HIGH The buildup to the second boss fight.

LOW The actual second boss fight.

WTF “Little guys for big jobs” is a profoundly weird way to describe bullets.

There’s nothing slick about Blood West.  It’s a slow, lumbering thing – an exercise in patience, demanding to be taken on its own terms. 

My first forays into this stealth focused, first-person shooter were mired in frustration, while my seemingly interminable failures put the main character’s immortality to the test.  However, once I was willing to abandon my preconceived heuristics and fully lean into Blood West’s loop, I loved every second of it.

Recently resurrected by a talking cow skull of dubious origins, the player takes control of an unnamed, undead gunslinger tasked with defeating a great evil corrupting the land.  Structured as small open-worlds, players will explore haunted canyons, swamps, and mountain ranges across the American old west.  Light RPG elements allow for some character customization, but make no mistake, spirits, mutants, and gaggles of gun-toting birdmen offer stiff resistance to incautious players, and maintaining a low profile is crucial.

Impulse and quick reflexes find no purchase in Blood West – every action must be carefully considered, with a solid contingency plan in place should things go awry.  Stand-up fights netted poor results for this spooky cowpoke, and each encounter turned into a tactical calculus.

Take the simple act of equipping weapons – players are only able to swap between two at a time, one large and one small.  Is it more prudent to take the bow, able to stealthily dispatch weaker enemies from afar?  Or is it better to knife them in the back, relying on the close quarters fury of a double-barreled shotgun should that colossal wendigo stomping in the background take notice?  These questions become existential as health is fleeting, and death is severely punished on the plains of Blood West.

Each defeat (and subsequent resurrection) results in a “soul flaw” — a semi-permanent status effect that negatively impacts a core stat such as health, stamina, or sneaking ability.  These compound with each death, worsening up to three times. While they can eventually be remedied, these flaws do nothing to make the hostile world of Blood West any easier.

While Blood West is punishing when approached as a typical first-person shooter, it is immensely rewarding as a tactical stealth experience.  Its open-ended structure offers players abundant freedom in tackling objectives, and most areas can be approached from any direction.  I came to organize my play into discreet sorties, probing further into the wilderness and systematically clearing areas of enemies before returning to base camp to trade treasure with the merchant and heal up.  Defeated enemies stay dead until the player rests or resurrects, and I began to feel a measure of control over my environment when I realized I could stay alive much longer with the most important tactic of all – knowing when to cut bait. 

Eventually, I came to realize the majority of my deaths in Blood West were a result of my own hubris – deciding to take a snap headshot without properly scouting the area, accidentally alerting a horde of monsters in the process, or pressing into uncharted territory despite a depleted health bar.  Individual enemies are generally not difficult on their own, and most can be outrun should they become overwhelming.  That’s not to say that every death is the player’s fault, but I rarely felt Blood West was unfair and often found my own stubbornness and inattention to be the source of any frustration.

Careful attention is not only important for combat but also exploration.  Whether it’s a moored steamboat off the beaten track or a lonely cabin on a hilltop, there is sure to be loot worth finding.  As I began to explore the more far-flung corners of the map, I found powerful, unique items that literally changed the way I approached Blood West – a rifle that heals forty health with every headshot, or a trinket that offered a twenty percent boost to health, stamina, and experience points.  Some of these items shaped my play for hours to come, and it’s not an exaggeration to say that I might not have rolled credits in Blood West without them.

There is one area where Blood West falls short, however – the boss fights.  Each act is structured around tracking and exterminating an evil entity, and the narrative revolves around the buildup to these encounters.  Unfortunately, these battles are uniformly disappointing and rely on mechanics that stray from Blood West’s strengths.  Whether it’s dexterity-based dodging or battles of attrition, gone is the emphasis on thoughtful, strategic play that forms Blood West’s foundation.  While certainly a letdown, these criticisms amount to little more than quibbles in the wake of all that Blood West does right.

Blood West won’t be for everyone, but those willing to go along with its demanding play and deliberate pacing will find an engaging experience that celebrates the player’s wits as much as reflexes.  I won’t soon forget the feeling of being low on ammo, even lower on health and deep behind enemy lines, knowing I should turn back, but forging ahead anyway, intoxicated by what treasure could be around the next corner – because more than likely, it’s worth it.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10

