Mario Kart 8 Review (Wii U)

Written by Adam Gulliver

Driving into the final corner, you jump and drift giving you a much needed boost. Victory is within your grasp, but at that moment a red shell appears. You are hit, coins flying, you are inches away from the finish, but alas cannot gain enough speed to make it across. As you finally come to the realisation that your victory is ripped away, out of the corner of your eye you see Luigi. He looks, glares at you with pure evil behind those eyes, and drives across the finish. Welcome to Mario Kart 8. Where the Year of Luigi lives on. Forever.

Arriving on the Wii U to much fanfare, and incredibly solid sales for a struggling console, is Mario Kart 8. The granddaddy of the karting genre has returned and shows once again why it’s always been on top. On the surface it’s very much like any other MK game, but get deeper and you’ll find a number of key improvements that make it actually one of the best in the series. And not just because of the abundance of Luigi gifs that have appeared across the internet.

Tracks once again split between classics and new, however even the classics have had something of an overhaul. Less a copy and more of a remake, classic tracks are now adorned with a number of new features, none more so than the anti-gravity sections. Tracks like Toad’s Turnpike now come with added jumps and drivable walls to navigate. It adds a different layer to each track, and with the new graphical grunt of the Wii U they look simply magical. Despite being vastly more underpowered than the PS4 and Xbox One, Nintendo still manages to make their game look glorious, simply because they put art style before anything else. This can proudly stand alongside the likes of Infamous and Ryse and that is a testament to Nintendo’s ability at getting the very best out of their hardware.

MK8 really feels like it’s had pure joy injected straight into the veins. Even in 150cc where the difficulty really ramps up, and you’re left reeling from hit after hit, we very rarely stopped smiling. The difficulty being something that has definitely been raised since the last iteration. In 150cc this may be the most challenging Mario Kart game since the original. This is a good thing.

As frustrating as it can get when on the final lap you’re hit by anything and everything, it never became controller smashingly annoying. Our loss was accepted and we simply retried until those final championships were conquered. And you’ll need to beat all the championships to unlock everything, and there is a ton to unlock. Hidden characters, new kart parts and Miiverse stamps are all waiting and will take a lot of time, skills and luck.

Where Mario Kart 8 really shines is, believe it or not, online. Nintendo are finally getting to grips with online play and it’s a joy to see. Okay, they may not be on the level of Sony and Microsoft, but they’re trying! Able to either race in Grand Prix’s, Tournaments or Battle Mode, joining games is incredibly seamless. Choose a room and you’re pretty much good to go. Battle Mode however is quite a disaster. Gone are the arenas that made the SNES and N64 versions so fun, instead you just get the standard tracks featured in the main grand prix. It’s an incredibly lazy cop-out, which is something you rarely ever see from Nintendo. The tracks are designed for racing and it shows.

Much like Super Mario 3D World, Mario Kart 8 shows that nobody makes games quite like Nintendo. A master class in design that shows how tragic it is that the Wii U finds itself in such dire straits. A sure fire system seller that everyone who owns the console should buy, and if you don’t, now’s the perfect time to buy one.

Overall 9/10

PixelJunk Shooter Ultimate Review (PS Vita)

A few years ago PixelJunk Shooter first appeared on the PS3. Still one of the best games on the Playstation network it is now available with cross-buy on the Vita and PS4. It always looked like a game that would fit the Vita and now the team have got the physics engine working and combined Shooter 1 and 2 together you can enjoy the madness on the go.

The plot, such as it is, has you sent in to rescue your crew mates after mysterious goings on while mining on the planet of Apoxus Prime. To do this you have to fly your craft around tight underground caverns while using water, lava and magnetic black liquids to your advantage. It’s reminiscent of Thrust with its inertia and gravity based gameplay but your craft will stay still if left alone. Your also won’t die from hitting walls (which is a good thing or it would have been nigh on impossible).

The game is a 2D styled shooter where you manoeuvre your ship around a section of an enclosed map. Normally you will have to get water to turn lava to rock or lava to melt ice or some other combination of dropping one liquid onto another. You’re doing this because you need to get to and rescue all the lost crew members in each area. If too many of them die you have to start the level again. It’s wonderfully inventive and a whole lot of fun and there are hidden areas and diamonds to collect along the way as well.

The level design is nigh on perfect throughout the game and the difficulty curve is just about right. The huge boss monsters found at the end of each world may cause some frustration but they provide tense and heroic showdowns of David and Goliath proportions and once you work them out shouldn’t take too long to get past. The difficulty level ramps up considerably once you enter the second part of the game (Shooter 2), but it’s all still achievable.

