Super Bomberman R Review

Super Bomberman R Review.

Back when the Switch launched in March 2017, the line up of games was a little sparse save for Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. But among the somewhat meager line up, there was Super Bomberman R, the first game in the series since Battlefest on the Xbox 360 in 2010. It's a simple formula: traverse a maze like structure and blow up all the enemies without being blown up yourself. Multiplayer sessions of any Bomberman game can get extremely intense, with the tiniest mistake being the difference between victory and defeat. But its kind of difficult to translate this feeling of excitement into an engaging single player mode.

As far as the story goes in R, it's essentially a Saturday morning cartoon from the 90's: a big bad guy called Emperor Buggler shows up and wants to take over the universe, so he takes control of 5 powerful robots, called the 5 Dastardly Bombers to help him. Its then up to the Bomberman Bros to stop the Bombers and Buggler. Each of the Bombermen has their own personality traits, for example White is always diligent and wanting to get things done, Blue is always asleep and Yellow is carefree and easily distracted. And yes, each one of the main characters is named after what colour they are, which must be some of the laziest naming I've ever seen. Despite how unique in personality the Bomberman Bros are, they all play exactly the same, which is fine since the gameplay of the series has always been consistent in its simplicity.

There are 6 worlds in total during the main story, plus a bonus world after the credits roll., each world except for world 6 consist of 10 stages, the last two being the boss of that particular world. The regular stages add some variety other than just kill all enemies, some levels ask you to hit a number of switches, while some ask you to escort hostages to a safe area. While these variations are nice they can be a little tricky at times. Luckily death is fairly meaningless, I played through the entire game on Veteran difficulty which is the games normal mode and while the difficulty did spike at random points in the game, once you lose all your lives and get a game over, the game offers you the chance to respawn with all your lives for 300 coins, and you start the game with a sizable amount of coins so it isn't a big deal. Besides, if you get a game over twice in one world then the game decides to respawn you for free as much as you want for the rest of the world. You also get coins for finishing each world, making game overs more of an inconvenience than a genuine worry.

The bosses are the highlight of the story for sure, there are two stages to each boss: the first being a regular deathmatch against one of the enemy bombers, these can actually be quite difficult since its like fighting an AI opponent on the hardest difficulty and they have unique bombs with properties like magnetism or random explosion times. The second part of the fight is when the bomber pilots a giant mech and you just have to bomb the hell out of it while avoiding its attacks. The world 6 bosses are the best of the entire game, but definitely not the hardest even though they fill most of the screen. Even the bonus world boss is kind of a pushover which was a little disappointing. One thing that caught me off guard was the credit music, it wasn't bad or anything but I just felt it was completely out of place. 

But if we're honest, anyone who's playing a Bomberman game for the story isn't playing for the right reason, the multiplayer is where these games shine and thankfully the multiplayer is still as solid as its ever been. Unfortunately Super Bomberman R isn't quite as customisable as previous online games in the series, as you were able to toggle specific items on and off and tailor the game exactly to your needs, in this game however you're basically stuck with what you get, which is fine but it would've been nice to have some options. Online matches work well and are lag free, but sadly I've yet to get into a 4 player online match, only being able to duel against one other player. I imagine there were lots more people around the games launch, but trying to find a full lobby now won't always be easy. Although this can easily be remedied by local multiplayer battles with up to 8 players on one system, and while I haven't tried this feature out myself, I have played large Bomberman games in the past and they are a blast (no pun intended) so I imagine the same holds true here.

Overall, Super Bomberman R is definitely competent in terms of Bomberman games but it is marred by random difficulty spikes, game overs that don't incentivize you to play better and an online feature that while functional, lacks staying power due to the low player count. The worst thing about this game though is the price; the game mentioned at the beginning of this review, Bomberman Battlefest on Xbox 360 was around £10 which was a steal. But Super Bomberman R at launch was £50. Fifty. Pounds. It's kind of cheaper now if you shop around but for what you get, the price is absolutely insane. So if you're interested and intend to play local multiplayer somewhat frequently, definitely pick this up since you'll get a lot of fun out of it. Otherwise you may want to reconsider. 

Besides, I'm still waiting for a sequel to Bomberman Generation. 

Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition Review

Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition Review

Back in 2011, developers People Can Fly (mostly known for the Painkiller series) and Epic Games released the original Bulletstorm on the 7th generation of consoles to a mostly positive critical reception. I remember playing the original and having a really good time with it. But I remember once I'd finished with the story mode, I never went back to it. So when I saw that the remaster was reduced by a sizable amount on the PlayStation store, I decided to go back in and see how this game holds up.

When the remaster first released in April 2017, I wasn't too excited by it. If anything, I was hoping more for a sequel than a remaster so I quickly forgot about it. However when I saw the game on sale for £16, I thought 'why not?' and picked it up. Full Clip Edition is a remaster in the truest sense of the word, nothing has been done to the game as far as gameplay goes, for better and worse, and all that's really been done is a graphical upgrade to current gen standards. I should also briefly mention that I got the Duke Nukem DLC with the game, and it isn't worth it at all. It just seems like an excuse for Gearbox Publishing to say "Hey look! We own the Duke Nukem IP! Feel the nostalgia!" All they do is replace the main character with Duke Nukem, and that's it. The other characters dialogue stays the same, so they're always calling Duke 'Grayson' and it just gets annoying. But at least they got John St. John to do the voice, so that's something at least.

The best way I can describe Bulletstorm is a linear, arcade style FPS that encourages creativity in killing your enemies. This creativity can be achieved in a number of ways; whether its shooting an enemy in the throat and seeing them choke to death, or kicking a group of enemies into a rotating helicopter blade and watching as meat-confetti rains down. These creative ways to kill are called Skillshots, and every time you get a Skillshot you are awarded a number of points based on how complex it is, or if its the first time you've done that particular shot. Weapons are your standard FPS fair, you start with a carbine that can get you through most situations but later on you get a pistol, a quad-barreled shotgun and a sniper rilfe. The two most unique weapons are the the Flailgun and the Penetrator; the Flailgun shoots out a chain with two explosives at each end, sticking to walls or wrapping around enemies, and the Penetrator, which is essentially the Cerebral Bore from the Turok games, firing a high speed drill into the enemy sending them into the sky. Although in Turok it just drilled into the dinosaurs brain. Lovely.

In Bulletstorm you're encouraged to be constantly moving; save for one or two sections the combat areas are large and have plenty of cover to slide between. Early on you also get a leash, which is like some kind of energy whip you can use to get supplies, but also pull enemies out of cover and closer towards you. This can set up some great Skillshots if done at the right time and in the right situation. Overall the way the game actually plays is really good, all the weapons feel powerful to use and if used correctly, the leash can instantly take an opponent out of a firefight. The one complaint I have about the gameplay, and I suppose its a small complaint but there is no jump button. For a game that's all about creative kills, surely being able to jump would help. Just imagine sliding into a piece of cover, only to then seamlessly jump onto it, launch yourself up high, kick an enemy in the face then blow his body in half with a shotgun blast. Sadly that'll never happen in Bulletstorm and it should've been able to. I mentioned earlier that you can use the leash to get supplies from supply drops littered around the world, and you can only get these supplies if you have enough points from Skillshots you've performed which reinforces the fact that you need to get creative in your battles. Its a good, balanced system although I never really found myself low on ammo or Skillshot points, and these supply drops are all over the place. 

You'll probably have noticed that I haven't mentioned the story at all during this review, and that's because it is such a bland revenge plot, the characters aren't that likable, there is constant swearing throughout which I wouldn't normally mind, but its like when you first discover a swear word and just keep saying it in conversation because you think its funny. That's what this games story feels like. There is also a really bad sequel hook at the end of the campaign, and as we know, we never got a sequel.And while you wouldn't expect the story in a game called Bulletstorm to be world class, having one of the characters threaten to "kill your dick" does make you wonder why they thought this was passable. But hey, this is a remaster, not a remake.

As far as graphics go, I'm no Digital Foundry but it's obviously a good looking game which can maintain what looks to be 60 frames per second. When things aren't too frantic. Unfortunately, when you get more than around 5 enemies on screen and shooting/charging towards you, there is a noticeable dip in the framerate. However there were two moments that stood out to me; one was loading into a new area and the framerate plummeted to what seemed like it was barely hitting 20, and the other was near the end of the game during an intense firefight in an enclosed space and the game literally just stopped for nearly 5 seconds. It was just disappointing to see that kind of slow down happening at all.

