The Dead Island Trifecta: Dead Island and Riptide Definitive Collection, topped with Retro Revenge

Coming from someone that it not a fan of HD remastering of previous generation titles, it is time for a game in which I think is a perfect fit to be polished and reshelved, and that game being Dead Island. One of my favorite zombie open world survivor games, up there with Left 4 Dead, has been rebuilt and both Dead Island and Riptide Definitive Collection are available as a big scary package or individually. However, should you choose to get the retail collection, you also receive you will also receive Dead Island Retro Revenge, a 16-bit side scrolling beat em up. Time to see how they hold up as we head back to Banoi, so who do you Voodoo bitch?

As this is a remake there is no need to go over the originality that came with Dead Island, so I might as well jump right into how it looks and plays. What a lot of zombie survival games, there is that lack of urgency or atmosphere that seems haunting. My favorite part of Dead Island was how hectic it is. If you do not perform zombie population control, the difficulty curve gets steep very quickly and if that isn’t bad enough, you need to constantly keep a pulse on your weapons’ remaining durability. This doesn’t change in the transition to next gen consoles, the noticeable differences are in the looks and smoothly it now plays. 

In the Definitive Collection, I did not experience slow down in frame rate regardless to the situation I find myself in. I did find myself stopping and enjoying the tropical scenery of Banoi littered with the undead as it just looks so much better. These improvements are made possible by way of a new photorealistic lighting system, anti aliasing, and improved game models. The interface has also seen a bit of a change and the Power Fists have been introduced, a power up that was introduced as an unofficial PC mod.

Last but not least, we have Dead Island Retro Rampage, a side scrolling, 16-bit, endless running, beat em up. In comparison to the aforementioned games, Retro Revenge has a more light hearted and simpler approach, tasking Max with going on a rampage to find his stolen cat. I had a lot of fun with it as it still had that melee heavy combat and mature content with a look that takes me back to gaming in the early nineties, without the slow processing power. To provide that current feel, leaderboards and trophies kept me coming back for more, while the power ups, super attacks, and combos kept it fresh. 

MashButtons takes back Philly in Homefront: The Revolution

It has been a few weeks since the release of Homefront: The Revolution and wanted to wait until some of the title’s lingering bugs had been patch to provide my impressions. The Revolution is the sequel to the 2011, Homefront. In this open world title, you are tasked with leading the Philadelphia resistance to take back your homeland from Korean takeover. The city of Philadelphia changes as you re-take your home, and be sure to takes some recruits as it is dangerous to go it alone. Now that I have gotten a deeper look at the game, it is time to share the experience. 

Sure it may not have been very polished looking or a story with characters that stayed captivating, but the gameplay was fun, fast, and with just enough difficulty. The mission difficulty tended to vary on the number of recruits with me and the health packs I had at my disposal, when I went at strike points alone it often led to frustration. The customization of weapons on the fly was another item I particularly appreciated as certain weapons have dual purposes making tactics on the fly easier to navigate. This was really nice because it meant I did not have to go to my cellphone interface that felt like a step back in time to an era before smart phones. 

The reason in which I was hesitant to post my impressions was due to a number of bugs encountered early in the game making it very difficult to progress through the story. Good news about the recent patch, it feels as though the game now plays as it was intended. With that being said, the way it was intended is a fun open world shooter with weapon customization and four player online coop missions. Homefront: The Revolution also came out at a great time with the next couple months being light in big game releases. 

DiRT Rally infuriates and invigorates, providing the go-to racing game for the PS4

It is finally time, for DiRT to come to the next gen consoles in the form of DiRT Rally. DiRT 2 was one of my favorite racing games, and while DiRT 3 and Showdown strayed a bit too far from it’s roots, I was still looking forward to seeing how it would look and play on the PlayStation 4.  In DiRT Rally, Codemasters has provided 39 cars across the sport’s history around the world through 70 stages. Events range from traditional rally stages, Rallycross that also includes official FIA World Rallycross content, and the Pike’s Peak hill climb. While you are unable to customize the look of the car outside of liveries, but you do upgrade the performance of your car over time and even faster by way of hired crewmembers with assignable perks. Now it is time to see how it plays. 

To start, DiRT Rally sticks to it’s roots by making the gameplay and physics incredibly tough to master, which makes placing during events very, very satisfying. The way in which each car handles is very different and unique to each other, just when you think you have gone and mastered your car and feel like switching classes, it is like learning all over again. The locations and cars are beautiful and even at high speeds it looks stunning, even after driving through tress, signs, and stones the dilapidated vehicle hobbles as rough as it looks towards the finish line. While the single player career mode is near perfect, Rallycross is available via online multiplayer and there also community events to see where rank in the form of daily, weekly, and monthly challenges with entry by way of the cars in your garage. 

In my time spent playing through the multiple modes, there were a couple nuances that took away from the game and features that didn’t quite seem fully functional yet. Playing PvP while fun as hell to play against people from across the world, lobbies are rarely full and there are a lot of people that race dirty with no penalties for their actions. The leagues, while available by way of the DiRT Game site are not displayed in the game menu after linking the console to your Racenet account. I do miss the ability to rewind a certain amount times each race in order to right your wrongs, which make mistakes that much more impactful and frustrating, resulting in numerous restarts in search of the perfect run. 

At the end of the day, DiRT Rally did a great job of avoiding all the flashing lights of 3 and Showdown while providing a good amount of what made DiRT 2 so much fun, the right amount of Rally and Rallycross. While there are some blemishes to it, none of them take away from the experience of white knuckling the controller and swearing at the TV the way the developers had intending. The gameplay stability really shines, thanks to the 60 million miles driven by the DiRT community during the release on Steam’s Early Access. If you are a glutton for punishment, just wait until doing a night run on an icy track with no headlights due to not listening to your co-pilot when he says don’t cut. Seriously…don’t cut. Codemasters, if you are listening please bring us some of the locations events and vehicles we last saw in DiRT 2.

X-Doria’a new line of defense for the iOS lineup

X-Doria has released the latest in their lineup of stylish ways to protect the iPhone and apple watch with the Defense Shield and Defense Edge. Not like a lot of the other cases offering protection for a price, these use polycarbonate, soft rubber and aluminum to provide Military grade protection. The Defense Shield for the iPhone 6S is available now for $49.99 and the Defense Edge is available now for $29.99 at XDoriaLife.com.