What I've Been Playing Vol. 27

Castle Crashers Remastered (PS4)

A crazy adventure that's fun with friends.

 Released back in the early days of Xbox Live Arcade, Castle Crashers is a hack-and-slash classic where you play as one of four knights in order to rescue kidnapped princesses from a wizard. The game's pretty simplistic in its gameplay as you'll mainly be slashing enemies the countless waves of enemies with your sword and magic abilities, all while fighting some uniquely outlandish boss fights. The adventure will take you on a wide range of levels such as forests, deserts, alien spaceships, and obviously castles. 

 Playing alone is a mundane experience as the main attraction here is the four-player co-op. I've been playing the game with a friend and its been a much more entertaining experience than solo. Basically, the more, the merrier. That said, I did the constant lag issues during game sessions. It's not a visually demanding game since the art-style, backgrounds, and designs were fairly colorful and simple. The soundtrack is also nice with catchy tracks as well. The remaster polishes aspects such as the frame-rate and visuals, so it's obviously the version to play.

Terminator: Resistance (PS4)

Probably the best Terminator game ever,
though that's not saying much.

 Based on the hit Terminator franchise, Terminator: Resistance is a first-person prequel to the first two films where you play as private Jacob Rivers as you fight back against Skynet and its army of murdering machines aka Terminators. With the resistance forces being cornered by Skynet's "Annihilation Line", it's up to Rivers to find a way to end the war while being hunted by a mysterious Terminator. The writing was good and I enjoyed the many subtle reference to T1 & T2 via notes and levels. Surprisingly, the characters you'll meet were pretty interesting and diverse as each have their own tragic backstories to share, though I found Rivers himself to be on the bland side. 

 An FPS with survival elements, the game plays closely to Fallout 3/4. You'll be crafting, lock-picking, levelling up, and sneaking around the game's post-apocalyptic world. There's even side-quests and alternate endings, which brings you closer to the cast and offer neat resources. The levels were generally big as they're filled with secrets and loot, so fully exploring the game will take you a few hours. My only gripe is how things felt repetitive after a while with you following the same objectives in each levels, though thankfully the boss fights were pretty cool. 

 In terms of presentation, it's a mid-budget game in terms of presentation, so not anything eye-catching. That said, the game truly captures the atmosphere of the movies thanks to the fantastic sound design, which brings back classic sounds like the soundtrack, lasers, and creepy walking sounds of the Terminators, which felt authentic. The voice-work was also surprisingly done well, with good performances all-around. The downsides are mainly technical ones like the painfully long load-times and audio/graphical glitches being apparent. 

Overall, Terminator: Resistance was a great experience as a fan of the films. Sure the gameplay and story aren't winning any awards, but they were entertaining and fun nonetheless. The amount of care and effort put in by developer Teyon is appreciated and I wish that they're involved in future games. It's a 12-15 hour ride and fans will most likely find the most enjoyment here, though I'd suggest waiting for a sale first.

Return of the Obra Dinn (PS4)

A wildly suspenseful mystery.

 Probably the most unconventional game I've played in years, Return of the Obra Dinn is a first-person exploration game where you take control of an insurance agent as you investigate the disappearance of a cargo ship, the Obra Dinn, which has mysteriously re-emerged. You'll have to board the ship in an effort to figure out the fates of the Obra Dinn's passengers, using a unique pocket watch called the "memento mortem" that allows you to relive past events on the ship. As you search for bodies and explore new parts of the ship, you'll slowly be piecing out the story of the game, which is full of twists and tragedies.

The goal is to identify each "lost soul" of the ship by writing down their name and fate in your logbook, though it's easier said than done. Each cut-scene will feature certain characters and it's up to you to identify them based on their accents, clothes, and occupations so carefully observing your surroundings and dialogues is key to solving the mystery. I felt dumb at times for ignoring obvious hints, but the sense of reward when figuring out things for yourself is sweet, which is why I recommend using a guide only when you're truly stuck. 

The game packs a cool visual style reminiscent of old-school PC games and a soundtrack that fits the mood of the game. Overall, Return of the Obra Dinn is a fun game to sink yourself in if you're a fan of of mysteries.