I took a break from Wolfenstein this week to play the absolutely lovely Ori and the Blind Forest on Xbox One - although it's also available for PC. I reviewed it here so there's no need to say all that again, but it's wonderful. If you've got an Xbox One or PC and like a challenge you should buy it, no question. It's the most fun I've had with any Xbox One title to date.
Well, PS+ has done it again. No matter what content it throws out there each month, at least one of the games on offer usually becomes a favourite of mine. This time, it's Ubisoft's Valiant Hearts.
While on the surface I can imagine it turning a lot of people off - how often has any video game developer actually tackled the subject of war with any sense of gravitas? - Valiant Hearts succeeds because, and excuse the pun, its heart is in the right place. Focusing on historical facts and trying to convey the emotion behind them means it's very easy to buy in to what Ubisoft is trying to sell. We're all aware of WWI on some level. This takes that prior knowledge and adds context to it.
The Great War is also very good at making you care about its characters, even though they do little more than mumble and grunt. It's the story that runs throughout which is the catalyst for such events - the thought they could be taken from you at any minute is a very real, and constant, worry.
The art style is wonderful, too, somehow finding a way to blur the lines between cartoony and poignant without sacrificing or losing any integrity. It's only fair to say this isn't the case with the overall game, mind. Half heart-wrenching narrative, half video game, the latter often feels a little clumsy, simply because sometimes games ask you to do stupid things. Ignore this, however - and that's easily done - and Valiant Hearts is well worthy of anyone's time.
And by playing I mean, 'Playing the opening and then being pushed back to the main menu to wait for the rest of the game to download'. I'm in two minds about this whole partially-installed 'Ready to Play' thing on the new consoles. On the one hand, having to wait for the full 40-50GB to come down your pipe can be excruciating, but I can't decide whether or not this new method is actually worse.
Hardline, for example, allowed me to play through the campaign's 5-10 minute prologue before dumping me back to the main menu, but by doing so it damaged any sense of pace and excitement set up by the opening. There's nothing worse than a game's opening moments leaving you ready for more and then telling you to come back later to see it. Imagine if that had happened after entering Rapture in BioShock, or when exiting the vault in Fallout 3. And this isn't the first time this has happened, of course. I remember seeing similar complaints with Dying Light's 'elevator install' as well.
So yeah, I think I'll be waiting for my games to fully download before booting them up in the future and, if you have the patience, recommend you do too.
Hi. You look great today. Has anyone told you that? No? Then get rid of those people. You don't need them in your life.
Ahem.
Anyway, this week I played a lot of Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number. According to Steam I played it for 52 hours. I didn't – I left it on pause overnight – but I did play it for about 17. It gave me RSI. No joke.
Seriously.
Fucking game. It's alright. Read my review.
And hey: keep your head up, yeah?
