You probably passed up on Sleeping Dogs upon its 1st launch back in 2012. This super underrated open-world action game set in Hong Kong surprised gamers who played it, due to its tightly written plot, immersive combat system and excellent world. Now that gamers have moved on to the next-generation of consoles, the game’s developer (United Front Games) have done a clean-up job with its much appreciated game. In 2014, Sleeping Dogs has been given a new lease on life with this Definitive Edition.
This remastered version of the game does a fine job of improving the visuals to an impressive level. The crowded markets, dark alleyways, rambunctious crowds and hot rod’s existing in this game’s version of Hong Kong looks even more detailed. The rough graphical patches of the past-gen version of the game are practically existent. Venturing out into this game’s crime-filled world is a better experience thanks to the 1080p graphical fidelity and much improved textures. The added details of extra traffic and pedestrians is a cool but non-impactful addition, though.
Sleeping Dogs gameplay is still as strong as its initial version. For those who don’t know, you take control of Wei Shen, an undercover police officer who’s looking to take down the most volatile Honk Kong Triads. As you venture throughout this game’s murky underworld, you’ll get involved in multi-man melees as you fight for turf control and drive away rival gangs. The good cop persona of Shen will task you with aiding the police during criminal skirmishes, undercover stings and high-speed chases. For those who love the gang part of Shen’s lifestyle, the abundance of ever-changing missions are ripe with fun and plenty of replayability. Both sides of the law provides equally engaging modes of play.
Along with the excellent main story campaign, Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition comes with a host of much-needed extras. The two additional side story campaigns are present here, thankfully. The fantasy filled story campaign and good cop duty fulfillment missions are both fun in their own right. The tight fist to fist gameplay makes these missions and the main story campaign a very entertaining experience. The gunplay doesn’t falter behind the melee combat and the driving aesthetics control much better than some of its open-world gaming peers. The extra DLC costumes are all present here as well.
While this Definitive Edition is nice to have, it’s notable upgrades honestly doesn’t make this game a worthy second purchase for those who have already played it. The improved visuals and full suite of DLC is fine, but it’s mostly worth checking out for franchise newcomers. The game itself is still a joy. Returning to it with this new re-launch won’t be much of a priority, though.
Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition does a great job of making the game’s gritty Hong Kong look even more amazing. This game’s full package of DLC content is a worthy treat for first time investors, but it isn’t much of an important re-buy for those who have already taken down the Triads.
The Evil Within is going out of its way to actually frighten you. This survival horror game is all about the tense feeling you experienced during extended sessions of classics like Resident Evil and Silent Hill. The psychotic denizens who will chase you and try to rip your soul from your living frame are some of the scariest creatures in gaming history. We managed to speak with Shinji Mikami, the brains behind The Evil Within, who gave us a description of the creepy bastards who exist to make your life a living hell. Stop bein’ a lil’ punk and make sure you’re ready to combat these horrific haunts.
Ruvik
Voiced by Academy Award nominee Jackie Earle Haley, Ruvik is the main antagonist in The Evil Within. Shrouded in mystery and cloaked in a sinister hood, you never know when Ruvik will make an appearance.
The Keeper
The Keeper came about a year and a half into development. He was nicknamed “Boxman” by the team and ultimately became a character that changed the look of The Evil Within and turned it into the game you see today.
Laura Creature
The Laura Creature’s design was aiming to blend Japanese monsters with Western creatures, which resulted in putting her on all fours and having her move like a spider. Classic Japanese horror films inspired her look, as they usually feature creepy women with long, dark hair. The creature wears shoes in order to keep a piece of her humanity in her design, but we don’t recommend sticking around long enough to notice.
The Haunted
Although sluggish, The Haunted are not to be trifled with. While all undead are called The Haunted, they vary visually and can be seen using various weapons.
PlatinumGames are the go-to video game developers for the most over-the-top, mind-bending action games of the current era. Their first major contribution to the world of gaming came in the form of Bayonetta, an amazing Devil May Cry-esque action/adventure that was filled with personality. The Umbra Witch, we’re all embarrassed to admit we’re in love with, has gotten another go against her angelic rivals. Plus, she’s got a bone to pick with the demonic forces that give her some of her power. She’s back for more action in the Wii U exclusive, Bayonetta 2.
