action adventure – Polenth's Blog

Rebel Galaxy Cover Developer: Double Damage Games
First Release: 20th October, 2015
Version Played: PlayStation 4
Length: Long
Available: PS Store US | PS Store UK | Xbox One | Steam

Your aunt Juno sends you a message to meet her at an out-of-the-way space station. Turns out she’s gone missing, but she’s left you a strange artefact.

The story is an adventure with a space Western feel to it. There’s nothing deep about the plot. It’s intended as a lighter tale, and that’s what it is. I would have liked something a little more concrete about the artefact’s origin, but the story basically does its job of guiding the player through the game.

A lot of the game is in the side activities, as the player needs to do these to get better gear between story missions. The basic setup reminded me of Elite. Money can be made through missions, trading, attacking other ships, mining asteroids, and similar things. It’s possible to be a pirate or fight them for the bounties. Where it differs is the game has a much easier learning curve, making it accessible for anyone looking for a little space action without having to perfectly line up a ship to dock it at a station (it’s a simple button press in this game). The scope is also smaller, as it spans a limited number of systems.

Combat was a little unusual, as the ship can only travel on a flat plane, rather than being able to go in any direction. Some of the enemy ships in the game can fly all over, but the big ones stay on that flat plane. It’s more like an ocean ship game, where ships fire weapons from their broadsides. Plus there’s a little help from the turrets, which are controlled by the game by default. This does make combat a lot easier, as there’s no spinning around aimlessly trying to find attackers. There’s a good mix of weapon types to choose from, as well as a range of ships, so I found the fighting fun.

The art direction of the game is pretty. Space is not an empty void. Colourful gas clouds fill each system, with a few nebula storms adding to the feel of space as an ocean. There are more asteroids than is realistic, but the aim is clearly not for realism. It’s creating a certain feel, of space as something a little more cosy, where there’s always something going on. I liked the range of asteroids to mine, as I’ve always been down for a bit of space mining.

Image Caption: A spaceship firing a mining laser at a shiny metallic asteroid. In the distance, there’s a gas giant with two rings. Game interface icons show on the screen, with the message “Distress Beacon Detected”. Even space miners don’t get any peace.

Where the art is weakest is the character models, which are seen on contacting ships and in the space station bars. There are basically two models for humans, which have been tweaked a little for the different roles. These models are coupled with a limited range of dialogue options. This is an area where the budget of the game really shows. However, it’s notable that the models are a man and a woman, meaning that every role can be a woman, from pirates to miners. A lot of high budget games fail on this, not because of money, but because they’ve actively chosen not to have women in the NPC groups (even if the story says they are there). This equality is treated as usual in the setting, with no sexist comments aimed at any of the women. The player is not gendered and is never shown or described.

Race is not as well handled, as the human models are all white. Even with a limited budget, there could have been some skin tone variation.

Overall, it’s a fun space adventure that isn’t too difficult in terms of gameplay. The different solar systems and side activities aren’t variable enough to really keep a player going beyond the story, but this isn’t much of a criticism. There’s a solid 20-30 hours of gameplay. A little more for people aiming for all the trophies (some of which are a bit of a grind, but nothing too difficult). I’d recommend it for anyone looking for something to hit that space exploration itch.

Developer: Sucker Punch Productions
First Release: 27th August, 2014
Version Played: PS4
Length: Short
Links: Trailer One, Trailer Two

inFAMOUS: First Light is a short prequel to inFAMOUS: Second Son – a 3D action game set in the near future. First Light was offered as extra content for Second Son players, but is also sold as a standalone game. I got a copy as part of my PlayStation Plus subscription, having never played the other inFAMOUS games. My thoughts are from the perspective of how the game stands up on its own for players who are coming into the series with this as their first game.

In the inFAMOUS world, conduits (superpowered people) are controlled by the authorities in the USA. They’re locked up in government facilities and trained to use their powers for official purposes (like working for the D.U.P., who contain and control conduits).

