HIGH Wiping out a giant zombie with a shotgun in one hand and revolver in the other.

LOW Having suiciders spawn right on top of me over and over again.

WTF That buckethead zombie is getting up to some weird stuff.

The Zombie Army franchise has been chugging along for over a decade now, giving players a chance to blast apart hordes of the undead using weapons and mechanics from the the Sniper Elite games. Four titles in, ZA has developed its own cast and lore, and with Hitler finally destroyed at the end of Dead War, the developers at Rebellion are looking to expand the world beyond the Nazi demonology that had driven the plot until now.

This time around the threat is of a more eldritch nature. In a plot largely cribbed from the film The Keep, an allied bombing raid has released an incredibly powerful horror from its prison beneath a German castle, and it’s up to the player to end its reign of terror before the whole world is consumed. Despite the new premise and justification for the action, the game is built entirely out of assets from Zombie Army 4, ensuring that there will be plenty of familiar Nazi zombies to blast.

Unfortunately, the transition to VR has proven a little bumpy for the franchise. Rather than simply adding a VR perspective and manual weapon handling — a formula that has worked fantastically for Capcom in recent years — the decision was made to offer an original and significantly scaled-down experience.

Most of the series’ classic weapons appear, including the delightful triple-barreled shotgun, which is an absolute beast to use. This is a good thing.

The enemies, on the other hand, suffer from an extremely reduced roster. There are regular zombies, tank zombies, machine gun zombies, snipers, grenadiers, and dynamite-clad suiciders — but that’s it for standard enemies. No sneaky creepers, monstrous butchers, or vomiting water zombies. The iconic zombie shark — tragically — appears only as a taxidermied specimen on a wall.

From a mechanical standpoint, the gameplay is almost perfect. Weapons are intuitive, and movement options are varied enough to make sure everyone from newbies to the most experienced VR players are satisfied. Ironically it’s the sniping that keeps it from being fully functional.

Miming a two-handed weapon is never completely effective, which led me to having a shakier aim when looking down the scope than I would have liked. Other VR sniping titles have offered motion smoothing to make the aiming feel right — and considering that Zombie Army includes the main franchise’s ‘hold breath to slow time’ mechanic, and while the game claims to offer this feature, I could detect no difference in aim shakiness whether it was turned on or off.. It feels somehow wrong that I found myself relying mainly on handguns to deal with most of the threats in a Sniper Elite spinoff.

However, the biggest issue here has is the inability to offer the overwhelming threat that the franchise is known for.

Zombie Army has historically been about desperate battles against hordes of zombies, with the player leaning on the raw power of their sniper rifle to level half a dozen bunched-up corpses with a single bullet. ZAVR, by comparison, has a hard limit of six zombies in the world at a time. Now, that may not sound like a lot, but that’s only because it absolutely isn’t. Given the arsenal the player is armed with — at any point they’ll have a pistol, machinegun and sniper rifle, as well as up to three grenades or landmines — six zombies just aren’t very threatening.

The developers try to compensate for this limitation by forcing the player to spend most of their time in tight quarters. While it’s a workable solution and leads to plenty of intense, close-up skirmishes, the result is that the sniper rifle — the weapon that the entire franchise is built around — feels largely irrelevant to most of the action.

For me, the sniper rifle only came out when my other weapons ran dry, and even then I mostly fired it from the hip. There are only a handful of areas in the campaign that allow the player to fire from a good distance away, allowing players to enjoy the classic tactics of setting up mines to defend approaches and thinning the ranks as the horde draws close. Of course, there are no hordes in ZAVR, so these sniper sequences let me wipe out every zombie before they ever had a chance of getting near.

While the combat may not feel like franchise material fans expect, the developers have done a great job of building battlefields that justify the frantic fighting. There are cluttered graveyards where zombies can pop up at any moment, mazelike crypts with threats around every turn, and the standout — a mad science bunker full of strange machinery and piping that the zombies can use to corner the player.

These environments look great and are packed with collectibles and interesting details. The franchise has always done a great job of depicting a European theatre absolutely wrecked by the zombie apocalypse, and ZAVR doesn’t disappoint from an art design standpoint. The only drawback is that the graphics have clearly been dialed back to ensure that the game will work on all headsets, meaning that I never really felt as if I was getting the full experience out of my PSVR2.

Zombie Army VR isn’t a failure by any means — the zombie shooting is certainly thrilling in its brutality, even if it still feels like a bit of a missed opportunity. The relative paucity of zombies, the fact that the sniper rifle feels like a secondary weapon, and the lack of any of the franchise’s crazier elements, like magical combat abilities or zombified vehicles, conspire to make it feel like half of the experience it should be. Maybe we’ll get extremely lucky and when Rebellion gets around to making Zombie Army 5 they’ll consider developing a VR version alongside it so that we’ll finally get a chance to truly inhabit this world.

Rating: 6 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed by Rebellion and Xtended Realities and published by Rebellion. It is currently available on PC/Quest 3/PSVR2. Copies of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PSVR2. Approximately 10 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode. The game was completed. Multiplayer modes were not sampled.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated M and contains Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, and Language. The swearing isn’t too bad, although the violence absolutely is. Not to mention the presence of a bunch of Nazi iconography and the fact that the player has to work with ‘heroic’ Nazis to battle the villain. Keep children far away from it.

Colorblind Modes: There are colorblind modes.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: While the dialogue is subtitled, there are no visual cues present to assist with offscreen threats. This is especially troubling because suiciders can one-shot the player if they get too close, and the only warning players get about their approach are their famous screams. Consider playing the game on easy difficulty only.

Remappable Controls: No, the game’s controls are not remappable. There is no control diagram. Players use one thumbstick to control movement and the other to change facing — they can decide which controller does which in the settings.