Bayonetta and her hilarious band of allies spend a seemingly normal day together a few months after their first adventure. A quiet day filled with holiday shopping quickly erupts into an insane amount of ridiculous circumstances. We see Bayonetta fighting angles on top of super fast jets and moving trains, plus dealing with a disobedient demon on the side of a building. This mind-blowing sequence of events is merely the prologue, which should clue you in to just how much more insane this game becomes.
Each chapter of Bayonetta 2 revs up the intensity and never lets up. For fans of the first game’s mechanics, there is so much more to love here. Bayonetta’s arsenal gets amplified and her moveset potential becomes unlimited this time around. Her hand/foot handguns are back, along with the newest additions of double katanas, a massive hammer and even a set of fire/ice cannons. The intense combat sequences feature the familiar angelic enemies that game is known for, but a new batch of powerful angels offers fresher battles. The addition of demonic hordes also gives you a bunch of new faces to torture.
Speaking of torture, Bayonetta still has the power to humiliate her enemies in satisfying ways. She can still dodge attacks the very last second and enter slow motion, plus she can still summon huge monsters to finish much larger foes. The brand new Umbran Climax ability makes the combat even more of a blast, as it makes Bayonetta unstoppable thanks to this mode’s more visibly powerful attacks. Each chapter introduces old and new enemies to exact your flashy combos upon.
The plot itself is easy to grasp. Bayonetta foe-turned-friend Jeanne gets her spirit trapped in Hell, which leads to Bayonetta going on a journey to retrieve her soul. Along the way, Bayonetta joins up with old friends and runs into a magical young boy and a dangerous warrior with powers that rival her’s. The cut scenes are worth sitting through thanks to the abundance of risque body maneuvers, comedic lines of dialogue and well-crafted action sequences. The story here is just as crazy as you expected it to be.
On a single-player level, Bayonetta 2 is a tight adventure that can be completed in 10-20 hours of play depending on your playstyle. Once you’re done venturing into the Depths of Hell, you’ll definitely want to return (crazy, right?). The replay factor here is off the charts, thanks to additional difficulty modes and the need to test out more of Bayonetta’s big moves. The amazing cosplay outfits that adopt the characteristics of Nintendo characters are actually worth taking advantage of. The multiplayer Tag Climax mode offers a ton of more content value for players who want to smash angels and demons together. Plus, you have an HD version of the first Bayonetta to dab into. There’s so much to enjoy here.
Bayonetta 2 is the Wii U’s first masterpiece. The best elements of this game’s predecessor return and get that much better with a new offering of weapons, moves, modes and costumes. The hilarious yet still serious story, great mix of characters and abundance of video game easter eggs will appeal to everyone. Bayonetta 2 is a must buy.
Halloween still scares the living crap out of us. We can’t deal with the abundance of films and video games that feature creepy dolls, undead minions, chainsaw wielding maniacs and flesh eating zombies. Out stomachs are a little uneasy now that we know what will be the scariest game of October 2014 – The Evil Within. The brainchild and video game development genius that is Shinji Mikami has lent his expertise toward the production of this horrifying release. He took some time away from crafting nightmarish creatures and scenarios to answer a few questions. We present to you this exclusive interview with the “father of survival horror” Shinji Mikami.
With Grizzly Bomb just getting back into the swing of things, we thought it best to kickstart the gaming section with some of the most exciting things to look forward to in video games for the coming year. With the majority of 2014’s biggest titles being pushed to 2015, and new announcements leaving our mouths watering, there’s a lot to look forward to in January and beyond.
In order of release date: Grizzly Bomb’s Most Anticipated Games of 2015!
Bloodborne
Even before it had an official title, Bloodborne was raising excitement under the leaked codename Project Beast. The prospect of Demon’s Souls creator Hidetaka Miyazaki returning to his loosely connected fantasy universe with a new Souls-adjacent game was something to celebrate, but fans had no idea what they were in for with the game’s official announcement.
