Recent reviews by Sly Boots

I was chopping wood from three trees at once. Their logs fell on me and killed me instantly. 11/10 for realism, would chop wood again.

Brütal Legend is the greatest, loudest and most beautifully illustrated love letter ever written... to an entire genre of music.

Most licensed games suffer from an ill-driven intent to reproduce certain scenes from the source material, often peppered with extra content from the fictional universe where the original takes place. Games based on The Lord of the Rings and other works by Tolkien have suffered this fate. One needs but to take a quick look at the LOTR movie games to see how repetitive and uninspired such generic, hurriedly-churned-out hackfests can be while sadly underusing the lore and mythology of a vast fiction universe.

Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor is the exception to this rule.

I was skeptical at first, but I had heard very interesting things about the orc captain system. So I decided to try it for myself. I was hooked in minutes.

From the start, you are plunged into an open world festering with conflict. There's none of that "one does not simply walk into Mordor" stuff here. Mordor is your base of operations, your field of action. You will walk, run, ride, jump, hunt, plot, and fight your way around Mordor. The game generously increases its world in its later stages by unlocking Núrn. One of the most positive effects of making these lands the scenario for the adventure is that it gives us a good look at a mysterious place that readers of the original books were only shown a glimpse of, through the weary eyes of a practically helpless ringbearer. Moviegoers saw the excelent work carried out by Peter Jackson and his team, with the lands beyond the Black Gate brought into a believable reconstruction of the book's already rich descriptions.

Shadow of Mordor gave us control over a sneaky master tactician that could roam free and hang from the very innards of this almost ethereal land. Not only that, but it showed us something that the books only represent in passing mention: a portion of the region of Núrn. Never before had we seen this practically unknown territory in such rich detail. We were given more Lord of the Rings without making it more of the same.

This applies to our two-fold protagonist. As a ranger, Talion expands on our concept of what a Dúnedain is, having a new compelling reference other than Aragorn, obvious similarities notwithstanding. As a key character from the books and a pivotal character in the background story of the Rings of Power, Celebrimbor is a welcome and nerdgasmic nexus between the game and its source material. Sure, his identity can be guessed from miles away if you have read the books, and the expansion on the One Ring mythos it entails is unnecessary. However, it allows a good enough justification of his presence in the game. And come on, what LOTR fan wouldn't want to take on the mantle of a ranger combined with a badass elven wraith? It takes some of the films' interpretations of what the supernatural is like on Middle-Earth and twists them together to produce one of the coolest warriors seen in a video game. Add some AssCreed here, pop some Batman there, just a pinch of God of War over here... and BAM. Derivative? Sure. Fun? As hell. Cool? Extremely so.

But what is this game without its Nemesis System? A table with a broken leg, I tell ya. Without it, Mordor and Núrn would be truly barren.

There is a an entire internal conflict constantly going on among Sauron's orc legions. It progresses on its own and can be largely ignored to an extent, but where's the fun in that? Engaging with it is where the 'meat' is. Talion needs runes for his equipment, to become more powerful and defeat the Black Hand of Sauron, not just for revenge but to cripple the Dark Lord's army, at least temporarily. Runes are dropped by orc captains. The more powerful the captain, the rarer and more powerful the rune. Want to create your own rune? Then play this game of create-your-own-monster. There are numerous sidequests that allow our hero to influence the orcs' power struggles. Kill the captains that impede progression for others, take the weaker ones and aid them indirectly or otherwise, do what you must to let them ascend to the highest ranks, familiarize yourself with their weaknesses and resistances (some may be acquired), and exploit them to end their life for good when the moment comes. Captains don't meet their ultimate death until you intently give it to them, making them survive encounters that would otherwise be fatal, adding to their traits, their wounds, their equipment, and turning them into your nemeses. Talion himself cannot die a permanent death due to his covenant with the wraith. This makes every one of his deaths a step forward in the captain system that the game takes to advance and mix things up without player input, making each respawn a new opportunity to fight through the altered ranks of Sauron's army, and to meet empowered enemies and find new quests.

