Syndrome

Well it's been a while since my last game review (2 years or so). I'm getting back into writing as a hobby as well as a job so I took a look at indie survival horror game, Syndrome!

The survival horror genre has become increasingly popular in recent years with titles such as Dead Space, Amnesia: The Dark Descent and Alien: Isolation showing many unique variations. When playing Syndrome it’s easy to see where its inspirations came from, which can be irritating. I would have liked to see more originality with the plot.

In Syndrome you play as Galen; a man who has just woken up on a space ship where everyone is dead, except for two survivors who communicate with you and all the monsters. You have to repair parts of the ship, avoiding the monsters and steadily unravel what happened to the crew.

Inktober 2016: Days 10-18

A little late, but here's some more inktober! Catching up slowly and liking some of this year's drawings ^_^

Day 10 ✒ #inktober #inktober2016 #drawing #ink #ballet #dancer #silhouette

A photo posted by Sydney Isaac (@sydneyisaac) on Oct 10, 2016 at 1:47pm PDT

Because @emmawilliams98 is beautiful and fun to sketch 💕 Day 11 ✒ #inktober #inktober2016 #drawing #ink #portrait

A photo posted by Sydney Isaac (@sydneyisaac) on Oct 11, 2016 at 1:05pm PDT

Day 12 ✒ #inktober #inktober2016 #drawing #ink #StrangerThings #Eleven

A photo posted by Sydney Isaac (@sydneyisaac) on Oct 12, 2016 at 2:26am PDT

Day 13 ✒ #inktober #inktober2016 #drawing #ink Thank you for inspiration @tiffanyadelee 💕

A photo posted by Sydney Isaac (@sydneyisaac) on Oct 13, 2016 at 12:40pm PDT

Day 14 ✒ #inktober #inktober2016 #drawing #ink #BB8 #StarWars

A photo posted by Sydney Isaac (@sydneyisaac) on Oct 14, 2016 at 3:54pm PDT

Been playing Flower this afternoon, it's an insanely beautiful game 🌺 Day 15 ✒ #inktober #inktober2016 #drawing #ink #flower #petals

A photo posted by Sydney Isaac (@sydneyisaac) on Oct 15, 2016 at 1:01pm PDT

Day 16 ✒ #inktober #inktober2016 #drawing #ink #mermaid

A photo posted by Sydney Isaac (@sydneyisaac) on Oct 19, 2016 at 2:25pm PDT

Day 17 ✒ #inktober #inktober2016 #drawing #ink

A photo posted by Sydney Isaac (@sydneyisaac) on Oct 19, 2016 at 2:46pm PDT

Day 18 ✒ #inktober #inktober2016 #drawing #ink #mandala #pattern

A photo posted by Sydney Isaac (@sydneyisaac) on Oct 19, 2016 at 3:12pm PDT

Tales of Hearts R

This review is also featured here:
http://www.cliconline.co.uk/en/news/review-tales-of-hearts-r/17612.html

Tales of Hearts R is a JRPG originally made for the Nintendo DS in Japan but has been remade (hence the ‘R’ in the title) for the Playstation Vita globally. The story follows Kor Meteor, a boy being trained by his grandpa to use a weapon powered by the strength of his heart and emotions, called a Soma. He meets the mysterious siblings named Kohaku and Hisui Hearts. Kohaku is attacked by a sorceress named Incarose and Kohaku’s spiria, the essence of her emotions, is damaged. This causes her spiria to fracture and scatter across the world, leaving her an emotionless shell. Kor teams up with Hisui and Kohaku to find the fragments of Kohaku’s spiria and restore her emotions one by one.

The game features a mixture of both anime and computer generated cutscenes with the 3D modelled game characters. This is because there were two versions of the original Japanese DS version, the “Anime Edition” and the “CG Movie Edition”. In the Vita remake, both types of cutscenes are used depending on the cutscene.

Table Top Racing

Table Top Racing is easily one of the best racing games I've played. There's something about a miniature car driving around over sized environments of sushi restaurants, kids toys and picnics that I quite like.

How to Train Your Dragon 2 - The Game

My immediate thoughts when I heard of the How to Train Your Dragon 2 video-game were of being able to essentially watch the movie but be in control of the characters. My main expectations were that the player would be able to fly the various dragons, race them and complete challenges.

These expectations were met. But sadly that's about it for the game. Unlike most movies turned games, HTTYD2 focuses on a small aspect of the movie which, as far as I've played, doesn't have any new movie-plot spoilers. All it says is that they've started the "Dragon Games" which is made up of 5 mini-games you play as part of tournaments at different levels. As you complete tournaments you level up your dragon and it's fairly challenging. Just incredibly repetitive.

Unfortunately there are more bad things I can say about the game than there are good. So, lets get started.

1- The graphics are lazy.
I don't mean just lazy for a game but for a game based on an computer-animated movie it just ruins the franchise! When you have a game based on a movie you expect the graphics to be dulled-down versions of the original, but we have seen what studios are capable with in these movies and when you have something computer-animated vs something computer-animated you're going to compare the two very harshly. Now I have to say that games need to be simplified compared to animated movies or they won't be able to work. Games cannot achieve movie-quality detail without freezing and buffering every 30 seconds. But this is ridiculous. It reminded me of the original Harry Potter game on Playstation1. That's how much it hurt to look at. This is not what I expect from a game on the same platform as The Last Of Us. I can excuse the fact that there's a 3DS version, you expect the graphics to be weaker for a smaller screen but for PlayStation it's just unbearable.

Thoughts on Assassin's Creed 3

There will be spoilers throughout this post.

I finally finished Assassin's Creed 3 and I can't help feeling very underwhelmed. When it first came out I was excited; the art looked beautiful, the time period sounded like an exciting leap and in my opinion, it couldn't be worse than Revelations. Enjoy a very quick summary of my Assassin's Creed game opinions (I haven't played the DS spinoff games so they aren't included):

• AC: A great game with a decent enough plot, however it became repetitive quickly and so the latter half was more tedious than it should have been. Ending was odd; don't like Desmond.
• AC2: Fantastic. Took what was great in the original title and improved upon it tenfold. My only complaint was that stupid flying mission. And the ending was silly again. Go away Desmond.
• AC Brotherhood: Somehow even better than AC2. I get to have my own gang of assassins? Awesome! I get to climb around one of the greatest cities in the world? Super awesome! I don't have any complaints about this game. Except for Desmond.
• AC Revelations: More of an epilogue to Brotherhood than an actual sequel. Yes, the city and culture was interesting but they didn't really bring anything new to gameplay. The hookblade wasn't great and making/using new bombs was tedious and frustrating. This game was more emotional for the character of Ezio getting old than really progressing the overall AC plot. Overall, this wasn't a great game. Desmond is annoying.
• AC Liberation: I played this about half way through AC3. I loved the idea of a female assassin and being able to disguise yourself depending on the mission was great. It also had new weapons specifically for that game so it brought something new to gameplay. Also, no Desmond! Ubisoft are finally hearing my complaints! 

So when AC3 was announced with a brand new character and time period, I was excited since it was time for change in the assassin's universe. But once it came out, the problems appeared.