The Crew 2 Review

The Crew 2 is an open world racing video game developed by Ivory Tower and published by Ubisoft for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 Xbox One and Stadia. It is the sequel to 2014's The Crew. It features a persistent open world environment for free-roaming across a scaled-down recreation of the United States. The game allows players to control a variety of vehicles including cars, motorcycles, boats, and airplanes. The game was released on June 29, 2018.

This is an arcade racing game not a racing simulation. Like the previous Crew game you can roam around the map for hours and hours. The music is good and keeps you entertained.

Not just cars this time. There are boats, planes, hovercrafts, motocross and open wheelers to navigate.

You can change between vehicles on the fly as well. So you can be driving your super-car and switch to the airplane. The graphics have been updated, which look especially stunning at 4K.

You can’t go just anywhere on the map. You have to find bases to fast travel to nearby the location you want to go. There is a home space which has three levels, to keep your cars etc. This is an online game meaning you have to be logged into the server in order to play. So you need an internet connection.

There is nothing wrong with the controls. The cars handle correctly as well as planes and hovercrafts.

There are different categories of races to choose from and normally a main event at the end. There are lots of street races as well.

I would not recommend buying many cars in the game, you will run out of money. Just upgrade the ones you decide to keep. There are real weather effects during the game. I think, including snow.

8/10

Gears of War 4 Review

Gears of War 4 is a third-person shooter published by Microsoft Studios, Released September 2019. Developed by The Coalition, the game follows the game mechanics of the previous games in the franchise.  Set 25 years after Gears of War 3, the reformed Coalition of Ordered Governments (COG) have established walled cities to protect the citizens. The two main characters are J.D Fenix (the son of Marcus Fenix) and Anya Stroud. After deserting the COG J.D finds himself in the action again after stealing a fabricator from a nearby COG settlement unknown creatures raid the settlement, capturing the settlement. Calling them “the swarm”, J.D asks his father for help any they band together to fight the undead swarm and the story continues.

The game is designed as a console game to be played with a controller but plays just fine with a keyboard and mouse. The game uses a cover system and the enemies use cover as well. Pushing the right button would move you to the next cover or jump you over the cover to progress forward.

The graphics are good and sound is fine also. Should run fine on slightly older hardware as I didn’t find the graphics that demanding. The game play had a lot of fight and repeat. You would walk into a new area. There would be barricades for cover and the swarm would appear, then you move to the next area. Towards the end of the game there was more variety with driving and the use of robot mecs and fighter support. The weapons were just the normal guns including rifles, machine guns and shotguns with the exception of the dropshot and buzzkill.

The story was pretty basic with a lot of repeated action in the first few levels. Fighting in the windflares made it interesting, especially avoiding the lightning as you progress forward.

6.8/10

Metro Exodus Review

Metro Exodus is a first-person shooter published by Deep Silver in 2019. Developed by 4A Games, Metro Exodus is the third game in the franchise (based on the novel Metro 2033 by Dmitry Glukhovsky).

Once again set in a nuclear wasteland of Russia, this time you get to travel vast distances on a train from the tunnels of the previous game through the country to a variety of places. The story is pretty good. It’s based on a novel so there are lots of dialogues between characters (you can skip them if you want).

The game mechanics are similar. You have places to buy weapons and you collect parts to craft ammo during the game. You need a gas mask and this time you get more filters which gives you more time to wear the gas mask. You also get more ammo. (I found the game a bit easier than the previous game). The graphics were given an upgrade. It has the option of DirectX 12 and RTX if your hardware allows it. The weapons are similar to the previous game. Machine guns, pistols, crossbows and a rivet gun.

On ultra-settings the game was fine at 2K with a GTX 1080. The sound was good with my surround headset. You can hear the wolves behind you as you hide. I game is easier if you avoid the creatures using stealth in the game as they are difficult to kill. The boss fights are challenging.  You also have the option of killing the enemy or knocking them out. This affects the story of the game depending on the method you choose. Also, during the game there are points where the antagonist will surrender.

