I have to be honest and say that I was not aware of the ‘One Piece’ anime universe until I encountered the character in Jump force, so when I learned that he was to get a full game I was interested and hoping to learn more about Monkey D. Luffy and his world. Getting the opportunity resulted in very mixed feelings for the game in particularly being a new comer to it but there was enough to sink my teeth into and maybe going in blind was perhaps not the best way to first experience it all.

One Piece World Seeker’ is an open world adventure game set in the ‘One Piece’ anime universe with an original story written by series creator Eiichiro Oda which follows pirate captain Monkey D. Luffy and his crew known the Straw Hat Pirates. Doing what you would expect all good pirates to do, they travel to Prison Island to find precious treasure. By being an original story, this game is able to have its own little corner of the universe to play in which was great for me as a newcomer, as it did not rely on me having to have a deep knowledge of the series in order to appreciate the story. Characters are introduced as the story isolates Luffy from his crew after they are separated and the story is told via limited animated scenes and mostly text dialogue exchanges, something I will come back to a little later on.

Luffy is the main character for the story as you might expect and has some very interesting special powers which is why he stood out to be in the Jump Force roster. Luffy once ate a devil fruit, the Gomu Gomu no Mi, which gave him the power of rubber limbs and super durability. Luffy can stretch his limbs like Mr Fantastic from the Fantastic Four, which helps him in combat and allows some very interesting movement ability with really fun traversal animation in the game. Moving around the island which serves as the open world area instantly reminded me of web slinging in Spider-Man PS4 but only to a degree. Luffy does not “swing” with his rubberised limbs but instead has a grapple system which pretty much just flings him about the place using momentum. I found this really fun and using Luffy lower body as a form of helicopter to land safely never stopped being entertaining, but then I am new to all this.

Combat is where I really expected Luffy’s incredible abilities to really shine, but I did find the combat system to be disappointingly basic using one melee button reducing the fighting to pretty much generic button mashing. The combat animation is much like the traversal animation in that it is visually appealing and fun to see on screen. There is a skill tree that can unlock new moves but with just a single melee button means that there is no finesse to it, it is purely just an automated combo system that simply has new animations added to it over time. Now Luff does have two battle stances in Observation Haki stance which allows for quick attacks and the Armament Haki, which is slower but can deal more damage. I was expected and hoping for a far more advanced combat system, even if it was simply a light and heavy attack button system so simply mashing the attack button became very repetitive and linear for me. There are some stealth attacks but these feel a little clumsy as usually you can stealthily take out guards near each other without the other being alerted to the thump sound of you smacking their colleague on the head.

The focus on simplicity is something I began to notice after a couple of hours playing with not just the combat system but also in the way this open world operates. For example, to say this is an open world game, especially with ‘World Seeker’ in the title is a little bit generous considering that the game remains on Prison Island and all you really have is the freedom to explore it as you take on story missions and side missions but it is still confined to just this island. This is probably not helped by the term open world being so brilliantly executed in recent Assassin’s Creed games Origins and Odyssey where the open world is massive in terms of exploration, but there it never felt like it was a big world. The story does bring together a wealth of One Piece universe characters together, so as someone new to it all, meeting so many varied and wonderfully drawn characters was great to have but then that simplicity element creeps back in and kind of spoils it.

Cut-scenes are terribly basic in animation and another disappointment for me is that the majority of character exchanges are simply text based dialogue chats. It would have been amazing as a newcomer to have those character voices delivering their dialogue instead its just text based, which like the combat, becomes a little tedious to have to sit through and read or skip just to get back to the world. Something that had not occurred to me but I have seen in fan reactions to the game is that Luffy is the only playable character and I can kind of understand that in as much that the game brings together so many iconic characters from the universe to the game, even if it were in the form of a short side missions. But this is a world completely designed around Luffy and his abilities so not sure that would have been possible but I can appreciate why fans had hoped for it considering the open worldness which could accommodate it.

