Browsing the Backlog

[Concrete]

BTB #10 - Blightown? More like Bite-Me-Town

Ah, so now I finally actually use this thread how I planned. As more of a journal to make sure these moments in games that make me light up aren’t reliant on my Twitter infested brain.

After tackling the Gargoyles and being able to soak in all that is good in the world I continued on. First I attempted down the Darkroot path, beating this…I don’t know, headless scorpion monster with a pitchfork? Now, the first time I tried going down here I accidentally wandered into the Darkroot Basin which is a WILD part of this game that I was not expecting. Having played the other SoulsBorne games, wandering into an open area where don’t have any paths to follow hurt my brain. That’s not how these games work. You typically see distinct pathways through an area so even when it appears to open up it only serves to let you see more funnels. The Darkroot Basin might have funnels but these cartoonish looking crystal jerks started coming after me. Multiple crystallized Incredible Hulks started jogging at me and FLYING through the air like they were born to do it. First, wide-open field and then agile hulking figurines? THIS IS NOT DARK SOULS PLEASE STOP TRYING TO DO ME LIKE THIS!

I died and decided I wasn’t going to be going that way for sometime. Coming back at it again, I believe I went the “right” way. I definitely got smoked by the boss but I at least got to them. Full transparency I immediately looked up how to kill the thing because I spent five minutes fighting it without having a single clue how to make progress. Sometimes that’s what you have to do though, don’t be too proud to not look up the answers.

Even with the answer I didn’t particularly want to go down that path so I worked backwards. Using a key, getting myself to the lower parts of the Undead Berg. Everywhere I had been looked like a place that’s been dead for a minute, this part of town looked like they were still finishing off burner the damn thing to the ground. Slashing my way through here I get to the Capra Demon, a boss I did and do hate. After dying once I decided that there had to be a MUCH faster way to get this truly rude Minotaur. And I was right! And the shortcut is still painfully long! That’s been my least favorite part of this game, getting back to bosses. I can’t tell if this is one of the reasons that people prefer this to other games in the lineage but I do want to be clear, I think you are wrong. Eventually, after about six times I beat the thing through hard work, dedication and a great gameplan aka I cheesed that son of a gun. The fricker would keep swinging as long as I didn’t go too far up the silly staircase and couldn’t hit me as long as I wasn’t far enough down. TACTICAL GENIUS!

From there, down I went. Deeper into the depths of this world. It wasn’t a painfully hard in THE DEPTHS but the dang place has the oddest layout. I was down there for about an hour killing everything in my path until I realized I didn’t know where I was. Afterwards, I found out I had killed an enemy that actually made the upcoming boss a tad easier. Happy accidents. And that boss? The Gaping Dragon. I’ve probably watched the beginning to this boss dozens of times before this play-through. Its still a good boss cutscene! I laugh my butt off every time. This cute alligator head gives way to a dragon that is shaped like a a very teethy mouth. That’s funny! Great gag every time.

Gaping Dragon is one of the best scaled boss fight From has probably done? Absolute unit but will move in on you. Relatively easy in the scheme of things which I guess goes hand-in-hand with feeling like a rad ass set piece. Can’t be looking all cool and stuff while I also being the most frustrating thing on the planet.

Got my BLIGHTTOWN key and mozied my way on down to this makeshift wooden underworld. After hearing about all the optimization issues of the area, going through without a hiccup felt a tad disappointing. Like I was robbed of the TRUE DARK SOULS EXPERIENCE! Well, the area is still a bit of a pain in the ass. Unlike the rest of the world, feeling like there are places that stack onto one another, Blighttown comes off as a rickety staircase. Makes sense to find multiple bonfires on the way down as I have yet to find a place to bail out. Every other jaunt I had taken around this decayed land had passageways that would lead to other locations I had seen before which allowed me to cut some truly annoying runs through the game down by a good chunk. This town of wood felt so disconnected in comparison. Once I was in, I was IN and I didn’t love that feeling as I noticed halfway down that the only weapon I had bothered to upgrade had been DEEPLY eroded during the Gaping Dragon fight.

You see, the Gaping Dragon has an attack where he spews acid on the floor. I for some reason thought it was a dice roll situation, equipment broke or it didn’t, a bad assumption on my part.

ALSO, the whole trip is a bit annoying. Enemies with toxic blow darts can make sections unbearable. FIRE BREATHING LIL’ DOGGOs?! Who does that? And what even is this thing!!!

So now I’m here, stuck on the poisonous floor of this place with a weapon that’s a few strikes from being useless. This truly is a nightmare.

[Concrete]

BTB #11 - Dang, these Ape Out Pics are BIG

Tried uploading some screenshots for Ape Out to Twitter but for some reason they were too big.

Game is WAY more difficult than I was expecting. I think that’s in large part in me just stinking up the joint. The game looks and sounds great and I at least want to acknowledge and show the work.

[InigoMontoya]

Really enjoy your write-ups and can’t wait to see more of these!

[Concrete]

#BTB 12 - Classic Bits with Sam & Max

To start this year all I really want to do is beat Outer Wilds. Problem is, falling into a blackhole 20+ times within the first few hours turned that game from “fun space adventure of discovery and wonder” into “Sick, love wasting hours trying to avoid this stupid thing”. I am not quitting but I need a game that I can enjoy and make progress on. I have had too many games recently that aren’t clicking. So while I am trying to find the game to break-up the Outer Wilds I have gone through half a dozen games in my library that aren’t clicking. Maybe it is because I am looking for something finite. Something that I can COMPLETE and feel good with that status.

So what’s come to mind is to tackle spins on old faves. Or, in this case, a sequel. When I’m talking old faves I’m thinking types of games I haven’t played since high school or the community college. One of those games happens to be the Sam & Max series. A series I am sure I will age rather poorly…or maybe not who knows. These are point and click adventure games but the whole point is the gags. The series has a colorful cast of characters. At that point in my life, few games made me laugh or I played few games where that was sort of the point. Comedy is super juvenile though. I’m so curious how this game sticks with me in 2020. It has been close to a decade since I have played these games. I am an entirely different person with a brain completely destroyed by the internet. Then again, within 15 minutes of starting the first episode you get a gag here where the alien villian looks at Max, who has turned into a potted plant, and says to his captured human “queen”

MAYBE I AM GOING TO LOVE THIS AND DIE BECAUSE THE BRAIN WORMS ONLY MAKES THIS GAME BETTER MAYBE!

[Concrete]

BTB #13: Diamond Dawgs 4Ever

Why do I do this? For some reason I have decided to install MGS:V after getting it in a Humble Bundle awhile back. A game I tried playing after getting it as a PS+ game and the beginning being so off-putting that I immediately uninstalled from my PS4.

I’m now like three hours in, probably more time I have immediately put in a game in months. That beginning? I still hate it! I have proclaimed this on Twitter previously and been met with “Gamers just don’t appreciate a slow-burn anymore”. And…I don’t know about ALL that. You don’t need to throw me immediately into the action but you have such limited control for roughly the first 45 minutes of this game. I only played a little bit of MGS4 so maybe the big, scary, fire man and scary gas-mask, ghost girl are staples of the series. For me, unfamiliar with anything, it was confusing and weird. Through the opening stanza, I didn’t engage at all. The game has “episodes” and this felt like the most uninteresting pilot possible. Actually, since they call it a prologue, it feels like something that a show would put on the internet knowing that it is wholly unnecessary for anyone to watch in order to appreciate the show. There is connective tissue but if you don’t see it, it won’t hurt you.

