Thassalophobia. The fear of deep, dark water, the unimaginable unknown beneath you. Some will never venture into the ocean due to this universally understood existential terror.  For fishermen, however, this is all just part of the job. Sure, there may be ancient Lovecraftian beasts beneath the waves but there’s also tasty grub, so what are you going to do? Who has time to deal with Cthulu’s nonsense when you have bills to pay? Balancing terror with the satisfaction of a good working day is the incredible achievement of Dredge – a game that need not fish for compliments. 

Deep Gameplay

In Dredge you take control of a small fishing vessel, venturing between several islands in hopes of catching fish to sell to pay off your initial debts and to further upgrade your boat. It’s reminiscent of Phantom Hourglass but with all on-foot exploration removed from the equation for a purer sailing experience. The fishing itself may be slightly simplistic, usually a fairly easy-to-win minigame. Yet, the variety of these for the different types of bounty makes for a surprisingly relaxing time.

However, the game’s inner clock is always whizzing by and before you know it, you’re trapped in the middle of the ocean in pitch-black, only a tiny crap light barely illuminating in front of you. Here, the Lovecraftian influences come out to play. As you’re out in the darkness your mind will play tricks on you, rocks suddenly appearing in front of your eyes to damage your boat, threats of creatures sneaking on board, turning the pleasant simulation of being a rustic fisherman into a truly damn’d voyage.

Dark Water

Make no mistake: the first time you’re trapped in the dark is a true gauntlet. Your boat is so slow, the lights so dim and the horrible realisation that bashing into an obstacle can cause you to lose your captured fish. The fruits of your labour, gone! As you become a successful fisherman however you can upgrade your boat to better stand the trials of the night. Journeys being halved thanks to new, sexy engines is an incredibly satisfying progression, one that makes the game hard to put down.

As you progress and can salvage junk from the ocean more storylines and quests open up. The characters you meet are memorably odd, all presented with beautiful artwork and fun, nautical dialogue. Combined with the gorgeous cartoon-style rendering of the ocean makes Dredge one handsome game.

Dredge is a terrific, tight taste of ocean life beautifully mixed with horror elements. If this sounds up your alley, you don’t need to wait for a sale to set sail.

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A Prickly Fellow

Oh, Sonic. Once the poster boy of 90’s rude ‘tude, for the last two decades, he’s become the furry equivalent of the Steve Buscemi “hello fellow kids” meme. No longer able to dine out on his early 2D successes, Sonic now squeezes out a terrible 3D platformer every few years, each time promising to be the one that gets it right at last. With Sonic Frontiers poised as his most ambitious adventure yet, does SEGA finally get 3D Sonic right?

In short: nope. There’s an exciting ambition to the game, releasing Sonic into a large environment with enormous enemies to tackle but the whole production has a ramshackle level of quality. Sonic and pals are at odds with the realistic, empty and desaturated environments from a sheer aesthetic perspective. This is instantly jarring though the visuals are much improved in the subspace “classic” Sonic levels. The alien enemies are especially drab, removing visual interest from the already dull and messy combat situations.

Tailgating

He may be the titular character but the game Sonic inhabits doesn’t seem to have been designed for him. His speed is at odds with the physics engine, resulting in bizarre glitches and flubs. Scaling an enormous enemy as quickly as possible is an exciting prospect but the ensuing battles have so many flubs and bugs that they truly showcase the folly of letting Sonic off the rails. Open world design at the expense of platforming precision, the world of Frontiers is a literally massive letdown.

Exploration fares a bit better. Unshackled from platforming precision, running around the sprawling giant landmasses is a much better use of Sonic’s abilities. Though there’s little of interest to see after the first few hours it’s a brief bit of respite from the tedium of combat. The homing attack represents the fundamental failure of Sonic as a fighter, so zippy and manic that precision is simply impossible without the game doing it for you.

