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Moiz Banoori

At Tech4Gamers, he is recognized for his insightful features and opinion pieces, where he blends his passion for gaming with a keen understanding of technological trends. His work, marked by depth and accessibility, makes him a respected voice in the tech and gaming community.

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Fallen Aces is a treat for indie game lovers and people who prefer an art style over modern repetitive graphics. Its serious story with hilarious bits makes it an outstanding game of 2024. 

Comic Cutscenes

Right off the bat, Fallen Aces gives us comic-like sequences with an incredible voice-over narrating the dialogues instead of rendered cutscenes. This is reminiscent of reading comics or watching cartoons that showcase themes in classic noir and pulp fiction comics.

Not only that, the colors are somewhat stained, and the image is slightly faded, which replicates the effect of those old comic books. These scenes are also presented individually instead of all coming together, which sets a nice pace.

These comics have subtle animations, which make them feel more dynamic. For instance, raindrops fall on the car in one sequence, and in another scene, the light of our character’s lighter subtly illuminates. 

Artstyle

This game’s art style consists of 2D sprites and fully 3D cel-shaded environments. Let me explain this to the non-technical fellows: The game’s textures are hand-drawn and rendered to look like cartoons.

This means that the walls, floor, and locations are all rendered with a cartoon-type effect, whereas the vehicles, weapons, and objects in the game are hand-drawn as they have a sketch vibe to them similar to that of Borderlands. 

Additionally, the characters in this game are also cartoon rendered (toon shading), which is similar to the art style used in Ultimate Spider-Man. When you get close to the enemies, they appear to be like 2D stickers.  

With this 2D and 3D combination, the visuals turn out to be stunning and very distinctive compared to other games. Since realistic graphics lead to long developments, Fallen Aces wasn’t a victim and had a shorter development time. 

Mechanics & Physics

The mechanics and art style of Fallen Aces go very well. Your character responds to each input very quickly without any delay, and your movements are fluid. You can also slide back and forth, and it’s so quick that it feels like fast-forward at some point. 

As for the combat and physics, the game makes you feel like you’re the badass action hero of the 1950s. You’re free to go about it any way you desire in this game, which means you can sneakily subdue your enemy, cause complete chaos, or not engage with them at all.

There are guns present, but this 4.5-hour-long game forces you to go for the melee route, using the pipes, hammers, an axe, and a razor blade to kill your enemies. Using all of the weapons, along with your good old fists and kicks, results in a very enjoyable combat.

Not only that, you can also kick your enemies off the roof and let gravity handle the rest. There’s also a location where you can kick your enemies towards the train tracks, and the train runs them over. 

You can make use of the environment and feel like James Bond by pushing your enemies towards an electrical panel to electrocute them. Similarly, you can throw banana peels in the enemy’s track, and they’ll fall over it. 

Moreover, you can use the barrels, bottles, and other objects placed at several locations and throw them to make your enemies fall. Throwing the propane tank or a Molotov can cause a pool of fire around the enemies. 

You can even break the gumball machine inside the shops; enemies will fall after they topple over the numerous fallen gumballs. With so many options and approaches, don’t forget to quicksave.

As for the sneaking approach, you can perform stealth subdues on your enemies and use darkness to your advantage. You can also hide their bodies in the dark spots, making for a great stealth gameplay.

Hilarious 

The game is hilarious as if the developers are trolling the whole time. When you’re swimming with the sharks, you get the music of Jaws playing. When your hands are full, the game plays music similar to John Carpenter’s The Thing movie. 

A few puzzles are also taken from the Prey, where you must throw objects from a distance to activate them. The enemies also offer hilarious banter when they’re getting beaten up or when you inflict damage on their buddies. 

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Ali Rashid Khan

As Tech4Gamers’ Wiki Editor, I dissect gaming products, offering detailed perspectives on a variety of PCMR hardware ranging from the Best Motherboards and CPUs to the Best GPUs, RAM, and PSUs.

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Nobody Wants To Die is a recent release that lets you investigate a murder in a cyberpunk-like world. However, its plot and atmosphere go way beyond any other game.

