Videogame Reviews (mostly PS5 games)
Titles covered: Ratchet and Clank A Rift Apart, Guardians of the Galaxy, New Tales from the Borderlands, Spider-man, Spiderman: Miles Morales, Cadence of Hyrule, Sackboy: A Big Adventure
Ratchet and Clank: A Rift Apart (****)
We all love Ratchet and Clank, but the series does have one major problem: the gameplay hasn’t evolved much in 20 years. Sure, some entries in the series are better (Crack in Time, Going Commando) and some are worse (Deadlocked), but most of the games are about the same, and there were a lot of them released between 2002 and 2013. It’s probably for the best that Sony drastically slowed down the release of these games in the last decade. This allows A Rift Apart to stand out as the new and spiffy PS5 version with awesome haptic feedback. Seriously, it’s up there with Astro’s Playroom in terms of tactile virtual reality. The recoil on the guns feels amazing, as do more subtle feedbacks such as walking and tapping effects.
In fact, I’ll just call it right now: A Rift Apart is the best Ratchet and Clank game. Notably, Rift Apart has fewer planets than most of the previous Ratchet and Clankgames, but makes each world incredibly detailed, sprawling and unique. The themes are clear and memorable: Pirate World, Blade Runner Dystopia, Open-world Savannah, Stormy Prison Colony, etc. The gameplay also tends to evolve between the different environments. Swampy Rainforest World involves speeding over the water on giant snails, Junkyard Canyon involves traveling by slingshots and rails, while Abandoned Research Outpost invokes a horror theme that reminded me of the Alien movies. Some worlds also make use of the “Multiverse” story theme by having you move back and forth between alternate realities. The most notable example of this is Low Gravity Mining World, in which you move between intact and mostly-destroyed versions of the planet.
The enemy design didn’t improve as much as the planet design, however. You’ll fight some of the same robot enemies throughout, including way too many iterations of the “Juggernaut” miniboss. Some more unique boss fights would have been great. On the other hand, the final boss fight is a welcome challenge, and the way he moves around to break your “lock” really keeps you on your toes.
As for the story… Multiverse concepts are very played out right now, but they seem to work better with humor involved, so I don’t mind it here. I did like the “Iron Giant” storyline for alternate-universe Clank, and the more serious and threatening version of Dr. Nefarious. Overall, it’s a typical video game storyline: good enough to keep the game interesting.
Like many R&C games, “Rift Apart” is a bit on the short side, so you might consider a rental to save money. However you experience it, it’s a must-play. The graphics, haptics, and world design definitely elevate the classic-but-simple gameplay, and the game as a whole steps Ratchet and Clank up from “hey, this game is fun!” to “wow, this game is awesome!”
Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy (***)
One of the more surprising Marvel movies has been Guardians of the Galaxy. Cult director James Gunn took a collection of obscure characters that hardly anyone knew, and spun on oddball space opera that proved to be both funny and dramatic. The videogame adaptation is not set within the Marvel Cinematic Universe, though it’s obviously inspired by it. Instead, the videogame is its own thing, and reverts many of the character designs and backstories to their obscure comic book origins.
The result is a fun story-based game. You get to explore a lot of different planets and environments with basic platforming and puzzles. There’s also a ton of in-game dialogue, which mostly plays out during gameplay to give the experience a character-driven adventure. This is impressive, but could have been scaled back in places. For example, your teammates will yell at you if you wander off-course to search for secrets and collectibles. It’s funny the first time, and really irritating afterwards. Overall, I did like most of the characters (particularly Nikki Gold), and actually found the characterizations of Mantis and Drax to be better than their film counterparts. Rocket Racoon is obnoxious, though.
However, the gameplay has one major weakness: the combat. The fight scenes usually involve all five guardians at once, but you only get to control StarLord. To encourage you to involve your teammates, the game makes it so that your basic attacks are very weak. Even simple enemies take way too many shots to kill, and your more powerful charge shot actually feels worse in terms of DPS. The special team moves are much better, but they don’t require precise aiming or timing, so you just wait for the cooldown timers to expire and press “go.” In short, the combat sequences are mediocre and too long.
With better combat, Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy would be a must-play. As is, it’s a decently fun adventure that mostly stands out for its story, fun levels, and voice-acting.
New Tales from the Borderlands (**)
The now-defunct company TellTale made games with well-written stories but light gameplay elements. Their crown jewel was “The Walking Dead,” acclaimed for being one of the best story-heavy games ever made. Another success in their belt was “Tales from the Borderlands,” a goofy sci-fi Western that grabbed me in ways that the actual Borderlands game never did.
