out as a Tenchu game and I totally believe it, considering how far stealth will get you. But eventually a direct confrontation will be unavoidable. And where Souls games required you to only land that one parry, Sekiro demands that you time your blocks near perfectly several times per exchange. Combat is fast, fluid and demanding enough to make you break a sweat.

While the areas are open and generally well-designed, they are not exactly eyecandy. Souls games are known for their sinister beauty, but that is largely absent in Sekiro. Some areas look flat-out rough. Only rarely will you get the urge to stop and soak in the atmosphere. A missed opportunity, really. And while the environments leave room for exploration, the absence of cool gear makes it feel strangely unrewarding. Also, due to the nature of combat you will see the same instakill moves and finishers quite often. A bit of variety would have been nice.

Like the player, Sekiro faces its own set of challenges. Developer From Software has been around for over three decades, but only since the release of Demon's Souls the studio has gained a larger recognition in the West. Ever since, most of their games have been Souls games either directly or in spirit. Being widely known as the developer of Souls games came with the issue that they were expected to make nothing but Souls games - a curse, if you will. Sekiro marks the first time in a while that a major From Software title branches out far enough to be called its own thing - and be accepted by a large audience. With that leap of faith out of the way, it'll be exciting to see what they will come up with next.

Sometimes things just happen at the right time. Take the free week for Quake Champions as an example. It came along just as I was getting tired of tactical team-based shooters and showed what has been missing all this time: some fast-paced fraggin' of ye olde! Enough with the snail pace and the demented teammates! Just give me a rocket launcher and I'll sort this out by myself! Granted, the absence of a server browser is a bummer and the game has this ugly Free to Play smell to it, but other than that it scratches the arena shooter itch nicely. It is without serious competition in its niche, anyway. Unlike other attempts at reviving arena shooters, this one has legacy behind it, so it's most likely to stick around for a while.

See you in the pit, laddy!

A redout occurs when negative g-force pushes blood from the lower regions of the body into the head. Since this is where the eyes are located, the vision will turn red - hence the name. Redout also happens to be the title of a futuristic racing video game. And boy, is the title on-point.

The developers make no secret of their influences. Games like Wipeout, F-Zero or Rollcage are explicitly mentioned on the store page, so Redout's direction is clear from the very beginning: maneuver your anti-gravity vehicle at breakneck speed while electronic background music gets you amped even further.

Compared to the more naturalistic role models, Redout sports a minimalistic, blocky visual style reminiscent of shaded polygons. Although it may not be everyone's cup of tea, it does a great job establishing the game's own identity. It's bright, it's colorful and beautiful enough to look at. Not that the game leaves you many opportunities, but still.

Redout doesn't pretend you're steering an "actual" glider that needs to be panned and tilted constantly. Imagine piloting a speeding bullet. As such, your main goal is to stay away from the track barriers since even grazing them penalizes you hard enough for every pilot on the track to pass you in the blink of an eye. Easier said than done at ludicrous speed, even more so when the track throws you curve balls by including sudden turns, jumps and loopings. Overcoming those obstacles while maintaining speed is part of the thrill.

There are a few things that bring the whole experience down a bit: Maybe it's a result of the art design, but the tracks can be confusing to navigate at times due to the amount of geography and lighting effects being thrown in your face. Also, the racing tracks later in the game rely on jumps too much as a cheap means of increasing difficulty. Your vehicle's jet motor sound is practically nonexistent and even after several patches, gamepad buttons stop working in the menus for a few seconds.

Regardless, where Redout excels at, where it REALLY excels at, is conveying speed. In that regard, it may even surpass the games it set out to pay homage to. The soundtrack, most of which is psytrance, is decent as well. So if you're a speed freak and haven't gone fast for some time, Redout might be your fix.

Hellblade centers around a Celtic warrior named Senua, who travels to the north in order to revive her lover with the help of Norse gods. It's a classic hero's journey, but not quite what you'd expect based on this description alone. In several ways.

A game with a title such as "Hellblade" can only be a hack & slash game. There's simply no other way. But here's where Hellblade already defies expectations: While the game does feature combat, it takes a backseat in favor of some good old puzzle solving. The puzzles consist of finding runes and scanning your environment for matching patterns. Basically, the player progresses by looking at things. When you do get to slice up foes, the dance of blades is meaty and graceful, but overall rather simplistic. Light attacks and parries for regular enemies, heavy attacks for larger enemies, guard breaks for foes bearing a shield - you've probably seen it all. Plus, there's walking. Lots and lots of walking. Genre-wise, Hellblade can be best described as a mix of third person action, puzzle game and one of those infamous walking simulators.