Once you do finish the 7-8 hour campaign you unlock Overkill mode, which is essentially new game plus except you can carry every weapon at once. Which you should've been able to do in the first playthrough. Also, if you managed to get every Skillshot for a certain weapon, you'll unlock infinite ammo for it which is definitely fun. But once I'd finished the game on Hard mode, which in all honesty wasn't that hard, I had little motivation to come back to it again. I had the same problem as I did with the original; while Bulletstorm is definitely fun and I'd recommend it to just about anyone who likes first person shooters, once it's over there is virtually no reason to go back, unless you really want to get all the achievements/trophies.

So if you ever see it on sale cheap for about £10-£15 I'd say give it a go, but just remember once you've finished it, chances are you'll be finished with it for good.

Friday the 13th: The Game review.

Friday the 13th Review.

Jason Voorhees is one of the most recognisable movie villains of all time; even if you haven't seen the movies you know the unmistakable hockey mask. Up until now, Jason has only appeared in two games, one game on the NES which has gained notoriety on the internet for being rather bad. The other appearance was as a guest fighter in the somewhat recent Mortal Kombat X. Rumors then began circling the internet about a possible Friday the 13th game, and as you'd imagine, fans got excited myself included. A Kickstarter was launched by Gun Media asking for $700,000; over $820,000 was raised and after quite a long wait, the game was released worldwide on May 26. Is this game a bloody good time, or should it have stayed at the bottom of Crystal Lake?

Friday the 13th The Game is an 7-vs-1 asymmetrical multiplayer game somewhat similar to games like Evolve, but don't let that comparison put you off straight away. 7 people play as various camp counselors, each of which have different stats; for example while one counselor may be good at repairing things and being stealthy, another will have great stamina and be able to run for longer periods of time. As you level up you unlock more counselors so you can pick and choose your ideal build, you can also purchase perks to apply to any counselor, however you have no control over what these perks might be, you spend your currency (CP) to 'roll for a new perk'. Once the perk has been created, there is one main bonus, and then a plus and negative associated with it. For example, you might roll a perk that has you start each match with firecrackers, the plus effect being an 15% increased stun radius while the negative effect being you take 10% more damage, these percentage numbers are randomly assigned so you may be lucky enough to get a perk with literally no drawbacks.

There are multiple ways to win the match while playing as a counselor; call the police and escape when they arrive, fix one of two cars and drive away, fix a boat and escape over the lake or just try to outlast the match timer. You can also try to kill Jason but this requires a lot of team work and patience, however what is good about this particular method is that it is fairly faithful to the movies, especially parts 2 and 4. While you are waiting to escape there are several ways you can protect yourself from Jason, you can find melee weapons like axes, wrenches, machetes and all sorts of other blunt objects. There are also bear traps you can lay down and hope Jason walks into them, stunning him for a short while as you move elsewhere. Firecrackers and flare guns are some of the best ways to stun/disorientate Jason however, so it's always worth picking these up if you find them. Of course if you find yourself without weapons or traps, you can always just hide. There are plenty of hiding spots around the camps, whether it's under beds or inside wardrobes; just be mindful that if Jason finds you in a hiding spot, it's instant death.

That's essentially the basics of how counselors work, now its time to talk Jason. Undoubtedly playing as Jason is a lot more fun as, the win condition for playing as Jason is simple; just kill everybody. Whether that means throwing knives at them until they drop or literally punching their head off. At the beginning of each match Jason starts in his shack (introduced in the movies in part 2) looking at his mothers decapitated head, you then hear her tell him to go and kill everyone. While Jason is obviously much stronger than any other player, he isn't as fast as them. Most of the time counselors will be able to outrun him without issue unless they've been badly injured. There are ways around this as Jason gradually gains access to his 4 main abilities; Sense, Morph, Shift and Stalk. Sense lets Jason see other players if they are in a nearby vicinity by making them red. Morph allows you to teleport around the map, however this ability has a longer cooldown than other abilities. Shift lets you go first person and move at incredible speed for a very short time, this is useful for catching up with counselors. The Stalk ability lets you hide your presence from counselors allowing you to sneak up completely undetected. There is also a 5 skill, Rage, which won't activate until the match is halfway over. Rage is always active and enhances all other abilities and also lets Jason smash through doors and some walls instantly. 