Shooter Ultimate is now split into six main areas each consisting of five levels. There are the initial outer rocky areas, the ice caves and then the mine. After the mine something happens which we won’t spoil but you’ll be dealing with a host of new gases and liquids.  Each individual level is split into sections which require everyone to be rescued before a bulk head opens to the next.  Each has its own tricks and traps and will keep you on your toes throughout. If it gets too much you can always call a friend in for co-op action.

You’ll also need to think quickly as the game has a wonderful way of getting you to forget what you’ve just learnt. For instance, for the first area you are trying to keep away from lava (overheating causes you to crash), but then in the ice caves you’ll come across an inversion suit which makes lava cool you down and water heat you up.

It’s a game that keeps throwing new ideas and things at you to keep you interested. The water suit and lava suit are just the start and you’ll soon be switching around and dealing with freezing lakes and clouds of gas as well as the usual lava and water. The key thing is that everything stays fun and creative throughout. Once you’ve completed the game you’ll probably want to dive back in to further explore the levels and find all the missing diamonds and any crew you missed along the way. There’s even a hidden level to try and unlock and online combat.

PixelJunk Shooter is a game we’re still playing on the PS3 to this day. The fact a whole new audience can now pick it up is great and this really is one of the best games of its type. Q-Games have crafted something special here and the years have done nothing to diminish its appeal. With PixelJunk Shooter 2 included as well it becomes an essential purchase for Vita owners. We’ll be playing it through for yet another time and we would recommend everyone else do the same.

This was always going to be a certified hit with us as long as nothing had gone wrong in the conversion and from our experience this offers all the fun of the original. Vita gamers really need to play this as it’s simply a masterfully executed, great little game packed with more invention and ideas than most massive AAA releases can even come close to.

Overall 10/10

Transistor Review (PC)

Bastion was a massive success for Super Giant Games. Most people have played it and numerous gamers own it on at least two different machines. With that in mind it would have been easy for the studio to release a sequel or spiritual successor to it. We’d all have played it, loved it, and raved about it. Transistor is not like Bastion.

Starting in a beautifully depicted futuristic city scape you pull an electronic sword from a body and you’re on your way. No explanation is given and no background about the world or yourself is forthcoming. The player, like the character you control is thrown in, as if awakening from some strange dream and this gives a wonderful sense of mystery and discovery as you progress.

From the outside this may look to share some similarities with Bastion. The perspective is the same and there is also a narrator of sorts, although he is talking to the female protagonist as you go. Right at the start you begin to think this is going to be another hack and slash but then about five minutes in it asks you to hit the freeze button and everything changes.

Here, you suddenly realise you are actually in a real time/turn based cross over style RPG. You can execute attacks in real time (and even boost them to activate almost instantly), but the real trick is mastering the freeze system. Hitting the button stops everything and you then have an action bar you can use up before the enemy moves again. It’s kind of like the V.A.T.S system in Fallout 3 or the system at work in Vagrant Story.

During this time you can move around and stack up attacks. Pressing the button again sends you into action like a blur across the screen. The downside is that you then can’t use any attacks or special moves until the bar has regenerated in full. The more attacks you use, the longer the bar takes to recharge. This means you have to be extremely careful about what you are doing as you are often slower than the enemy robots sent to stop you. It’s essential to get in, attack and get back out to a place you can safely recharge as avoiding damage otherwise is almost impossible and you’ll be downed in no time.

If your health bar depletes while you have charge time you’ll get a chance to move away from danger. If not, one of your powers will be damaged and unusable until you make it to two save points. This severely limits your attacking options and often leads to a daisy chain effect of you losing all your powers and flat lining. On the off chance you are finding things too easy you can also add a number of handicaps as you go which increase difficulty and the amount of experience you gain.

The options you have to play around with are numerous and can be set up in a ton of different ways. This is one of Transistors strengths but we can see it easily overwhelming some players. When you gain a power you can do one of three things with it. Equipping it in an active slot will allow the player to use it via a button press. This could be a long range attack, a fast dodge, an area effect attack or something like summoning a creature to assist you. All attacks have different speeds in real time combat and few of them work fast enough to run through the game hacking away without the freeze system. 

