The Knight, Wizard, and Thief
If you are like me, new to the Trine series, Trine puts you in the boots of 3 playable characters. Each with their own unique abilities. You will need to utilize each of the character's abilities if you are to make your way through the ever-changing puzzles. The knight has a shield which he uses to deflect incoming projectiles as well as reflect light. His trusty sword can break objects as well as slay the troublesome enemies you might come across. The Wizard can conjure up a box that can be used for climbing onto or hold mechanisms in place. The Thief, equipped with a bow, can shoot 3 types of arrows as well as connect ropes to rings as well as to the boxes the wizard conjures. Using these abilities and your wit, you need to overcome the puzzles Trine throws at you.
Trine 4 predominantly focuses on using the 3 characters and their abilities to solve puzzles. Using the thief and wizard, predominantly, you can solve most of the puzzles laid out before you. On the odd occasion, you might need the knight to reflect or deflect things that block your path. There are however a few combat stages that are scattered across the stages. These, unfortunately, do nothing for the game and I found myself wishing them to be over rather than enjoying them. They are also rather straight forward. Simply select the knight and bash and deflect until you have defeated all the enemies.
A happy and lovable place
Trine 4 has the most beautiful and vivid maps and areas that I have come across in a long time. The forests, caves and even dilapidated castles are all spectacular and lovely to see. Even though it is a 2.5D scroller, the backdrops feel alive and vivid. From the birds flying overhead, or the spiders and other animals crawling past in the background, all seem so natural. This gives Trine a wonderful sense of fantasy, much like I felt while watching the Harry Potter series. A sense of a truly living world happening around you. To add to this lovable and enjoyable setting is the way the game challenges you but without frustrating you. There are areas where you will get stuck for a few minutes but they do not hold you back long enough to get you frustrated. I found myself enjoying the odd challenge here and there. The respawn system is also extremely forgiving which will see your fallen comrades not stay downed for very long.
While spending around 12 hours in Trine 4, I never once experienced a "game over". Trine does not try to have you fail. It does not need to keep you playing for longer by making you struggle. It relies on its wonderful storytelling and fun, yet challenging puzzles to keep you hooked. And hooked you will be.
Better with a friend
As if that wasn't enough. You can also party up with a friend and have a second character, constantly, by your side. This will see you fly through many of the puzzles but also have the game adjust itself to make it a little more challenging. All in all the game has great replayability if you want to give it a bash solo, or with some mates.
Verdict
what really makes Trine 4 a great installment in the series is the fact that you need no previous experience or knowledge of the games to enjoy this one. The story starts at a rather neutral point where no back story or history is needed. For those who are not new to the series, there are many references and jokes that you will enjoy and relate to. All in all, Trine 4 is a game I didn't know existed, yet after playing it, I am really happy I had the chance to. Trine 4 is a happy and fun experience that will eat up time and leave you with a smile on your face and a happy heart. If you want to spend some time with a friend and take a break from the grind of the mainstream shooters or competitive racers, Trine 4 is what you need to wind down and have some casual fun!
Special thanks to Apex Interactive for the review copy
These classes can be upgraded using cybernetic implants, accompanied by a host of high and low tech weapons, you are sure to be having some dismembering-fun in no time! What really struck me was how each of these weapons and armor that is at your disposal has an effect on the movement and flow of your rig. When you are using the Operator rig you feel like you can chain attacks together and bounce between enemies like Spiderman, but on the flip side, you can be sent flying across the battlefield with a single blow.
Blocking and injectables are both new systems that improve Surge 2 dramatically. The blocking and parrying system feels like it has been directly taken from For Honor. For those not familiar with this system, it does take some getting used to but once you are comfortable, it is extremely robust and very rewarding. The block and parry system works extremely well when using the goliath class with its extremely slow attack speed. Guessing the attacking direction correctly will see you parry and counter which is extremely satisfying when done correctly. The newly added injectables also add a whole new dimension to the fighting dynamic. Even though two goliath classes are identical, applying a variety of injectables can because both these Goliath builds to be completely different. This increases the replay-ability of Surge 2.
Executions are very clever and satisfying. As before, you need to target specific body parts and once you have done enough damage, you can dismember that limb. The animations for these dismemberments are spectacular. But what makes it truly great is the way it integrates into the looting system. In Surge 2 most of your loot is collected from downed enemies. Instead of this loot just being random, the way you fight the opponent will determine the loot that they drop. Looking for a very specific piece of armor? You will need to find an enemy wearing that exact piece of armor and dismember it. This gives the player reason to go and hunt down specific enemies. At the same time,it puts an interesting take on the looting and grinding aspect because it puts less emphasis on grinding until you find the item you looking for and rather has you exploring until you find someone with that item.
