PS4 Review – Knack 2

PS4 Review – Knack 2

So when the PS4 launched in 2013 one of the little looked over gems was Knack. In true new console form, there is always one or two games that are a new IP, and seem to show off the new tech, all the while being thoroughly mediocre.

Knack however bucked that norm and turned out to be a bit of a cult classic. Looking like a Pixar movie certainly helped.

And while the game never sold stellar, it did however sell enough to warrant a sequel.

Enter Knack 2, a bigger, bolder and better title all around.

Now to jump in to Knack 2 you really should check out the first one, as the game assumes you know all about Knack and his merry band of human companions. So the story may seem a little jarring to a newcomer as there is no introductions to characters or origins to Knack.

At the core of Knack 2 it a brawler meets platformed, but with a twist.

Knack can take on little pieces of ancient rocks and such and grow bigger and bigger, from the size of a small dog, to a 30ft tall behemoth.

This allows for some really robust game-play changes throughout.

The levels do not all start small and end big as it is directly tied to the pickups you are given, so some levels they may push for a titan like battle with a massive Knack, and others keeping him tiny and having to stealthily sneak through levels.

In addition to this, you have various types of “coating” cor Knack, from metal which will make you super strong, to prismatic glass which makes you die in a single hit, but able to pass through laser grids.

You can really tell this is a passion project for the creators, as there is a lot of little detail and a whole lot of love in how Knack is presented.

The platforming side of things is sadly where the game can fall a little flat.

Level traversal can be a little less than stellar, especially the larger Knack gets, ge can slip off of platforms, miss entirely sometimes, just a few minor annoyances that should have been smoothed out.

Some of these can me mitigated a bit by the skills you unlock, one being the ability to not die when you miss a jump, instead it just pops you back up to the last platform you jumped from.

It seems like this was the devs way of acknowledging the issue, without fixing it.

A decent 7/10 and all in all Knack is a great family game that you can play with the kids via couch co-op if you like.

PS4 Review – Marvel’s Spider-Man – really does whatever a spider can, and more!!

PS4 Review – Marvel’s Spider-Man – really does whatever a spider can, and more!!

So my second most anticipated game for this year behind God of War was Spider-man.

2 years ago we saw the debut at E3 of a CGI trailer. It looked amazing, but usually the CG stuff does, it is damn hard to get a gauge of how a game will be from that initial tease.

Hence why I think so many developers are now showing off in-game footage 1st and foremost, so we all have a rough idea what is being show is real.

So fast forward to last years E3 where we finally got to see Spidey in action, and it looked amazing. Jaws dropped in the auditorium, yet we still held on with a little skepticism, as we have all been burned by companies like Ubisoft before.

But this year, 2018 E3, that was when the curtain truly got pulled back and we had our first real taste of a close to finished product that made all us fanboys drool.

Well the day is finally upon us, and I can tell you up front, after having just hit a Platinum on the game, it 100% lives up to the hype.

I can;t recall a time in recent memory where a game lived up to the hype Spider-Man has built up.

Front to back, this game is nearly perfect.

The story is fantastic, with lots of little unexpected twists and turns. Some are predictable, but it is hard not to be when you have so many years of comic history and movies behind it.

Yet through all that Insomniac still made a very solid entry to the Spiderverse.

The only gripe I can offer about the story is the pacing. for the first 80% of the game, the pace is rather leisurely, you complete missions at your own pace, and that holds true start to finish. But the game goes from just a friendly neighborhood spider doing his thing, to a bullet train in no time.

The final act is 100% action, back to back boss fights.

This is after about 25 hours of build up.

So it just felt a little jarring after the way the rest of the game played out.

When Spider-man really shines though is in the game design. The city traversal is top notch, from web swinging to wall running, the game is just fun. And that is a key element here.

We have had a lot of open world games, that by the 40hr mark you are absolutely sick of running on rooftops or diving into haystacks.

Spider-man never loses that feeling of wonder though, There is just something cathartic about swinging around the city mindlessly. Stopping to take down the occasional thug squad.

As the game progresses you get more and more swing abilities as well, from doing fancy flips in the air for bonus xp. To the ability to drop from the sky like a bomb on a group of enemies.

The only part that falls apart a little is in the later part of the game when you unlock the challenges.

2 of these types of challenges will have you racing after a drone or chasing down bombs in a limited time frame. Completing them requires little effort for a Bronze medal, but if you are trying to unlock all your gadget abilities and suit add-ons, then you need to hit gold on every one of the 14 challenges.

