Extinction Review – Extra! Extra! Giant Orcs Need Beheading!

<p><em>Extinction<&sol;em> takes place in yet another world where your character seems to be the only guy with any clue to what&&num;8217&semi;s going on&period; Set forth to destroy the Ravenii and save your people from Extinction&excl; So far&comma; same old&comma; but what&&num;8217&semi;s this&quest; The Ravenii are 150-foot tall orcs&quest; This is about to get interesting&&num;8230&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>You play as Avil&comma; the last Sentinel and the only one trained to stop the aforementioned massive Ravenii&period; To do so you have to save civilians&comma; kill monsters and dismember the Ravenii so you can build up your Rune Meter&period; Once this is full and any armour around the Ravenii&&num;8217&semi;s neck is destroyed&comma; you can go in for a kill strike&period; This allows you to behead the Ravenii&comma; permanently stopping its rampage &lpar;its head is the only thing which can&&num;8217&semi;t regrow&rpar; and allow a bit of respite&period; That is&comma; until the next one appears and you have to do the same thing again&period; This is the basic premise of most of your missions&period; While it is generally fun and rewarding&comma; especially when you smoothly dispatch a Ravenii&comma; it can quickly become a game of micro-management&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>You see&comma; being the last Sentinel has its fair share of perks &&num;8211&semi; undivided attention&comma; a kick-ass sword etc&period; but it also has its share of responsibilities&period; And by that I mean&comma; everything&period; You have to protect the villagers&comma; the city&comma; watchtowers&comma; defeat Jackals &lpar;the smaller enemies&rpar; and of course&comma; exterminate the Ravenii&period; This doesn&&num;8217&semi;t leave you a lot of breathing room&comma; especially as the villagers have no way to defend themselves&period; So&comma; instead of trying to find the most expressive way to dispatch your enemies and traverse the environment&comma; you have to scramble to try and keep everything just about alive&period; Some levels have you focus on certain gameplay elements such as traversal or villagers&comma; and these are by far my favourite levels&period; They allow you to focus on and appreciate each gameplay element individually&comma; which is definitely the way to go&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;137274" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-137274" style&equals;"width&colon; 1000px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"wp-image-137274 size-large" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2018&sol;04&sol;07151842&sol;20180407171558&lowbar;1-1024x576&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Extinction 1" width&equals;"1000" height&equals;"563" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-137274" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;<em>Extinction<&sol;em>&comma; Modus Games&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>One particular gameplay element which can be great is traversal&period; The game is fluid&period; You can run up walls and Ravenii&comma; use grappling hooks&comma; jump off trees and just basically make the environment your own&period; I&&num;8217&semi;ve had some great moments in the game&comma; where I&&num;8217&semi;ve managed to line up the grappling hook just right &lpar;you can slow down time to help&rpar; and spring from tree to building to enemy&comma; chaining up combos and raking up my Rune Strike&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Other times&comma; I&&num;8217&semi;ve spent a good couple of minutes desperately trying to hit a lock to open up some armour&comma; instead just falling short and going nowhere&period; I wouldn&&num;8217&semi;t call the movement unfair&semi; it just takes a lot of getting used to and isn&&num;8217&semi;t as precise as it may need to be&period; I&&num;8217&semi;m not sure if a first-person mode would help to line up shots&period; I&&num;8217&semi;ve been using a controller&comma; which helps for the general movement but it does make these fiddlier areas difficult&comma; so try both ways out and see what works for you&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Overall&comma; the combat is probably the weakest part of the game&period; While you can get some interesting combos&comma; the limited toolset and even more limiting Kill Strike meter make for some very copy-and-paste battles&period; I would have liked a bow and arrow to take out weaker monsters or distract the Ravenii at the very least&comma; and maybe some magic to change up the battle or even just a larger blade&period; I lost count how many times I couldn&&num;8217&semi;t actually hit the Ravenii because I was too far away and couldn&&num;8217&semi;t grapple&period; Of course&comma; I could run up the giant orc but that presents its own problems&comma; and I would have enjoyed being able to make my own way up&period; You might be thinking&comma; &&num;8216&semi;Why doesn&&num;8217&semi;t he just break the orc&&num;8217&semi;s leg&quest;&&num;8217&semi;&period; Well&comma; the Ravenii have armour&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>This armour ranges from Wood &lpar;the most breakable&comma; and in my opinion the best&rpar;&comma; to Bone&period; Bone is almost unbreakable&comma; except for when the Ravenii attacks you&comma; exposing a weak point&period; While this can be dealt with&comma; there is a metal armour type which is unbreakable&period; This automatically