The game has day and night and has real weather. Sometimes the sun shines and sometimes there is rain and snow. The length of the game was normal compared to other games.

7/10

Dirt 4 Review

Dirt 4 is a rally game developed and published by Codemasters. It was released June 2017.

The game has a career mode, multiplayer and joyride mode. In the career mode you will find Rally Cross, Land Rush and Rally sections. At the end there is the triple crown event which includes the three events.

Compared to Dirt 3 the graphics and sound are better. The driving is a bit more realistic (a bit more difficult to drive). You can change the difficulty settingss. There are no gymkhana events. Instead you have Joyride. Different category including time trials and smash the blocks. Each one gets harder. In the career mode you have many stages to choose from that are part of the world rally championship. Sometimes the stages have rain or are at night time, which makes it more difficult. Your car gets repaired at the end of each main stage. Some stages are long and some are short. You have sponsors and a team. You hire engineers and mechanics to what you can afford. Also, you can upgrade your car.

Like most racing games, you can choose your camera angle. If using a game pad the bumper cam can be more precise but the third person cam is easier on the eye. The graphics look pretty good when you look at the trees going past. The rain has a slippery effect on the car when turning. I found that turning in and using the throttle around corners improves your time. Sometimes you have to use the handbrake. Flying through the tarmac stages at high speed is the most fun. When you crash you can recover but at a cost. (Normally a 5 second penalty). 

I didn’t find the game as fun at Dirt 3. I think I liked the design of Dirt 3 (One of my most played games). Some of the stages in Dirt 4 are over 15km which is a lot for a game. Also, Dirt 3 was more arcade like. More played for fun. Dirt 4 is a good game and a worthy successor. The graphics are a step up but they could be better and sometimes rain or lack of light can ruin the fun when you just want to have a fun time playing the game. For a rally game it is pretty good. Somewhere in between Dirt 3 and Dirt Rally.

8.2/10

Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus Review

Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus is a FPS developed by Machine Games and published on October 2017 by Bethesda Softworks. It is set in 1961 and follows the events of the past two Wolfenstein games. Hitler’s Nazi’s won the war. The game play is the same as the previous games. The graphics are a little better and you can now barge through weak walls and squeeze into tight places. Plenty of Nazis to defeat. Some of this game is set in America and shows the Nazi culture’s influence on the American 60’s. There is one level that involves walking through the streets during a Nazi parade. Everything else is how the 1960’s USA should be (except for the Nazi soldiers standing at every street corner).

The game is fun, a bit violent at times. Some of the cut scenes are funny and well done. The game is a little bit short. There is always plenty of action. The story is pretty good and there is lots of notes to read that add to the story. There is some interesting music to be collected which is similar to real life but had a Nazi influence.

It was not too taxing on the computer hardware to run and the sound was good through surround sound headphones. There was some moments in the game where I got a bit stuck but I can overlook that.

7.5/10

Call of Duty Modern Warfare Remastered Review

Call of Duty Modern Warfare Remastered was released in November 2016. Developed by Raven Software and Published by Activision. The game is a FPS remastered from the original Modern Warfare game.

Straight away I noticed that there was more detail in the surroundings.  The grass looks like real grass. I noticed also that it used a lot of computer resources even at 1080P resolution. I used a keyboard and mouse to play this game.

The game is basically a remastered version of the original from back in 2007. All the characters have been updated as well as all the models and guns. What you are left with is a modern version of a special game. If you have not played this game I would recommend playing the remastered version as it is more suited to today’s standards.

The story line is the same as the original, so you can read the original review here:

Call of Duty Modern Warfare

I feel like the game was not optimised very well, as there were stutters during some scenes at 1080P resolution. But playing the game feels just like playing the original. The controls are the same also.