Each active power can also be boosted by equipping powers as support. For instance, you could take the bouncing bomb power and add it to your long range attack, thus making the attack ricochet off enemies and into others.  You can add two boosters to each active attack which opens up all sorts of crazy possibilities. Finally, you can add powers to your passive support slots. This means they normally do things like boost player speed or increase resistance. Any power can be assigned to any slot on any other power so finding the perfect combination will require some thought and the possibilities are just about endless. The only limit on what you can do is that each power takes up a certain number of points and once that hits maximum nothing else can be equipped.

While you are getting used to the combat you’ll be experiencing some absolutely beautiful visuals. The Neo Noir tone of the game is offset by stunning, neon tinged environments full of small details and snippets of information about the world you’re exploring. It reminded us of an isometric Deus Ex or the SNES version of Shadowrun if the rundown world had been replaced with some kind of semi-utopian society. There are also a few pretty big nods to Final fantasy VII in there as well. It’s gorgeous and the musical score and sound effects also help to build a picture of a once perfect, now lonely world where something seems to have gone wrong very quickly.

Overall, Transistor is a triumph of both style and design. It takes some getting used to and you’ll need a PC running comfortably above the minimum specs to get a smooth experience but Super Giant Games have tried something a little different here and it works. There’s the odd pacing issue and players will need to spend some time getting used to how the combat works but it’s a rich and rewarding experience and something that you’ll likely return to long in the future.

Overall 9/10

Demon Gaze Review (PS Vita)

The Vita is fast becoming the platform of choice for both developers and players who want a slice of JRP action in their lives. Demon Gaze continues this trend and also adds to the recent resurgence of games taking on the first person dungeon crawler genre. It’s bright and colourful, it’s got questionably drawn female characters and it’s absolutely hard as nails.

You awaken in a basement without knowledge of who you are. You are quickly thrown into a battle with a demon. After defeating it you find out you are a Demon Gazer with the ability to capture strong demons and harness their abilities. You then have to venture into the worlds many dungeons to find more foes to defeat and hopefully find out all those things you can’t remember. We’ve been here before with the story certainly but there are numerous twists and turns along the way to keep this one interesting.

The game is split into two different sections. First of all you have the inn. Here you can talk to NPC characters, accept quests and stock up on gear and weapons. You can also revive fallen characters and just about everything else we have come to expect from this type of game. You rent a room and every time you return from the world you have to pay up. If you can’t afford it the mysterious girl running the place will let you off but you’ll lose out on bonuses and some facilities won’t be open to you. 

In order to venture into the world you have to build a party. Starting with just one member, each time you want to add someone you have to rent them a room. It’s expensive but worthwhile as you won’t be getting far without a full complement of heroes. The dungeons in Demon gaze are tough and you’ll be hammered early on if you don’t keep an eye on what you’re doing. Perhaps more than any other game in recent times you really need to keep on top of your skills and how different status effects work. Mastering the elemental strength and weaknesses of attacks is also key to survival.

Dungeons are grid based and the game will auto map for you as you progress. The aim is to find demon circles. Placing gems on the circles will someone monsters and once defeated you will take control of the circle. The circle can then be used to save and change equipped demons while placing gems with different properties will alter the items dropped by slain foes. You’re real aim is to control all the circles in a given area as this makes the lord demon of the realm appear. Defeating the lord demons binds them to you and also progresses the story.

You can only have one demon tied to you at any one time and they all have their own styles and advantages in the over world and combat. For instance, one demon will let you walk on lava, allowing you access to previously unreachable areas, while another makes hidden doors glow. Most are also tied to a particular element such as earth, fire or darkness and thus are best employed when dealing with a lord demon weak against that element. Be warned though, these demons are seriously tough. Battles can rage for a long time and if you die it’s straight back to the title screen.

Combat is turn based and happens randomly as well as when you walk into certain symbols in dungeons. It’s fairly standard stuff except for the inclusion of being able to unlock a demon to assist you. When summoned, the demon will act independently to help you while a timer ticks down each turn. If you don’t lock the demon back away before the timer runs out it will go into chaotic mode and start attacking the party as well. More turns are gained by defeating enemies and demons also level up and become more loyal as you progress.

Despite the difficulty the game is also incredibly rewarding. Every time you venture that bit further it feels like an achievement and your characters learn new skills every few levels or so. It may require a bit of grinding to break the back of the difficulty curve but it’s a game well worth sticking with.

Overall, Demon Gaze is another excellent addition to the dungeon crawling genre. It’s certainly not a game to cut your teeth with but for those versed in the ways of turn based combat and elements it’s a worthy and challenging adventure to undertake.

Overall 8/10