Nostalgia can be a cruel and misleading force. The part of our brain that wants desperately to relive our past experiences can sometimes trick us into eagerly consuming games and books and movies that ultimately turn out to be crassly recycled garbage merely masquerading as the thing we once loved. Thankfully, Transformers: Devastation spares us this hurtful indignity. Rather than vaguely imitating certain superficial aspects of the franchise, Devastation recaptures its spirit and presents it anew. The overall experience is shallow and imperfect, but it also delivers the frenetic fun of the original cartoon in a way anyone could appreciate, not just the franchise's most devout fans.
Even just looking at Devastation feels fun. Its cel-shaded world is steeped in bold, saturated hues that perfectly suit the subject matter. Action sequences explode with bursts of color, characters move with dramatic speed blurs, hard black outlines frame every object the way they might in a comic book--essentially, every loving detail perfectly conveys the vibe of a classic Saturday morning cartoon, as does the story.
Optimus Prime is just one of five playable Autobots, each of which offers unique moves and stats.
Megatron has teamed up with the Constructicons, and they're once again wreaking havoc because, like, they're bad and stuff. The narrative is utterly simplistic in a "Suitable for ages 8 and up" kind of way, but there's something oddly comforting about its absolute moral clarity. The villains are evil, the good guys are noble, and friendship wins the day. In essence, it's a story for kids that pulled a neat trick by making me feel like a kid again. There's only about as much story content as you'd expect from a three episode arc of the show, but honestly, that's enough. It hits the high notes and cuts all the filler. Fans will be served, and everyone else will be entertained.
Besides, the real star here is the flashy, dynamic combat. Devastation was developed by famed Japanese studio PlatinumGames, and it shows. The gameplay evokes shades of Vanquish and Bayonetta's flashy, fast-paced, combo-driven madness, only simplified and streamlined. As with most contemporary third-person action games, you have light and heavy attacks that can be strung into combos. At the end of each successfully executed combo, you'll see a button prompt for a powerful "vehicle attack." After that, you can dodge your opponent's next move, triggering a brief moment of slow motion that allows you start the process all over again.
Megatron wants to turn Earth into a new Cybertron. We must stop him!
Action not only looks and feels satisfying, it also requires a keen sense of timing. Should you fail to activate your vehicle attack in time, your surprisingly formidable opponents won't hesitate to break your rhythm and beat the crap out of you for a while. That risk of failure creates a genuine feeling of reward, on top of the visceral joy and empowerment that comes with pummeling bad guys with effortless style. All this satisfaction is further amplified when you're able to implement other combat techniques like launchers/aerial combos or ranged attacks just to add a little variety. The well of options runs impressively deep--assuming you're willing to hunt around in menus to learn the ins and outs of each character--and like Platinum's other games, this depth allows for a welcome sense of creativity and self-directed challenge.
Those characters, by the way, are of course the iconic Autobots. Following a relatively short introductory segment, you can choose to play as Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Sideswipe, Wheeljack, or even goofy robotic T. rex Grimlock during any of the campaign's missions. While these characters aren't hugely distinct, they're far more than simple pallette swaps. Optimus moves a bit slower but deals more damage, Bumblebee has greater agility and can more easily link vehicle attacks--you get the idea. Your character choice won't drastically alter your experience, but you can at least pick the Autobot that best suits your gameplay preferences.
You can also outfit each bot with upgradable weapons and technology built from loot you gather in game, although this component may be Devastation's biggest misstep. The idea of combining two weapons to make one stronger weapon is, fundamentally, pretty cool, but the whole system is poorly explained and needlessly convoluted. Worse still, nothing I created ever seemed to impact the gameplay in any material way, rendering both the weapon system and in-game loot hunting pointless. The gameplay remains fun regardless, but a feature that could have really enhanced the experience instead just sits there unused.
Imagine upgrading that giant hammer with elemental abilities. Now imagine that upgrade not mattering.
Unfortunately, Devastation suffers from other issues beyond a half-baked loot system. Some--like slightly overpowered weapons and poorly communicated mission information--are negligible, and to the game's credit, it's generally pretty clever about concealing its flaws. For example, the beautiful characters models and fluid animations make the bland, repetitive environments and ugly textures easier to ignore. The frequent and diverse boss encounters distract from the otherwise rote, unimaginative, and oft-repeated mission objectives.