Like the counselors, there are several different forms of Jason to unlock and play as, all from different movies. While they don't exactly have stats like the counselors do, they all have 3 positive and negative attributes. For example Part 6 Jason starts with throwing knives, has a faster cooldown on Shift and has a longer lasting, more powerful Sense ability. However he has lower HP and defense, his top run speed is slower, and the Morph ability has a slower cooldown than normal. You can also use the CP currency to buy new kills to add to your chosen Jason; some of them are available for all Jasons to use like the head punch, while others are weapon specific. Using Part 6 Jason again, one of his signature kills is ramming a counselors head onto his spear, then slowly pulling the spear through. You'll have to play as Jason a few times before you find one that is right for you. And that brings us onto one of the games biggest problems; how often you actually play as Jason. 

Because there are 8 players in a full match the game decides who is Jason at random, meaning you have about a 12.5% chance of playing as Jason which isn't really a lot. There is an option you can toggle which tells the game you prefer playing as either Jason or a counselor but in my experience, it didn't really seem to do anything. Another problem with the game is something quite crucial, the actual game experience and bugs found while playing. The first week the game was out it took me 10 minutes to find a game, then before the map loaded I got booted back to the main menu. This happened to me several times so I actually left the game for a week then returned to it. Luckily by this time a patch had been rolled out on all platforms to address various issues. I'm now getting into game lobbies in less than a minute, however, they're not always full and on more than one occasion, it's put me into an completely empty lobby with just me. When you do get into a game though, you might sometimes see a weapon or dead character floating off the floor but this is a rare occurrence. There is another bug which I haven't encountered myself but have seen in numerous videos of flying counselors, although I haven't heard about it as much since the patch came out.

Overall then, when everything works and you have a good lobby to play with, Friday the 13th can offer up a genuinely tense multiplayer experience with solid teamwork being the key to success, it can also be very fun to stalk other players as Jason, catch them unaware and push them head first into a fire. However, due to some sketchy animations/graphics, some long wait times to get into games and the fact that you're essentially paying for only one mode of play, it's a little hard to recommend buying this game at the full asking price of £30 on PC, £31 on PS4 and £32 for Xbox One. 

I'm genuinely having a good time with the game, but it's definitely not everyone's idea of a good time. If you're really curious about it then you might be better off to wait for a sale. But if you're a big Friday the 13th fan like I am, chances are you already own it.

The PlayStation 4 version was used in this review and was acquired via a KickStarter backer reward for a cheaper than normal price.

Godzilla Review.

Godzilla Review.

The premise behind Godzilla as a franchise isn't particularly complex; a giant monster fighting other giant monsters, usually in a Japanese city. So you wouldn't think that making a game about this would be at all challenging, just have some really big monsters fighting in a destructible city environment. And in the latest Godzilla game, this is basically what you get; unfortunately due to some weird/poor design and aesthetic choices, the whole game feels like it had potential, but ultimately misses its mark. 

The one thing that you will notice straight away is how the game looks and sounds. I'm playing the PS4 version, and to be blunt, the environments and buildings are incredibly bland looking and look as though they belong on the PS3, but even then that would be an insult to the PS3 hardware. Although to be fair, most of the monster models actually look pretty detailed and their roars sound very authentic. But however good the monsters look, it doesn't excuse how poor the rest of the game looks/sounds, especially with the standards set by current generation games being so high. While looking through the options menu, I found an interesting setting; the game lets you change the graphics to monochromatic 24fps, complete with film scratch filter over the top, just like the original 1954 movie. It's definitely a fun throwback to include, but the game can be so dark at times, having it in monochrome makes it almost impossible to see anything.

Now onto how the game actually plays. I can almost guarantee that you've never played a game that controls quite like Godzilla does. You would assume that since this is essentially a third-person action game, you'd use the left stick to move and the right stick to control the camera, and for the most part you'd be right. However, using the left stick only lets you move forward/backward/strafe left and right. If you want to turn on an axis, you have to hold L1/R1 until you're facing the direction you want to go. Just let that sink in for a moment. To turn your character, you have to hold L1/R1. It did take a little while to get used to since its such an unorthodox control scheme, but after a while it does make you feel like a giant, lumbering colossus. Which is the whole point I suppose. 