I spotted this sequel in the library and thought “Oh goodie! More Borderlands craziness!” And… well, maybe the TellTale formula is a hard act to follow, because this one (made by Borderlands developer Gearbox) doesn’t match up to TellTale’s great storytelling.
For starters, TellTale cleverly designed their games to create the feeling that you were in total control of the story. Yes, the story choices were mostly an illusion, but it was a convincing illusion. There’s no such illusion here. It’s plainly obvious that the story is completely on rails up until the last 20 minutes. The dialogue choices aren’t interesting, and the QTEs are too slow and infrequent to be exciting. The only thing you can really alter is the character relationship scores, an interesting idea ruined by bad dialogue choices and a cryptic scoring system (Maybe tell the player when they gain or lose points? Just a thought!).
The story is interesting once it all comes together, but the script needed serious editing. There are many long, tedious dialogues and terrible running gags. For example, there’s a guy who repeats the phrase “free labor” over and over again as if these are the only words he knows. I guess this is supposed to be the new “I am Groot,” but it misses the point: Groot does communicate effectively with his one repeated line by using tone, emotion, and context. That’s the key difference between clever humor and random stupidity. The first episode is particularly awful, to the point that I nearly gave up on the game after an hour. It does get better starting in Episode 2, and the final episode actually has some genuinely exciting and touching scenes which bumped my review score up from “bad” to “mediocre.”
New Tales from the Borderlands is a frustrating game, because I feel like there really is a good story experience buried underneath all the dumb dialogue, sophomoric sexual references, and ugly character designs. The credits indicate that the development team were working remotely during the pandemic, so maybe the necessary communication wasn’t happening.
Marvel’s Spider-Man (*** and a half)
One of the better movie-based video games is Spider-man 2, which I played on the Gamecube almost 20 years ago. The game followed the story of the movie, but massively extended its length with openworld side-missions and subplots involving characters that never appeared in the Sam Raimi movies at all (notably including Black Cat, Rhino, Mysterio, and Shocker). A few years ago, the folks behind Ratchet and Clank took a shot at making another good Spider-man game. This one borrows a lot from it’s Gamecube predecessor, while also borrowing bits of gameplay from Batman Arkham Asylum. The result is a pretty cool Spider-man game.
This Spider-man is slightly older than the ones we’ve seen in the movies. As the game opens, Peter Parker has been Spider-man for 8 years, he’s already sent many villains to prison, and he now works as a robotics engineer alongside Otto Octavious. The story has received acclaim, and I enjoyed most of it. The acting is pretty good, and the dialogue isn’t bad. I also liked the realistic and nuanced portrayal of Doctor Octopus in the first half of the game, even if his arc in the second half moves much too quickly to be believable. FWIW, the final decision that Spider-man makes is a very bold story choice, even though I wish they had given the player that choice.
Story aside, most of the game consists of swinging around New York as Spider-man, stopping crimes, and fighting lots and lots of violent bad guys. You mostly fight large groups of human criminals, with the super-villains providing the boss fights. The combat system is satisfying and smooth, with a fun focus on various Batman-style gadgets used for crowd control. The game can get somewhat repetitive, but at least the core gameplay is very solid.
There’s also a few changes in pace in which you solve puzzles, sneak around webbing guys up (also inspired by Arkham Asylum) or play as Mary Jane or Miles Morales. I’d braced myself for the Mary Jane levels because I’d heard they were a pain and… they’re pretty quick and easy minigames, and not really worth complaining about. There’s also a lot of openworld collectibles, though you’re not missing much by just focusing on the main story.
Overall, Marvel’s Spider-man is a fun and original take on the superhero, and a worthy successor to its Gamecube ancestor. Is the Gamecube now “classic”? Gawd, that makes me feel old!
Spider-man: Miles Morales (***)
Presented as an early demonstration of the PS5, Spider-man got a sorta-sequel with a game that focuses just on Miles Morales. I actually played it before playing the PS4 original. I liked this one pretty well, but after going back to the original, I can see that it was a downgrade.
The good parts of this game are mostly things that were good about the first game. The combat is fun, the swinging is cool, and now we have haptic feedback and faster running and load times to make it all feel better. But this is also basically an expansion pack: it uses the same-old map, similar crimes to stop, and variations of the same open-world treasure hunts (backpacks are now time capsules, etc.) There’s also two new supervillains, alongside repeat fights against Rhino.