The post Zombie Army VR Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH Goodbye “Quests”, hello “Leads”!

LOW Shallow gameplay mechanics.

WTF They “say less is more” but isn’t it too little!?

Atomfall is Rebellion’s timely break from the Sniper Elite franchise.

Officially called a first-person survival actioner, this work of historical science fiction is a reasonably-sized double-A project that does not want all of a player’s time and attention, instead offering a short, mysterious adventure filled with conspiracies and moral dilemmas.

Atomfall‘s story is set five years after the UK’s (real life) Windscale Fire nuclear incident of 1957. In this alternate take, a military quarantine protocol is enacted and players control of someone who’s had an accident that left him unconscious for five years. Upon waking up, the protagonist discovers that he’s lost his memory and now must find the truth behind the incident and a way out of the quarantine that’s been in effect for all this time.

Atomfall is played from a first-person perspective, and employs stealth and shooting elements. In the early stages, firearms and bullets are rare and combat is mostly focused on melee. Later on, different types of firearms such as revolvers, marksman rifles, and bows can be acquired through looting, exploration, or trading. The world consists of four areas that are connected through a hub-like facility called The Interchange. Different factions reside in each part of the world, and as one might expect, the factions can consider the player either friend or foe based on their choices.

Atomfall can largely be seen as two halves — the gameplay and the narrative.

Though there is a barebones skill tree that improves combat, stealth, and survival capabilities of the player, it doesn’t provide any active special abilities. As such, Atomfall largely plays the same at the end as it does at the beginning, resulting in the combat and stealth feeling shallow, especially since the mechanics (in general) are on par with something from the early 2000s.

For example, players can crouch or hide in bushes to prevent being detected and to take out enemies silently from behind but that’s all there is to it. The awareness of enemies is also incredibly high, which makes it nearly impossible to stealth without it eventually turning into a shootout. The same goes for combat. Melee is tanky and slow because there’s no dodge or deflect, and shootouts are all about hiding behind a rock and returning fire. There are no cover systems or special abilities to add depth or strategy to any of the action. In fact, the only good thing about combat is the weapon variety and the ability to upgrade later in the campaign, increasing a weapon’s stats and their looks.

With such straightforward action, Atomfall‘s narrative and story are certainly its strongest suits, and to be fair, its opening is a good one — imagine leaving an underground bunker, suffering from amnesia and the very first thing in view is an atomic powerplant on the horizon surrounded by strange cyan auroras. Before that sight can be properly digested, a nearby payphone rings and a monstrous voice on the other side requests the death of someone called Oberon! Just five minutes into the experience we’re already faced with so many questions — what happened to that powerplant? Who is Oberon? Who are these people living in this mess? And what is my role in it? Mystery is a classic way to kick off an adventure, and the team at Rebellion have nailed it.

Atomfall also tries to redefine the notion of quests and rebrands them as “leads” — and they don’t start and end in a traditonal linear way. Some of the leads players find at the beginning of the story will continue to get updated until the very end. Sometimes finding an object updates the log for multiple leads and adds entries about them. Every lead might be as important as the next, and players will find themselves in a web of interconnected leads whose value and importance are sometimes revealed only after their conclusion.

Further, Atomfall doesn’t believe in handholding when it comes to exploration and lead design. Players must follow visual clues such as a bloody set of footprints that lead to a waterfall to find a hidden cave behind it. Such do-it-yourself encounters are the basis of exploration which might result in finding rare resources, weapons, quest items, or more leads.

While Atomfall‘s ending isn’t a top-notch example in the genre, it is highly reflective of the choices players make and their interactions with NPCs. Supporting characters met along the way are well written and each have characteristics that make them feel like unique human beings with agendas and aspirations, and very often they’re in contrast with what someone else wants — for example, one might be focused on accepting what’s happening in the zone, another NPC asks you to fight against the odds, while yet another might suggest jumping ship and leaving everyone else to their fate. Credits will roll accordingly.

Atomfall is ultimately what I call a “chimera” game — it incorporates elements from different genres, but keeps their influence on a surface level. It has resource management and crafting mechanics of classic survival titles, multiple endings and choice-related story and gameplay outcomes akin to classic RPGs, and an emphasis on exploration usually seen in action-adventure counterparts. These are all good things at first glance, but the lack of depth in most regards makes it hard to recommend to dedicated genre fans while also making it relevant to any discussion on traditional boundaries of defining genre.

Rating: 7 out of 10

Buy Atomfall: PC – PS – XB

Disclosures: This game is published and developed by Rebellion. It is available on PC, PS4/5, and XBO/X/S. This copy was obtained via publisher and was reviewed on PC. Approximately 14 hours were spent in single-player and the game was completed. There is no multiplayer.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated M for Blood, Language and Violence. The site reads: Battles are highlighted by gunfire, cries of pain, and blood-splatter effects. Players have the ability to attack/kill bystanders and civilians, snapping their necks and/or slashing them repeatedly, with large blood-splatter effects. During the course of the game, players can encounter bloodstained corpses and/or blood on the ground. The words “sht” and “prck” appear in the game.

Colorblind Modes: Colorblind modes are not present in the options menu.

Deaf and Hard of Hearing Gamers: There are subtitles and visual options available in the game, all of which can be adjusted. There were no audio cues of note. This game is fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: The controls can be remapped.

The post Atomfall Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH Vibrant atmosphere with expert storytelling.

LOW Unbalanced, grindy combat.

WTF People flying by spinning in place.

TRANSCRIPT:

Hi everyone! Eugene Sax here with another review from GameCritics.com!

In some places, music is more than just the rhythm of sound. On Saturn, music is the source of electricity and life for its highly cyber world. In this sci-fi setting, Bobo is an imprisoned sinner not because she’s committed crimes, but because she has an ability that most do not — she can sing. After an escape from confinement and a decision to rebel against the system in earnest, she’ll uncover the truth about Saturn’s music and a secret artifact known as the Keylocker that will set their world free. 