This becomes an issue due to the traversal mechanics.

Because you have to go as fast as possible, the system starts to show its flaws. That nice leisurely swinging, now becomes a frantic button mash, with Spider-man gabbing onto things you do not want.

Like swinging into a wall and now he is crawling up it. Totally breaking the flow, and blowing your chance at a gold medal.

Now the good news is, you only need enough challenge tokens unlock all his suits to get the Platinum trophy, so you can pretty much get bronze on all of the chase challenges, and still end up with enough tokens from the other 2 types, a combat and a stealth challenge.

Those are still timed and tough, but without much effort I was able to get gold on most of them, giving me enough medals to get all the suits, plus some left over to upgrade some gadgets.

Lastly we have the graphics and sound.

The sound is Spider-man is outstanding. The entire theater was filled with New York, from sirens whining in the distance to the bustling crowds. Every little detail fills your room with a Atmos setup. Helicopters whirring overhead, to thugs tossing taunts, I don;t know that I have heard a better sounding game in terms of environmental ambient noise.

When closing your eyes, you would be hard pressed to not know you wern’t in NYC.

The graphical side of things were a sight to behold as well in glorious 4k/HDR.

While I had to adjust my normal HDR levels a bit due to the overall darkness in the game, it was all in all one of the better looking HDR presentations so far.

They really knew how to milk the power of the PS4 Pro to its fullest.

Aside from the HDR, the game overall looked amazing. The trees swaying in the wind in Central Park, the towering video screens in Times Square. All of it looked outstanding.

Another cool little feature Insomniac added in was interior building details.

Most games will show lights and such in building that give you an idea the city is at least awake at night.

BUt here, Insomniac actually added in 3d looking images into windows. So you could see furniture, sinks, offices, you name it.

Now it was all a clever trick as they were all just flat 2d images, but they felt deep, like you were peering into people private spaces. This is just another little nuance that added to the realism in the game, gave it a sense of reality we do not often see.

All in all Spider-man is a masterpiece, you can see the love and care that went into making it in every little detail.

So hats off to Insomniac for a brilliant job, and here’s to hoping we don’t have too long to wait until Spider-Man 2 swings onto our consoles.

A web-tastic 9/10 and a high recommendation for anyone who loves open world games, or NYC.

One last thing, this is hands down the best costume in the game:

41494534_10156594744518688_3048623801664274432_o

AV Review – EluneVision 4K ALR NanoEdge Screen

So when we first built the Coffin Family Theater 2.0, one of my biggest challenges was finding a screen that would get the job done.

When we planned the room we decided that the projector was going to go into an AV room directly behind the theater, this is rater common practice, it keeps the room cooler and quieter, but at the cost of a very long throw distance.

The farther from the screen a projector is, the less light it will produce, much like when you shine a flashlight into the dark, 2 ft in front of you it is bright like daytime, 20 ft away you cant really see.

So the premise is the same for home theater projection.

The farther you put the screen, the less lumens that will hit the target.

The way that you can compensate for this is with a high gain screen, I previously had a Da-Lite Pearlesence 2.8 gain screen, which was bright as the sun in a light treated room. Sadly the trade-off was losing the inky black levels that my JVC projector is so capable of producing.

What you get is super bright whites, but slightly grey blacks at the very best of times.

So in the age of 4k and HDR, it seemed like a logical step to find a more appropriately suited screen for the theater.

The problem I found sadly is, there is no high gain screens left on the market.

With projector manufacturers having better and better contrast and brightness, the screen industry moved away from making these high gain screens because now the projectors were doing that heavy lifting.

So after many days of searching and researching, I landed on the EluneVision ALR 4k NanoEdge screen.

With a gain of just 1.3, and being silver instead of white, I hoped and prayed it would get the job done, especially since the price tag was insanely high at $4830cdn.

Now before I get into the assembly review (spoiler alert – which was a nightmare), I will talk about the actual picture I get now.

In a word, it is outstanding.

The crispness and clearness of image in darkly lit scenes is amazing. Detail I simply could not see before because it was washed out, is now replaced with subtle black tones and shadow details.

Subtle shades in clouds in HDR will now pop off the screen. Neon lights contracts accurately again the pitch black of night in Ready Player One.

Color looks more natural and not nearly as washed out.

Now all of this is great and all, but getting to that stage, was an absolute mess.

