#although i think my pc game is like at the second mission or something

[todayimgonnaplay]

Today I'm Gonna Play: No More Heroes (PC)

I've heard this series get a lot of praise and people pleading to play it. I have vague memories of seeing the cover art but only really got the name in my head after NMH3 released. I was curious to know what it was all about, so I've jumped into the first one.

For the pros, the art direction is pretty great, I'm always a sucker for anything cel-shaded, it helps preserve a sense of style even when the game has aged. The character designs are a highlight for me. Everyone has unique silhouettes and personalities that make them memorable. The story and thematics are straightforward but very meta, and although at times I felt it was grating (such as the crude humour), I like that it didn't take itself seriously and simply exists to have a fun time. Travis is quite a degenerate, but I like having to see flawed protagonists at times, which makes me root for him.

The cons however, is the overall gameplay loop being repetitive. Majority of the progression requires you to grind for money by doing a number of part-time jobs or missions disguised as minigames in an open world, which are fun the first time! But not so much when you have to do them repeatedly. I've read that the developer intended it to be this way in order to replicate the mundane nature of working jobs, which is an interesting choice. I think trying to replicate something monotonous in real-life isn't necessarily a bad thing, but the lucky thing about games is that it tends to offer shortcuts (or cheats for games like The Sims or Grand Theft Auto) that make ''life'' in the game easier. Implementing cheat codes could be one way of going at it, which could be fitting for a game that is very GTA-esque in terms of the 3D classic era. Although this wouldn't really be possible as this was initially released for the Wii (although it'd be interesting to know how cheat codes could be implemented, if there aren't any other games out there), it could be an addition for other consoles/PC ports. The other alternative is to have menus and triggers instead. Grinding should be rewarding, but also convenient. By having a retry button after the mission (by standing at the entrance of the mission area), or being able to access past missions from the pause menu would allows the player to easily get back rather than having to go back and forth to start the mission and actually do it. Fortunately, many modern games have this implementation already. Another issue in the repetitiveness is also the level design, and some aspects of combat. For the former, there is not much of variety in the layout, often feeling like I'm running in a straight corridor (and one level is ACTUALLY a very very long, straight corridor). It felt frustrating and draining that in order to make it bearable, I had to change my perspective and not treat the game like other hack and slash games I've played, but rather like 2D beat em' ups that happens to be in a 3D environment and camera. If this was the intention, then it makes more sense. As for the latter, the combat has some variety and some occassional fun gimmicks with wacky phrases, but I felt there was little to no use of different tactics when it came to boss fights. Most of the time, I felt I just had to block, evade/counterattack and then mash attack until I find an opportunity to stun or slow down time to mash some more, while enemies only show a few seconds of vulnerability. Only once was there some variety which was trying to press a button to shoot back obstacles like a batter in a baseball game. It also didn't help that the camera was often clunky throughout the game. Both aspects also felt very dragged out and padded for the sake of extending game time. But regardless, the boss fights are the most entertaining part of the gameplay as they're also intertwined with the story. I've also heard praise about the game's soundtrack but...in my experience I could barely even hear the background music and whenever I did, not much stood out to me. I may have to listen to it separately in my own time.

The game is really charming, and I think should be experienced for its strengths. But it gets heavily bogged down by its weaknesses. I heard that NMH2 has a lot of improvements however, so I'm still willing to give this series another chance.

#nmh #nmh1 #no more heroes #no more heroes 1 #game analysis

[cappurrccino]

I downloaded Warframe for PC. Now what?

Now you murder space capitalists with your weapon of choice!

(Which frame did you start/are you starting with? O:)

#asks #warframe #i would have a more detailed answer but asldkfjds i don't remember the beginning of the game #although i think my pc game is like at the second mission or something #i did not get very far #therealbadasshere

[felassan]

The Hero’s Journey to the West

This post is a mix of meta, speculation/conjecture and headcanon.

I don’t think the Hero of Ferelden is ever coming back as a PC or NPC beyond mentions/rumors and Codex entries/letters, but their quest to find a cure for the Calling fascinates me. It always makes me think about the Chinese novel by Wu Cheng’en. 

We know that they came back from their trip. We don’t know if they succeeded or not, but since the romanced Leliana epilogues are fairly happy in tone, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to headcanon that they did - at least, in terms of ridding themselves of the Taint. I feel like whether they succeeded in finding a way to allow all Wardens to escape the Calling would be something up in the air, like, kept-back at the moment by the devs; because surely such a revelation would rocket through the Warden order and in a future title might be heard about or alluded to in-game, crop up in a Codex somewhere, color our future interactions with Warden characters on the Wardens’ end, or potentially influence future storybeats relating to the Wardens. (It would be a rather major thing.) In dialogue Morrigan says that if the HoF is successful, it will mean a long life for him/her/them, and perhaps even a long life for all Wardens.

On the ‘when’: Although the Hero was gone by the time Divine Justinia died (per romanced Leliana dialogue), they didn’t leave straightaway after the events of Awakening and Witch Hunt (Heroes who fathered Kieran had not yet met their son at the time of WH), since in DA2 Hawke meets King Alistair and Queen Warden was home at court, and in DAI romanced Morrigan says her partner helped raise Kieran for a time before events transpired to take him elsewhere (which is a reference to his journey).

On the ‘who’: In the ancient novel Journey to the West, the monk Tang Sanzang has powerful disciples who help and protect him on his journey: Sha Wujing, Zhu Bajie and Sun Wukong. In my head there’s a fun parallel here to DA’s four-man parties, and how the HoF is accompanied by - for example - Ariane, Finn and Dog during the episodic DLCs like Witch Hunt. This is purely headcanon, but I always liked to think that some of the Awakening companions that we never heard from again (so not Anders, Justice or Nate) and who in some epilogues mysteriously disappear, accompanied them on the quest for the cure; Velanna, Sigrun, possibly Oghren. (And Dog, of course - Dog in my head never left the Hero’s side after DAO, the notion presented in the games that he sometimes did is odd to me. Why would he, lol?) These characters could easily have a vested interest in wanting to rid themselves of the Taint. And obviously Zevran went with them, if romanced.

There’s plenty of material on which to base speculation about how a cure for the Calling might come about or be obtained, what the cure might involve. You have the case of Fiona, there’s Avernus’ research, there are instances where the Taint was drawn out of living things as with Isseya’s clutch of griffon eggs, the Architect doesn’t appear to be subject to the Call of the old gods and freed some darkspawn from it too, etc. I’m more interested atm in where the HoF went.

Leliana tells us the Warden went "far to the west, to lands that have never known the Blight”. Their search took them out of the area in which Corypheus was operating, and thus beyond the reach of the false Calling that affected other Wardens. During the timespan of base-game DAI, they were still in geographical regions which were reachable in such a way as to allow messages from Leliana’s agents to get to them after Leliana/Morrigan/etc gives the Inquisitor the means to contact them, and for letters from the Hero to be sent back in return. (That could be something essentially handwaved on the part of the devs in order to allow for the mechanic of hearing from the HoF in DAI, though.) Here I’m always reminded of the men of the Night’s Watch taking caged ravens with them in their expeditions beyond the Wall, so that the birds can carry messages back to the manned outposts. I look at the map of Thedas and wonder. Where might they have gone? Where was the western-most outpost of the Inquisition?

West of Ferelden takes you into Orlais, where the effects of Corypheus’ operations were felt. The Hero might naturally have taken the Imperial Highway and passed through settlements like Halamshiral, Lydes, Verchiel, Montsimmard and Val Firmin en-route. Such a route makes logical sense both in terms of convenient travels and the fact that in a war table mission, Leliana’s agents report “scattered references of [the Hero] passing through the area” (said area is not specified, but it makes sense that the Hero would have at times passed through inhabited places, since at times they were sighted). It should be noted however that when this war table mission is undertaken, the card ends up ‘played’ on the western shores of Lake Calenhad. Still, unless you took ship through the Waking Sea, most likely any journey west from Ferelden would have passed through or near that part of the country anyways, due to the sheer size of the lake, the highway following its banks and the fact that Gherlen’s Pass is the only safe route through which to cross the Frostback Mountains, at least in terms of year-round travel.

Anyway, in the western reaches of Orlais is the Western Approach. The Approach was the site of a major battle during the Second Blight - its desolate sands and barren badlands are definitely not lands which “have never known Blight”. And we know from a war table mission that the mines and tunnels of the Gamordan Peaks are infested with darkspawn, that the large darkspawn host that appeared at Val Gamord came from the mountains. Here is where it gets interesting. Were the environs of the Sulfur Lakes, Malcellin Geysers and the Sea of Ash always this way, as in this is the naturally-occurring geological/geothermal profile of the area (volcanic), or are they so wretched because like the nearby Western Approach, the land was corrupted beyond recovery during a Blight? I imagine that the Hero would have largely avoided these areas and the Approach due to this (inhospitable travelling terrain + Blight-touched/probably Blight-touched), and instead at this point struck out more north-westerly for a time.

Doing so would bring someone through or around the Nahashin Marshes. Above we can see the location of Serault in relation to the Approach and the Marshes. There is a crossing point in the Nahashin Marshes used by a merchant in The Last Court, who travelled from Val Chevin through Montfort and Ghislain, before going across the Marshes to get to Serault. Given this and the fact that they’d likely be steering away from the Approach, I can see the Hero following the Highway all the way to Ghislain and then crossing the Marshes on their way to Serault, obviously without going to Val Chevin, which would amount to backtracking.

What then of Serault, the mysterious marquisate located in the far west of Orlais? It’s Orlais’ western-most holding, and per a Codex entry as far west as one can still call civilized. I certainly headcanon that the Hero passed through here before forging further into wilds and lands unknown - here Serault Town has a Tolkienesque “The Last Homely House” feel to it, perched on the edge of it all:

This is the edge of the world. Beyond Serault Town is the Last River, and beyond the river, villages, charcoal-burners, the wilderness.

Per war table missions, Inquisition agents also travel to Serault during the time-frame of base-game DAI - here we have what is likely to be one of or the last place[s] where the Hero could have picked up messages from the Inquisition before ‘jumping off’ into the unknown. Laysh is another possibility, route-dependent (see below).

Serault is a strange place, where “unlikely” things happen. Perchance, was there useful knowledge to be found here? Morrigan herself dwelt here for a time, researching at the Glassworks and working to repair an eluvian. It’s implied she does this regardless of whether the Marquis allows her to or not. Notably, it is Morrigan “who found the lead[s] the Hero now follows in the western lands”. This was probably the “gift” Morrigan gives the Hero in Witch Hunt. She leaves them the stolen Dalish book Ariane was seeking to get back, and "something [else that the Hero] will find of great interest”. (She doesn’t give the something-else gift if he goes with her, but if he goes with her she’d just tell him in-person about what she’d found, so it stacks regardless). That said, when it’s a romanced Warden Alistair worldstate it sounds like he and the Hero found the lead on their own. I enjoy the leads being Morrigan’s gift though as an idea, and as a way of filling in what the heck the gift was.

Courtier’s children in Serault play at “Wardens and Darkspawn”, implying that Serault has either once been touched by Blight or else that tales of Blight and darkspawn and Warden heroics have reached the settlement. “Roads under the earth” (how very Deep Road-esque) are implied to stretch from Seraultine lands to an emergence somewhere in the Vimmark Mountains, there’s a bereskarn in the nearby woods and at one point the Marquis imagines the “tang of Blights” when a bitter wind blows from the north. I therefore find it unlikely that Seraultine surrounds have never been touched by Blight. Suspect the Hero ventured farther still, through the Applewoods - both the tamer Greenwood and the sinister Deepwoods, into the depths of the Tirashan. I’m obsessed with the Tirashan and its enigmatic denizens. What things they must know... mysterious, forgotten things. Are these elves ancient elves? To whom are they calling? These elves seem to guard their lands very fiercely, so it’s not a crazy idea that if the Hero entered the Tirashan they encountered some. Would an elven Hero have had a smoother initial interaction with them? It’s also not a crazy idea that the Tirashan elves might have knowledge that would have proven useful in the Hero’s quest, given the hints that they call to powers we possibly haven’t yet encountered. Their red vallaslin and apparent propensity for sacrificing people make me think of blood magic, and blood magic has practical uses in combatting Taint (Isseya’s spell on the griffon eggs, Avernus the blood mage, the Dark Ritual which was blood magic-based and ultimately caused the removal of Taint from Urthemiel’s soul, etc).

Say the Hero journeyed farther still. Over/through or under the southern Hunterhorn mountains to the forest or continuing forest on the other side (see the map of Thedas with expanded edges given to us in TN), which is inhabited by who knows what. Here the “Beyond Thedas” sections in WoT are of interest:

For many ages, the world that lies beyond Thedas has been largely unknown to us. Rumors and legends exist, tales of hardy sea captains crossing the ocean in search of treasure or ill-fated forays into the wilds, but they have always been buried under hearsay. Any serious attempts at exploration have been foiled by either the devastation of the Blights or the discouragement of waters plagued by both pirates and Qunari dreadnoughts.

The Hero surely would have researched such scattered references to the ill-fated forays, and sifted through hearsay, as 'homework’ before setting off on their trip. Going deep into the wild western wood is tantalizing in a frontier kind of way, but we can’t ignore the following entry in WoT, which I think was included in this manner for a reason.

Say instead the Hero travelled through the Hunterhorns and the Anderfels, maybe with a detour to nearby Weisshaupt to report in, confer with the First Warden and check the archives in its extensive library in case anything in there could prove useful in their quest, much like the recruit Valya did during her own investigation. The Anderfels are super Blight-blasted, so they would not have stopped there. In terms of travels in this area, I think it’s likely they would have joined a caravan being led by the Green Men order through the Wandering Hills to the distant port of Laysh.

The Voshai are yet another mysterious, unknown culture, and have materials and items that are completely unknown in Thedas proper among their wares. They come from a far-flung place and seem to Know Things. The status of dwarves in their society and their interest in lyrium is interesting, given the link both dwarves and lyrium have to underground places and the Blight. Can the reports of the recent return of the Voshai vessels to Thedas be a coincidence? I don’t think so, in the context of things discussed in this post. What powers and potentials are to be found among the wares of the Voshai that these Tevinter merchants were so keen to mount several expeditions into the wild unknown in search of them, even after several voyages never returned? I think the Hero probably took ship at Laysh (either they managed to secure passage on a docked Voshai ship, or there was an expedition vessel the Hero chartered), and went across the Volca Sea to the lands of the Voshai. Here they could have found a cure, and then a Voshai ship to then take them back to the known Thedosian continent.

A final few notes: You have to wonder, the lands which are untouched by Blight, why is that? Is it environmental - natural barriers or environmental conditions inhospitable to darkspawn? Is it magical protection? Are there limits to the darkspawn/Blight’s realm of influence, and if so, why, and how do these limits work? Does the fabled cataclysm in the lands of the Voshai have anything to do with a Blight (you could definitely describe a Blight as a cataclysm, for one thing)? And why on the new map with expanded edges from TN, along all the borders/expanded space, despite the fact that in WoT the “Beyond Thedas” stuff discusses all directions - why on the TN map is there only one place at the edges with an arrow pointing off into the unknown realms? Granted, it’s not the west Tirashan nor is it the north-westerly Volca Sea, but it is notable and worth mentioning. What lies south-west in the Sundered Sea, and why is it marked like this?

