Developer: Hesaw
Publisher: Focus Home Interactive
Price: $19.99
Platforms: PS4, XBO(coming soon)
Release Date: June 24, 2014
Rated:
Get it at these trusted shops!: PSN
In Comedy, or humor, there is just about no border, or not boundary to how dark, light, or crude it can be. That is just how it is. I understand that completely. So coming into this game I already understood its approach. An over the top rail shooter, with sharp visuals, fun gameplay, and challenging bosses. Where do we begin, you are a low life crime figure named Tony Luciano. Not much for looks but a guy who can go around night clubs like Yun-Fat Chow’s (John Woo movie reference) Mob cousin. As well as Clarence, an ex Navy Seal with reluctant motives in his choice of career. Killing people. A contract killer to be exact.
The story of this game is a year or so before the actual comic book series. Before its introduction of season one. Blue Estate is a critically-acclaimed and award-nominated graphic novel, and has been created by Viktor Kalvachev and Kosta Yanev.
“Blue Estate was published by Image Comics a couple of years ago with the Graphic Novel coming out this September. In a Tarantino-esque noir style narrative, a clueless private eye stumbles into tense relations between several LA crime organizations.” – Viktor Kalvachev.
The game is prescribed in a dose of a rail shooter of which that of old school arcades were in there prime for. The controls are tight, and work extremely well with the PS4’s controller. A nice feature is it allowed you to re-sync simply by pressing L1. For so long I have been craving a rail shooter to play. Ever since Time Crisis, have we ever seen a solid and really fun game of the genre, next to Resident Evil, on the Wii. The story is what kept me going. Voice acting in this game while stereo typical in the most part provided a rich and amusing element to the characters. After playing a few hours of the game, I almost could not stop, it was addicting to follow the silly storyline along with the action.
Music in the game has a weird charm to it. I guess it felt like one of those interactive comics I used to read that came with the old PC magazines. It was not perfect, and was just there. The controls I wished to .. touch a bit more on, because they are the most charming part to this game. The Gyroscope Technology built into the Dualshock 4 gamepad that the Playstation 4 uses is like using one of the old pistols from the rail shooters from the arcade. Without the modern sensor bar you had to place on top, or on the bottom of your TV. You say to your self. What if I do not feel that comfortable using it? I was saying that at first, I am usually not one to fall into a gimmicks lap without at first glance feeling it out first. However I have some experience using the gamepad already when I use it to type out messages moving my wrists around slightly to spell out words for messages already. I would say around five minutes after getting the reflexes down to readjust my controller to balance out the cross hair, I had the most responsive experience I have had in a while. Another part of the controller that is used a bit is the touch pad, which usually gets used a bit as a menu system for some games already. You slide your finger across it once, to say for example flick your hair back, or close a door as you trek along. Used as a reflex layer to the game. Some points on the screen you will see a Shield boost, or a Health recovery symbol, just flick where it directs you to replenish even ammo. All of this is so responsive. Leaving me in awe. Pure awe. Aside from Cherry’s .. well.
You fire as you would in a FPS shooter on the PS4, using the R2, Reload, or take cover when directed too by pressing Square, or L2. The analog sticks are not used for this game. That I have noticed. It was interesting to make navigating the menus all dependent on the gamer to do so.
The life system is you are granted five or so continues. If those are all gone ,you start the whole scenario/stage over again. Which seems cruel, but all I can say is it will give you a chance to do the stage quicker, because you know where most of the pop out parts are in the stage. Making it easier. You do have a life bar other then that, which can be refilled if you find health symbols with a corresponding swipe marker. They do go by fast, because the stages do get harder. Generally after awhile it feels like the same old is happening a bit too often. Stages last from twenty five, to forty five minutes a piece, depending on your play-style, and pace. First few stages I was in, and out in twenty five minutes. The arcade score system to me was flipping awesome. The more you kill or shoot down, the multiplier gone up, and up. I replayed the first stage over personally because I wanted to beat my old score, not feeling happy with it. There is Co-op also featured in this game, which I did not have a chance to sit down with that. If I do I will be sure to do a follow up to this article and update any impressions of that along with this exact review.
The enemies in the game behave as they should be for a bullet catcher. You have only so much time if you see a yellow circle, to react to shot them, or they will harm you. Each character in the game was colorful. Each having a one liner or something dirty or crude to through out to ether catch you off guard, or try to attract you to there charming potty-mouths. While the generic hordes of enemies did not have too much to say, at points I would crack up when out of no where I heard a conversation between two thugs in the first levels night club when I was tossed into a weapons closet. The pace of the game gives each of the boss fights a night scale. Where you reuse what you learn from patterns from enemies back at the bosses to your advantage, if you remember of course.
I did have a few issues with the game. The levels felt slightly too long, then they needed to be. I did enjoy the trail of story given, but it could have been in shorter doses. I nod my hat for the developers for trying to cramp as much content as possible, but at points it did feel a bit dragged. The final note I have, while I truly felt the controls worked extremely well.. the issue where the Gyroscope would fall out of sync at crucial points. Not an completely massive deal, as the issue it self was addressed with a auto adjust button within easy reach. It self, was an slight detraction when things got very heavy.
In closing, the game does what it needs to do. Telling an obscene story that you assumed someone like Mel Brooks would have thought of. Plus, gives you a overall entertaining game. If you are not into rail shooters, obviously this game is not for you. If you are into the classic Rail shooters of yesteryear. As well as enjoy a decent story as dark as the twisted mind of Viktor Kalvachev can transcribe it. Then I implore you, men and women, in clad sexy armor, raise your guns, shoot some goons, and enjoy this affordable, fun, and over the top experience. I hope Hesaw can make more games like this in the future. I feel the Playstation4 can do rail shooters very well, and revive the genre, like how the spark of life was ignited with the Wii.