You only have a few attacks at your disposal which are mapped to the face buttons and shoulder buttons. The square button is your basic light attack, which can be used in a quick 1-2-3 combo. The triangle button is your heavy attack, the X button lets you charge forward and grants brief invulnerability, and the circle button lets you shoot atomic breath; but only if your temperature gauge is full. Pressing both L1+R1 at the same time makes your monster roar and makes them invincible for a short time. Pressing R2 when your temperature gauge is full will send out a shockwave, destroying buildings or pushing back enemy monsters. This is something I was constantly using since the AI nearly always backed me into a corner and this was the only counter I had. Not all monsters have the same attacks, but I'll get to that later on.

There are several modes in Godzilla; God of Destruction (story mode), King of Kaiju (arcade mode), VS mode (lets you battle online against other players), Evolution mode (lets you upgrade/unlock monsters using materials you get from fighting them), and Diorama mode (lets you display figures in various scenarios) and the Kaiju Guide (an encyclopedia of all the monsters from the movies). The story mode has you playing as Godzilla, who rises from the sea to destroy generators because they house G-Energy. As you go through various locations you encounter various monsters. There are some things that make this mode interesting; you play as both the monster and the humans. Whilst you'll primarily be crushing building and generators, there are spots on the map where you can swap to a camera crew very briefly to get a cinematic shot of the destruction taking place. As the story progresses, it has multiple branching paths which means you'll have to play the story mode several times to go through every path. 

It'll be in your best interest to destroy everything you come across too, whether its generators, buildings or even small bridges since every time you destroy something, you grow in size. You start the story mode at 50 metres tall, and enemy monsters you encounter can vary in size from 55 metres to 100 metres. Facing off against a monster that is 100 metres tall doesn't happen very often, and in my experience when this happens you'll usually only be around 60-70 metres tall so you'll be at a huge disadvantage as they'll be much stronger. If you manage to finish the story mode and Godzilla is over 100 metres tall, you'll unlock the final mission which is a nice nod to the climax of one of the movies. After you've finished the story mode once, you're free to go through it again with any monster you like, and there is quite a selection of monsters; which several Godzilla variants including the 2014 version and SpaceGodzilla, Mecha-King Ghidorah, Mothra (both larva form and final form), Gigan and many others. Each of these monsters has their own attacks and some can even fly for short periods of time, making some encounters quite easy.

VS mode is quite sparse in its options, only having 2 monster battle or 3 monster battle available. I was quite surprised at how smooth the game was though; after playing several matches I encountered no lag whatsoever. However there is no balance at all since some of the monsters can fly and fire lasers at the same time. Although, there isn't much strategy to playing online so I didn't really find monster balance that much of an issue. Evolution mode lets you increase monsters abilities using items you get from completing story missions or beating an arcade opponent. Unfortunately, it seems as though you'll need to constantly replay these modes over and over and over again just to upgrade one monster. Diorama mode lets you arrange figures you unlock into various fight scenes, but you unlock figures the same way you do upgrades; so getting all the figures will take a long time. The Kaiju Guide is interesting since it details when monsters were first used in the franchise, statistics such as height and weight and what year they premiered in and lots of other trivia such as where they originated from. You'll unlock entries in the guide whenever you unlock or encounter monsters so it doesn't take that long to fill up which is nice.

Overall then, Godzilla seems a bit like a wasted opportunity. There is a bit of fun to be had here smashing building and fighting giant monsters, and the online component works surprisingly well. However, the subpar visuals and highly repetitive nature of the gameplay make this a game I can only recommend if it's incredibly cheap. Or free. Even then I'd think about it for a bit.

Godzilla is available on the PS3 and PS4 systems for around £36-£44 (prices taken from Amazon UK)

Neverending Nightmares First Impressions.

Neverending Nightmares First Impressions.

I first came across this game about a year ago when it was on Kickstarter, and several YouTubers were playing the demo. After watching them play the demo and getting thoroughly creeped out, it really caught my interest because of its art style and general scariness. After playing about an hour of the full game, I can easily say it is very creepy and extremely tense.

The creator of the game, Matt Gilgenbach, has said he’s drawn inspiration from his real-life struggles with obsessive-compulsive-disorder and depression which gives this game a much more personal feel, this really helps with immersing you as you know this is something he’s had to deal with, and not just a story based around it. The actual story of the game is revolved around a man named Thomas who has nightmares, and keeps waking up into another nightmare, hence the name of the game. It’s this perpetual thought of ‘what’s going to happen this time?’ that kept me going forward, regardless of whether or not I was scared. Thomas will ‘wake up’ once you reach a certain part of the area or when you get killed, the latter meaning you’ll have to play the area again. Thomas can’t really do much either’ he can walk, run for a small period of time, and interact with certain objects. You’ll spend most of the game walking however, as when Thomas get tired from running, you’ll have to stop to catch your breath which will leave you vulnerable.

