Since Call of Duty: WWII was released last week, I have spent majority of my gaming time playing it. In September I wrote a piece outlining my thoughts on the beta and how they could improve. After playing some online matches, it became clear that Sledgehammer was not messing around when they said they were “returning COD to its roots .” However, it has not escaped being infected by contemporary gaming trends that have left WWII suffering from an identity crisis.     The campaign certainly feels like a throw back to the heyday of WWII shooters. They even ditched automatic health regeneration that has become a staple for the series and replaced it with heal packs as the only way to heal, something I have not experienced since the Xbox and PS2 days. The story is mediocre, but I was not expecting something new and exciting from a WWII time period that has been sucked dry of any new narrative. The campaign feels like an afterthought, almost like they included it because it...

After playing the Battlefield 1 Beta one thing has become immediately clear, it is the most realistic war game I have ever played. I discussed my hope for this in length in a previous post . While playing, I genuinely felt anxiety as I started the game running across the desert with my comrades. As we made it to the first town we were ambushed by an enemy tank and we had to quickly dive for cover in a freshly made crater from artillery. As a medic I tried to revive my squad mate but when I made it to him I was gunned down by a German sniper. I respawned into the machine gun of an allied truck and quickly found myself returning fire at a bi plane that was trying to rip us apart and all of this was just my first game. Never before has a war game been this realistic. The magic of Battlefield 1 lays in the fact that you are going to die, a lot. Death is simply around every corner. If you are not blown up by a tank, shot by a sniper or gunned down by a plane, you will certainly be ra...

This past weekend Respawn Entertainment released their “ Multiplayer Tech Test ” for Titanfall 2 . The test is open for everyone to enjoy regardless of pre-orders. It showcases some of the new features players can expect to see when the new game is finally released in October. Two new maps are playable, as well as a new game variant called “Bounty Hunt”. There have been some tweaks for gameplay classes and Titans. Respawn Entertainment stresses that the test is a “pre-alpha” model of the game, meaning that the game is still in development there are known problems so it does not reflect the final product. Overall, my time playing this weekend was enjoyable but I did make notes of certain aspects of the game that may need some heavy tweaking. The two new maps, Boomtown and Homestead were fun to play on but large in scale. Homestead is a rural sprawl with a large circular tower (perfect for snipers) front and center in the middle of the map. Boomtown has a more urban setting, allowin...