I’ve heard so many good things about the GAME though, I wanted to get to it. I wouldn’t let this intro stop me from trying the actual thing the game does. Being able to actually play that first mission, my feelings on the intro were scrubbed, yeah, the intro still SINKS, but if there was the ability to download a save to skip the intro, the game immediately feels good. There aren’t a lot of tutorial aspects from the intro that can’t be picked up by PLAYING in that first mission. The trickier stuff is taught through the first mission anyway.

Now I’m two missions deep and have done a side-op so I feel like I am truly, IN THE GAME. And all I can think about is Hitman (2016), my only touchstone for a PRESTIGE STEALTH-ACTION game. I am bad at stealth games. I usually make it 75% through a given level to where I need to be before the floor falls out. I have watched my share of Hitman Let’s Plays. They always look like they are having so much fun. Whether that is manipulating the AI in just the right way or working through the chaos. The floor falling out for them IS the fun. I don’t know why I am the way that I am but things going awry in Hitman is not FUN. I don’t technically hit a failure state…but I still feel like I’ve failed. The game feels designed so that you follow certain paths through the level, your own little story beats that lead to success. Having things break means I miss out on proper gags and the chaos of my failure isn’t a pleasure to manage.

That’s almost the opposite experience I had once some guard noticed his pal sleeping in the middle of the road because I didn’t have the energy to move him. Okay, so everyone is on alert, that stinks…or does it? No, not really, by the time they noticed I was out of the village, accomplishing what I needed. I did immediately come back to mow them all down as they were clumped together, but I’m weak and didn’t know what would happen if I didn’t “take care of them”.

The next village I needed to navigate was much bigger and layered. The whole set-up is so good. I get on a big old mountain across a valley, toss on the binoculars and scout the area. I’m a real damn action hero about to kill a Russian army in Afghanistan…nothing concerning with those optics. This time I slipped through a side path with one guard who had a good vantage point. Sleeping him made there was no one to alert him…unfortunately I start realizing these solidiers move and while they probably do have specific tracks they FEEL more complicated. Okay, so I unexpectedly run into someone. My silencer is broke so we are just shooting a loud gun in an area crawling with baddies. I have completely ruined things, bodies are dropping, this isn’t the ideal run…but I don’t feel worse for it. I am not a Hitman. Sure the greatest soldier ever should be able to sneak into a base and grab a target with barely a noise being made but I am also a super soldier so if taking down twenty guards with a series of throws and shots to the domes, that’s fine too. Sure, I will walk out with a B rank but a B rank that felt GOOD.

Then I learn about Motherbase, which, sure, I guess. Knocking out my own guards that have been brainwashed was something. Went on another mission and that was another hoot of a situation. I don’t know how far I will make it into this game but I have been looking for something that is easy to hop in and out of. The GAME, very much that…the game + story, less so.

Oh, also I hopped back into Dark Souls as I was stuck in Blighttown and couldn’t beat the boss so figured out how to escape and going to do some farming while I tackle Darkroot. Good game I say.

[Concrete]

BTB #14: Dark Souls…Please Stop Being You

I can’t focus. I would say I try though I am unsure if that is actually true. Last week I played a couple of hours of MGS:V and loved it. Never knew how much fun a GI Joe game was until then. Go through a base of twenty enemies like it was swiss cheese. Enemy turns a corner? POW, THROW! Another enemy sees me? POW, TRANQ TO THE FACE! The hits…they don’t stop coming.

Then for some reason, as I mentioned in my last post, I touched Dark Souls again. A game that makes me feel the opposite of MGS:V. At no point do I feel like an unstoppable force, where if things go wrong through sheer force I can turn the tide of battle. No mistake feels insurmountable in MGS:V. Do I like to suffer? I guess the real answer is I like to feel overwhelmed in games because feeling overwhelmed in real life stinks and I have no control of. A power fantasy is fun at times but sometimes you need to mimic your real-life feelings in a controlled environment. I can understand wanting to embrace something that works against your current emotional state, watching puppy videos when you’re sad, I don’t know if that helps me though. If I am going to be stressed, let me focus that so deeply that my heart is pounding out of my chest so I can wrap all the emotion of the promotion I didn’t get, the debt I can’t crawl out of, and the WORLD we are in. Let that dang spider lady make me FEEL so that my undertones are overtones.

What I am trying to say is that I am weak to Dark Souls, a game not as good as Dark Souls 2, and I can’t complain too much. Okay, I am going to complain a little, I left my last post saying I wanted to finish Darkroot. I finished Darkroot so then went to go back to Blighttown except the Firelink Shrine went out. How?! Okay, I looked into it and know how now, firelink keeper killing jer, but come on now. So now I’ve got to go from the blacksmith to Blightown but I kept dying on my way back to the bonfire through the shortcut. Well I finally got to where I needed to this morning. Then faced Quelaag. Dark Souls has this amazing ability to make me question if I’m missing something. I only seemed to get a quarter of the way through and then BLASTED into next week. And that kept happening multiple times in a row. Because I am who I am I looked into and guess what, I was doing what I was supposed to, I just STINK! Wow, this game always grounds me. With my heart pounding I manage to be patient enough to pick up the W.

And then…things get weird? I go past the boss to the Dark Ruins. Go across the “bridge”, pass through a fog gate (come on now) and see this sad-looking BIG OL’ MONSTER The game rarely makes you feel like you’re about to face a Greek Mythology style Titan but hot dang, that’s a scary one. Doesn’t move but as I round a corner I see an item sigh I know how this works. I don’t like how it works but I know. So I upset them, they lay down a floppy tenticle, I slash it, hey that’s damage! Maybe this won’t be so bad. Then it shoots a lazar beam out of its mouth I’m pretty sure and my health is almost gone. We’re running now, let’s get out, ain’t no thing, so I run back from which I came…and the fog gate is back up. What do you do? PANIC! Then the Ceasless Distraught jumps like they are a PRIDE fighter about to lay waste to someone and…they die. They stay there to get hit and die. That…huh okay…20,000 SOULS FOR THAT?! What?! Yeah, let’s hit the YouTube. SO apparently that is a known cheese of this boss. What happens is they jump and essentially stick to the ledge until they release but there is no ground underneath them anymore so they die. Would have been SICK to see a falling animation or anything instead of the assumed drop causing death. Anyway, game is weird.

Dark Souls flips between two modes, hitting a wall I want to break through or feeling that relief and confidence after breaking a wall so that I just keep going until I hit another. There is satisfaction but it only serves the loop. I love it and kind of hate it!

[Concrete]

BTB #15: Top 5 Reasons Why Blighttown is Better then Sen’s Fortress

I spend years unable to beat the stupid Bell Gargoyles in this game and then all of a sudden I’m making pretty consistent progress every month. It’s beautiful. Going forward the two things I knew I would run into was Blighttown and the spear/hammer boss. I was not looking forward to either. I can say at least Blighttown wasn’t this hellscape I was sold. It was actually kind of fun. Souls games often feel challenging but not quite that hostile. You have to maneuver your way through rickety scaffolding lined with enemies with poison blow darts and dots that…spit fire. Your view feels constantly obstructed by wood platforms jutting out. Almost all the levels feel like you aren’t wanted there but Blighttown feels like you aren’t supposed to be there.

So all that talk over Blighttown and no one wanted to tell me how bad Sen’s Fortress was? It STINKS! I HATE it! The fortress doesn’t “want” you there but it feels very much like you should be there. What good are traps without someone to spring them? I listened to the Bonfire Side Chat on it which helped illuminate why people liked it but it didn’t seem to wrestle with my main stressors. So, without further ado

1. BOULDERS STINK
No one likes boulders. Boulders STINK. They are big, heavy, and only get in the way. Why have em? One of giants drops it down and bounces around one of four given paths. Sometimes they can help out but most of the time they feel like they get in the way. Particularly the one that blocks the path to the BOULDER ROOM which isn’t where they boulders are but where they get pinballed down their given path. I’ll get to that in a little bit but they aren’t fun to deal with based on my time in the fortress.