Mechanically speaking, Hellblade would never set the world on fire. And yet, it's weirdly captivating. The reason for that is the game's gripping atmosphere. Everything about the game is dripping with gloom and the visuals only emphasize that. Of course, there's also the character of Senua. Promotion material already makes a big fuss about her mental illness. The twist is that Senua's journey to hell in order to overcome grief is symptomatic of her psychosis, from her obsession with patterns in mundane objects (see: puzzles) down to her delusion that a Norse god might bring her lover back from the dead. It's nothing American McGee hasn't done already, except Hellblade goes one step further to put the player in the shoes of such a troubled individual. The player will frequently encounter visual glitches or whispers mocking, confusing, sometimes encouraging him. Said whispers also serve as audio cues for when the player is stuck, or during combat when an enemy is about to strike from off-camera, which is pretty much the only trouble you will have in this game.

For the most part, developer Ninja Theory treats the topic of mental illness with respect. There is no easy solution, no tear-jerking and no pretense - like Senua, the player has to accept it for what it is. You won't gain any new insights on the topic of mental health either. It would be the wrong medium, anyway. And apart from a few hammy moments, Hellblade also works well as a psychological drama, although cutscenes tend to occur more often and run longer than they should. Plus, though Hellblade is lovely animated, in those cutscenes Senua has a weird habit of exposing her front teeth for no reason, which looks off.

If you can enjoy a video game for something other than how they play, Hellblade might be worth a spin. It offers an atmosphere that is as depressing as it is absorbing, conveyed primarily by the game's visual and audio design as well as by dealing with rather dark topics like mental illness. On top of all, it's a journey that feels personal. Hellblade's themes would be easy to dismiss as a mere gimmick if they didn't tie in beautifully with the game. It's just sad there's not more of a game in here.

On a different note: VNV Nation during the credits? Oh Tameem, will you ever grow out of your goth phase?

Resident Evil has been so many things: a survival horror adventure, an action-packed third person shooter, a lightgun shooter, and even a fighting game if you count the appearance of RE characters in games such as Marvel vs. Capcom. And with so many other media set in the RE universe such as comics, movies or novels, that's just the tip of the iceberg. A full-on first person shooter, however? That's new.

Considering the direction the series has taken with the last couple of games, you'd expect RE7 to be much more action-oriented, but its pace and overall progression rather resembles the original's. Slowly you work your way through a large mansion while managing your limited inventory, scouting the place for items, solving "put the correct object in this slot" style of puzzles and greeting horrible abominations with one bullet at a time. It’s as Resi as it gets without bringing back zombies and pre-rendered backgrounds. New to the series are prolonged, scripted sequences that are supposed to advance the storyline, which are prominent especially in the beginning hours, but quickly make room for some old-fashioned key hunting. Also, the mansion’s residents follow you around for a good part of the game, like RE3′s Nemesis back in the days, although they never come close to being as annoying.

RE7′s brand of horror can be best described as a wild mix between Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Evil Dead and The Ring, combined with the series’ trademark jump scares and body horror elements. The environments in and around the house located in some backwards Lousiana swamp are so pretty and detailed that you can almost smell the rot in the air. Atmosphere is tight, but even then, the game is lacking some straight up terror.

Overall, RE7 positively surprises with consistency and throwbacks to older titles coupled with a few fresh elements. Truly a return to form after the series displayed an outright identity crisis in RE6. Groovy!

Intense arcade game that blends genres like top down action, twin stick shooter and bullet hell into one stylish package.

Furi is built around the best parts of any game - the boss fights. There are no fillers here: no faceless henchmen, no long platform segments and cutscenes prolonging your way to the ten unique boss characters the player is meant to overcome.

You'd think that such a game might be over in an hour or two, but Furi is freakishly hard in an oldschool kind of way. Each fight consists of multiple phases which get increasingly harder, demanding for the player to master every tool at his disposal. Most often, the key to success is learning your enemy's attack patterns. You will rarely nail them during the first encounter, so expect to die. Horribly. And most of all, repeatedly.

My only gripe is that certain attack phases are significantly harder than others and often they are located at the end of a long six phase battle, meaning you will have to redo the entire battle several times until you have the pattern down, which can be a little discouraging. Apart from that, Furi is an absolute delight from start to finish.

Straight up gucci, baybeh!

When the original Deus Ex was released in 2000, it was unlike many games of its time. It aimed to provide the player with obstacles that could be overcome in different ways, depending on the player's preference. The concept wasn't new - System Shock already struck a similar chord. However, Deus Ex was among the first games to take this concept to a dynamic, urban cyberpunk environment that acknowledged player choices. It featured elements of role playing games, first person shooters and stealth games, and despite each individual element not living up to the quality of a proper entry in each genre, Deus Ex combined them into one tight package on a scale that hadn't been done before.