Keylocker is a turn-based tactics RPG where players control Bobo as she leads a rebellion against the corrupt Emperor of Saturn who’s outlawed music in order to control electricity. Players will fight against members of the Saturn church while gathering equipment and resources to ultimately take on the Emperor himself.

Just a glance will show that Keylocker is gorgeous. The pixel art is both beautiful and decrepit, highlighting both the neon-soaked city and the slimy dregs that Bobo pulls themselves up from. The characters are also great, each with a unique portrait and style, from the hacker wearing a computer version of Greek drama masks, to the gas mask girl with a keyboard guitar. These faces are in stark contrast to most of the enemies who are shown in muted colors, all feeling very uniform.

For most of the campaign, players will follow cyborgs Bobo and Dealer. They seem a bit one-note to start with Bobo being rebellious and wild, while Dealer is aloof and self-centered. However, they quickly evolve from tropes into much more. Dealer soon shows a softer and caring side, while Bobo learns self sacrifice and the value of the greater good. This growth also applies to the enemies as well, as their initial notes of infighting during story scenes are revealed to be varying motives that reveal themselves as players progress.

Combat has players managing both EP (electric points – the equivalent of mana) and LP (life points). Once the LP of a character drops to zero, they are out of the fight. EP is used for everything during a skirmish, like charging up a shield for allies, providing armor, or powering up moves that attack enemies directly. The developers lean heavily into timing-based fights similar to something like the Mario and Luigi series. Selecting an action will trigger a prompt, and if the player hits the action command perfectly, they’ll receive a bonus to the action like more damage on a hit, or completely dodging enemy attacks.

It seems fine on the surface, but the problem with Keylocker‘s combat is how frequent and unbelievably brutal it is. As players finish each enemy, a danger meter will fill. When it’s maxed out, more enemies will spawn in. This can lead to some encounters having waves of enemies instead of just a single group. And as I mentioned just a moment ago, timing is key to every action. If a player attacks and misses the mark, the damage they deal is significantly reduced, or they might even take damage themselves in the process. And that’s just for attacking. If players miss a single button on defense, that could mean a character death, even if they’re at full health — And this is on the normal difficulty!

The other problem is how grind-focused the campaign is. Players need to fight to level up, but this timing-based fighting is just too dangerous, and players with imperfect rhythm might find the early parts basically impossible to crack. On the other hand, someone who can nail the timing consistently could probably walk through most of the content with nothing to worry about.

I want to like Keylocker more. The world is beautiful, the atmosphere of cyber-Saturn is great, and I have found parts of the story to be genuinely moving. However, those things just aren’t enough to make up for its grindy, repetitive and punishing combat, and ultimately, this is a hard one to recommend to anyone besides the most hardcore RPG players.

For me: Keylocker gets 6.5 sad guitar plucks out of 10.

Disclosures: This game is developed by Moonana and published by Serenity Forge. It is currently available on PC, PS5 and XBS/X. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the Steam. Approximately 10 hours of play were spent playing the game, and the game was not completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated E10+ and contains Fantasy Violence, Mild Blood, and Mild Language. Characters will be seen coughing up pink blood when they are close to death, and the portrait screens for the characters will become bloody and beat up. Players will be using everything from musical instruments to firearms to attack robots, cyborgs, and animals. There is some cursing (d***, b******, etc), but not the major curses (f*** or s*** for example).

Colorblind Modes: Colorblind Modes are not present.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles, but subtitles can not be altered and/or resized. All of the audio cues required for gameplay also come with visual cues. The game is fully accessible.

Remappable controls: Controls are completely remappable.

The post Keylocker VIDEO Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH A new twist on the deckbuilding genre.

LOW The interesting mechanics feel unfinished.

WTF Weasels with a shiv obsession.

TRANSCRIPT:

Hi Everyone! Eugene Sax with another video review from Gamecritics.com.

Roguelike deckbuilers have been a really hot commodity in the past few years, and there’s just something so satisfying and enjoyable about building my own deck of cards to get through a game. Banners of Ruin takes that a step further and adds some strategy game elements, allowing players to control a team with the goal of taking down a tyrannical ruler. But can it stand up to some of the most well known deckbuilders out there?

Banners of Ruin puts players in control of a group of rebels rising up against the tyrannical rule of House Ender after a traitor handed the kingdom to them. Now, the player’s house — House Blackfoot — wants to put things right by infiltrating the city, eliminating the usurper and giving the city back to its people.

Gameplay is split between combat and travel phases. In the travel phase, players will choose from three decks of cards that represent different paths throughout the city. Each deck can have events like shops offering opportunities to purchase cards and equipment, chances to recruit characters, or chances to gain experience and level up party characters. The combat phase will have the player using their deck to fight corrupt city guards and mercenaries, normally winning some type of new card and gold used to buy items later. This is all common ground shared with other deckbuilers, but there’s a strategy element that sets Banner of Ruin apart.

In combat, both sides have a frontline and backline, split up into three lanes. This makes movement critical to winning combat. If a player can push an enemy into an inactive lane, it can delay their attacks and buy time to set up additional defenses or inflict a damaging status effect. If an enemy is going to attack, players can use a movement card to transfer the target to a different lane, and the enemy attack will miss.

These are all great ideas to enrich deckbuilder gameplay, but I feel like things are in need of more balancing. While the game encourages players to move characters around to dodge attacks and alter the turn order, there weren’t enough movement cards available to reliably move my troops around, nor the enemy for that matter. It always felt easier to simply throw the heaviest armor on my characters and pray for cards that allowed me to stack shields. Also, this game demands efficiency and will brutally punish players if they make a mistake. I used an ability that allowed my character to swap places with another to try and mitigate damage, but it ended up giving the enemies a bonus that allowed them to wipe my party in one round.