Knuckle Headed

Sonic Frontiers represents the best and worst of Sonic across his 30-year career. The dizzying speed may still allure but his ludicrous lack of progress in the 3D space is an utter embarrassment. If SEGA must insist on making Sonic titles then they need to progress past these half-baked concepts. Sonic Frontiers squanders its promising ideas, resulting in perhaps Sonic’s most frustrating adventure to date. Being fast doesn’t matter if you’re just running in circles and until this series finds a new sense of purpose, consider Sonic a fursona non grata.

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2022-04-13

Ahh, Star Wars. A series of mostly delightful children’s films that somehow generates absurd furious discourse. Whether it be Ewoks, Gungans or Holiday Specials there’s always something to inspire internet bile. Therein lies the magic of Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga. From the opening cutscene spanning all three trilogies, a firm sense of gleeful unity is established. Characters across the series stand proudly together around the game’s logo, a seeming balance to the Force. Regardless of anyone’s feelings on any of the films, a goofy good time is promised.

Putting the “block” in blockbusters, the Lego series’ riffs on popular films started with the Star Wars prequels back in 2005. The simplicity of the game along with its charming humour and co-op made it a firm family favourite. Followed up with the original trilogy, Clone Wars cartoon and episode VII, the series has stuck around, albeit drowned out slightly by the mass of other Lego games.

Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga – A Bigger Fish

Playing the Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga feels like a quantum leap in many ways. A leap made with a faulty hyperdrive anyway. Every major gameplay advancement comes at the expense of older qualities that made the original titles so enticing. The enormous open worlds and interplanetary travel is exciting and vast but it comes at the expense of the excellently designed levels of the originals. Now individual films are retold in a combination of open-world sections with some linear levels thrown in. Bizarre story cuts are made to tell these truncated tales: Alderaan’s iconic destruction is absent!

Click to view slideshow.

After booting Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga up you can choose to begin episodes I, IV or VII. You have to play these to unlock their subsequent episodes meaning you can pick your favourite trilogy and have a complete story arc or go through the entire saga in order. Jumping around may be the best way to play, meaning you can unlock character classes for free play exploration. It’s a shame to see the hilarious humour of older titles diluted through full voice acting. As a wise Irish Jedi once said, the ability to speak does not make you intelligent.

No one’s ever really gone

Characters have so many abilities compared to older titles. Playing as a Jedi you now have extensive Force abilities. From picking up objects to commanding weak-minded NPCs. Blaster based heroes now play like a third-person shooter, taking cover and even blasting off trooper helmets with precise shots.

Even protocol droids now have an effete slap and can disassemble themselves in order to sneak through small passages! With 380 characters to unlock there’s a wide range of utilities that will come in handy for free mode exploration. Characters across the saga are represented but sadly Solo, Rogue One and Mandalorian characters are paid DLC.

A Different Point of View

Space exploration and combat feel extremely responsive and exciting. Bizarrely the dogfights feel almost exactly lifted from the last Battlefront title, the battle over Naboo feeling insanely hectic for a Lego game. Ground combat has been spruced up with a weird combo system that never quite clicks, a hollow attempt at improving a system that never required further elaboration. Co-op is also rejigged to suit the game’s enormous size, though at the expense of the clarity of the original titles.

While it’s great to see this series continue its newfound ambition has led to newfound weaknesses in the formula. The size, visuals and addictive gameplay are all still very impressive but the scourge of open-world spread rears its ugly head. Star Wars fans will be tickled pink by the in-jokes and bonkers unlockables (Yaddle!) but the uninitiated will be left cold.

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You can also pre-order Limited Run Games’ exclusive edition featuring alternate box-art, a colourful manual and their limited collector’s edition featuring goodies such as the official Cotton Nendoroid figure.

Cotton Fantasy is promising to be another great instalment in the 30-year-old series, with crisp HD graphics and new game mechanics. Play as one of six characters, with some exciting guest stars now in the mix. Adding this to highly replayable levels with online leaderboards and you’re looking at a package with a lot of mileage. New players and veterans alike will find themselves hooked!

