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The Sims 4: Parenthood (PC) Developer: Maxis Publisher: Electronic Arts Released: May 30, 2017 MSRP: $19.99 After a somewhat tepid launch three years ago, every game pack, update, and expansion released for The Sims 4 has had to find some way to make the barren base game feel as expansive as the many, many Sims games that came before. The Sims 4: Parenthood is the latest attempt to fill the content void, and while the longtime Sims fan in me wants to call it and all other non-expansion DLC a cash grab, at just $20 Parenthood feels more worth its price than most of the full-blown, $40 expansion packs released so far. The Sims 4: Parenthood takes on the monumental task of making the life of a stay-at-home parent as interesting as pursuing a career or working towards fulfilling an aspiration. This isn't the first time in the franchise's seventeen years that Maxis has attempted to flesh out the core Sims mechanic of popping out and raising lil' Sim children, but thankfully Parenthood doesn’t feel like a rehash of a past expansion pack. This time around, the game has introduced a 'parenthood' skill that parents can build by teaching, disciplining, and praising their sim spawn. As with other skills like cooking or logic, a new level of that skill offers a sim new activities and interactions. This could be anything from a new way to correct a misbehaving child or more details on how each particular parenting decision will affect a kid's demeanor. Those teachable, parenting moments all feed into the new 'character values' menu toddlers, children, and teens have stashed in their traits menu that shows how behavior is being reflected in their personalities and actions. Depending on the reactions parents have to certain behaviors, kids either gain or lose behavioral points in manners, responsibility, conflict resolution, empathy, and emotional control. The more you praise or scold to reinforce a behavior, the more likely a kid is to behave accordingly in the future. A child's traits will influence the kind of good or bad behaviors they're likely to build too; a mean sim will tank its empathy, while a neat sim is likely to see its responsibility skyrocket. Even that has a way of helping to make each sim kid feel more unique since a higher or lower character value results in a kid naturally performing more actions that reflect that value. And, if any of the five behavior categories are either fully in the red or green, a young sim will walk away with an all new and unique trait reflecting their childhood behaviors once they reach adulthood. Those traits themselves are a nice reward for taking the time to raise a sim from birth to maturity as well. It's a neat system that successfully manages to add some depth to the previously monotonous child and teenager stages. Beyond that, Parenthood introduces a number of new items and random encounters that give players additional ways to shape the family dynamic in any given home. Students now sometimes bring home class projects that can be assembled solo or with the help of the parent, and parents can set a curfew for the household via a family notice board that docks responsibility points for sims that don't obey. There's a number of new random elements that seek to spice up the lives of each adventure into parenthood. Periodically, parents will receive a call from the school seeking advice on how to solve a conflict involving their child, and how the parent answers will, for better or worse, have a sizable effect on the kid's character values. This same kind of thing happens when a teen or child autonomously asks a parent for advice. Whichever option the player picks, one character value will rise and one will fall, though higher levels of the parenting skill let players see those effects in detail ahead of time. Children and teens now also have a chance to go through phases that noticeably alter their day-to-day activities. For some sims, this means they'll become overemotional for a period of time and blast music at all hours, and for others it means they become unbearably sad unless they're wearing a vibrantly colored bear costume. Of course, there's new content to be found in the building mode and the create-a-sim menus as well, and each piece further builds on those themes of individuality and homemaking set forth by Parenthood's new mechanics. The decorative stuff is especially nice in this pack if you're interested in finding ways to make a sim's house look less pristine and more like a chaotic family home. The Sims 4: Parenthood packs quite the punch into its $20 package, and at this point I've had more fun with it than I have with the last few full expansion packs released for the game. I'm still of the mind that these kinds of improvements should be included in expansion packs, but The Sims 4: Parenthood is making me reconsider my anti-game pack mindset. While other game packs for The Sims 4 introduced new gameplay elements into the mix, The Sims 4: Parenthood sets out to enhance existing parts of the core Sims experience and does so in a way that meshes surprisingly well with what was already there. If the next few game packs and expansions can manage to do the same, The Sims 4 might be able to live up to the standards set by past games in the series.