#dragon age 4 #the dread wolf rises #dragon age #bioware #tevinter nights #morrigan #alistair theirin #Tevinter nights spoilers #Tevinter nights spoiler #Glynn Mahariel #queen of my heart #mj meta #fav warden #video games #spoilers #spoiler #LeQuinn de Serault

[satoshi-mochida]

Rabbit & Bear Studios, a Tokyo-based studio formed by key creators of the Suikoden series, has announced Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes, an ambitious new RPG planned for release in fall 2022. A Kickstarter campaign seeking $500,000 USD in funding for a PC release—with a single stretch goal to unlock PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, and Switch versions (or next-gen Switch, if one is available)—will run from July 27 at 9:00 a.m. PT / 12:00 p.m. ET to August 28. A trailer will also debut when the campaign launches.

Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes is led by Suikoden I and II veteran scenario writer Yoshitaka Murayama, alongside series veterans Junko Kawano, Osamu Komuta, and Junichi Murakami. The project marks the first time these four creators have worked on a game together, as well as the first time Murayama and Kawano have collaborated in 25 years.

“The first thing we decided when our members came together was, ‘It’s about time we made a really interesting game that we ourselves want to make,'” project lead Murayama said in a press release. “We chose Kickstarter in order to make an interesting game with the players in mind, hold the rights to the planning, world, and story of the game, all while keeping the fun of the project. Please lend us your support in this new challenge of ours! We promise to create something that heeds the call of your voices.”

Speaking to Gematsu, Murayama shared more information on the game’s similarities to Suikoden and what elements of the series will carry over.

“Eiyuden Chronicle is about war, or more importantly, the intention and feelings of the 100 heroes who fight that war from a variety of perspectives and for a variety of different reasons,” Murayama told Gematsu. “And of course the drama that can only occur when a group of different people from different walks of life come together and must wage a war of life and death.”

Murayama continued, “And the many characters that participate in this war aren’t just pawns added in as ‘war fodder,’ they have a living breathing soul and begrudgingly must fight to protect the things they believe in. Additionally, there are non-combat specialists, researchers, and other ‘heroes’ on the periphery that can help win battles or lose them. Each and every one of them is a living breathing character that the player gives life to through their choices.”

Each character has their own strengths and weaknesses that can be leveraged to help the player form a balanced team.

“Some characters are good are some things and bad at others,” Murayama explained. “But if you combine them with other characters that can strengthen their weaknesses, you can end up with a really balanced team. And based on that delicate balance your team make be more apt at mining or adventuring which will affect the overall game progression loop. One of the core game loops in Eiyuden is to experience the wide variety of different characters and personalities in your 100 person army.

“With each new character your ‘fortress town’ grows in size and ability. It is a key system in the game. As you increase your teammates, some members will be blacksmiths, some chefs and whether on the battlefield or not, each character will play a role in strengthening your resolve as an army. There are guilds that you can join which will largely change the visual make-up of your fortress town and grant different abilities. The more people you recruit, the stronger the snowball effect. As you level up, new trade options appear along with enemies and thieves that randomly attack your town in an effort to impede your progress. You need to make choices whether to strengthen your walls or hasten your progress. Each choice will make every play session feel different and have its own consequences.”

According to Murayama, all of this is “just the tip of the iceberg,” meaning that fans can expect much more to come.

Here is an overview of the game, via Rabbit & Bear Studios:

■ About

Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes is an ode to the classic Japanese RPG genre from the PlayStation era that will feature classic Japanese RPG exploration and battles in high-resolution 2.5D graphics, pixel-based characters, a story of war and friendship, a diverse cast of 100 unique heroes to join the protagonist’s endeavor, and a fortress building system to grow their army.

The game will feature a guild system that allows players to change their fortress attributes based on the guild they join. Battles will be turn-based with parties of up to six members and feature dynamic boss battles that change camera angle and rotate depending on the environment.

■ Studio and Staff

Rabbit & Bear Studios

Founded March 26th, 2020 by Yoshitaka Murayama, Rabbit & Bear Studios asks the age old question, what do gamers really want? It’s something we must never forget as creators. To continually focus on giving the fans the experience they really want.

We have created Rabbit & Bear Studios as the first step in realizing that dream and to have the responsibility that comes with it. That’s our core philosophy and we plan to lead by our actions.

Staff

Story: Yoshitaka Murayama (Suikoden, Suikoden II, The Alliance Alive)

Character Design: Junko Kawano (Suikoden, Suikoden IV, Arca Last)

System Design and Direction: Osamu Komuta (Suikoden Tierkreis, Suikoden Tactics, Arca Last)

Art Direction and Production: Junichi Murakami (Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, OZ)

Composers: Michiko Naruke (Wild Arms series), Motoi Sakuraba (Tales of series), and more.

■ Story

Welcome to the Continent of Allraan

“Our story begins in one corner of Allraan, a tapestry of nations with diverse cultures and values.

By dint of sword, and by way of magical objects known as “rune-lenses,” the land’s history has been shaped by the alliances and aggressions of the humans, beastmen, elves, and desert people who live there.

The Galdean Empire has edged out other nations and discovered a technology that amplifies the rune-lenses’ magic. Now, the Empire is scouring the continent for an artefact that will expand their power even further.

It is on one such expedition that Seign Kesling, a young and gifted imperial officer, and Nowa, a boy from a remote village, meet each other and become friends.

However, a twist of fate will soon drag them into the fires of war, and force them both to reexamine everything they believe to be right and true.”

■ Characters

Nowa (Default Name)

Sex: Male

Age: 17 years old

Home: A remote village in the League of Nations

Favorite Food: Anything with meat in it

“That’s who I am. A meddler. Always will be—just ask Leene. So don’t tell me to do nothing. I may not be able to help them, but I have to at least try.”

When the League of Nations recruits warriors to assist in a joint expedition with the Galdean Empire, our protagonist answers the call and leaves his remote village to test his skills. On the mission, he finds an ancient rune-lens, unaware that the discovery will spark a war between the League and the Empire. After the conflict begins, he joins a unit in the League’s border guard.

The protagonist is the “leap before you look” type. He doesn’t always weigh the pros and cons before springing to action, and while his constant need to involve himself in other people’s problems sometimes creates headaches for his companions, they like him for it and know his heart is in the right place. After all, if they ever got into trouble, he’d be the first person there.

Seign Kesling

Sex: Male

Age: 18 years old

Home: A noble house in the Galdean Empire

Favorite Food: Poached eggs

“I can dream all I want, but it won’t change a thing. The world is not that kind. So if the only way to achieve my ideals is to betray them first, then I will do that—unflinchingly. You have my word.”

The second-born son to House Kesling, a powerful imperial family. His older brother died on the battlefield. Seign is exceptionally gifted; after achieving outstanding grades at military academy, he was placed in command of a company of his peers and sent on the expedition to find the ancient rune-lens. During the mission, he meets the protagonist. The two warm to each other as they overcome adversity, and they learn of one another’s ambitions.

Seign’s strategic mind allows him to analyze things from a broad perspective and make sound decisions. People often confuse his clear mind for a cold heart, but he is guided by strong ideals and a deep passion to fulfill them.

After his brother’s death during a border rebellion, Seign began to think long and hard about what it means to fight.

Marisa

Sex: Female

Age: 16 years old

Profession: One of the Guardians who watches over the forest

Favorite Food: Herbed chicken

“You just leave the forest to me. I know where the water springs, where the rabbits burrow—and most importantly, where your enemies will try to hide.”

A young member of the Guardians, a clan that hallows and protects the forest. Since Marisa was very little, her family has instilled their ways and traditions in her. She has a warm, affable smile—except on the battlefield, where she wears the countenance of a warrior.

Although the Guardians live as one with the forest, they have respect for the outside world’s culture and technology, and they are not against integrating the parts of it that make sense to them. Marisa is particularly forward-thinking in this regard, and loves new things—especially cute things.

Over the generations, the Guardians have developed a unique method of wielding the rune-lenses. For that reason, both the Empire and the protagonist try to win them over to their camp. Whom the Guardians choose will prove to be a major turning point in history.

Melridge

Sex: Male

Age: 27 years old

Profession: A scholar of natural history

Favorite Food: Duck soup

“You should lay down arms and surrender. That’s the quickest way to end this… No? Very well. Then I suppose I’ll provide you with the next best thing: a winning strategy.”

A young scholar who specializes in natural history. He yearns to know of every last thing in the world, and exactly how it got there. He also happens to be a genius tactician, and will be a valuable asset to the protagonist.

That said, he views warfare as the most pointless of all human endeavors, and any personal contributions to it as a complete waste of time.

Garr

Sex: Male

Age: 32 years old

Profession: Warrior in a clan of mercenaries

Favorite Food: Pancakes slathered with whipped cream

“Only a soft-brained leader runs headlong into danger. Anyone who knows what’s good for him will tell you you’ve lost it, kid. But not me. If blaze-of-glory’s your thing, count me in. We all die in the end. Might as well make it interesting.”

A veteran beastman warrior. He and his clan make their living as mercenaries, and their vast experience and sheer brutality put them in high demand. War is all Garr has known, and to him life is one battlefield after the other until you die.

When a conflict breaks out, every army wants as many beastmen as they can afford. Because mercenary contracts are made with individuals and not the entire clan, it is not uncommon for Garr and his fellow beastmen to face each other as enemies in the field.

Lian

Sex: Female

Age: 16 years old

Home: A martial arts dojo

Favorite Food: Super-spicy ramen

“Uhh, maybe I’m dumbing this down a little, but—like—if a bunch of arrogant swine strut into YOUR home and started acting like they owned the place, what would YOU do? ‘Cause there’s your answer.”

After the Empire’s forces invade League lands, Lian is infuriated and runs away from home…without even the slightest semblance of a plan. She decides the first thing to do is hoof it to the biggest town she can find, and luckily that’s where she meets the protagonist and his companions.

Lian was born in a dojo, and her father wasted no time in teaching her. She was doing roundhouse kicks before she even learned to walk properly.

Mio

Sex: Female

Age: 27 years old

Home: The Far East

Favorite Food: Bamboo-wrapped sasa dumplings

“The road you walk is one, and yet its endpoints are myriad. You can still choose where the road takes you.”

A swordswoman who is journeying to perfect the way of the blade. She has a stoic personality and rarely speaks, unless it’s to challenge someone she views as a worthy opponent.

When she does open her mouth to say something, it’s straight to the point and usually dripping with wisdom, so the people around her have taken to calling her “sensei.” However, even the greatest of senseis do have the occasional brain fart…

■ World

The Waterstead of Quinja

The Seaside Cavern

Watch a gameplay teaser video below. View the first screenshots and artwork at the gallery.

#Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes #Eiyuden Chronicle #Rabbit & Bear Studios #RPG #PS5 #Xbox Series X #Nintendo Switch #Steam #Gematsu #long post

[pants-jones]

(i guess you could call this) A review on Infamous: Second Son

SInce this is my literal first post on this blog, I guess I should start by talking about the first game I really wanted back when the PS4 came out. Although i didn’t know this at the time, Infamous: Second Son is the latest sequel in the Infamous series, a series i know virtually nothing about. I haven’t actually finished playing it myself, but I currently am at least 75% done with the game.

The base plot, to put it simply, is this; In this world, there are people born with special powers, called Conduits. They could be anyone, and of course some of them start causing havoc, using their powers for crime and unintentionally demonizing the rest of the Conduits to the rest of the world. This starts the persecution of Conduits, now dubbed “Bio-Terrorists”, which eventually leads to this game and it’s story which I’ll touch on in a few.

The Game-play

When you start the game, your main method of attack is pressing X/square until your enemy falls over, or shooting them with small smoke blasts. You have the option to shoot a smoke missile that does splash damage, but unless you put some upgrades in, you wont be using it right away. You don’t use smoke like a regular power, instead you need to absorb some from a smoking car, or a fire to use as fuel for certain abilities, like shooting missiles or just shooting regularly. The regular melee attack doesn’t expend any energy, which you can always see in a bar on the bottom left. 

You can press B/Circle to Smoke Dash, though when you gain other powers this will mostly be used more for travelling the game world. It doesn't expend any energy, so feel free to use it as much as you want because you’ll need it to dodge the many many bullets that’ll be sent your way.

In the top right, you’ll see a symbol- that’s your Karma Strike Meter. The Karma Strike is pretty much an ultimate move, that when used properly can end most fights. But, its also my first gripe of the game. See, a big part of the game is a sort of reputation meter, where you can either play the good guy and fight those oppressing the Conduits the morally correct way, or you can do the same while also abusing your power and using your allies as soldiers for your mission. In my first playthrough which I haven’t completed, I decided to be the good guy, which made getting the Karma Strike harder in my opinion. To fill the meter, you need to subdue 6 enemies in a row, or subdue enemies while also doing something good that would fill your good guy meter. For some reason i just can’t ever find enemies to subdue, or enemies that are off to the side make it difficult to subdue others. A lot of stuff can happen in a fight, and that makes it kind of annoying when i know the best way to come out on top is to make 6 enemies subdue-able before i can wipe out the rest. 

But, a plus for this reputation meter and the Karma Strike is that it’s consistent. I’ve noticed that the further i get into the game, the more civilians cheer Delsin on when they realize he’s fighting for the better. Plus, you get different Karma Strikes if you have more good karma than bad. But, again, you get more combat options if you have more bad karma than good. Which makes sense, since the good karma upgrades help Delsin’s stats with healing and absorbing smoke and subduing enemies. 

The enemies don’t get too many introductions. They all have concrete powers given to them by the main villain of the game, and the more you play the stronger the enemies get. It starts with grunts that just have guns and make shields out of concrete, nothing too difficult though they can get tricky in high numbers. Then, in a mission where you climb to the top of the Space Needle, you fight a miniboss that then becomes a regular enemy. This enemy is especially annoying to me, because until you get the neon power that makes you move faster, they are extremely difficult to hit. They’re like Special Ops, with concrete chunks floating around them. They can trap you in concrete (which can be escaped by smoke dashing) and do some good damage. But ii’s not the concrete that makes it difficult to hit them- It’s the fact that they just run. If you get close enough, they will run and do their own version of a smoke dash to get away from you. And until you unlock neon, that makes them the most annoying enemy so far.

The next enemy is another boss that becomes a regular enemy, just way later. These guys sit in concrete tornadoes, shooting stones at you from a distance, and luckily they aren’t too hard to beat. Just use neon and shoot them from a distance and they’ll fall pretty soon. The next and latest one for me is an extremely aggressive concrete covered enemy that came in a group of three or four(i dont really remember how many). They move way too fast to be able to fight them with the video power, which I’ll touch on in a minute. I haven’t figured out their weakness yet, but i can tell you it isn’t melee because they will steam roll you if you try to get near them.