2. NECESSARY NUDITY

Maybe this ISN’T 100% fact but I know I stripped before running through that dang level. Blighttown? Fully covered, keeping you warm and toasty. It might not have the desired scents but dang, I didn’t feel compelled to strip to my undies. My main reason for doing so was to access the BOULDER ROOM which, if you didn’t strip, would lead you to get slammed into, losing a huge chunk of your health on the way up. After listening to BFSC I realized that you could go a different direction. A direction with a mimic that I don’t want to talk about too much cause it hurts. Even without the BOULDER ROOM it felt like stripping and gaining some additional speed was far more important than protecting yourself slightly and trying to run through blades. Blades don’t care if you are clothed or not, they will knock you off.

3. SMALL RUNWAYS
I truly hate any part of this game that involves accurate movement, that includes runnings along tiny walkways. Perhaps, if the camera didn’t get caught on things and shift 20 yards out of nowhere I wouldn’t mind it as much but there are moments that I can be running straight and then BANG I’m taking a quick left on my way to my death. That is likely a very specific ME situation but I hate it. I hate it most games though. It doesn’t feel like a “challenge” to run across something narrow as much as it feels like an unnecessary obstacle. I don’t feel GOOD after I traverse it, just a slight release in my tension. A very “glad that’s over” situation. Dark Souls is a game FILLED with tension, I don’t need to feel a bad kind where the game isn’t at it’s best when the game is so often in a groove.

4. CHEEZE THE GIANTS
The next bit is likely going to be me complaining about something that is entirely in my control. I mean, I don’t NEED to “cheeze” the two giants in this level that cause me pain. The first being the one that drops the boulders. Killing them gives you souls but actually doesn’t help you all that much. The second one, the one that will throw LARGE firebombs at you is up a staircase next to the boss. They seemed big and mean. A quick aggro of them draws him towards the stairs where they can’t get in. Despite that they still keep trying and attacking, clipping through the wall enough to be hittable via an arrow. Or, in this case, 75 arrows…roughly. Now, I could have taken them on 1-on-1 but because this level takes so long to get through even if you know it, knowing all the traps only helps so much, risking death isn’t worth “earning a win”. The easy route feels like the correct route. The risk of losing progress wasn’t worth actually facing the problem head on.

5. Big Boss, Small Platform
Admittedly, probably the least painful part of Sen’s guess I should mention it. Not a strong bookend. The boss…he big. Big old ball of iron. The arena? Small. Tiny. No walls. NO WALLS. The boss itself isn’t all that bad but it feels like you are fighting with the environment just as much as the bad lad. In a level designed around the environment trying to kill you dead, it makes sense that the BOSS is less of an issue than the area where you fight them. Just like the rest of the area though it works against how I like my Souls. I don’t want to fight the environment, I want to fight enemies even when circumstances aren’t ideal. I would rather archers be reigning down on me while I try and take out a multitude of folks than try and duel with one while in a trapped room. EDIT: The kicker is that the arena limitation doesn’t effect the parties equally. Understand if an arena benefits the boss but this benefits with the consequence of death without being able to force that same limitation on the BIG IRON KNIGHT FELLA

[Concrete]

BTB #16: Gaming During A Time

I had a whole thing worked out. I nearly quit Dark Souls after reaching the archers in Arno Londo. I also got my first ever victory in Into The Breach. There were TAKES I had. I can’t even fathom talking about that right now.

This thread is for me at the end of the day. People are going to have so many TAKES about COVID-19 and GAMES. I am not delivering takes, my takes aren’t great ever and this has a gravity that I would feel big uncomfortable on this.

The past three days have been truly odd. My work emailed us on Friday said “OPTIONAL WORK FROM HOME” to yesterday “MANDATORY WORK FROM HOME”. I have an hour commute so this wasn’t the worst possible news imaginable. I like the people I work with and seeing them helped ground me on a regular basis. I grew into being an introvert in college so if it wasn’t for work, I would likely stay in at all possible hours outside of picking up groceries. This isn’t exactly a tendency that I LOVE but it is who I am and I accept that. For the next 8 weeks it is going to be me, my wife, and our dog. That’s a lot! I love them and glad they are here and I know it will prevent me from spiraling to bad. Just worried about succumbing to my worst habits during this time.

Then the other fun thing is that my wife is a baker who does wholesale vegan bake goods. Her stuff is still selling at locations tremendously well…but the foot traffic overall in these coffee shops has been severely depleted. This has led to a cutdown in hours, people losing their jobs, and now the State has said all restaurants need to ONLY allow takeout going forward. She is being hurt so badly by this and she can’t even figure out otherwise to supplement her income because all the stores are out of her necessary ingredients. She might lose this thing she loves and it stings. I can barely take it. Giver her a follow on IG https://www.instagram.com/mylkandhunny_/?hl=en

But hey, in the meantime I discovered that I get incredible comfort from MetalJesusRocks RECENT PICKUP videos. While it isn’t PLAYING it is consuming I guess and I’m nothing else if not a consumer baby! I don’t think the creator has many interesting opinions but when him and someone else are going back and forth on games I never heard of that often look NOT THAT GOOD, and going “You know what? I enjoyed Cars 3: The Game” I am soothed. Firmly not in the DON’T CRITICIZE THINGS camp but to hear the most light knocks on any game felt good. Like…I finally felt like “Oh, I like this thing that ISN’T super analytical” which is typically not me. It is something I can put in the background while doing other things and feel peace. Very few things provide that good white noise I’m looking for. Anything right now that can bring a bit of warmth to my days is appreciated.

[Concrete]

BTB #17: Looking for Progress

Something I have tried doing recently is tie my backlog order to the Watch Out For Fireballs podcast from DuckFeedTV. It is a video game book club type podcast that I have sort of fallen in love with. It is a good part of the reason I was playing the original Dark Souls, technically that is their Bonfire Side Chat podcast but same ideology but specifically for Souls games, after getting at points that I had originally deemed perfect jumping off points. It is a game I don’t like as much as…well any other of the From games I think but listening to them talk through an area that I had just completed has been joyful. I don’t have a lot of people to talk games with or work through thoughts with so at least experiencing that back and forth gives the goodest of vibes.

I saw that they recently played Axiom Verge and thought…OH I have that! Epic recently gave it a way for free, so perfect one to be able to listen to a more current episode and feel a part of that discussion.

Unfortunately I kind of hate the game. It is a Metroid-like where certain paths are gated until you get the corresponding abilities. The game at least helped shed light on something I wasn’t aware of before, I need to feel progress in these types of games. Over the first hour and a half I played, I saw a wild variety of enemies that all looked sick, vibrant locations, and got to a couple of bosses that would fit into a DOOM (2016) type Hell. That mix of organic/inorganic sort of icky stuff. Heck yeah. Wish I understood what it was all in service of.