Other issues, however, are unavoidable, the largest of which is a simple lack of depth and content. There's just not that much game here. The campaign lasts roughly six hours and offers only limited replay value. The only additional mode is a series of challenges that mirror the campaign's empty side quests. I mean let's face it, "Kill all these enemies within this time limit" is not a real mission. You can rove around the hub city within the campaign, but rather than feeling open, it's a weird maze of tight, samey looking corridors littered with lazy invisible walls. Plus, given the pointlessness of the aforementioned crafting system, there isn't much incentive for exploration.
The frequent and diverse boss encounters distract from the otherwise rote, unimaginative, and oft-repeated mission objectives.
Still, the thought of simply beating up a bunch of slick-looking robots for a few hours is plenty appealing on its own. Devastation leverages the Transformers license masterfully and delivers tight, satisfying action with incredible flair. Honestly, I had fun just driving around trying to do donuts, and at one point, I randomly picked up a taxi and threw it over a building just for laughs. That's pretty great. And when that perfect rockin' soundtrack kicks in as you face off against Megatron, that's even better.
I once had hopes of becoming an astronaut, but if Elite: Dangerous for the Xbox One serves as any indication, it's probably a good thing that little dream didn't pan out. I spent around 20 minutes crashing into hulls before I managed to dock my ship. I overshot my destinations in space more times than I care to count. I spent five minutes blasting space barrels without even being sure if I was doing it right. And that was just the tutorial. In the actual game, Elite: Dangerous offers a massive galaxy with around 400 billion stars, all bursting with dogfights, piracy, trading opportunities, and undiscovered planets — not to mention light years of dull nothingness. Few other games so brilliantly capture the vastness of space; fewer still have mechanics so complex they inadvertently emphasize how difficult it'll be to get us out to the stars in real life.
There's a slightly less cumbersome way to enjoy this, of course. Elite: Dangerous has been around since last year for the PC, where the keyboard is the perfect interface for a complex array of inputs. Xbox One players may share the same galaxy and economy as their PC cousins (which is odd, considering that players on both platforms can't actively play together), but they must experience it with all those actions crammed onto a gamepad. It's rough, but functional. Simple D-pad combos keep key features such as landing gear within reasonable reach, and an option to bring up an in-ship HUD with menus by pressing R3 removes much of the need for acrobatic finger-work.
If it's action you want, you'll be better off spending must of your time in the new, fast-paced PvP matches.
Elite: Dangerous is all about exploration, and it's worth taking the time to master your spacecraft in order to access the galaxy's many splendors. The trails of asteroids bobbing through space or the light of dawn touching the edges of a nearby planet are, at times, mesmerising in their beauty. Elite: Dangerous is filled with richly textured vistas, whose demanding effects can cause frame rates to dip, but at least they closely resemble their counterparts in the PC version. I had the most fun with Elite: Dangerous during these jaunts into the darkness of outer space, where undiscovered celestial bodies lie in wait.
Elite: Dangerous smartly adds variety by providing bulletin boards that allow like-minded explorers to deliver cargo, mine asteroids for minerals (right down to using lasers and scoops), fight wars for NPC factions, or ferry items from one station to another where they'll fetch a better price. That comfortable rhythm satisfied me for a while, but it wasn't long before I discovered I had far more fun spending my hours in space as a pirate and driving down my reputation with the more upstanding of the game's factions.
The details are sometimes breathtaking, such as when you glide down beside Saturn-style rings.
I turned to piracy because that's where I found adventure beyond the inevitable grind and the simple act of exploration. As seems to be the case with other similar space exploration games, there's only the hint of an overarching story in play here; instead, the tales that emerge from Elite: Dangerous are largely the ones we make for ourselves. That kind of thinking has worked for the likes of EVE Online for roughly 12 years now, but it works because of that game's extreme emphasis on cooperation. Elite: Dangerous' missions tend to focus on NPCs, and it suffers for that absence ever so slightly. Perhaps it springs from the very distances involved.