Buy Blood West: PS5 – Xbox – PC

Disclosures: This game is developed by Hyperstrange and published by New Blood Interactive LLC. It is currently available on PC, PS5, and XBX/S.  This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PS5. Approximately 30 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the primary campaign was completed, but the DLC campaign was not completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated M and contains Blood, Use of Alcohol and Tobacco, Violence. This game is definitely not aimed at children.  While the visuals are generally low fidelity and rendered in a cartoony, non-realistic fashion, there is plenty of blood and gore.  Enemies can be killed with various firearms, knives, and swords.  When killed, enemies will spray blood out and can be partially dismembered with certain weapons.  Alcohol and tobacco can be consumed as power-ups.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game only offers subtitles in certain instances.  Primary dialogue between characters is fully subtitled, but the player’s character makes many comments throughout gameplay that are not subtitled at all. While this game offers two options for text size, this only applies to certain menus and did not impact the text in subtitled dialogue. This game relies heavily on stealth, and when playing without sound I found it more difficult to remain unseen and, consequently, died more frequently due to enemy noises that are not represented visually. The missing in-game subtitles combined with the lack of visual indicators for key contextual noises means this game is not fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: Yes, this game offers fully remappable controls.

The post Blood West Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH A lavish production set in a well-formed universe…

LOW …Damn near ruined by the twerp I have to play as

WTF It somehow got made in the first place

I think we need to be a little careful poo-pooing a game that is essentially the thing that many of us have been demanding. Case in point, Immortals of Aveum.

It’s a big-budget, triple-A, story-driven singleplayer original IP from a brand-new studio with a pedigree, it has a somewhat original idea at the core of its gameplay, and it comes with zero microtransactions or season passes. It is a whole, complete, product not hindered by many of the things that drive modern players crazy.

By any measure, Immortals of Aveum is something worth celebrating. The days of the ‘A’ or ‘AA’ game are practically gone, with every big release from traditional third-party publishers either being a safe bet from a existing franchise or something with deeply nefarious economies designed to extract money from consumers above all else.

There are a lot of games competing for our money this fall, and since there are so few like Immortals of Aveum, that comes with being placed under a larger microscope and heightened expectations. I was shocked to see Immortals of Aveum was an EA game, but upon closer inspection it’s branded as a “EA Original”, which is their in-house label meant to support indie developers — in this case, Ascendant Studios, a new studio headed by former Dead Space creative director Bret Robbins and a collection of former EA and Activision developers who self-funded the project’s creation. In other words, this isn’t exactly a huge risk for EA.

So what did Ascendant Studios make? Well, they made a first-person shooter with an assortment of rifles, machineguns, and shotguns, but these are replaced with “Sigils” — magical devices that attach to the user’s arm, replicate the actions of very familiar guns, and the bullets are replaced by magic lasers and explosions. Aveum also uses a traditional health system accompanied by health packs, and there are various grenades and AOE spells with cooldowns. Sometimes green bullets work best on red enemies and vice-versa. The red, blue, and green magic is legitimately referred to in-game as “red, blue, and green magic”.

The shooting is quite solid and once the player has a fully stocked arsenal, there are some large-scale and entertaining battles against dozens of enemies that will test the player’s skills. It has a very old-school difficulty arc where things start easy and end punishing, which I appreciated, but others may not.

So, in essence, Immortals of Aveum is a ‘Magic Shooter’, and while the core act of playing is absolutely in-line with what one would experience in a standard FPS, the presentation of its combat is its strength. The pyro and ballyhoo on display make for a refreshing experience, and it’s certainly more aesthetically pleasing than yet another military shooter. Indeed, Immortals of Aveum is a truly exceptional-looking title and one of the few releases from the current console generation that actually looks ‘next gen’. Lots of colors, exceptional particle effects, huge vistas, great detail in the environments, and relatively stable performance make for an experience that looks like it cost a lot of money.

The developers have created detailed lore surrounding Aveum, and they do a fantastic job of making protagonist Jak an excellent ‘fish-out-of-water’ archetype to help the player absorb a world with thousands of years of history and many Specifically Named Important Things. I like the vibe a lot, and it has a very teen drama/Young Adult fiction vibe to the writing that works well. For parents worried about the tone and content of modern games, I see Immortals of Aveum as a good choice for teens.

Unfortunately it’s not all rainbows with Jak. While he’s set up as a good vehicle to introduce the player to the world and lore, he’s also every bad lesson the videogame industry learned from Nathan Drake fifteen years ago, rolled into one unlikable putz. He’s overly sarcastic and never takes even legitimately dark subject matter seriously, instead choosing to answer every question with a very unfunny quip. He has surprisingly little growth over the course of the script.

There’s also a borderline offensive attempt to have Jak be the victim of discrimination from a fellow Immortal due to his origins, and I cannot stress how grating it was having a snarky white bro be upset about the racism he was experiencing — racism is a legitimate, real-world issue, but the devs show little tact in dealing with it. There are scenarios in which this could’ve been done effectively, but not with this main character. This whole angle should’ve been scrapped, or at the very least the three white males who are are credited with writing the game should’ve consulted with someone of color for a dramatic re-tooling. The larger narrative is interesting, as is the world, but this character and the tone choices made do a lot of damage.