Banners of Ruin also never makes it worth recruiting characters except for the rare lucky occurrence of getting a character for free by winning combat instead of buying them. Right before each boss, there will always be a spot to recruit characters. Most of the time though, these new recruits characters are weaker than my party and they never felt ready for the fights they were immediately thrown into. When I tried using this option, I’d recruit a character right before a boss fight, only to have them killed one or two rounds into combat. On the other hand, if I tried to go forward without new characters, I’d end up falling into fights where I was outnumbered, and at that point, my deck and strategy didn’t matter.

I’m torn on Banners of Ruin. The atmosphere and artwork are superb, and I like the story that it’s trying to tell. I also enjoy the concepts it’s trying to deliver and the new ideas it offers to the deckbuilding genre. Ultimately though, it doesn’t feel like it hits what it’s aiming for and it’s a hard one to recommend except to the most hardcore deckbuilder fans out there.

For me, Banners of Ruin gets a 6.5 out of 10.

Disclosures: This game is developed by Montebearo and published by Goblinz Publishing and Maple Whispering Limited. It is currently available on PC and Switch. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PC. Approximately 12 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 T and contains Blood, Violence, Language, and use of Alcohol. Players will be playing cards that depict images of attacking other animal characters, blood dripping from some weapons and bloodied characters in some of the events between combat. Some events will have players drinking a round to heal or interacting with drunk guards.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes for this game.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: All information is displayed through text, but text size is not resizable. The sound provides ambiance, but is not necessary to play This game is fully accessible.

Remappable Controls:  There are no remappable controls for this game, and there is no control display. All actions are controlled through mouse input and clicking and dragging cards.

The post Banners of Ruin Video Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH Getting a scope shot from 250 meters away.

LOW Fighting against technical limitations on PSVR.

WTF That’s a strange replacement for Swastikas everywhere!

There wasn’t a moment of Sniper Elite VR that didn’t feel familiar to me. Sniping German officers from church towers like a holy avenging angel, infiltrating rail yards to sabotage infrastructure, having run-and-gun battles through bombed-out villages — everything it has to offer, I’ve already seen in Sniper Elite 4. Literally, in most cases, because the game is built almost entirely from assets snagged from it. That said, if a game is going to be made out of recycled assets, this is the way to do it.

A first-person VR take on Sniper Elite 4, Sniper Elite VR starts in the 1980s as a now-elderly partisan spends his days reminiscing about the bloodshed he was responsible for while taking Italy back from the fascists, and attempting to convince himself that it was all worth it because it created a comparatively safe and free world for his children to grow up in. It’s a hell of a framing device to come back to between each mission of virtual reality sniping, because the game is constantly reminding the player of the stakes of each mission.

It’s impressive how thoroughly the developers have recreated the Sniper Elite experience in VR — this isn’t merely a stationary shooter where the player perches on a series of rooftops and kills their targets. No, players will be taking on nearly all of the activities one would expect from a SE game like sneaking through enemy lines, executing soldiers with their silenced Welrod pistol, and sabotaging generators to give them audio cover while they snipe enemy soldiers.

The only thing that doesn’t feel completely Sniper Elite is the stealth, which is a little on the awkward side. There’s a reason that most stealth games tend to have a third-person perspective — the ability to follow enemy movements while remaining in cover is integral to an accessible stealth experience. SEVR does a good job of keeping things playable by not packing levels full of enemies whenever stealth is a necessity, but they’re consistently the most difficult sections to play because of the limited perspective.

Thankfully, Sniper Elite VR‘s sniping is impeccably tuned. There’s a wide variety of rifles, and the devs go to great lengths to adhere to realism as much as possible. True to their historical counterparts, the rifles all have fixed-range scopes — the only zooming possible is when the player uses their ‘focus’ meter to slow down time and perfect their aim, and even that only lasts a few seconds. The vast majority of sniping takes place in the 100-250 meter range, though, so it shouldn’t be too taxing. There’s even an easy mode that turns bullet drop off and makes every bullet hit the center of the crosshairs.

As usual, there’s also a red dot sight that shows where a bullet will hit before the trigger is pulled, effectively teaching players how to compensate for bullet drop in case they ever want to play the game on a higher difficulty level. The developers even added a red circle that lets players see where their SMG and pistol rounds are going to hit for people uncomfortable with VR aiming — in a nod to realism, the aimpoint only appears if they physically raise the gun up to their eye level and look down the sights. Essentially, every aim support in the game is designed to get the player comfortable enough with the controls so that they won’t have to use them any more.

In a slightly bizarre move, the developers have made the decision to include their famous ‘bullet cam’ sequences — when the player makes a particularly skillfull shot, the camera will follow the bullet through the air on the way to its target, then show the bullet tearing the enemy’s body apart in excruciating detail. My objection isn’t to the brutality on display — I’ve long since made my peace with this aspect of the franchise — but instead, the issue is in how these bullet-cam sequences break the flow of gameplay in a way they never did in non-VR iterations.

In a regular Sniper Elite, when the bullet cam ends, the player is returned to the moment they fired, aiming at the exact same point when they pulled the trigger. In VR, if the player moves their hands even slightly while watching the violent execution, it’s impossible to predict where they’ll be looking when the camera snaps back. This loss of situational awareness got me killed more than once, and after struggling against it for the better part of an hour, I did the unthinkable and turned off the X-Ray camera.

Apart from this issue, I ran into a few fairly serious technical problems while playing the game. For example, when playing with a Dual Shock, instead of letting the player aim with their eyes as in Resident Evil 7‘s VR mode, the developers expect players to awkwardly lift their controllers in front of their faces. It’s a disaster.