The most striking feature about this game when you start is the ultra-simplistic black and white art style, which looks as though it’s been drawn with pencil strokes. The only things in the world that have colour are items you can interact with, like a candle, or the very red blood. Because the art style is so simple, it makes the little details much more prominent when you notice them. While the simple presentation is certainly memorable, the sound design is arguably even more so as it sets a tone of suspense and dread throughout. While the games soundtrack isn’t really conventional, it works amazingly because of subtle tones and sound effects; like a crying child or someone whispering your name. The entire time I’ve played this game, I’ve been on edge almost entirely due to the sounds. The game has a dedicated ‘headphones mode’, this supposedly enhances the sounds made to make the experience a lot more tense, but sadly when I tried to activate it the game crashed; but that’s probably because my MacBook is quite old. Either way, the game is definitely best played with a good pair of headphones for the best experience.

To summarize then, even though I’ve not played a lot of Neverending Nightmares, it’ll certainly be a game I’ll see through to the end because of it’s premise, presentation and stellar sounds. If you have even a fleeting interest in the horror genre of games, then there’s no excuse not to pick this up.

Neverending Nightmares was developed by Infinitap Games, and is available on Steam for Windows, Mac and Linux. The price is currently £9.89/$13.49 for its opening week, then £10.99/$14.99 after that.

Senran Kagura: Burst Review

Senran Kagura: Burst Review.

Developed by Marvelous AQL, Senran Kagura: Burst is one of those games that you might be aware of, but the chances of localization seemed very unlikely to never happening at all. However, publisher Zen United (Xseed Games in the US) have taken a punt here and decided to get it localized and given a release. Leading up to the release, this game was the centre of a bit of controversy in regards to sexism due to its depiction of women. I’m going to try my very best here to not get tangled up in this argument, because honestly, there’s no point trying to argue either case. With that out of the way, lets get to it.

My experience with the Senran Kagura series outside of the game isn’t that much; I read the first volume of the manga and watched two episodes of the anime. After a bit of research, the main story of the game is the same as the anime, which is essentially your basic good versus evil plot; the girls of the Hanzo Academy or the good shinobi are Asuka, Katsuragi, Ikaruga, Yagyũ and Hibari. And the girls of the Hebijo Academy (the evil shinobi) are Homura, Yomi, Hikage, Mirai and Haruka. All of these characters have their own distinct personalities, which for better or worse are the typical anime tropes; Asuka is the cheery likeable airhead, Katsuragi is the pervert of the group and tries to cop a feel whenever she can, Ikaruga is the serious girl, Hibari is the younger and more innocent girl and Yagyũ has a slight infatuation for Hibari. I won’t go through the other girls since you’ll be able to figure them out straight away.

The game is split up into two separate stories with 5 chapters each and 12 playable characters; two of which you’ll have to unlock. The first story is recommended for first time players and follows the adventures of the good shinobi. The second adventure follows the story of the evil shinobi; and while principally they are both the same story from different perspectives, the second story is the more interesting of the two for reasons I won’t spoil here. Each story will take about 4-6 hours each to finish depending on whether you decide to take on the various side missions you’re given. It is generally a good idea to do these missions since you gain EXP from every mission, side or main, that you complete. This EXP goes towards leveling up your character, even if it is the most basic stat progression system, leveling up will grant a few points into each stat, HP, Attack, Defense, Speed and Endurance.

The gameplay is your typical side-scroller beat ‘em up with visual novel pieces thrown in to better explain story elements. The action segments are reminiscent of arcade beat ‘em ups, where you move to the right, enemies appear, kill all the enemies, an arrow appears saying ‘GO!’ and you proceed until you win the mission. Games like these often have a combo system, whether simple or complex; and Senran Kagura opts for the simple system. You can easily get through most missions by mashing the Y button while dashing from time to time. While the combo system isn’t as complex and elegant as something like Devil May Cry or Bayonetta, you can still get some good aerial juggling and high combo counters reaching into the thousands. Also available is a special bar, this fills up while you are fighting enemies and when a segment fills up you can perform a special attack by pressing L and Y. These attacks can usually clear the screen of enemies or at least do a substantial amount of damage to them.

