Delta's Variety Corner

I was hoping to have another review up this week, but I have been informed by the domain owners of my mirror site over on SiteRubix, that my site over there is going to be deleted. This means that instead of getting another review up. I'm focusing on transferring my reviews onto my tumblr and deviantart accounts, so that I have them back up somewhere in case anything happens with my main website here on Blogger. Thanks for understanding.

Spec Ops: The Line is a third person action shooter developed by Yager and published by 2K. Yager developed the title as they wanted to criticise what they viewed as a romanticising of war in the media. And so they consulted Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness and the film Apocalypse Now and set out to create a narrative experience that would make people think more about the actions they take in videogames. But how well did they pull of their narrative? Is it the story to end all stories or is there room for improvement? I'll be finding out in this review. Spec Op's story takes place in a devastated Dubai, after a massive sandstorm has wiped out the city. You play as Captain Martin Walker, a Delta operative leading a team on a scouting mission. Your objective is to scout out the city and find survivors. On contact you are to return to waiting US forces outside of the 'Storm wall'. However the situation is quickly complicated when you hear a distress signal from US f

Hey there, as followers of this blog may have noticed, I haven't posted a new review for the past two weeks. Normally I try to have a review up every other week. I haven't been able to for the last two weeks as they were the last two weeks for my Final Major Project at college. So I was focusing on making sure everything was done and finishing up any left over work. This has meant that I have ended up a little behind on the reviews. Though I plan to have another one up next week and hopefully I can get back into a more regular schedule. Thanks for your patience.

Just Cause 3 is the third title in the popular Just Cause franchise. Developed by Avalanche Studios and published by Square Enix. The Just Cause series became famous for the level of destruction offered players. But how well does the third instalment match up to the others? Is it an improvement over the previous games or does it fall short? I'll take a look at it in this review to find out. Just Cause 3 features many of the same gameplay elements of the previous titles. However, there are a few new additions. The player now has access to a wingsuit alongside their parachute, which allows them to travel quickly across the world (provided they don't immediately dive into the ground) The wingsuit allows quick travel at the expense of the manoeuvrability of the parachute and with the right altitude you can get very far (I was able to travel from the top of a cliff all the way to an off-shore Oil Rig). Vehicle handling has also been changed, at least as far as land vehicles go. An

XCOM 2 is the followup to 2012's XCOM: Enemy Unknown. Unlike many other titles, XCOM 2 chooses to play off of the bad ending from the first game. This meant that the gameplay had to be overhauled in order to suit the new style of play that would be introduced in this game. But do these additions help or hinder the game? And does it live up to the legacy of the series as a whole? As XCOM 2 is based off of the bad ending of the first game, the gameplay has been redesigned to focus around guerilla warfare. A lot more of the missions are hit and run based objectives, where you have to get in, complete the task and get out again in as short a time as possible. This of course, means the introduction of timers. There were timed missions in the first XCOM game, but they were generally relegated to Council missions, and usually only Bomb Disposal, where you could increase the amount of time available to you by disabling power nodes scattered across the map. XCOM 2 has no such luxury, you&

Mass Effect 2 is the second installment of the highly acclaimed Sci-fi franchise by Bioware. For the second game, Bioware took a look at the feedback they'd recieved from Mass Effect 1, in order to know where they had to improve. Because of this. Mass Effect 2 has much tighter gunplay, which is a lot more responsive than before, however it also lacks the vehicle segements from the first game. So today I'll take a look at it, and see whether these changes and others help or hurt the game. As I mentioned in the intro, the gameplay has clearly been a focus for Bioware, as it's a much more fluid experience, the cover system has seen major improvements and minigames invovled with hacking have been changed as well, now any class is able to hack into things, however there is no option to use omni-gel to bypass the minigames anymore, in fact, omni-gel seems to be missing from the game completely. The inventory system is also gone, meaning you'll be spending less time managing

With Metro Exodus rapidly approaching I thought it would be a good idea to take a look at the first game in the franchise. Released in 2010, Metro 2033 achieved critical success, and was almost universally well recieved. However it didn't fare as well commercially. Under performing in America. Needless to say, the game was at least successful enough to warrant a sequel, Last Light; which was published by Deep Silver after they aquired the rights to the franchise and developers 4A Games, after THQ went bankrupt. Unlike the other big post apocalypse series, Fallout; the Metro series is very story focused and unlike Fallout, linear. This means that encounters cannot happen randomly. Each play-through you'll find the same enemies in the same places doing the same things and though there are what you could call side-quests, they're fairly basic. Such as giving a begger some money or not, with the reward simply being some karma points. This is an interesting feature in Metro. A

Something a little different from me this time, I've decided to take a look at one of my favourite television shows from my Childhood. Robot Wars first aired on BBC Two; on the 20th of February 1998. The first season was hosted by Jeremy Clarkson, who many people will recognise from Top Gear and The Grand Tour. For the first series it was quite clear to the producers and roboteers that Robot Combat in the UK hadn't got to the point where two machines could battle it out at that be the basis for the entire show. Many of the robots seen in the first season were just boxes with wheels, some were even owned by the studio and had to pull out of the competition before the battle rounds. In order to make sure the show would stay interesting, the producers decided that instead of just battling one another, the teams would have to complete a series of challenge rounds, such as the Gauntlet, Pinball, Sumo, and Tug of War. The teams that did the worst in each round were eliminated, leavin

