Transcending history, and the world, a tale of souls and swords, eternally retold: Those iconic words instantly transport me back to when I first fired up the Soul Calibur game on my original PlayStation console all the way back in 1998. What made this series stand out from the Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat and Tekken fighting games that I loved was the focus on using weapons which was refreshing and new. It has been several years since I last played a Soul Calibur game but 2018 has certainly been a year for Fighting Games coming back and so I was more then happy to jump back into the fight!

The moment Soul Calibur 6 was announced in late 2017 I was excited to see it making a return following the return of Street Fighter, Tekken and Mortal Kombat in recent years meant that all my favourite fighting series were returning to the spotlight which as a gamer who grew up with these iconic fighting games is something amazing. Soul Calibur was always a different game to play for me so was more than a little intrigued to see how this attempt at rebooting the series would play out. I have to say, I am rather happy with how this entry turned out.

The first instance of improvement easily comes with the visuals which are just gorgeous in Soul Calibur 6 which have clearly benefited from 2018 console power. This is especially true when you look at the amazing roster of characters who all look amazing like the original series characters in Sophitia, Zoldo and Yoshimitsu to the new to the series additions like Azwel. The roster was always one of my highlights to play this series with the unique looks the characters have even before you get to their fighting style and weapon. It also has some of the best concept art as well which you can find with a quick internet search as well which just emphasises the attention to detail that goes into the visuals here.

But it is not just cosmetically where this game is rather lovely to look at as the stages you fight on just look amazing even when you are busy focusing on the fighting. The fighting is again very pretty to watch as the animation flows so well for each fighter and even when the battle is fierce with so much going on, the animation remains smooth and fluid with no slow down which is something I had noticed can happen with Tekken 7 before updates cured that that. The audio and musical score help enhance everything visual as well and despite it being a good few years since playing the series, it all transported me right back to the days where I did so effortlessly which is exactly what I hope for when jumping into a rebooted series.

I was a little worried that I would be rusty at the gameplay having played so many different fighting games this year in Street Fighter V, Injustice 2 and Mortal Kombat X and Dragon Ball FighterZ but it only took a few rounds with new character Azwel to take to its four-button system once again. Fighting games do feel more natural with control simplicity, which I know may annoy those fed up with the button mashing style systems but this is a simple system that allows for real depth for expert players but easy enough to allow newcomers to pick up and play which also makes experimenting with different characters on the roster the focus instead of working out which button does what. With X and Y buttons handling the weapon attacks with vertical and horizonal, B to kick your opponent and A acting as the block button you have a system that you can build your experience on and refine your gameplay the more you play because the foundation is so pick up and play.

Now when it comes to fighting games I do expect more to them then just an online mode, having a classic arcade mode is a big deal for me because its how I became hooked to fighting games back in the past and have really enjoyed when that arcade mode evolved into a full on story mode for this recent generation of gaming and I have to admit, I was pleasantly surprised by the modes offered in Soul Calibur 6. Starting with a new story style mode in ‘Libra of Souls’. This mode requires the player to create their own character, fully customisation their appearance and selecting a fighting style from any character on the roster. This mode feels like its own Soul Calibur based mini-RPG game as you travel across the game world in order to level up your character and weapons to become stronger. You can even make dialogue choices and encounter other characters from the main game roster during this mode. It can be quite fun to spend some time in and makes a very different way of having a story in a fighting game as usually it is just revolving around cut-scenes and the player handling the fighting in order to progress further but to have this evolving the story mode even further and the fact it also has the traditional arcade mode to tell the story of the individual roster characters as well and you can really see that this was not just a cash in attempt on bringing the series back but a focused effort to reclaim its rightful position in the top portion of fighting games.

Bringing back old fighting games can be hit and miss and sometimes they have to be totally overhauled in order to compete in todays competitive market for fighting genre. Soul Calibur 6 managed to stay faithful to everything that made the series such a hit with fans but also refreshes so much such as the new Libra Souls game mode and being able to create your own customisable fighter to play in there and online against other players. It feels both familiar and new at the same time and even after a good number of years since I played this series, I was right back into it with character I know and a story I still find fun to be a part of.