The Aim controller makes sniping feel much more natural since I was actually holding a ‘rifle’ up to my shoulder to shoot, and the thumbsticks ensure that navigating levels is a breeze. Trying to use pistols or picking up items feels unnatural, though, so it’s a tradeoff.

The Move controllers let the player realistically grab things in the environment, wield a pistol in each hand, and manually throw grenades, so if immersion is important, that’s the way to go. That said, the biggest problem with the PSVR is an issue of lag. Not only did I have an unusually large amount of drift, but there was a slight lag between my real-life movement and actions happening in-game. It wasn’t much more than a quarter-second, but in VR any delay is extremely noticeable. I also played the game on Vive with motion controllers and experienced none of these issues — if it’s possible, PCVR is the best way to play.

Sniper Elite VR has scrunched down everything great about the series and created a near-perfect recreation that players can now experience from the inside.

Disclosures: This game is developed by Just Add Water and published by Rebellion. It is currently available on PC/PS4/PS5. Copies of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PC and PS5. Approximately 12 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: The game was rated M by the ESRB, and it contains, Blood, Intense Violence, Language. There’s some mild swearing in the game, but as usual, the main reason to keep kids way from the game is the omnipresent hyper-gore that happens whenever a bullet explodes someone’s eye.

Colorblind Modes: There are colorblind modes for the game’s subtitles, allowing players to choose the main and background colors that are most visible to them.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles. The subtitles cannot be be altered and/or resized. I played much of the game without sound and encountered zero difficulties. While there’s no enemy radar, there are onscreen indicators to let players know which directions they’re being fired at from. This game is fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: No, the game’s controls are not remappable. There is no control diagram. The game can be played with a DS4, Aim Controller, or Move controllers on Playstation, and with Motion controllers on PC.

The post Sniper Elite VR Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH Hitting an enemy sniper halfway across the map.

LOW Up-close combat not involving sniper rifles.

WTF The x-ray testicle shot. Ouch.

Sniper Elite 4 originally came out in 2017, and like many other previously-released efforts, it’s getting a Switch port. I can’t offer any comparison to the original release or the previous entries in the series, but overall this (wait for it…) hits the mark.

Sniper Elite 4 takes place in Italy during World War II. Players control a U.S. sniper making his way across enormous levels, with such locales as rural villages, coastal urban centers, and military bases. Gameplay is mostly third person, with a scope-centric, first-person view when needing to snipe a distant target.

Most missions are rather linear but the vastness of each stage, plus the addition of multiple sidequests, helps to make things feel more open-ended. Goals usually revolve around killing a certain person, but also things like sabotaging military equipment and intel reconnaissance. Add in dozens of stage-specific collectibles like journal entries and letters home, and players can spend hours in just a single map.

A good chunk of that time will be spent as a sniper, which is a good thing as sniping is the highlight of combat here. Precise controls mean successfully lining up a shot that hits a moving target halfway across the map is quite satisfying. I would have been perfectly content spending the entire game in sniper mode — it’s that good.

Players earn experience for well-placed shots, like the eye, heart, or even the testicles! Many of these hits are shown up close and personal with x-ray vision that appears as the bullet zooms towards the unfortunate recipient — bones shattering and organs being punctured are displayed in gory slow motion. This occasionally feels like overkill, but squeamish players can turn this option off if they so choose.

Unfortunately, combat when not sniping isn’t as gratifying. The third-person aiming is clunky and I found myself preferring to hide, rather than taking on soldiers face-to-face. Much of the campaign can be completed solely by sniping enemies from afar, but there are a few parts where close combat becomes a necessity. I was always pleased when these sections were over quickly.

My only other complaint about Sniper Elite 4 is that it’s not a complete package. Three years after initial release, the Switch version arrives with numerous DLC options that require additional purchase — none of which appear to be new content. I’m not completely against DLC, but it feels like players are being nickel-and-dimed here.

Fortunately, the core experience is enjoyable enough to look past these minor shortcomings, and more often than not, Sniper Elite 4 hits the bullseye.

Disclosures: This game is developed by and published by Rebellion. It is currently available on PS4, XBO, Switch, PC, and Stadia. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the Switch. Approximately 15 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. No time was spent in multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated M and contains Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, and Language. A well-placed shot often results in an x-ray vision of splattered brains, ruptured intestines, punctured lungs, and shattered bones. Even with the option to turn off, the game can be overly violent. This game is definitely not for little kids.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available in the options.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: Subtitles are on by default, but text size cannot be changed. The game appears to be fully captioned, as I noticed numerous dialogue additions (laughs, scoffs, etc.) allowing players to know what game characters are doing besides talking. In-game audio cues, like planes and tanks moving nearby, are shown on screen with a flashing icon. The game is fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: No, this game’s controls are not remappable. However, players can invert the Y axis and there are optional motion controls for aiming weapons.

The post Sniper Elite 4 (Switch) Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH I’ll never get tired of killing you, Zombie Hitler.

LOW Waiting two minutes in an empty arena to kill a shield zombie.

WTF That is… a lot of tank.

Fans of the first three installments might be confused that Rebellion took the word “Nazi” out of the title for number four, but it’s understandable from a marketing perspective since actual Nazis are attempting a comeback around the world. However, one could also make the argument that it’s the perfect time for a game featuring the wholesale slaughter of (undead) Nazis that have crawled out their way out of hell. Thankfully, this slight change in branding is the only compromise that Rebellion has made — this latest entry is still the grindhouse splatterfest that fans of the series have come to expect.

In the aftermath of Super-Hitler’s death at the end of NZA3, the world expected the zombies he raised to quietly march back to their graves. Unfortunately, the opposite has occurred — it seems that sending Hitler to hell has only made him stronger, and now portals releasing nightmarish monstrosities are opening up all across Europe. It’s up to Karl, Boris, and two new additions to the roster, Jun and Shola, to end the occult war once and for all.

