Tag: star wars

Posted on

Game Ramblings #213 – Star Wars Outlaws

More Info from Ubisoft

  • Genre: Action/Adventure
  • Platform: Xbox Series
  • Also Available On: PS5, Windows, Switch 2

Non-Jedi Star Wars games need what I would consider a mix of few things to succeed. They need to have you going up against weird aliens and imperials. They need you to be visiting strange alien planets and the cantinas in their towns. They need space flight of some sort, preferably with combat. To some extent they need callbacks to the movies to at least ground them within the universe. Those are important to the games being Star Wars, but it then has to prove itself as a good game and this one delivered.

This fills the void that the lack of a recent Tomb Raider left me with. For me, the most recent trilogy in that series is a stealth and ranged game. Where a lot of games in the realm of Assassin’s Creed are stealth and melee, TR leaned on the bow for ranged. There is very little else that worked effectively in those two modes for me like TR, but this one does and it does it with a perfect Star Wars universe wrapping.

It might seem strange to consider this and Tomb Raider in the same general vicinity since ranged here is almost entirely blaster weapons, but my use of them was pretty similar. For any sort of large scenario I would go in intending to do it completely in stealth. The blasters bring a bunch of options to do ranged stuns that worked in a similar way to TR bow kills in that they are silent and effective. This would be paired with me sneaking around doing melee takedowns to get rid of as much of the enemy presence as possible. The stealth portion was a lot of fun and had elements to it that were relatively IP specific.

For example, there’s situations where you’ll be sneaking into an Imperial base, full of enemies, cameras, and turrets. You could approach this by taking everyone out and getting away through relatively brute force. You could also approach it by finding a computer to hack the turrets and turn them on the Imperials. You could also approach it by shutting down the cameras and finding safe paths through the base. You could also approach it by finding vents that can be unlocked and coming into your objective via a back route. While some of the story stuff is a little more singularly focused than that, there’s almost always multiple ways to approach a scenario, and that variety and ability to change tactics on the fly really gave a lot of life to the stealth gameplay in particular as it was always a little bit different based on the location you’re at.

When I then inevitably screwed something up I could then lean on the blasters to do actual damage. Where this differs from the TR bow is that the blaster is much more of a third person shooter style weapon where kills are fast and effective. The toolbox here is a lot of chaotic fun when this does happen. Equipping shock damage to disable droids is obvious in-universe and a lot of fun. Shooting the wide array of explosive barrels conveniently placed in combat areas and watching bodies fly is the type of stupid physics thing that adds secondary fun to games like this.

However, it’s also got a really nice power curve and more granular customization than that. An example of the type of thing they have is three upgrade paths for the core plasma blaster. You can go into light firing, heavy firing, or rapid firing. This gives you three types of gameplay that fit different preference styles. Light is a semi auto that can be rapidly fired, but with lower damage. Rapid fire is a pray and spray auto fire that gives you more speed but less accuracy. Heavy firing gives you big damage but lower rate of fire and frequency of reloading. Giving the player the ability to bend combat to their preferences is a powerful way to get a lot of mileage out of small changes that don’t really require a lot of new work. It’s some basic tech and configuration to completely change the gameplay experience in a way that empowers the player to play their way.

You may notice that this is all talking about moment to moment gameplay in what are essentially small places, but this is an open world game with space combat. Frankly, that’s because that stuff simply exists. The meta loop of this game is that it’s an Ubisoft game and it plays like an Ubisoft game. It’s a big ol open world with stuff scattered around that you can do, stuff scattered around that you can collect, and random event stuff that pops up. This extends to space combat where the same stuff happens, but now in a space ship with space combat. Like a lot of their games it’s not that it’s bad but it simply exists and works well, but it’s been done before. The meta loop is no different than Assassin’s Creed, Watch Dogs, or Immortals. Like a lot of AAA game meta loops, it’s all well put together and exists without getting in the way, but it was distinctly not the draw of the experience for me by the end of the game.