While sales weren't overhelming, Deus Ex left a bit of a mark on the industry. At the time of release, it was showered with praise by publications and players alike for its open-ended level design and the story involving possibly every popular conspiracy theory conceived in the last decades. To this very day, Deus Ex has a dedicated following and continues to top "Best Games of All Time" lists.

Big shoes to fill, but developer Eidos Montreal lived up to the challenge with their 2011 prequel Deus Ex: Human Revolution. It proved not only that you can make a game like Deus Ex with current industry conventions, but also that there's still a crowd for it. A crowd large and loud enough to warrant another game.

So here we go again. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided improves on the core elements that make the series interesting. The player has the opportunity to tackle missions in even more ways fitting his individual playstyle, whether he prefers to sneak, shoot or talk his way to success, provided he invested in the right augmentations. This is what makes those games so addicting: Even if there's an initial setback, you never really hit a wall since there's always a vent shaft you can crawl into, a computer you can hack, a hidden passage you can enter, a guard you can persuade in one way or another or an augmentation you can use - all you need to do is keep looking. Meanwhile, well-placed guards and security measures ensure there's tension of getting caught. In fact, the game does a great job of conveying that you're playing a teched up secret agent rummaging through things where he shouldn't. When everything else fails, the player can always shoot his way through, which thankfully feels as satisfying as never before in a Deus Ex game.

Apart from the obvious paths, Mankind Divided offers more surprises than Human Reovlution did in terms of level design and options. And those options are equally viable, too. Where Human Revolution kind of threaded you into going the stealthy hacker route due to it netting the most experience points and providing rather scarce ammunition for lethal weapons, that favoritism is gone in Mankind Divided. Also, player choices get acknowledged more often or influence the game in some way. For instance, going on a killing spree in the previous area might anger a non-player character and make him unsusceptible to getting talked down. Additionally, at several points the game will ask you to make a binary choice, which may change aspects about an upcoming mission.

Visually, Mankind Divided is an absolute delight. Eidos Montreal continues to present designs that look contemporary yet futuristic with a bit of Starbucks latte extravagance thrown in for the mix, although that aspect isn't as strong as in Human Revolution. Prague is an unusual choice as a backdrop for a cyberpunk game. Especially the daylight segments evoke flashbacks to Half-Life 2's City 17 - an Eastern European city where sci-fi elements fester out of the architecture. But during nighttime, Prague is just as capable as a stage for a cyberpunk game. The environments are cluttered with items, which properly gives the impression of them being inhabited. However, obsessive compulsive types might experience that as a negative since the clutter hides useful items on more than one occasion. Environments are important for storytelling as well because they contain a lot of background information, which is the best way to do story in a video game: It doesn't bother you if you don't care, but it's readily available if you do. Plus, the player can explore it at his own pace without having to take a break from the actual game.

Regarding the story itself: Since Mankind Divided progresses further in the timeline, references to the first Deus Ex get more frequent and prominent characters from the original make an appearance in person. The actual plot is a rather standard affair and serves mostly as a vehicle to flesh out the big, overarching conspiracy leading to the events of the first game. The problem with the story is that people know what's coming and all the prequels do is prep work. Because of that, focusing on Adam Jensen was probably a smart move since his role is undefined by the games set later in the timeline. The characters can be a bit bland at times, but they are usually well-rounded enough to be liked or disliked, although the chemistry was better between Human Revolution's cast.

There has been a bit of moaning regarding the ending. It's not that it's bad, sudden or incomplete and more that it leaves you with little progress. The conflict introduced in the first moments of the game is resolved, but the answers ultimately point towards the same organization that has been pulling the strings in the shadows the entire time anyway. In most other games, this would be the moment where the story really kicks off. Instead, Mankind Divided rolls the credits. Considering the game was planned with sequels in mind, it's a more of a Fellowship of the Ring situation. Here's hoping we won't have to wait another five years.

If you enjoyed Human Revolution for its gameplay, getting Mankind Divided is a no-brainer as it improves on every single gameplay-related aspect: Environments are bigger, more detailed and missions offer far more options to be completed, all while more of your choices will get acknowledged in some way. Fans of the original game will enjoy the stronger ties to the first Deus Ex, but be ultimately let down by the story. For cyberpunk junkies, this is a more than adequate fix.

The Hitman games were always unique in the sense that they basically created their own subgenre. Where other stealth games expected you to remain unseen while carrying out your mission, Hitman games dropped you off in a neutral environment and demanded that you blend in with the crowd - hiding in plain sight, if you will. Assassinating a target was always the ultimate goal, but Hitman encouraged the player to fulfill this task as quietly and clean as possible while the environment provided several ways of getting close: Spiking the target's food with laxatives to seperate it from armed bodyguards, assuming the identity of an informant or simply using a sniper rifle from afar are only a few of the possibilities to tackle a single mission. Hitman games are notorious for their replayability.