Game just having cool vibes

I kept making forward progress…until I could’t. So I want down another path that went on a while…until it didn’t and I went down another path. My progress was impeded but I knew I would stumble upon what I needed eventually. That’s a NORMAL thing but I often found I was running into the same issue over and over again. “Oh, I can’t jump here, I’ll come back when I get the double jump.” and then “Dang, too high, I’ll come back when I nab the double jump” and then three areas later “Cool another spot too high to jump. Where the HECK is the double jump”. When I did find it I was 6 save points away from the first spot I couldn’t reach. Over the course of this trip I have seen so many different colored areas. Sure, I will probably trigger another story beat eventually but the game does such a poor job dangling the carot on the string. The game looks cool as heck without giving me much of a reason to explore beyond that. Even beating a boss doesn’t feel like it dramatically affects my standing in the game. The game feels barren of objectives. Because there are only certain paths you can go down it doesn’t feel like there is fun exploration to be had. I at one point stumbled upon this whole glitchy area which I was hoping was going to be the sort of secret find that got my juices flowing. Not so fast though. I died, went back to the save a good distance away and since I already didn’t feel as though I was making progress towards any sort of goal, as nothing had been laid out, it seemed pointless to explore. What could I find there that would make these worthwhile if the game itself already couldn’t provide semblance or reward.

I wanted to listen to that episode of WOFF and feel rewarded. This game has made that too much of a challenge though. That doesn’t feel like a worthwhile endeavor. I wrote this post so I may close this chapter on the game for me. Peace out Axiom Verge.

[Concrete]

BTB # 18: Finally Finished Something…WASN’T GREAT!

last week decided to pick Mirror’s Edge up again to do the thing where I can hopefully listen to the Watch Out For Fireballs episode on it no problem. And someway, somehow I beat it! Okay, not really fair, game is real short. Have to check but beat it probably in less than 6 hours? Needed that sort of experience in my life. Can’t remember the last game I actually finished. I’m not mad I dropped Axiom Verge, if anything I feel so much more justified in it. Let me get into THIS game first though.

Mirror’s Edge is one of the most visually pleasing games I’ve ever played. What they do with color scratched an itch in my brain. Going to just toss in some screenshots now since, despite starting this blog/thread/thing I spew words into, articulating concepts isn’t a strong suit. Never have I taken more screenshots in a game

Like…infuriatingly good looking! I mostly showed indoor sections here because the colors hit different there. The magic of running outdoors (besides the whole cool running bits) is the SCALE! That crane you are running on? Well eventually you are going to land on that red mat over there! “Runner Vision” is a stupid name but seeing something POP red and jumping on the opportunity feels and looks GOOD! Being able to see your potential path from a mile away also is Actually Good. That seems harder to reflect in some of the screenshots though. It isn’t exactly a “If you can see it you can go there” situation but not terribly far off the mark.

Never have I played a game so good looking despite not terribly enjoying the majority of the rest of the package! The story is bad and silly at the same time. Classic twists and turns all over the place. One of the reveals actually got me laughing out loud. This game isn’t supposed to be funny yet here I am, crying. Now, apparently people HATED the flash animated cut-scenes and I get it but also, I sort of found them charming? Look at this stuff

Between this and the wacky story beats, this could have been fun campy! Problem being the story isn’t just wacky, it is downright incoherent at times. This world seems potentially neat but you are thrown into this mess of a plot before anything is fleshed out in the slightest. Everything is meaningless! I don’t ask for much. If they set up the world slightly more and leaned into the sillyness instead of adding layers of gruffness, at the five hour runtime this could have been a real fun package.

The game itself is great when you are allowed to get into a groove, hit sweet jumps and do the RUNNER thing. The game is not great when doing most other things. That includes but is not limited to: misleading color direction, jumps being missed for seemingly no reason which leads you to wonder if you are doing it wrong so you try something different a handful of times before trying the original thing and it working, shooting at people, shimmying across ledges, and indoor levels where you don’t have much flexibility. The thing out of the bunch that felt redeemable was the shooting. It is sub-par BUT the concept of flying around a set-piece and finding angles to take out fully armoured enemies sounds like it might have been a real good time. Unfortunately the gunplay isn’t fun, makes you slow, and the places where they want you to engage in combat most don’t seem all that interested in using the arena to your advantage. WHAMP WHAMP

Wrapping back to Axiom Verge, since I dropped that right before hopping into this, Mirror’s Edge never made me feel like my time was worthless. The visuals were a strong enough carrot on a string to lure me through what ends up being a short experience. I never felt like I was veering off to a pointless course. Open-ended games our good and fine but if there isn’t something along the way that makes the experience feel justified, I won’t be able to stick with a game. Even if I’m not even sure if Mirror’s Edge is a BETTER game, sometimes a truly excellent component can help push through a lot of muck.

TL:DR FINAL THOUGHTS: Mirror’s Edge is a game that felt destined to be improved upon. The game looks SO good and hitting stride kicks so MUCH butt that everything else feels like a barrier to a truly GREAT game. And I mean everything else. This is what I got though and I don’t hate what it is but I can’t get my brain out of the “look at the potential” mode. Just LOOK AT IT!

[aoanla]

I must admit, Mirror’s Edge is a game I really wanted to enjoy - I like the 2d version of flow games (say, N++), and I thought I would like this. But, I found the control and interface infuriatingly hard to grasp - timing-wise, and remembering-which-button-does-what-wise - so I never really got off the tutorial.

(re: gunplay, it always felt to me that Bungie’s Oni did this better - you can totally use guns, and disarm people easily, but you’re supposed to being kickass at martial arts, so they’re deliberately a bit clunky and don’t really reload.)

[Concrete]

Love me some N++. There is definitely a different VIBE going from 2D to 3D. Personally, I prefer a bit of tunnel vision. Seeing the whole field makes it feel less “good” for me when hitting that flow state.

[Concrete]

BTB #19: Dragon Switch XI

Quarantine almost had me revert this thread back into a blog. Then someone commented and a person or two liked the Mirror’s Edge post. Weird how that bit of feeling like I wasn’t speaking into a void helps. Especially with the world being real crushing. So, thanks for that! Means a lot.

This week though I broke and bought a “new to me” game, DQXI on Switch. I had a Best Buy gift card so I got the digital version because I HATE physical games on Switch. Old man from I Think You Should Leave Too small! It goes whiffing out of the car while I’m driving. I don’t feel GREAT about buying things right now but I’ve wanted a JRPG for my Switch as my library of games can scratch the vast majority of itches that I might have. It is the perfect game console because it is the only one where I could put a dozen hours into in front of the TV on a Sunday or put two hours into in 15-minute increments while doing chores around the house. The later I’m in a lot of need of these days. Right now I have action/adventure games, platformers of multiple dimensions, puzzle, strategy, and fighting games. In bed or on the couch I can fill a gaming desire. Dragon Quest gives me that BIG JRPG, a genre I don’t play a ton of because I think the best way to play them are on handhelds. Weird how Switch is one of those!

Somehow since Friday I have put 8 hours into the game. That’s officially more than I’ve played any game this year. It doesn’t feel that long! Is that a problem?!

I don’t know, what I do know is that the game fits like a glove. Dragon Warrior’s Monster II: Cobi’s Journey is one of my all-time favorite games. I’m not even sure if it is that good but Monster breeder (UGH) games are sort of my kryptonite. That flow of going 1+1=2, 1+2=1, and sometimes 1+1=3 is SO GOOD! Plus the monsters are cool as heck. Dragon Quest is not as an exciting series cause you play as PEOPLE, who gives a crap, you know? I’ve already played one other official DQ game, Dragon Quest VIII which was p darn good and had a little monster arena side-game area. I had heard good things about DQXI and it was between this and Xenoblade Chronicles 2 but I leaned on history and my brother’s rec.

Well, after a dozen hours I think I’m more impressed with the Switch over the game. Does that make me bad? The game is good! Feels like a proper adventure. Looks like how I remember DQ8 looking. Actually have watched a few videos of that game, and it still looks good! Just a tad blurry. The game shows that it is a proper modern title during the big bosses and cutscenes. They look like cool toys…is that good? I don’t know but beating up a Jargon with this level of SMOOTHNESS is top-notch. And I do it in my bed! Wow! How is this real! That’s what takes it up a notch. It is a fun game, with a fun story, and neat monsters. The fact I can take that experience into my bed or play it on the couch while my wife works through Supernatural again is a life changing experience.

