Category: Features

Side-scrolling exploration mixed with a light dash of strategy and a heavy dose of zombie slaying returns in the DLC for tinyBuild’s The Final Station. With more of the same 2D retro style gameplay, The Only Traitor brings a few new tricks to the table regarding objective’s found in the original. Add some new enemies, locations and a new character with a new mode of transport, and this add-on delivers more of the same obsessive gameplay with a renewed way to play it. Deboard the train and buckle up in an American muscle, because this one’s going to be a road trip.

Swapping the railways for the highways you travel from town to town in search for a functioning shelter. Exploring each disastrous town in similar fashion, however now you’re on the prowl for the utter essentials: water, food and fuel. If you spot a survivor waiting in the wings you can bring them along for the ride as well, but don’t expect them to stay for good. The long road to the shelter proves difficult and you’ll need the help of strangers to keep you healthy and armed, but with a new approach to the game comes new decisions to encounter along the way.

The biggest difference you’ll notice is, much like reality, you only have room for one other person in your two door muscle car. Unlike the train where you could rescue as many survivors as you could find, this DLC forces you to pick which survivor stays, and which one goes. You’ll make your decisions based on three stats varying with each character: crafting, medic and sociality, all of which prove crucial for survival down the road.

Each stop sticks you in the middle of an area allowing you to trek either left or right, having to explore both directions in able to find the required resources to continue onward. Sometimes not much exploration is needed in order to acquire your food, water and fuel checklist, leaving the decision up to you whether to continue exploring for survivors and salvage or hit the road to the next town. Though the levels aren’t very extensive when compared to the original game, they still give you plenty of rooms to explore and even throw in new enemies to keep you on your toes.

Good survival games puts you up against all odds, trying your patience when outnumbered and hanging on by a thread. Leaving players with informative dialogue in an unraveling story only adds more depth to an otherwise bleak setting. With returning addictive gameplay bringing a new survivor’s point of view, The Only Traitor is an exciting and somewhat challenging addition to last year’s side-scrolling shooter.

Old pixellated graphics, no matter how frequent in the world of indie games, resonate gratifying memories with most of today’s adult gamers. To younger generations, retro is the word that rings across the subtle yet beautiful graphics, while older generations, including myself, see nostalgia. Game developers at tinyBuild Games see bold opportunities to deliver something new and refreshing with The Final Station.

In this two-dimensional part action/adventure strategy game, you’ll find yourself traveling as an ordinary railway worker on the only running train around. Running through towns located at every train station, picking up discourse from gossiping townies or old letters, your main objective is finding the keycodes to release the railroad blockers at each station.

Armed with your fist, a pistol and a handful of bullets, every door opened or ladder scaled leaves you on your guard, braced for enemy encounters. Shadowy, seemingly brain-dead figures fill the decaying towns where you not only find blocker keycodes, but food, medkits and other precious resources, human survivors and more information revealing government conspiracies dipping deeper into the games’ lore. Dozens of stations make up the game and each one baring its very own 4 digit keycode retrieved by none other than, the lone train operator. Station after station, the people get scarce, the towns more desolate and the story unfolds.

In between each stop, while your train is pushing towards the next railroad blocker, you maintain an efficient running train as well as care for survivors found along your adventure. Various actions are used along the ride to ensure peak performance for the rumbling locomotive, its residents are starved and bruised.

The deeper you dig into The Final Station, the more compelling the game gets. Strategically choosing which survivors to save with your stash of medicine and food, or if you even want to save them, will reward you at the end of every act. Ammunition being limited, calculating melee strikes is crucial, leaving your firearms for emergency situations. Whether a fury of punches, one satisfying charged melee or a few well placed shots, the game plays fluidly leaving an overall addictive style of adventure.

After hours of gameplay I feel I only scratched the surface of what lies beyond. The minimal dialogue gives away just enough to keep going, but only on occasion answers questions. A variety of baddies ranging from slow walker-types to quick runners, heavily armored to heavily explosive, gives the game a methodical approach to the zombie-esque shooter. The Final Station is a standout game amongst a saturated genre and should not be overlooked by any fan of the 2D action/shooter family.