Bloodborne is looking to be the most unique of all From Software’s punishing action-RPGs, doubling down on gothic environments, horror elements and an even more severe risk/reward system that abandons shields and encourages aggressive, nimble combat. The cryptic and eerie environmental storytelling looks to have returned, and this time are taking more of the spotlight. But what keeps us coming back to Miyazaki’s games again and again are the hellish creatures that inhabit his worlds, and the inhabitants of Bloodborne are even more freakish and intimidating than those we’ve seen before. In addition to a building-sized spider-crab thing, glowy-eyed werewolves and a weird snake-like Cerberus creature, the latest TGS trailer showcased a stretched-out, bony, almost-human….thing, with two flowing, bloody swaths of skin hanging from where the top of its head should be. Gross.
Releases: February 6, 2015 Platform: PS4
The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt
Almost every time a book is adapted into film it ends up being a truncated, jumbled mess that barely retains the tone of its source material. Movies just can’t condense 1000+ pages of context and world-building into a two and a half hour experience. Translate that to 50 hour interactive story, on the other hand, and apparently you can do it just fine.
Based on Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski’s (incredible) Witcher Saga, The Witcher is a cross between Pan’s Labyrinth and Skyrim, with a dollop of Game of Thrones for good measure. Juxtaposing international folklore with mature themes and medieval politics, Sapkowski imagined a high fantasy setting with a sense of history and life to it that very few others can match. The universe lends itself perfectly to video games, which already focus heavily on combat and traditionally gravitate to monsters and fantastical worlds.
The Witcher1 & 2 are immense games that feature deep combat systems, reward exploration, and offer arguably the best choices in any video game series; Rather than display a morality meter on your screen that points to angelic kitten-snuggler or demonic satan spawn according to your every interaction (Fallout), or a story that stops and offers you black and white choices with obvious consequences (Mass Effect) The Witcher games allow you to make pivotal decisions, both in dialogue or gameplay, that can have far-reaching, story-changing consequences that aren’t always clear. In The Witcher 2, for example, entire locations, characters, endings and quests are changed or skipped entirely based on your actions. When that is built into a living breathing universe of humor, scandal, magic and Guillermo del Toro-esque creatures and monsters, the prospect is absolutely undeniable.
The Witcher 3 is taking every single aspect of its predecessors and stretching the possibilities further. The world is massive but seemingly even more detailed, with no invisible walls or gameplay hinderances to block your path. Combat is both more varied and streamlined. Quests are less repetitive and more centred on player choices, with 100+ hours of side quests, story quests, monster hunts, points of interest and more to explore. The game has 36 distinct endings. This is a game with so much content you’ll never see it all in one play through, but one journey through the game will take far longer to complete than most other action-RPGs ever have. The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt, appropriately enough, is a beast.
Releases: February 24, 2015 Platform: PC, Xbox One, PS4
So many different versions of Batman have nailed the character of The Caped Crusader, but only one has made you feel like The Batman himself. Rocksteady not only made the best Batman in games, they innovated a combat system so revolutionary that its timing-based group fighting has been lifted countless times since Arkham Asylum released in 2009. Never content to sit on their laurels, Rocksteady continued to expand with Arkham Knight a few years later.
Now, with Arkham Knight, the studio has rebuilt Gotham City to accommodate the new Batmobile, raised the stakes since killing off the Joker in games past, and even created a new villain for the most iconic rogues gallery in comic books. In short, Arkham Knight is going to be a blast of a game. At Sony’s E3 PlayStation eventthe game astounded fans with breathtaking shots of the new Gotham skyline. It was one of the very first demos of a ‘next-gen’ game that isn’t held back by cross-generation development, and boy does it show. Raindrops skitter down Batman’s cape in glorious detail, fire crackles out of the Batmobile’s exhaust pipe, and the hand-to-hand combat is even more bone-crunchingly visceral than we remember.