stops one&comma; two or maybe even three limbs from being able to be taken down&comma; allowing the Ravenii to keep destroying the kingdom and making Avil struggle to gain Rune energy&period; This armour type is a pain&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;137275" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-137275" style&equals;"width&colon; 1000px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"wp-image-137275 size-large" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2018&sol;04&sol;07151933&sol;20180407172256&lowbar;1-1024x576&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Extinction 2" width&equals;"1000" height&equals;"563" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-137275" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;<em>Extinction<&sol;em>&comma; Modus Games&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>An unexpected surprise for this game is the story&period; Due to the dungeons being mostly procedurally generated&comma; I thought the story would be bare bones&colon; just enough to justify the world&&num;8217&semi;s existence but nothing more&period; And sure&comma; sometimes it is like that &&num;8211&semi; if I have to hear the king say that we must do more to save the villagers one more time&comma; I may accidentally forget to dismember the Ravenii heading towards him&period; However&comma; at other times&comma; it suddenly gets a lot more personal&comma; especially in the little cutscenes which dot the campaign&period; These are surprisingly well animated&comma; with obvious care taken to create the world&period; The voice acting is also well done&comma; with actual emotions and everything&excl;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The same can be said about the graphics overall&colon; Colourful&comma; vivid and fluid animations&period; It also ran surprisingly well&period; I used a 750 ti&comma; which is below recommended settings &lpar;as was my CPU&rpar;&comma; and the game still auto-detected me for high graphics&period; I upped it to Ultra to see if there were any major differences and while there was a change in graphics&comma; with the blood being richer in colour&comma; there was little change in framerate&period; It stayed steady at around 40fps for both presets&comma; which was fine for me&comma; although I&&num;8217&semi;m never too fussed&period; The game does require fluidity&comma; however&comma; so if you feel the game stutter at all&comma; just turn the graphics down to gain that FPS&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>I recommend turning the graphics down due to the game&&num;8217&semi;s distinctive anime style still keeping its charm even in the lower settings&period; Now&comma; you might think this makes the game to close to <em>Attack on Titan<&sol;em>&period; And&comma; I&&num;8217&semi;ll be honest&comma; it is similar&period; Both contain hulking behemoths you have to behead to stop&period; Both have an overarching air of hopelessness&comma; with humanity teetering on the edge&period; Both contain grappling hooks and the aforementioned art style&period; However&comma; the world building and characters are very different&period; <em>Extinction<&sol;em> is much more traditional fantasy and one character against the world&comma; instead of the world being slowly defeated by a more powerful force&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Outside of the campaign&comma; there are three major game modes&colon; Daily Challenge&comma; Skirmish and Extinction&period; Daily Challenge is what it says on the tin &&num;8211&semi; get given a challenge and try and get the highest score possible without dying to progress up the leaderboard&period; The twist is that you can only attempt this game mode once a day&period; Extinction has the same one life policy but charges you with simply surviving as long as&comma; and killing as much as possible&period; Finally&comma; Skirmish creates a procedurally generated map and objectives and asks you to complete them&period; It then gives you a seed&comma; which you can share with friends or type in yourself to replay that same map&comma; allowing for tournaments and bragging rights galore if you win&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;137273" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-137273" style&equals;"width&colon; 1000px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"wp-image-137273 size-large" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2018&sol;04&sol;07151751&sol;20180407173914&lowbar;1-1024x576&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Extinction 3" width&equals;"1000" height&equals;"563" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-137273" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;<em>Extinction<&sol;em>&comma; Modus Games&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>Overall&comma; I would call <em>Extinction<&sol;em> the game of hit and misses&period; In the game world&comma; you may hit the Ravenii&comma; successfully bringing it down and saving the townspeople or you may miss and everyone dies&period; The gameplay elements are like this too &&num;8211&semi; more often than not they work and everything&&num;8217&semi;s great&semi; at other times&comma; they don&&num;8217&semi;t work and it all comes tumbling down&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; center&semi;"><strong>A PC review copy of <em>Extinction<&sol;em> was provided by Modus Games for the purpose of this review<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;

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