In recent years there have been a heap of beautifully created, vast living and breathing open world games. Everything from sprawling plains to snowy mountains, full green forests to rocky red deserts. It brings the question, what else can they come up with? What else is there? With Guerrilla’s newest game, Horizon Zero Dawn, they graciously deliver another gorgeous sandbox worth exploring.

Long into the future, well after modern humanity rained and technology took over only to fall to near extinction numbers, mother earth reclaimed much of her land back. Humanity has declined back to tribal behaviors and old remnants of urban landscapes decay beneath the lush green foliage. Only machines from the past still roam the lands and seem to becoming increasingly more violent as the years begin to pass.

As you take control of Aloy, an outcast since birth, you begin to train for a chance to one day prove your worth to the tribe. Controlling Aloy is fluid, aiming her trusty bow and crafted arrows, using a variety of health aids and potions is near effortless. For close range attacks she has a couple various swings of her spear both light and heavy damage. Jumping and climbing is solid and smooth for easily traversing the very rocky and mountainous map. The story unfolds and new gadgets from the past begin to appear, most importantly the “Focus”. Traditional when compared to similar functions in other adventure games, the focus allows you to scan an area revealing enemies, object, resources and proves handy during numerous quests along the way.

Progressing through the game and a few cut scenes later, Aloy finds herself on her own once again. By now several skill points have been accumulated and you begin upgrading her skill tree full of dozens of useful abilities and enhancements. The entirety of the skill tree is broken up into 3 categories: “Prowler”, “Brave” and “Forager”. Enhancing battle techniques and new skills are found in the first two columns with prowler leaning more towards a stealth play style with silent moves and strikes while the brave column deals with skill sets found when in the heat of battle, such as faster reloads, firing a number of arrows at once and upgraded spear attacks. Forager is geared towards helping you out in the field. From acquiring additional resources to disarming traps set throughout the land, these skills help Aloy survive when enemy engagements have subsided, or to help prepare for the inevitable run ins with tribes and wild machines everywhere.

You’ll spend much of the game running around, either taking out hordes of various machines, collecting assorted leaves and branches for resources or medicines and hunting wild boar, turkeys or any other form of animal in the somewhat meager array of wildlife featured throughout the game, none of which being larger than the boar. Using the skins and guts along with a number of other scavenged parts from machines, you’ll craft upgrades for numerous quivers and carrying pouches for weapons, potions and traps. Furthermore, many common resources are used for crafting your ammunition, so regularly gathering is a favorable habit to adapt early on.

The map is huge and seems daunting to imagine traversing the entire land simply by foot. Luckily the game has a fast travel option, warping from campfire to campfire, keeping in mind it will cost you one “fast travel pack”, a relatively cheap item purchased from merchants, every time you wish to skip trudging through the immense wilderness. Another useful option for travel is using your “focus” to override machines and hopping on board to ride them around. Not as immediate as fast traveling but much swifter than running, as well as keeps you immersed and exploring the vast and vivid terrain.

With enough missions and side quests to help build Aloy’s reputation across the lands, there’s also plenty of simple errands, bandit camps to clear out, hunting grounds, and other activities to keep you busy. Infiltration opportunities become available and will have you exploring underground bunkers known as “cauldrons”, not only full of patrolling machines but plays home to them as well. Fighting your way deep into the core of the cauldron, or sneaking your way through, by the end, without giving too much away, you’ll find yourself with more information on machines than before, allowing more species to be overridden. This, being just one of many events to prevent premature exhaustion and repetition throughout much of the game.

Open world games are almost always a ton of fun to play and delve into. It’s the repetitive nature of these games that begins to wear down the player, i.e. you. With plenty to accomplish and yet another engaging world dropped upon us, Horizon’s boundless freedoms, brilliant scenery, curious story and addictive pick up and play action offers another reason why sandbox games have a tight grip on the ever so promising industry.