#i usually hate shooter-esque games but this???
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My Cyberpunk 2077 review
I finished the game last night and I have Feelings™ about it, so here goes my review. While the heavy spoilers (ending related) will be hidden under Keep Reading, I might mention some minor ones here and there, so read at your own risk.
Let’s get the Big Thing out of the way first: yes, the game is buggy af. The good news is most of them are visual bugs, so while annoying, they don’t really matter gameplay wise. But I did have to reload an earlier save file two times to get rid of gamebreaking bugs, both messing with main story quests. It was frustrating. And nevermind the times my car got destroyed because the game suddenly realized there were two cars occupying the same space. However I did manage to finish the game and make the choices I wanted, so it wasn’t that bad either.
My biggest complain is the blantant transphobia shown in the character creator. I know Claire exists and she’s awesome and I love her, but the cc options are just not inclusive enough. What’s the point of having them if you can’t use them anyway? Linking V’s pronouns to voice types makes absolutely no sense. And not being able to remove breasts from the female body type (or put them in the male body type) rubs me the wrong way as well, though I understand that it would involve a lot more animation work. Lastly, having body type-dependant hair styles is just plain inexcusable when the devs took the time to design genitals that are just not shown past the character creator (unless V walks around naked, I suppose). So, why bother having all these ✨choices✨ when the player can’t get a good, accurate customization anyway?
And it gets worse if we talk about romances. Real people have specific tastes and that’s completely understandable, but real life has a lot more than 4 choices in total. More importantly, bisexual people are a thing? There should have been at least one female and one male bisexual romance options in game. So to make it al worse, the constraint in gay romance options is... awful. Why have 3 types of gender-related customization if you can’t use them if you want to romance someone? I’m a cishet female who plays as a cishet female first if given the option, but I’m still bothered for the queer community (which I’m still part of btw, since I’m in the ace spectrum). It feels like being trans is more of a fetish in Night City than a real trait.
Speaking of romances, I played River’s and I found it... bit of a lackluster. I don’t find him physically attractive (shaved head and no beard are not my thing) but his voice was pretty nice and I liked his personality despite being a cop. But the main downside was the way the game treats his romance. I knew I wasn’t going to get a BioWare-style romance, but V’s relationship with River was like a sidenote and once he’s romanced, there’s just no way to interact with him again. That perhaps is the same for the other romances but there’s no replayability, in a sense that there’s no way to talk to/kiss him again or replay the sex scene, for instance. It bothered me that the game forces V to say that “she’s too busy” and apologize to her boyfriend all the time, because *I* would’ve made time to visit if there was ingame acknowledgement of it. The worst bit is that I feel like River’s romance is the least polished of them all, because Panam and Judy play important roles in main quests and Kerry is pivotal to Johnny’s sidequests, while River is... just there (also more further on, regarding the ending). So the fact that he’s like the forgotten child in the romance section while being the only cishet female option is heartbreaking.
The silverlining is that, at least, the mistreated community was het females instead of gay females. Although, this is just another example of game devs thinking about male players first.
Now the good part: what I liked
The cars. I’m not a car enthusiast, I don’t enjoy driving in real life and I’m a terrible driver in games, but I fucking loved the cars in CP2077. The Caliburn was like my game baby, I had so much fun driving around and hearing the different engines for each car, and the differences in driving... it was awesome. I got and bought *all* the available cars for the sake of it, just because I liked them so much.
The story. I love games that get me invested and this one was definitely one of those. Falling for Jackie when I knew he was not gonna be around for long was an expected, but still perfectly excecuted punch to the gut. And Johnny’s guidance and company was something I was hyped about, but still played out even better than I though it would. So to my next point, Keanu Reeves. I was thrilled to play a game with Keanu in it and it blew my mind. Those reviews that pinpoint Keanu’s acting as the weak link in the game are fucking wrong, how else you expect to see (and hear) an angry, resentful man permanently stuck in time? Even worse, when he knows the people he hated the most managed to kill him? I wasn’t happy when I learned Johnny was not a romance option but after meeting him, I’m glad that’s the case. He’s the perfect antihero-turned-best-friend for V, if you can stand him.
Stealth and hacking. Most of the time I choose the option to play stealthy and this time it wasn’t just that, it was the option to use futuristic technology at the same time. I LOVED it. Quickhacking enemies instead of shooting them is so much fun. Enemy detection is a bit wonky at times but still, I enjoyed it much better than if it had been a plain shooter. And those guns with homing shots are so cool that I wanted to play them over sniper rifles, my usual go tos.
The characters. I got invested in V’s relationships, even if the romantic aspect wasn’t as great as it could’ve been. Friendship with Kerry and Panam, clousure for Judy and Rogue, mourning Jackie, being part of River’s family, so many the fixers in existance... and Johnny, my bff Johnny. Even Alt, with her somewhat little role, was great. I was promised a compelling story and deep characters, and I did get both.
The soundtrack. Overall it’s pretty great, but my favorite songs are those related to Samurai. And it’s not even because of my love for Johnny, I really do enjoy them for their musical content. Unironically my all time favorite is Johnny’s as well, Never Fade Away. I won’t exit a car or open the menu when that song is playing.
The easter eggs. From GlaDOS and Silence of the Lambs in the Delamain quests to the Matix-esque pills of the main storyline, to Hideo Kojima and the BB in a lab, “Harvest like a Reaper” and the many “You’re breathtaking!” references (Kerry’s take was my favorite), the game presents A LOT of pop culture nods and I’m here for it. Having real life content creators around for several levels of cameos was a nice touch as well.
So without mentioning the heavy spoilers (aka ending), in my opinion, Cyberpunk 2077 deserves a 9/10. Bugs are fixable and the story and characters carry the game on it’s own because they’re just too good. The main story is kinda short and I believe Johnny’s sidequests should be part of the main story, but I get why they are not mandatory if you want to roleplay a full on dislike towards the rockerboy. But still, there are some things related to gender and romance that are complete misfires. I hope that some of those will be fixed via patches (the character creator bits), but the lack of more romance options or at least bisexual NPCs obviously won’t be fixed and that’s what keeps CP2077 away from a perfect score in my book.
Now, regarding the endings:
The one thing that truly bothered me was that the Rogue one had no real goodbyes for V. She goes into a suicide mission in space and everyone’s post-credit messages complain she just disappeared without a trace? I get she’s dying and all, but, for fuck’s sake leave a message explaining it if you cared so much about them. The game *makes* you care about the characters but doesn’t give you an option to honor that love at the end.