FIRESTORM: LAST SQUAD STANDING Firestorm*, Battlefield V’s long-awaited foray into the world of battle royale, is coming on March 25. We spoke with several developers on Firestorm about how they came together to create something both true to the Battlefield franchise but also new to the genre. With one life to live, the stakes in Firestorm battle royale are high. No respawns, a destructive ring of fire, and the anxious feeling that the next encounter might be your last builds the tension of battle at every step. Still, the one life to live means everyone has a fair shot at being the last one standing using the bevy of weapons, reinforcements, and combat vehicles at their disposal. Battlefield V is already an intense shooter, where a well-placed round can stop you in your tracks. Criterion Games, the team behind Firestorm was eager to ramp up the pressure even more with the new game mode. “If you are playing solo and you’re on your own in these huge landscapes, we want players to feel scared or intimidated,” said Steve Uphill, Studio Art Director at Criterion Games. Firestorm’s massive maps can quickly ramp up the pressure by making a player feel isolated and alone. The map is roughly 10 times the size of Hamada, one of the largest maps from the Battlefield series. Senior Game Designer John Stanley thinks the size of the world of Firestorm helps to effectively deliver on “only in Battlefield” moments. “Combat can vary widely, with moments of intense action and moments where you are in more open spaces which feel lonely with just you and your squad and the tension is dialed up to 10," Stanley said. "Then, when combat starts, like an explosion or an artillery strike, it really pierces the senses.” In building this tense, dangerous world of Firestorm, the Criterion team didn’t take anything for granted. Even elements that could be considered standard within a battle royale game, like the ever-encroaching ring, were given special consideration here. Similar to many battle royale games, Firestorm has a “ring” that slowly encroaches around the map, forcing teams into conflict. With Firestorm, even the ring increases the tension. “The Ring of Fire is a huge gameplay element,” Uphill said. “At first, we tried putting in some quite gamey-looking walls, but we wanted something that was a bit threatening and would double down on the tension.” “The wall looks visually impressive, sounds awesome, but it also destroys everything. If you’re in a house or caught in a building it’s not just, ‘okay, I’m going to start taking damage.’ Everything around you starts to fall apart,” Stanley said. Even with these larger-than-life moments, the Battlefield franchise always strives to bring a sense of realism to their portrayal of conflicts. Pairing that mission with the battle royale genre posed a unique obstacle to the teams. “One of the core tenets of Battlefield is believability and authenticity and we knew that was going to be a challenge for us with royale,” Uphill said. “We were conscious of not building a theme park world or something too gamey that wouldn’t sit well with the main game. So we had to balance what works well from a gameplay perspective with the authenticity of Battlefield.” “We didn’t want to do a traditional battle royale map that had one biome that was just desert, or lush green or just snow. We wanted variety in there, like open worlds you see in other games,” Uphill said. “Norway turned out to be pretty good because you have snowy areas, a lot of coastline, and you have drier barren areas. “ “We did a whole lot of research on Norway to make the place more believable,” Art Director Christian Bense said. “In a lot of battle royale games you see a theme park here or a castle there, but we try to make it feel like a little corner of Norway.” Vehicles are another marquee feature of the Battlefield franchise. For both combat and transportation, there are plans to include a variety of vehicles in Firestorm as well. “In each section there are a lot of different vehicle types for players to experiment with,” Bense said. “We even have a Schwimmwagen, an amphibious vehicle – the name translates literally as “swimming car” – with a mounted machine gun..” For more dangerous vehicles like the Panzer IV, players will have to go through some extra obstacles to access them. “We put those more powerful combat vehicles in bunkers around the map, down into the ground that have two blast doors you have to open,” Stanley said. “As you open a bunker’s doors, alarms go off, and you know with royale you don’t want to telegraph your location. So opening both doors as quickly as possible is essential.” From the historic vehicles to the deliberate attention to detail, it’s clear that Firestorm has Battlefield’s DNA running deeply through it. With how grounded and serious this mode plans to be, it raises the question: why tractors? “We actually have a number of vehicles in Firestorm that aren’t in the main game, you couldn’t just have loads of army vehicles. And a tractor which we feel adds a bit of lightness to what is an intense experience,” Uphill said. “So when you do find the tractor there’s a kind of slight comedic relief, you can hook an Anti-Aircraft or Anti-Tank to it and you and your buddies can drive around in it which is quite funny.”