Despite the vicious deeds the player is supposed to perform, the games were not without their own brand of black humor: You could drop a piano on your target like in a classic Roadrunner cartoon, or you could switch a fake gun for a real one and turn the pretend murder during a rehearsal of a stage play into an actual one without pulling the trigger yourself. There was also the main character’s habit of introducing himself as “Tobias Rieper”. Additionally, the games displayed a touch of class, which was reflected in the locations the player visited or even in the way the main character dressed.

In the past, Hitman: Blood Money perfected this formula and is widely regarded as the peak of the series. It was released in 2006 and the 2012 sequel, Hitman Absolution, was supposed to follow up on it, but fell short for several reasons: It was loud, it was vulgar and it offered only a fraction of the options usually found in a Hitman game. IO Interactive took the criticism to heart and promised to do better. And they succeeded for the most part.

Interesting level design has always been the main draw of the series and in that regard, the new Hitman truly is a return to form. The levels released so far are massive and offer so many ways of getting the job done, it will make your head spin. Just in terms of size alone they’re bigger than anything Blood Money offered.

Disguises were a key element of previous Hitman games and one of Absolution's gravest mistakes was devaluing them. If you disguised as a cop, somehow every other cop in the area instantly knew you didn’t belong and it required hitmana to weasel your way past every single one of them. Even though there are hints of this system still present in the latest Hitman, it’s nowhere near as rigid or illogical: Only a few non-player characters in strategic places will get suspicious if you approach them.

There’s a small online portion, too. Like in Absolution, Hitman players are able to create custom contracts with specified targets, victory conditions, leaderboards and everything. While Hitman games are notorious for their replayability, IO Interactive tries a new spin on the established formula: Every other week, there will be a an Elusive Target roaming the levels - a unique target that is only available for a short amount of time. If the timer runs out or if the player dies while carrying out the mission, the target is gone for good. No saves and no second chances. This approach heightens the tension in theory, but in reality it’s not as harsh as advertized. You can retry one Elusive Target as often as you want, as long as you are still in the time frame for completion and you haven’t killed the target or haven’t been killed yourself. Also, it’s quite obvious not the same amount of care went into the Elusive Targets as it did for the main missions. A nice idea, but certainly not a game seller.

Apart from a few optimization issues and a couple of logical inconsistencies, everything about the actual game is peaches and gravy. However, some of the decisions surrounding it sour the taste - most notably the business model and “encouraged” online.

When you think about it, mission-based games like Hitman are perfect for expansions, DLC and post-release support, yet none of the previous ones really approached the idea. Until now. However, the way this game realized the idea couldn’t be more awkward. Essentially, Hitman is an episodic game that drip-feeds the player a level each month until the number of promised levels is complete. Games like The Walking Dead have proven that an episodic model isn’t inherently bad and even Resident Evil: Revelations 2 - a game that isn’t story-driven - managed to make it work somehow. Though the main difference is that REv2 only made you wait for two weeks until a new episode would be released. Making the player wait an entire month between episodes for a mission-based game is not something you want to do as a developer. Hitman’s release model has an interesting side effect, though: Previously, you would reinstall a Hitman game after months and replay it to try out new approaches. While waiting for new levels to drop, you have few other things to do but replay existing levels and tackle them in different ways. The current release model ensures you undertake those future replays now.

The other main problem of Hitman is its “encouraged” online. Technically, it’s not forced online since the game remains playable even when you’re offline, but it locks you out of many options that enhance replayability. Completing different challenges as you replay a level unlocks equipment and starting positions that keep each new attempt fresh. Unfortunately, challenges are only available online. Same goes for user contracts and Elusive Targets. Plus, savegames for offline and online playthroughs are not compatible with each other. If you lose connection while playing or you get booted from the server, you won’t be able to resume where you left off.

While the servers are stable for me, my main concern with this approach is preservation. Let’s say I get the urge to play Hitman in three years, but the devs have pulled the plug on the servers in the meantime. Sure, the game would remain playable as the levels provide plenty opportunities to turn your target’s switch to “off”, but many many interesting approaches would be lost forever. Here’s hoping IO Interactive rethinks this decision.

So if you're a fan of Hitman and Absolution left a lot to be desired, you might be pleased with this one. Yet some of the decisions regarding distribution will make you scratch your head. Also, as high-quality as the levels are that have been released at the time of writing, there's still some room for the developers to drop the ball.