PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds
A game review by Laura Martin “Fuyumé”

You sit quietly among 99 of your peers, the roar of the airplane engines drowning out their voices. Miles below is an abandoned island, littered with weapons and protective gear for those fast enough to reach it. People begin to leap from the plane, but you wait. Finally, when the plane is almost empty, you jump. Wind whistles past your ears as you pull your chute. No one else seems to be nearby. You land and head towards the nearest building, only to be felled by a headshot from a faraway sniper.

This is PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (hereafter known as PUBG). One hundred players are dropped on an island to hunt for weapons, gear, and the ever-elusive chicken dinner awaiting the last one alive. The player can go alone, in a pair, or in a squad of up to four. There’s a global voice chat to hear your allies, or for your enemies to hear you.

Weapons are distributed randomly across the world, hiding in rundown buildings. In these buildings you will also find gear, like backpacks, first aid kits, and police vests. Scattered on the roads you may come across vehicles ranging from tiny buggies to five seater UAZs. The island itself is surrounded by a blue ring; outside of the ring, players will begin to lose health steadily until they either get into the ‘safe zone’, or they die. The ring becomes progressively smaller as the match goes on. The last player or squad left standing wins the match.

The world of PUBG is not particularly attractive, but that only adds to its war-torn aesthetic. The player isn’t quite sure what happened to this desolate island, but clearly something happened to cause whoever once lived here to flee. There are a few bothersome things about the design, however; every player character has the exact same idol animation, the character creator itself is highly limited, and a large majority of the buildings and rooms are clones of each other. Most of these things are passable in a good game, but the scenery gets very repetitive after a few matches.

For the majority of the game, the gameplay more than makes up for the heavy design flaws. Because of the random nature of loot, no two games will be the same. As an example, I once reached the last ten alive with a single weapon, no ammunition to speak of, and no protective gear; all I did was run and hide. If the player drops in a heavily populated area, he may find a weapon first and dominate others landing in the same area, thinning the herd before moving on. However, he also may end up one of those being picked off as he runs for a weapon.

The game is far from perfect; PUBG is plagued with bugs, errors, and poor optimization. Doors may appear open that are actually closed. A vehicle driving across a flat surface may suddenly begin to roll, injuring or killing its occupants. Players with highly capable computers may experience heavy lag regardless of their graphics cards or internet connections. However, one must keep in mind that this is a game in early access. Bugs and glitches are to be expected. I for one am eager to see how far PlayerUnknown can take this game.

The fun factor cannot be denied. With every round bringing a new experience, it’s hard to get bored with the gameplay. Friends bring an added layer of amusement and strategy in equal measure. For those of you on Xbox, no need to fret; Microsoft announced at E3 that PUBG would be coming to Xbox One as well. At only $29.99, less than half the price of a standard game, it’s well worth the buy.

The Long Dark
A game review by Laura Martin “Fuyumé”

The air is freezing cold; you can see the breath leave in huffs of warm clouds from your mouth. You need to find shelter, so you set off down a frozen river, searching for some abandoned building. It’s almost sunset when you find a cabin, devoid of life but containing an energy bar, a lantern half full of fuel, and a bed with thin blankets. You eat the bar and drink the last of your water, knowing you’ll need to find more in the morning. You settle into bed, just warm enough to sleep. So ends another day in the quiet apocalypse.

The Long Dark, developed by Hinterland Studios, is a post-apocalyptic survival game. There are no zombies or factions of evil. It’s just the player versus nature, trying to survive the frozen Canadian wilderness. The player assumes the role of a stranded bush pilot whose plane was downed by a “mysterious geomagnetic event”. The only goal of the survival mode, until recently the only mode in the game, is to survive as long as possible.

The game’s visual style is reminiscent of a painting. The effect is calming; despite danger lurking around every corner in the form of hunger, exposure, and wildlife, one can’t help but take in the beauty of each unique map. Snowy mountains, towering trees, and frozen lakes cover the land, coated in a thick blanket of fresh snow. The same style can look a bit odd on the animations of people in the game, but Hinterland has made many improvements to its animations since its official launch on August 1st.

In a game so dependent on its sandbox mode – called Survival ever since the official release – gameplay is vitally important. The Long Dark alternates between a rhythmic, methodical playstyle as the player goes through the day to day task of making sure he has enough resources for tomorrow, and the rushing, panicked playstyle when something goes catastrophically wrong, like a bear attack or a badly timed blizzard. The HUD is clean and minimalistic, completely absent unless the player brings it up. The immersion is enough to make me feel a chill in the height of a Texas summer, to feel my heart race when I hear the bark of a wolf nearby.

The story mode, named Wintermute, debuted on August 1st with the launch of the game. The story is paced much like Survival; at times, calm and methodical, and at others making the player feel panicked. The story follows Will Mackenzie, a bush pilot, and Astrid, a doctor determined to deliver something to the remote and desolate Great Bear Island. The game opens with Mackenzie in the wreckage of his own plane, a sharp piece of metal stuck in his hand. Unfortunately, the clean HUD works against the game in this instance; any player new to the game not aware of how to interact with things would have trouble recognizing how to remove the metal from his hand and progress to the next scene.

The Long Dark has never held its player’s hands; from the very beginning of its early access and through its development there was no tutorial for Survival mode. Many players would die quickly in situations where they may have lived had they known the mechanics. For example, to obtain water reliably, the player melts snow in fires. However, the menu to do this is hidden behind the menu to add fuel to the fire and cooking food, in a vague water drop shaped tab. While this is fine for a sandbox, it becomes frustrating in a story mode where there is a tutorial section, but is ill explained. However, for veterans of the game through its early access phase, the tutorial section is a breeze to rush through and get to the real challenges the game offers.

The voice acting, though limited in some degree, is fantastic. Mark Meer and Jennifer Hale, the voice actors for Commander Shepard of the Mass Effect series, provide the voices for Mackenzie and Astrid, respectively, as well as the male and female voices for Survival mode. Hale, as a seasoned voice actor, performs as expected, which would be well. I’m pleased to say that Meer also does a stellar job as Will Mackenzie, considering he is a lesser known voice actor outside of the Mass Effect series. David Hayter, well known for his work in the Metal Gear Solid series, gives a great performance as a side character guiding Mackenzie through learning the ropes of survival.

Unfortunately, this somewhat star-studded cast does have a downside; in what can only be assumed was a choice based on a restricted budget, only major cutscenes are voiced, with dialogue between characters inside of the game being text only. While this isn’t the worst thing that could have happened, I can’t help but think that had they only used Hale and Meer, and talented unknowns for the rest of the cast, Hinterland may have had the budget to voice all the dialogue. However, this is only conjecture; the voice acting that is present is well delivered.

Over all, I must say if you were looking for a new survival game to shake things up, one that doesn’t rely on zombies and other supernatural beings to make it challenging, this is definitely the game for you. It may be a bit rough around the edges, but if you give it a chance, you’ll see the diamond.