Also, again, romances. I played both Rogue and Panam’s endings so I know there’s no way to have a happy ending with River, which is bittersweet and probably for the best that it happens with him since his romance seems to be the least engaging, but again that makes me feel cheated. Not that they parted ways in the Nomad ending (that was sad, but sad endings are not bad), but that there is no happy-ish ending romance wise for a cishet female. People who romanced Panam obviously stay together with her and those who romanced Judy do too from what I’ve read (and no idea about Kerry’s romance), but not getting that option if you choose to be female and go for a het romance takes away from the game. Sadly. Also my last interaction with River in Rogue’s ending was fucking terrible, I liked how poetic that ending was for Rogue and Johnny until I got to the rest of my V’s life.
(But I still headcanon that River eventually joined V with the Aldecaldos in my canon ending, aka the Nomads’, despite what he said. Since his post-credit message implies he might visit her and stuff.)
As for the rest of the ending... CP2077 clearly states that life isn’t happy and that there’re no happy endings for people who live in NC, so I like that no ending is completely happy since you are bound to die anyway, but. But. It’s somewhat disheartening that the overall arc can be resumed to “all that you did served for nothing, you’re still dying so your efforts were absolutely useless.” I really don’t see how to improve it without defaulting to a happy, sunshine-esque ending that fixes everything, so I don’t know. It still wasn’t exactly what I wanted to hear at the end, so... I liked it but didn’t, at the same time. Ha.
And lastly, I hoped for endgame playability and there is none, you have to revert to an earlier save to keep playing. I get why it wasn’t done, to give a definitive end to V’s story in NC, but anyway. What I really liked about this choice was that no matter the ending, V becomes no one again. They will be forgotten by most people after a while either because they leave with the nomads or because they ‘disappear’, aka die in a blaze of glory in that casino in space. Or well, sell their soul to Arasaka or commit suicide on the rooftop.
So overall, I loved this game and critics are somewhat too harsh. But I agree there are some terrible design choices and a long way of bugfixing to get to the specific masterpiece that we were hoping for.
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How Splatoon 2 Helped Me Understand My Queer-ness
With Splatoon 2 ending its schedule of updates with the final Splatfest (aka the Splatpocalypse) this weekend, I took some time to reflect on one of the things that makes this game so important to me, and perhaps some others like me.
Splatoon 2 will undoubtedly remain on my most important personal video game list for many years—possibly forever. My partner bought me a Switch for Christmas in 2017 and with it Mario Odyssey. Of course the first main-line Mario game would be the first game I would play on my new Nintendo console, and while Splatoon 2 probably wasn't even the second game I played on it (I would guess it was fourth or fifth?), in my mind it eclipses every other memory I have about my first few months with the Switch. It feels like my first Switch game, even though I know it wasn't.
While I enjoyed the Wii in its hay-day, I have a pretty small catalog of games for it, and like a lot of folks, I never bought—nor did I have any interest in—a WiiU. However, anticipating that the Switch would reignite my love for gaming (which it most definitely did), I signed up for the by-mail video game rental service GameFly. I knew I wanted to try a lot of Switch games, but I didn't want to shell out $60 too early in the system's life. That's how I first tried Splatoon 2.
I was a bit uncertain when I added it to my GameFly wish list, but again, I was hungry for any content the Switch was offering in its first year. I really don't like shooters and online multiplayer features are usually a second-thought to me. However, the art style and whimsical tone lured me in for a try. After getting my feet wet in the first couple of hours, I was hooked...puns definitely intended.
I had also just seriously begun grappling with my gender identity beginning in October/November of 2016, and by the end of 2017, I was well into my transition as a non-binary, transfeminine person. I should note that those are the terms I use to define my gender identity now in 2019. From the end of 2016 through a lot of 2017, I was actively repressing using the word “transgender” to describe myself; not that I harbored any type of transphobia, but rather that the idea of being anything but cisgender seemed like something I would never be able to “pull off..” I didn't hate the idea of being trans non-binary, I just didn't believe that I was “good enough” to call myself trans. There was a lot of soul-searching going on at that time as I experimented with pronouns, names, my wardrobe, and use of make-up that brought me to a much happier, more authentic place with my gender identity, but I would be remiss to not also acknowledge my obsession with Splatoon 2 at the same time.
Starting up the game for the first time, I was prompted to create my Inkling avatar character. Like always (as in even before I began my gender-identity journey), I chose a female character model, assuming that I would like the available costume and hair options more than a male character. Wanting her to look slightly queer, I chose the Inkling equivalent of the shaved-on-one-side, long-flowing-on-the-other haircut that is commonly associated with trans women and non-binary transfem people (including myself now). “She's so cute,” I thought, seeing in her a highly-stylized ideal of how I wished I looked; feminine, but with a slightly butch edge. “Futch” as many in the LGBTQ+ community call it.
As I played and absorbed myself into Splatoon 2s lore and aesthetic, Inkopolis, the epicenter of Inkling culture and life in the Splatoon franchise, quickly came to represent a type of gender-inclusive utopia to me. As I logged on religiously multiple times a day every day to see what new clothes and accessories I could buy to customize my Inkling doppelganger as well as taking note of how the other players were dressing both their male and female characters, I noticed that the game didn't make a distinction between “girls clothes” and “boys clothes.” All the same shirts, shoes, hats, glasses, everything was available to everyone.
And yet, I didn't feel like the Inklings were genderless. When you start Splatoon 2, your character begins in a basic t-shirt, a decidedly unisex, non-gendered article of clothing even in the human world. However, as my Inkling's wardrobe expanded, I found her just as cute (and found myself just as envious) in a ska band appropriate white dress-shirt and skinny black tie, a polka dot button up, and a New Wave French cinema-esque white shirt with thin horizontal black stripes. She could wear clunky black combat boots ala Daria Morgandorfer, brown penny-loafers, and neon green Chuck Taylor-inspired hi-top sneakers. However, I never felt like any of these or the literally hundreds of other clothing and accessory options in her virtual wardrobe invalidated her gender. There were some items I liked more than others, of course, but she was always that cute, spunky, confident futch girl that I had longed to be for years.
There's a common misconception, particularly among cishet people, that transfolk want to do away with gender entirely, that we imagine a gender-neutral world were there are no men or women, but of course that isn't true. What we DO want is a world were the gender-binary, where everyone is either 100% a man or 100% a woman, isn't the expectation. To me, that's one of the things that the world of Splatoon 2 represents. It isn't a gender-absent world, it's a gender-inclusive world.