Elite Dangerous does a good job of providing secondary activities--even if they lack of bit of personality--but much of the exploration is spent careening through the inky blackness at various speeds, which do little to alleviate the trek. "Because it's there" served as reason enough for exploring for the first five or so hours, but after that the weight of the void started to press on me, and I found myself asking what I was doing so far out on the edge of the unknown.
There's appeal in that, if you're of the right mindset. Elite: Dangerous tends to cater to a very specific type of personality--one that's OK with the routine world of trade and the joys of visiting blank spaces where no one has gone before, even if all that waits there is a new deposit of Lepidolite.There's nothing quite like it on the Xbox One with respect to range of freedom, and it holds endless wonders if you're bold enough to tackle the learning curve necessary to enjoy that freedom. It's great for collectors who thrive on spending hours amassing minerals and credits or--more to my liking--an array of ships that specialize in everything from battle to long-range ventures. Even then, collecting comes into play, as you visit different stations to hunt down specific parts for upgrades.
Elite: Dangerous tends to cater to a very specific type of personality--one that's OK with the routine world of trade and the joys of visiting blank spaces where no one has gone before.
In general, then, it's a game for players who like things slow and steady. Yet it seems that someone at Frontier thought that type of gameplay didn't fit well with the conventional console stereotype. To that end, the Xbox One version's launch marks the game-wide release of the CQC (Close Quarters Combat) Championship mode, which grants you access to ships with much more punch than your piddly starter Sidewinder, and let you blast away enemy players with abandon. It's fast. It's tense. It's everything the core game is not. It boasts team conflict, deathmatch, and capture-the-flag modes, and in its best moments, it reminds me enough of CCP's highly anticipated EVE Valkyrie to scratch that itch while I wait for the real thing. It's here where the gamepad controls perform at their best, providing a vacation set in arcade-style mayhem when the everyday business of mining and meandering grows too stale.
What story there is originates in the balance of power, which is shared between console and PC users.
As with our own species' ventures into space, though, Elite: Dangerous remains a work in progress. Massive new features such as the CQC Championship mode continue to work their way in, and additional options to visit planetary surfaces or engage in first-person combat are supposedly in the works. But Elite: Dangerous has plenty to offer at the moment if you're of a mind to explore, fight, and trade, even if much of it demands long, occasionally doze-worthy treks into the infinite. On the other hand, the distances involved are so great that I almost never saw another player (although I should note that I chiefly played in the pre-release build), which means that I almost forgot that grouping up was an option.
True to its name, Elite: Dangerous is an intimidating beast. It's a slow game that demands feats of patience, and it's the kind of experience that you may leave you unwilling to call yourself anything but a rookie even after dozens of hours. Once you scale its peak, though, its chief attraction is that it lets you see and travel farther than many other games have dared to. It may lack a certain spark and its missions tend to slip into drudgery, but I keep finding myself coming back to blast off toward any star in the night sky and eventually reach it. Such possibilities satisfy the thwarted little astronaut within me, and perhaps more importantly, they kindle excitement for the possibilities of the future.
Chibi-Robo Zip Lash has the building blocks of a great game, but like a haphazard Jenga tower, it was just a matter of time before it toppled over. It's a competent platforming adventure featuring a cute robot who uses its power cord as a grappling-hook to attack enemies, swing from ceilings, and lasso objects. By picking up certain items, its cord can grow longer, opening the door for complex puzzles that require you to bounce your cable off walls to hit far-off targets. It's not all cord action, though; sometimes Chibi-Robo is dashing on a skateboard, leaping off ramps and dodging obstacles at the last second.
Despite being a key part of completing some levels, seeking out extensions for your grappling-hook ultimately feels pointless. It's great at the end of the level when you can toss it into a hallway and watch it bounce here and there, grabbing coins and other collectibles, but it's deflating when it's back to square one at the start of the next level. It would have made for a much more meaningful experience if your tools and abilities progressed over the course of the entire game, and it could have paved the way for more complex levels, too. Unfortunately, it's handled on a level-by-level basis, thus any joy you derive from making progress is short-lived, and you begin every level tackling the most basic of challenges.
Chibi-Robo is charming, but he has the unenviable task of cleaning up your garbage.