With the story being told via NPCs and recordings that can be picked up, and the game allowing you to explore areas in any order, the story can become disjointed if you wander into an area and get plot details out of order. When the dust settles on Surge 2, the general feeling was that the incentive of gathering stronger loot is more than what progressing the story was. This is not a negative point but it is something to be aware of if you are looking for a more story-driven RPG.
Borderlands is a franchise known for going against the grain, and the opening moments prove that. Unlike other sequels changing from the predecessors, Borderlands is so confident in itself that it dares to be familiar. This shows how confident gearbox and Borderlands are with themselves as well as this installment in the franchise. And it is with good reason that they are. From the opening moments you will be met with the usual Borderlands story, you are vault hunter, tasked with helping Lilith, a Siren from the previous installments, to find vault across the universe before the calypso twins (Anti-heroes and twin brother and sister) find them and DESTROY THE UNIVERSE(queue dramatic music). Not to mention the utterly hilarious jokes and jabs that are strewn across the wastelands of Borderlands.
This is part of what makes Borderlands so great, instead of changing up their whole game they keep the things that is loved by the fans and tweak the things that can only improve the experience. The shooting has been completely reworked to give a more enjoyable experience as well as giving the movement system a more fluid feel. You can now traverse obstacles easily. Graphically Borderlands 3 has taken its unique cartoon-styled graphics to a new level. Fewer reds and oranges and a whole lot more color! Borderlands 3 is lovely on the eye with lots of bright new colors and even MORE weapons. As if the weapons, you will be hard-pressed to find a game that has a wider variety of truely "original weapons" . Ranging from your run-of-the-mill shotguns to seriously interesting alien tech that instead of reloading, you throw at your enemy and explode on impact.
Gearbox was also very proud to state that they boast " 1 billion guns", they might have crooked the books slightly by giving nearly identical guns a different name and slightly tweaked stats. But what they have done well is to give each weapon manufacturer a distinct feature. Vladof guns have 2 different firing modes, the guns that the children of the vault don't need reloading they overheat and need to cool down. All of these tiny elements help to sell the illusion of an endless amount of weapons to find. Borderlands 3 takes it a step further, Each weapon has its own character, whether you have your revolver hammer cooking or the chatter of the assault rifle as it sprays lead, or the red hot barrel of your shotgun after slaying a team of skags. These little things make you appreciate what Gearbox and Borderlands 3 have achieved with this long-awaited installment.
Borderlands has always been known for the wonderful split-screen action and endless hours of looting and shooting you can have with a buddy, or 3. Borderlands 3 is no different. When you join up with a buddy online, the party leader can choose whether loot is evenly shared amongst each other, with each player only seeing his or her own loot, or it can be a free for all, fastest looter wins. Borderlands even jokes about that! Everything is lighthearted in Borderlands. There are also a couple of new modes : Mayhem mode, which is a wave-like mode where enemies become increasingly tougher with the reward of increasingly stronger loot. True Vault Hunter mode (the new game plus) and circles of slaughter (true horde mode) and Proving grounds which resembles Diablo 3 rifts. With all these modes that can be played solo or with friends as well as taking them on with each of the 4 vault hunters, you will be playing Borderlands 3 for a long time to come!
The Blackwidow only shows its true colours, pun intended, once you turn on the Chroma. And with the addition of all the new features to the Synapse 3 software, Chroma has no reason to be restricted to only a keyboard or a mouse. Your whole gaming- rig and room can now partake in the Chroma effect. With the addition of Philips Hue, home integration is a reality when gaming, add in the game integration with games such as Apex Legends enjoying integration as a standard, and Chroma becomes fantastic
The Razer Blackwidow is a fan-favourite for good reason. it has fantastic build quality, feeling solid and well built. Razer also puts its green switches to good use in the Blackwidow, stating that it even has reinforced sidewalls on every key to ensure there is no wobble when pressing down on keys. The green switches provide a good balance between tactile feedback as well as being clicky. The Green switches are also rated for 80 million keystrokes, so don't expect them to give up on you any time soon. Typing and gaming both feel divine on the Blackwidow, keystrokes feel confident and strong under your fingers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffvneEPgPqk
Another way Razer has marketed the Blackwidow for both work and play is the exclusion of the dedicated macro keys. Instead, they use their very own Hypershift. Hypershift allows you to assign any key of your choosing to a secondary function. Don't worry if you have different macros for different games, the Blackwidow has onboard storage for a host of macros which you can simply flick through when needed. If you are scared of losing those macros due to someone highjacking your Blackwidow and changing your fine-tuned macros, Razer even provides cloud storage for your macros. This allows for quick and easy setups when moving between PCs or Blackwidows alike.
