‘Majestic Nights: Chapter One’ Video Game Review

Like many of the conspiracy theories the game is based on, Majestic Nights is filled with more hot air than good ideas. While it isn’t a bad game, Majestic Nights needs some work done before it can be considered a good game.

Majestic Nights is set in Los Angeles during the 1980s, filled with loads of drugs and a lot of conspiracy theories. The difference between the conspiracy theories in Majestic Nights is that they turn out to be real. Things like the Kennedy Assassination, faked moon landings, and other popular theories shared by tin-foil hat wearers are discussed in Majestic Nights. 

The first chapter of Majestic Nights includes two chapters: Chapter Zero and Chapter One. Chapter Zero introduces you to the character known as Cardholder, and serves as the person of interest for the two chapters. Cardholder is wanted by some people in “suits,” and thus begins a cat-and-mouse chase between Cardholder and the feds. The player controls Cardholder in Chapter Zero, and Cal in Chapter One.

Cal is a private investigator who has been hired by a few shady guys to find Cardholder. Thus begins Cal’s adventure to find information on Cardholder, and learn some other secrets along the way. The story is kind of interesting, and I applaud the developers for going all out with the conspiracies. They don’t pull any punches, which I think is pretty unique. Unfortunately anything good about Majestic Nights is overshadowed by game play which has poor controls and isn’t that fun.

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I played Majestic Nights with an Xbox 360 controller. Sometimes the game seems like it is fighting with itself to determine which devices I’m using to control the game, rendering some button prompts unresponsive. There was a good amount of time when I was playing the game when pressing the “Y” button wouldn’t bring up my journal, leaving me clueless on my next objective.

The gameplay consists of two types: talking to people to get information, and sneaking around and killing guards. The conversation aspect of the game works well, and I actually enjoyed how choosing the right dialogue can affect the game. If you say the right thing to someone, it can open up another way for you to complete an objective.

The combat isn’t so great. If we can get past the shooting mechanic which breaks at times (a really big problem), you are left with imprecise aiming, and the ability to clip through walls to attack enemies with a melee weapon. As a matter of fact, my first kill with Cal came from using a knife and stabbing a dude three times through a wall to kill him. It is one of those glitches where you’re okay with it because you didn’t get noticed by the enemy, but at the same time it shouldn’t happen. On top of that, aiming is really wonky to control. You can aim with the right stick and shoot with the right trigger, or you can also hold the right stick in any direction, and use the left stick for what seemed like more precise aiming. It didn’t feel natural and made the game hard to shoot. Some sort of lock on mechanic would be preferable. Because guns are so hard to use, I spent most of my time using a katana sword since it would kill enemies with one slice.

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Because of the poor combat mechanics, I died quit a bit during my time with Majestic Nights. If you try to take out a group of enemies with a gun, you will be at a huge disadvantage. It also takes a long time to switch between weapons. In one instance, I ran into two guys wielding melee weapons. I had my gun equipped, but since melee guys run at you and aiming is so poor, I switched to my sword. Between pressing the button to switch to the sword and actually equipping it, the enemy was able to get in enough hits to kill me. It is pretty annoying especially in a game that seems to focus on quick combat.

Visually the game has an art style that sort of reminds of  mid ’80s computer graphics. The characters have a low polygon count, and the textures are muddy and sometimes hard to make out what they are representing. With this game taking place in the 1980s, it could be a nod to that era.

The most redeeming quality of Majestic Nights is the music. The music was written and composed by Das Fokks, who is an electronic music composer based out of Sydney, Australia. After the success of a game like Hotline Miami, it makes sense that a game with pseudo top-down combat would replicate that style of music. It works well, except the driving nature of the game doesn’t help compliment the slow pace of the combat.

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I really want to like Majestic Nights, and I think if they could fix some glitches and clean up the controls, it could be a great action game.  There is a demo on the game’s Steam page for those who are interested. I would recommend playing through that if you have any interest at all before spending the $5 for Chapter One, or $20 for the season pass that will consist of six chapters. I hope they can fix some issues with the next five chapters of the season.

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