I’m not going to pretend that there isn’t some portion of me that likes this game because of the nostalgia of being able to work for Jabba or shoot Imperials or go visit Mos Eisley. That absolutely is a portion of the experience that enhances this game over the same loop without the license. However, this game absolutely stands out as a fun experience enhanced by the IP and how they could work that into gameplay mechanics. This takes bits and pieces that work within a stealth experience like Jabba and bounty hunting and blaster pistols and mashes it together into an experience that really surprised me.

Posted on

Game Ramblings #158 – Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga

More Info from Star Wars

  • Genre: Action/Adventure
  • Platform: PS5
  • Also Available On: PS4, Switch, Windows, Xbox One, Xbox Series

It’s been a bit since my last ramblings. I decided to do carpal tunnel surgery on both wrists at once, as one does. What that does is makes videogames surprisingly not very fun to play. When I was figuring out what I wanted to play first after getting my sutures out, this one was sitting there ready to go. It feels like it’s been forever since The Force Awakens, but the full 9 episode saga is here and it’s a lot of fun.

The Lego games have always just kind of been collectathons, but it surprised me how much this felt like a complete game, and not just a Legoified version of the movies like a lot of past games. There were some pretty obvious changes to the core combat mechanics as well as a much better expansion to the metagame between story segments that really made the whole thing work.

The biggest obvious change is that there’s ranged weapons everywhere! You’ve got blasters of every flavor, bows of all sorts, you can chuck your light saber like a whooshing boomerang. However, unlike The Force Awakens, which sometimes had ranged weapons but clumsy aiming due to the fixed camera angle, we’re now seeing a full third-person game. You’ve got all your typical trappings of shooters, such as ADS on the left trigger and full camera manipulation on the right stick. In doing this change, the game now feels like a modern title along the lines of something like a simple Ratchet & Clank, rather than a sort of clumsy Lego-themed isometric platformer.

The metagame is also just a lot more free flowing in a way that encourages the use of the typical large character roster of the series. You’ll jump between segments of free roam where you can use any purchased characters and segments of story where you’re restricted to relevant characters. In allowing the free roam segments, the game is doing a great job of slowing down the pace of the game in a way that is still fun. Where a typical Lego Star Wars title was around 10 hours, this one is about 20. While that is much longer, it now covers all nine movies instead of just a handful, so the pace slowing down is definitely necessary.

What you end up doing is completing a specific story segment, then being unleashed into what is essentially a movie-themed playground. Scattered around are all sorts of miscellaneous rewards, so it becomes a game of finding out how to get them all. Some spots are simply puzzles of choosing the right person to get to the glowing spot. Some of them are mini races or combat segments for a reward. Some of them are side quests where you interact with characters from the movies in fun ways in order to unlock them for play. However, the important thing is that it’s varied and quick to do. You’ll spend a few minutes per-reward, then move on to the next thing. It keeps things fresh so you aren’t stuck in one spot for long periods of time, but also provides a nice change from the purely linear story segments that you’re doing the rest of the time.

It’s also worth a mention that space combat is another one of the things that acts as a nice pace change. Some of the areas are Star-Fox inspired – such as the Death Star trench run – and some of the areas are distinctly open flight. Mechanically these are definitely simple. You’re basically firing a relatively large angle auto aim machine gun or firing a very generously homing proton torpedo. However, in all cases it’s another place I can point at where the segments are used as a way to breakup the pace of the game and keep the overall flow fresh.

Ultimately that’s the biggest thing about this title that I could point at as an improvement over past entries. You’re running through a bunch of story very quickly to cover nine movies, but it doesn’t feel overwhelming or boring at any point. Because the specifics of what you’re doing change so much, you don’t really have time to become bored with any specific type of gameplay. You kind of do one type of gameplay for a few minutes in a story mission, then go into free roam, then go into another story mission with completely different gameplay, then back to free roam. Because everything has some currency being given that allow you to get more stuff, it also never feels like you’re doing something unrewarding.