The only letdown in the comfort department is the fact that the earcups do not have the ability to swivel. This causes some troubles with finding a snug fit and also creates leaks which don't help when trying to achieve passive noise cancellation. But, this can be solved if you do a few minor adjustments and find the sweet-spot in terms of position on your head.
When gaming on PC, the same was experienced but this can easily be adjusted by simply applying an equalizer which then made the tone balance much better. Unfortunately, on console, there are no equalizers to be used. The Razer Kraken, however, does have really good spacial sound. Playing games such as R6 Siege and Apex Legends on both console and PC. I usually use an Astro A40 TR which uses an external amp, allowing for massive amounts of customization to try and use sound to the best advantage possible. The Kraken obviously does not have all the gizmos the A40 TR has but it does a great job of indicating sound direction on both console and PC.
The Razer Kraken retractable mic is nothing out of this world. it does the job and it does it well. It gives clear voice to your party without any frills. The lack of mic monitoring is a letdown as most of the competition in this price range do provide monitoring.
Greedfall makes its intentions known from the first mission. Get onto the ship for your voyage to the new world. Sounds simple enough. It is not, you have a few loose ends to tie up before setting sail. The governor has not yet boarded the ship, still too drunk from the stupor he had the night before. Time to put on your detective hat and find him. Treading around Serene and asking fellow patrons is not a simple and easy way. Asking the pub owner of his whereabout will lead you to either repairing the broken furniture from the governors rowdy night or simply pay to have them replaced. This simple mission shows that Greedfall is not going to bombard you with "fetch and carry" missions or simplicities like other RPGs. No, it has deeper dialogues where speaking too much or too little can change the perspective of the interaction completely. Greedfall at its heart is a detective game and a rather good one!
Once you reach the island of Ter Fradee you will discover that there is more than 1 faction trying to colonize the island. The main reason for you heading to Ter Fardee is to find a cure for the illness that plagues Serene, as well as your mother, called Malichor. It is not long that you will realize that characters are not divided between the traditional good- and bad guys. Greedfall weaves a terrific story with tribes and factions having their own unique traditions and nuances and even views on actions and what happens throughout the game. This goes an extremely long way to really flesh out the story and make it believable. Greedfall also does not use the well-known morality system, meaning players will need to make choices based on their own moral compass. This is very refreshing as sometimes the "right" for of justice is not always the justice that fits the crime.
Greedfall is by no means a happy place like many other RPGs try to portray. Greedfall takes on some heavy subjects in the quests which I have not often seen touched let alone peeled open as Greedfall does with its superbly written quests. Some of these sensitive topics include colonization, religion and politics. And without the moral system, these topics mixed with personal opinions and views can bring out interesting story arcs.
Facial animations certainly did impress when you compare it to the Technomancer, not Witcher 3 levels just yet but leaps and bounds in the right direction. But alas, this is overshadowed but the rather clunky way the NPC's move. Greedfall tried hard to give characters individual feel, by even introducing dialects and accents for the natives. Although the voice acting is of really high quality and there is tons of dialogue to work through, there are times that the accent was dropped and picked up at a later stage.
But as a whole, Greedfall does well to draw you in and keep you glued to the story and actions of characters around you, even if they do, at times, lose their "life-like" aspects to a robot-like movement, or lipsync being out. All small things that a simple patch can fix.
Your team members, which you can swap out, all have unique traits in battle as well as in social environments. Having the correct party member with you at the right time can be beneficial on both the battlefield as well as when trying to pull information regarding your next quest. Each team member can be equipped with weapons and armor as well as trinkets etc. Changing clothes do change your character's appearance aesthetically which is always nice.
But one of the aspects that will have majority of RPG fans rejoicing is stats. Everything that you can pick up or equip will have stats. With stats comes proficiency, which Greedfall does by means of skills and traits. Want your player to be better at blunt weapons, equip more points to blunt weapon mastery. Want to be a better lock picker (which I suggest you focus on), apply more points to lock picking.
Combat, apart from the clunky mechanics is genuinely great and enjoyable. Whether you are going up against a challenging boss or slaying grunts, combat is not something I found myself wishing would pass. Instead, I enjoyed using my musket to etch away at armor until I could wield my sword and dish out a flurry of damage that even Zorro would be proud of. Then there is a whole magic system that I have not even tried out yet!
Your squad members, however, cannot be controlled much, they tend to do whatever they deem necessary which in most cases is not the needed thing. This is a little disappointing in a way because this also creates a lack of a tactical aspect for Greedfall due to your squadmates automatically engaging the enemy when you are trying to sneak past.
