For Honor

I recently got For Honor as a Playstation Plus exclusive for February and I am in love with the satisfying battle action and the suprisingly detailed, vivid graphics it has. I love swooping around my enemy as my assassin, ready to go in for the kill and celebrate after the tough, tactical fight that just happened prior to that moment. It is a violent title, which should be obvious to any competent gamer or parent as it is rated M or 18. To be perfectly candid, melee battles are gorier and more painful-looking than any gun battle could possibly be, unless you are using a sawed-off shotty in any other game. The main battles are not awfully bad as I am aware at the time of writing but they do always induce spurts of realistic blood from the area you just drove your axe into. Warriors shout and scream in pain as they are slaughtered by the enemy that they are opposing. My main concern about violence is the executions that are optional after every battle you win, my favourite character, the assassin, has two default executions (like all warriors), that are quite brutal. The first is laying the enemy on your forearm and stabbing the sword into their chest and ripping it out, blood pertruding up your gleaming blade. Second, the worst one, is pushing your pleading opponent onto the floor and slashing their head clean off, the head rolls about on the ground and unless you are training, it will stay. A few missions in, you infiltrate a viking base with your clan and there is almost instantly a sight of people strung up on trees and impaled on spike walls, which I believe is a good visual representation of the barbaric acts of history. There is not actually much I can say about any other factors to be honest as there is absolutely no sexual content, drug or alcohol use and I don't think i've heard any unpleasant language as of yet. Ease of play is hard unless you go all out attack or defense. It has hard techniques to master like swapping your stance while an enemy is attacking and then swiftly attacking. You can buy items and upgrades but I don't advise because you can play just fine without. Online multiplayer is a factor but I don't think you can communicate apart from a selected range of quick chat options. Thanks for reading, Samuel Feldon

For Honor Is probably one of the most unique hack and slash games on the market, mixing together elements of fighting games, M.O.B.As, and beat em ups. Beyond the multiplayer focused gameplay, the game does contain a relatively long story mode, which means well, but is poorly executed. Violence: Medieval warriors tear into each other with melee weapons form around the world. Violence ranges from simple punches and kicks to axes being embedded in people's skulls. Every successful attack produces a large spurt of blood. There are dozens of unique kill animations players can activate to finish off foes, which usually leave the enemy in more than one piece. Limbs are severed and heads are loosed from their shoulders. throats are slit and in rare cases bitten out. During the actual cutscenes in the game's campaign, we see a man desperately trying to escape before his head is bashed in with a flail. (Although you don't actually see the weapon make contact). A woman is stabbed in the chest, and pulls the blade out, causing blood to spurt out of the wound. A flaming arrow is shot into a man's eye. beyond that, there are some grim moments of violence outside of battle. Some heads are seen on pikes, several men are shown being hanged from trees, soldiers are lined up for execution, and decapitated one after another. Another scene depicts a group of scared prisoners of war being slaughtered by their cruel captors. The violence is somewhat defused by how most characters are clad head to toe in heavy armor, and we can't even see most of their faces, slightly dehumanizing the slain warriors. Consumerism: Players can purchase In-game currency with real money to unlock everything from new characters to cosmetic items. However, playing the game somewhat frequently should provide the player with enough free currency to buy most of what they want without spending real money. Positive messages and role models: Players can customize the race and gender of their character. Women are portrayed as being just as capable as men. The player can choose the gender of the story's, hero, and the only change this makes is their appearance and voice. The game's main antagonist is a woman who is portrayed as being just as intimidating, evil, and dangerous as any male villain in recent memory. The main heroes fight for peace, but use violence as a means to this end. However, unlike many other works of fiction, the game is very self conscious about this, and ultimately calls out the hypocrisy of war being used to bring peace. War is described as an endless cycle, with the conclusion of one conflict being used as incentive to start another. Nonviolence is portrayed as being more noble than any military victory.