You notice the extra detail in everything such as the ocean in the level where you are dropped on the ship during a storm. You can see the foam on the waves while it rains down. Another example would be during the level in All Ghillied Up. The grass looks so real compared to the original and the suns rays can be seen shining through the trees. The sound is also improved being remastered with surround sound. A dog can be heard barking behind you before it attacks as well as the jets flying overhead. The main thing you notice in the game is the characters. They are improved and made more real than the original.

The remastered version even has the airplane level that happens after the credits.

 9.5/10

Doom Review

Doom was released in May 2016. It is the fourth Doom game stemming way back to the early 1990’s. The previous game released in 2004 (Doom 3). Doom is an extremely fast paced first-person shooter.

The Union Aerospace Corporation (UAC) are trying to colonise Mars.  The UAC have solved the Earth's energy crisis with a monument called the Argent Tower. The only problem is that the energy source it taps into comes straight from Hell. One of the scientists turns against them and opens the portal to Hell releasing all kinds of demons into the facility. In one of the artefacts collected by the UAC was a sarcophagus containing the marine who previously fought the demons from Hell. That is the beginning of the game. You awake from the sarcophagus, find your suite and away you go.

Doom is all action all the way. From the very first moment you put on your suit you are met with a demon around every corner. The game has moments where you read recordings or walk into rooms with holograms explaining the story, but the game is mostly action. Gory action. You have a number of guns at your disposal as you progress throughout the game as well as a chainsaw and towards the end, a BFG. (Something, something, gun).

The fighting mechanics are very enjoyable. Each gun normally has two functions. Primary and secondary. Some guns are normal like a shotgun, others are more from the sci-fi realm. Ammo is scattered about the map as well as health and armour. There are also powerups to help you fight like haste and quad damage. You also have the ability to double jump in the game and normally you can fall from high areas without dying. The game relies upon you killing off the demons before you can progress. For example, you enter a room. An announcement comes over the speakers, “the outer doors cannot be unlocked until the demon presence is eliminated”. There is also a finishing move which can be activated when the demon is almost dead. They flash repeatedly for a while and you hit the melee button to pull off the finishing move. Each demon has a different finishing move. Some levels require you walk around to find the access card before you can proceed through to the next area. I found this annoying once.

The graphics in this game are outstanding. It is so well optimised that it does not use much processor or graphics card power. It does use a lot of system RAM with the settings on ultra and nightmare. You can choose to play it using Open GL or Vulcan. I used the Vulcan API. The game engine used is the id Tech 6 engine. I also found it to be a surprisingly long game. Normally a game with so much action does not last as long as this. The music is good also and ramps it up when you are fighting lots of demons.  The end of the game is what you would expect. A massive monster boss fight to finish and they even put some work into the credits.

If you want to sit down and blow off some steam, this is the game for you. It is fast paced and all action from beginning to end.      

8.1/10

Rise of the Tomb Raider Review

Rise of the Tomb Raider is a third person adventure game developed by Crystal Dynamics and published by Square Enix in January 2016. The game follows Lara Croft in the Tomb Raider franchise. A sequel to the 2013 Tomb Raider game, this game takes us to Siberia in search for the city of Kitezh where the divine source is located. (An object promising immortality to whomever uses it). Not soon after arriving in Siberia, Lara soon discovers she is not the only one in search of the divine source. A military group called Trinity is also seeking the path to immortality. Lara finds herself in a struggle to stay alive in her search.

Rise of the Tomb Raider is a lot like other Tomb Raider games in that it is a third person adventure game which has lots of climbing, fighting and puzzles to solve. The game mechanics this time has a crafting system where you collect items in the environment to craft items like weapons and arrows and upgrades for your items. You collect wood from trees, skins from animals, feathers as well as treasure items. There are also lots of voice recordings scattered about the place. The game has a map system which you can access to see where the objective is and the game also has a feature to give you clues of your surroundings by pressing Q on the keyboard.