Cinematic Presentation

The game is set in a dystopian, futuristic, cyberpunk-like world in New York in 2392. Yes, that’s far from our period, but this game effectively depicts it. You get to see research facilities and high-tech labs, which enhances the game’s sci-fi feel. 

Immersive Voice-Over 

Right off the bat, you’re greeted with a calming voice-over acting of both characters. Even though the music sounds like it is from the ’40s, you don’t get to hear any old accents. Our character’s voice-over acting is so calming that you’d want to listen for hours. 

Throughout the game, our character and Sara, our fellow detective constantly on the line, engage in witty back-and-forth conversations, which are hilarious and feel like watching a true Netflix TV show.

Incredible Lighting

The lighting in this game is aimed to be very realistic, so it’s not all over your face all the time. It is like a breath of fresh air since the cyberpunk genre is filled with overly illuminated games. 

The lighting and reflections are subtle, and their simplistic nature makes this game stand out. However, this game sometimes appears dull, with blacks being more blacker than other games, resembling the setting in Batman games. 

’40s Music

There’s constant music playing in the background, which appears to be a nostalgic ’40s synth-wave soundtrack. However, the music shifts into a more cinematic one whenever there’s a cutscene.

The music also shifts dynamically to match the scene’s tension from calm, ambient tracks during exploration to intense, pulsating beats during high-stakes investigations. All of it makes it feel like you’re watching a high-budget Netflix movie or a show. 

Atmospheric Setting

This game features tall skyscrapers, neon-lit streets, and a constant downpour, all of which create an extremely relaxing vibe. The sound muffles when you’re inside your vehicle, and it feels like a blissful moment to be in the car and hear distant raindrops.  

Cinematography

This isn’t just another game made on Unreal Engine 5 but employs several cinematic techniques. Before a cutscene, black bars emerge from the top and bottom of your screen, enhancing the scene by 10 points. 

Our player smokes through the screen, and the cigarette lights up so incredibly well that it feels almost real. Similarly, our character uses the camera’s eyepiece by bringing it closer to his eyes, which is the screen, and it shifts to the camera mode. I love this small detail. 

Compelling Narrative

Much like a well-crafted Netflix show, this 6-hour-long game offers a storyline that lets you relax and enjoy the show. Even though there are puzzles in this game, you don’t have to use your brain constantly.

The Hook

This game begins with a twist right from the start. You’re in a car with your significant other, watching a movie from what appears to be a drive-by cinema from the old times. Suddenly, you have body pain, and current lines surround you inside your car.

You gulp down your medicines with liquor and turn around to see that your partner has disappeared. You swing open the gate to see that you’re hundreds of feet above the ground, hovering in your futuristic car beside the roof of tall skyscrapers. 

Blend Of Past With The Future

Some games like The Mafia: Definitive Edition and Read Dead Redemption 2 are based solely on the old period. However, some games, such as Cyberpunk 2077 and Bladerunner, are set purely for the future.

However, Nobody Wants To Die stands out from the other games because it combines the two time periods. The environment is set in the future, but the vehicles, music, and movies are from the 1940s. 

Investigation Techniques

You can investigate the victim’s body using your futuristic device, which can recreate the sequence of events leading up to the crime right in front of your eyes. This way, you can piece the evidence together to solve the mystery. There are also a few choices that impact the story’s ending, and all four endings are incredible. 

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Obaid Ur Rehman

At Tech4Gamers, I mainly cover new gaming news, leaks, and rumours. Aside from that, I love to write features about my favourite games while inserting my opinion about their different aspects. 

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Still Wakes The Deep is making waves, pun intended, not only within the psychological horror genre but also beyond it. It has, to an extent, redefined the horror genre by merging many human fears in a game.  

A True Visual Storyteller

It is no wonder that most people crave narrative-driven games that visually portray their story. While a lot of games try to do that, not all of them succeed in doing so, and most of them only tell a direct story, which gets boring after a while. 

While we thought 2024 would disappoint horror game fans, Still Wakes The Deep has changed our minds and has provided the best experience by being one of the greatest offerings of 2024.

Incredible Hook

I judge games and movies by their first few scenes, and Still Wakes The Deep has deeply impressed me. The game’s first shot opens up in an ocean with fog spread across its far ends, and emotional music plays behind a voice-over.