Sea of Solitude plays a lot like most third-person adventure games. Blending platforming, stealth and puzzle-solving by means of environmental obstacles. Kay is able to jump and run, she has a small wooden boat that she uses to manoeuvre through the flooded streets. This boat is also her only safe place when she is in the dark world. Another ability she possesses is her flare. When Kay is lost she can shoot her flare, and it will guide her in the direction of her objective.
It is always said that your actions and experiences shape the world around you, in Sea of Solitude, this is completely true. As you progress and learn more about Kays' story, the world changes. The experiences and traumas that she endures don't always manifest themselves subtly, the way they do is what makes it so impactful. Many people in Kays' life are manifested in different ways. Later on, Kay comes across a horrifying fish monster, or ghostly children or even a big buzzard flying overhead. These are all manifestations of people and things that Kay has had to endure. She also faces a monstrous version of herself, this being the way she sees herself. Weak, bad and worthless. But finding that glitter of light will make all the bad thoughts disappear.
Mental health has been touched on in games before. Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice was lauded for taking such a big step in making it known with its dark and gritty tale. Stories like these are normally personal and not easily obtainable or even effectively told. Sea of Solitude is tremendously approachable. The bright and approachable environment makes it easy to get into, and once you are in, the story will do the rest.
What really makes this game great is, if you are willing to do some introspection, you might see even the slightest of a speck of yourself. If that is the case, Sea of Solitude will multiply into something that when you reach the end, can look back and use as your own wooden boat when YOU feel like you might be treading water in an endless ocean.
The MSI Clutch GM60 looks nice! With RGB under the left- and right-click buttons as well as under the logo, it does illuminate nicely. So from a looks perspective, the Clutch GM60 does fairly well. The feel of it is rather confusing. Coming in at around the R1500 mark it is rather expensive. That price would have you feel inclined to expect a more premium feel. The Clutch GM60 comes with many swappable parts like side panels that click on with magnets as well as a swappable top cover. The fundamental problem with them is they don't change the ergonomics of the mouse that much. The side panels do help if you prefer to have the sides of your hand off or on the desk while working, but other than that it has no real point. The Clutch GM60 does have a decent weight which is nice for someone who likes a slightly more meaty mouse. Unfortunate that the weight cannot be adjusted like many others in its price range. The swappable panels feel rather plasticky as well. Making them feel more premium would go a long way to justifying the price.
Then we get to the RGB. RGB is not for everyone, so this section might be slightly opinionated. The Clutch GM60 has 3 zones of RGB. Featuring the usual 16.8 million colour spectrum. The RGB zones are all covered with a frosted type plastic making the colour softer. personally I quite like that.
After some homework, we found that the Clutch GM60 is fitted with a Pixart PMW 3330 sensor. This is a decent sensor, being used since 2016 on mice like the Asus ROG Strix Pugio and Evolve. This sensor allows for decent DPI options and has respectable accuracy. I personally use a Logitech G903 as my every day and swopping it with the Clutch GM60 I could definitely feel the difference. But once again, we need to compare apples to apples, and when doing that the Clutch can hold its own rather well. Pairing the Pixart sensor with OMRON keys definitely creates a strong and durable.
The MSI software that accompanies the mouse needs some work. One of the features that the other bigger brands have that really sets them apart is the ability to control everything from one app or hub. Like Razer and Logitech does. If you have multiple MSI devices, you can pair certain aspects of it and work it from the app but generally, the app needs refinement. Everything works but feels clunky. The RGB feature in the app, noticeably, lacks the ability to match the RGB with what is on your screen. Unless we couldn't find it.
The MSI Clutch GM60 is by no means a bad mouse. Considering that this is MSI's first step into the gaming mouse section they have made a good first step. Their biggest adjustment would need to be to find its own identity. The Clutch GM60 is not sure what it wants to be. Does it want to be a budget/entry-level gaming mouse. MSI is marketing this as an esports focused mouse and it is not, but that is okay! Instead of trying to compete in an already saturated market aimed at a small target market, they should promote it for what it is, a mid-level gaming mouse. It ticks the right boxes. It has customizable panels, removable cable, very capable sensor and switches, and it has programmable RGB. Those all make for a more than acceptable and capable mouse.
This makes it a really good first-step for MSI. What they need to go and do not is focus less on features, as they did with the Clutch GM60, and focus more on their design and refinement. Any brand can slap features on a mouse and call it good. The Clutch GM60 feels slightly rushed and a case of accepting designs and imperfections because they were "good enough" rather than perfect. But a brand like MSI, that is synonymous with quality, albeit, in other sectors, we can expect their next iteration of the Clutch series to be significantly better and probably rivalling the other big brands.
A single sentence to describe the Clutch GM60: A jack of all trades, but (unfortunately) a master of none, yet.