You have a variety of weapons to choose from in the game. (Some not available until later on in the game). The most popular being the crossbow for which you collect wood to craft the arrows. There are a variety of guns as well, with little ammo. I would recommend using the crossbow as much as possible as arrows are easy to come by. Grenades are in the way of items on the map such as petrol cans, bottles as well as explosive barrels etc. Climbing, jumping and swinging is not in short supply. That is the majority of the game in fact. If I had one complaint it would be there is too much of it. Climb here, swing there, jump over here. On the other hand, it keeps you on the edge of your seat as most of the time you are precariously dangling from great heights, one mistake and it’s your demise. One good feature is that you can’t just walk over the edge like some other games have done.

Some of the action sequences are quite spectacular as well. They have you running and jumping and swinging while the ground falls away around you. It is quite a demanding game with all the graphics settings all the way up but it truly looked quite spectacular at times. I played the game with a controller at first then found it difficult so I switched to keyboard and mouse. The game is also long enough with huge open world maps and a plethora of side missions. When I finally finished the game to the end credits I discovered that I had only done 60% of the entire game. The story is pretty good but nothing spectacular. If you read every note and listened to every recording you would probably be satisfied with an in-depth story. In the game, there are locations with campsites. These campsites let you travel to any other campsite wherever it may be. This comes in very useful when you have finished the game so you can go back to find other missions and other discoveries. The music didn’t play a big part in the game but was quite ambient. It would also change and get louder to give you a clue when the enemy was about.  With the difficulty on easy the game was not hard to finish.

There are many ways to traverse the land in Rise of the Tomb Raider. You can keep to the ground and risk getting attacked by a wild animal or you can take the high road and risk falling to your death. You gain extra items during the game that makes it easier to move from A to B. By the end of the game you can jump, fire a rope to swing, shoot arrows to climb on and make a flying fox by shooting rope. Some of the puzzles can take some time to solve in this game but they are not impossible.

Overall the game is very good, as long as you don’t mind being at great heights for most of the time. The story was good. The game mechanics were easy to learn and the visuals looked stunning as well.

8.3/10

Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare Review

Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare is a military first-person shooter made in 2016 by Infinity Ward and published by Activision. The next game in the Call of Duty Franchise.

This one is set mostly in outer space and on Earth at the beginning. You play as Captain Nick Reyes of the Special Combat Air Recon division. Obviously set in the future, Nick Reyes is a Tier 1 Special Operations pilot. In the future Earth has been depleted of its natural resources and that has led to expansion beyond the home planet. There exists a United Nations Space Alliance that handles all the politics of trade, travel and mining etc. There is a breakaway group called the Settlement Defence Front who wants to lay claim to the already established outposts of the UNSA.

The story is quite good with the main protagonist being played by Brian Bloom and his main female wingman, Nora Salter played by Jamie Gray Hyder and the comic relief in the form of a Robot called Ethan spelled E3N, voice acted by Jeffrey Nordling. The villain, Admiral Salen Kotch (of the Settlement Defence Front) is played by Game of Thrones Actor Kit Harington. The story has lots of side missions that are not part of the main mission. Without these there is not much content for the price of the game but I will say that the story does keep the action flowing to the end. There is quite a bit of flying and dogfighting involved. I used a keyboard and mouse for this and it was a bit difficult to control the ship. (I had to adjust the sensitivity on my mouse while flying as the mouse movements were to erratic). I could have played with a game pad but the keyboard and mouse were more precise. Not much other military tech to control other than the ground weapons, like calling in strikes etc. There is some zero-gravity fighting involved which is made easier by a grappling mechanism to grab the enemy and to reach other places more easily. Some of the gameplay involves destroying enemy bases and warships and there is still lots of ground fighting. There are some interesting weapons. One example would be a zero-gravity grenade.

For a Call of Duty game the graphics were really good I would say. Still not as realistic as some of the other games out there. Mabey due to the fact there was not many scenes in nature involving trees and grass etc. The sound was good. For a stage I had it on surround sound and sounded very real. I could not notice anything bad about the voice acting. Ethan (E3N) was very funny at times. The cut scenes didn’t go for too long and the loading times were good for a hard drive. The ending was not as good as other Call of Duty Games but still left you satisfied of your achievements.