Super Robot Wars T (PS4 [reviewed], Nintendo Switch) Developer: B.B. Studio Publisher: Bandai Namco Released: March 20, 2019 MSRP: ~$50 It’s a tricky thing to maintain a long-running crossover franchise. On one hand, you need to take measures in order to attract newcomers. Whether it’s changing up the roster or lowering the barrier of entry, there are steps developers can take to attract these crowds. On the other hand, you also have to cater to franchise veterans. Quality-of-life changes, keeping the experience feeling fresh, and considering fan demands are among the many things they have to consider. Super Robot Wars T succeeds in its attempts to appeal to newcomers, but stumbles appealing to fans of previous games. So, let’s start off with the biggest difference from the previous two games. While Super Robot Wars V and X focused on storylines with multiple dimensions involved, T takes the opposite approach. While there’s an exception for a few series like Rayearth and Dunbine, the entire story of the game takes place in one singular dimension. No multiple timelines, no dimension warping, none of that is present. Just a nice, simple plot of "Hey, this threat impacts all of us, therefore we have to work together." In addition, unlike both previous games, there is no ‘singular’ series being heavily pushed like Yamato or Wataru that dictates the overall flow and tone of the game. As a result, the pacing feels more like an organic blend among the series included, and more approachable to anyone interested. It also helps that since it’s a singular world, and everything is resolved in-game, all these series feel like they have stakes and that their events matter, unlike many of the series in X. As for the story itself, it’s one heavily routed in the backstories of several series. The year is New Universal Era 200, and humanity is in the middle of the Twilight Age. It is an era of decline, corruption, and war, with the hopes and dreams of space exploration from the previous Golden Age having being shattered by the discovery of the Space Monsters from Gunbuster outside of our solar system. A depressing age defined by the wars and events of Gundam, Mazinger Z, Might Gaine, Tryder and Nadesico. Our story follows the staff of Special Section 3, a department of VTX Union, the largest and most respected company in the world. Their goal is the development and refinement of the Tyranado mech, in hopes of having it picked as the next mass-produced weapon by the Federation. In order to achieve this, they are initially assigned as an escort to the winner of the 13th Gundam Fight, and along with a few chance encounters, things quickly escalate from there. To summarize my thoughts: This is the best story of the translated trio hands down. Every series has an active role to play in the story, whether it’s major or minor. None of them make me question why they were even included, like Crossbone Gundam in X. The conga line of cameos that was absent from that game is back this time, with familiar faces po[CENSORED]ting the world. If I had to recommend one of the Super Robot Wars games to a newcomer for the story aspect alone, this would be it. The presentation of the story has been given further refinement as well. In addition to the improved scenario, more unique portraits exist for characters to help convey the context of a scene. Whether it’s Ed and Ein hunched over a computer, Domon summoning his Gundam, or an entirely separate set of portraits for Van when piloting Dann of Thursday, these help immensely. It’s fantastic to see the team continue to improve this aspect from X. As for the gameplay, well, it’s almost identical to the previous two games. It takes place on a grid-based map, with players moving and attacking with units to achieve objectives. Units are comprised of a ship/mech and at least one pilot. Both sides contribute to the stats and abilities that a unit has, with attacks being mech-based and relying on various ammunition types. Pilots, regardless of main or sub-pilot status, have access to spirit commands, which are abilities they can use for a temporary boost, such as increased accuracy for a turn or healing. In between stages, players can go through their roster and make changes and upgrades as needed. They can purchase passive abilities for pilots with TacP, or they can spend Funds to upgrade their mech. Pilots can be sent on sub-orders, which nets currency, levels, and kills for pilots involved, the last of which unlocks an ability when a pilot obtains 60 of them. In addition, certain machines such as Scopedog can have optional equipment switched out, while most of the machines from Gundam can have their pilots swapped around. However, Super Robot Wars T introduces a new mechanic that seems to be an answer to the problem X had with certain series: What do you do when multiple major characters don’t pilot mechs or ships? The answer arrives in the form of Supporters. Acting like a separate Spirit Command pool that can be accessed by any unit, this is where those characters reside. This is where you’ll find characters like Ed from Cowboy Bebop or Wendy from Gun X Sword. It grows and shrinks as the story progresses, and is impacted by route splits, which helps it feel like a genuine addition to the roster. There are other quality-of-life touches present in Super Robot Wars T. A small but notable one is a nice "shoot down" indicator that appears if an attack will be fatal, helping players to know when to spend resources to secure the kill or if they need to act to save their unit. The other major one has to do with sub-orders and who can