Abigail “Fetch” Walker is a conduit who controls neon. When she’s a child, her parents want to turn her over to the authorities, so her older brother runs away with her. They spend years living on the streets, struggling with drug addiction, and carrying out petty theft to raise enough money to escape to Canada. This evidently goes wrong, as Fetch is in a D.U.P. prison for conduits, telling her story about what happened in Seattle a few years earlier.

It was clear the game wasn’t initially intended for people who hadn’t played Second Son. The early part forgot a few details, like highlighting what waypoints looked like. Or that waypoints existed at all, and that was the place I needed to go on the map. I wandered a series of streets I couldn’t tell apart until I figured it out. Once at the waypoint, it threw me into a combat situation without a clue about which keys were for combat. A button-mashing extravaganza ensued.

Once I survived that, the game had a combat tutorial (these take place in the prison, where Fetch alternates between telling her story and doing combat training). Because the best time for a combat tutorial is after you’ve already had to fight something. Needless to say, the game wasn’t making the best impression at this point.

But it was free and I wasn’t going to get any more free games for a few weeks, so I kept at it. I took some time out from missions once the open-world objectives appeared on the map. A bit of wandering around and fighting random gang members helped a lot with learning the combat system. The game grew on me after that point, though still had some issues.

Starting with the positives, I liked Fetch. Her neon powers are interesting (she absorbs neon, and uses it to create light weapons, turn into light and run, and other things). Her character design is good, with clothes and mannerisms that match her character, rather than having her posing sexily in her underwear (unfortunately common in games, even when it’s snowing). Her voice actress hits the mark of someone young who’s been through a lot.

The portrayal of women was generally okay. Of the main voice-acted parts, three are women (Fetch, the head of the prison, and a hacker who helps on some missions) and two are men (a drug lord and Fetch’s brother). So Fetch isn’t a single woman in a world consisting entirely of men. There are some uncomfortable themes, like the drug dealer being creepy and sexist towards Fetch, and women being kidnapped by human traffickers, but these aren’t shown as good things (or shown in such loving detail that it seems the storywriter is fetishising them). I would have liked to hear a female voice alternative for the D.U.P. armoured people, as it’s clear they employ women and anyone could be in those armour suits… yet the voice for the mob is always a man. Though the main point isn’t so much First Light, but that the main games of the series have all had men as leads. Fetch gets a smaller prequel game rather than a main title, which is an elephant that needs pointing out.

The open world (the Seattle parts of the game) was a good idea in principle, with collectibles (lumens), lumen races (chasing after moving lumens) and neon graffiti as things to find. It encourages the player to explore the whole map. It’s only a pity the city wasn’t worth exploring. Seattle was beautifully textured for sure. The rain effects were nice, like reflections in the puddles and rain falling on the camera when it was angled up. But the city districts weren’t very distinctive. The buildings felt like empty boxes, which were only there as platforms to jump off to reach lumens. There wasn’t a sense of exploration or finding something unexpected around the corner. A few buildings were clearly copies from the real Seattle, which is nice enough, but the overall city was rather lifeless. As most of the game took place here, this was a problem.

Story isn’t a strength of the game. It has a straight-forward and simple storyline. It does its job well enough, of introducing the character, and holding together the action. It’s just not likely to surprise anyone.

Once the game is done, the player can continue to roam Seattle or play in the prison arenas. The arenas score points, which go on a leader board. In theory, a player could spend a lot of time playing the arenas to compete with other PlayStation players. In practise, I doubt that many people keep playing the arenas after they earn their trophies, as they’re not that interesting. It is worth going for the trophies though, as unusually for a short game, this one comes with a platinum trophy.

I enjoyed the game in the end, but not enough to want to buy the other inFAMOUS games. I might have been swayed if Fetch had been the main character in Second Son, but she isn’t. As far as First Light goes, the grittier sides of the world might put off some players, as there is human trafficking, torture and needles are shown. But if you’re in the market for an action game where you get to smite things with superpowers, and you’re not too worried if the world and story aren’t the strongest, it’s not a bad title.