You can change your loadout at the beginning of each level but I choose the default load out. If you run out of ammo there is other weapons to pick up and ammo boxes to refill if needed. For important fights, some ammo that you find such as (rocket launches) are unlimited to make it possible to defeat a boss. The fighting mechanic are the same as previous games. The only exception being to zero gravity stages with the grappling device.

Overall it was an exciting game to play. A decent quality game just like the other games in the franchise.

8.0/10

WRC 6: World Rally Championship

World Rally Championship 6 is a rally racing game developed by Kylotonn and published in October 2016 by Bigben Interactive for Microsoft Windows.

This game is based on the 2016 championship and contains 14 rallies from around the world. The game also came with a 3 month subscription to stream the championship. The DLC pre-order came with the Toyota Yarris test car.

This is not an old game but the graphics are a bit outdated. This does not detract from the game play. The mechanics are good although the cars tend to slip around a lot and it easy to go to fast. The co drivers speech is very clear and accurate. Quite impressive. The sound is normal with the sounds of the crowd and the engine noise and environment sound such as rain and gravel. The tracks look good for the graphic quality and are quite realistic.

The game is a bit hard for the average gamer and its hard to win any championships. If you don't mind that you can still progress through the game anyway. I used the Xbox controller for windows to play this game. If you want to finnish it you have to grind through it quite a bit as there ase multiple seasons. You can also pick the team that suits your driving habits, such as a team for more damage repairs and faster racing or for the people who like to drive perfect and and not crash.

The menu is good and simple to navigate and there is also a quick mode, multiplayer and custom championship mode. A good rally game, more realistic than Dirt 3 and easier than Dirt Rally.

7.4/10  

AudioSurf 2 Review

AudioSurf 2 is an Indie game published by Invisible Handlebar and released in February 2008. The game involves moving a vehicle left and right to hit the blocks and avoid the blocks that lose you points. The game is quite simple. The background is in sync to the beat of the music and the controls are basic. I used an Xbox controller for PC. It can be hard to try and hit every block but the aim of the game is just to have fun. If you have some good music you can enjoy yourself. The track is always moving and curves in different directions. The more blocks you hit the more points you get. Some points are worth more than others. There are different game modes to choose from and different difficulty levels. The game modes also include different visuals as you play.

The game is fun, but only for a while.

6.7/10

Melody's Escape Review

Melody's Escape is a game for people who enjoy listening to music. It is an Indie game where your character runs to the rhythm of the music. The game is based on a female character so the game would be more suited for female players. The game was launched soon after 2014. 

The game has the character continually running in a platform style situation. There are different obsticals to dodge while you are running through the course. The character walks, jogs, flys, and runs through the course. Depending on what difficulty you are playing the buttons you push changes more often.  There are different difficulty levels, from relaxing up to intense. It is designed for a controller and can be configured to use different colour schemes with the controllers. The harder the difficulty the harder it is to push the right coloured buttons in the right combination. I mainly played this on relaxing and listened to music but if you want a challenge you can change the difficulty. The game is fun for a while. It depends on what music you listen to. If you have got a lot of music to listen to then you could play it for hours. Otherwise you would not find this game that interesting. You can also change the characters appearance.   

The game was published by Icetesy SPRL.

This is not a bad Indie game.

7.5

Deus Ex Mankind Devided

Deus Ex Mankind Devided is a Role Playing Cyber Punk game developed by Eidos Montréal and published by Square Enix in August 2016.

The game is set in  2029 in a fictional universe, after the events of Deus Ex Human Revolution. Adam Jenson is a ex-swat cop who is recently employed as security officer at Sarif Industries. He had a bad accident and his body was implanted with augmentations. The world is full of people with these augs and there is a divide between these people and normal's. Hence the name mankind divided.