From a gameplay standpoint, this feels as much like a sequel to Rebellion’s 2018 3rd-Person Shooter Strange Brigade as it does a follow-up to the NZA trilogy. It’s a fantastic choice on the developers’ part since SB was a masterful example of quick and brutal co-op gameplay, and transitioning those mechanics into the gore-strewn locales of Zombie Army 4 works perfectly.

While there’s plenty of opportunity for Sniper Elite purists to practice precision shooting, other playstyles are also encouraged and ZA4‘s varied arsenal adapts well to player preferences. Each weapon category (rifles, secondary weapons, and pistols) has multiple options available, varying wildly in firing speed and power. SMGs, shotguns, and even pistols are all effective choices, and just like in SB, killing enemies quickly unlocks a brutal takedown that can end any enemy’s unlife with the simple tap of a button.

The devs have also added special powers to each weapon class — pistols can mark and execute half a dozen zombies in less than two seconds, rifles can stagger an entire horde with an overpowered round, and secondary weapons slow time to let the player unleash a hail of lead while dodging out of trouble. Each weapon also has a unique upgrade tree where players use upgrade kits found in the world to imbue them with elemental powers, buff their damage, or even make them unusually effective at smashing zombie skulls.

The thing that elevates ZA4 above the rest of the franchise is the care that the devs have taken to build a world where the gameplay makes perfect sense. The rest of the series was always held back by having to use Sniper Elite V2‘s assets — fine for stealth kills and long-range shooting, but never ideal for taking on hordes of zombies. This time the levels feel perfectly balanced for battling the undead thanks to defensible chokepoints to mine, overlooks for sniping, and plenty of debris-strewn arenas for players to dodge through while shotgunning zombies to pieces.

Incredibly, the maps work just as well for single player as they do for co-op. A lone soldier can easily move from one area to another while changing their tactics as the tide of battle shifts, but bringing a team will allow each player to pick a role and stick to it. A sniper can provides overwatch for an emplaced machine gunner while a melee specialist covers their flanks, for example. ZA4 doesn’t require teamwork to be entertaining, but it certainly rewards it as co-op is clearly the best way to experience ZA4.

Also impressive is the wide variety of enemies. Offering the largest roster of any Zombie Army game, ZA4 offers more than a dozen different types, from plain zombies and Resident Evil-inspired creepers, all the way up to nightmarish shadow demons that teleport soldiers across the map and scream the skin off their bones.

Just as in Strange Brigade, these enemies are meted out gradually over the course of the campaign to ensure that there are always surprises in store for the length of the campaign, and the final boss must be seen to be believed. The only dud is the shield zombie that hides behind a bulletproof barrier and lobs grenades with unerring accuracy. It’s completely manageable in co-op because it’s easy to flank, but solo players will find themselves frustrated as they wait for the shielder to pop its head out from behind cover while a horde closes in around them. In fact, they disrupt the flow of combat so badly in 1P that they should have been included only in multiplayer.

After wondering where it could go after the third entry, Zombie Army 4: Dead War is a fitting finale to the franchise. Everything about the presentation is top-notch, and there’s even a special surprise for anyone playing on the PS4. Between Left 4 Dead and World War Z, the co-op zombie shooter is a genre with some truly great titles, and now Rebellion has finally made a game that deserves to be named among the best of them.

Disclosures: This game is developed and published by Rebellion. It is currently available on PC, XBO and PS4. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PS4. Approximately 30 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed multiple times. 5 hours of play were spent in multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated M and contains Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, and Language. This is as far from acceptable for children as you can get. It’s brutally violent, full of Nazi iconography, and even contains the odd naughty word! Seriously, though, the loving detail with which exploding torsos are rendered in slow-motion will be troubling to any parent. Consider Strange Brigade instead – it’s a largely bloodless take on the same concept by the same developers.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available in the options.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: Please stick to Easy difficulty. While the game does an incredibly good job of being accessible by offering resizable subtitles for all in-game dialogue and onscreen indicators to let players know when zombies are approaching, there are ‘Suicider’ enemies that run screaming towards the player before blowing themselves up. They move fast, and the only real warning they’re on the way is the distinctive sound they make. Without that warning, they will hit you, and frequently. On easy difficulty they can’t one-shot kill you, though, so the game will be playable. Only attempt higher difficulty levels if you have a good team that’s always ready to revive you.

Remappable Controls: No, this game’s controls are not remappable. It does, however, offer the option to plug in a USB mouse and keyboard if you want to enjoy more precise shooting!

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HIGH Using the energy lasso power to disintegrate a crowd of zombies in seconds.

LOW The fleeing relic carriers are far too easy to miss.

WTF The whole final boss fight.

All of their guns are golden. I think it’s important to note that right off the top.

Other games may ask players to grind, ‘prestige’ or pay real money for golden weaponry, but Strange Brigade just throws it at the player. Every character’s starting gun is gold, engraved, and covered in custom detailing. It’s not a random thing, it’s not something the developers did on a whim – it’s a mission statement, because SB is a game devoted to excess.

A third-person shooter set in an apocryphal time between the two world wars, Strange Brigade lets players pick from four stalwart adventurers and sets them on a quest to stop an evil Egyptian goddess from conquering the world. How can they save the day? By shooting zombies. Hundreds and thousands of zombies.

As a spiritual follow-up to Rebellion’s Nazi Zombie Army, Strange Brigade offers the same kind of co-op thrills that series specialized in, now expanded to an impressive degree. Where NZA was beholden to Sniper Elite‘s mechanics whether or not they made sense, SB has been built from the ground up to give up to four players the best possible ride as they shatter long-dead walking corpses.