If you’re a fan of past Lego titles this is an easy recommendation. If you’re a fan of Star Wars this is an easy recommendation. However, more than that this feels like a much easier recommendation to the general game audience. This is a much more complete game than past titles. Rather than being a game that leans on its IP to be good, this feels like a generally good game that is instead boosted by its use of the IP. While the reports of severe development problems put a bit of a black eye on things, this game is showing a bit of hope that the Traveller’s Tales Lego series can be a bit thing again going forward.

Posted on

Game Ramblings #122 – Star Wars: Squadrons

More Info from EA

  • Genre: Space Flight Sim
  • Platform: PS4
  • Also Available On: Windows, Xbox One

Now I’ll be honest – I didn’t spend a single second in the multiplayer here. By all accounts it’s pretty fun and well made, but that was not at all what I wanted out of this game. What I wanted was a pretty specific thing – a quick hit of space flight in the vein of the Rogue Squadron or Starfighter games, and this really hit the mark there.

Compared to those two series I mentioned there’s really two main things that make Squadrons work so well as a modern game, and the first of these is perspective. The entire game is absolutely designed as a first-person experience and it makes the games work far better. I know that sounds silly, but it’s the same reasoning why I vastly prefer first-person views in racing games. The immediacy of input when you have a fixed perspective gives much better feedback to the player when they’re changing directions. That sort of immediacy in third-person more often than not feels awkward, so you get things like drag and delays on camera booms of third person cameras, which works well to smooth out the camera but gives the feel of delay on input.

It’s a fairly subtle change on the surface, but it results in a much better pace of gameplay. You see the results of input faster, so your reactions are faster, your dodging is faster, your kills are faster. However, that doesn’t just mean everything can just be faster – it means there can be more. Avoiding enemy fire effectively means there can be more enemy fire. Killing enemies fast means there can be more enemies. Quicker controls means there can be tigher spaces and debris that aren’t annoyances – but actual interesting gameplay opportunities. It all works well to ramp the spectacle at the same time as ramping the gameplay, and feels far more interesting than what came before.

The second real change is around handling of AI. It’s not so simple as to say they’re competent, but that they’re controllable. In a way it reminds me a lot of another Star Wars title – Republic Commando. The AI on their own can do a fine job, but where the real benefit comes in is in telling them what their focus should be. Have a guy on your tail that you can’t seem to quite shake? Direct the AI at them. Want the AI to focus on the main target while you take out TIE Fighters? Direct the AI at them. Again, this is a pretty subtle change, but its impact is immense. The battles become less about one-on-one or going after a specific target, and more about managing the flow of battle as it comes to you. If there’s only a main target left, you can all pile onto the target and take it out, but for larger battles you have a lot more flexibility to direct both yourself and your team in a way that pays the most benefit to you.

There’s some smaller systems that also work into this, but are more loadout based. On the surface, the loadout option to add a rechargeable repair droid to your ship seems like a safety valve for less skilled players. However, when I used it it allowed me to play extraordinarily aggressively, often to a stupid level, running right at larger ships and running through their shields while laying in damage. There were also options for main guns and missiles that allowed me to disable enemy ships, giving me options to disable and move on while sending my AI folks in for the cleanup. It’s things like this that add that touch of customization that modern games really lean into. It’s a level beyond merely picking your ship, and leans into making the game work for you instead of you fitting into the game.

I guess all of that is a long way of saying that this was fun and it really felt like it pushed the space flight Star Wars gameplay in a nice direction. You can feel hints of the Rogue Squadron and Starfighter games in there, but this is definitely a more modern approach. It’s also focused in its execution. Ya there’s single and multiplayer, but it’s not trying to be something it’s not. There’s no open world, there’s no overarching metagame, there’s no distractions. It’s space flight done well that doesn’t overstay its welcome. In that, it did exactly what I wanted it to do.