The Three Powers

In total, you get three powers to upgrade and use, each giving you different play styles and making you use different tactics. I’ll admit, I liked that you can’t switch between them like style switching in Devil May Cry. Instead, you need to find a source of smoke, a neon sign, or a satellite dish for each power. If you’re running low on one, you’ll have no choice but to switch to another and change the game plan. 

Smoke

The power you start the game with and my personal favorite is Smoke. The kit you get with smoke just seemed best for combat, and its easy and simple to travel around with. It’s the most abundant source to absorb in a fight because there’s usually a lot of exploding cars or ammo boxes you can absorb to fill that meter. The smoke Karma Strike is ok, but I absolutely love how it looks. Delsin sends himself flying straight into the air, and falls back down like a mortar, destroying everything in the vicinity. Plus, smoke just fits Delsin’s design in my opinion. He gets the next two powers from other people, so they obviously seem out of place for him to have (even though he also got smoke from someone else too but thats not the point it still suits him very well).

Neon

Neon is the second power you get, and it’s the second best in my opinion. It’s not as easy to subdue enemies with it as smoke is, but its still fun to use regardless. I think the lasers you shoot do more damage than the smoke blasts, and neon lets you run at what the game calls “Light Speed”, which is just kinda faster than usual. You can run straight up walls, and you can suspend enemies in these neon bubbles to attack them mid air. The Karma Strike can hit more enemies than smoke does, and you get to put on a pretty neat light show.

Video

Video is my least favorite, so much so that I kind of avoid using this power because its just so slow and when all the enemies are constantly focused on you and shooting at you at all times, being slow is not what you need. The melee is brought down to two strong hits with a bit more range, but they take way too long to finish for it to even be worth it. The heavy attack is pretty much a couple swords that i think are better against choppers? I haven’t tested it much. You get wings but you can only dash forward and up walls for a bit before having to stop. You can shoot automatic, which is kinda useful. But there isn’t much to write home about with this power. Even the Karma strike is hard to get, since this power gives me no real ways to subdue enemies, just hope they surrender and that doesn’t happen often enough to be able to fill the meter. It’s sluggish, it doesn’t offer anything new, and it’s just not for me.

One more thing about the combat; there aren’t many melee options besides mashing square and a ground pound. You can’t do any aerial combos which was disappointing to me because I thought that would’ve been amazing for juggles and just adding more ways to fight. Unfortunately, it kind of feels like you’re very limited in your options for combat. 

Other than the combat, I think the game looks amazing, even for something thats 6 years old now. I like the Karma Strikes so much less because they help me in fights and more because they just look super cool and make me wanna look at them again. A lot of games don’t look the best on current gen consoles and even on PC, but this is definitely not one of them. My only gripe with the looks is the how much saturation but this can even be fixed in the settings so it barely counts. 

When i first watched gameplay of this game, I had never wanted to be a super hero more in a long time. It was so much fun to watch, and even though it’s not as much fun to play through now, its still pretty good. I know I should touch on the story, but I haven’t finished the game, so I’ll probably do a post about it when i do. But i love the characters, and i love how they interact with each other, and I love how they interact with Delsin. I love watching those dumb brotherly arguments with Delsin’s brother. This game is  a 7.5/10 for me.

#review #infamous second son #gaming #ps4

[britesparc]

Weekend Top Ten #432

Top Ten Games to Remaster

As we continue June’s videogame-themed series of Tops Ten – during what would normally have been E3, but is still something of a prolonged Videogame Announcement Season – I turn my attention once again to great games past. This has been exacerbated by the release of Command & Conquer Remastered Collection, a hi-def spit-and-polish re-do of two of the greatest PC games of the nineties. I have very fond teenage memories of both C&C and its pseudo-sequel, but Red Alert in particular strikes an important chord as one of “the” games that deepened and broadened by love of gaming as an art form. In the way that really only happens when you’re a kid, I absorbed Red Alert, not just completing the campaign and playing hours and hours of skirmish, but also talking about it extensively with friends, designing my own levels, and even going so far as to modify the source files to create my own super-units (nuclear tanks ahoy!). As such, it utterly delights me to declare that C&C Remastered is a phenomenal undertaking, the graphics painstakingly remade to fit modern displays, the interface masterfully tweaked to appease modern sensibilities. But at the same time it offers so many pleasing, knowing, considerate hat-tips to fans, such as a re-imagining of the classic DOS installation prompts. All in all, it’s a must-buy, bringing a 25-year-old series of games more-or-less bang up to date and preserving their legacy for a new generation.

Anyway, all this got me thinking of other classic games, and how it’s so difficult to play them nowadays. Maybe they’re mired in rights issues. Maybe it’s a technological minefield to get them to run on modern systems. Maybe elements of modern gaming – be it graphics or design – have simply passed them by, making them a far more difficult and frustrating experience than they would have seemed Back in the Day. Whatever the reason, these are games that – like classic films from the 40s and 50s – should be celebrated and enjoyed by the young’uns, not left to gather digital dust on forgotten floppies the world over.

So, with no further ado, here are ten games that I would love to see given a bit of digital TLC, renewed and revigorated for the ultra-wide monitors and liquid-cooled systems of tomorrow. In most cases these are just one game that I’d like to see spruced up and re-released, but there are a few “collections” here too, whether it’s a C&C-style pairing of a great double act, or a  celebration of a series, a la Halo: The Master Chief Collection.

Oh, and I’m on about remasters here: not a full-on remake or reboot. Stuff like Perfect Dark on the Xbox 360, not Doom 2016. Old games made good on modern hardware, not a reimagining of the property.

Regardless: have at it, games industry.

Lemmings (1991) and Lemmings 2: The Tribes (1993): I definitely think they should be a double-pack, because whilst the first is a well-regarded classic, the second refines the formula, makes it more user-friendly, offers skirmish-style training modes, and amps up the comedy. But they’re both ancient by now, and despite mobile do-overs in recent years, the originals are very difficult to play. Upping the resolution whilst still keeping the character of the scantily-pixelated sprites would be difficult, but it’d be worth it to once again sample one of the gods of gaming.

Sam & Max Hit the Road (1993): other LucasArts classic adventures have had a spruce – most notably the first two seminal Monkey Island games – but it’d be good to see this cult comedy classic come back to life. I don’t know if the backgrounds ever existed in higher resolution, but I’d love to see the sprites re-drawn to more closely resemble a cartoon version of Steve Purcell’s artwork.

The Jedi Knight Series (1995-2003): I’m bundling all four Jedi Knight games in together – that’s the original Dark Forces, plus Jedi Knight, Jedi Outcast, and Jedi Academy – but let’s be honest, it’s the first two we’re really after. DF gave us a compelling mission-based “Doom Clone” (back when Doom was a genre), and one which would be amazing to see tarted up to 4K with texture filtering a-go-go; but it was its 1997 sequel, Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II, that struck serious beskar. Huge, expansive levels, in “true 3D” (as we used to call it), full-motion video cutscenes, finally getting a lightsaber and Force powers, but most of all the Light/Dark Side dynamic offering (very basic) morality and a branching storyline. Again, giving it a glossy hi-def sheen would do wonders to preserve the legacy of one of the greatest Star Wars games of all time.

The Quake Collection (1996-2005): really it should be called The Quake Qollection, no? Encompassing all four mainline Quakes. Although, again, let’s be honest: there’s something deeply iconic about the first three, so no one would complain if we just forgot about part 4, yeah? Anyway: Quake was a stunner, a gorgeous 3D technical juggernaut, offering sumptuous lighting effects and gorgeous architecture. Part II came a year later and offered us coloured lighting and a coherent sci-fi story, whereas Quake III Arena in 1999 gave us a sublimely crafted multiplayer shooter and a character that was an eyeball doing a handstand. Despite being graphical powerhouses in their day, getting them to run can be a drag, so it’d be lovely to see them dragged into the 21st Century, especially if they could offer us ray-tracing on next-gen consoles, a la Quake II RTX.

Tomb Raider (1996): we’ve seen the series rebooted in (generally) excellent fashion, but at the same time it feels it lost a little of the majesty, mythos, and merriment of OG Lara. One of the first truly successful 3D games, it was like nothing before it. A subtle update to increase its resolution, filter the rough edges, maybe offer the option to move beyond the rigid grid-based movement structure, and possibly up the poly count so blocky Lara more closely resembles her rendered box-art cousin, would be terrific. Imagine the dinosaur in 4K…!

Descent (1994): one of those games that’s slipped from public consciousness, this was a full-3D shooter a couple of years before Quake shambled onto our screens. Piloting a craft in zero gravity, it offered full freedom of movement as well as a tense shooter dynamic coupled with some mild, X-Wing-style space sim elements. It was funky, fast, gorgeous, and messed with your head. I’d love a remake that kept the levels as-is, simplified the often-complex controls for modern sensibilities, and just in general made it look prettier. I worry that a contemporary “re-imagining” might lose too many of its crazy rough edges, though.

Syndicate (1993): there have been a number of efforts to re-do Syndicate over the years, but apart from its excellent sequel Syndicate Wars in 1996, none have matched the dark joys of the original. rather than try to go all modern and 3D, I’d rather see the artwork redone, redrawn at a higher resolution, perhaps offering subtle 3D touches such as dynamic light, shadow, and ray-tracing. The fiddlier aspects (getting into cars?!) could be tidied up, but the look and feel should remain the same. I honestly think this could be a big deal.

Total Annihilation (1997): if C&C can get remastered, why not the game that was arguably the first real challenger to its sci-fi RTS dominance? TA had 3D graphics, a new and refined model of base construction, and tactical touches such as line-of-sight and elevated terrain. But the comparatively low resolution of late-nineties machines meant that the robotic units could often appear slightly indistinct, turning into a grey melange; boosting the res and the poly count would do wonders, but – like C&C – the gameplay itself should be kept as authentic as possible.

Warcraft I & II (1994-95): I know, I know; they just did a remaster of Warcraft III that wasn’t well received and got everybody’s backs up. But I barely played Warcraft III (I barely played Warcraft I for that matter). Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness was the fantasy yin to C&C’s sci-fi yang, and it was great; clear, bright, fast, fun. The cartoony graphics were gorgeous and the units had bags of character (reinforced by the humorous soundbites when you kept clicking on them). I’d want to see the sprites re-drawn in hi-res, with the units given some gorgeous new animations to match their character. Other than that? Keep it broadly the same. It worked 25 years ago, it’ll work now.

Fantasy World Dizzy (1989): I nearly didn’t have a game this old on the list. For one thing, I thought pre-16-bit games would require far more retooling for modern audiences, becoming essentially the sort of reboot I said I wanted to avoid; I can’t imagine a new Skool Daze being too similar to its original. Also which Dizzy do you choose? The one I played the most was probably Spellbound (1991). But I think Fantasy World may be the most iconic. Its Amiga port was almost a remaster anyway, giving it gorgeous colour graphics. A modern version would up the resolution with all-new art assets, obviously, and perhaps could offer a more user-friendly jumping dynamic (and maybe – maybe – I’ll allow scrolling). This could be a lovely way to re-introduce audiences to the character of Dizzy, who should really be held up more as a British gaming mascot, without having to go all-in on a brand new title. Egg-cellent (sorry).

So there we are. There are a couple missing here, obviously; Simon the Sorcerer was nearly there until I realised they did do a gentle remaster in 2018. The Settlers would have made the list, except they are remaking that, although in my opinion it looks like a full-on reboot rather than the upgraded version of the original that I crave. Fade to Black just dropped off the bottom on the grounds that I barely played it in its original form, but a third-person 3D Flashback is still on my Most Wanted list (Flashback itself, sadly, has already had a disappointing remake). And the best Star Wars game of all time, Knights of the Old Republic, I decided not to include as – again – I think we’re going to see that reimagined and folded into the new official Disney canon in some form. Maybe that should preclude me imagining the original game in 4K with updated character models, dynamic shadows, and ray-tracing, but – hey – that’s just me. At least that is one game that I’ll still be able to play fairly easily on an Xbox Series X, even without whistles and bells. Here’s to dead old games!

#top ten #games #gaming #remasters #old games #retro games #command & conquer #lemmings #star wars #dizzy #warcraft #quake

[kinsie]

Game Impressions from PAX Aus 2019

Wake the fuck up, samurai. We've got a city to burn.

Every year I go to PAX Aus with some close friends to check out the Incredible Future of Games that everyone else already checked out six months ago, along with some cool weird indie shit and some awesome retro stuff. And every year, I write a little diary of what I saw to share my impressions with my friends. This is that diary.

Doom Eternal

Okay, let's get this out of the way. I played Doom Eternal pretty much as soon as I got on the show floor. It may shock you to know that it is, in fact, good.

No pictures of the demo units, sorry, so have this big logo.

The demo started with a little grey-box tutorial map just to teach you what you need to know for the demo level, since it was taken from the middle of the game. It looked very Snapmap-y and had some Doom 2 MIDI music playing. After that we were given about 25 minutes to acquaint ourselves with the lengthy "Mars Core" mission they've been showing since E3. I was at the start of the first arena of the hell bit when I ran out of time. :(

Here are some scattered thoughts from playing:

Your standard running around and double jumping feels much the same as in Doom 2016. The dashing feels great, although I think it might reduce your air control a little afterwards as I had some trouble overshooting a platform in the floating debris bit.

Climbing walls felt a bit weird to me. You have to press E on the wall manually to grab onto it, which feels a bit unintuitive when you're plummeting past it. Also feels a bit odd considering mantling up walls is automatic. You can auto-grab onto walls if you dash into it, but I think it's only for the first bit of the dash? Maybe I'm just bad at videogames.

I think the Combat and Super Shotguns now use different ammo types? I could have swore there were situations where I could select the Combat Shotgun but not the SSG.

The Chainsaw now no longer has even the slightest pretence of being a "real" weapon. It's now just a swing animation when you press the button, like a melee attack, before bringing your weapon back up.

When you have the SSG's Meat Hook attachment, a little meathook icon appears below the crosshair. When you're close enough to an enemy to grapple onto them, the icon floats over them, indicating that it has some kind of auto-aim mechanic to reduce frustration.

There was a monster with swords on its arms that acted an awful lot like the Baron of Hell (might have been the Hell Knight, looking at the Quakecon footage of the same fight) but it looked quite different. Looked fuckin' cool, whatever it was.

The platforming but in the debris section with the giant floating red barrels was actually kind of frustrating. It wasn't always clear where you needed to go, and the climbable bits tended to blend in with the rest of the world. Then again, keep in mind I have a frankly abysmal sense of direction. Thankfully falling into the void just whacks you for a paltry five health and teleports you back onto safe ground.

The locational damage stuff is really fun. Breaking a monster's guns has a satisfying metal "PING" sound to it to inform you that the dude got fucked up and is weaker now, and that you should keep doing it.

When I picked up one of those "?" secrets, the pop-up box told me that they unlocked "collectable dolls" and "cheat codes". The former is vague, but I suspect they'll be like the mini-Doomguys but of more characters. I'd imagine the latter will be like in Rage 2.

Oh, and it looks a million bucks, too. Though you probably didn't need me to tell you that.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with what I saw and it's even more of a pity it's not coming out next month.

