QCF: Mortal Kombat X

hile the medium of video games has surely played host to a litany of aged franchises that have handily worn out their welcome through the years, there’s no denying that there a few franchises with a sense of appeal that truly stand the test of time.

And among these exceptionally iconic properties, there are those few choice that barely earned that love among the gaming community by the skin of their teeth, and this particular title is one of those prime examples.

As strange and brutal as this may sound, I think the best thing that could’ve happen to Ed Boon and the remainder of the Mortal Kombat team (now presently working at the newly formed Netherrealm Studios) was the dissolution of Midway Games. Because it was at that juncture that the veteran group of developers truly stepped up their game and Mortal Kombat X is the finest example of that statement yet.

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PPR Presents Play Play: Mortal Kombat X

The amount of progress that Netherrealm Studios has accomplished with the Mortal Kombat brand and it’s respective fighting engine is something that no one can deny. I mean, no other game has passionately embodied the phrase “shit gets real” quite like Netherrealm’s current offering, and we decide to get in on the madness.

Getting in on the cutting edge action of MK X, we discuss the visceral visuals of the franchise hitting the latest generation of gaming and the tech it offers, the evolution of the Kombat system (seriously, we can’t help ourselves) and the shelf life that X may just have for the year of 2015. It’s another Play Play, so kick up your feet and press that play button already.

Mail us at our new email Mailbag@presspauseradio.com, leave a voicemail at 469-PPR-TALK, and be sure to stop by at our Forums if you haven’t already registered and post your thoughts about the show. Finally, make sure to rate and subscribe to us on iTunes and YouTube, follow us on Twitch page and Twitter, and finally take part in our Facebook and Steam group!

QCF: Ori & The Blind Forest

he topic of Metroidvania has just about permeated every forum of discussion that Press Pause Radio has to offer, whether it’s the podcast, our videos, or in this case, a review, it’s a subject that we’re not shy about admitting our intimacy with.

In the case of Ori and the Blind Forest however, it’s one of the rare cases in which the emphasis on the convention and design of Metroidvania has been so downplayed to the world that’s being built.

The irony is that the Metroidvania wheelhouse of design is as sparse it can be in Ori and the Blind Forest, almost as if only to serve as a means to an end when it comes to truly conveying the grand sense of scale that enchanted setting is intended to impose.

And truth be told, that’s easily the most charming quality about the game; which is why it’s a shame that everything else about the game is too damn rough to really enjoy.

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PPR Presents Play Play: Sunset Overdrive

hat do you get when you smash a trigger-happy trampoline town up with a shit load of pop-rocks and Tang? An awful mess; that’s what you’ll get, an awful, mess…

Or maybe you’ll get Insomniac’s Sunset Overdrive! Yeah, that’s it!

Join Andrew and George as they discuss the merits and fallings of the Xbox One Exclusive at a glance, and dive deep into the cooperative multiplayer, singularly-driven open-world action games, and George’s creepy love affair with Jorts.

Mail us at our new email Mailbag@presspauseradio.com, leave a voicemail at 469-PPR-TALK, and be sure to stop by at our Forums if you haven’t already registered and post your thoughts about the show. Finally, make sure to rate and subscribe to us on iTunes and YouTube, follow us on Twitch page and Twitter, and finally take part in our Facebook and Steam group!

QCF: Chariot

he concept of royalty truly is a fascinating distinction within humanity’s self-imposed hierarchy over the years. The prestige and responsibility it demands is a balance of finesse and leadership that’s equally important to both sides of the crown—even when that crown might rest upon the head of a self-absorbed, entitled narcissist.

Enter Chariot; a grand mission of tribute to the fallen king, undertaken by his two most loyal retainers, as they drag and push their majesty’s wagon-eered coffin, towards the perfect resting ground for burial so that the matriarch may finally move on to the afterlife.

While the whole thing may sound like a glorified escort mission at first impression, the reality is a delightfully heartwarming test of wits and resilience against the law of physics against a lump on wheels that’s essentially an out-of-body extension of you and your buddy’s skills and abilities—with an added test of friendship thrown in for good measure.

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QCF: Halo: The Master Chief Collection

efore military shooting affairs were all the rage, Microsoft penned all of its hopes on a series, one that  eventually become the flagship brand that defined it—a space marine fantasy filled with as many guns, aliens, and bits of action that could fit on to the disc; Halo set the first-person shooting genre on fire.

That was then though, and like it or not, the shooter landscape has long moved on from the prime of Bungie’s galactic odyssey, and even in spite of 343’s development of Halo 5; the relevance of the franchise is arguably still up in the air as far as mainstream shooting appeal is concerned.

Enter the Master Chief Collection, an ambitious collection that containing upgraded revisions of the four main titles, complete with online integration that allows for a combination of the various elements and nuances of from each entry to experiment and customize with.

Indeed, questioning the value offered within this arrangement of games itself, is a hard-pressed argument to counter; but considering the jump to better hardware and age of these particular games being hyped here—the expectations are respectively loftier the second time around.

So it’s sad to say that when it comes down to it—The Master Chief Collection barely justifies it’s worth beyond being anything more than a budget bundle with a savvy price tag—the reality is that it’s simply a glorified revision of games that scantly improve upon the originals that we’ve all played to death years ago.

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QCF: Sunset Overdrive

t’s no secret that I take a particularly guilty joy out of the dichotomy that defines the éclat of video games—it’s a pretty silly identity crisis that I can’t but find amusing. On one hand, I want to the art and impact that video games create to continually expand into legitimate expression of art that can stand on par with some of the greatest literature and film ever produced by mankind, and yet on the other, I still want games to indulge into some of the stupidest shit imaginable.

Sure, that sounds unreasonably flippant, since making headway in one of directions would congruently set back the other, but I’d like to think that we can live in a world where gaming can cater to both of these worlds respectively—Insomniac’s Xbox One exclusive, Sunset Overdrive, is living proof of that.

Yeah, we live in a world where things like Deadpool and Tumblr have saturated our culture with facetious satire and fourth-wall humor to an obnoxiously pandering degree, but the latest effort from the same people behind Ratchet & Clank and Resistance, is one of the most refreshing games to have released in 2014. A world and action woven by the over-the-top chaos and fiction of this modern open-world odyssey of caffeine and attention-deficit youth has all the makings that truly define the special kind of enchantment that only a video game could offer.

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QCF: Styx: Master of Shadows

emember when Assassin’s Creed was marketed towards the thrill of eliminating your foes from the shadows? Sneaking to every target, stealthily moving around as if you were invisible to the naked eye, allowing your enemies only a second of reaction to your presence before it was too late for them to do anything about it—yeah, after seven years running, that shit is practically gone now.

Honestly, aside from the exception of Ground Zeroes, third-person stealth affairs are barely even a thing in games now, but before all hope of finding that great new game of “killing them softly” was lost, along came a little title by the name of Styx: Master of Shadows.

Now, mind you, the last time I loaded in software that was developed by Cyanide Studio, it was that licensed Game of Thrones game back in 2012; so yeah, my hopes were significantly tempered at first impression. It wasn’t long until after I metastasized a gross little clone doppelganger of myself, only so that I could send it running off, distracting all the meddlesome guards in my way as a decoy, that I realized, second chances are real, and this Next-Gen stealth adventure is living proof.

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