It may sound silly, but dressing up my Inkling and seeing her in this world played a huge part in helping me overcome the expectation (and admittedly some internalized trans misogyny) that if I didn't want to look like/be a cis man, I had to “look like a cis woman.” I put that phrase in quotes because of course it's a very loaded phrase that suggests all cis women have to adhere to a strict gender-binary and wear dresses and makeup 24/7 to be considered women, hence the misogyny. Just like my funky little head-canon queer Inkling avatar, I feel more comfortable knowing that I can wear whatever I want, even “mens” clothes, without being a man.
#me#personal#splatoon#splatoon 2#splatfest#splatocalypse#transgender#trans#genderfluid#genderqueer#transfeminine#nonbinary#nb#enby#nintendo#video games#trans non binary#enby positivity#enby pride#genderflux#nb positivity#trans nonbinary#queer#nintendo switch#marina and pearl#pearl and marina#marina#pearl
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Killzone 3 GAME REVIEW
(contains SPOILERS for Killzone 1 and 2)
The story of the Killzone franchise is that of a struggle against mediocrity and excessive hype. The original game promised the world so of course it turned out disappointing, and Killzone 2 became controversial before it even released due to deceptive advertising, on top of being aggressively dull and riddled with technical issues. Killzone 3 defied the odds by, at long last and with great toil, finally elevating the series to the glorious heights of averageness.
To be clear, I don't hate the original Killzone. I think was a victim of ambition and marketing, but for its time it was playable and actually provided a different experience from the competition rather than just copying it. Killzone 2 unfortunately learned the wrong lessons and removed all the distinguishing features other than cockney space Nazis, and I'm also less forgiving of a sequel. It aged very poorly but at least served as a stepping stone to greater things. Killzone 3 still relies on a lot of conventions from the height of Call of Duty mania, but it actually has some personality and memorable moments, which I can't really say for the previous games.
It's fascinating how some minor tweaks improved the experience so profoundly. I can only wonder if Killzone 2 was rushed to market because the third game is functionally almost identical but works so much better. Hitting targets with your gun isn't as much of a pain now (fairly crucial in a game about shooting dudes), and though they didn't bring back the first game's secondary fire options you can at least carry three guns again: a primary, a pistol and a heavy weapon. This instantly encourages you to actually experiment with the arsenal rather than constantly leave you with no ammo, and running around with a massive laser cannon that makes baddies explode into green goo is a joy. Even better though, there's even a smegging jetpack with a built-in machinegun, which is just a beautiful microcosm of how the franchise was finally allowed to have fun with its setting.
After the plot of Killzone 1 boiled down to "the ISA stop a traitor general from helping the invading Helghan", and the plot of Killzone 2 was basically "accidentally kill the bad guy", Killzone 3 immediately gets off to a better start by showing us the power vacuum left after your useless, incompetent and annoying comrade Rico turned Scholar Visari into a martyr. The franchise desperately needed something like this and it's gratifying to get some idea of how Helghast society works under all the propaganda. The usual stylish intro cutscene is present and accounted for, but now we also get regular glimpses of the Helghast high command bickering at a table. None of them are nice people but at least some of them want to pursue peace talks, whereas the rest are opportunists or just flat-out crazy. Even the hero characters have slightly more going on now, with Rico (understandably!!!) feeling guilt for killing an unarmed political prisoner, and Sev having a sense of humour. I particularly liked when he put on a cockney accent to pass as a Helghast. It's not much but it's something, which at the risk of repeating myself is more than I can say for Killzone 2.
The Helghast really are relentless, though. I was warned to play on the easy mode and honestly that's good advice for anyone who doesn't have the patience to get stuck on a level for an hour. Killzone 3 still has the low framerate and narrow field of view that infested a lot of console shooters at the time, and I don't mind regenerating health but even on the medium setting you'll die before you have time to see who's shooting you in the arse. I personally get frustrated with games easily, because I have so many of the buggers demanding my attention these days, so would rather blast through on a comfortable setting then maybe come back for a real challenge if I like it enough. I learned this lesson after playing Bioshock Infinite on hard mode made the experience absolutely insufferable.
In a shocking twist, the Helghast have been spotted outside their natural habitat of brown and grey landscapes. After a tense opening in some snowy mountains and an escape through a flaming city, you sneak through a wonderfully alien forest with striking red flora, then later you have a Wolfenstein-esque disguise sequence where the enemy always seem on the edge of realising who you are. Nothing here is revolutionary but it represents a newfound understanding of pacing and variety. Helghan feels like an actual place where people actually live, as opposed to a rollercoaster of cardboard cityscapes with the Saving Private Ryan soundtrack blasting tinnily, and the narrative has some actual tension and surprises.
Killzone 3 isn't brilliant, but it's not bad. And that's honestly all it needs to be.
Availability: Killzone 3 is very cheap if you have an actual PS3 you can put blu-rays into, but if that's not convenient then you can buy it digitally on PS4 for about eight quid. Otherwise you can do what I did and stream it via Playstation Now. Your mileage may vary but I have a strong connection. The free trial might actually be long enough to beat the game, so that's a fun option.
#gaming#game#games#review#game review#ps4#ps3#killzone#video games#killzone 2#shadowfall#killzone 3#helghast#sony#Playstation#playstation 3#ps now
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The Tea Times - March 2019
(This is a news segment that I’m trying to start up. It’s hopefully going to go up the last Thursday of every month, so I’ve technically missed the deadline on the first one. But hey, start as we mean to go on. Enjoy!)
In the first month of The Tea Times, we try and ignore that England is currently tearing itself into shreds and focus on some tasty announcements and some tastier releases.
At A Glance:
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, Risk of Rain 2 released on Steam.
The Outer Worlds, The Sinking City go exclusively on the Epic Store.
Borderlands 3 and Back 4 Blood announced.
Darkest Dungeon 2 teased.
Dwarf Fortress coming to steam, Diablo to GoG.
Google announces Stadia
The Releases
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, From Software’s new pain-em-up was released on the 22nd March. Early impressions have been positive, with it being an appropriate divergence from Dark Souls and Bloodborne. It seems to have more of an emphasis on stealth now, with the ability to one-shot enemies if you’re sneaky enough. If you’re not, then you can’t just wail on an enemy’s HP. You have to work on their ‘posture’ in order to get an opening for a killing blow. Looks like it’s keeping the skill-based gameplay in tact. You can play Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice on Windows, PlayStation 4 or Xbox One.
Risk of Rain 2 hit early access on Steam on the 28th March and I’ve played a decent chunk of it. The original Risk of Rain was a 2D platformer with roguelike elements. The sequel keeps the roguelike elements but transitions it to 3D. A risky choice that has absolutely paid off. Despite being in early access, it’s remarkably polished and good fun with lots of items and survivors to unlock. The downside is that there’s no end boss at the moment but as a trial for the main thing, it’s damn good. You can play it on Steam.