Not Indie Games, But Also Not Doom Eternal

The Vive Cosmos felt really comfy - the lack of cabling and the decent display resolution made it feel a lot more natural than the Gen 1 Vives I've previously used. The game they were using to demo (Audica), however, was pretty lame. A rhythm-target shooter that didn't really take advantage of the medium at all.

Bleeding Edge was not inspiring. It was basically the control point mode from TF2 or Overwatch, except every character was a third-person brawler with little emphasis on projectile weapons beyond the occasional special. It felt like someone making a claim at TF2 or Overwatch's throne several years late while bolting a weak character action game on, which is fairly odd considering how innovative and critically acclaimed Ninja Theory's previous game was.

Dreams is fairly fascinating in its potential. The creation tools weren't available in the demo build so I can’t really judge them, instead there was a choice of eight developer-made experiences ranging from Mario-inspired obstacle courses to videogames as art.

I didn't get the chance to actually play MediEvil, but I watched some folks play it and it basically just looks like the PS1 game with more triangles, with all the slightly wonky 32-bit gameplay that entails.

The demo unit for Monkey King: Hero Is Back had some utterly bizarre graphics settings for some reason that made it look like I was playing a JPEG file, with big whopping compression artifacts surrounding each character. Weird!

Not happenin’.

Indie Games

Grabimals is a brilliant local co-op puzzler where players roll around as shapes and link together to solve puzzles like catching a falling water droplet, crossing a gap or casting a shadow that matches an example image. Supposedly it's still a ways off from release, but it's already impressively polished (disregarding one hilarious crash bug we found by accident!)

Hamster Scramble is a really fun take on Puzzle Bobble, with platforming elements, team play and the ability to jump over to your opponent's screen and fuck their plans up directly. It's an absolute blast and didn't feel like it was almost a year away from release.

Fork Knights is a platform fighter with an emphasis on one-hit kills. The character designs are cute, but I can't really say the gameplay itself struck me, to be honest.

Baron is an eight-player single-screen local multiplayer dogfighter. Fairly simple mechanically, but pretty fun all things considered.

Broken Roads had some lovely hand-painted art assets and some interesting ideas like a literal moral compass, but the demo build showcased was waaaaay too early to be shown off to the public. Of the eight or so areas present in the demo, only two had any characters, interactivity or really anything other than wandering around set up, and the combat side of things was extremely rough and sequestered off to a side area as a "well, if you insist..." kind of deal.

Misadventure In Little Lon is a true-crime adventure game for mobile with a unique mechanic - each "scene" is integrated into the real world via AR, with characters (that resemble Poser models more than a little bit) speaking to you directly. Not sure if it holds up over an entire game, but it's attention-garnering at least.

Speaking of true crime, The Black Window tasks players with using an Oujia board to question Australia's first female serial killer, with responses taken from court records and letters from the time. The well-acted performances of the actual individual in question's words lends it an impressive atmosphere, which the booth added to with a big wooden oujia board type thing you could "type" on. Sort of.

ACID KNIFE is real, real early, but the aesthetic is awesome and the pixel art is great. Hopefully it grows and expands into something special.

The Vigilante Proclivities of the Longspur is an oldschool Lucasarts-inspired point-and-click adventure with a custom demo scene set at an oddly-familiar videogame convention. Pretty promising so far, but could do with a good bit of polish - I'm pretty sure there was only one sound effect in the entire demo, and dialogue was often lacking in punctuation.

I didn't get to play Hot Brass but I watched over shoulders and talked with the developers, and it looked pretty cool. It's basically a take on SWAT 4's rarely-imitated brand of tactical copwork, but with a Hotline Miami-style top-down perspective, but with all the characters abstracted down to simple board game like tokens - a circle with a coloured outline denoting attitude towards the player, with a weapon icon if armed.

Blood Metal... Blood Metal is not good. It is extensively not good. Development seems to have only started in July, so one can still hope that the bad AI, unsatisfying gunplay, buggy collision detection and complete lack of damage feedback (outside of some ridiculous, sight-obscuring gouts of blood) get fixed over time. The 80s action movie aesthetic and low-poly artstyle forces it to be compared to Maximum Action, which is at least a fun kind of jank...

This Starry Void is a real-time, tile-based 3D dungeon crawler set in an abandoned spacecraft. It seems pretty cool so far, but it could probably use some UI/UX tweaks. The attempts at a "graphic novel inspired" visual style for the environments could probably benefit from looking at how Void Bastards did things, as well.

Lethal Lawns and Beam Team are fucking arcade games with massive cabinets. In 2019. Granted, they're also on computers and coming to consoles and stuff as well, but still! They're both pretty simple games, and therefore best played in cabinet form.

Unpacking is a "zen puzzle game" by the developers of Assault Android Cactus about the second-worst part of moving house, unloading an unseen character's packing and getting a glimpse into their lives as a result. I wasn’t able to play it due to an unexpectedly-crowded booth, but the pixel art is quite lovely.

Feather is a chill game about being a bird and flying around an island trying to find its secrets. I tried the Switch port, which played alright but obviously (and understandably) toted a lower framerate than the demo PC.

Topple Pop is a cute puzzle game that blends together elements of Tetris, Puyo Puyo and that one joke game that was Tetris but with a proper physics engine. Looks cute, with a fun gimmick!

Shooty Skies Overdrive is an VR spinoff of the popular mobile shmup, and basically similar to that one shmup minigame in Valve's The Lab. Weave your plane, which is attached to one of your hands, through incoming bullets and enemies like a toy! The 3D effect on the incoming projectiles looks great, but they can tend to get in the way of the action sometimes.

Dead Static Drive has been at like the last three PAXes and it looks better every time I see it. I hope it comes out this decade.

Snow Mercy is a third-person shooter/strategy thing where you hunt down icecubes to spend on an army of snowmen to crush your opponent's base before they crush yours. Not a common genre combo, reminds me of C&C Renegade a bit.

The Adventure Pals has graphics straight out of mid-2000s Newgrounds and level design out of pretty much any european platformer, but it didn't seem too bad from my brief prodding at it. The player character is perhaps a bit too small for my elderly eyes in Switch portable mode, but that's about as far as my gripes go.

#gaming #paxaus2019

[danbevanwriting]

The Ranking of Final Fantasy: Final Fantasy IV

Final Fantasy IV was the second officially English translated FF game to come to the West, renamed to Final Fantasy II so as 'not to confuse the market', leading to years of confusion ever since! The version that the Americans got was also heavily dumbed down to the point where abilities are stripped from certain characters to better suit the Western audience, who were considered to be a lot less capable of handling a more complex game by the Japanese developers. This has since been rectified in the remakes since then, with the version I played, the Nintendo DS remake (which I played on PC through Steam... which is a port of the mobile version... which is a port of the DS version...) being harder than any other version released. Honestly, I didn't have a great time with this version of the game. The 3D models look a bit tacky when blown up to 1080p, the battles run at 15fps which makes the bad menus unresponsive too, I wasn't a fan of the voiced cutscenes, and during gameplay the camera is zoomed way too far in meaning that most of the time in dungeons you spend having the map overlay on your screen. I would advise playing basically any other version: the PSP remake is incredible with beautiful sprite work, or failing that get a hold of the GBA version or if you have the means a translation patch of the SNES Japanese edition. Avoid the US Final Fantasy II release on SNES! With that all out of the way, let's review the actual game!

Gameplay in FFIV is so good, they used this battle system in Final Fantasy games for the next 5 in the series! The ATB battle system was revolutionary: it took the slow and static turn-based combat from the first 3 games and made it instantly more exciting by making time a key factor. Each character has a timer before their turn to take an action, which means faster characters can attack more often as their ATB gauge fills up faster. This makes even random encounters exciting as the goal is to get as many attacks in as you can while also navigating the menus as fast as you can to get spells out. The rushing aspect can be lessened somewhat by setting the game to wait while choosing a spell, but before you start choosing a spell the timers are still ticking, and the enemies won't hesitate if you don't choose anything. In some ways you can use this to your advantage, such as not choosing an action for the healer, switching to your other characters to do attacks, and only using the healer to quickly patch up your party. Spells are learned through levels now too rather than bought or found in the world like before, so as your characters grow stronger so too does their arsenal of spells and abilities. This has a lot to do with a new concept of character based progression in the series.

The job system from Final Fantasy III is gone here and instead each character has their own built in 'job' or role within the party. This ties in to the other major change with this game: each character is actually a character this time. The story is a lot more character focused, with each character having their own stake in the events that unfold. It's a shame then that the story falls so flat about a quarter to halfway in. The first quarter of this story is fantastic. Cecil, a dark knight in Baron's Red Wings military unit, starts questioning his leaders and his place in the world when he's sent on a mission to basically slaughter a defenceless village for their crystal. What unfolds is a tale of redemption for Cecil, culminating in him climbing Mount Ordeals to shed himself of the darkness and become a paladin of light! But this crescendo occurs a quarter of the way through the game, and now Cecil's character has no growth left. It's a real shame. The story in general gets really stupid after the halfway mark too, with characters heroically sacrificing themselves only for them to not actually die, even when they really should have. Cid exploding in to a ball of flame to stop people chasing you comes to mind, it's a great moment ruined by a cowardly reversal of the consequences. Or stupid sacrifices are made, like Yang staying in an exploding control room to... let the others escape? It doesn't really make sense. But even then Yang survives and comes back in to the story by the end. The story also has all sorts of people double crossing you, Kain most of all, with it all being down to mind control. Contrived doesn't cut it. Speaking of which, the ending is similar to Final Fantasy III in that the main villain, who was totally behind everything, is revealed close to the end of the game. It's not as bad as the Cloud of Darkness reveal, but the evil alien on the moon being behind everything was a bit dumb (although not a terrible concept if the story was better overall). I won't knock the story too much though, I'd argue that at least this time I actually have a story to criticise here which was certainly not the case in the previous games, and this was still more of a story than most games of the time were accomplishing.

Characterisations are certainly where FFIV separates itself form its predecessors. Cecil, Rosa, and Rydia are my favourites as they have good strong personalities; Cecil is a reflective person which ties in to his sub-plot, Rosa is caring which ties in to her being a white mage, and Rydia's empathy allows her to be a master summoner. These aren't amazingly fleshed out characters but, again, at least there's something to talk about here when previously there was almost none of this. I will say I absolutely hate Edge though, he has an extremely irritating personality which means he brags in an annoying manner (as he's a prince) but also falls instantly in love with Rydia, which would be fine if it wasn't done in such an annoying fashion. Luckily Rydia doesn't really respond and it's mostly played for laughs, but I just found it irritating to be honest...

The music in this is legendary at least, the game kicks off with one of its best tracks (The Red Wings) and stays consistently good for the whole game. The overworld theme (Main These of Final Fantasy IV) is truly iconic, as is the battle and boss themes. Even the prelude, a series staple at this point, got a beautiful new melody which makes the track even better. With the power of Spotify you can now even listen to these tracks to hear for yourself, other highlights I would recommend listening to include 'Theme of Love', 'Into The Darkness', 'Battle with the Four Fiends', and 'The Final Battle'. All the tracks fit the context or the environment very well and is a memorable OST in general.

The gameplay which is supported by the music is equally excellent. Dungeon design is great, with most dead end diversions resulting in a decent reward, a concept that is used to great effect in the final dungeon. The final dungeon is surprisingly short, but with all the diversions which lead to optional bosses guarding the most powerful equipment it's worth exploring every nook and cranny. The new battle system also leads to more interesting boss fights too as some have their own unique mechanics. The ATB system means that bosses can go in to retaliation phases that you can wait out by not doing actions, or other bosses like Bahamut turning the fight in to a damage race to defeat him before he casts Mega Flare. It's all very fun and is a positive change from the turn based system.

I touched on the graphics briefly above, but I figure it's worth reiterating how gosh-darn ugly the 3D models are in the remake of the game. The sprites from the SNES or PSP version are practically timeless which ooze personality despite their relative simplicity. Bosses look great in the SNES version where they look a bit dorky in 3D, the final boss being a good example of this. The environments in the 3D version are nice though, but like I said before the camera is so zoomed in it's hard at times to appreciate that. The SNES version takes full advantage of the hardware leap from the original NES to make the graphics far and away better looking than what came before, truly demonstrating the capabilities of the SNES and cementing Square as the top dog in RPG graphics (and this will only get better in time during this console generation).

So, in conclusion, this game is regarded as a true classic, and I think that's with a good reason. The story is engaging despite how stupid it gets and how it falls short in places. The gameplay is great even today, with history demonstrating just how good the ATB battle system is due to it being in a further five Final Fantasy titles, and the fact that so much of this battle system was done so right the first time around really demonstrates how successful Final Fantasy IV is. I would definitely advise people to play this game if they can, even if it's just for curiosity's sake to see where the series has come from. I would be much quicker to recommend this game over the older titles too as it certainly has aged better than any of the NES titles.

Current Rankings:

Final Fantasy IV

Final Fantasy III

Final Fantasy

Final Fantasy II

#final fantasy #final fantasy 4 #retrogaming #Retro #Retorspective #snes #nintendo ds #review

[cosmiciaria]

My Hero One’s Justice review!

So, given that now I'm in that age in which I'm Obsessed™ with My Hero Academia, it was just a matter of time that I would wrap my hands around this game. When it comes to fighting games, I'm (shocker) on the weeabuu side of the spectrum: back in the day my faves were DBZ Budokai Tenkaichi 3 and Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja 5. Of Mortal Kombat and all that, I only know I suck. Give me anime boys screaming their attack names with all their might (no pun intended).

I was quite hyped about this one although I knew the story mode would only cover up until the Kamino incident (the first half of the third season), so I wouldn't find anything new, but as I said, anything related to BNHA will have my undivided attention now (I'm looking at you, movie. I can't seem to find it anywhere and my country is not bringing it!).

Unfortunately, things weren't as good as I was expecting. Yes, I am indeed in that BNHA mood right now, but I'm not blind.

In terms of the story, you have two paths: the hero, and the villains, which unlocks after you complete the first campaign. Although you must guess what happens here: they are the same battles, only from a different perspective now. So it's just the recycled story again. Alright, I can deal with that, it's a fighting game after all about a story I already know, I don't mind the repetition. But… the game only covers from the serial hero killer arc to the Kamino incident, almost more than a half season of the anime. And that's it. To tell you I completed the hero path in one evening (yes, I know I had nothing else to do – but yet, this is a short game) should tell you that you won't get much else from the plot.

Story mode is short. Period.

So, what else does this bring? Well, you have mission mode – which, you guessed it, are more battles. I don't mind at all again, it adds further challenge. You have local match as well: you can fight the AI or a second player. Good. When I saw the coaster with all the characters, I noticed something.

They're just a few!

Like really, you scan just the surface and see it plainly.

So little room to choose! What if I wanted to see how you made gameplay for Toru Hakagure? That would've been something! I believe they couldn't add every character and I understand if they had limitations. But back in the day, games like the ones I've mentioned (DBZ, Naruto) had the whole, and I mean WHOLE cast of characters. I'm talking about mangas/animes with hundreds of chapters and well over a hundred of characters, each with transformations or different versions. And still, those games had more to offer: the DBZ made you go through all the sagas, from Dragon Ball to fricking GT and the movies. And they even went on to create what if scenarios. And Naruto had semi-open world with RPG elements and side quests besides fighting. And those were fricking ps2 games!