Though some I had some issues with the online, updates have improved things and continue to do so making this a must have fighting game for any fan and especially now in the Christmas season with sales which will only make this even more attractive. The fighting game genre has really found momentum again and against the newest titles battling to make a name for themselves, Soul Calibur 6 does more than enough to make its own mark once again with classic gameplay and new modes. I honestly had not expected to be this excited to see how fighting games continue to evolve again but it is a delight to see the old classics are indeed timeless.

I have really enjoyed the Just Cause series over the years but I had real problems with the last game because the technical issues it suffered just spoiled the experience. But the gameplay was sound and wing suiting about and being told to blow up everything around me was quite a buzz so when I read that Just Cause 4 was moving to a new game engine that should address all the flaws in the previous game as well as having a bigger world to use as a playground well, I was just itching to get flying about. It was a major disappointment to not only discover that the technical problems were not over and everything I did like about the last game were somehow now absent, I was both confused and let down by it all.

Alarm bells first rang in my head about Just Cause 4 when reviews only came out the day before its release and then it was mainly PC versions being reviewed with no console reviews available to read. Now that does not automatically mean a game is bad but it usually the delay is due to either online services not being activated until launch or to avoid major story spoilers from getting out in the open. But after playing Just Cause 4 for the last eight days I think I can say that the state that the game released in for consoles and in this case the Xbox One, was no doubt a big factor as this game has issues, annoying and frustrating issues both technical and design wise that just sunk my heart the longer I played it.

Our hero Rico is back and this time has travelled to Solis in order to continue his fight against The Black Hand mercenary army after discovering this his father had been working for them with a top-secret project that involves weather manipulation. The person in charge of the Black Hand, Gabriela Morales who is as formidable a foe as Rico has encountered yet and is soon thrown right into the fight to take down her and her army, find out why and what his father was working on for them and help the people of Solis regain their freedom. Standard Just Cause story but in a much bigger sandbox to play in which uses many of the gameplay mechanics fans will instantly recognise from his grappling and parachuting with the same dramatic wingsuit action where every flight can end with an epic level faceplant into the ground.

The very thing I noticed was the moderate improvement to the visuals thanks to the new engine that Avalanche Studios is using and it handles the world and also the cutscenes which are now all using the game engine rather than a pre-rendered cutscene. For the opening 15 minutes I was really impressed with the new engine, everything looked great from the buildings to the scenery and snowy environment I was grappling around heading to objectives. The first cracks came as soon as it became daylight and oh did it all become very blurry to look at from the draw distance of buildings far away to things up close. It was just so jarring and distracting that when character models in cutscenes began to look fuzzy with lighting effects not performing as they should on characters clothes and hair and worse, the animation and character movements even lagged at times with screen tearing becoming more frequent during key story scenes.

The problem with the visuals is something that the developers are fully aware and have used their official social media to announce that they are working on fixes to address these problems but playing this game right now, two weeks post launch and still these problems are a real issue which following the many criticisms of the last game, to have more technical problems is just ridiculous and personally too big an annoyance to forgive for this release version of the game. Visuals are not the only problem because the physics in the game world also can become a massive distraction which took me right out of the game experience enough to at times just pause the game in astonishment that these issues were never addressed before release.

The gameplay that I loved in Just Cause 3 has been stripped down so much that what has been left of it is just a tedious mess leaving me bored more than excited to jump into more action. The same style of having to liberate areas of the map is used but not the method of liberation. In Just Cause 3 Rico would be tasked with clearing enemies out of an area by destroying their bases and security centres by literally raising every part of them to the ground. It was bombastic and huge fun and yet for some strange reason, Avalanche decided not to follow that for this game. You still have to liberate regions on the map in order to unlock key story missions but this only involves completing a single mission objective and then sending in a squad of rebels to take that region.

It just falls so flat playing wise, you can still go in and wreck bases but the fact you are not told to or required to as you were in the last game just makes it feel pointless. Not to mention the fact that the majority of missions involve either finding a terminal to hack and then covering it until its complete or escorting someone else for them to hack a terminal and then covering them until its complete just becomes so repetitive and dull and unrewarding. It boggles my mind why they took away the most fun aspect of the last game and made it an optional thing to do that has zero rewards for doing it. So what is left instead is a huge sandbox with boring things to do, rubbish side missions and technical issues that plague every gaming session.