Epic Store Gobbles Up Games
Two games I was interested in got caught up in the Epic Games Store wave this month. The most controversial was Obsidian’s new Fallout-ish game The Outer Worlds, originally slated to come out on Steam. They even used Steam in the marketing - it was no secret at all. And yet, in the midst of them adding Steam achievements, they suddenly whisked it away to the Epic Store. It will come to Steam - just a year later. I can only assume a sizable pot of money was involved. Maybe it will make for a better game, who knows. I’ll write more about this next week.
The other game is The Sinking City, a Cthulhu-esque game about tentacles and… recursion? It had an excellent initial trailer that made me very excited to lose my mind. Now that it’s gone on the Epic Store, it’s time to think about whether I want to help fund this kind of thing. Time will tell, I guess.
Guns and Zombies
The long-awaited Borderlands 3 has gotten a proper trailer full of new faces, new enemies and an adorable gun with little legs. It’s cute and slightly terrifying. The genre-defining loot shooter seems to be sticking to its roots with it touting that it has ‘billions’ of guns. The trademark sense of humour seems to be firmly in place as well, given the written narration of the trailer. It looks goofy and fun as hell. As do the new Vault Hunters, which cover the usual range of oddballs. My money’s on ‘The Beastmaster’. It will be coming out on the 13th September and, you guessed it, will be exclusive to the Epic Store until April next year.
Seemingly out of nowhere, Turtle Rock (the original people behind Left 4 Dead) have announced a new co-op zombie shooter called Back 4 Blood. I guess the number four is real popular around the office. There’s not too much information beyond that, other than it’s destined to be a proper AAA game. It seems to be an early announcement to try and attract some more people to the studio. Here’s hoping they pull off.
A Second Round of Madness
Darkest Dungeon, an RPG inspired by Lovecraftian horror, is getting a sequel, if the teaser trailer is to be believed. The first was beloved for many reasons and a lot of DLC has come out for it - presumably because they’d stuffed as much as they could into the original. Red Hook Studios have grown, so they can clearly have a lot more fun with the sequel. While they’re keeping a lot it to their chest (understandably), it will feature the same major players but will focus on the world outside of the estate. It will give us a ‘glimpse of the supernatural apocalypse twisting and distorting the world beyond the estate’ (PC Gamer, 19/02/19), which sounds lovely.
They also state that Darkest Dungeon 2 is a game about a journey - so it could be we’re Oregon Trailing through hell. They’re bandying around the idea of Early Access, so keep your eyes peeled.
Dwarves and Demons
The much loved (and probably much hated) Dwarf Fortress is coming to Steam and Itch.io. It’s a monolith of a game that I’ve been too wary about to touch in its ASCII format but it’s getting a new coat of paint for its steam release. The stories that have come from this game are wonderful and its paved the way for games of its type, such as RimWorld. Truly one for everyone to keep an eye on.
Going a bit further back in time, one of the grandfathers of the RPG hack and slash has crept onto GoG. You can now pick up Diablo there, with more Blizzard classics to follow.
Stream and Game
Game streaming services are by no means new but it seems like Google is throwing its hat into the ring. Typically, these services come with huge drawbacks that have stopped them breaking out. Input lag being the biggest one, so the services only really work for turn-based games. Google, however, has the muscle to make it work and they seem to be reaching out to developers. Time will tell if it works.
That’s all for March, stay tuned for April!
#Darkest Dungeon 2#The Sinking City#The Tea Times#News#Stadia#Borderlands 3#Risk of Rain 2#Sekiro#Gaming#Video Games#Tea And Video games#Dwarf Fortress#Diablo#Steam#Epic Games#From Software#RimWorld#Back 4 Blood#Left 4 Dead
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Milan 2 Genoa 2
That’s what I’m saying....
The usual ratings and ramblings, let’s go!
DONNARUMMA 7 Watched the highlights a couple times to see if Gigio could have done anything on either goal. Conclusion? Not really. Reaction may have been a tad slow on the second but whatever. Insane save late on Scamacca’s Boriello-esque scissor kick to preserve the tie.
CALABRIA 7.5 MOTM 53rd minute screamer to the far post woke up the whole squad. He’s becoming low key a pretty good shooter from distance. Also solid on the back end. Worth noting that often times on corners he’s the only one that stays back... and he never gets burnt on a counter. Wonder if all that talk of him leaving in the summer didn’t wake him up?
KALULU 7/5 A mess at the back. Should have knocked the ball out on the first goal and then Destro played him like a fiddle on the second. Ugh. On the other end was very active on several corners and eventually got the rebound to tie the game. A little too much excitement for me from a CB, but his first 2 games have sure been memorable.
ROMAGNOLI 6 Like Kalulu somehow more impressive on the offensive end than in the back. Is that bad to say about your center backs? Need to see more direction and leadership from him at the back with the young kid. When Kjaer was back there bedding in Gabbia it was clear who is in charge. With Romagnoli I don’t see much of that.
DALOT 6 Tough to handle one side of the field when the guy in front of you can’t be bothered to track back. First goal came directly from a cross he should have closed down on. Good, bad, meh performance.
KESSIE 7 Solid. No complaints. Also had to help out a fair bit while someone couldn’t be bothered to track back. He played..... in a good way!
TONALI 6.5 I know I’ve said this several times now..... but getting more and more involved going forward. Had a nice cross early that didn’t quite get to Rebic.
CASTILLEJO 6 A bit of a step back after several good showings in a row. When he seems more concerned with getting calls than staying upright this happens. Finished off a mediocre day with a yellow card.
HAKAN 6.5 We are back to frustrating Hakan that looks great on the stat sheet but fails the eyeball test. Made some nice plays but then will inexplicably fall down. Has to be the league leader in getting shots blocked.
LEAO 4 Couldn’t be bothered to..... track back? run? come to the ball? give a shit? Maybe that’s harsh. More on him later.
REBIC 6.5 Worked his butt off but the #9 spot just isn’t his spot. Beat 4 guys on one dribble and then had Perin make a fantastic save on him. Hoping to see him get back to his better spot soon.
SUBS
SAELEMAEKERS 6 Came on for Castillejo. Crashed the net as he should. Had a chance late that he totally whiffed on.
HAUGE 6 Like last game would have left him on the side and let Rebic finish the game at LW. Felt like he was just thrown on to just throw him on? Wow that sounds bad.
DIAZ 6.5 LOVED this sub late on. Need a guy that can handle the ball in tight spaces late while the other team sits deeper and deeper? This is your guy. Loved the spark he brought.