I had the great pleasure of reviewing Cotton Reboot recently and can vouch for this great if obscure franchise. My full review can be found here. Cotton Fantasy will release in the first quarter of 2022 and I can’t wait to get to talk about it more in the future.

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The Galway native became the first female conductor in Oscar history at the ceremony in February 2020 and throughout her 15-year career has conducted many orchestras including Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the BBC Concert Orchestra.

Her gaming credits include such titles as Overwatch, Diablo III and World of Warcraft to name but a few.

In this episode of Players Unlocked, Eimear talks about the impact video game music has had on players around the world.

“It always fascinated me how music and the twist of a chord change… can just ignite a picture.. it can make you physically feel goosebumps”.

Players Unlocked see’s Tony Cantwell speak to some of Ireland’s biggest gamers, each from very different backgrounds. Throughout the series guests discuss what role gaming, and PlayStation, has played in their life.

The series has already featured guests such as lifelong gamer, perpetual mammy-botherer and TV star Baz Ashmawy, streamer Úna-Minh Kavanagh and Marvel comics illustrator and TV Presenter, Will Sliney. You can watch the first four episodes now on PlayStation Ireland’s Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

But most importantly…

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Only 4,000 copies will be printed – ever. That’s it. Get ’em while they’re hot because this is your only chance!

They’ll exclusively be available from SuperRareGames.com, and go on sale at 6 pm GMT (10 am PT or 1 pm ET for our American readers).

What is Bloodroots, and what will the physical edition consist of?

I’m so glad you asked!

For those of you not in the know, Bloodroots is a hardcore hack and slash with a super cool, distinctive art style. Gameplay-wise, it feels a bit like Hotline Miami… If Hotline Miami starred a rabid wolf-man in the wild west, seeking revenge. It’s very hard, very rewarding, and super satisfying.

The physical edition of Bloodroots will come with the following:

• All current Bloodroots content on the game cart
• A full-colour manual
• Interior artwork
• An exclusive sticker!
• Trading cards

Super Rare Games has a reputation for fast shipping. Players should expect to get their physical edition of Bloodroots very soon after ordering!

So, whether you’re a Paper Cult super-fan, or just can’t bear to miss out on a one-time collectable… Keep your eye on the Super Rare Games website on, Thursday the 13th of January!

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2021-10-15

Liberty, Equality, Monotony

Viva la repetición! Proudly touting itself as “a Ubisoft Original” (as the fourth Far Cry game this generation alone, this is a stretch) Far Cry 6 brings the series onto the new generation of consoles for the first time. What advantages does this leap bring?

Beginning with a generic pre-baked intro, you escape a despotic city takeover and wind up shipwrecked on a South American island, the fictional Yara. From here you join with a group of local revolutionaries to take down the tyrannical Gustavo Fring… uh, Giancarlo Esposito, a terrifyingly photo-realistic rendition of TV’s most consistently satisfying villain. Following his Better Call Saul co-star Michael Mando (Far Cry 3’s Vas) Esposito brings a level of class to the proceedings, a performance more suitable for a much less juvenile game.

Tediously childish and overwritten humour permeates this narrative to a numbing degree. Playing this, you’ll wish for the relative moral complexity of Woody Allen’s Bananas. That you’re trapped listening to AI companions gibber on in so many missions is hellish. The less said of the cock-fighting mini-game the better and some idiotic stereotyping is disappointing. The story is so disjointed that it feels like an afterthought, perhaps being let loose on Yaras without context may have been better? One can only dream of a Ubisoft game with the narrative flexibility of a Breath of the Wild. Coming off his work on Breaking Bad and with Spike Lee, it’s embarrassing what basic material Esposito was handed here.

Size isn’t everything

Initially, the map size is welcomely pared back compared to the usual open-world bloat; until you realise you haven’t zoomed the camera back fully. The long sigh that comes with realising you have numerous security checkpoints to clear and endless radio towers to climb is the curse of the genre. The endless list of repetitive side-content becomes exhausting, especially now that the series’ patented chaos has become so predictable.