Visually I really love the art style and the world is bright and colourful with a fun musical score that for some reason requires the player to almost create their own playlist to appreciate in the game. The animation is great to see whether its moving about or in the limited combat but then you have static cut-scenes between characters where they just stand there with the camera just switching to them when their text appears on screen instead of being fully animated. The large  number of characters like the Straw Hat pirates are reduced to basic mission givers and those missions often just end up being a case of going from here to there to find or collect something to bring it back and even when it can get interesting such as rescuing a crew member, they never really have the feeling of being anything more than a side mission to complete.

That is probably why ‘One Piece World Seeker’ sadly ends up being rather flat, the focus on simplicity whilst at the same time trying to bring so much of that universe to life. By keeping so much of the elements in the game basic, it just lacks that certain something that it potentially could have done so well. The fan service is certainly there but never really utilised enough, the short cuts in delivering the experience would have benefitted by having more thought and effort in expanded them more. It almost feels like the developers did a sweep of recent western world open world games and cast a net to grab elements they believed players would expect and want but just failed to deliver on what they were attempting to copy. There is a crafting system which never feels necessary and searching for item chests only to have to spend almost ten seconds opening that chest when you have a character who can smash things with a giant armoured fist but never thinks breaking the chest open would be faster.

As my first step into the ‘One Piece’ world, this game definitely has me wanting to learn more about the world and I will seek out the anime to meet these characters properly. It is just a shame that the game never quite brings that universe to me in a complete way enough to be satisfying. It felt like it wanted to bring me as the player and newcomer into its universe but then the game itself managed to stumble and get in the way of it. It required far more polish and refinement in many areas and where it kept it simple and basic it should have aimed for the stars and gone all out such as character exchanges and the combat system especially.

In the end, ‘One Piece World Seeker’ unfortunately trips itself up it what it is trying to achieve, which is a shame but the foundation has been laid down and can be built upon for another game if they can focus on celebrating the systems in the game as well as delivering an experience fans new and old can sink their teeth into.

Looking back to 2010 and if honest, the original RAGE game fails to ignite many fond memories other than the setting and the story, which for me was a nice twist on the post-apocalyptic world trope. So, when it was announced that it was to get a sequel nine years later, I was both surprised and curious. In that time Bethesda has released some of my favourite story driven single play shooters in the DOOM reboot and Wolfenstein series and knowing that RAGE 2 was being developed by Avalanche Studio who made the excellent and personal favourite game of mine, Mad Max, Rage 2 had my attention!

Rage 2 is set years after events in the first game and the Earth is still reeling from the devastation of the giant meteorite strike that decimated the planet. The first game set the scenes following the apocalyptic destruction brought by this meteorite, named Apophis and genetically enhanced survivors started to reclaim the world with a rogue element calling themselves the Authority, trying to shape humanity according to their own plans. Picking up the story 30 years later, and descendants of those enhanced survivors are adjusting well to the landscape and things are seemingly going well with the Authority gone. But that is all torn apart when the Authority suddenly attack the main base and take down the main Ranger force, those enhanced individuals able to use the advanced tech and weapons to defend the settlements, lead by villain of the original game General Cross who has gone full on cyborg and looking more like a Transformer than how he was in the first game.

During the battle is where the player finally gets to step into the shoes of Walker, an orphan who has been raised by Erwina Prowley alongside her daughter Lily. Now Walker is a generic name as the player is able to select the gender of Walker for the story, and once into the story, Walker learns that General Cross has captured Prowley and murdered her, which doesn’t sit too well with Walker. During the opening scenes, Walker takes the Ranger suit from a fallen ranger, a suit that enables Walker to tap into his enhanced genetics and Ranger weaponry. When the dust settles, it is clear that Walker is not the last Ranger standing and goes to the Ranger HQ to try and work out what to do next, which is when he/she discovers a final Holographic message from Prowley for Walker, no doubt designed to be played upon her death and the message explains to Walker that they must find three characters to help complete ‘Project Dagger’ which would put an end to Cross and his Authority once and for all.