COACH
PIOLI 6.5 I’m hoping him moving Leao up top is him learning that Leao cannot play LW in our current system. In a 4231 the LW and RW have to work. They have to be able able to cover their side of the midfield and even be able to track back and help the LB at times. I’m not saying you have to be there all the time but those have to be elements of your game. You have to be willing to do it. Those are not elements of Leao’s game. They just aren’t. If he’s gonna float in and out of games I’d much rather he did that up top. Up there you can do fuck all for 89 minutes, score a goal and be a hero while NOT handicapping the defense.
So this is a long way of saying... deep breath.... I was wrong. I admit it! I’m sorry! I was SO against having Rebic at LW and Leao up top. I hated that idea. At the end of the day, it makes more sense.
Also props to Pioli for bringing on Diaz late. I love him as late spark plus that comes in and brings some flash and dash against a tired defense. He came on red hot.
So that’s it folks. Another roller coaster of a game that ends in another draw. Certainly a lot more fun than the 0-0 game that I feared was coming. It was good and it was really bad. You know what though? It’s December 17th and we are still on top of the league. That’s not bad. See you Sunday morning for Sassuolo.
Cheers
Lisi
PS: Kessie did NOT receive a yellow so he is available for the Sassuolo game. Locatelli IS suspended as he received his 5th yellow in their last game against Fiorentina.
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A Bowl of Bad Beets - Bad Beets Ch. 5 (12/16-1/5)
Ladies. Gentleman. Boy. Girls. Cats. Dogs. Degenerate Gamblers. Bookies. Welcome back to the Bad Beets Blog! I hope you had a fantastic holiday season and that your Sunday Scaries weren’t as bad as mine after my two-week absence from the office. This past month was full of NCAA bowl games, and bowl game szn and bad beet szn are basically synonymous. I already broke my New Year’s Resolution of having zero Bad Beets in 2020. Nonetheless, I am here to provide entertainment for all of you (albeit that it is in the form of my gambling misfortune). Let’s get after it.
12/17/19
League: NBA
Bet: Magic vs Jazz Under 209 (-110)
Units: 1.1 to win 1
Welcome back to another thrilling episode of “Life is too short to bet the under.” Thanks for being a recurring viewer. This is a classic NBA scenario: Magic down 1 with a minute left. Jazz score two buckets in a row. Magic play the fouling game to try to decrease the deficit. Jazz don’t miss free throws. 10 points scored in the final minute.
Bad Beet #1 just dips its feet in the water compared to the beets that are to come in the rest of this article.
12/18/19
League: NBA
Bet: Cavaliers -3 (-110)
Units: 2.2 to win 2
I will definitely take part of the blame for this beet. Why the hell I thought it was feasible that the Cavs could cover a 3-point spread at home is beyond me. The Cavaliers should never be favorites. Unfortunately, I didn’t listen to logic and took them -3 anyway. For most of the game, I was pretty proud of myself for this bet - I thought I had outsmarted Vegas. The Cavs were up double digits almost wire to wire. They took a 12-point lead into the fourth quarter. They were up 10 with 3:08 left in the game.
Enter “Scary Terry” Rozier. The guy couldn’t miss a three during the final 60 seconds. He channeled his inner Jimmer Fredette, pulling threes from 28+ feet.
Larry Nance Jr. missed a free throw with 31 seconds left with the Cavs up 5, and of course, Scary Terry drained a 28-footer just seconds later to cut the deficit to 2. Not to fear though, the Cavs got the ball back and were about to get fouled and head back to the line to try to cover again, right? WRONG! Colin Sexton dribbled the ball of his foot, turning the ball right back over to the Hornets. Scary Terry had a chance to win the game, but it rimmed in and out and the Cavs secured the rebound. With only a few seconds left, the Hornets didn’t foul, the Cavs didn’t get to shoot free throws, and they somehow didn’t cover the -3, and I couldn’t even escape with a push.
I forgot to mention that the Cavs had a 96% chance to cover with just three minutes left in the game according to The Action Network (@ActionNetworkHQ on Twitter). Bad Beet #2 of the week can be attributed to Scary Terry and the Lebron-less Cleveland Cavaliers.
12/19/19
League: NHL
Bet: Blackhawks vs Jets 1P over 1.5 (-150)
Units: 2.75 to win 1.85
As I have mentioned in previous blogs, there is little that is more exhilarating than betting first-period hockey totals. These bets can be instant wins if you take the over and the score is 1-1 after 2:33 seconds, or you can lose an under on a last-second goal 19:54 into the period. I love betting on the Blackhawks first-period overs this season because their defense ranks in the bottom third in goals allowed and they give up the most shots in the entire league at a whopping 35.95 per game. On the flip side of the puck, Patrick Kane can find the net faster than a fat kid can find a sleeve of Oreos.
The Hawks scored on the first shot of the game, 0:59 into the period. Alex Nylander beautifully put it home, and my bet was already halfway there with 95% of the time in the period remaining.
Someone please explain to me how the fuck one goal is scored on this first shot, and zero goals are scored on the following 28 shots. FUCK. Bad Beet #3 of the week. No words for this one.
12/21/19
League: NHL
Bet: Jets vs Wild 1P under 1.5 (Even)
Units: 0.8 to win 0.8
Remember how in the previous beet the Winnipeg Jets scored 0 goals off of 17 shots in the first period and screwed me out 1.85 units? These mother fuckers are the worst. In an uneventful first period against the Wild, they committed a penalty in a 0-0 game with just 6:30 remaining, proceeded to score a SHORTHANDED GOAL with 5 minutes left in the period, and for good measure scored with 6 seconds left to take a 2-0 lead into the break.
Fuck me. The Jets are on my shitlist. Bad Beet #4 of the week would have been non-existent if the Wild keeper could have not sucked for just 6 seconds longer (P.S. The Jets would go on to win this game 6-0).
3/26/2003
This is the day that the “Catch me outside, how bout dat,” girl was born. Also known as Danielle Bregoli, or by her rap name “Bhad Bhabie,” she is the queen of producing some absolutely horrific music during her short rap career.
I think it would be more appropriate to call her “Bhad Bheets.” Sheesh.