The game includes combat, hacking, stealth, and social aspects. You can actually  finish the game without killing anyone. Or you can play it like a normal 1st person shooter to finish the game. Hacking is an essential part of this game, from laptops and remote hacking all different kinds of equipment. There is also plenty of info from newspapers and PDAs scattered through the game.

There is a cover system that is designed so you can use to sneak up on the enemy. 

The graphics are really good and look great on a High end PC. The character acting are not as good as some other games. 

You can enable different augmentations through the game as you earn more experience points. This game was played with a keyboard and mouse.

This Deus Ex game is a great inclusion of the Deus Ex franchise, and there are many hours of enjoyment to be had.

8.9/10

Forza Horizon 3 Review

Forza Horizon 3 was made by Playground Games and published in 2016 by Microsoft Studios.

It is an open world racing game with many events and challenges. It is based in Australia with Australian slang and includes the Gold Coast, Yarra Valley, Byron Bay and the Outback. With a relatively fast computer the game has the most realistic graphics I have seen in a racing game yet. The environment is stunning with great effects. The weather effects are good and there is changing times of the day. There are many cars to choose from and win throughout the game.

There are online features as well including a free drive and racing events. Clean driving skills are also awarded.

The main events are really fun and an example would be racing against a train. The music has a good selection and also has the Microsoft Groove program built in for your own playlists. The racing is more of an arcade style of racing than simulation and you can change the difficulty. There are lots of skill points for different aspects of driving including landscaping (running over trees and signs etc), drifting, oncoming traffic, clean racing and high speed. There is the option of fast travel to get from A to B but it costs money. (Hitting fast travel signs can make it cheaper.) Experience points are awarded for driving skills and finishing races. 

I played all of the game with an Xbox controller for windows. 

Forza Horizon 3 is a very fun game from the start to finish with many races and many events. There are many hours of fun to be had here.

9.6/10

FIFA 16 Review

FIFA 16 Is a football simulation game made by Electronic Arts. It was released in September 2015.

You have a selection of game modes to choose from. For players who are new to the FIFA series there is a training mode called skill games that will test you at different skills from dribbling to tackling. There are different levels in the training mode starting at bronze and finishing at gold. There is the normal quick match mode called kick off as well as a career mode where you can choose to be a player of a manager. If you choose to be a player you can play an entire game as that one player. With this style of play you have to position yourself both in defence and attack instead of being able to select different players and the computer decides what every other player is doing. In this mode you have to be patient because you may not get the ball for some time.

I mainly played in tournament mode. There are many tournaments available. Each football playing country has their own tournaments. There is even a woman's international cup available.

Playing on normal settings with an Xbox controller I was quite happy with the game mechanics. There are different ways to pass the ball and holding the button down longer determines the speed of the pass. To play it safe I normally passed the ball along the ground and I rarely did a slide tackle as bad timing would result in a red card. Scoring a wining goal at the end of a match was a good feeling and the commentary was excellent. If you have surround speakers the atmosphere of the stadiums made it feel like you were really there. The players look life like and their movements are what you would expect compared to real players playing the game. There is also a music track with some good songs that play in the background except in the matches themselves.

The FIFA series has continued to improve over the years and FIFA 16 in no exception. The games are now well polished with little room for improvement. As a football simulation game, FIFA 16 still stands above the rest.

8/10

Mirror's Edge Catalyst Review

Mirror's Edge Catalyst is an action adventure game produced by Electronics Arts. It was released in 2016. 

The game is set in a future where corporations rule the political structure and control law enforcement. The city is called Glass and you play a female character called Faith. Faith is a runner. Her job is to deliver things by running from rooftop to rooftop. Almost none of the game is played at ground level. Faith uses the style of parkour to move across the city. You will find yourself constantly running, jumping, sliding and climbing to reach your location and complete your objectives. Faith finds herself in a movement that wants to take down  KrugerSec ( the city's security force ) and the people who rule the city through corruption and oppression. 