Also, except for All For One, all the characters are already unlocked. Give me a motivation, please, don't serve them to me on a silver plate like that, allow me to unlock them as the story mode progresses. I would've much liked that.

And wth is Kyoka doing here??? I mean ¿¿?? I think Mina has more presence than her, Kyoka only gets decent screentime when the cultural festival arrives and the plot of the game is ages away from it. They must've needed to put another female character and found her more suitable or her gameplay more eye-candy?? That's the only explanation I find, really. 

Alright, yes, maybe I'm asking too much? After all, you have online mode as well. But as I like to stick with my babies, the story mode is always where I put my focus on. And this game didn't deliver. Cutscenes were lazy, with just a few portraits for each character (yes, DBZ didn't have cutscenes either but it had a thousand more canon battles and way too many characters for me to remember, each one with unique moves), but I wouldn't have minded something like the Naruto Ultimate Ninja games. With an actual map you can move around and important battles taking place. I remember the Ultimate Ninja 4 allowed you to collect "memories" and there was another mode besides story, in which you could play the battles from the original Naruto, when the kids were younger – more gameplay and something to look for! Maybe they could've done something similar or maybe emulate the battles in the sports festival in that mission mode?

There is a slight motivation to keep on fighting, I guess: characters can level up in mission mode, and you can also unlock different colors for the outfits and different accessories. I guess if I had played this on my ps4 I would've gone for the trophies as well, which encourages the player further. But as I grabbed the pc copy, sadly though it sounds, I'm going to leave the game where I left it.

This isn't so you don't buy the game: I don't know the company that developed it, but I do know Bandai Namco, and by no means do I wish to hinder their sales, because I love what they do. Also, it's been a while since I play a fighting game like this, so maybe they're all now like this one? I'm just saying that I don't recommend you to buy it at full price. And that you won't find anything new if you're up to date with the anime (not even the manga).

They could've done great things with this one: they could've gone as far as the beginning of the story, they could've created the weakened All Might's form, they could've put every character from the anime, they could've even go further and give us an advance from the manga – just imagine playing with Mirio Togata! Or Sir Nighteye! I'm already crying. 

Alright, it’s not so terrible - I enjoyed what I could. It was more myself pushing all these things rather than rejoicing on what I actually had, which is a pretty fun game. Gameplay is unique for each character: you have a normal attack, and two quirk specials. Then you have like a “limit break” attack, one normal and one more powerful, for which you need to wait for a bar to charge and execute them. You also have the option of summoning a companion to land an attack while you’re having trouble or paralyzed. Some characters have a good range of attacks (Todoroki), others have useful long-range attacks (Deku), others need to be close to present a decent fight (Kacchan), so it’s all up to you and the characters you feel more comfortable playing with. I personally enjoyed setting everything on fire with good boi Todoroki, much to my love for Kacchan’s disgrace. 

But that’s it. I’m a bit disappointed, that’s all. I guess this is all they could do, and I don't blame them for it. But it's a mediocre game for such a big franchise, and it does not live up to its heroes.

 I think this is the first review I post about a game I didn't like much. I normally don't play games I don't like, or if I don't like them, I just don't finish them and then the review is never written. But this was a missed opportunity, and I'm sad for it. I hope BNHA one day receives a videogame adaptation worth of its name.

#boku no hero academia #bnha #my hero academia #my hero one's justice #my hero ones justice #mha #izuku midoriya #katsuki bakugou #all might #all for one #videogame #videogame review #review #anime videogame #boku no hero #deku #deku midoriya

[elevanetheirin]

oK 19 Hours in and I’ll tell you what I think of Anthem.

First of all. There is DEFINITELY a story. That’s like something I want to emphasize because there seems to be a lot of rumor going around that there isn’t.

Second, I do experience some freezing and lag. I assumed this was due to my pc being a couple of years old, and while some of it may be, Mark Darrah mentioned on Twitter today that that is an issue that’s on the fix list for the patch before official launch. So it’s not ALL me.

Down side, if I miss something like a cutscene or what have you from the main story I don’t see a way to go back and view it. Like I missed a whole fight and scene because it said the other players weren’t ready and I was stuck in limbo until the scene was over. That kinda sucked. On the other hand that’s sort of the point of a live game.

The quickplay is nice, it’s helping out people who are currently in a mission that don’t have enough to fill their group. Yes, you’re replaying a mission but even that grants you things as well as gives you extra xp and that honestly advocates helping out lowbies. 

There are quests that require you to participate in freeplay which is nice too because I sometimes forget I need to go do some stuff to get crafting mats. Plus it gives you a chance to check out the rest of Bastion (I assume that’s the area not really the whole world as there are cities people talk about that we don’t see)

The people at Fort Tarsis are...eccentric shall we say and I love them! The expressions are amazing, I mean people even move their lips differently like real people. Like Owen does a thing where his bottom lip goes down in just one area. Downside? The people’s mouths still sort of look like they’re away from their teeth. Like my cousin who had braces for 10yrs STILL as an adult doesn’t let her lips touch her teeth.

The game play is pretty smooth although I’m much better with the Storm than the Ranger lol Having friends to group with has bonuses, which sucks for me since I’ve got no one who plays LOL speaking of, I can invite up to 4 people to try Origin for a week for free, if you’re interested let me know. I just thought I’d throw that out there no one really wants to do those things lol.

So basically I enjoy Anthem and being an MMO and a Live game it’s definitely going to have a few problems but like any other MMORPG there are regular patches etc. This isn’t a buy the game and that’s it sort of thing so regular patching is a good thing.

The shop that uses coins to buy vanity stuff does let you buy shards but you don’t NEED them. I’ve already got 55k coins and I haven’t even really tried, nor am I good at the game lol the vanity shop also ONLY sells vanity items. The crafting shop sells crafting mats for coin which you earn in game or you can go out in freeplay and snatch up some for free. There’s not a REAL “cash shop” but even if these items sold for “cash” they aren’t game breaking therefore I don’t see a real issue. Live servers and live support costs money above and beyond the $60 game price. 

I’ve played other MMORPGs for 10+ years there is a huge difference in Anthem and say Rift, DDO, Everquest, DCUO etc there is no armor for sale in the shop, no weapons no items used to upgrade your Javelin and tbh if there were that’s still not game breaking unless they were selling things that were better than in game and couldn’t be gotten any other way. Then again I understand the need for micro transactions and cash shops, to a point. 

#Anthem the game #Review #my opinion

[casualarsonist]

Monster Hunter World review (PS4)

My first interaction with the Monster Hunter series was way back in 2000-and-something as I watched a mate of mine play Monster Hunter Tri briefly on his Nintendo Wii. I’m not going to lie - I wasn’t that impressed. Not that I watched for long enough to get more than the most brief impression about the game, as his girlfriend turned it off on him before he managed to save because there were ‘guests’, and the entire room uttered a collective gasp of disgust. In any case, while I didn’t feel motivated to buy, I was intrigued by the series’ rather unique premise, and was always tangentially aware of its existence and the zeitgeist surrounding it. So along came Monster Hunter World this year, and along with it came lashings of praise from every angle. Having no experience with the series, I had no context for the compliments it was getting, but I knew more or less immediately that at some point I was going to play this entry, and given the post-release hype, I had no doubt in my mind that I was going to enjoy it. And then I bought it on PS4...

The first thing that struck me as odd when I started the game was the ad for PSN membership that popped up when it tried to log me in online. After having subscribed for a month in order to play Titanfall 2, and then being robbed by sneaky recurring payments that I wasn’t being notified about for another 6 months after that, I refused to buy a PSN subscription ever again. So loading up a brand new game, and having it immediately stop itself to advertise Playstation subscriptions to me felt grotesque. Next came the first cutscene, which I enjoyed right up until the characters started talking and I realised that the lipsyncing hadn’t been localised, meaning that the game looked like a poorly-dubbed Japanese film. Then came the loading screens, and as I sat in front of my console for two minutes and thirty seconds waiting for the first level to load, the incredulity in me rose. And then I entered the opening hub level. And the game ran somewhere around 25 frames per second. And at that point I tried to get a refund, but it turns out that you can’t refund PS4 games after you’ve downloaded them, meaning they could be broken as shit and you’re stuck with the product anyway because fuck you. And I genuinely thought Monster Hunter World on the PS4 was broken, because it ran almost as bad as Mass Effect Andromeda - one of the worst game I’ve ever played. So, barely 10 minutes into my first time playing, I turned off the console in disgust and walked away. So after I researched Sony’s refund policy and discovered that it was utter dogshit, I realised that I was stuck with the game and I sat back down and gave it another go. And...well, it’s okay. Just okay. 

I fully accept that this is my first foray into an established series with established mechanics. I hate it when games I enjoy dumb themselves down for a mainstream audience (*cough* Fallout *cough*), so I don’t criticise the game for taking some time to get used to. However, there are some real quality of life issues here that simply shouldn’t exist in this day and age.

First of all - it looks like shit. Not it terms of its design, but in terms of the quality of the visuals. Poor frame-rate aside, the graphics are heavily washed-out, which is a big disappointment given the lush forests and crystal clear waters of the first area. I don’t know whether the colour palette could be balanced better on PC, but there’s a flatness to everything on the PS4 that leaves the beautiful, evocative locales feeling drab and lifeless. This is purely a stylistic choice, and I cannot understand why they would go the trouble of crafting such a vivid landscape, only to broadcast it through what feels like a white filter. Turning the brightness all the way down helps, but there’s no reason why this should be a problem in the first place.

Secondly, Dark Souls and Bloodborn exist, and a number of copycat games like Nioh have proven that there’s no excuse for a game to be clunky in order to be difficult. Difficulty should exist in the gameplay balance, not in dated control systems, and this is a big stumbling block for Monster Hunter World. The larger monsters all have certain weak points that can be broken or severed in order to weaken them. The problem is that attacking these weakpoints is easier said than done when the lock-on system barely works, and the directional controls feel like the nine-point directional system of a PS1 game. Attacks cannot be stopped once they’ve started, meaning that you need to master your timing in order to be an effective combatant, but they also cannot be rotated once you’ve initiated them in a particular direction, so if pointing your character in the right direction is a chore, your attacks will often fall slightly to the left or right of where you intend for them to go. Coupled with the fact that the creatures move at speed, this means that finesse goes out the window and much of your initial combat experiences will involve getting as close to the target as possible simply so you can’t miss. Now don’t get me wrong - there is a sense of skill-building and personal improvement once you start to get used to this system, but it does feel extremely dated in a way that doesn’t inspire nostalgia. If a retro first-person-shooter had no mouse look, you’d be up in arms. So too does this feel like less of a design choice and more of a glaring failure to adapt to modern conveniences.

The last big issue is that the game isn’t marketed as a multiplayer game, instead being sold as a single player drop-in-drop-out experience. Which is true, to a point, yet every time you load it up it freezes to connect to the Playstation Network, and then advertises a PSN membership to you if you don’t already have one. Once you’re playing, the game will constantly remind you that other people are playing online, even going so far as to tell you who is joining your ‘session’ - a session that you aren’t in if you don’t have a PSN subscription. And to top it all off, you can’t simply select a mission and then expect it to start straight away: instead you have to wait while the game ‘prepares’ the mission as if you were in multiplayer lobby, even if you’re playing offline. This can take up to a minute or more, and makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. So even if the game detects that you have no PSN account it will still connect to the internet, then force you into either hosting or loading an online game, then tell you all of the people who are joining a session that you’re not playing in, and then put you in a mission lobby when you’re not waiting for anyone to join. It’s the cherry atop a cake baked ten years ago and marketed as a 2018 release. It's absurd. It’s as if the game was created by people who couldn’t fathom a world in which players wouldn’t play alone, and yet the game is, largely, played and sold as a single-player experience - just like all its predecessors. The greatest effect of having other people join in is that your experience bonus is split between you all instead of going solely to you, and that’s not a bonus, but a deficit. 

These issues make me wonder how the game has come to be critically acclaimed at all, at least in terms of this particular version. I hear the PS4 Pro version can run at 1080p60, and I assume the PC version can as well, although I’ve heard there are some connectivity issues with the PC servers, but my immediate impressions of the standard PS4 version are near appalling. Spiderman runs flawlessly as you swing across the entire city of New York - I didn’t see a single frame drop in my entire playthrough, and yet the detailed but limited-scope environs of Monster Hunter World bring the console to its knees. This, more than anything, speaks to the decline of the console’s relevance as modern graphics capabilities increase. One of the important selling points of the consoles was the fact that you could count on them to run stably, even if their games were technologically inferior to their PC counterparts. If they look worse AND play worse, then what’s the point of owning a console at all? If you have to upgrade to a mid-generation PS Pro now every few years just to be able to ensure your games are going to work, then why not just buy a new graphics card for your PC for the same price, not have to subscribe to the fucking scam that is the Playstation Network, AND have a better quality experience while you do it? Aside from the exclusives, the Playstation 4 is redundant, in my opinion. I can’t think of a single reason to invest in the next console generation, because you know that whatever machine you buy is just going to be obsolete in a few years’ time anyway. 

I’m sure that, all the gameplay quibbles aside, Monster Hunter World is perfectly fine to play on a more powerful machine, but I still cannot see why it has garnered such praise. It’s still a niche game, and it’s okay for what it is, but it’s not at all the force to be reckoned with the reviews make it sound like. It’s stuck in the past mechanically, and has the bare minimum of localisation, and while it is fun after you pass a certain teething point, I find that the ultimate experience is defined not what it is, but what it is not. My rating here is for the PS4 version, so take that as you will, but as it is, the PS Store really needs a proper refund policy.

6/10

#monster hunter world #ps4 #capcom #video game #review #nintendo #action #rpg #fighting

[fridge-reviews]

Dishonored

Developer: Arkane Studios Publisher: Bethesda Softworks Rrp: £7.99 (Steam and Humblebundle) Released: 12th October 2012 Available on: Steam and Humblebundle Played Using: Mouse and Keyboard Approximate game length: 16 hours Welcome to the city of Dunwall, capital of the isle of Gristol. This city was once the jewel of the Empire but recent events have brought it low. People are dying in the streets from a mysterious and currently incurable plague. Rats feast on the dead and at times the living. And most recently the Empress was assassinated, by her own bodyguard no less… at least that's what the official story is, perhaps you could correct that error. I'll admit this review is something of a cheat for me as this is a game that I played before and know full well that I like. I used to own the game back when I still had an Xbox 360 and I managed to get all the achievements and bought the DLC on it's day of release. I even cosplayed as Corvo at a con once (although it wasn't very good). For me this has been more a reminder of which I left my 360 behind and moved over to PC, I do miss my old 360 sometimes though. This also has been a chance for me really understand why I like the game so much and what I would change if I was able to.