Click to view slideshow.

The moment-to-moment gameplay is decently thrilling. Moving through the world is fluid, using a grappling hook to climb cliffs and a parachute to get down makes for a flexible way to traverse the vast landscape. Anything is better than using the vehicles, the first-person perspective actively impeding movement. Yara is a gorgeous environment but with minimal distinction between areas the size of the world becomes more oppressive than the fictional Fascists you’re slaughtering. At least the music is lovely, excellently flavouring the proceedings thanks to Pedro Bromfman.

Shoot to… thrill?

As for gunplay? Uninspired but blasting dumb AI goons will always be enjoyable. The Resolver super-weapons are showy but trivialise combat encounters. They’re unlocked way too early, allowing you to blast through enemy compounds almost effortlessly. That said, it’s a more enjoyable approach than the half-baked and utterly boring stealth approach. That you can now keep your weapon holstered to avoid some encounters altogether is a thoughtful touch, a pacifistic approach would have been an interesting avenue to explore further.

Speaking of thoughtful, the gear options are a nice surprise. Unlocking clothing options provide unique perks and avoids the equipment bloat of so many genre contemporaries. An early mission provides you with a gas mask and special gloves to protect against poison and fire damage respectively, far more interesting choices than the usual minor stat bonuses.

The game is bizarrely proud of having workbenches to customise equipment, seemingly ignorant to what a staple of the genre this is? If you drink every time they’re mentioned you’ll quickly be drunk as a skunk. Yet also somehow never drunk enough to find them interesting? A curious dilemma.

Animal magic?

Although the animal companions are utterly pointless aside there’s admittedly a charm to having a crocodile buddy. At least until you’re expected to revive the forsaken creature for the hundredth time during a firefight. A croc pal is no substitute for being a lone wolf.

Far Cry is a series in dire need of reinvention. The formula has grown so stale that not even the typical stunt casting for the villain is noteworthy anymore. In order to go forward, the developers should look to the past. The actual spontaneity and danger of Far Cry 2 is totally absent from newer titles. The possible return of the style and humour of Blood Dragon (included with the season pass) would be a godsend. As for Far Cry 6? This revolution should not be televised.

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Despite the popular name for the subgenre, “bullet hell” games can be a truly heavenly experience. There’s such a primal, visceral joy to weaving between hundreds of projectiles while battling hordes of enemies and screen-filling bosses. From Galaga to Gradius and even up to this year’s Returnal there has always been a dedicated base of players for these forays into projectile pandemonium. However, one icon of the genre has remained relatively unknown in the West, so thank goodness for Cotton Reboot.

An overhaul of Cotton: Fantastic Night Dreams, Cotton Reboot is a love letter to the original, both polishing and expanding upon the original significantly. The nutty narrative follows young witch Cotton on her quest to eat as much delicious candy as possible regardless of how many monsters must die in the process. She may be the most relatable protagonist in all of fiction in this regard. One of the few flaws in this package are the cutscenes.  For fans of anime comedy, may delight but to the uninitiated, they’re tedium incarnate. The less said of bikini-clad sidekick Silk the better, not as smooth as her name would suggest.

Click to view slideshow.

Broom to Improve?

Cotton swoops through delightful colourful levels featuring intricate and imaginative designs and details thoroughly transporting you to this witching world. However, don’t let the name fool you: Cotton is hard as hell. Tightly manoeuvring between the colourful enemies and gunfire is the bread and butter of the genre and this is no exception. This edition combines the original X68000 game and a newer faster version, something for retro purists and newcomers alike.

Cotton handles like a charm, weaving around enemies and gorgeous Technicolour explosions with ease. The clearly defined visuals mean that even in the most hectic and colourful settings you never lose track of where you are.  Screen filling explosions are always a delight and the numerous graphical and movement settings provide the flexibility to enjoy them however you prefer. The soundtrack is perfectly catchy, for a game built around replayability, this is a crucial victory.