Immortals of Aveum is fine. Better than fine, actually! It has a lot of Very Nice Qualities. It also isn’t as successful as it could’ve been in a few key areas, but I wasn’t angry about putting 15-ish hours in, even with seemingly every big game on earth being released during the same time period.

It’s the kind of straightforward game that I desperately want more of, but its occasional faults combined with strong competition and a top-dollar price have made it an afterthought less than a month after release. A year from now, a lot of people are gonna buy this on sale for less than $20 and be impressed — that’s not going to help get Immortals of Aveum 2 greenlit, But I do hope the studio finds enough success now to get themselves another project off the ground. They clearly have a lot of potential.

RATING: 7.5 Out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed by Ascendant Studios and published by Electronic Arts. It is currently available on XBX/S, PS5 and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PS5. Approximately 14 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated M and contains Blood, violence, and Strong Language. I’m gonna be honest: this is a pretty weak M rating. While the story has heavy themes they’re not presented in an overly violent manner. When people get zapped to death with a spell they usually disappear without any blood, and I don’t remember much extreme violence outside of a couple of cutscenes. Language is definitely PG-13, but nothing major. Parents with a teenager into the subject matter wouldn’t find this too objectionable.

Colorblind Modes: There are three colorblind modes present: Deuteranomaly, Protanomaly, and Protanopia

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles. The subtitles can be altered and/or resized. Gameplay-based subtitles are detailed, and battles are really a cacophony of noise, so there aren’t any audio based clues that aren’t represented visually. I’d say this is fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: The controls are not fully remappable on consoles. A full controller layout is available in the options menu.

The post Immortals Of Aveum Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

For The Emperor

HIGH Turning thousands of enemies into various forms of gooey spray.

LOW No map. Too many “Purge” sections

WTF Why don’t they ever send my Space Marines some friggin’ reinforcements?

For the first level of Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun, I was an unstoppable killing machine dispensing justice to any filth opposing the Emperor. Encased in my impenetrable armor and wielding the iconic, eponymous heavy pistol, I felt powerful. 

When the second level began, I realized my armor was more penetrable than I’d imagined and that I was significantly more stoppable than I’d thought.

Boltgun tells the story of an ill-fated detachment of Space Marines sent to exterminate the forces of Chaos on a distant world.  As is usual in these types of first-person shooters, issues arise and only one Marine is left available to single-handedly lay waste to the foes of the Emperor and stop a nefarious plan to… do something with a giant wormhole and an ultimate weapon? 

I’ll admit I didn’t pay much attention to the script, as I was often too busy running and gunning to follow the plot.  That’s not to say the plot is uninteresting — it’s filled with deliciously pixelated cutscenes and some fantastic voice work from the cast, especially Rahul Kohli as our protagonist, Malum Caedo.  I frequently overused the dedicated taunt button just to hear him spew venom at his nearly limitless opponents.

Players familiar with retro first-person shooters will feel right at home with Boltgun’s control scheme.  Players guide Caedo through varied environments while hunting for keys to allow progress to the next section where another key awaits, and so on until the level exit is found.  Along the way, switches must be operated to open doors, activate machinery, and perform other, unspecified functions.  Seriously, there were a number of activation points scattered throughout that appeared to do nothing at all.  Granted, they may have opened up secret passages to hidden troves of goodies, but since I never found those, I may never know. 

Blocking our hero’s way are the denizens of Chaos, from slimy Nurglings (always satisfying one-shot kills) up to nigh invulnerable Chaos lords and others of their demon-bred ilk. 

While alone, Caedo has access to some of the most powerful weapons known to the Empire, from the aforementioned boltgun to heavy repeating rifles and enormous plasma cannons capable of vaporizing all but the largest foes. 

Despite the high-velocity ranged equipment available, my favorite was the melee-based chainsword. Activating this beauty in the vicinity of an enemy causes time to slow and locks onto the nearest victim, completely eviscerating lesser enemies, and doing substantial damage to any others foolish enough to stand in its path.

Considering that Space Marines are supposed to be walking tanks bristling with weaponry, it’s a little ironic that our hero has to spend most of his time running, dodging, and jumping to avoid incoming fire, as standing toe-to-toe against even some of the weaker enemies is a one-way-ticket to loading a save. Fortunately, he’s equipped with a the usual sprint ability found in just about every FPS, along with an extra dash that allows him a burst of speed to batter foes as he runs past (or through) them. 

Overall, Boltgun‘s map designs were varied, and I was particularly taken with one level inside a reactor where I had to keep climbing to escape rising molten coolant while also blasting foes as I scrambled to safety. Unfortunately, Boltgun tends to jam in a few spots, lessening the enjoyment to a degree. 