The story of the game is good and the cut scenes are well done. The missions of the game get a bit repetitive after a while because you are always running, jumping, sliding your way to the next objective. There are side missions as well. Most of them are to deliver a package from A to B before time runs out. There are also abilities to unlock for movement, combat and gear. These unlocks make it a bit easier to progress through the game.

You don't have any weapons in the game. All you have to fight with is kicking and punching. This can be combined with wall runs, high jumps and slides for extra damage to the enemy. Most of the enemy's use hand to hand combat with the exception of one which shoots at you (so you will have to take out those ones first). You will be doing this a lot and it will get tedious fast. There is a mission early on that has waves of enemies coming at you that are hard to defeat and it just seems too early in the game to get stuck, replaying that mission over and over.

The graphics are really impressive at the highest detail and the city looks fantastic. These graphics will work the newest graphics cards and processors hard even at 1080p resolution.

I can't say I enjoyed this game. The eye candy was great but if you made one mistake while running you will find yourself plunging to your death from a very great height. Do this enough and you will start to feel uneasy even if you aren't scared of heights. I had this feeling for most of the game, then I started to have the uneasy feeling waiting for the moment when you fall to feel that way again. This feeling only increased later in the game as you traveled higher and fell more often. I have to say that if you like the fast paced parkour style of action and don't mind the feeling of watching you fall you will probably like the game. The speed and action does get your heart beating faster and there is the feeling of achievement when you do something impressive but I find that feeling is overshadowed with the sense of dread you have waiting for the next time you fall to your death. I played the beginning of this game with a game pad but had to switch to a keyboard and mouse later on for more accuracy as the game got more difficult.

6.5/10   

Dirt Rally Review

Dirt Rally is a realistic rally driving game from Codemasters. It was released in April 2015.

Players compete in Rally events all across the world. Just like real rally's, each event is built into a number of stages. The quicker your time the higher you rank. There are no tracks to unlock here. You simply progress through each event and your driving skill determines what category you are put in. I made it to the professional championship once then I noticed that the events are the same as in the lower levels.

This game is very hard. It is nothing like the arcade style of the previous dirt games. If you are new to driving games you will not do well at this game. I played it with an Xbox for Windows controller and still found it hard due to its unforgiving nature. I am not new to racing games and could not progress past the first stage of the rally cross events. If however you have a driving wheel and have a lot of experience you will find the challenging nature of the game enjoyable.  It would be the most realistic rally game out there and defiantly the best looking rally game. I felt the game didn't have a lot of content to offer to keep you coming back. There is an online mode with a leader board to compare your results online. Also I would note the pace notes are very good and the timing can be changed a bit earlier or a bit later.  My favorite stage of the game was the Pikes Peak hill climb held in the USA.

7/10   

The Crew: Wild Run Review

The Crew is an open world racing game from 2014. It was developed by Ivory Tower and Ubisoft Reflections. Published by Ubisoft, the game recreated a cut down version of North America where the player can partake in many activities including a story and free roaming. 

The Story centres around the main character Alex. He is being chased by the cops. His brother Dayton is the leader of an organisation called the 5/10 motor club. When they are meeting together a car pulls up and Dayton is shot and later dies. Alex is arrested and and convicted because of a corrupt FBI agent with ties to the 5/10's. Five years later Alex is offered a deal by an agent called Zoe to be released on the condition that he agrees to expose the FBI agent's corruption. Driven by his need to find out the truth behind his brother's murder Alex infiltrates the 5/10 organisation and climbs his way towards the top with help from the FBI. The story takes Alex across all the USA in his quest to find the truth.

The Crew: Wild run is an expansion to the original game giving it a complete graphical overhaul and adding weather effects, motor bikes and monster trucks. The story missions of the crew have more than 20 hours of content. The missions mainly include different types of races and time trials not to mention the raid missions where you have to hit all the boxes before time runs out. There are also skill markers all over the map to make your free roaming more interesting. The skills can be: follow the driving line, see how fast you can go, also there is one where you have to hit the markers. Besides the main story there are many races marked on the map and some go for over one hour.