12/23/19
League: NCAAF - Bad Boy Mowers Gasparilla Bowl
Bet: Live Bet - UCF vs Marshall over 73.5 (+155)
Units: 2.5 to win 3.85
I LOVE COLLEGE BOWL SEASON. I am a big proponent of these games: coaches are more inclined to go for it on 4th down, there are generally some crazy trick plays, and both teams have a similar chance to win the game. You all know how much I love betting the over, and for college bowl season, I bet the over 85% of the time (which doesn’t end up working out for me). However, on this game, I had such a good read on the over that I obviously took over 59.5 before the game started. UCF plays such with a rapid tempo, and I had a feeling this could turn into a shootout-esque game. Feeling greedy, I took the live bet over 73.5 (+155) sometime in the 2nd quarter. The score at halftime was 24-7. After a 39-point third quarter, I only needed 4 points in the last quarter of the game to hit my live bet. UCF kicked a field goal with 9:04 remaining in the game. I needed one singular point over the last 9 minutes of the game. Here are the final two drives...
Marshall went on a 12 play, 48-yard drive that stalled with a turnover on downs and ate up 4 minutes of clock. With UCF up 23, they weren’t using their usual fast-paced tempo to run their offense, which was unfortunate. However, they broke a 38-yard run with just over a minute left but got tackled at the Marshall 2-yard line. I was hoping they could just punch it in with a quick HB dive, which they attempted, and utterly failed, getting stuffed at the half-yard line. And that is how the game ended. 3 total points in the 4th, 73 overall and just a half-yard away from cashing this bet. Bad Beet #5 of the week gave me kidney stones.
1/1/2020
League: NCAAF - Sugar Bowl
Bet: Georgia vs Baylor over 42 (-120)
Units: 12 to win 10
I am not even going to go into how much this one hurt. I was having a rough New Year’s Day of gambling, so I decided I wanted to chase my losses (never a good idea, 10/10 would not recommend). I needed a bailout special just one day into the new year. I won’t go into a description of what happened in this bet because it will trigger me. I’ll just leave this here...
96% chance to cover the over 44 with 4:10 remaining in the 3rd quarter. 20 minutes of the game left, and I had the over 42, not even 44. I surmise that the cover % for the over 42 was closer to 98% at that point in the game. This beet motherfucked me. One of my worst of all time. #6 of the week and the first one of 2020. Definitely not a good omen for what is to come this gambling year.
1/3/2020
League: NCAAB
Bet: Illinois 1H +5.5 (-110)
Units: 2.2 to win 2
The Fighting Illini (my alma mater) basketball team has had a tail of two seasons. They have played like a top 25 team in the country at times, beating Michigan and annihilating Purdue at home, and also have choked away games at home to Miami and away at Maryland. This beet is unexplainable. Illinois hit a bucket with 0:34 left to decrease the deficit to just 5. MSU missed a layup with 27 seconds left and the Illini grabbed the board. There was no reason for MSU to even get another possession. With the shot clock turned off, Illinois could have held for the last shot of the half, and more importantly guaranteed a cover of the 5.5 point spread.
Just by reading the play-by-play, it looks like Trent Frazier committed the dumbest foul in the game with just one second left in the half, fouling a 3-point shooter as time expired. However, it was actually just the single worst call in basketball history (maybe an exaggeration, but my god was it a horrendous call). Take a look for yourself...
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I hate how referees aren’t held accountable for their mistakes. The only job in the world where you can repeatedly mess up and have no repercussions. Going to be sending this ref a Venmo request for my 2.2 units back. Bad Beet #7 of the week was just plain assault.
1/2/2020
League: NBA
Bet: Heat 1H -3 (-110)
Units: 2.75 to win 2.5
The Miami Heat are 12-5-1 against the 1H spread at home this season. However, they could be 13-5 against the spread in the first half at home this season, if not for this horrible push. Miami was up 8 with the ball with 45 seconds left in the half. That’s all you need to know. They had no business not covering the 1H spread in this game.
The Raptors very eloquently executed the 2-for-1 situation at the end of the half, made a layup to shrink the deficit to 5, got a defensive board, and then OG Anunoby hit a buzzer-beater 3 to send the game to halftime with a 39-42 score. The Heat went scoreless over the last 2:14 of the half. Miserable push.
1/3/2020
League: NCAAF - Famous Idaho Potato Bowl
Bet: Live Bet - Ohio vs Nevada over 53.5 (-115)
Units: 3.5 to win 3
With a crazy name like the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl, obviously, something out of the ordinary was going to happen to my bet. Nevada was getting trounced by Ohio most of the game, but finally found some life in the 4th quarter, attempting to mount a furious comeback. They scored an early TD in the quarter, but botched the snap on the XP and could only come away with 6. They scored another TD soon after, which made the score 30-21.
*Insert inexplicably bad coaching decision #1*
The Nevada coach decided that he wanted to go for two points, down 9, to get that 2-point conversion out of the way. Literally every statistic screams to go for 1 in that scenario, make it an 8-point game to keep the deficit to only one score, and move on with the game. Obviously, Nevada didn’t successfully convert the 2-point try, so the score remained 30-21 with 8:49 remaining in the game. At this point in time, I only needed a FG to win my live bet of the over 53.5. Nevada stopped Ohio on their next drive, and got the ball down to 1st and goal with 4 minutes left, down by 2 scores.
*Insert inexplicably bad coaching decision #2*
Here is the play call on 1st and goal that the Nevada coach came up with...
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WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU RUNNING A DOUBLE REVERSE ON 1ST AND GOAL WITH YOUR TEAM DOWN TWO SCORES?!?! OF COURSE YOU ARE GOING TO TURN IT OVER. FUCK. YOU FUCKED MY BET.
Turns out this wasn’t the play that sent my bet to the grave, although I wish it was because how I actually ended up losing was far worse. After the fumble, Nevada used all 3 of their timeouts and stopped Ohio again. They got the ball back with 2:45. On the first play of their drive, a Nevada receiver broke free down the middle of the field for what would have surely been a touchdown. The only problem was that Carson Strong overthrew him by about 6 inches. Two plays later, Strong aired one out to their best receiver, Elijah Cooks, who hauled the ball in at the Ohio 8-yard line. Down 2 scores, Nevada needed both a TD and a field goal to win the game. After 3 straight incomplete passes, the field goal kicker trotted out to make it a one-score game with 1:54 remaining.
Wait...where was the field goal kicker?
*Insert inexplicably bad coaching decision #3*
YOU CAN’T BE SERIOUS - THE ONLY EXPLANATION FOR WHY THE COACH WENT FOR IT ON 4TH AND GOAL FROM THE 8 WITH NO TIMEOUTS AND DOWN TWO SCORES WITH 1:54 LEFT IN THE GAME IS THAT HE BET ON OHIO! NO OTHER EXPLANATION. I NEED AN INVESTIGATION YESTERDAY! FUCK! BAD BEET #8 WAS ONE OF THE WORST BEETS OF MY LIFE!