The game begins with us present in our tiny room with the letters of our loved ones present on the table. The narrative has been set right from the beginning, revealing to us that we’ve gone to an oil rig away from our wife and kids for quite a while.

Before Vs After

Still Wakes The Deep uses the environment to set the scene and manipulates the contents that reside in the same environment to provide a visual masterpiece. Let me break it down for you.   

The game lets you have objectives that allow you to travel around the oil rig and our crewmates have a quick chat with us at several points. All of this is to ensure that you are familiar with the locations of the oil rig and the people working in it.

Afterward, a catastrophic event takes place that destroys and infects the oil rig. Now, the game lets you go through the same spots again but with falling objects, destructed environments, and clutter placed all around the place. 

This before and after is incredible since it has more impact than just throwing us in an infected place and telling us about what had happened through a cut-scene. The game has let you experience it, so it feels like you’re watching a movie and the second arc has begun. 

Lighting & Sound Design

A few objectives include going to a dark basement-type place where water touches our knees. We have to go through a maze-like place with only a torch and we can hear screams and roars of our inflected friend trying to threaten and warn us simultaneously.  

This, in and out of The Shape, threatens us and our crewmate, gains control, and warns us in the middle of a maze, creating a feeling of watching an intense thriller movie. With all of these things, it is safe to say it has both gameplay and narrative. 

Redefined Psychological Horror 

Still Wakes The Deep is said to have combined all human phobias in only a 4-5 hour-long game. This is mostly true because this game uses many ways to play on a wide range of human emotions. It is similar to Alan Wake 2, which also set a high bar for this genre. 

So, the game throws you in the middle of the ocean and you have to balance through thin metal structures over the surging waves. These structures may break, causing the player to fall unless they quickly press buttons. This plays on the fear of heights and the fear of falling. 

Still Wakes The Deep

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Narrative-Based Visual Effects

Most often, when the monster is very close to us, random and quick patterns distort the screen. When we’re attacked, these effects completely take over the screen, and when they slow down, you can see that our memory is playing back the images of our family.

Cutscenes are also initiated, with this distorted effect in the center of the screen. This depicts the great emotional bond of our character with his family, and he frequently gets these images, especially when he is in distress. 

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Dayan Shahid

At Tech4Gamers, I’m a Tech Detective and Guides Writer, unravelling PC hardware complexities. With experience, I bridge the gap between novices and tech aficionados with informative content.

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Rockstar has become a behemoth over the years, but starting, they were like any other game company in the nineties. Over the years, their games have garnered massive success, taking the company away from its timid roots.

Today, we will talk about GTA China Town Wars, a game made by Rockstar to pay homage to their developmental years.

GTA Chinatown Wars

Rockstar initially created this game to be played on Nintendo’s handheld console, the Nintendo DS. The limitations that came with this small form factor and low performance were something that the team had to work around, which they did by various methods. 

The game was reviewed very favorably at the time of release, but it had low sales numbers. The DS had a different customer base than the GTA games. However, this game was later ported to the PSP to increase sales.

The Graphics

As mentioned previously, the Nintendo DS’s limited performance also prevented Rockstar from using its traditional Renderware engine, which it used with all the other GTA games. They had to be creative and use cell-shaded graphics in conjunction with a top-down camera.

This perspective was borrowed from the first few GTA games, which were also ported to handheld consoles. 

In addition to these stylistic choices, the cut scenes of this game were in a comic book format, with no spoken dialogue. Rockstar had thought of the use cases in which this game would be played, and they decided on text to convey the information in its story sequences.

This seemed like an homage to the original GTA games, which used very weak hardware to display the best that the studio could put out. The top-down camera harkened back to a simpler time for the series while integrating well with the gameplay.

Gameplay

Even though this game was made for a much weaker console, the gameplay did not suffer because of that. The driving felt great, the shooting was passable, and fun, quick-time events were sprinkled throughout.

In some cases, the QTEs took full advantage of the console’s touchscreen, using swipes to execute actions. This involved hotwiring cars, customizing guns, repairing items, etc.

Having played the Android port of this game, I think the gameplay is very fun. The quality-of-life features they’ve implemented, like the vehicles aligning to the roads, are very clever ways to solve the clunkiness that comes with top-down driving.