Releases: June 2, 2015 Platform: PC, Xbox One, PS4
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
There aren’t many video game franchises that carry as much weight as Metal Gear Solid. Unlike almost every other entry on this list, MGS is not a relatively new IP, nor did it originate outside the medium. Metal Gear was born in this industry, and has evolved along with video games since the ’80s. Which makes it even more impressive that The Phantom Pain looks like one of the most ambitious video games we’ve ever seen.
Take, for starters, the broad elements of The PhantomPain’s gameplay; Those of us who have played Ground Zeroes have seen how much freedom there is to explore the environment stealthily or with guns blazing, and how naturally the mechanics embrace both options. No other stealth game comes to mind that handles Rambo-style action with as much flexibility as the silent approach.
It turns out, and more and more with every new Phantom Pain demo that releases,that Ground Zeroes‘s many different strategies and tools don’t even come close to the number of gadgets and options at the player’s disposal in the final package of Metal Gear Solid V. Over the last two major demos Kojima has shown Snake using a ton of new tools, and each of them appear to have a whole range of uses. His iconic cardboard box, for example, can be used in the conventional sense (as a moving hiding place) but, among other uses, the box can also be used as a distraction tool in itself, with the ability to plaster images onto it to mislead guards to react in different specific ways. A similar effect can be had with inflatable distraction devices, which Snake can toss into the environment to take attention off of himself.
In another demo Kojima debuted a new mechanic in which Snake can call his ally Quiet into the field to cover him with a sniper rifle. Quiet will, in real-time, find a perch to scout ahead and her laser sight will trace the environment in front of your eyes. Snake can mark enemies for Quiet to draw her attention and co-ordinate attacks – in one instance Quiet shot the helmet off a guard with pinpoint precision, letting Snake pop him in the head less than a second afterward. And even later, Snake tossed a grenade in the air next to an enemy chopper, which Quiet promptly shot, causing a mid-air explosion destroying the helicopter. What makes all of this so mind-boggling is none of it was scripted or even necessarily part of this mission. The player simply decided to call Quiet in for this particular section. He could have done it on his own, waited until night-time, shot up the entire jungle or picked half a dozen other ways to tackle the objective. The possibilities are endless and the world is massive. For the first time, Metal Gear has completely removed the training wheels. You take full control of Mother Base and call the shots for one last time as Big Boss.
Releases: Unknown, 2015 Platform: PC, Xbox 360, PS3, Xbox One, PS4
The Legend of Zelda Wii-U
The call of a new Zelda game is so powerful that even with little-to-no information, its announcement can sell consoles. Nintendo debuted barely a snippet of in-engine footage from a brand new Zelda for the Wii U, and while we don’t even have a title yet, we know the game is supposed to release in 2015 and that it looks gorgeous. Skyward Sword was by no means a bad game, but many felt it didn’t quite live up to the franchise’s pedigree, so demand for a great new adventure game from one of the best game studios ever could not be higher.
Attention for Nintendo has been slowly waning in recent months, but with a new Smash Bros. on the horizon and the potential of a return to form for The Legend of Zelda, the old king may rise again.
Releases: Unknown, 2015 Platform: Wii U
Uncharted 4
Naughty Dog certainly made a name for themselves with The Last of Us, which skyrocketed their studio’s status from ‘Those Guys Who Make The Uncharted Games’ to one of the most celebrated developers in the industry today. But The Last of Us was built on the foundation of the Uncharted series, and while TLoU is worlds apart from Nathan Drake’s globetrotting adventures, Naughty Dog must have picked up a lot of ideas and refinements from its development which they can apply to Uncharted 4.
Indeed, the short teaser shown at E3 in June depicted an older, battered Drake than the one we left in Drake’s Deception. Naughty Dog promises the next Uncharted will still be a light-hearted romp, but hopefully there will be some emotional weight to balance the levity. After Joel and Ellie’s journey to the Fireflies it will be very difficult to accept Nate’s gleeful attitude toward mowing down waves of human enemies.
Releases: Unknown, 2015 Platform: PS4
These games are just six out of dozens of games coming in 2015 that indicate that video games are still expanding and building bigger and more exciting sandboxes to play in. Honorable mentions include The Division, Saints Row: Gat Out of Hell and No Man’s Sky.