Halo 3 is probably the most popular game in the long running Halo Franchise. It was a system seller for the Xbox 360 and for many people, it was their gateway into the series. So while Halo 3 has managed to craft this legendary status around itself. Does it live up to it? And, looking back over 10 years since its launch, has it held up compared to modern games. These are the questions I intend to answer as I take a look back at the heavy hitting title of 2007 and give my honest opinions of it. Starting with the story, we have to talk about the fact that Halo 2 was originally going to be the end of the franchise, and that Halo 3 only came about because Bungie set their sights too high and had to end Halo 2 on a cliffhanger. Because of this, Halo 3 has to both tell its own story, as well as finishing off Halo 2's. Halo 3 is comprised of 10 missions, though one is just a cutscene and doesn't really count. So all in all there are 9 missions in the game, making it somewhat shorter

Due to mounting work at college and a desire to have more free time to myself. I'm changing the rate at which I upload reviews to my site. Previously I've tried to maintain a '1 game per week' schedule. As a 1 man team this means it's quite demanding for me to write the reviews, and it also gives me a pretty short window in which I can choose what game I want to review next. I also feel that if I take more time between my reviews, then I'll be able to improve the quality of them. They'll be longer and may even have images as well. As it stands, I'm not completely satisfied with the reviews I've done so far as I feel that I could have gone more in depth if I'd had more time to type them up. So from now on I'll be uploading a review every two weeks. This means next week there won't be a review, and I'll take the extra time to pick a game and review it more thorougly. I hope you can understand my reasons for doing this.

After seven long years, it was announced that in 2017, the much-loved console RTS; Halo Wars. Would be getting a sequel, much to the delight of fans. Finally, the cliff-hanger they’d been waiting years to find the answer to can be resolved. Halo Wars 2 was developed by Creative Assembly and 343 Industries, and published by Microsoft. Halo Wars 2 is set roughly 28 years after the original. Serina, the AI from the first game has undergone final dispensation and we are told this in the opening cutscene. The Spirit of Fire has found itself drifting above a massive Forerunner structure. Seasoned Halo fans will recognise this as the Ark, which was mentioned at the end of Halo 2 and revealed in Halo 3. Much of the damage done to the ark during the main series has since been repaired, though there is a satisfying moment where you get to go past some wreckage from a Covenant ship and upon hearing mention of Master Chief, Jerome remarks about how happy he is that John is still around. Red team

Fallout 4 is the latest entry in the post-apocalyptic franchise by Bethesda. Unlike previous titles, Fallout 4 is the first to have a voiced protagonist, but does this help or hinder the game? Were the compromises that had to be made worth it for whatever added immersion the players might have experienced as a result? Set in Boston, Fallout 4 follows the story of the Sole Survivor; in their mission to find their Son after he is kidnapped (So it’s somewhat similar to Fallout 3’s story only the roles are reversed this time) Along the way you’ll get to meet the four main factions in the game, alongside a host of interesting NPCs. The gameplay has also seen an overhaul in this instalment, bringing it up to par with modern standards of game design. Starting off with the most obvious and controversial part of Fallout 4; the voiced protagonist. In some ways it does allow the player to immerse themselves a bit more in the game, as you get to see your player responding to characters and tal

Forza Horizon 3 is the latest title in the Horizon spin off games from the Forza series. Unlike previous entries, Horizon 3 takes the limits out of the occasion and allows you to free-roam across Australia. This new-found freedom really shines in Horizon 3, the different vehicle types are fun to drive across the varied landscape, be it buggies over sand, off-roaders over mud or sports cars over tarmac. It’s certainly a fun game, but does it live up to the various claims of it being the best racing game ever made? As a ‘next-gen’ racing game, Forza Horizon 3 looks very good, the detail of the cars is astounding and the environments look great as well. One thing I noticed however was that the shadows during the daytime didn’t move smoothly across the ground but rather juddered. It isn’t very noticeable when you’re racing across the countryside at high speed, however when you stop to take in the surroundings or just for a quick break, it’ll become very obvious. Another thing I noticed w

There’s no doubt that Halo 5 is a very polarizing title within the community. People seem to either love it or hate it. As 343 Industries second entry into the Halo franchise (Barring the MCC and Spartan Assault/Strike games) This was generally going to be a ‘make or break’ game for fans of the franchise. Story-wise, Halo 5 follows Fireteam Osiris, a departure from other main-line entries into the series which have focused on Master-chief, while Master-chief does still play a role in this game, it’s a much smaller one, as the story revolves around 117 going rogue in an attempt to make contact with a previously thought deceased Cortana. Osiris are tasked with tracking him down as well as discovering what’s causing widespread destruction across UNSC colonies.  People who watched the trailers and additional media approaching Halo 5’s launch will remember that a lot of it focused on Chief going rogue and Locke (Leader of Fireteam Osiris) hunting him down, pitting them against