The option to jump between the redux graphics and the original retro stylings really demonstrate the love put into this package. A fat stack of improvements and bonuses are the cherry on top of an already sweet deal. Cotton Reboot is fun for a single playthrough. However with high-score incentives to replay ad infinitum, Cotton may be the bud you’ve been searching for.

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With these multiple categories for entry into the Stay Human Contest means you have an even greater chance of winning a prize. If you’re a creative gamer then this is a great chance to create some content for the Dying Light community. From thrilling short stories and inspiring art to captivating cosplay, this special contest allows many kinds of creative enthusiasts to share their art.

Writing: Create a short story inspired by the life of The City’s inhabitants. Examine The City through their eyes and tell us a mature, brave, surprising “Urban Legend.”

Fan Art: Create a piece of visual art that comes alive in UV light! Empty buildings, crumbling walls, and the remnants of civilization hide many secrets!

Cosplay: Become a Dying Light 2 Stay Human character with a makeshift weapon forged from metal scraps, An improvised outfit for combat and climbing, or anything else creativity unleashes.

Submissions for the Stay Human Contest are open now all the way through to December 7th. Finalists and winners will be selected by an internal team at Techland. Additionally, every finalist will receive Dying Light: Platinum Edition, which includes all major DLCs and content bundles for the award-winning, critically acclaimed game.

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The team revealed the official title for the new episode featuring Yuffie as FF7R EPISODE INTERmission and introduced new information on the episode’s main character, Yuffie Kisaragi, as well as the talented English voice cast behind the new characters for this new episode.

Playing as the ultimate ninja thief

Players can look forward to utilizing Yuffie’s signature battle style in combat while they infiltrate the shadowy Shinra Corporation to steal a powerful materia and restore glory to her homeland, as she shines in both close and long-range combat. As a member of Wutai’s elite corps of ninja operatives, her Unique Ability allows her to throw her iconic massive throwing star at enemies. During that time, she is able to attack with long-range ninjutsu that can be augmented with her Elemental Ninjutsu ability, which can change its affinity to fire, ice, lightning or wind.

Another of Yuffie’s abilities, “Banishment,” unleashes an attack that does more damage based on how much ATB was spent before it. Similar to her Unique Ability, its elemental affinity can be changed with Elemental Ninjutsu.

Yuffie can also use “Windstorm,” which creates a damaging gust of wind that damages nearby enemies and launches them towards her. Players can look forward to learning even more about Yuffie’s specialized ninja fighting style and enjoy an expanded gameplay experience featuring multiple new combat and gameplay additions for FF7R EPISODE INTERmission.

Alongside Yuffie and Sonon, additional characters were introduced for FF7R EPISODE INTERmission. These include Zhijie, a Wutain who acts as the point of contact between the new Wutaian government. There are even members of Avalanche HQ—Nayo, Billy Bob, and Polk. And finally Weiss, the sadistic ruler of Shinra’s top-secret underground research centre Deepground.

The talented cast of Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade include

• Yuffie Kisaragi, voiced by Suzie Yeung
• Sonon Kusakabe, voiced by Aleks Le
• Weiss, voiced by Daman Mills
• Zhijie, voiced by Griffin Puatu
• Nayo, voiced by Ashley Boettcher
• Billy Bob, voiced by David Goldstein
• Polk, voiced by Daniel Amerman

Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade takes advantage of the latest generation hardware. It includes a wealth of graphical, gameplay and system enhancements for the PS5. Players who have purchased Final Fantasy VII Remake for the PlayStation 4 console will be able to download a free PS5 enhancement update* that will include all the next-gen visual and gameplay enhancements detailed above at no extra cost when playing on a PS5 console.

Then they can purchase the new episode featuring Yuffie, FF7R EPISODE INTERmission, as a standalone download from the PlayStation Store. Owners of the disc version of Final Fantasy VII Remake on PS4 will require a PS5 console with a disc drive in order to take advantage of this digital upgrade.

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