For most of its adventure, Chibi-Robo is the definition of mundane; you kill slow moving enemies and overcome basic platforming scenarios, collecting items, including literal garbage, such as a discarded coffee cup. Other times, it's candy--real-world candy. While there's nothing inherently awful about seeing brands like Pocky or Dots in a game, Zip Lash fetishizes these products, with NPCs who yearn for specific treats. Upon receipt, they repeat marketing catch-phrases, their favorite commercials, and lists of flavors, just in case you had any doubt that Tootsie-Rolls are the snack for you. There are dozens of these snacks to collect, but by the time you've seen the tenth "commercial," it becomes a non-priority as you search for more worthwhile goals.
These garish displays could be forgiven if the rest of Zip Lash offered meaningful substance, but it's a game that's far too easy, with very little in the way of interesting level design. You play through six worlds, set in different locations such as North Africa, the South Pole, and Europe. These window dressings rarely amount to anything of note, with few standout elements. There's some variation in the enemies you face as you travel the world, but not enough to make each location standout in a meaningful way. North America's world does contain some lively and challenging stages, with lots of moving parts and chaotic sequences that effectively communicate the nature of factories during the industrial revolution. It can be fun to move about with your grappling-hook and search for hidden areas, but these joys are fleeting. It doesn't help that Chibi-Robo is a slow-moving character whose actions are sluggish and few. Unlike other Nintendo platformers that thrive on variety, Chibi-Robo's adventure is monotonous.
Things pick up when your cord grows, but it's a process you have to restart in every level.
To be fair, Chibi-Robo tries to offer a mix of experiences, but beyond status-quo platforming and grappling, you only find variety in boss fights and vehicle-based levels. The aforementioned skateboarding is fun, but I wish there were more stages that offered the same level of reflex-based challenges. When you're plopped into a submarine that moves achingly slow, or a similarly-paced inflatable balloon, you groan out of frustration the same way you do when driving behind someone going 5 MPH in a 35 MPH zone. Sure, you're doing something different than jumping and swinging, but that doesn't mean much when the activity is aggravating.
Boss fights provide some of the best moments in the game, offering a real challenge as you're required to use your grappling-hook in fresh ways in the face of new behaviors and obstacles. The bosses themselves are ornate, exhibiting a level of detail that's rarely seen elsewhere in Zip Lash. These encounters are a breath of fresh air that only magnify the mediocrity of the rest of the game.
Chibi-Robo loves to collect, but there's more in the world to find than just candy and trash. Coins, Chibi-Robo children, and medallions await the intrepid explorer, though you won't have to dig deep. Most "hidden" items lie near the beaten path and are easy to locate if you look around with the slightest of care. The game toys with the idea of returning to completed levels to seek out collectibles you might have missed, but earning high-marks for finding everything isn't motivation enough to return to unremarkable levels.
To make matters worse, Zip Lash features a convoluted world map designed around a mechanic that wastes your time. Rather than moving in a straight path from level to level, you're forced to spin a wheel that determines how many steps you will move along the world's path. This mechanic would make sense if you could hit a high number, end up on the final stage, and quickly complete a world. Zip Lash doesn't work that way--you have to beat all six levels in a world before you can move on to the next, so there's no incentive to aim for anything other than a panel with the number one--the most prevalent panel there is.
Chibi-Robo would have benefited from more fast-paced moments like the skateboarding and jet-skiing sections.
While you could argue that the spinning wheel makes it tough to revisit levels exactly in the order you wish, you can freely move about the map once you've completed all six levels and beaten the world's boss. Even if you're clumsy, you collect so much currency in the game through casual play that you can always purchase specifically-numbered panels for the wheel to increase your chances of landing on the number you wish. When the wheel disappears after you beat the boss, or you fix the odds to your advantage, you wonder why it ever existed to begin with.
These frustrations don't make Zip Lash a bad game, but they prevent it from rising above adequacy. For every promising moment--which are few and far between--there's a commercial for candy, or a series of mini-tasks and menus that drag you back down. Chibi-Robo is a sleepy trip through a forgettable world. Plead with it to go faster, beg it to surprise you with new experiences, but don't be surprised when it answers back with the merits of biting into the center of a Tootsie Pop.
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