The frame for the unit is made from machined aluminum and weights a ton, about 50lb all told for a 164″ screen.

There are 2 layers to the frame, the actual frame the screen attaches too, and then the nanoedge velvet frame that surrounds it.

20180624_13382620180624_13383520180624_133821

They both work in perfect harmony when installed right.

In my case, installing it right was not possible at all due to a manufacturing error, one that to this day, has not been corrected, and sadly i doubt will ever be. But more on that later.

Once you assemble the frame, you have to tip it up, lay the screen material on the floor face down, then place the frame as carefully as possible on top of it.

This in and of itself is a very challenging 2 man job.

20180624_162321

You must balance a 50lb, 7ft x 10ft frame over what is essentially the worlds most fragile rubber band, and place it down gently enough as to not scratch or crease it.

20180624_162313

Once that pain is behind you, you must pull the screen with a little hook and put on tension springs to make it taut, think of it like stretching saran wrap over some leftovers, just way more tedious and annoying.

 

20180624_17374320180624_173805

Now my problem came in what I can only assume was a manufacturing error. They did not make my screen as wide as it should have been. So while stretching top to bottom worked very easily, stretching it width wise took herculean strength, to the point that the material started to rip at the seams and corner.

And still once I pulled til I was blue in the face, it was not enough.

20180624_173749

That little red knob should be up to the Velcro, missed the mark by about an inch on each side.

Now this may not have been such an issue had I been able to actually get the Nanoedge trim on, but the springs themselves were in the way of the secondary frame attaching. So there was no way to affix the velvet masking on the left and right sides.

What this left me with is the seamed edge showing on the face of the screen, completely unacceptable as this sticks out like a sore thumb when shooting an image on it.

20180624_17393020180624_17394520180624_174037

At this point I contacted the shop who sold it to me, and they put me in touch with EluneVision support.

Who to this day, has not given me a solution, not a replacement piece of screen material.

They suggested I just pull it more… Which at this point is completely impossible. Over and over suggesting I installed it incorrectly…

Let me just say this thing is so tight you could use it as a trampoline, but that is hard to convey in pictures to a man at a desk 3000 miles away.

I jumped through a pile of hoops to do everything they suggested, from completely removing and re-tensioning the screen, none of which helped.

They finally just stopped returning my emails, leaving me with a $4830 problem to solve.

Not at all what I would expect from such a high end piece of AV equipment.

But lesson learned, never will I do business with these hacks again.

I had to come up with my own solution, which pretty much worked out to making my own black trim from plywood, 2×4’s and fabric on the left and right side.

Talk about a trailer trash fix to what should have been the Cadillac of screen.

Once everything was said and done, I am thrilled with the image I am getting, and that is all that matters now.

Just wish I had got what I paid for, instead of the sub par mess.

All I can hope for is that you dear readers, will see this and thing twice before picking up one of EluneVision’s screens.

You are much better off looking into Stewart or someone similar.

AV Review – SVS PB-Ultra 16 – Bring on the BOOM!

So after close to 5 years in our home theater now it has seen many updates and changes. From adding speakers for Atmos, new pre-pros, a few new projectors and a new screen, none have had the literal impact that adding a second sub-woofer has.

Many year ago I grabbed a SVS PB13 Ultra, and it blew me away, we had a small little theater back then, jammed into an old bedroom, so the “little” sub did the job great, it could easily pressurize a 200 sq ft room.

Fast forward 4 years, and drop it into a room almost double in size, and it just lacked that room filling bass I was used to.

I did compensate a bit by having 2 built in Buttkicker LFE in the front row of seats, but there was always something lacking, missing that punch you in the chest bass when something explodes.

So enter the PB16 Ultra, the latest and greatest subwoofer from SVS.

Packing a massive 16″ driver powered by a killer 1500watt Class D Sledge amplifier and with it’s own built in DSP for tweaking (via the SVS app for your tablet or phone).

Weighing in at a whopping 174lbs (more than I weigh for heaven sake!) and bigger than your average dishwasher, it is immediately apparent this sub means business. I could barely get it through the door to the theater while still in the box.

DSC_0019DSC_0020

DSC_0022

Unpacking the beast itself even posed a challenge, I have never had such detailed instructions on how to remove something from cardboard box before.

DSC_0027

Now one of the hardest things about putting 2 subs in the same room and getting them to play nice is placement. This was a bit of a challenge as doing a sub crawl with a 175lb sub is just nuts. And there is no way you will be putting this thing into your listening position either. So I pretty much had to decide on where I wanted it and let Audessy hopefully smooth things out.