1/4/2020
League: NCAAF - Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl
Bet: Live Bet - Tulane vs Southern Miss over 49.5 (-115)
Units: 5.75 to win 5
Frankly, I am out of breath after describing that last beet. I placed this live bet early in the 3rd quarter. Tulane scored 24 unanswered in that quarter, leading 30-13 heading into the last 15 minutes of the game.
After a scoreless first 13 minutes of the 4th quarter, Southern Miss threw a pick in the endzone on 1st and goal. Icing on the shit cake. Bad Beet #9 committed necrophilia with the corpse that was left after Bad Beet #8.
Well, folks, I hope reading this blog was far less miserable than my gambling experiences have already been in 2020. Let’s recap:
Bad Beet Count: 9
Unit Swing: 36 to win 31.5 (67.5 unit swing)
Well, that’s all for this week folks. Please Like and Share on https://www.facebook.com/badbeetsblog/ to offset some of my gambling misery. See you next week!
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GOTY 2017
Hey y’all, it’s time for my third annual game of the year list. I hope it’s not too boring or longwinded. I also hope you don’t go into this expecting reviews of each game; with very few exceptions this list isn’t going to go into deep dives about individual game mechanics or plot beats, and I also don’t bother explaining highly specific video game terms and genres that the lay person isn’t going to be aware of, which is more down to this seeming too long already rather than apathy on my part. Discussion or questions are very welcome! Anyway, before we get into the actual top 11, here’s a couple games that didn’t quite make the cut that deserve to be talked about, as well as some housekeeping as to why some pretty big games aren’t included elsewhere on the list.
Some friends and I are also looking into doing a podcast later on to talk more in-depth about our lists, as well as maybe some other year end awards-y type things for other categories in games. Anyway, here we go.
Games I haven’t gotten to yet: Ruiner, Pyre, Prey, Yakuza 0, Hollow Knight, Hellblade
Don’t @ me I’m sleeping: Resident Evil 7, Persona 5, Mario + Rabbids, PUBG
Special shout outs that didn’t make it to the actual list but are still good, quite good!:
Snipperclips: Cut It Out Together (Switch) - Absolutely everyone that owns a Switch and has someone to play co-op games with should buy Snipperclips, be it significant other, child, sibling or roommate. It’s a game where you each play as two pieces of paper that have to cut each other into different shapes to solve various puzzles, and it’s even way more fun and goofy than that description makes it sound. If I had been able to put more time into this game it probably would’ve made the actual numbered list.
Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus (PS4/Xbox One/PC) - Wolfenstein’s story about an alternate 1960s where Germany won World War 2 and occupy America was so absolutely fucking bonkers and fun while at the same time bleakly sad and interesting. It’s a shame the actual game isn’t very fun to play, but this absolutely deserves mentioning somewhere. Get fucked Nazis.
Horizon: Zero Dawn (PS4) - Horizon has maybe the most interesting and well told story in any big budget, non-indie game I’ve ever played. It’s also maybe the best looking game I’ve ever seen, especially running in 4k. It’s a shame it released so close to Zelda and Nier, since I feel it’s going to be overlooked in a lot of other GOTY lists, but it’s absolutely worth playing. Also the main character, Alloy, is really fun and tells weird kings to fuck off when they try and hit on her.
Aaaaaaaand here’s the actual list this year:
11. Night in the Woods (PS4/PC) - More games should address mental health. I think the medium is especially suited for not only discussion of the matter, but potentially as a teaching tool as well. It’s especially neat in Night in the Woods because of its slice of life, shitty rustbelt town in fall atmosphere. The main character, Mae, is an unexplained college dropout that returns to her hometown to hang out with friends, and discovers that they’ve all started making progress towards various goals in life while she has largely languished. It’s a very personal and sweet story about reconnecting with your roots and rebuilding connections with loved ones, all while surreal shit is going on in the background and it’s always kind of unclear what Mae is actually suffering from.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that, much like Life is Strange (PS4/Xbox One/PC) before it, what starts off as a very simple and charming slice of life game eventually strays into much bigger, cosmic scale ideas, and it kind of feels out of place. Still, I was never bored or driven to the point of rolling my eyes, and I’ve never played a game with more realistic dialogue between goofy and awkward punk rocker friends. The fact that everyone is an anthropomorphic animal for no reason other than to make it look cuter is a huge boon as well.
10. Shovel Knight: Spectre of Torment (Switch/PS4/Xbox One/Vita/PC/Wii U/3DS/PS3/Xbox 360) - The original Shovel Knight was a very cute, very charming, very ok game. It never blew me away the way it did for other people, despite the fact that it seemed tailor made for me, but it was still pretty dang good. The two expansions, however, have been far more interesting games, and Spectre of Torment in particular is a love letter to the original Mega Man X (SNES), a game which has weirdly never had its formula and feel replicated or expanded upon. Having full freedom to select which order to complete stages, as well as finding hidden doodads within that let you purchase new weapons, really maximizes the replay value. Add to that a completely remixed soundtrack that’s way more fun and melody driven than the original, and you have maybe the best action platformer since Mega Man 9 (Wii/PS3/360).
9. Destiny 2 (PS4/Xbox One/PC) - I think Destiny 2 represents pretty much everything I hate about modern game design - approximately 8,000 unique currencies all with their own uses; different classes and subclasses that in broad strokes don’t feel any different from each other; no real sense of progression aside from seeing a set of numbers arbitrarily rise; needlessly large worlds that aren’t fun to explore; a heavy emphasis on story when the story is complete fucking trash; etc. And yet I still put dozens of hours into the game.
It’s a dumb game and I am a very dumb person. That said, despite the constantly online, shooter focused nature of the video game industry, there really aren’t any other shooters so devoted to cooperative play on a scale larger than team versus modes. I can’t think of a game that’s had more fun co-op in recent memory, and that’s enough to make up for the mediocre pomp and frills surrounding the actual game. Who cares that Destiny is borderline predatory when my friends and I are throwing lightning grenades at shadow emperor space worms?
8. Metroid: Samus Returns (3DS) - At one point in time I’d have considered metroid my favorite game series period, so watching its decline over the past decade has been particularly painful. I wouldn’t say this half remake, half new game is an unmitigated success. But for an outsourced, low budget, sidescrolling entry in 2017, a time in which the indie scene has completely taken over the space metroid used to occupy, Samus Returns is an admirable experiment.
Unlike most, I think making the game more combat focused than any previous metroid is actually a wise move, especially considering the developer pedigree; Mercurysteam, despite any other faults, has proven that they can handle designing engaging combat mechanics. And weirdly, even though the main heroine is a 6 foot tall amazonian space goddess with bird alien power armor and a cannon arm, the series has never had engaging combat encounters before this. The game definitely lacks some of the atmosphere that the series is renowned for, but it’s hard for me to fault the game too much for what it isn’t when what we have is an interesting interpretation of a classic game and a new entry in an amazing series that has been dormant for too long.