What makes it more frustrating is that this world has some amazing things in it from main story missions that can have some real epic moments such as the ‘Storm Chaser’ missions which brings in the biggest new addition to the series, weather. When I say weather, I mean the absolutely massive F5 level tornado that can be seen destroying everything in its wake even outside story missions. It is an incredible thing to see and interact with. To watch it create havoc across the world by sucking up everything from vehicles, to enemy bases and whole towns really is something to see and the real reason they changed the game engine in order for it all to work. The world itself is also alive and you will often see traffic accidents and battles raging between the rebels of Solis and the Black Hand army as you just explore the world, I even had a plane land right next to me with no idea of why or how it came to crash.

Vehicle use is just terrible as cars and motorbikes just handle so clumsily, I often just take a helicopter to get to places. I do like how the grapple has been improved so not only can you attach it to objects and enemies but now you can have three load outs to include balloons to air lift things and a booster then you can attach to things and trigger it to send them spinning or flying away. This can really test the realms of reality that the physics in the game uses but it can lead to some very fun shenanigans and experimentation. I do think other than the technical issues my biggest problem is that there just so little that is new in terms of gameplay. What used to be fun to do in the last game has been stripped down to nothing here and the rest just feels like it has only been tweaked with nothing really changing massively. I could fire up Just Cause 3 and have more fun and that is not what is supposed to happen with a new title.

Even the tone of the game has changed so much that it feels very strange that the borderline parody level it previously had towards action games has been forced into a more serious one with Rico being less fun to play as. He is all miserable now with little fun interaction with other characters throughout the main missions. The plot of the story kind of makes logical sense but the execution and new side characters are just so dull so missing the humour I enjoyed as well as much of the gameplay I loved about the last game and what is left is sadly a broken mess of disappointments.

I had so many hopes going into this latest instalment of the series and that lessons from the last game had been learned but sadly this is a big misstep instead and even if the promised fixes come in for all the technical issues, there are still too many let downs for this to be a must play title right now. Even with the end of year sales coming up fast I would still recommend waiting for this to drop to very bargain bucket levels pricing before picking up, a lot of work has to be done to fix the many problems it has but this is just a Rico Rodriguez I do not recognise or enjoy playing as.

The City that Never Sleeps has been quite a mixed bag for me after the main game is easily in my top three games of 2018. Split into three chapters but connected by the same story, the first two DLC’s featured rather short story missions starting with Black Cat manipulating Spidey into helping her whilst the second in Turf Wars focused on Detective Yuri Watanabe and her paying the price for seeking vengeance against Hammer Head. Now in Silver Lining the story comes to a close and gave me the opportunity to reflect on all things Spider-Man PS4.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4BJAbGZ9BY

I will say that this is probably the shortest of the three chapters to this expansion DLC story, but it brought everything in it and aspects to the main game story full circle which I really appreciated. Most of the action will come in the side activities but the conclusion to the main story has a returning Silver Sable back in New York and is quite frankly, really pissed off with our friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man. Why, well she is rather unhappy that in her absence Hammerhead was allowed to pretty much take all the SABLE tech he wanted under Spider-Man’s nose and she has returned to take it all back whilst delivering some justice of her own.

Now those who have played the main game will know that she already had a less then friendly relationship with Spidey from the main game, and this chapter opens with her pretty much just coming straight for Spider-Man in a nice opening fight which will test all the player’s reflexes as Spidey desperately tries to talk her down before she quite literally blows his Webbed head right off his shoulders. Right from the off this does feel like the concluding chapter and there is very little to the story outside of the goal to stop Hammerhead who by this point has fully committed to using SABLE’s Olympus Project to transform himself into an unstoppable cyborg, which may annoy some traditionalist Spider-Man fans.  All the setup has been done in the previous two chapters so this final part does not waste any time getting to the point of it all but does take the time to allow a return for some characters whilst Spider-Man and Silver Sable work towards the same common goal.