In addition to a wide array of firearms and grenades, each character comes with a special perk such as unlocking secret doors or gaining health with every kill. They also each have a super attack that’s powered by collecting the souls of defeated foes. The choice of character is more than aesthetic here, as the various skills suit different playstyles that can work well in combination with one another. One character might be able to lure a mob of zombies around a decoy, while another leaps in with an explosive power dive to wipe them out in a single strike. The devs have managed a perfect balance here — all of the characters are perfectly playable solo, but have clear roles to fill in multiplayer.

The levels are built around facilitating fast and brutal combat thanks to corridors packed with zombies and infested arenas with clear sightlines and player-activated traps. Combat is frantic, with SB constantly surprising players for almost its entire length — there are eight standard levels and one abbreviated final boss level, and every one introduces at least two new enemy types that complicate things.

While the game can easily be played via nonstop combat, each level is also littered with hidden rooms and puzzle doors. A few of these are mandatory – energy beam puzzles or lights that have to be shot in a certain order – but the vast majority are optional. It’s here that the developers truly make the game feel as accessible to single players as it is to groups – something NZA never managed.

When played solo, these side objectives completely change the pace by encouraging full exploration of the stunning levels, each one littered with clever detail work and gorgeous vistas. To keep from feeling repetitive, games need to constantly change either mechanics or environments, and Strange Brigade goes hard for the second option. Every level follows a simple ‘kill plenty of enemies on the way to the boss fight’ structure, but each location is vastly different than the last. Moving from day to night, and from claustrophobic tunnels to wide-open plazas, every area offers a distinct architectural style and a twist on pathfinding, ensuring that the player never gets hit with a sense of deja vu.

Strange Brigade is the rare title that manages to construct completely satisfying single- and multiplayer experiences in the exact same space. It’s not a huge project — a motivated team could blast through in under five hours while digging up all of the secrets might take closer to twenty — but it’s immensely replayable thanks to character variety and the different dynamics of co-op and solo modes. With each new Sniper Elite game being markedly better than the last and Battlezone being a standout achievement in VR tank simulation, I feel like I say this at least once a year, but it’s always true — Rebellion has done it again! Rating: 9 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed and published by Rebellion. It is currently available on PC, PS4, and XBO. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PS4 Pro. Approximately 20 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. Five hours of play were spent in multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated T and contains Animated Blood, and Violence. This game is weirdly safe for an ultra-violent romp. There’s no vulgarity, and the violence is almost entirely bloodless since players are battling reanimated corpses. A few giant scorpions bleed, but that’s it.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available in the options.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: I played a good amount of the game without audio and had almost no problems. The developers have come up with a clever way for the Deaf to know if they’re about to be attacked by offscreen enemies – spectral hands appear at the edges of the screen to alert players. It’s creepy and helpful at the same time! Now, the problems. There are enemies that carry valuable relics and cat statues that can be shot for cash rewards. Both make their presence known only by sound effects. While it’s possible to stumble onto them without hearing the telltale jingling or meows, it’s far more difficult than if the developers had added a ‘meowing’ and ‘jingling’ visual cue when they appear. All dialogue is subtitled, though. (Yep, they’re there… Look closely below. The subs are tiny!!)

Remappable Controls: No, this game’s controls are not remappable.

The post Strange Brigade Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH The brutal stealth executions.

LOW Trying to fight on a staircase when all I can see is Rogue’s back.

WTF Where’s my Strontium Dog game, Rebellion?

Fundamentally, this is the same game that Brad and Andrew reviewed so positively more than a decade ago when the original version was released on the PC, PS2, and Xbox. Please read those articles for more information, but back then this was an innovative shooter with a slightly wonky camera and an awkward cover system that does a fantastic job of adapting source material perfectly designed for a videogame. The voice acting is top-notch, and the newly refined textures do a good job of hiding just how simple and blocky the environments are.

Is this work still relevant, though? Is it worth a look from a new generation of players who have no particular affinity for the original? Does the world need another third-person sci-fi shooter? Especially one that’s clearly showing its age?

I think so.

At its core, this is a fabulous strategic shooter. Rogue is one of the most versatile heroes in gaming, as he’s equipped with an incredibly modular arsenal. His rifle can have a number of different attachments swapped in, going from ‘shotgun’ for clearing tight hallways to ‘surface-to-air missile launcher’ in just a few seconds. He can snipe foes huge distances away or leave the rifle on autofire, picking off and distracting enemies while he sneaks around the map to break necks or take headshots with his backup magnum.

Rogue Trooper‘s biggest problem is that the levels tend to be too small and linear to really give the player a chance to try out the abilities. This is a character that can create a minefield whenever he wants, then build a holo-decoy on the other side to trick soldiers into running straight into it. Why is he just running through small industrial facilities? The answer, of course, is that consoles at the time were completely incapable of handling the kinds of worlds that Rogue should be inhabiting. Rebellion went on to build an amazing open-world shooter in this year’s Sniper Elite 4, but even that game can’t match the ambition that goes unrealized by this title.

When Rogue Trooper is at its best, it’s running players through beautifully-crafted action setpieces. Players will map out an area, use grenades to soften up a position, get the enemy chasing shadows, then sweep in for the kill. Walking tanks will lumber out of hangers, then be shut down by EMP grenades so that Rogue can rush in for an execution. There are too few of these sequences, however, and the regular cover-based shooting, while solid, isn’t anything that hasn’t been done better elsewhere. Also, every time Rogue gets anywhere near a turret, the game just gets terrible. It’s especially sad that there’s an entire level devoted to running the player between them.

While the original game is a mixed bag, the new multiplayer modes are a great addition. In addition to a wave defense mode, there’s a challenge mode that lets players fight their way through extremely dangerous maps while drawing from a limited pool of lives. All of the modes can be played single or multi-player, and all provide a nicely-tuned difficulty level, ensuring that multiple players will have to cover and support one another if they want to succeed.