use them. In previous games, any pilot that had just been deployed would not be eligible for sub-order deployment. As a result, accidentally neglecting a unit during deployment would mean being unable to use the feature to provide those missing stats to a degree. In T, that restriction has been lifted. Any pilot, regardless if they had been deployed or not, can participate. While this is great for an extra flow of funds, it does render secrets based on kill count and number of aces to near-mindless levels. The other addition is special orders, which are limited in number and single-use. These orders are unlocked by achieving certain requirements and provide unique benefits such as Stat increases and larger-than-normal rewards. However, only one pilot can be used for the order and only one can be used per intermission, so holding onto them is less than optimal. Speaking of requirements, hidden unlocks return once again. Just like previous Super Robot Wars games, we have secret missions, units, early unlocks, and an alternate ending route. However, the unit variety has taken a dive this time around. While an early unlock for Eldora Soul and possibly obtaining Master Asia are in this time, the rest have been done before. Black Might Gaine was already a secret in V, although his unlock is tied to the same criteria as Eldora Soul. The rest are from ZZ Gundam and Char’s Counterattack, meaning if you don’t care for those two Gundam entries, there is little to nothing in this department for you. Now, while T does has similar balancing issues as X, it does still have expert mode, which has made some adjustments to the difficulty. However, expert mode has a major problem I failed to notice with X, and that has to do with SR points. SR points are optional objectives that are present in every stage and affect the difficulty of the game based on how many you’ve done. These objectives can range from "take out the boss in only one attack" to "defeat all of one type of enemy in three turns and then defeat these four bosses in the same turn." On expert, these are converted into a generic "beat the stage" goal, which in some ways makes expert easier than the regular difficulty if you like attempting the optional objectives. However, what drags Super Robot Wars T down the most for those who played V and X is actually the music and battle visuals. Now to make it clear, most of the new sprites and animations for this game range from good to great, with G Gundam, Cowboy Bebop, and Rayearth clearly getting the most attention and care. However, GaoGaiGar is the exception to this grouping. It looks stiff, attacks lack impact, and it is poorly animated at times. To make matters worse, multiple side characters such as Goldymarg and Mic Sounders are summon attacks for the King of the Braves. As a result, this drags down the series as a whole. The bigger problem in this aspect is the returning series. Despite their role and content in the story being changed up from previous entries, there’s still a major sense of overfamiliarity due to reused sprites. For instance, most of Might Gaine’s sprites have been in three games, and there’s nothing really new to see for those familiar with V and X. However, my first game was the Z3 duology on PlayStation 3, not V. So, for me, this is the third game where I’ve seen most of the animations for Scopedog or Gunbuster, the fourth for Shin Getter Robo, and the fifth game in a row for some of the Gundam units. So now the result is not only am I getting a bad sense of déjà vu, some of these returning units are not consistently animated. For instance, let’s take Shin Getter Robo, which was also in V. The new addition for the unit in T is a pilot cut-in for Ryoma, which features a static face, but the clothes and hair are shifting. It honestly looks bad and is made even worse when the pilot cut-in from V is on another attack, and that one looks more polished in comparison. For better or worse, while some units like Zeta Gundam still hold up due to consistency, a complete overhaul of the animations would resolve this issue for veterans. This problem also extends to the music. As per usual, Super Robot Wars T has its own original music: some completely new, and some recurring songs that have been redone. As you’d also expect, there’s the usual covers of songs from the series included. Just like the sprites and animations, some are completely new, and some are reused. As you can expect, the same series that reuse animations also reuse music from the same games. That being said, Votoms and Getter Robo are using covers from the Z2 duology, which was on the PSP. This means that those songs are now five and six games old, respectively. Since I was lucky enough to be reviewing the PlayStation 4 version, I immediately used the custom music feature to replace those songs and a couple others because I am sick and tired of hearing them. If GaoGaiGar and Dunbine can get new covers despite last appearing in 3DS games, why can’t we move on from ones that debuted last generation? Super Robot Wars T is in a weird place for me critically. If I had to pick a game in order to introduce someone to the franchise, this would be it. It sports an excellent roster with a broad appeal paired with the best original story of the translated trio, along with all the gameplay improvements X had, regardless of its difficulty issues. From a veteran’s perspective though, the asset reuse only reinforces a tired sense of déjà vu. Combined with the lack of effort on fixing the balance and difficulty, it’s hard to recommend to a veteran hoping for a more complete package.