My original plan was this unit would replace the PB13 Ultra, but after a lot of hours of tweaking and moving the PB13 around, I found a combo that allowed them to play together nicely.

** Not the Final resting place for the PB13, just first pass **

DSC_0029DSC_0028

Once positioned, Audessy32 really did all the heavy lifting, no pun intended. It is hands down some of the most amazing calibration software available to the masses.

Back in the day I used to do it all by hand with a SPL meter. Speaker by speaker, micro adjusting the SPL of each one, it was a half a day process when you made a change.

Now with the addition of Audessy, it takes about 30 mins total to do a full room calibration, which includes full room correction, something that is imperative in a large room with treatments.

Another nice feature that SVS has is a weird analog method of tweaking performance. All the large SVS subs come with foam port blockers, this enables you to move your boxed sub from a ported design to a completely sealed box, or a hybrid in between, with each port blocked dropping the low end bass a few hz while increasing DBs to the lower frequencies.

Foam---SVS-PB16-Ultra

So all ports open enable you to get solid performance to 15hz with a 10db hit, with all ports closed though you can take 14hz up by 10db to theater reference levels.

It is an odd little feature that can really make a big impact.

Capture

So with all the tweaks and setup behind me, it was time to check out the performance.

One of my fondest memories of my little PB13 was the first movie we watched, How to train your dragon. When we first watched this many years ago, the PB13 rocked the chairs we were in during the final battle with the uber dragon. The whole room, heck, the whole house shook when he flapped his wings. This was something that has been missing since we build Coffin Theater 2.0.

Well I am glad to say, that feeling is back.

I popped in the HTTYD disk and immediately jumped to the same scene. After a few minor tweak to the SPL level of the sub via the app, I was again enjoying chest pounding bass, something lacking for almost 5 years now.

Screenshot_20170301-142018

The first full length action movie I watched was the fantastic Ready Player One. I invited over all my guys for the subs debut performance and holy heck, it did not disappoint at all.

I have never in my life heard and felt such impactful yet nuanced bass. From the subtle thrums of the soundtrack, to the gut punching wreaking balls, from King Kong’s rampage shaking your eyeballs to Mega-Godzilla’s stomping that made me wonder if my houses foundation would hold up.

This sub is the real deal. With crystal clear bass and enough power to pressurize a 350sq ft room by itself.

About the only thing I could see scaring people away here is the price. Up here in Canada they run a staggering $3999. It is a little better in the US, coming in at $2499.

PB16-Ultra

If you are down south, you may be able to grab one of these for a deal from 3rd party Amazon.com sellers. I have seen them as low as $2099 for open box returns. Sadly they do not ship to Canada, but that is not to say you could not order one to a border town and go for a drive to pick it up and save yourself a grand or more.

That said though, if you can afford it, it is worth every nickle. You are unlikely to find a better sounding, harder hitting sub on the market today.

DSC_0030

PS4 Review – God of War – Boy, oh Boy, oh Boy….

PS4 Review – God of War – Boy, oh Boy, oh Boy….

After a very long franchise hiatus (8 years), Kratos returns for another romp through the lands of the Gods, this time trading in Mouth Olympus and Zeus, for Viking mythology of a Norse flavor.

The series that debuted 13 years ago has grown considerably over that time, spawning over 7 console games (and one lame mobile edition), starting on the PS2 and spanning the PSP, PS3 and remakes on the PS4, Kratos has finally come home in 4k HDR glory.

Now I have been a God of War fan since the beginning, weirdly getting interested in it after my 10yr old son rented it for PS2 back in the day (yeah, I am a terrible parent, deal with it)

And since then, been a series fan and played through all of them on Titan or “God-like” difficulties.

So naturally, when God of War offered me up an instant jump in on “Give me God of War” mode, I was sold, but still had a bit of a reservation, as there is a nice little disclaimer meant to scare off the faint of heart.

If you are insane enough to venture forth on this difficulty, you cannot dial it back if you get stuck, it is an all or nothing endeavor, that requires a complete restart on a lower level if you can’t do it.

Now that is my kind of challenge!

So after putting in almost 80 hours into God of War I have seen all there is and done all I can do. Have a Platinum trophy to prove it (which yes, I earned on Give me God of War)

Now, hindsight being 20/20, I never should have played it on this mode with the intention of going after a Platinum, and we will get to why later, but it made for some serious slogging in some parts of the game.