Rogue Trooper is strange in that it stars a character too large and interesting for the game he’s the center of. The devs were clearly pushing the limits of the hardware back then, and this property and its ideas deserve a bigger and better canvas than a simple Redux can deliver. Rating: 7 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed by TickTock Games and published by Rebellion. It is currently available on PS4, PC, and XBO. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PS4. Approximately 10 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. 3 hours of play were spent in multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated T and contains Blood and Violence. This game is kind of the ultimate example of ratings going easy on violence so long as it’s in a war setting. Necks are snapped, throats are slashed, hundreds of heads are shot. There are drones made out of shrapnel that fly around and explode, shredding people. Just so much violence. Older teens only, please.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game is perfectly playable without audio. There’s an onscreen radar that alerts players to enemy positions, and Rogue’s teammates and foes always loudly announce what they’re going to do – both through audio and subtitles, ensuring that the player will always have a good sense of the state of play.

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

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available in the options.

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HIGH Pulling off a 400-meter headshot in high winds.

LOW No longer being able to choose what kind of scope I want to use.

WTF The often-strange bios that appear over enemies when watching them with binoculars.

Well, Rebellion has done it again. Every time a new Sniper Elite game has come out since 2012’s V2, I`ve noticed that each title is a marked improvement over the previous one. There’s something new this time, however — something that elevates Sniper Elite 4 beyond incremental improvement, marking it as the first great game in the series. Rebellion has finally embraced open levels that can be fully explored and traversed, and the difference is tremendous.

Moving the action to Italy, Sniper Elite 4 follows franchise hero Karl Fairburne on his quest to safeguard the Allied invasion of Sicily. The Axis want to deploy radio-operated drone bombs capable of sinking the fleet before it nears land, and they must be stopped. To accomplish this he’ll have to work with Italian partisans, collect secret documents, and, naturally, shoot people from hundreds of meters away.

At long last, Rebellion has both the will to design an incredible sniping game and the technology to realize their dreams. Gone are the tight canyons and claustrophobic cities of the previous entries. While players could (at best) expect three or four great sniping setpieces in the earlier games, SE4 offers choice sightlines and perfectly-placed roosts in every single level. Each area also offers a wide variety of sound-masking options to give players the chance to shatter skulls all over the map without the enemy having the slightest idea where the shots are coming from.

The first level acts as a kind of statement of purpose — Karl is set loose on an island where the drone is being tested, and tasked with killing a general and his four officers. Players can approach this task any way they want, including blasting their way from cover to cover, riddling Nazis with SMG fire, sneaking around patrols, setting traps and slitting throats, or — and this is where the game really stands out — climbing to the top of a tower and shooting the general from 400 meters away. Sniper Elite 4 is now both the most versatile entry in the franchise, and the most sniping-focused.

Sniper aficionados will find that playing on Authentic difficulty is once again a sadistically satisfying experience. Where the normal mode simplifies matters by letting players zoom in and out with both the sniper scope and the binoculars they use to mark targets, Authentic locks them into using a standard magnification – 20x for the binocs, or considerably lower for the rifles. Not being able to mark targets and watch silhouettes move behind cover changes the game completely. Accurate shooting requires binoculars to find out an enemy’s exact distance, adjusting the scope for bullet drop, and some quick calculations to determine how wind strength will affect their aim. It’s harsh training, and at the start of the game, every successful shot feels like a miracle. By the end of the campaign, players will be able to hit their marks entirely on instinct.

The multiplayer is excellent once again. While it features standard deathmatch modes, the real standouts are the sniping challenges. No-Man’s-Land mode forces teams to stay on opposite sides of a barrier, engaging solely with rifles. Distance King, scores players (or teams) based on how far their killshots flew before putting their opponents down. Both work incredibly well and feel like nothing else out there. While there are just a few maps currently available, each is dense and complex enough to allow for intensely strategic gameplay.

While the entire campaign can be played in two-player co-op, the standout co-op mode is Overwatch. This mode offers two huge maps packed with objectives, but the twist is that one player controls Karl, moving along a series of cliffs and bridges looking down on the mission area, while the second player controls a partisan commando who must sneak through the levels, stealing files and sabotaging facilities. The commando also marks targets for the sniper to execute, and the sniper picks off the soldiers that have the commando pinned down under heavy fire. It’s a completely different experience than the campaign, but it’s every bit as polished and fits perfectly alongside it. It’s only two levels, but they’re beautifully constructed and do an incredible job of encouraging and transforming teamwork into satisfying gameplay.

Sniper Elite 4 is the best sniping game I’ve ever played, and is absolutely the high point of the series. This is a perfect example of what can be achieved if a developer understands what their game’s potential is, and never stops working towards it. Rebellion has made huge leaps forward with every new entry in this series, and they’ve finally reached a point where the results are flat-out incredible. I can only imagine the great things they’ll accomplish in the future. Rating: 9 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed and published by Rebellion. It is currently available on Xbox One, PS4, and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PS4. Approximately 30 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. 4 hours of play were spent in multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated M and contains violence, blood and gore, strong language. As always, I’m going to suggest that you keep the kids as far as possible from this title. Exploding eyeballs, crushed testicles, punctured livers spewing bile everywhere — this is as disgustingly violent as games get. I know it’s tempting, especially today, to teach children the value of shooting Nazis and Fascistas, but try to find a game that’s a little less gruesome unless they’re in their mid-to-late teens.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: On the higher difficulty levels sound is an important element of the game’s design, but so long as you turn the mini-map on you should have no trouble playing the game. There’s still a sound-masking symbol onscreen to let you know when it’s safe to snipe.

Remappable Controls: No, this game’s controls are not remappable.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available in the options.

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