There are two ways you can play missions; Yin or Yang. Yin, or Frantic Mode as it is also called, strips your character down to their swimsuit that decreases their defense by 90% but raises their attack power and speed by 750% (numbers were taken from the game manual). Using frantic mode makes the first two chapters an absolute cakewalk, but when the third chapter starts you may have to reconsider. Yang mode keeps your character fully clothed, but when you fill up the special bar for the first time, instead of performing an attack, your character will transform into their shinobi form; and of course this being an anime game, you get a transformation sequence, complete with close ups of the girls, um, assets. While you are in shinobi form you do more damage and can take more damage, however when you take a certain amount of damage, your clothes will start to tear off until you’re just left with a bikini top and very torn up skirt, the downside to this is that every time your clothes get torn, you’ll take more damage; this means that you’ll want to avoid damage to keep your clothes on.

The presentation in Senran Kagura: Burst is nice and keeps with the style of the show, and makes effective use of 3D. And not just for the reasons you might think, the 3D makes the special attacks really stand out from beginning to end and just makes it feel that more intense. The character models look good, but their animations do leave a bit more to be desired; the 3D does make them look better, but the jiggle physics haven’t been perfected; with every movement its like they’re on the moon and no-one is wearing a bra, gravity (or lack thereof) is just having way too much fun which kind of ruins it for everyone else.

There are also unlockables in the game that you’ll steadily get by completing missions or fulfilling certain objectives like killing a boss without taking damage. These unlockables include pictures, music from the soundtrack and cosmetic items and outfits you can put on the girls. These include a maid outfit, (because all anime has at least one maid right?) animal themed pajamas and a shirt that shows off a cleavage you could fall into. There are no shorts/pants with that last outfit; it is literally just a shirt. You can try these costumes from either the story hub or from the main menu in the dressing room; a place where the hardcore fans of the series will probably spend most of their time as you can zoom in/out and the girls will act all embarrassed about changing.

Overall then, Senran Kagura: Burst is a competent action game. The action is decent, the story is somewhat clichéd and the characters have predictable personality traits. However, this game was clearly intended for a niche audience; and they’ll definitely get their moneys worth from this. If you’re not a fan of the type of fanservice that this game portrays, then it definitely isn’t for you. If you’re indifferent either way, then it’s worth buying if you find it in a sale. Just try not to be too embarrassed when you take the case to the counter.

Senran Kagura: Burst was developed by Marvelous AQL and published by Zen United (Europe) and Xseed Games (US).

Retail price is £24.99-£29.99 (prices taken from GAME and Amazon UK) Also available to download via Nintendo eShop for £29.99/$29.99

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Super Mario 3D World review.

Super Mario 3D World Review.

Not to be mistaken with Super Mario 3D Land on the 3DS, Super Mario 3D World is the first Mario game on the WiiU that isn’t 2D; not that there’s anything wrong with the 2D games, it’s just that the ‘New Super Mario Bros’ games can only carry you so far, so it was up to Nintendo to put out a fully 3D Mario game, akin to games like Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine. At this stage in their lifespan, and given the unprecedented amount of success and high accolades the previous 3D Mario games have received; Nintendo would have to do something pretty substantial in order to mess things up now. Thankfully, they haven’t. What they have managed to create is not only an excellent game in its own right, but possibly one of the best Mario games period.

Story is typically not what you think of when you play a Mario game; standard procedure is ‘Bowser kidnaps Peach, go rescue her, maybe she’ll bake you a cake’ and it’s not really different here except that instead of Peach being kidnapped, Bowser has gone after fairies and imprisoned them in bottles, and now its up to Mario, Luigi, Peach and Toad to go and rescue them. So essentially one damsel has been swapped out for 8 smaller ones; but nobody really plays a Mario game for in-depth storytelling, so lets start talking about what makes the game great.

The overworld maps in Super Mario 3D World are setup very much like the maps in Super Mario Bros 3 for the NES; in that they look “open” (note the very heavy air quotation marks) but are actually as linear as the world map in Super Mario World for SNES. The way this is achieved is that levels are dotted around the map area and you have to walk to the next level, but while you aren’t being forced down a set path, but there is really nothing to do on these world maps as they are fairly barren save for Toad houses and special levels (which I’ll get to later on). To actually make progress in the game, you’ll need to collect green stars to unlock later levels. Each level has 3 of these stars either in plain sight or hidden away in the environment, needing a power-up in order to collect it.