There are some new powers, fortunately. Miles has “Venom Powers” that are pretty fun and feel very satisfying when they land correctly. I preferred Peter Parker’s large arsenal of Batman gadgets, but the Venom Powers are cool too. Miles can also briefly turn invisible, which can be useful during the stealth segments. Unfortunately, this encouraged the designers to make the stealth levels ridiculously difficult, with some involving dozens and dozens of enemies.
Overall, Miles Morales is a pretty good expansion, but the original game is definitely better. That said, I’m looking forward to the sequel, as it looks like Miles will have to reign in Peter Parker after he’s corrupted by the Venom symbiote.
Cadence of Hyrule (**)
Cadence of Hyrule is a Zelda-themed expansion of an indie game called “Crypt of the Necrodancer,” which I haven’t played. Let me just say that I’m glad this was a temporary freebie on Nintendo Switch Online.
The gameplay is creative, I’ll at least give it that. It’s sort of a rhythm game, but really more of a “roguelike” game in which both the player and the enemies take discrete turns simultaneously. It’s set to music with a heavy bass, but you don’t have to master any rhythm patterns beyond basic 4/4 beats. Just take your turn on those beats and you won’t trip (you can even sit out a few beats and the enemies seem to wait for you). The result is that the game feels less like Guitar Hero and more like a fast-paced version of chess. It’s an interesting mechanic, and I did find some of the enemy interactions satisfying, such as timing the deflection of projectiles.
But… is Cadence of Hyrule a good use of the Zelda formula? Nope! Each area is a randomly-generated blob of enemies and terrain features. It’s kinda fun at first, until you figure out what the game is doing and realize that there’s no sense of progression or coherent world-building. Most rooms, chests, and features of the landscape lack purpose; the algorithm just dumped them there with no greater design. I’d hoped that the dungeons would offer a change of pace, but they're actually worse. This also makes Link’s gadgets mostly useless; you receive them at random intervals, and rarely get a chance to use them anyway.
Sadly, this is one of those indie games in which the developer had a cool idea for an original game mechanic, but didn’t really figure out the rest of the game. Honestly, I think the rhythm combat would have worked better as a recurring minigame rather than the entire game. I didn’t feel like continuing much past the first boss.
Sackboy: A Big Adventure (****)
“LittleBigPlanet is cute, but ultimately it's a single player game that needs more content and a developer kit that's on the wrong platform.” -Me, reviewing the original LittleBigPlanet
LittleBigPlanet is a curious entry in the Playstation arsenal. The original 2008 game was massively hyped and wildly praised by critics, but only a moderate success with gamers. And honestly, I thought that game was fine, but nothing amazing. I tried, but never really got into the level designer.
Anyway, that brings us to Sackboy: A Big Adventure, which completely ditches the user content creation entirely, but also happens to be a much better game. The levels feel more seamless, having removed the requirement that they be made in the same engine as a “Create” mode, and there’s actually some semblance of a story. Sackboy follows the example of Super Mario 3D World, combining 2D and 3D platforming into an experience that is fast-paced and fun.
Sackboy does bring in a few improvements over Super Mario 3D World. First of all, there are more optional goals and collectibles, which improves replay. Some of the collectibles affect game progress, while others award you with in-game costumes, stickers, and trophies. Second, the levels have been designed better for multiplayer. Some optional levels even require a second person, and the cooperative gameplay works really well. Kat and I had a lot of fun playing together..
Finally, the “music” levels are a real treat. These are levels set to popular songs, with everything in the level moving to the beat. Enemies dance on cue, platforms move in sync, and certain dramatic moments are matched up to key points in the music. Especially inspired ideas include an underwater treasure hunt set to Saint Saens’ “The Aquarium,” a beautiful waltz arrangement of Madonna’s “Material Girl,” and the use of Britney Spears’ “Toxic” to tell the story of a female-coded AI being corrupted by a male-coded computer virus. Great stuff all around.
(However, I would have left out the old Sinatra standard “Fly me to the Moon,” just because Bayonetta already did that one.)
Flaws? Well, the game could use a better title. Also, there definitely could have been one or two more worlds with medium difficulty levels. The game is a tad short, and the difficulty spikes very rapidly between worlds 3 and 4.
If LittleBigPlanet was overrated, SackBoy’s Big Adventure is very under-rated. It’s honestly the best player experience I’ve seen from the franchise by far.