The side activities all take place across a larger region of the map then the previous chapters and again will have more crimes for Spider-Man to stop from Hammerhead’s gangs and will also see the return of Screwball and her challenges. Base battles come in the form of the Olympus Hideouts scattered round where Hammerhead has been stockpiling SABLE medical supplies which need recovering but for me the fun element came in the form of the Crime Scene Recordings where unsolved crimes have been mysteriously left for Spider-Man to find and investigate. It will take longer to complete the side stuff then to complete the main story and for this finale, I honestly did not mind. I completed the main story in just about 90 minutes, taking the time to only do a few of the side activities so again, this is rather short story wise but I wanted to save the side stuff to the end as that is the most fun to have with this DLC and well worth doing if you want to complete the full new set of DLC Spider-Man suits to wear.

Difficulty is turned up a notch as with previous ones and the frustration of having Spider-Man with all his abilities even without his web gadgets, having his butt handed to him by Silver Sable to kick things off did annoy me. The Hammerhead thugs are not only using the SABLE guns they had in Turf Wars, but now are using full SABLE Armour as well which makes them a real challenge even if like me, you have a fully maxed out Spider-Man and fully upgraded gadgets to use. I do understand why they made the DLC tougher than the main campaign and even ignoring the difficulty you chose to play on by being much tougher so that this end game level content is just that, an end game challenge making players use all the skills they have picked up through playing the main game and the DLC to be the best Spider-Man they can be, and this DLC expansion has put those skills to the test.

I also love the little side story elements such as Miles still continuing his training by Peter who is finally starting to understand why he was not just put into a costume and sent out to fight crime, the lesson of “with great power comes great responsibility” whilst never actually said to Miles, is shown to him in how Peter insists he does his school work before his Spider work such as learning physics and math in order to better understand web-slinging and his strength. This is all a follow up to what we saw in the main game and the pacing has been so sensible in having these three extra story chapters build to what will probably be in the sequel game, a playable Miles Morales Spider-Man. Now last week I had the pleasure of Seeing ‘Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse; which you should definitely go make time to see if you have not already seen it, and it really did enhance my enjoyment and experience with this DLC and the main game as a whole. You can see how much detail, respect and love Insomniac games have put into this DLC and game and they are truly world building in every way with Spider-man, Peter and Mary Jane as well as Miles Morales and by doing it so carefully they can really turn this into an iconic gaming series such as the Arkham Series did for Batman.

Of course with the recent loss of Stan Lee, everything to do with Spider-Man is heightened for me as a MARVEL fan, and as this DLC comes to an end, I think back on my time with the main game giving me pause to think about how amazing it is to see Stan Lee’s legacy in the very safe hands of Insomniac Games, and you can feel their dedication and commitment for his creation in every thing they do, including  very heartfelt and beautiful tribute to Stan as the DLC reaches its end. As an entire expansion, the City that Never Sleeps gave me more of what I loved about the main game, being Spider-Man and fighting crime in New York, being its hero and friendly neighbourhood webhead. By splitting it up into three parts it helped give me a reason to return to the game each month after the game launched in September but it also suffered as a result of being cut up with shortness of main story and plenty of filler side activities but now completed with Silver Lining, it leaves me happy and thankful to have had more story to experience and more bad guys to beat up.

The City That Never Sleeps had some great moments to the story but also began to set the scene for what may come next with little easter-eggs planted for Peter and Mary Jane, the villains Spider-Man may come up against and a new hero in Miles Morales, a new Spider-Man that can also build on the success of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse going forward which is a huge win for Sony PlayStation, Sony Pictures and MARVEL. If you have yet to pick up this expansion then please do so, you wont regret it and now can you can play all three chapters fluidly without a month’s wait in between it actually flows really well by expanded the world and stories told in the main game and as I said earlier, it all comes together in just a beautiful celebration of the legacy that Stan Lee left behind.

I just hope the wait for more Spider-Man stories by Insomniac games does not take too long to come, because this is the best Spider-Man gaming experience you can have right now and I am already excited to see what happens next!