I find that there are two main pulls for any Mario game, one more important than the other but both are still factors into how much you’ll enjoy the game. The first major pull is level design, no matter how high the production values in a game are, if the levels aren’t fun to explore then it’s all resources wasted. The other pull is power-ups, this clearly isn’t as important as level design but how you can change your character can greatly impact how you play the game, and therefore how you explore the levels. So in terms of level design, Super Mario 3D World is just a fantastic place be to and the various worlds/levels are just plain fun to run around. Of course you have the standard world types like the grass world and the fire world, each world presenting more challenges and enjoyment. For example, in one level you might be in inky darkness and you’ll have to use a Fire Flower to light torches so you can see, and another level is basically a homage to top-down shooters. Of course as you might expect the late-game levels can be on the higher end of the difficulty curve, resulting in a more than a few deaths, but this is definitely a case of blame the player not the game when you die so you can’t be too mad when you encounter a level you find particularly difficult. Of course the WiiU GamePad had to be utilized in someway, and while you will have to use the touchscreen and microphone features to advance in some levels, these segments are few and far between so when they are used, they don’t feel very forced of gimmicky, which was always the danger. If for some reason you want to try something else in the game, there are special ‘Captain Toad’ levels which task you to collect a set number of green stars before time runs out; the catch being that Captain Toad only moves/turns in a grid based fashion and you can’t jump. Given these restrictions, the levels are a lot of fun and it’s a shame that there aren’t more of them.

Another major part of every Mario game are the power-ups; there’s always the standard Super Mushroom and Fire Flower, it wouldn’t be a Mario game without them, but it’s the inclusion of new power-ups which grabs peoples attention. One power-up has garnered more attention that any other this game; the bell, which dons Mario in a catsuit. This allows him to run on all fours, climb a certain distance up walls, and also dive from a jump to cover more ground. It’s easily the most prominent power-up in the game, and I found myself finding it constantly throughout the game. Another new power-up in this game is the Double Cherry, which as the name suggests, creates another character; so you’ll be in control of two Marios, and if you pick up another cherry it’ll be three Marios and so on. Bosses are another key part of the game, and while they may not be the most difficult bosses to defeat, they’re still fun to battle. The only real challenging fight, appropriately, is the final boss fight with Bowser as it has multiple phases which will most likely test your endurance as well as your platforming skills.

One feature that I haven’t been able to test out is the multiplayer portion of the game; essentially it’s a drop-in/drop-out style where a player can choose a character and start playing. After watching videos of 4 players trying to play, it looks like mayhem and also a lot of fun. Unfortunately the multiplayer is local only, but if you’re only buying this game for it’s multiplayer component, then clearly you don’t understand that Mario is primarily a single-player experience. Another cool feature is that you can choose to play as any character you want; Mario, Luigi, Peach or Toad. Each has their own special abilities that make them better than other characters, Mario is an all-rounder, Luigi has a higher jump, Peach can float for a small amount of time after jumping and Toad can run faster than everyone else. The controls in Mario games are nearly always spot on and the same holds true here; the only gripe I have is how running works. To run, as in all games, you hold the run button then your character gains momentum before reaching top speed. However in this game, when you hold the run button you speed up to a jog, then a few seconds afterwards you’ll break into a full run.

In terms of presentation, it looks and sounds great. Not only is it one of, if not the best looking game on the WiiU, however it can easily hold its own against games on more powerful systems like the PS4 and Xbox One. Obviously the WiiU can’t match the technical prowess of the other two, but it still looks amazing. The soundtrack is also fun to listen to, although while not as grand and fantastic as the orchestral soundtrack to the Galaxy games, there will definitely be a couple of tunes you’ll find yourself humming even when you shut off the game.

Overall, Super Mario 3D World is a great experience and easily one of the best games of the WiiU. This game reminds us that Nintendo is capable of amazing things when they put their minds to it, and can also make some of, if not the best first-party games around. Now if Nintendo could just make a new online F-Zero…

Super Mario 3D World is available through various retailers for around £34.99-£39.99, or you can download it though the Nintendo eShop for £49.99.