The game itself takes place “some time” after the events of God of War 3, Kratos is now a dad, a husband who has just lost his wife, and ventures forth on a journey with his kid to fulfill his wife’s last wishes, to have hear ashes spread from the highest peak in the world.

Easy peasy you may think, well not so much.

In short order all the jerks in the land come to thwart Kratos and his Boy from completing their story.

Coming into God of War I was a little skeptical of the father son dynamic, NPC tag alongs have never really worked in games, with years of bad escort missions and poor AI, it was hard to get excited for baby sitting simulator 2018.

Well it turns out Santa Monica Studios knows what they are doing.

You kid is a real asset front to back in the game, from being your translator for ruins, crawling though small spaces, and outright being a solid partner during combat.

He is your ranged combat weapon, allow stun moves or shock abilities to hinder your foes, as well as straight up messing with enemies by helping knock them down or hold them in place.

He even has his own skill tree and level progression. So by the end of the game, your meek unsure child is a fierce fighting companion.

He also serves as a way to cut the through the tedium of traveling, telling Kratos stories and mythology, or querying your other traveling companion (whom I wont name) for Norse mythology, allow for a real organic feel to his character, he is not just some dumb AI avatar to tag along, he is in this with you as a team.

The game play itself a complete overhaul from all the previous God of War games, dropping the static camera and force perspective of combat, to a full 3rd person adventure.

This adds a lot of depth and challenge to the combat.

So much so I came extremely close to throwing in the towel right at the start and trying a lower difficulty.

I was stuck on the first enemy encounter for about 3 hours, the FIRST. If this was any indication of the challenge ahead, I may not be cut out for it.

I honestly believe this may have been intentional, to scare away the overly confident before they invest 30 hours and get hopelessly stuck.

Once that little hiccup was behind me, and I started to get an understanding of how the combat works (which the tutorial is extremely slim on) I trotted off to die about 50k more times before the game was over.

Make no mistake, you have to be hardcore to beat this game on Give me God of War.

This is not your run of the mill difficulty bump, this is not just a weaker hero and stronger enemies, they are faster, much better at flanking and ganging up on you, their tactics change, their resistance to stun and electric damage decreases, all of these thing make the hardest difficulty so much more difficult than your average game.

You will find yourself taking 2-3 hits max, and that is from start to finish.

You never reach a point whereby Kratos attains a god like armor or weapon that will allow you to dominate the game on this mode, you are a punching bag front to back.

Expect this mode to tack on a good 10-20 hours to the core game, and if you plan to do everything, all the side quest, collecting and the god forsaken hell spawn that are the Valkyries, expect the core games 40 hour playtime to double to about 80 hours.

Now, the real bottleneck, those pesky Valkyrie.

Hidden throughout the game in secret areas and arenas are 8 exceptionally hard mini-bosses, and one real mother f*****r of a queen.

I have played just about every balls to the wall difficult game there is, from Demon Souls to Bloodborne, The Surge to Nioh, Call of Duty BO3 on Realistic, you name it, hard games are my thing.

And in all those games, every boss, every encounter, nothing, and I mean nothing compares to the Valkyrie queen in terms of difficulty.

She was the last challenge left in my pursuit of a Platinum, and many times in the course of 6 days I swore I was going to quit.

My earliest encounters lasting about 30 seconds before getting smoked in 2 hits or so.

She has a move set of about 25 moves, all that have a unique “tell” to them, but until you memorize all of them, you are nothing but meat for the grinder.

It took me close to 15 hours to best her, and my deaths were into the hundreds.

So take this as a warning, if you want to go Platinum, do yourself a favor and try this on a little easier difficulty.

All in all the game was outstanding though.

Visually it is a jaw dropper, with amazing set pieces, vibrant colors popping off the screen in full HDR glory. It is one of the most visually impressive titles I have seen in HDR so far.

On top of that the sound design is truly incredible, working all the back channels and overhead speakers. With Valkyries flying overhear, to arrows whipping past, the room is alive in all directions.

Audio placement was pretty key in playing on Give me God of War as well, being able to hear an enemy behind you, or your boy call out from a certain direction to look out made a lot of life and death moments easier.

God of War is one of those games that if you own a PS4, is a must have.

The story is phenomenal, especially if you played the other games.

A solid 10/10 and as perfect as they come.