Outward (PC , PS4, Xbox One) Developer: Nine Dots Studio Publisher: Deep Silver Released: March 26, 2019 MSRP: $39.99 During my first ten hours in Outward, I was mauled by wolves three different times, kidnapped by bandits twice, and left shanghaied on a magic-infused mountain by a mysterious stranger. I fought subterranean monsters and laid tripwire traps in a desperate ploy to take on foes much stronger than me. At one point, I found a new backpack—one that I could attach a lantern to—and felt a genuine twinge of emotion. On my way back to town, a giant bird pecked me to death. It was a rough start, but nothing in Outward ever comes easily. Outward isn't an inviting game, nor is it a particularly fun game in that breezy way that so many open-world RPGs often are. Outward feels like a game ripped from another era, bringing both old-school design sensibilities and rough edges with it. Playing Outward is an exercise in patience. It's a challenging game that lacks many of the comforts accepted as RPG standards. There's no fast travel in Outward. If you need to cross multiple zones on a quest, prepare to hoof it. The game's magic system revolves around multi-stepped rituals to cast anything but the most basic spells. Your character can get sick from bad food, catch a cold in wintry weather, or contract a nasty infection during a fight. And most notably, Outward lacks quicksave and quickload systems. In this game, you live with your failures and learn to press onward. All of this is in service of a game meant to challenge expectations. You aren't a hero in Outward; you're an ordinary villager called to adventure for simple reasons: you owe a massive debt. You might be a capable warrior in a few dozen hours but Outward goes out of its way to keep you humble. Most of the time, you feel like a kid on their first day of school, oversized backpack and all. Weirdly enough, backpacks are the real main character in Outward. They're essential to your well-being. They come in different sizes and types. Some have plenty of storage space, but are so unwieldy that they slow your combat roll down. Others are lightweight, trading inventory space for increased maneuverability. One of the keys to making progress is finding a good backpack. They're so important that there's a dedicated "drop backpack" button. When you drop it, your compass points towards its last known location. For comparison's sake, your character doesn't even show up on the in-game map. That's how important backpacks are. Outward is uncompromising in its vision. Its brand of open-world experience blends RPG exploration with survival elements. At any given moment, you'll need to balance your character's hunger, body temperature, encumbrance, health, and stamina. Expect to spend as much time making sure you have supplies—materials for cooking, crafting, and first aid—as you do exploring dungeons. Learning to survive is no small task, and when you mix in a combat system that's as clunky as it is punishing, playing Outward can feel like an uphill battle. Unlike most RPGs, winning a fight in Outward has as much to do with preparing for combat as it does with actually swinging a sword. Even the most straightforward foes can inflict serious damage if you lose the upper hand. It's wise to lay traps—tripwires and pressure pads often do the trick—and drink a potion before engaging enemies. Because fighting feels janky, it's best to do as much damage to your foes as possible before swinging at them. Outward's melee combat feels floaty and less-than-precise. All that being said, there's something special about a meticulously planned assault. Sneaking up on a bandit patrol or unsuspecting monster, setting a few traps, and luring your target towards them with a volley of arrows can be thrilling. Getting clobbered by an overpowered foe in two hits, only to be knocked unconscious, revived, and dropped at a random point on the map (which has no indicator of your character's location, by the way) is awful. Outward wants so badly to encourage players to plan and prepare for anything, but because there's no proper fail state, losing a fight means you'll be left beaten and drained of your supplies. In most cases, it's better to try and run past enemies instead of potentially losing a fight. Outward's four main environments are home to three different faction-based storylines. After completing an early quest, players are free to adventure around the world or progress through their selected story path. The entire game can be experienced alone or cooperatively, a nice concession for players looking to even the odds in such a punishing world. Whether alone or solo Outward doesn't hurt for content. There are plenty of dungeons, ruins, and caverns to explore. Just be prepared to fight tooth and nail. Taken as a whole, Outward practically screams "cult classic." Its consistent challenge, cumbersome combat, and co-op systems won't resonate with everyone. But for a particular type of player—ones that don't mind trading dozens of frustrating moments for open-ended experiences—Nine Dot Studios' RPG is sure to find a dedicated audience. Outward's aspirations are commendable, but just like its protagonist, the end result is just average.

Name game: THE WITCHER 3: WILD HUNT - GAME OF THE YEAR EDITION Price: -70% - $14.99 USD Link store: STEAM Offer ends 14 avril