Anyway, in Dishonored you play as Corvo Attarno a man falsely accused and convicted of murdering the Empress. Depending on your playstyle this title is either a first person shooter or a first person infiltration game. To me Dishonored is something of a spiritual successor to the original Thief franchise (that most recent abomination doesn't count). This may be because my preferred way to play is to never be seen and only perform non-lethal takedowns, which may factor into why I think of it as a spiritual successor to the Thief series. However I know many people who prefer to leave a trail of bodies without a care in the world, and that's part of why I really like this game. It allows you to dictate how you want to play (within a set framework admittedly) and the game doesn't punish you for taking such overtly violent actions. Oh, there are repercussions to be sure but not always in the way you may expect. The game is played through as a series of missions with each ending at The Hound Pits pub which is a hub area where you can speak to other characters, upgrade your equipment, resupply and receive your new orders.

Each mission is split into multiple areas the player can traverse through. Some of these areas are completely optional as they pertain to side quests, although some of these side quests have to completed if you intend to perform a low chaos run of this game (more on chaos later). For example in the first true mission the mission comprises of six areas with three only three being required to complete the main mission. How you go about completing the mission is up to you, there are multiple paths to take to the same destination and even several ways to… 'take care’ of your targets. It all depends on how observant and creative you are. Whatever choice you make will, of course, have an impact on how long a mission lasts. Your playstyle will also affect this as you could go through it quickly slaughtering guards and generally be an angel of death. Alternatively you can be a ghost, taking your time watching the guards movements and taking the most opportune moment… which takes considerably longer. Or you could do something in between.

Through these missions you'll find books and notes scattered that will provide some deeper context to the world and events surrounding you. Some of these will provide clues as to how to go about completing you mission in a way you may not have thought of. Thankfully the game doesn't expect you to remember everything you've read and provides a journal screen where you can reread it at your leisure. This screen also keeps track of your missions (main and optional) as well as allowing you to swap out bone charms and upgrade the special powers you are given. This is another part of the game that is very clearly influenced by the Thief series. Within each mission you'll find items that you can grab which will immediately be converted into cash, it's with this cash that allows you to upgrade and resupply your equipment at the Hound Pits. Also hidden within these missions are a number of collectibles, the most important ones being bone charms (mentioned earlier), runes and blueprints. Once equipped the bone charms you find provide passive bonuses, blueprints on the other hand allow you to buy new upgrades for your equipment once your back at the Hound Pits.

Once a mission is completed you're shown a stat screen. Upon this screen you can see how you did, including how much of the overall money for the mission you found, any special items that were missed and optional missions that have or have not been completed. This screen also shows your 'overall chaos’. The amount of chaos you gain is dependent on what you did during that mission. Killing people, raising alarms, etc increases the amount. This chaos level is what dictates which ending you would receive as well as having other effects in the next mission or so. As was mentioned previously Corvo is given some special powers fairly early in the game by a being called 'The Outsider’. At first it's the ability to teleport to another nearby location, but you can unlock more by purchasing them using the runes you find within missions. Something that I found interesting is that even though you are given these powers you don't need them to complete the game. In fact there is even an achievement for it, it's not easy but it is possible.

Each time you make use of a power a it consumes some of your Mana. In the case of blink this amount will regenerate after a short period (as long as you don't use another power before it fills). However there may be times where you need to use multiple powers in quick succession in which case you can consume a potion that will replenish your Mana. This game is full of nice little touches that show that the designers put real thought in. My favourite being the heart item, when equipped the heart will show you where bone charms and runes are. That, however isn't the part I like. If you use the item, as if you were attacking, the heart will speak, it'll talk about the world around you and if pointed at a person it will speak about secrets that person has. That feature doesn't help you at all other than to expand the lore of the world.

If this game let's me down in one way (and it's a bit of a minor one) I wish Dishonored would allow you turn off lights. As I said it's a minor thing but it just feels like a missed opportunity that would fit perfectly into this game. If there is anything that may put people off this title it likely would be the art style, specifically of the character models. The bodies and faces have a very exaggerated style that almost looks a bit… caricature-ish. It's especially noticeable with the dogs.

I mean do I need to say I recommend it? I pretty much gave away that in my second paragraph. Oh and I didn't include a video because my playstyle doesn’t make for exciting viewing. If this appeals to you perhaps try;

Styx: Master of Shadows Thief 2: The Metal Age Metro 2033 / Metro 2033 Redux

#corvo #corvo attano #stealth #stealth game #action #action game #Dishonored #Gristol #dunwall #game review #game reviews #games review #games reviews #video games #video game #first person #first person shooter #Fps Games #bethesda softworks #bethesda #arkane studios #the outsider

[carterhaughs]

Desire, Duty, & Transformative Self-Love: How Revan Saved Bastila

I posted this analysis some years ago and wanted to repost it now that I have more friends into SW following me.

The thing I’ve thought most about since finishing KOTOR a few days ago (I’ve yet to play KOTOR II but I will when I get home for winter break and have access to a PC) is why Bastila turned to the Dark Side, and why she returned to the Light (or in my interpretation, the Gray, although KOTOR I doesn’t really make this clear).

In-game, there are a number of factors alluded to as being decisive in her choice - her headstrong, wilful tendencies are twice brought up by Jolee in his reasoning as to why she turned despite being strong, and I think it was also he who mentioned that Bastila exposed herself to Revan’s “dark taint” when she touched his mind. The dark influence of the Star Forge on those in its presence is mentioned too - it drove the entire race of the Rakata mad with power and jealousy, after all - and even though the connection is never made explicit, this, too, probably had some impact on Bastila as it was the facility in which she was tortured. It’s easy to think of this dark influence functioning in a way similar to that of the One Ring in the Lord of the Rings series - it preys upon one’s weaknesses, as Jolee explained Malak did upon Bastila’s.

In addition to all the nebulous yet substantive reasons given in-game, I believe a few other influential factors can reasonably be inferred from Bastila’s upbringing. It seems likely to me that Bastila was raised to be a weapon but never fully understood for whom she was meant to pull the trigger. Like all jedi-in-training, she was purposely isolated from the world she was meant to protect for much of her childhood, but I imagine her isolation was even more complete than that of other younglings and Padawan. The moment her affinity for Battle Meditation was discovered, I think she was probably further isolated from her peers in order that it might be honed as quickly and effectively as possible - she had the potential to be an extremely powerful weapon, exactly what the Republic needed in the Jedi Civil War. Bastila’s fierce strength of will probably lent itself well to the unprecedented speed with which she developed her Battle Meditation ability, and in her isolation she probably came to believe that it was the end all, be all of her existence. She was a weapon for the Republic’s use before she was anything else, and indeed, as a Jedi, there was little opportunity for her to be anything else. She was meant to live a life of non-attachment and stifled emotions, and on top of that, she was meant to serve as a tool. With no other substantive worldly connections besides her connection to the abstract good of the Republic, she likely felt very alone, and consequently based her self-worth on her ability to serve as an effective tool to the Republic. How else was she to value herself, with no other metric of human connection and no real understanding of her own self-worth beyond her efficacy as a tool?

While this would have been hard on anyone, it was especially hard on Bastila, whose capacity and need for love is singularly acute. It’s clear from her actions prior to falling to the Dark Side that she valued the connections she formed with others deeply - why else would she so willingly sacrifice herself for Revan and Carth’s sake without a second thought? How ironic that the first connection she’s ever truly allowed to have with someone is with a former Dark Lord of the Sith! It really speaks to her isolation that the only reason she is allowed to foster this bond is because of a technicality - she must probe Revan’s mind for the coordinates to the pieces of the star map to the Star Forge in order that she might, once again, serve as an effective tool for the Republic. And in the course of that mission, she can’t help but become attached to this bond, the first she’s ever been allowed to share, even though she knows of the dangers that come with valuing bonds in such a deep and abiding way. They lead to love, the form of attachment most offensive to the Jedi code, and love leads to the Dark Side (or so she has been taught). It’s not surprising that Bastila formed a Force Bond with Revan in particular - canonically, both of them have stubborn, headstrong natures conducive to an independent-minded strength of will that flies in the face of the Jedi Code.

Her lonely subconscious fed on that unorthodoxy - that potential “dark taint” that colored Revan’s memories - because in him (or her - I’m saying him simply for convenience’s sake and bc I played a dude Revan), it had unwittingly found a kindred spirit. Bastila was given to self-loathing because she could not purge herself of that unorthodoxy - that fierce, strident spirit so discouraged by the Jedi Order. I believe that the Jedi Order saw it as an inappropriate reliance on self-love and hubris, but their mistake was in assuming that a prideful spirit will inevitably meet its end in this way. Their attempt to stifle and eradicate it did nothing but suppress it instead of dealing with it in a healthy way by looking at it as a means for self-improvement and self-preservation that has its own rewards both for oneself and others. Pride can be a folly, but you cannot divorce the sense of self, no matter how disproportionate, from the quest for self-improvement. It would have been better to acknowledge Bastila’s self-love (which they only encouraged by reminding her daily that the entire Republic relied on her abilities) and teach her to deal with it in a healthy way and use it as a means to help others by way of the confidence and conviction required for effective leadership. Instead, they expected her to subjugate her fierce spirit (a spirit that likely developed at least in part as a defense mechanism when she was asked to become the only thing standing between the Republic and total annihilation) to complete humility instead of a healthy degree of self-regard that still made room for compassion.

When she was tortured by Malak, she was alone again - she’d lost the one connection in her life that she’d ever been allowed to have - her connection with Revan. Bastila was once again just a weapon - it was all she was and all that mattered. Alone and vulnerable and in constant pain, she was open to suggestion. And as she explains when you fight her at the Star Forge, the Dark Side gave her free rein to rely on the passions she’d kept so tightly coiled for so many years. In unimaginable pain, it’s no wonder that she gave in to the way her proud spirit cried out at the injustice of it all. As a weapon with no connection to anyone, what did it matter for whom she pulled the trigger? What really mattered was whether or not she was in control - that she was the one pulling it, at her whim. That she wasn’t being used and that her personhood was respected. Even if Malak, too, only saw her as a tool, one day she could surpass him. For years, she’d been denied her passions and the need for connection they’d entailed so that she could fulfil her sole purpose as the Republic’s trump card. With no connection to those the Republic sought to protect, in her despair, she could see no inherent value in their protection. She could only see the value of self-love when self-love was all she’d ever been able to develop as it was all she was allowed to have, even though it, too, was discouraged. And her upbringing had encouraged her to view the world in binaries, so she chose the Dark Side instead of some third way that harmonized her desires with her duties. She’d only ever been allowed to love the good of the Republic in the abstract and had not been allowed to witness love with a human face.

Until she met Revan. She was encouraged to connect with him, even though that connection was meant only to be instrumental to the Republic’s cause. But in forging that first connection, he gave her something to hold on to and that’s why, canonically, he is able to pull her back. He was able to find some value in the Light Side not in spite of his passions, but because of them. He was able to channel his fierce love of the world into a desire to protect it with as much compassion as he can muster, and he is living proof that she can do the same, and that non-attachment and emotional repression are nowhere near as conducive to strength against the Dark Side as well-grounded love and compassionate fervor. And it is her recognition of this as the foundation of their bond - that this is what she loves about him - that leads her to realize that she, too, can become the best version of herself by following his path because she sees herself in him. She’s openly loved by him as a person, not because she’s a potent tool. To me, it’s as if they’re two sides of the same coin (and that is likely why they were Force-Bound) - Bastila’s will to resist the Dark Side was weakened by her having lived too little within the world and too much in the abstract without anything to which she might tether herself, while Revan’s fall was linked to cynicism - to having seen too much of the world and being sickened by it (like the destruction of the Cathar homeworld by the Mandalorians that lead to his acquiring his mask) and desiring to rectify it by any means possible. They are each others’ obverse, and together they are completed by love. It’s as Jolee said - “Love doesn’t lead to the dark side. Passion can lead to rage and fear, and can be controlled… but passion is not the same thing as love. Controlling your passions while being in love… that’s what they should teach you to beware. But love itself will save you… not condemn you."

#bastila shan #darth revan #knights of the old republic #kotor #revastila #kotor meta #my kotor meta #please talk to me about these games #I love them so much

[gameingnow]