I don’t see myself slowing down soon it just has prompted two dangerous items 1) I feel the need for more Switch games as I’m realizing that’s the only way I’m going to play more games and 2) my wife wants us a Switch. I blame Animal Crossing.

[Concrete]

BTB # 20: The King is Back

Adam Ryland has been creating some of my most played games over course of essentially the past two decades. He’s most known for creating Extreme Warfare Revenge, a text-based wrestling promoter sim. For a fan of pro wrestling, it is still one of the easiest and funniest ways to go “Yeah, I would be a great booker”. You sign wrestlers, book your own shows, deal with wrestlers going to rehab, the real fantasy of being the person behind it all. It is a game that is incredibly easy to “rig”. Get the right combo of high work rate wrestlers and you can run that until you’re kicking WWE’s butt from pillar to post. Doing that is still pleasurable. The numbers do go up. When you try to meet that game on its own terms though, grounding yourself in it, it gives you this giddy experience. Plus there are mods to update the roster and stuff. I wouldn’t say it is bare, but EWR certainly felt very plug and play at the time. “At the time” for me was when I was about 12, playing on my dad’s old work laptop

Going to fast-forward now as Ryland goes on to create the Total Extreme Warfare series which is cranking up EWR several notches in every direction. Lots of folks prefer EWR for the simplicity. The game fills the void without having to sink hours into. For me though, TEW straddles line between turning into too much micromanagement and just enough fantasy/strategy. There are more forces put upon you in your role. Creating killer show after killer show is great but if you can’t do so without mixing up the talent, having engaging rivalries, and figuring out ways to expand your territory. Unlike a sports management game, you are able to carve out a niche, but it does need to be a sustainable one. Though, typically you are playing to be the #1 promotion in wrestling, but if you are at the level of a modern GCW or IMPACT, that growth would take a whole bunch of time and a whole bunch of good dice rolls. Being the #1 promotion in your region or staying as a mid-level promotion, trying to handle the onsault of the bigger companies nabbing talent and building up your next generation so that when your stars go to greener pastures, you are ready to elevate folks.

The game isn’t licensed in any manner so Adam created the CornellVerse. Still think that alone is such an understated achievement. He takes a lot from the real world, having some promotions and dynamics be almost 1-to-1 replicas of current and historical wrestling promotions. Also at times taking archetypes and smashing them into one promotion. There is enough that isn’t a carbon copy of reality that makes the world feel alive not like someone who simply lacked the rights to build a game. With every iteration Ryland moves the timeline forward, seeing changes that help create new dynamics as well help the game world feel more in line with the real world. Meaning, things like the WWE Network gets replicated in game which adds a feature and a dynamic that wasn’t in play before. The actual changes, wrestlers swapping promotions, promotions folding, promotions merging, and new territories opening up such as Australia or India, are done in organic ways that make me lose my mind with every interaction. What makes the whole experience work though is the sim. The world moves around you. Dynamics between you and other promotions change, whether you have an ally, foe, or maybe losing your spot as the top hardcore promotion in the region. Everyone else’s relationships change as well. As a mid-major promotion starts making a push to be a legit player, maybe they start signing up all the talent from a competitor. Maybe in Japan a generational talent is putting on 5 STAR matches on every month. Every year you get a list of the best wrestlers on the planet, and a bunch of other superlatives. Your world is building an almanac. That’s all I want from these games. Feel like history is being made. Not grand scale history, but “on May 2021 I put on my fifth best event in company history” sort of history.

The demo for the latest TEW, aptly named TEW2020 came out this week. I have been playing a good bit of WMMA5, the MMA version of this game, recently and couldn’t wait to jump back into this universe and see what’s changed. Off the bat, major happenings in Canada, Japan feeling like it is open game, and my favorite promotion to start with, CZCW, having just enough developments to make me want to choose them again.

Then I started playing though. The UI…I don’t know why they’ve done what they’ve done. It is ROUGH.

TEWDB | Total Extreme Wrestling Database #TEW2020 (TEWDatabase)

That’s an example of a skin mod that someone is working on as well as the base game. Usually these mods at a nice bit of flourish but for this iteration, it might be absolutely necessary.

It all really doesn’t matter if booking a show feels good. It is such a weird thing. Even that though felt off. Drag and Drop booking not being the default is such an odd decision. There doesn’t seem to be any reason why it wouldn’t be a default. You don’t have to drag and drop if you don’t want to even with it on. Not sure if that makes sense if you haven’t played these games. When putting together a match you select from a set of various options, 1v1, 2v2, 1v1v1v1, ect. Then you select the participants. Previously each wrestler had pushes. So your main eventers, your openers, and your middle of the event wrestlers. This game does away with that for “perception”. It doesn’t matter if you want your pet project booked as a main eventer, if the crowd views them as a midcarder, they are essentially that. I have mixed feelings on that. It doesn’t really “take control away” but instead you have to change your path to getting folks where you want them to be I think. Off track here, but essentially you are given the list of wrestlers on your roster and can filter the list to folks that aren’t in matches already and by perception. The default way to select a wrestler is to have the list and then select from a drop down on the left of the screen. Drag and drop means if I see them on in the full list, I can just move them over to the actual match. EASY. Even if you can “enable it”, not having it be the default forces me to believe they have weird ideas on how people play these games.

Okay, so putting together a show still feels about right, once I turn the Drag and Drop on. Watching the show play out is next and…I don’t know. The game is a text sim. Numbers are a part of the DNA. But even with the previous games it didn’t feel so cold. There was context to the numbers, there as pieces of information that were insightful and that you could help build off. It seems that was cut in half in exchange for adding numbers. I already am frustrated that in EWR, the game gave you a silly match recap, move by move that ruled and I don’t get that anymore. Don’t take away even more from me.

As of a few days ago, the game got pushed back to May 14th. It was supposed to be out this week. I was really excited. Given the way the game looks and how clumsy some of it is though, I think this is a must. Heck, I didn’t even mention how annoying getting in and out of screens is. You can open a dozen windows but the only way to exit each one is a small X. That shouldn’t be the way! Ugh. The developer put together a diary of all the new features so I need to go back and read that. I think I need to remember that this is a one person game and it is honestly the only thing like it. That doesn’t mean I’ve got to eat the crap, but maybe some things are worth forgiving if there really are things that make TEW2020 feel like a fresh experience.

Well alright, just bought Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate for Switch so will be sure to type up more on that. Thanks!

[Concrete]

BTB #21: We Finally Meet Mr. Wake

What is Alan Wake? Is it a cult favorite? That’s sort of what I always assumed with how people talk about. Then recently I listened to Cane & Rinse, part of my reason for playing, and they said it sold over 2m copies. I am trying to figure out if I played myself, creating my own narrative based on what I wanted to hear, or are folks speaking real weird about this game to make it seem this game is much more niche than it is. I guess it doesn’t matter! I didn’t love the thing!

Alan Wake was the perfect "video game book club* game because I can listen to three separate podcast episodes dedicated to this game including Watch Out For Fireballs and Cane & Rinse, pods I LOVE. I said it before, but this has become a real rewarding way to play games. I enjoy listening to both podcasts work through their thoughts so even if I don’t enjoy a game, I still have a reward in the form of somewhere between an hour and a half and four hours of content. That’s so worth it! Maybe I should to learn to “just enjoy things” but that simply isn’t the person I am. I don’t have a ton of people I can have conversations about games with, a proper back and forth, so at least listening to those conversations is rewarding.