I found the game really fun to play, both the story missions and the other challenges scattered about the map. The graphics were pretty good and the difficulty was not too hard. I found the best way to save money was to use one car for all the story missions as every challenge you accomplish gives your car performance upgrades. One annoying thing about the game is that it is always online so if you lose the internet you will get kicked from the game. Annoying if you have bad internet. I played the game with an Xbox controller for Windows and was quite satisfied. There are some bugs in the game like wild life being able to knock cars around by touching them and people just running around in circles. Apart from this the game was quite polished. The game also has the quick travel feature so you don't have to travel where you have already been. 

Apart from a few bugs and server issues I give this game:

7.3/10

Deus Ex: Human Revolution

Deus Ex: Human Revolution was developed by Edios Montreal and published by Square Enix. It's a 2011 game and is the third game in the Deus Ex series action role-playing games. Set in 2027 (25 years before the first game), it follows Adam Jensen, an ex-swat cop who is recently employed as security officer at Sarif Industries. Adam is badly injured during an attack on Sarif Industries and the only way to keep him alive is to operate his body with artificial limbs and high tech augmentations. (Some hidden and experimental). Throughout the Deus Ex games, you will find themes on how science and technology affect humans mentally and physically and how the power of mega corporations influences and affects the world's social structures.  The game also delves into consistory theories.
The story of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided centres around the attack on Sarif Industries and the search for the people or groups responsible. There are also many side quests which can be activated by talking to certain characters that are not part of the main story.
The game has a regenerating health model but you can still use medical supplies to regenerate your health quickly. You can choose to play the game like a first-person shooter and shoot everything in sight or you can take the stealth approach, sneaking around hacking things and taking down the enemy in a non-deadly fashion. You also have a choice of what augmentations you can upgrade to depending on your style of play. You can’t use your augs all the time as they need some time to recharge.
I do like the Deus Ex games a lot. It’s good that you have a choice in the style with which to play. There are many terminals to hack where you can read emails and control the security cameras etc. There are plenty of eBook's and newspapers scattered about as well.  The graphics look good in this game at the highest settings and there are plenty of well detailed different locations. Once again, the art design is very interesting. One thing I don’t like about the director’s cut version is the yellow tinge to everything. It must be something to do with the renaissance design. Unfortunately, yellow is not my favourite colour. Also, the game goes for long enough to get your money’s worth and if you choose to play all the side missions there are a few more hours of enjoyment.
I give it 9/10

F1 2015 Review

F1 2015 is a Formula 1 racing game based on the 2014 and 2015 seasons. It was released by Codemasters in July 2015.

When the game loads you can choose the 2014 or 2015 roster.
The most popular mode for me is the championship season where you choose your team and driver for a complete F1 season.  You can chose your difficulty and how long the sessions are.
The pro season has full length races, quickest rivals and no assists. This is too hard for most people.
There is a multiplayer mode but there is never anyone online to race with. Last but not least there is a time trial mode. This can be used to improve your lap times on a specific track.
The graphics are good and there is a good balance between control at low and high speeds. There is an option during a race to change your fuel burn, your brake bias and you can select your tyres for the next pit stop.
During the race you can also monitor your temperatures as well as tyre wear. There is an option at the end of the race for a full replay of the race if you want. 
I used an Xbox for windows controller and was quite pleased with how easy it was to control one of the F1 cars. The acting for the characters portraying the racers and team members are quite realistic and well done. The commentary is good also. It's a bit like watching the real event on television.
The driving rules are the same as the 2014-2015 race season and your team will come on the radio for a number of things including if you need to pit, your tyre wear, your fuel level and if the weather is changing. Overall this makes it an authentic F1 Experience and one most F1 fans will enjoy.
8/10.