There are still improvements that could have been made, like the camera freaking out sometimes, but as far as 2009 DS games go, Rockstar knocked it out of the park with this game.

Story And Messaging

The GTA Chinatown Wars story is the game’s most disappointing part. It’s still not bad, but it is a slog (In my opinion, of course). 

Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars follows the story of Huang Lee, a young member of the Triad criminal organization, who travels to Liberty City after his father is murdered. Huang is tasked with delivering a valuable family heirloom, a sword called the Yu Jian, to his uncle Kenny to secure his family’s honor.

However, after being ambushed and left for dead, Huang embarks on a mission to recover the sword, uncover his father’s killer, and restore his family’s power, all while navigating the dangerous underworld of Liberty City.

This game’s messaging revolves around themes of loyalty, betrayal, and the pursuit of power in a corrupt criminal world. Like all other GTA games, it is a parody but with some serious undertones.

Paying Tribute

GTA: Chinatown Wars is a homage to the entire GTA series up to its release, blending the top-down chaos of GTA 1 and 2 with the storytelling and immersive world-building of GTA 3, Vice City, and San Andreas.

It also incorporates gameplay innovations from Liberty City Stories and Vice City Stories, offering a mix of nostalgia and modern mechanics. This creates a fitting tribute to the series, celebrating its evolution while staying true to its roots.

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Uzair Qureshi

At Tech4Gamers, I proudly wear the title of Comparisons Specialist. Focused on CPUs and GPUs, I bring forth a wealth of hands-on experience and a keen eye for detail to provide our audience with the latest insights and analyses.

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Red Dead Redemption has become one of the most popular games ever, with the most recent entry in the series being subject to massive critical acclaim. Most people are unaware of the history behind how these games were made, so strap in while we explain how one of Rockstar’s best games was almost never made.

The Forgotten One

For many people, the first game in the Red Dead series they play is Read Dead Redemption 1, but there was a game before that, something most people aren’t very aware of. Red Dead Revolver was the first in the series, serving as a precursor to these beloved games.

To delve into the development of this game, we need to tell you about a little-known game studio that has been making games since the 90s, and it’s not the one you’re considering.

Angel Studios

Angel Studios started in 1984, and its first decade was spent making 3D graphics for non-gaming media like movies and TV shows. After they established a foothold in gaming, Nintendo planned to involve them in their “dream team” for developing games for the N64.

They made two baseball games for the Nintendo 64, but their main project was “Buggie Boogie,” a game in which vehicles brawl with turrets and cranes. Shigeru Miyamoto was involved in this game, which was a big deal. Unfortunately, this game never saw the light of day.

The next big break they had after failing to make Buggie Boogie was a game called Midtown Madness, which I have fond memories of playing as a child. This release caught the attention of Rockstar Games.

After seeing their promise, Rockstar wanted to collaborate with Angel Studios, which is exactly what they did with the Midnight Club and Smuggler’s run games.

Between The Lines

Sometime after Angel Studios fumbled the chance to make Buggie Boogie for the N64, they were responsible for creating a port of Resident Evil 2 for the Nintendo 64. Their talents were noticed by Capcom, and they soon got in talks to make a spiritual successor to Gun Smoke (released for the NES).

This wasn’t anything new, as Resident Evil was also inspired by an obscure Capcom game from the 1980s called Sweet Home. Capcom wished to capture the same lighting in a bottle as they did with Resident Evil.

The collaboration of these two gaming powerhouses on a spiritual successor to an old cowboy game laid the groundwork for 2004’s Red Dead Revolver, but another studio cut short their plans.

 Rockstar Sandiego

Capcom and Angel were divided on what to make of Red Dead Revolver. The former leaned toward the fantastical, while the latter wanted to ground their game in realism. 

Rockstar maintained close ties with Angel Studios because of their work on the sequels to the games they made for the publisher. This led to Rockstar’s parent company buying the studio in 2002 and creating Rockstar San Diego.

After Capcom withdrew, Rockstar took over Red Dead Revolver, and Angel Studios made the game more gritty and realistic to align with Rockstar’s style.

While it was developing with Capcom, the game’s UI elements were borderline obnoxious, which Rockstar removed for the final version.