Luckily, I mostly liked Alan Wake, a proper 7/10. Learned to enjoy combat conceptionally but not spread across ten hour. Enjoyed the presentation of the story even if it was over the top in sometimes not endearing ways. It is a game with a number of flaws but flaws that exist because the game is different. I am the person that will always take the flawed yet unique thing over a Doom (2016) aka A Perfect FPS (that might not be true but it does its thing beyond well). For some, Wake won’t be weird enough, you won’t confuse it with an art game. It cribs from a lot of other media whether it be Twilight Zone, Twin Peaks , or books with meta narrative structures. The combat is still a third person action game, it gives you a new verb or two to play around with though the end goal is still to blast some enemy away with a gun. I’m not trying to say this game is perception changing on what a game is. Alan Wake brought a few more tools to the toolbox, the toolbox being third person action/horror games.

Not entirely sure how to structure this post so going to start talking about the combat. You use a flashlight to wear down the shields of the “taken” only after the shields are down can you damage these enemies. You can also use a focused flashlight move that will make your battery go down. Been kept up at night wondering what the heck the logic behind that is. Doesn’t matter really. Eventually you do get other light sources in addition to the constant flashlight such as flares, flare guns, and flash bangs. The latter two being more or less insta-kills that require zero additional gun fire. The flare usually coming more in handy for crowd control. That’s what makes it work for me most of the time, instead of blasting your way throwing a group of enemies with a shotgun, you need to use whatever light sources at your disposal to do crowd control. I found it fairly easy to get ganged up on if I wasn’t using a flare or walking backwards out of a fight. To be clear, running backward is not a guaranteed winning strategy. Between Taken popping up from all directions, because they don’t need to follow the rules of having a physical body, and some folks being able to toss projectiles with frustrating accuracy prevents it working a good 85% of the time. That never felt great. When I did have all the tools at my disposal, it was great playing a real weird version of Root Beer Tapper, use whatever you could to make sure no one got too close. The whole combat system isn’t great but making me work through a different progression than most third person action games was appreciated. The variety of enemies is probably the biggest downfall of the whole system though. You have a couple of different types of basic Taken, a couple of Big Boi Taken, some vehicles, and the occasional possessed objects. Some enemies weren’t as affected by the typical one-shot weapons, but none of the encounters felt all that different. I used some different resources but my strategy didn’t change. Was a bummer. Think with some greater variety things would have really shined.

Okay, combat done, now let me see how to jam in story and structure all here. I’m told that these sorts of “you are IN the story” stories aren’t uncommon. Being told this by people who miss the point that I want to play that story, less read that story. It doesn’t always hit, and frankly I am grading on a curve simply because it is doing it even if not particularly well. The voice of Alan Wake is so cheesy. The way he talks and I guess writes is so funny to me…though with the lights low, I was totally invested. This was trope thriller I could sink my teeth into. The Night Springs episodes you would stumble across weren’t that good, the radio bites forcing you to stand still for a couple minutes wasn’t great, but they added a layer of atmosphere which if it wasn’t there would have been sorely missed. Seems like this is Alan Wake in a nutshell. They had ideas, ideas I think are super cool, though when it comes to implementing them, seems like it is several individual groups that added random spurts of concepts that they thought would add depth to this world. Seemed like integrating those ideas into the game was an afterthought.

Can’t do this anymore. I am rambling. I have no “thesis” for Alan Wake truly. It made me want to play Control real bad though. If they are able to integrate all the nuggets into something that feels like a whole thing, I could see falling in love with that. Plus there is flying. Flying seems cool.

[Concrete]

BTB #22: It Is Surging Time

See, really liked writing the Alan Wake post. It had all my thoughts in one central place. The whole of my experience was essentially captured there, a vague by final statement on the game for me. So starting a game that I haven’t touched in probably six months, put another five hours in and be nowhere close to finishing, wasn’t sure if I would hold off. Keep the fingers off the keyboard. But that isn’t what this thread really is for me. It is as close to a stream of consciousness that I’m willing to get outside of Twitter. Hopefully I plop down some nugs in these posts that I can dwell on later and go “Ah, yes, Axiom Verge do be eatin’ straight doodoo”.

SEGWAY SEGWAY SEGWAY

You know what, The Surge does remind me a tad of Axiom Verge. Both games manage to feel devoid of a clear-cut path to your objective despite them making it clear that wherever you are supposed to end up, there is a Big Bad ready blast you into dust. That Big Bad will be the only signifier that you chose the “correct” path.

That is not completely fair as the opening of the game feels rather straight forward. There are some branching paths here and there but it feels very Souls for the most part. Trying to unlock shortcuts back to the main paths so you can quickly find your way to the boss. The actual “shortcut” to the boss is real too windy but whatever. The boss…I died about half a dozen before I hit the YouTube and figured out the “trick”. I am all for gimmick bosses but this is ridiculous. I didn’t realize how good From was at this given so many of their bosses are straight forward run you into the ground types. They make the visual language of their gimmick bosses apparent. You know what to do you just need to figure out how to do it. With this first boss, no not the case, I did a bunch of different things knew that what I was doing should lead to a thing but there wasn’t a thing to lead to. Dang, hate it. I beat them though.

It is the second level that gives big Axiom Verge energy. It is a straight line for two seconds and then instantly have little branches. Those branches might be guarded by super hard enemies that aggro two enemies despite you shooting one only to find out they were guarding a door you can’t access. C’mon now. Then a short jaunt later it is tangled wires. There are dead ends all over asking you to be level 60+, doors you can’t access because you don’t have a key and there is no way to figure out if this door is important right now. Is this the door that makes the story go brrr or is this supposed to be a dead end? If there was one dead end, sure, but there is ten. Two of those dead-ends turn into the other end of a shortcut. There are huge pieces of this level I believe I never explored. I say believe because since I didn’t explore the path, I don’t know if it is a dead end or opens further. The whole layout doesn’t make sense. Maybe if you worked here it doesn’t but when I’m trying to destroy a giant spinning top, I don’t have top to this. It somehow gets worse cause now I don’t know if they tried sneaking in “hard enemies as dead ends”. That’s a From strategy…is that a Deck 13 strat? WHO KNOWS!

I played a couple other things things the past week or two. Played Remnant: From the Ashes last night…and yeah, still good. Mixes an arcade style 3rd person shooter with Souls. It is one of the few co-op games that my brother and I play. Too many games are either competitive or are about having a WILD AND WACKY TIME. RE5 despite being problematic now looking at it with older eyes, it accomplished exactly what we wanted out of an experience. Part of that is that it was contained. One of us wasn’t going to play without the other and outlevel them or whatever. That happened with WoW and Destiny for us. He got super into it and since I couldn’t keep up, I tapped. If you have recommendations of this types of experiences, let me know plz.

Also, played Dauntless again this morning. New season, big update, I think I’m back in baby.

[Concrete]

BTB #23: Twitch Prime Hurt My Brain

Okay, so last bit I was talking about The Surge…and well I dropped it. I got to Big SISTER 1/3 and after almost defeating them my first go I never got particularly close after. I did the thing where I figured I was either doing something completely wrong or I had the right strategy and just wasn’t nailing it. The answer was I was doing it wrong but it didn’t particularly matter as everything I would go on to read suggested it was a truly miserable boss fight. Filled with one shot kills and multiple phases that take way too long when you add them together. It was a shame. It was a game I was enjoying. It felt like Deck 13 understood how they wanted to make their game different from the From games. I don’t know if they were always successful, but I at least felt like their was some sort of ethos to the strategy. I’ll probably watch a Let’s Play at some point to get an idea of how this game ends. For some reason I have a level of investement on how this whole thing wraps up. Plus there is a non-zero chance this leads me to buying The Surge 2 like the monster I am. Maybe after I watch a let’s play, seeing if they do anything wild and wacky mechanically, I can do a proper final write-up.