It takes some time getting used to and it requires a few forays into the main quest scenarios (a bit of a mistake, since the games allows you to roam free from the start, leaving some of the essential info buried for a short while), but once you get into it, there's no stopping the fun. Oh, and Núrn's army is independent from Mordor's, giving you a whole new chess board to play around with.

While there is a combo system and numerous action elements, Shadow of Mordor is primarily a tactical action game that requires stealth and careful planning in order for the player to succeed in quests and infiltrate fortresses in search of bosses, runes and other objectives. Engaging in combat should only be done after Talion has created the most favorable circumstances possible. Choosing the right moment to strike is vital. This prevents the player from just bashing through the whole thing and lets them get to grips with the mechanics and the layout much more deeply. To me, this simply makes the experience more lasting and enjoyable.

And as a nice little extra, the game includes a photo mode chock-full of tweaks and functions. Perfect tool for an irredeemable screenshot junkie such as myself.

I am really glad I got this one. It's fun, addictive and really easy to get into.

Samurai Gunn is an extremely fast-paced arena combat game in which players use a katana as their main weapon and may fire up to three shots from a gun as a support weapon. The gameplay relies on players' abilities to quickly move around the levels my means of running, jumping and executing their opponents in one lightning-fast strike. Shots from guns may be used to cover long distances in a straight line, but may also be deflected at the shooter by parrying them with one swing of the sword. Additionally, levels often include environmental hazards such as spikes and moving platforms which can squish any character against a wall, floor or ceiling.

An impressive amount of attention to detail is revealed through such things as bullet casings falling to the ground after each shot. What's more, the casings remain there and may be pushed by any character who steps on them. Another example is the water: if someone dies in a pond, the water acquires a red tint which becomes more intense as more blood is spilled, only to be washed away after a few seconds of no blood-spilling on the same spot. To top it all off, standing in water renders your gun useless even when when you get out of the pond, so keep that in mind.

The soundtrack is a perfect match for the action. Based on traditional Japanese instruments, it's reminiscent of soundtracks from chanbara movies and animes with a historical setting. At times, it reminds me of Samurai Spirits, only faster-paced (depending on the track). On that note, the sound effects are hugely satisfying. Most of all, the katanas cutting through the air (or your enemies, ideally). There's something about that loud metallic *schwing!* that makes you want to keep pressing the sword button for more, even if you're not hitting anyone.

Graphically, it's a beautiful game. The sprites are simple but perfectly distinguishable from one another and each is full of personality. There are three characters for each faction and, even within such simplicity, all of them can be told apart at a glance while keeping a common element that identifies them as belonging to the same group. The levels offer a rather wide variety of colours and designs. The intense lime green and clear brown of the bamboo forests, the purple rocks and pale green bushes of the mountain pass with its Buddha statues or the white snow, dark trees and clear water of the winter areas are all pleasant to look at and brimming with detail. Each gives the battle a particular mood or atmospheric feeling. And yet, they managed to do all this with no real distractions for the player, thanks to its retro-style pixellated graphics. Combining an old visual style with modern-day gameplay fluency is a path that numerous indie developres take, and it was yet again the right choice for this title.

All of it is wrapped up into an elegant presentation that fans of chanbara films and samurai pop culture in general will recognise and love. From the moment we see the title screen, we know what type of world we'll be thrown into. A red band with black silhouettes belonging to a bunch of samurais running through a field is an extremely effective introduction to a high-paced game such as this one and it also serves the purpose of creating a classy main menu. In-game, the brief stop produced by a kill, with the blackening of the screen save for the strip which shows killer and victim, is a charmingly abrupt way of making everyone aware of the death. The slow-motion plus zoom that frames the final kill in a fight always provides for an interesting composition and flaunts the game's colourful palette as well as its sprites, still lovely and worth of appreciation with their pixels brought to a bigger size. The menus are simple and use one font, and the signs which recount the kills at the end of a match have a neat parchment feel to them, with easily recognisable icons depicting each death and its cause.

I recommend obtaining this underappreciated gem while it's on sale, since playing it with friends is the best way to exploit its wonders. Survival mode is fun, engaging and addictive, but nothing beats the variety and unpredictability (or lack thereof) of playing against human competitors. As more people get this game, the more fun it will get for all of us who share it.