Red Dead Revolver

The game followed Red, a bounty hunter, killing the lowlifes in the Wild West to avenge his parents’ murderers. 

Red Dead Revolver was praised for its atmosphere and mechanics, which people thought conveyed the subject matter better than any other Western game at the time.

Some aspects of the game did not sit well with people, like the movement of the characters, the multiplayer, and the involvement of too many side characters that players could play as. It didn’t blow people’s minds like something like GTA, but it set the stage for the later entries in the series.

The Crux Of The Matter

Red Dead Revolver was a game troubled by development issues, but it saw the light of day because Rockstar and Angel Studios stuck to the idea. After rebranding the series to Red Dead Redemption, they made one of the most beloved game series in history; a game that many people, including myself, hold dearly in their hearts.

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Moiz Banoori

At Tech4Gamers, he is recognized for his insightful features and opinion pieces, where he blends his passion for gaming with a keen understanding of technological trends. His work, marked by depth and accessibility, makes him a respected voice in the tech and gaming community.

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Rockstar has always been under public scrutiny for their games, especially for how violent they are. Most of the blame falls on the mainstream GTA series, but one game series was infamous for its gore made by Rockstar: Manhunt.

The Manhunt Game Series

Manhunt 1 focuses on the main character, James Earl Cash, following a series of horribly violent instructions given by a director who has a fetish for gore. Even reading this grossly simplified summary might leave a bad taste in your mouth, so you can imagine what the game is like.

In the second entry, our protagonist is an escaped inmate from an insane asylum (Danial Lamb) accompanied by a strange man, Leo. Leo also mentors the protagonist, telling him exactly who to kill in glorious violence.

The second game became more of a psychological horror than the first game, while the first game was more of a display of gory violence.

The games had many complications, both in their reception and in their development. Let’s examine both of these aspects for Manhunt and Manhunt 2.

The First Game

The first Manhunt game was Rockstar North’s pet project, and the other wings of the company did not want anything to do with it. A former developer wrote that GTA was always a series where you never hurt anyone who didn’t deserve it, and the game was a parody.

However, Manhunt was a game that the developers felt uneasy while making. The emphasis was on manslaughter, and realistic, violent, nightmarish manslaughter at that. The developer wrote that there was no way to rationalize it, and they were crossing a line.

After the game was released to mature audiences worldwide, the press quickly scrutinized it for being too violent. This all culminated with the murder of Stefan Pakeerah at the hands of Warren Leblanc. A copy of the game was found in the perpetrator’s bedroom.

The parents of the victim blamed the game in large part for this act of heinous violence, but the judge ultimately ruled that it was not Rockstar’s fault for how people interpreted this media. Still, this horrible event culminated in a lot of bad press for Rockstar and Manhunt.

The Second Game

After the controversy of the first game, Rockstar should’ve hesitated to release it again, but on October 29th, 2007, we got the second entry in the series: Manhunt 2.

Rockstar chose to take this game in a slightly more tasteful direction with a different type of story. The first game had a purely reactionary protagonist, whereas the plot of the second game had a much more active lead.

[SPOILER WARNING] The second game follows a psychotic patient in an asylum accompanied by another inmate. It’s later revealed they are the same person, with the protagonist’s altered mental state caused by a government program.

This simplifies the story, but it is a more tasteful story for the vibe Rockstar was going for. The protagonist was humanized, and his violent acts were painted as no fault of his own.

The violence did not take a backseat, though, with there being extravagant executions coupled with mechanics to allow players to hurt innocent people in brutal ways.

This led to this game being released in a few regions with many problems with the ERSB ratings. The game was initially rated as AO(Adults Only), but Rockstar removed the innocent executions and put up a filter to make the murder scenes less gory to get the rating to M. 

Will There Be Another

With all the controversy surrounding these games, it might be better to forget that Rockstar ever made them. The horrible amounts of violence are something that even the developers and people who defend violent games find unsavoury. 

There are no signs of a sequel, which might be good. If you want to play these, you can still fill your cravings by downloading them online. 

There is still a chance that Rockstar will return to this series just for the nostalgic hype most other studios rely on, a prospect that scares and excites us.