GTA: San Andreas Review

Grand Theft Auto, a crime simulation created by Rockstar Games in 1997 that did not participate in water, turned many phenomena in the game world upside down, as well as changed many things in my life. At that time, I thought that the PC was used for strategy and FPS games, I spent most of my time with such games, I did not prefer action games. I would rule the characters who were in favor of righteousness, as if I were going to ensure the order of the world, and try to be the angel of good of the city. On one of the days when the Games began to repeat each other and become boring, I received a strange phone call from my best friend: "brother, you must see that the game has come out..." My friend's house was close, but I wasn't very enthusiastic as I was bored playing the same games. When I got to my friend in half an hour, I once again understood the importance of the phrase "raw chicken is eaten for memory". Because in front of me, the one who flips and shakes all the rules of the game. I came across a production that turned each of the usual taboos upside down. Grand Theft Auto threw away all the facts that had to be done in an action game, giving a person Unlimited Freedom. After about an hour or so of watching my friend steal cars and drive crazy, crash right and left, crush people, tear down the streets, I couldn't wait for it to be my turn. When I got my hands on the controls (thanks to the basic needs of people, my friend had to take a break for 1-2 minutes.) I felt I was more free than I had ever been in a game before. It was incredibly enjoyable to stand on the side of the street and dive into the first passing car, throw the driver aside and hit the roads at full speed. Among the vehicles on the street, we chose a red and extremely fast car that was our favorite. We did all the tasks with it, and when we got too much damage, we replaced it with a new one. If my mom called and said, " Son, we wondered what time it was."if he hadn't said," I think I'd never have gotten off that screen. Before I go home, I have one last task to do: find a way to take your friend's cd home... Additional package that reverses everything There is no doubt that Grand Theft Auto ended one era, started another, and acquired itself an incredibly large fan base. But he soon got into trouble with countless cases. Due to the fact that the game is a crime simulation with a full meaning, the claim that it encourages people to commit a crime and contains a lot of profanity, many environments were disturbed, and even the distribution of the game was banned for a short time. It was not long before the game was re-released as a result of great pressure. Many game magazines even lined up to deliver a short demo to their readers. When Grand Theft Auto started chewing gum in the mouth of many game lovers, for those who are skilled, there was no longer an unsolved puzzle, an incomplete task, and a mystery that was not found. People were now waiting for the second version. But instead of upgrading the game to a higher version, Rockstar Games released an additional package that will distract people in the short term. This additional package, which took us to the streets of London in 1969, contained almost nothing, unlike the first game. It was only because the game was in England that traffic was running backwards. Of course, the map design and missions were brand new, but none of them were enough to satisfy the taste of the new future game. Although a big cut didn't like Grand Theft Auto: London 1969, the sales figures and play rates completely denied it. It's time for Game Two. About 2 years have passed since the bomb Rockstar Games sent to the game world, which announced its expected game. GTA 2... This time, I had the honor of playing GTA 2 for the first time, acting faster than my friend. (Thanks to my then monster system, Pentium II 400 and 32 MB of Ram, was a great help in this regard.) My friend's system can not run the game in full sense, so this time we did the GTA morning at our house. One night, the more the mystery of the game could be solved, the deeper we went and realized that the game, which at first glance seemed the same, was actually quite overhauled. From this date, the name GTA has now become a brand, the new game has started to take advantage of the blessings of graphics cards, especially slowly. Although our view of the screen was still a bird's-eye camera, the difference between day and night made the game visually quite different. The maps were larger, the missions were larger, and the inter-gang balances that we would be involved in made GTA 2 extremely playable. A lot of things were developed in the name of freedom. Although there is no equivalent for hours, I still remember how we used buses, lowered and boarded passengers at stops. Second revolution in the gaming world My friend and I were dreaming in our own way while we were playing until GTA 2 came out of the water. You may not believe it, but what we were thinking was, "I wonder how this game could be three-dimensional." In fact, we were so carried away that it would remain a dream that "no, they can't make such a game three-dimensional."he says," Think about it, if they do it, it's like real life."we were thinking. It is not known whether it was known to me and my friend, about two years after we dreamed these dreams, our biggest dream, three-dimensional Grand Theft Auto, that is, GTA III, was released. GTA III, which said hello to the world with the PlayStation 2 version in 2001, also brought countless firsts. Aside from the fact that the game first appeared on the console, it created a revolution again with its incredibly advanced technical infrastructure and numerous opportunities to roam freely in the city. GTA III, which even bought a PlayStation 2 for a person like me who was thinking about investing his money in his computer, deserved much more than simple praise. It is impossible to believe whether a game develops so much or changes so much. Because now we have a city that lives in its own state. In the heart of a crime-ridden city, we played a simple man trying to get into gangs that had a higher priority than the law. Typical GTA logic; " play the vehicle you encounter, walk around as you wish."apart from its logic, many mini-missions were added to the game. When we got into the vehicles, the radio that was playing fascinated almost everyone. We turned on the radio you wanted and listened to songs with a total length of hours. Each radio had its own DJ, as well as a musical style. Each of these features attributed the name GTA to being the most innovative production among all the games released to date. Additional tasks that greatly extended the playing time of GTA III in a way allowed it to not be left out of hand for many years. If you were tired of doing consecutive tasks, if you just wanted to tour sokata, you could go and steal a taxi, drive a taxi to make money. If you want to do something in the public interest (which is the degree of public interest is debated.) this time you could also be a fireman, an ambulance driver, or a cop. As much as Grand Theft Auto hit the market in 1997 and confused the market, it had the same effect on the innovations it brought to GTA III. About 6 months after the PlayStation 2, GTA III, which met players with the PC version, technically did not offer much innovation, but with the logic of being on the computer, it became a multi-player mode and various visual additional modes. Thanks to the GTA III modes, which are still being developed today, we can replace the vehicles on the street with models such as the Eagle, Sparrow, which are one of the immutable cars of our country. Additional package without additional package It has not been a full year since the GTA III madness; Rockstar Games has once again appeared with a new game; GTA: Vice City. People who are still playing GTA III like crazy, "where did this come from?", "So how does this differ from GTA III?"the game, which led us to ask such questions, took us to the universe where Brain De Palma's unforgettable masterpiece Scarface (Scarface) took place. On the streets of Miami, where crime, drugs and smuggling went wild, we led a man who started from scratch and went on his way to becoming a mafia emperor, just like in the script of Scarface. With our character Tommy Vercetti, everything we could do in GTA III continues, we were trying to become the new name of crime in a more colorful, larger and more interactive universe.GTA: Vice City looked to the eyes like a modified version of the previous version, just like Grand Theft Auto: London 1969. The game, which technically uses the same structure, seemed to be made up and re-released with a couple of graphical updates and various interaction settings added. But the beauty of it was that the game was not dependent on the first version and was playable alone. Offering new vehicles, new weapons and usable buildings, Vice City GTA III had the structure to close whatever was missing. Now we could jump from vehicles while cruising, use motorcycles and helicopters. The helicopter, which has always been at hand for those who want to travel around the game map in a short time, was one of Vice City's most important vehicles. After nearly a year of delays on the PlayStation 2, the logic of releasing the PC version was now an unchangeable rule in the GTA series. GTA III and Vice City first came out on the PlayStation 2 platform and then came out on the PC, whether you want it or not, it brought with it a lot of development. Just like GTA III, Vice City had graphical improvements and various additions using the PC infrastructure. Silence broken Every time Rockstar Games is buried in silence, it's a firm that comes back with big and bomb news. Just as in the past 2 years, programmers who we think are in the making of a new game have given the news that will drown PlayStation 2 users with joy and announced GTA: San Andreas. The game, which debuted at the E3 show last year, promised so much innovation that it made not only PlayStation 2 users but all other game enthusiasts drool. Our character would now have a certain personality, and the game map would become tremendously large. With newly added weapons, vehicles and quests, the game would take on a whole new dimension. While all these claims do not seem to exceed the rumour size, what happened happened and GTA San Andreas was first released on the PlayStation 2 platform. All that was promised, expected and desired was now in San Andreas. A huge main map, many new weapons and vehicles were in front of us. Above all, our character now had a personality and dignity. We had to go through certain stages to get to the top level among the gang members. As the physical appearance of our character changed, getting girlfriends, and many details that I couldn't count were included in the game, the days of grief began for players who couldn't own the PlayStation 2. As someone who curses that I sold my PlayStation 1.5 years ago, I started waiting for San Andreas like crazy. The praise he received from my friends was proof of how good the game was, but since I still couldn't even touch the game, it was increasing in value to me. Rumors that it would be released for the PC in June sprinkled water on my heart, but the days did not pass. The PC version of San Andreas was officially launched when the dates were June 7. No one can hold me anymore, wait, I'm coming to the streets of San Andreas... Here we go Our adventure on the islands of San Andreas, which contains three cities, includes the 90s as a period. The map of San Andreas is a huge island consisting of three cities in total. A tiny formula is available to visualize the size of the space you can walk around, imagine the total size of GTA: Vice City and multiply it by four. Here's the dimension of the San Andreas universe. It is divided into many districts to provide easier access to such a large map. Each district has its own style, structure and appearance. The city of Los Santos, where we started the game, is located south of the map and is usually run by small gangs. The other city, called San Fierro, is an area with more developed buildings. The gangs here have more opportunities and have more say. Las Venturas, the last city, resembles Las Vegas, both with its feature that comes with being built on desert land and with the casinos it contains. Of course, management here is provided by mobs who appeal to large audiences. If you, like me, are one of those who first met San Andreas on PC, you may want to listen to the topic a little. Carl Johnson (or CJ for short), our main character in San Andreas, is a teenager who grew up in the suburbs. After getting into trouble with the gangs in the area, Carl, who prefers to run away and leaves the city to never return, decides to return to the city where he was born and raised, after a long time. But when Carl is gone, his family, which he left behind, is disturbed by the area's gangs. Carl's brother, unaware that he is making the situation worse, decides to start his own gang and everything goes wrong. A family that has now made serious enemies is suddenly attacked one night, and Carl's mother does not survive this attack. Feeling guilty about his mother, Carl returns to the city where he spent his childhood, and the city he left years ago is no longer the same. His brother has been one of the heads of the new gang and is in trouble with gangs whose heads are bigger than theirs. As soon as CJ returns to the city, we understand how much crime the city has turned into when he was briefly detained by the police and thrown into the middle of the street after his money was taken. In this way, we take the first step on an endless adventure with CJ, who is trying to stay afloat in a city where there is no cop to trust. Stereotypes aside It is necessary to admit that this landscape and scenario that we encounter when we start the game are a little cliché. But when it comes to GTA, the main story is thrown aside a little. Because the real beauty of the game is hidden in its details and tasks. Believe me, there's no game on the market right now that can spill water on San Andreas ' hands about detail. As soon as we make our first entrance to San Andreas, of course, we get the graphics. Technically, although the Graphics Engine 4 years ago is still being used, quite a few improvements have been made. Especially in the PC version, the details increase a lot thanks to the high resolution. Later, what caught our attention was the city structure, which presented a picture of the majority of Negroes in terms of the overall structure. In a field full of Negroes, their distinctive slang and curses follow suit, whether they want to or not. In the first one or two missions, we witness how successful the conversations were. If we walk around our city a little bit, it is dominated by a more suburban part, and the view of the city, which is usually forgotten, does not escape attention. If you remember, as soon as we started Vice City, we saw the first development added to the game with a small motorcycle standing in front of us. In San Andreas, we see a bike at the same point where we start the game. As soon as we start driving, we realize that it's not much different from a motorcycle, but it's slower. Unlike previous GTA games, the distinction between day and night, which has progressed quite visually, is also shown. Day and night changes in our game are no longer happening at once, but gradually. So the shadows we see also change at every moment. It's not like innovation will end in San Andreas For those who have played the GTA series, San Andreas offers the same amount of innovation as everything was so different when Carl returned to the city where he was born and raised. Our new game has a map as big as all other GTA games combined, decorated and enhanced visuals with many details. As soon as we start counting, the most important of the list, which does not seem to end, is the personality of our character. Unlike other games in the series, in San Andreas, our character has his own personality, appearance and charisma. Just as we gain respect for gangs with our tasks, we can also change our appearance by doing some additional tasks. As soon as we first started the game, if we want to do tasks in a row, we also received the most basic information. For example, the game shows how to increase the degree of respect that is very important and how to control the basic needs graphics. If we Press The tab key on the condition that we are out of the vehicle at any point in the game, the needs chart appears on the screen, just like in The Sims game. There are degrees of respect, endurance, novelties, obesity and sex appeal. Respect determines the point of view of the gang we are involved in against us. In order to get advanced tasks, we need to have a high degree of respect. Thanks to endurance, we can swim and run longer. Those who know know that in previous GTA games, we also had a character that could last longer as we ran, but this time this power is shown graphically. As we increase our muscle strength, our body structure also takes shape Nov. Our health forces are increasing and the amount of damage we are receiving is decreasing. Just as obesity affects our appearance and respect, it changes the way gang members view us. Finally, our attraction to girls increases with the degree of sex appeal. We increase this level by going out to dinner with your girlfriends regularly and dancing. Look as you are or be as you look As with all GTA games, it pushes us to follow a certain scenario in San Andreas. We have to do the tasks that are lined up in a row, earn our reputation among gangs, and increase our assets. To do all this, we are offered eternal freedom. According to the general logic of the GTA, there are no time limits, so you can do these tasks immediately, if you want, you spend most of your time with empty jobs, you kill time. Here's the best part of GTA, the producers who have taken this free time or secret and additional missions a few steps away with the San Andreas version. Now, the years when we can spend time on our own and have fun have been greatly increased. At the very beginning of this comes to change the appearance of our character. If you are a character who cares about your appearance (which is a kind of necessity when you go to the management of gangs), you should regularly go to the barber shop and determine your hair and style. If you want to adopt herpes styles, it's even possible to have a body full of tattoos. Although it is easy for a person to have a beautiful hairstyle, his body, which he will use as a tual when he wants to fill his body with a tattoo, should also look a little pleasant to the eye, of course. If a fat person walks on the street topless, it becomes important to have a healthy and beautiful body, as the belly will hit you in the eye before you look at their tattoos. The way to improve your body, of course, is through gyms. If you play sports regularly, if you prefer to cross close-distance paths on foot, you will inevitably have an athletic structure. That's when you walk around topless increases your reputation again. O people! I can swim now, too We know that playing sports in San Andreas is extremely important in terms of maintaining our form. But what you can do to keep yourself in shape is not limited to a few such options. Just as you can go to gyms and work out, you can maintain your form by using a lot of bikes or walking a lot of jogging if you want. But thanks to an innovation that has come in San Andreas, one more of these sports that you can do is added; Now we can swim! Read the full article

[phae]

Week 498 / 2020

As many people have pointed out, January 1st won't see things suddenly be much better, but I am glad to see the back of 2020.

The election back in November was a huge relief, although I continue to be stunned that MIL truly and deeply believes the election was fraudulent and it's all a cunning ploy to lead the US into communism.

I'm excited about the vaccine news - I know it'll be a long time until I'm in a group that will get it, but it's the first glimmer of hope that I might get to come home sometime in 2021. I haven't seen my family for 18 months, now.

Because I'm homesick, we had a "British" Christmas dinner this year. A non-animal protein for me, chicken for Alex, then roasted carrots, parsnips, cabbage, roast potatoes, Yorkshire puddings and gravy. Sticky-toffee pudding and custard for dessert.

Alex hadn't had Yorkshire pudding before? He put BUTTER on his like it was bread? He doesnt like gravy? You can marry a person, be stuck in a house with them 24/7 in a pandemic for a year, and still not really understand them.

We didn't do Christmas presents. We sort of stopped that in our second year. We do tend to buy for ourselves something frivilous that one doesn't really need, instead; I bought myself a Hayden duet concertina.

I can play London Bridge and the first part of Becalmed (from the Sea of Thieves game soundtrack). I'm mostly interested in dirges.

The most fun I've been having is still co-op online games with the Dusties. We recently started playing Red Dead Online, which is free if you have RDR2 (or $5 standalone), and although it's obviously meant to entice you to buy the "gold" for upgrades, we play the free content to the max.

The best bit, though, and the part that's had me laughing so hard my chest hurts is when we get bored of running missions and devolve into what we call "purge time", turn on friendly-fire and just go to town. "Dynamite only" rounds or knife-fights. If that was all the game was, I think we'd still enjoy it.

Part of the RDO crew.

I hyped myself up for Cyberpunk 2077 and it was so incredibly disappointing. I got it for PC, and my gaming laptop is basically brand-new, so it looked fantastic. Unfornately, it's an incredibly shallow game, more akin to Deus Ex than Witcher 3 (the latter is what I had been expecting). I asked for a refund (I bought direct from GOG) but I'm still waiting.

I finished my GoodReads reading challenge, but sort of feel like I cheated by getting in quite a few short stories.

2020 Reading Challenge

Frances has completed their goal of reading 30 books in 2020!

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Our car broke, which means we couldn't go on an intended hike today - a very American problem - but also the reason I thought to sit down and do a week note.

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[crasherfly]

Weekly Update

Nothing to report.

I had a big ol’ ripper of a rant, but it was pretty much everything I’d already said in therapy. Y’all don’t gotta take that on. So I’m gonna let it lie where it ought- with a professional.

I’ll just say I hope everyone had a good holiday weekend. I miss everyone a lot and I hope we can game together soon.

Video Games

Holy smokes did I play some games or did I play some GAMES. (I played some games). Gonna do my best to recap everything I did below. 

Crusader Kings 3 (PC)

Crusader Kings 3 is a grand strategy game about facilitating a royal line in the medieval world and leading it to ever greater heights of fame and power. Eventually, you’ll see your humble bloodline climb to the highest echelons of the lite.

Crusader Kings 3 is a grand strategy game about overseeing a perpetual house fire of family turmoil in the medieval world and watching over the course of hours and days as it burns itself straight to the ground.

Both of these things are equally true. And shockingly, both are equally fun.

I played about 30 hours of this game over Thanksgiving break. And although my first royal family was more of the house fire variety, I can’t deny that my experience was memorable and deeply enjoyable.