This is the point where the game really comes to life as Walker’s mission is to roam the regions in search of the three key characters who can help complete the last gasp ‘Operation Dagger’ and the majority of the main story missions will be working to complete objective missions for them. The story itself is a little short in that respect, the focus is mainly in just getting Project Dagger up and running. To offset this, Avalanche has gone back to the tried and trusted gameplay of Mad Max in that the player can go exploring the different regions taking on mutants, Authority forces and Bandits to expand the gameplay. If you have played Mad Max then so much of what has gone into RAGE 2 is going to feel very familiar in both good and bad ways. There are plenty of places to discover and explore and every bandit outpost will have collectables to find in order to complete that location with either having to find Data Pads which will add some lore to the game and storage chests which can contain money or Feltrite Crystals which are used to help unlock new level tiers for weapons and Walker’s enhanced abilities.

Those weapons and abilities can be found in any of the 14 Arcs located around the map, Arcs being the survival containment vessels that the enhanced survivors went into before Apophis took out the world. Some will contain new abilities for Walker to absorb through his/her suit or will hold one of the deadly enhanced weapons that only Rangers can wield. The abilities range from super jumps to the ability to force shatter an enemy to a powerful ground slam capable of taking out many enemies at once. The more abilities you absorb the more dangerous and powerful the player becomes which will help not only exploration but also in the combat as when things kick off later in the game, you will come to rely on both the abilities and weapons combining together and boy once these are levelled up they can be very fun to unleash.

The combat is where RAGE 2 really comes alive for me and it certainly takes inspiration from DOOM and Wolfenstein in this respect. The violence and gore are very much a nod to all things DOOM whilst the cut-scenes and storytelling is from Wolfenstein’s playbook. Now having played both series a lot in recent years, it was a very smart choice in bringing RAGE 2 into line with how those games handle the action but at times RAGE 2 can feel a little too close to them which stops it truly standing out on its own. The weapons feel so great to use from the starting Ranger Pistol and Assault Rifle to the shotgun and crazier advanced weapons with the Hyper Canon and Rocket Launcher the stand out big guns to use.

Abilities, weapons and your main vehicle, the Phoenix, can all be upgraded with a really frustrating two step upgraded process. First, each ability and weapon have a tier system which can be unlocked by spending Crystals and each tier contains upgrades which can be unlocked using weapon mods or ability boosters. This enables the player to pretty much tailor how they customise the abilities and weapons to their play style through progression until each can be maxed out. When you do start improving weapons and abilities, you will become quite the unstoppable force which increases the fun you can have but also has one downside, you can become too strong.

For example, for the most part of my first run through the story, I only used the pistol, assault rifle and shotgun along with my abilities like shatter and ground slam. Other than grenades and the amazing wingstick weapons, the more I levelled those up, the less challenging fights became, even with the tougher end story level encounters. In fact, the assault rifle once fully upgraded was able to pretty much handle every encounter including the boss level enemies and the reason for that is because the enemies fail to scale up to how powerful you can become. So many of the tougher enemies such as the Authority Sentry units and the convoys you can take down, stick to the same patterns of attack which are very easy to learn and then manipulate to get the win. This makes so many of the encounters pretty much routine by the end and rather dull, which is a real shame as exploring to earn all the materials to level up as well as finding all the arcs is what you will spend most of your time doing between story missions.

Whilst still fun with some fantastic combat encounters early on, it can become tedious after a while as bandit camps become nothing more than a quick shoot out before trying to locate all the collectables in order to clear that location. The moment your weapons and abilities become stronger than the enemies you can face, those battles become mundane and far too easy. Whilst it borrows quite a bit from Mad Max, Doom and Wolfenstein which take it to a new level from the first game, by the time you do reach the end, there is little else to do other than clearing up the map which can become repetitive.

The story has a short narrative would could have benefited from having some more to do as the setting is rather captivating if full of quite a lot of plot holes. But I did enjoy my time with RAGE 2 and to say that using the Danny Dyer voice pack cheat wasn’t fun for a short time would be a lie. It will be interesting to see if there is a future for RAGE as a series, and there is certainly enough here to build on but for now, this is one that could have delivered far more if the progression system took into account how strong you can make your Walker and scaled the enemies to match.

But players will have to be very forgiving of its shortcomings and though the combat can be extremely fun, it doesn’t do enough to balance out all its parts.