I have moved on though. Recently heard that WOFF would be doing an episode on Devil May Cry a game I had only watched my brother play. Weirdly, Twitch Prime had given the first game in the HD Collection as a freebie one month. Totally understand if you don’t want to support anything Amazon. We use it a lot for my wife’s vegan backing business and selfishly the Amazon Prime video catalog is a good type of wild. Twitch Prime gives you a whole bunch of free extras on games I don’t play, and a couple I do. Actually, no, let’s get into it. Prime Video sucks. Their UI someone makes me madder at a TRILLION dollar company beyond existing. If you are going to have the most resources on earth, can I at least access all seasons of a TV show or not have different versions of the film broken out through the service? What the heck?! And to think before this year it was somehow worse. Amazon Games being a disaster of an investment doesn’t come as a surprise when Amazon doesn’t seem to know what people want outside of “free shipping, fast” and “undercutting much smaller businesses by producing products at a fraction of the cost because it has infinite consumer data”. Sorry, the conversation itself is disgusting, I’ll move on.

Twitch Prime as a service is something no one has been able to explain to me. I ask “Why do they even give out free games?” and some folks say “To keep people subscribed” and my apologies but that’s a half baked response. They provide games in a launcher that’s only use is to play these free games. At some point was there a greater intention to sell games? Seems like it potentially could have been an Epic strategy of “Well you have so many games here, you might as well buy games here as well” but no, that’s not what’s happening! If it was giong to happen it would have been a long time ago. And because that isn’t what happened it isn’t a launcher that is going to grow. There is no point. So now I have 126 games from Twitch including System Shock 2, Ape Out (came out well before it did on Epic for free), Enter the Gungeon, Dream Daddy, Majesty Collection, Reus, Pikuniku, and MORE! The games don’t even make sense half the time. They just gave a co-op only game with 5 Steam reviews for free. WHAT IS THE SELECTION PROCESS?! It is a befuddling service that let me play DMC and will also likely be playing Tales From the Borderlands on in the not too distant future.

Also, I continue to play an amount of Dauntless, honestly, I average a hunt per day which gives me a good jolt of endorphins.

[Concrete]

BTB #24: I SHOULD HAVE BEEN THE ONE TO FILL YOUR DANK SOUL WITH LIGHT!!!

Devil May Cry is an endlessly charming game that I feel ages so well because it is dumb as shit.

Wanted to do a full on write-up of what makes this game Cool. The gameplay is mostly me smashing the same button over and over or figuring out that the Grenade Launcher can more or less clean house at will. There wasn’t some immense reward for being “stylish”. The game is simple. So simple. I would only die because I stink at games and thought “Nah, I’m going to meet this on its term” and then promptly get spiked by a tiger. Why try when not trying was the best path forward?

The gameplay might have been repetitive but at least I could fly as a demon every so often which rocked. Other than that though the game captures the B-movie VIBE much better than any game that tries capturing that magic. I don’t know if it was low-budget but the plot/script is bad earnestly without trying to be too serious. That’s the rub on these types of things, when you go out of your way to be “bad”, it stinks, toss in the bin. When you try and be good but come up way short, that stinks too. DMC says “Hey, we are trying but also we don’t know, love me a little bit you know?”

Other than this, the game looks how I remember it looking. A phrase that is tossed to stuff that very much does NOT look how I imagined it looking when I played it, like, the Spyro remake looks really freakin’ good and even if I remember it a little crisper, my brain hasn’t melted where I thought it looked that beautiful. DMC does the wonderful thing though where the non-in-engine cutscenes have not been upgraded so you get those sons of guns in all their fuzzy beauty. Yum yum.

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Took me awhile to draft this up for no REAL reason. Been busy but wanted to type something up for DMC. Since beating the game I have also beaten Spec-Ops and did an entire Dauntless Hunt Pass for the first time. Won’t have too many thoughts on Spec-Ops as that is a crit magnet so will just be providing links to stuff that I really enjoyed that covered it. Started playing Carrion as well which I am very much into and will give thoughts in a post soon. Until then, happy to now be able to have finished multiple games this year, something I am very bad at which this thread shows, but also bail on some games after giving them an honest to goodness shot.

[Concrete]

BTB #25: Ah, the Spec-Ops Link One

I almost forgot that I said I would post about Spec-Ops: The Line in my last post. Though, again, it isn’t a game I felt like I could bring anything new to. Or I guess, more importantly, I didn’t think I could bring anything to that hadn’t been said multiple times, multitudes better than I could.

Errant Signal

Errant Signal - Spec Ops: The Line

I’m a Patreon of the channel and I enjoy a lot of what they put out so I’m sort of biased I guess, but I think this video helped contextualize the game and the narrative to me. I have read, watched and listened to plenty about this game where they point to the game is a commentary on the modern action/war game like COD and the like. That’s the point, so great. Being able to include the footage, call out examples helps drive it home in a way that I don’t think I get often through other channels or content.

Watch Out For Fireballs
https://overcast.fm/itunes464108542/watch-out-for-fireballs
Again, another Patreon I’m subbed to. The podcast takes place in 2019 so it is a more modern perspective on the game. What sticks out here is how the hosts dig into the details. They clearly have an appreciation for the game and focus on how the game elevates its ideas. Lots of media has ideas, but how they go beyond SAYING it out loud is important. They also point out the sheer oddity of the path you take and how games use it so often “If it has a name, it must be important”.

the Brindle Brothers

Relax, don't do it: pulling the trigger in Spec Ops: The Line

I actually didn’t notice this until after digging it up on Critical Distance, and got to say it cuts to the heart of what makes Spec-Ops: The Line tick. The little choice between shooting and waiting. To have the issue forced. To shoot into a crowd or take a warning shot. I don’t know if it is complicated or as elegant as the piece dictates, definitely getting into heavier real-world implications, but the feeling like you have ANY sort of say helps define the game.

Critical Distance

Spec Ops: The Line

This one is a bit cheating as it is a much stronger grouping of pieces than I could pull myself (thanks for the Brindle Brothers one). But…that kind of aligns with most of the game. I can’t say anything profound that hasn’t already been said and echo’d. I can’t even compile these pieces of content around the game without having the sense of simply pulling from the work done by others.

I don’t get to offer much so I’ll offer the bare minimum. At probably less than five hours, the game gives you a lot to chew on. The gameplay is fun enough which feels like a weird thing to say given the context but come for what else this tries to offer. With the Last of Us II’s message getting really out there, feels like this provides a good counterbalance of how to make the “man is bad” genre work.

[Concrete]

BTB #26: Wandering a Bit Too Far From the Path

My goal originally with this thread was to give my quick-ish thoughts on games that I’ve beat that would not be able to fit into a tweet or two. I wanted a place where I could ramble, and more than anything solidify my thoughts. Keep writing hoping I could run into a coherent point. Sometimes that worked sometimes it hasn’t across 25 entries prior. Whether it “works” isn’t all that important to me.