How many of these games are on your watch list for 2015? What games did we miss? Sound off in the comments below or on the Grizzly Bomb Facebook page.
Images: From Software, CD Projekt Red, Rocksteady, Kojima Productions, Nintendo, Naughty Dog
Batman: Arkham Origins comes out this week, and with a new developer behind it, there’s no real way to know how the third installment will compare to the previous two. Sure, we’ve seen some Arkham Origins trailers and have heard some of the core details about the Dark Knight’s next foray into video game Gotham, but there’s so much we can’t know about the game until we get our hands on it on October 25th. Here are five dos and don’ts we hope to see when we tag along for Bats’ second Christmas Eve later this week:
Of course, the shining heart of the Arkham series is the free-flowing combat system that forever changed the standard of the 3D brawler. A large part of what allows us to feel like the Caped Crusader in these games is being able to take down an entire mob of gangsters with one fluid dance of fists and justice. We know that Warner Bros. Montreal has made some tweaks and changes to the existing combat from Arkham City, but they seem to have been very conscientious about taking things too far away from their roots. Let’s keep things fairly grounded, here: Not too many elaborate gadgets or rooftop gymnastics, but make us capable of handling every situation with the right combo or a well-placed batarang.
If there’s one thing that Arkham City faltered at, it was variety – Fly around, find a Riddler puzzle, give a football team’s worth of gangsters a close-up view of the pavement – We were rarely faced with a new mission type or challenge. Don’t get me wrong, I had a blast completing every single piece of the singleplayer campaign, but most of the enjoyment came from Rocksteady’s deft hand at weaving Batman lore into the world, and the sheer joy of the mechanics that I had already become used to. However there’s more to being Batman than aggressive criminal dentistry, and it looks like in Origins we’ll get to explore the side of Bats that earned him the title of World’s Greatest Detective. WB Montreal has shown off a bit of the detective gameplay wherein the player will have to piece together a crime scene in order to make progress in a mission. I really want this to be a fairly major component of the story and not just a handful of neat moments sprinkled into the game, and if the developers have even more fun ways to round out the gameplay I’ll be ecstatic.
Batman: Arkham Origins is going to be the largest of the three games to date, expanding to incorporate all of Gotham City rather than the titular Arkham City and Asylum settings from the previous two titles. As good as Arkham City is, it lost the intimacy of Asylum‘s closed walls and Metroidvania style backtracking which made the iconic prison grounds feel oppressing and teeming with activity. Origins risks doubling down on that loss by adding a lot of square footage to the map. Hopefully the promises of a more varied cityscape, due in part to featuring more than desolate slums full of escaped prisoners, will liven up the environment and feature more details to discover.
A lot can happen in a large metropolis and there’s enough history in Batman canon to fill that space. Not all of Bruce Wayne’s world is depressingly dark and filled with villains. Arkham City was so depressing and grey that certain moments looked like a black and white movie. This is appropriate a lot of the time, but it can’t be all there is to Gotham City or no one outside the poor, the morally questionable or the colorblind could live there and keep their sanity. I want Arkham Origins to show some of the livelier side to Gotham – Give us families, car dealerships, people snapping photos of Batman on the move. I want to feel that there’s more to Batman’s world than a dank cave and a parade of creepy men to fight. Remind us of what he fights to protect.
I’m breaking pattern here, but the truth is I have way more positives than negatives to look forward to in this game. That’s because, with whatever flaws great or small that can be found in Arkham Asylum and City, what both of them achieved was a story on par with some of the better source material. Asylum, specifically, tells a much better story for some of the characters than I’d ever seen in the past. Arkham Origins actually looks like it might be far more focused on delivering a satisfying Batman story than City, with a younger, more brutish Batman, still regarded as a vigilante by the police force and a new threat by the criminal underworld. The fact that it all takes place over one night on Christmas Eve makes even more epic. If it can manage to keep a strong pace and treat the characters with as deft a hand as Rocksteady did twice in the past, this will unquestionably a wonderful way to usher in the new console generation.
Grizzly Bomb 