First, the developers offer no maps, which is unforgivable in 2023, especially since FPS titles going all the way back to Doom have maps as a core feature.  I spent far too much time backtracking trying to find a door I may have missed (perhaps activated by one of those switches I never figured out) or wandering aimlessly looking for the next objective. 

More egregious, however, are the too-numerous “purge” sections.  Upon entering certain spaces, the words “Purge the Enemy” appear on screen, and baddies begin to teleport onto the field in increasing numbers and difficulty, usually leading to a boss battle against an enormous bullet-sponge who can spam area attacks while more cannon-fodder enemies appear. 

The first time, it was novel and enjoyable, but just about every time afterward was a chore.  On top of this, communications would often come through during these pitched battles, but they were nearly impossible to focus on because I was too busy fighting for my life to read them. 

Despite the rough patches, Warhanmmer 40,000 Boltgun remains impressive.  It’s fast, action-packed, controls well, and is (mostly) a joy to play. With just a little tweaking and a few adjustments, this could easily be one of the all-time greats.

Rating: 8 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed by Auroch Digital and published by Focus Entertainment.It is currently available on XBO, XBX/S, PS4/PS5, Switch, and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PC. Approximately 19 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated M and contains Blood and Gore and Violence. This is a retro first-person shooter in which players assume the role of a space marine investigating a planet invaded by demons. Players use a variety of machine guns and shotguns to kill hordes of stylized, pixelated enemies (e.g., demons, cultists, enemy marines). Combat is fast-paced, highlighted by frequent gunfire, explosions, and blood-splatter effects. Enemies often explode into low-resolution gore/viscera, and one weapon (chainsaw attachment) can result in up-close blood-splatter/chunks of flesh.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles. The subtitles cannot be altered and/or resized. All dialogue is completely subtitled, as are all skull companion messages and in-game communication.  Enemies may spawn/attack from offscreen, using only audio cues to alert the payer to their whereabouts.  Players with hearing issues will be caught completely unaware by these enemies and most likely will take damage that could potentially otherwise be avoided. As such, this game is not fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: Certain functions are remappable. Keyboard bindings are completely remappable for all controls. Gamepad controls are locked.

The post Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

The subject of this installment: Connection Haunted developed by MrCiastku and published by No Gravity Games.

Connection Haunted is an experimental first-person shooter set in the abandoned server of an online multiplayer game. In addition to exploring the in-game world, players are also tasked with figuring out what is going on.

I wish I could say more, but even the game’s official description is vague and filled with words substituting numbers for letters, before finally devolving into ASCII text art spelling out “HELP”. Connection Haunted is fully committed to its ambiguous story.

At first, I was committed as well. I enjoyed exploring the first level, a long-deserted subway system, with little knowledge of what to do, and the retro-inspired setting is one to behold. It’s perhaps slightly more detailed than its inspirations, but still packed with plenty of pixelated textures, blocky curves, and blurry draw distances.

Players pick up a pistol with six bullets and there’s a lone marker on the locator map, but little information is provided. That marker turns out to be a flag that must be collected and returned to the original spawn site. Once that happens, additional flags appear on the map. This also brings other players onto the server, as the on-screen player count begins to slowly increase.

Even with more players joining, the map still appeared to be empty except for a random jukebox that wasn’t in the tunnel before, or a CRT television that appears near that bend in the tracks. These aren’t the only surprises, though — at certain locations, there appear to be figures walking in the distance. It’s an eerie sight, and they disappear once players get closer.

Once multiple flags have been returned, one of the additional players begins utilizing the on-screen chat. They mention that something is wrong and ask for simple tasks, like crouching for a moment, to be completed as a way of indicating that the player understands them.

This also causes phantoms to begin appearing in various tunnels. Seen from a distance, these ghosts with teeth can be avoided or disposed of with a single pistol shot. However, these phantoms sometimes appear out of nowhere, providing both a quick jumpscare and an instant death.

After multiple tries, I finally progressed far enough for the player using the chat to ask me to come to a certain location on the map. Fearing a phantom or something worse, I went back to the original spawn site to get my bearings. When I did, I was met with a message of disgust for making the wrong choice — and this too resulted in an instant death.

The extremely minimal guidance and (what appear to be) unavoidable random deaths result in restarting the game over and over. After a couple hours of playing the first stage and still not making it to the second level, I gave up.  

Connection Haunted has a wonderful concept and setting, but the gameplay is just too esoteric. There are too few hints or suggestions on what to do next, and no discernible reason as to which actions will lead to failure, making the experience more frustrating than enjoyable.

The post This Is Not A Review: Connection Haunted appeared first on Gamecritics.com.