Games Review Round-Up - 14 September 2014

Destiny – PlayStation 4/Xbox One - $59.99

Destiny might have been a long time coming, but the hype machine has been in effect for a good couple of years now. In case anyone didn’t know, the game's creators are Bungie, who made the mostly excellent Halo series on the Xbox and Xbox 360. After splitting from Microsoft seven years ago they started to work with Activision on Destiny, another Sci-Fi based shooter.

In Destiny you play as a Guardian of the last city on Earth. You get to explore the ancient ruins of our solar system, from the red dunes of Mars, the craters of the moon and in the jungles of Venus.

Destiny has various game modes including “Crucible” which is competitive multiplayer action against other guardians all of which is based in an arena. “Strike” is a cooperative game mode which has you forming a group and taking on various missions, ending in boss battles with various bits of loot at the end. The “Explorer” mode can have up to three other players fighting alongside you in various job missions or if you wish, you can just scout around finding minerals and resources to boost your firepower or armour. Finally we have the Story missions which can be played either solo or with up to three other people.

As the game only launched on Tuesday we haven’t had enough time to judge it in full, especially with new raids coming online in the next week or so. This means that our weekly review round up will continue coverage of Destiny over the next few weeks, especially as so many people are interested in the game right now

Despite this, everyone wants to know what our first impressions are. The good news is that the game is very enjoyable from the start and really draws you into the world in early on. The story-side of things is very forgettable though, which is a shame considering how loved both dialogue and story was in the Halo series of games, for a game with such a hefty budget and so much PR we expected more from it.

From a shooter point of view it feels good, the range of weapons available in the game from both loot and purchases is excellent and can only get better in the future as the game is improved with more expansions and additional content.

Graphically I can’t find much to fault in it, especially considering that the Xbox One version manages to match up to the PlayStation 4 game in both resolution (1080p) and the thirty frames per second frame rate. It just goes to show what Microsoft developers can do when they go to help studios get the most out of the console.

We will have more impressions next week on this one.

Overall Early Impression: 8/10

Infamous: First Light – PlayStation 4 - $14.99

We really enjoyed playing through Infamous: Second Son on the PlayStation 4 when it was released earlier this year, yes it had quite a bit of repetitive gameplay sections which annoyed some players, but the combat and powers really improved as the game went on.

This time round we have the stand-alone expansion for the game which can either be bought online or in stores for a reasonable price. You play as Abigail "Fetch" Walker, a character who first appeared in Infamous: Second Son and is far more likable than Delsin was.

For those who haven’t had a chance to play the first game on the PlayStation 4, Fetch is the female character with neon-based superpowers that I found the best in the game. The story is a prequel to Infamous: Second Son and follows Fetch as you find out how she got into the problems she has and the search for her lost brother.

The game pretty much plays the same as its predecessor, which means that it also suffers from some of the issues that game had, including repetitive missions and some iffy writing. This doesn’t mean that there are not any new features, as we have “Neon Races” where Fetch can chase balls of Neon gas for skill points and “Arena Challenges” where you fight against holographic enemies which once again award skill points to improve your abilities.

The game is likely to last you around 4-5 hours from start to finish, perhaps a little longer if you want to find all of the bits and pieces scattered around, which isn’t too bad for the price, especially if you enjoyed the previous game.

Graphically the game is just as good looking as Infamous: Second Son with superb textures and particle effects which can be wonderfully shown off in photo mode. The game has also seen some subtle frame rate improvements too which just shows how far Sucker Punch could take the PlayStation 4 in the future.

Overall we can recommend Infamous: First Light for fans of the other titles, though anyone who didn’t enjoy the series previously won’t find anything new here.

Overall: 7/10