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A Way Out is an action-adventure game developed by Hazelight Studios and published by Electronic Arts under their EA Originals program. It is the second video game to be directed by Josef Fares after Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons. The game has no single-player option: it is only playable in either online or local split screen co-op between two players. The game was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on March 23, 2018, selling over a million copies in two weeks. A Way Out dedicated its entire title to only one act of its story. It's a bit deceiving to call this a prison break game (even though, yes, they do eventually get out) because it's a lot of other things too. A Way Out is a revenge saga, a Bonnie and Clyde-like outwit and outrun the cops tale, a bonding adventure, and a guilt trip that masquerades as a road trip. What's left is this patchwork quilt of pastiche, a B-movie Frankenstein of a million things that have been done in cinema. But as far as video games go, A Way Out is often a brilliant cooperative experience that is legitimately enjoyable -- and that will be enough to convince you to turn a blind eye to a lot of the writing that's as delicate as a sledgehammer. A Way Out is a pure cooperative game in that it can't be played any other way. Two people are required, either through couch co-op or online play. (It's worth noting that purchasing the game essentially grants you an additional copy to gift to a friend. While this person can play through the entirety of the story, they can't unlock achievements and trophies.) There's good reason for this forced collaboration. A Way Out is structured such that a partner is necessary for most every moment. Some of it is done in predictable ways -- like someone standing on a platform while the other person moves it -- but a lot of it is better than that. An early sequence has both players in adjacent cells, requiring one person to act as a lookout for guards while the other creates an escape hatch through the back of the toilet. A little later, the duo maneuvers up a ventilation shaft by going back-to-back and slowly climbing by moving their legs at the exact same time. Because of this shared responsibility, A Way Out's protagonists are equally important although very different people. Vincent is a rational and mostly-quiet man who's at the very beginning of a 14-year sentence for white collar crimes (with a fishy murder charge tacked on too); Leo is a brash bruiser who has been in the clink for six months on armed robbery and grand theft charges. I don’t want to spoil anything about its finale, but know this: A Way Out is worth seeing through to the end. A Way Out’s revenge-fueled plot is structured around flashbacks to how Vincent and his next-cell-neighbor Leo ended up in this predicament, until the story catches up to them aboard a plane and carries on from there. It ebbs and flows like a movie, and it somewhat feels like one too, despite a runtime about three times longer than your average theater experience. You will spend a lot of its roughly six hours with your controller down, watching cutscenes. But you’re also often free to walk around in many of those moments, with the screen frequently split to accommodate both players’ freedom to move and explore. Gameplay A Way Out is an action-adventure game played from a third-person perspective. It is specifically designed for split-screen cooperative multiplayer, which means that it must be played with another player through either local or online play. In the game, players control Leo and Vincent, two convicted prisoners who must break out of prison and stay on the run from authorities. As the story of both protagonists is told simultaneously, their progress may not be synchronized, which may result in one player being able to control their character, while another is watching a cutscene. Players need to cooperate with each other in order to progress, and each situation can be approached differently, with both characters taking different roles. For instance, during an early segment of the game, the player controlling Vincent needs to distract a nurse and guard, so the player controlling Leo can find a chisel needed to aid their escape. These roles are not fixed, so Leo and Vincent can swap their roles in another playthrough. Players can interact with many non-playable characters, and there are dialogue options for players to choose. Similar to the PlayStation 4 version of Far Cry 4, players will be able to join online sessions (hosted by the player's friends) whether or not the joining player owns the actual game. They have similarities, though. They're both family men. Leo has a young son who he's trying to hide his criminal life from. Vincent went to prison when his wife was mere weeks away from giving birth to their first child. However, their strongest commonality is a vehement hatred for a man named Harvey. Breaking out and delivering just comeuppance is the greatest motivator for this narrative that relies on vengeance more than anything else. Along the way, Vincent and Leo begin to understand each other. They find ways to lean on and support each other emotionally, like when Leo eventually (and unexpectedly) suggests Vincent should write a letter to his wife that tells her what kind of husband and father he wants to be. It takes a while to get there though. Early intimate interactions between the two come off stilted and awkward. There are separate moments where they both explain the heart-breaking situations that led to their incarcerations; each time, the listener simply replied with "that's rough." I made a point of remembering the first "that's rough" because I thought it felt so human. What do you say when someone tells you something so crushing that you don't have a good response? What do you say when you feel like your words won't ever be good enough to serve as any sort of consolation? You end up muttering something like "oh, no" or "I'm so sorry" or "that's rough." But to have the second character return in kind with the exact same phrase, well, that's bad writing. Leo and Vincent each have believable motivations that become clear as the story unfolds. So, too, do the actors’ performances improve as the plot progresses, with most of the notably wooden dialogue delivery contained in the early scenes. It’s as if they had to get to know each other, just as we needed to get to know them. It’s interesting to talk to the same NPC with Leo and Vincent separately, one right after the other, because while the conversation will usually turn out the same way, the path of those chats will be completely different. Leo is more violent and action-first, while Vincent prefers to talk his way out of sticky situations. So when you’re given the choice to handle a tense moment with a curious police officer Leo’s way or Vincent’s way, Leo wants to knock him out, while Vincent fakes a highly contagious illness. Game Story In 1972, Vincent Moretti (Eric Krogh) is freshly incarcerated and sent to prison for fraud and murder. In jail, he meets Leo Caruso (Fares Fares), who has now been inside for 6 months for grand theft, assault and armed robbery. While in the cafeteria, a thug sent in by crime boss Harvey tries to murder Leo, but Vincent intervenes, resulting in both of them being sent to the infirmary while the thug is beaten to death after stabbing a prison guard. While in the infirmary, Leo requests Vincent's help to steal a chisel from the office. Vincent complies. After the theft, Vincent senses that Leo is planning on a prison break and offers to help so that he can escape too. Leo initially refuses, but begrudgingly agrees to collaborate when Vincent reveals he also has a grudge with Harvey. Leo and Vincent make progress on their escape plan, stealing sheets to make a rope and smuggling a wrench to open a grating. Using teamwork and gathered tools, the two escape from the jail on a rainy night. After evading the police in the wilderness, the two find an empty camp and fish to make food. Vincent reveals that Harvey had him launder money before murdering his brother as a warning and framing Vincent for the murder. Leo starts telling his story but is interrupted when a police helicopter flies by, causing both to start moving again. They later find an old couple's house, and the two steal new clothes, a shotgun and a truck before evading the pursuing police in the vehicle and, after crashing, a rowboat. After surviving a waterfall, the duo finds civilization, after which Leo reveals Harvey and him had stolen a valuable gem, a Black Orlov, but that when Leo tried selling it, Harvey betrayed him by killing their buyer and escaping with the gem, leading to Leo's arrest. At a trailer park in the city, Leo confirms the safety of his wife Linda and his son Alex, before going to a construction site with Vincent. They find Ray, one of Harvey's underlings who works as a construction foreman, and, after a chase, the two capture and interrogate him to find Harvey's location, which they find out is Mexico. Plotting revenge against Harvey, the duo robs a gas station to buy guns from an arms dealer, Jasmine. When the two leave, Jasmine follows them and betrays them by giving their location to Harvey. Later, at a telephone booth, Vincent calls Emily, a pilot, and convinces her to fly them to Mexico. He then learns from her that his wife, Carol, had just gone through childbirth. The duo agrees to go to the hospital, but a hitman sent by Harvey arrives, attempting to kill them, but in the end failing. They then go to the hospital and Vincent gets to see his newborn daughter, but quickly needs to leave as police officers surround the building. Leo is captured but manages to escape thanks to a diversion by Vincent. The next day, Emily flies Leo and Vincent to Mexico, and the two find their way to Harvey's mansion. After a firefight with Harvey's guards and Harvey himself, the two overpower Harvey, force him to return the Black Orlov and, after he attempts to take one of them hostage, kill him. Escaping with the Black Orlov, Vincent and Leo return to the United States on Emily's plane, but are immediately surrounded by police upon landing. An officer takes the Black Orlov from Leo and hands Vincent a gun, revealing that both him and Emily had been undercover police officers. Leo and Harvey's Black Orlov deal had actually been arranged by the police, and the dealer killed was Vincent's brother, Gary. Feeling betrayed, Leo subdues Vincent, takes him hostage and hijacks a police car to escape. While trying to avoid a police roadblock, he crashes the car into water. Both escape the submerged vehicle, Leo stealing a boat while Vincent is picked up by Emily in a police helicopter. After a chase where Vincent tries to destroy the engine of the boat, Leo jumps off before it crashes into explosive tanks and runs into a portside warehouse. Emily lands the helicopter and both her and Vincent chase him inside. Leo manages to ambush Emily, taking her gun away and ordering her to leave as this fight is between him and Vincent. The gunfight ends with both sides injured, unarmed, and exhausted on the top of the roof. Seeing that one of their guns is dropped nearby, both try to reach it, but only one is able to and shoots the other. The two share a final moment of friendship before the person shot dies from their injuries. If Leo survives, he takes Vincent's apology letter and delivers it to Carol, then proceeds to leave town with his family while Vincent's funeral is taking place. If Vincent survives, he informs Linda of Leo's death before returning to Carol, making amends to save their marriage and raise their daughter by revealing he resigned from the police and proclaiming that it's over. Frankly, A Way Out is littered with bad writing. It's full of the sort of clichéd one-liners that are an earmark of '80s crime movies. At one point, Vincent literally says "I'd rather be uptight than a loose cannon." These are regular occurrences, and they don't necessarily come off as adoring nods to their influences. They feel more like forced banter that doesn't elevate the story in any way. One of A Way Out's more stylish tricks lies in the presentation. The split-screen format lends itself to smooth transitions from cutscenes and into each player's perspective. Sometimes, when one person triggers a particularly important moment, the screen will grow in their favor and relegate the other player's going-ons to an afterthought. It's a double-edged sword though, as it can lead to some supremely stupid interactions. There's a hospital scene where my partner tried offering hope to a terminally ill cancer patient; I was in the other frame seeing how long I could balance myself in a wheelchair. But, for all the ridiculous situations and terrible dialogue, it's easy to stay enamored with A Way Out. Obvious influences like Shawshank Redemption and Scarface make for a game that feels familiar yet entertaining. (Seriously, there's even a sequence where you time your loud-noise-making to the crack of the thunder.) The explosive setpieces and creative cooperation make up for any bungled exposition. A Way Out