In Crusader Kings 3 you play as a king- not a kingdom, but the actual ruler. You have stats and abilities and traits, and the decisions you make throughout your reign affect them in dramatic ways. You also oversee an entire family of individuals who you can similarly affect with your actions. 

While the game itself also has traditional strategy concepts such as war and economy, the real meat and bones are in the simply click to choose narrative bubbles that pop up throughout your playthrough. Will you attend the ball, or slink away into the night? Will you charge the rampart or let your knights serve as your shield? Will you marry the unskilled heir of a powerful ally, or commoner with the brilliant stewardship abilities? Every decision ensures that your playthrough will be nothing like anyone else’s.

It is a complex and robust system, demanding you take on an encyclopedia’s worth of terms and vocabulary to fully understand what is happening. Everything- and I mean EVERYTHING- has a stat modifier attached to it. War is unforgiving and often devastating, and economic buildup is fragile and requires immense patience. This is a slow experience, to be sure, one that makes games like Civ or even Endless Space seem lightning paced in comparison.

There aren’t many folks I could recommend this game to. The few I know who have tried it have given up after a couple hours, discouraged by the obtuse volume of systems and intricacies that I won’t even pretend to have a full grasp of as of this writing.

But what I will say is that it is rare for a strategy game to be so accepting of ignorance and mistakes- and if you’re willing to give Crusader Kings 3 the time to open up, it will reward you. 

My first king after the starter king died at 33, half-insane, wounded and tortured to death after an ill-fated war against a neighboring county who happened to be best buds with the King of England- a much, much stronger kingdom than I. But I kept going, and by the time I’d hit the 5th and 6th kings in my succession, my rulers were regularly living well past 55 years of age, occasionally winning wars, but more importantly, staying out of unnecessary ones, and making plenty of gold for kingdom improvements.

Granted, this all came crashing down after an opportunistic neighbor declared war on me as I was in the midst of my own expansion. They captured an incredibly valuable county from me, and my kingdom never recovered. I watched as my territory disappeared claim by claim until at last my army of less than 100 was wiped out, my last city captured, and my bloodline swiftly ended via jailing and executions.

But...it was a thrilling end to over 200 years of royal drama, and I was immediately plotting how I’d do better next game.

Hitman 2 (PS4)

So when I said I played some GAMES, I mostly meant I got deep into a couple of games that require a lot of investment and focus. I’ve put in over 150 hours with Hitman 1 and 2 combined. I maxed out the mastery level of every mission in the first game- twice, so I could unlock the old equipment for the new game- and have been working my way through total mastery on the second game ever since.

If someone were to ask me what I think the best game of the PS4/XBONE gen is, I’d say, without hesitation, Hitman. It’s rare to find a game that is so rewarding of your time, so dedicated to presenting you with a thoughtful and clever world as this. Every level is a perfect puzzle. Every solution is both humorous and karmic and deeply satisfying. The rewards are many and you earn them often enough to keep you coming back. There are more side-contracts than I could ever possibly play. There’s even a co-op mode that I haven’t touched, not to mention the custom contracts. There’s even more than that, but if I go on I’ll start to sound like a back of box summary.

I finally finished the Isle of Sgail this week. A massive, sprawling castle with multiple layers of security and triggered events, it took FOREVER to learn. In fact, it was so massive that I gave up on it several times before finally resolving to finish it.

Now, I’m a deeply obsessive Hitman player. I don’t move on from a level until I’ve maxed out its mastery rating and unlocked all of its items for my inventory. But had I not wanted to do that? I could have moved forward at any time. And that’s the joy of Hitman. It doesn’t force you to stick around longer than you’d want to. If you want to play every single hit the same way, you can! If you want to just walk into every single level, shoot your target in the head, and leave- it might be a bit tricky, but it isn’t impossible, and you could do that and conceivably play every single level in the course of maybe a week.

But if you want to take your time and really memorize these brilliant layouts over the course of weeks, months, or in my case- years? You can do that too. Either way can be the right way to enjoy Hitman. 

I’m guessing these games will go on sale a few more times before 3 drops. If you can pick up 2′s premium edition, which includes 1, I’d highly recommend it. It is rare that you will find a title with so much pure single player content. Years worth, if you want it.

Depending on how the devs handle inventory and progress crossover for 3, I’ll have a big decision to make on what console I choose to play. I couldn’t care less where the story is going, but then, has anyone ever? These games have been an absolute joy to play, and that’s what matters.

Also...a Bond game from the same devs?

Sign me up!

Link’s Awakening (Switch) 

I always told myself I’d never pay full price for this. Because Nintendo’s gonna Nintendo, I had to wait a full year before I could catch any sort of break on this price. 

Eventually picked up Link’s Awakening and so far it’s pretty much been exactly what I expected. My muscle memory carried me through 2 dungeons in less than 90 minutes. The visuals were gorgeous, the music delightful, and my continual nostalgic recall at times overwhelming. This really is the same game we all played on our Gameboys, brought back to life for a new gen.

There’s nothing new here to go over. However, if you have a child or a partner who didn’t grow up with this? I’d recommend picking it up for them. Link’s Awakening has always been one of the least intimidating and most accessible Zelda games out there, and this reboot (or remaster? idk!) is an absolute charmer.

Premium Bowling (Oculus Quest 2)

So it’s come to this. Bowling. The more things have changed since the Wii, the more they stay the same. Bowling is still the most satisfying motion activity you can do, it seems.

Premium Bowling is exactly what it sounds like- a game about bowling. You have a few different alleys to choose and no shortage of pin set ups. The added ability to track not just your hand motions but your steps is really cool- and I like to hope my actual bowling form has improved as I play this. I get a good light workout in and the ball and pins tend to behave the way I feel like they should.

Not much else to say here. The price tag is a bit steep for a bowling experience, but far as I can tell this seems to be the main, if not only, one out there, and the reviews are overwhelmingly positive, even as I have to admit the announcer bugs the daylights out of me.

Anime

Folks- I did the damn thing. I got out there and I watched some anime! FINALLY.

I don’t know what I keep avoiding this stuff. There are so many good and interesting stories out there at my fingertips, and I just keep ignoring them to go watch wrestling or bet on Spriteclub. It’s awful!

Well, no more. This week, I got to catch up on some stories. Here’s what I got so far.

Note: For titles I haven’t written about previously, I’ll provide a short summary. For others, not so much. For my more critical thoughts- my experiences are my own and not a judgement of others. Maybe you loved one series or hated another. That’s totally fine! Everyone should love what they love without reservation. As always, I love hearing about what you love. If you think I missed something, or just want to share something about your experience that really made an anime click? Hit me up! Also, I am ALWAYS taking recommendations- and I will almost always follow up if I give something you send my way a shot :)

Fire Force

Fire Force’s season 2 is finally, after what feels like an eternity, winding down. It’s still a gorgeous show and certainly one of the most on-brand shonen out there. It’s also, for me, one of the most uneven.

Season 2 has been all over the damn place this year, introducing countless characters and following no small number of random threads before finally coming back to Shinra and the 8th’s mission to determine the cause of human combustion. 

The past couple of eps in particular have been brutal, with actual character death and mutilation taking a front seat- things I was not necessarily expecting from a fairly gung-ho shonen.

I still enjoy the world that Fire Force has built. It’s an undeniably cool aesthetic. I’ll be curious to see what, if any, cliff-hangers the writers leave us as the heroes close in on the evil Evangelist.

Jujutsu Kaisen

Speaking of shonens, this particular title about a possessed teenager with a death sentence has really come into its own in its first season. Its lore is absolutely lovely, and the more I learn about curses and those who hunt them, the more I want to know.

I’ll spare the rundown on what this show’s about- I’ve gone over it in previous blogs. Suffice to say those who are after a more mature shonen with a darker plot will dig this one a lot.

Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?

A young adventurer named Bell becomes an adventurer- not to kill monsters or earn glory, but to find true love. Eventually, he finds it, but not in the way he expects. After getting cornered by a monster way above his level, he is rescued by a beautiful warrior named Ais. The story follows Bell’s quest to get stronger so that he can impress Ais- and stand with confidence amongst other adventurers.

Only watched the first ep of this. It was charming, well animated. I hear it’s picked up a lot of steam in its third season. I don’t know that I can say the hook really grabbed me, but it’s a very cute show.

One-Punch Man

Saitama has a problem- he’s trained so hard that he’s now TOO strong, and can finish every fight with just one punch. He’s now bored and despondent, as the hobby he took up for fun now lacks the spark that he once felt before. Dealing with these feelings and seeking a challenge that shakes up his low-stakes, humdrum day to day life- that is the story we follow in One-Punch Man.

So I’ve read the manga for OPM. I loved it. I thought, and still think, its animation is superior to the anime. When I first tried OPM I couldn’t get past that, and I eventually gave up. 

I also thought that a lot of OPM stories had kind of a weird tone- it’s definitely a loner/outsider story, and a lot of the villains and antagonists that get set up are absolutely poking fun at the typical things you’d expect an angry loner story to poke fun at. I won’t get too into it, but when I first tried OPM that weird undercurrent really made it hard for me to get into it the way a lot of other guys I knew were.

A few years later, I’m giving it a shot again. And overall? 

I don’t hate it. 

I think I’m looking at the protagonist, Saitama, in a different light. His boredom, his lackluster deference and his blank stares all play to a place that I find more familiar than I’d like to admit.

But also- the animation is fine and I’m a dummy for giving it grief. And the music is just super rad as well. 

I think I’ll eventually finish OPM now that I have both more distance between the manga now and now that I’ve kinda settled down on what throws me off, content-wise, in a story. I’m going to give OPM the benefit of the doubt and keep watching. I’ll report back when I finish.

Mob Psycho 100

A lot of folks I know have ranted that Mob Psycho 100 is the best darn thing to happen to anime in ages. I guess the visuals, much as they did for One-Punch Man, sorta dissuaded me from seeing what all the hype was about.

And I guess they still kinda do. I...I guess Mob Psycho is pretty in its own way. It’s definitely not the visual aesthetic I go searching for in an anime, but I’m trying to do a better job of not judging that too harshly.

Anyway, Mob Psycho 100 is about a kid named Mob who acts as a powerful exorcist on behalf of his bumbling and powerless teacher. Together they take on demons as a for-hire service.

I feel like I’ve heard this show is hilarious? I don’t know. I didn’t find too much to chuckle about, but it was well-done and it certainly had no shortage of chaotic energy and visuals.

I’ll probably finish it, if only ‘cuz I’m mildly intrigued about just what so many others see in Mob as a protag, and ‘cuz I’m also curious what so many folks are drawing from the series as a whole. But so far, I haven’t found myself hooked.

No Guns Life

The main character has a gun for a head. Honestly? That was weird enough to make me pass over the thumbnail for months.

Recently though, I’ve been rewatching Solty Rei, and it got me in the mood for weird sci-fi noir stories. So I thought what the hell, I’ll give the gunhead a try.

I’m so, so glad I did.

Of all the titles I tried out this week, No Guns Life is the best. It is dark, brooding, gorgeous, but also knows when to have fun. 

In a future world where prosthetic replacement has been normalized- if not popularized, a mercenary named Juzo is handed a case by a desperate “Extended” (the term used for more advanced cyborgs) who asks him to look after a boy that was just rescued from a corporate lab. Juzo takes the case, and his life immediately becomes more complicated- and dangerous.

It’s a classic noir hook that feels both familiar yet fresh in thanks to the series’ inventive visuals and intricate lore. Further, the voice acting is just pure hard-boiled goodness, whether you watch it in English or the original Japanese.

Do yourself a favor and give the first episode a try. You might just love it.

The Millionaire Detective Balance: Unlimited

An honest and earnest blue-collar detective is paired up with a new recruit at his precinct- a recruit who turns out to be the richest man on the planet!

That’s it. That’s the show. It is not trying to hide anything- that’s its premise and it’s sticking by it.

And a few times, I even laughed at its brazenness. 

At one point during a high speed chase, the millionaire successfully resolves the chase by...telling his butler to pay everyone to get out of the way- at “twice the market value”. Which. What even...

The Millionaire Detective’s power is literally that he is rich and can afford anything. When he accesses his balances, they are listed as “unlimited”. He buys everyone off. Pays for every damage he causes. He can make city utilities such as traffic lights and draw bridges do anything he likes. At one point, the Millionaire Detective stops a foreign dignitary in the middle of the street and buys the dignitary’s vehicle on the spot so he can continue his chase. It’s...well. It’s the logical conclusion of the series title. I’ll give it that much.

No idea if I’d finish this. It has some funny ideas. I like that the eps end with a balance sheet that tells you how much was spent. 

Uzaki-chan Wants to Hang Out

A loner in college is constantly shadowed and harassed by an indomitable girl named Uzaki who, true to the name of the series, wants to hang out.

I watched one ep of this show. I didn’t dislike it! I’m a sucker for low stakes slice of life comedies like this where the biggest conflict is whether or not the protag gets to go to the movies alone.

It’s not as clever as other slice of life anime I’ve seen, but it’s not abrasive. The namesake character Uzaki is a bit manic, and the loner is a bit of a bore, but there’s chemistry I could see following for a few more eps. I also just enjoy observing Japanese culture as it unfolds in stories like these. There’s so much to pick up in these kinds of stories, so I may continue on with it, if only out of curiosity. 

The Rising of Shield Hero

A guy gets transported to a world in dire need of heroes. Everyone who is brought to the world is assigned a weapon which they will use to save the kingdom. Our protagonist gets the Shield- considered the weakest assignment. Derided by his allies and cast out after no small number of misunderstandings, Rising of Shield Hero is the story of one man’s drive to do the right thing and save the kingdom that never wanted him in the first place.

This is my second try with Shield Hero. I gave up once before. But now...I’m giving Shield Hero another shot.

I tried this title about a year ago. I was really harsh on its opening ep’, which hinges on a false rape accusation and a typical loner outsider isekai protagonist. Its “best girl” is a character who is introduced by way of being literally purchased from a slaver. None of this was presented in an especially egregious or even disrespectful format, but at the time I was watching it, I just lacked patience for it.

But time is a funny thing. We grow, we re-evaluate, and we make ourselves open to change.

I think I’ve had time to chill out since my first experience with Shield Hero and not be so bothered by the particulars (that, and...well, my experience with Goblin Slayer really put some shit in perspective, ugh). Did I think some of ep 1 was unimaginative? Yes. But was any of it actually a dealbreaker? Nah.I know a lot of good folks who I trust that have really resonated with Shield Hero as it has unfolded. It’s worth giving it another try.

Shield Hero’s setting is beautiful and its characters are certainly drawn to create an emotional investment. We want to root for the the Shield Hero, because he is quietly determined and righteous. We want to protect Raphtalia be cause she is vulnerable and kind. We want to see the antagonists fail because they’re all huge jerks. This aint rocket science, but I’ll grant it is effective and I want to be a part of the ride like so many others are.

I’m going to keep working through this, if only because I know season 2 is a damn event in anime and I don’t want to miss out. I’ll let you know if things keep improving. I’ve done episode 2 thus far, and I liked it more than ep 1. So we’ll see if that trend keeps up.