But I haven’t wrote anything since over a month ago. And that post was really me posting links to other criticism. Spec-Ops is a game I liked but definitely felt after all the videos, podcasts, written pieces, I had nothing else left. Could have probably found an angle. If I have to work for it, probably not worth it. I’m not talented, I’m not getting paid, if most my thoughts are covered elsewhere, why try and squeeze my brain? Problem was between that and the general WORLD momentum isn’t exactly on my side. I want to get back to it. My entire brain is in a fog and this feels like the only way for me to feel like there is a chance I can get out of that. So this entry is going to be more rapid…so let’s go:

Dead Space

A game I thought I knew what to expect and very much didn’t. Trying to better understand where I got the impression this game was one that hinged on this surprisingly deep story. Was I confusing this with another game? This story isn’t BAD, would describe it as real, real corny. I can live with corny especially in a sci-fi horror. Almost typed “in some ways I would consider that a plus” and then realized that isn’t a take I actually believe. Would have definitely been absolutely delighted by a richer, fuller story that didn’t have a twist that was so blatant I almost convinced myself that the “twist” was a decoy from the ACTUAL twist. It was not. Funnily enough, coming in I thought I had spoiled the ending for myself years ago and despite my best efforts could not forget. The twist did not end up being your character being a zombie/ghost/machine that is a different game.

The game doesn’t deliver the same thrill of a horror movie, Dead Space brings a constant pressure. At no point does the game feel like not having an alien chasing you is an option. Every door is a 50% chance of coming face to face with an enemy. Now, I can see how that might be frustrating or how that constant presence doesn’t let any real fear sink in. If a bad outcome is as likely as a good one, you are prepared. No chance of surprise, no chance of that sense of dread sinking in. I think that’s fine. The game isn’t trying to be true horror, it just wants to get your heartbeat going for probably way too long. I haven’t played too many of those games recently that weren’t afraid to keep the foot on the gas and keep you on your toes. The whole premise of the combat is that you don’t want to blast enemies until they go down but take them down limb by limb. That leads to aiming at really specific points on the enemies which maybe doesn’t correspond to my normal muscle memory in these shooty games. Between that and a lack of ammo, I was regularly switching weapons because I didn’t have ammo for the weapons I preferred, rarely did fights seem trivial. No dread, but those constant enemies didn’t feel thoughtless in the face of stressing you out with running low on ammo in potentially key situations. There are ways to prevent those situations, like not buying as many guns so that all ammo drops filter to a few select guns, and there are shops to buy ammo. The game as a whole might play how I expected or maybe even how I wanted, but I felt more than fine with how Dead Space pulled off a heart rate raising experience.

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After Dead Space I did a lot of dabbling. Couldn’t quite figure out what my next step should be. After playing Devil May Cry, Spec-Ops: The Line, Alan Wake, and then Dead Space so I felt like I had been playing in the same color pallet despite all of them being entirely different experiences. I felt overwhelmed by shades of gray and brown. Probably not entirely fair to any of those games but after that run I needed a jolt. Something that didn’t feel like I was walking around in these cold worlds. So, for some odd reason, I decided to hop back into a game I almost entirely swore off, a game that I deemed the combat of to be irredeemable trash.

Witcher 2

On one hand, I don’t want to shortchange how much I ended up loving this game. Literally, I have never done a 180 on a game quite like this. I don’t feel like I have hours and hours to write about this game right now. That’s what I think made this game feel so special to me though, I am a couple of weeks removed from beating it and thoughts are still simmering. I am tickled by some of the things it did. This 180 happened with my opinion of the combat going from irredeemable trash to mostly trash. Part of my acceptance comes from the Netflix series which I thought was astonishing bit of fantasy TV. I wanted to be back in that world so bad, I felt like I was missing out more than ever. No, I didn’t hop into the beloved Witcher 3, I wanted to see the story unfold more, and besides not having the original game, it looked like it was more dated than I would probably be able to handle.

Alright, let’s highlight a couple of quick things that brought me back in:

• Beautiful, living world
• Big fantasy story with political intrigue
• Pacing/Structure

I think 1&2 are tied together and 2&3 are tied together. The story is the glue that keeps things all together. Not going to get too in the weeds here but they make a dozen or so semi-important characters rather manageable. I think a TV series like Game of Thrones despite how it sputtered the more it went, made an increasing number of folks to keep track of, and how they interacted with one another, completely understandable. I think Witcher 2 manages a similar feat as across the three chapters where you need to be aware of folks that aren’t on screen and how they might play into your current predicaments. I don’t think the story is award-winning, there was nothing that got me emotionally invested beyond wanting to see where things went. There isn’t anyone I particularly wanted dead, wanted alive, or a romance I wanted to see fulfilled. With most stories I had been playing ranging from bad, to corny, to subversive, it was good to play something more straightforward. A perfect story for me right at this moment.

The game is split between three chapters which put you in three separate locales. The first two are rather sizeable giving you plenty of opportunities for sidequests and some exploration. What’s important though is that size doesn’t make things feel empty. Every inch of these maps feels like it has character. You feel the structure of the communities that are inhabiting. The story reinforces this but if there wasn’t a single sidequest, you could understand how each development was put together and likely why it was put together like that. Flotsam instantly became one of my favorite areas in a game. This harbor town is filled with people, shops, and a racist tyrant who rules over this town the kingdoms have forgotten. There is a defined “enemy zone” which, yes, that’s how it should be, which bleeds out from the outskirts that the leader of has pushed out the poor and elves to. Seeing different enemy types interact caught me off guard. Sure, it is two differing aggressive units aggroing each other. It reads like two AI’s going at it…but it works for me still? It doesn’t create an illusion necessarily. It does give the world outside the town(s) more personality. Adds a layer of unexpectedness. At least the world isn’t only going after you.

QUICK QUICK QUICK, alright let’s touch on pacing. I’m about to give away the whole unique bit of this game, which I don’t know if it is even a spoiler, but given that it is hugely important when talking about pacing and structure, stop reading if you want to know even less about the game. Depending on who you decide to follow at the end of Chapter 1, Chapter 2 is completely different. Now, I don’t know how that affects Chapter 3 necessarily but I know the Chapter 2 I played isn’t going to be the same as others, and that’s EXTREMELY good stuff. The gull of CD Projekt Red to create hours of content that folks are unlikely to see is something else. We talk so much about how developers don’t want you to miss a thing (Aerosmith style) and put breadcrumbs down to lead you to side-quests they clearly put time into. These folks just outright said “Alright, so you 100% won’t see everything and not just that, your entire perspective of how things unfold will be altered”. That isn’t a thing that happens! I knew it was coming and I still was thrilled by the dang thing. Heck, knowing that I was making a choice with consequence made it that much better. In addition to that complete switch-up, the game is a three chapter story. Each Chapter felt progressively shorter which for me meant I never ran out of steam. Plus they filled each chapter to the brim with story. Maybe they could have spread the later chapters out a bit more, I am so glad they didn’t. Never felt like I was grinding my way to the next story beat. I don’t know if I’ll ever go back to the game to reply the second chapter but at the very least the framework of the game doesn’t scare me off one bit.

Despite these three BEST IN CLASS components, the combat still does stink, feeling clunky and unfair at times. I would never ever tell someone “just push through the combat”. I mean, that’s sort of what I did but I also decided that I practically needed to buy-in. For me though, I’m so glad I did.

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That’s it for now. Okay, I guess it was only two games. For some reason I thought I did more. Right now I am dabbling in Crusader Kings 3. I feel like I’m inching closer to writing something on that since I have fallen in love and think I can talk a bit more about why SPOILER: will tie into my TEW post.

Not entirely sure what narrative/definitive endpoint game I want to boot up next. Trying to figure out the tone I am looking for and the size of game I am looking for. Almost went straight to The Witcher 3 but thinking I could use maybe a few shorter experiences before then. Definitely some shorter ones before going into a 50+ hour adventure. Well, until I figure that out, thanks for maybe reading!