is laced with small cooperative moments outside of just dialogue, too, like having to tap X simultaneously to bust through a door, or one person splashing around in a pond to chase the fish toward the other player holding a spear. But even though it’s focused on its story sequences, A Way Out is decidedly not a “walking simulator”-style adventure – in fact, it’s more like a collection of largely enjoyable minigames. Sometimes you’re sneaking around in tall grass like Sam Fisher, choking out bad guys. Sometimes you’re punching people from a 2.5D side-scrolling camera like it’s a Double Dragon remake. Sometimes you’re driving a car, or throwing darts, or playing a banjo, or shooting hoops, or arm wrestling, or fishing, or...you get the idea. All of that variety is a double-edged sword: though this swath of activities often left me smiling, the trade-off is that none of them control and feel as good as games dedicated to those ideas. The baseball segment won’t be unseating MLB The Show 18, is what I’m saying, but even so it put a smile on my face. “Clunky” is probably the best description of the worst A Way Out’s minigames ever get, with the gunplay feeling particularly subpar in this, the age of spectacularly polished shooters. There's a constant mood about A Way Out that makes it seem like it's more inventive than it really is. Disregard that and you're left with a decent-enough story with some genuinely enjoyable video game moments. It's campy fun and that's perfectly fine. Just don't expect too much more. Development A Way Out was developed by Hazelight Studios, a small team of developers in Sweden led by film director Josef Fares. Both Fares and several members of his team previously worked on the acclaimed title, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons from Starbreeze Studios. Production of the game began in the second half of 2014. The design philosophy for the game is that the team wanted to create a cooperative game that is unique and different. As a result, the team opted not use the traditional drop-in and drop-out cooperative format featured dominantly in mainstream cooperative games, and instead, the team decided to create a full game that must be played cooperatively with another player. According to Fares, the game was his passion project and he cancelled an upcoming feature film in order to devote more time to working on the game. The game uses Unreal Engine 4. Despite the game's heavy focus on multiplayer, the game was described as an "emotional adventure". As a result, cutscenes will play out even during online play to ensure that players can understand the story of the other character. The game features a wide variety of gameplay sequences from stealth to driving to ensure that players are often presented with different gameplay situations and generally make the game and its characters more interesting. To make the two protagonists more realistic, the team ensured that Leo and Vincent have distinct personalities and that they have different opinions and responses while interacting with the game's world. Fares Fares, a Swedish-Lebanese actor and Josef Fares' older brother, plays Leo. The title will be part of publisher Electronic Arts' EA Originals program, dedicated to funding small independent games. The partnership came to fruition when Patrick Söderlund, the Executive Vice President of Electronic Arts, approached Fares personally for collaboration after being impressed by Brothers. EA offered $3.7 million for the development of the game and gave Fares and his team complete creative control over the game's development. According to Fares, all revenue from sales of the game will go back to Hazelight. The formation of Hazelight Studios and the partnership between Hazelight and EA was officially unveiled at The Game Awards 2014. The game's title and gameplay was revealed at Electronic Entertainment Expo 2017 during EA's press conference. The game was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on March 23, 2018. None of those is A Way Out’s specialty, though. Instead, it focuses primarily on its story and the intertwining cooperative gameplay with the characters of Leo and Vincent themselves, and in those key areas it largely succeeds. Does the timing on certain moments seem implausibly convenient? Yes. Do the two men end up escaping unscathed from seemingly impossible scenarios? Uh-huh. (Side note: A Way Out’s police officers make Star Wars’ Stormtroopers look like expert marksmen.) The prison-breaking pair definitely don’t always get along, though, and sometimes they even compete, just like real frienemies would, which creates some fun player-versus-player moments. Neither my co-op partner nor I would give in during our button-mashing arm-wrestling match, even though it had no bearing on the game or the story, and I took a completely unnecessary glee in beating him in Connect Four (twice). At times it felt like we really were inhabiting these characters. A Way Out’s finest moments come when it’s at its most cinematic. The brilliantly choreographed hospital escape scene, for example, maintains one unbroken “camera shot” even as controls are cleverly trading back and forth between Leo and Vincent, while the aforementioned ending blends cinematography and gameplay in clever ways. And a Splinter Cell-esque back-to-back climb up a tall maintenance shaft requires the utmost cooperation and communication and had us laughing at every misstep. It was the peak of the mandatory cooperative gameplay that’s enforced here. And commendably, you get a free download token to give to a friend, so you only have to buy one copy to play online. The Verdict If you go into A Way Out thinking its mandatory two-player co-op is a gimmick, you’ll likely come out of it realizing that it couldn’t have been done any other way. Vincent and Leo’s journey will have you and a friend performing tasks together both mundane and dramatic, and the result is a memorable, variety-packed cinematic adventure that feels like what Telltale’s games might’ve evolved into if they’d leaned into game mechanics instead of phasing them out. REVIEW FROM MULTI RESOURCE

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