7. Sonic Mania (Switch/PS4/Xbox One/PC) - Sonic was never really that good, even the Genesis era games that people hold in such high esteem. I’m actually of the opinion that, prior to Mania, Sonic Colors (Wii) was the best game in the series - the gameplay possibilities added by the wisps felt right at home in a Sonic game, while not feeling like a cheap gimmick. Generally speaking, the original Sonic games feel far too simplistic in terms of the verbs available to you to compete with anything like Mario. And while Mania doesn’t give Sonic any new verbs besides a variation on spin dashing, the level design is so creatively above and beyond anything previously seen in the series that it feels like an entirely different beast. Honestly, chemical plant zone alone has more creativity in its two acts than the entirety of any previous 2D Sonic game, and that’s before it culminates in a freaking Mean Bean Machine battle against Robotnik. I liken Mania the most to Donkey Kong Country Returns (Wii) in its ability to capture everything that the previous entries in the series were known for while still being able to modernize its design.
Despite all of that, the best part of Mania is its unflinching devotion to its aesthetic. It truly looks like a long lost Sega Saturn game. And while the soundtrack isn’t quite as slavish to what came before, I don’t think I’ve had a more dumb grin on my face this year than when I heard the calypso style Green Hill zone remix for the first time. Mania is a celebration of all things Sonic the Hedgehog, which means different things to different people. To me, what the game most loudly celebrates is the untapped potential of a tragically mishandled series. Consider this game the fulfilment of a promise the series originally made nearly 30 years ago.
6. Splatoon 2 (Switch) - If I’m being completely honest, Splatoon 2 is making it this high on the list almost solely for how fun the new four player cooperative mode, Salmon Run, is. You get stranded in various locations to take on hundreds of slimy zombie-esque salmon while terrifying horror movie music plays and you send out unheard pleas to the universe that you were paired up with players that actually know how to use the charger weapon (Splatoon’s equivalent to a sniper rifle that apparently takes more skill to wield than an actual real world sniper rifle based on my dozens of hours playing).
Salmon Run is fucking incredible. The rest of Splatoon 2 is also really quite fun to play. However: Nintendo is still so stubborn or incompetent or both when it comes to online play that any amount of fun you have with friends outside of Salmon Run is usually punctuated with spikes of rage the likes of which I’ve never experienced.
You can join your friends and play turf war (the standard Splatoon battle mode) pretty effortlessly at any point.
That’s good!
Every single match you play assigns you both to random teams, meaning you’re not always actually playing on the same team as the friend you’re attempting to play with. In fact, I swear there’s some kind of algorithm going in that actually assigns you and your friend to opposing teams more often than not.
That’s bad!
There is a mode where you can play with a dedicated team of two or four people, paired up against other groups of two or four.
That’s good!
It’s actually a ranked mode which is where all the professional Splatoon teams that stream on Twitch for hours everyday hang out, so you’re more than likely going to be facing off against a team of people who are so good at the game they make money off of splatting.
That’s bad!
Every few weeks there are big game-wide events called Splat Fests where each person chooses between two options, and then represents their selection and are paired up against players from the opposing team. These can range from pretty basic, such as cats vs dogs or ketchup vs mayonnaise, to the extremely goofy like Spongebob vs Patrick. Also, the music and backdrops of levels completely change during Splat Fests; all the levels are changed to take place at night, and you’re treated to ‘live performances’ of squid pop music. You even get exclusive in-game t-shirts based on the team you picked.
That’s good!
But your ability to play with friends during Splat Fests is even further restricted, limiting you solely to the aforementioned ranked mode. It’s to the point where it almost feels like Nintendo would just prefer you to play by yourself against strangers in some weird joyless, lonely world, which feels entirely counter to the kinds of games the company makes.
………..can I go play Salmon Run now?
I hope that this entry doesn’t come across as too negative, because despite all my personal frustrations with how Nintendo completely mangles their own online modes, the game is an absolute blast to play. And Salmon Run really is good enough to make up for a lot of these shortcomings! I just hope a Splatoon 3 really changes pretty much everything about the interface surrounding the game; we could really have something absolutely amazing if that were to happen, instead of a really fun game that has to be talked about with asterisks.
5. Steamworld Dig 2 (Switch/PS4/Vita/PC) - In a year that brought us the first new Metroid game in the better part of a decade, I never would have expected the best metroidvania style of game in 2017 to be a sequel to a pretty lowkey indie game that seemingly flew under the radar of the vast majority of both the industry and fans. I played the original and enjoyed it for what it was, but I never would have imagined that a sequel would be hanging so high up a game of the year list. And yet, it’s the best one of these in quite a few years, handily beating out recent darlings of the genre Axiom Verge (which was pretty ok) and Ori and the Blind Forest (which was really great). This mostly comes down to the new abilities you get in Steamworld; they’re not trying to subvert your expectations and knowledge of metroidvanias like a lot of recent games. Nope, you’re getting a damn grappling hook and jetpack. But these are the most satisfying and friendly grappling hook and jetpack mechanics in video games in a very long time. The game just has a very friendly vibe in general, from it’s warm, beautiful visuals to its amazing soundtrack. Even its upgrade system is extremely pleasant and forgiving, allowing you to swap out upgrade cogs with no fuss or punishment.
I’m also fully aware that Steamworld doesn’t quite fit into the metroidvania bubble; you’re constantly digging downward as opposed to exploring and re-exploring labyrinthine spaces looking for missile expansions, to the point where it’s almost a sidescrolling dungeon crawler. However, I think calling it a dungeon crawler is doing it a disservice due to certain connotations with that term. All you need to know is that if you’ve already finished Mario and Zelda on your Switch and are wondering what’s next, you can’t do any better than this.
4. Super Mario Odyssey (Switch) - It actually hurts my soul that a brand new 3D Mario game isn’t even in my top three games of the year. Especially since it’s a really good Mario game! Most of that is down to just how stacked 2017 has been, but it’s also down to some disappointments I have with Odyssey. Let’s just get it out of the way - there really isn’t a whole lot of high quality platforming in the game. I went in expecting this from the moment the game was announced as a return to the exploratory style of Super Mario 64 (N64), but even adjusted expectations couldn’t assuage my disappointment in those regards after playing the game for a few hours; Mario is so fun to control in Odyssey, and has such a wide array of moves at the player’s disposal, that my soul aches thinking about a hypothetical version of this game with devious platforming on the levels of Super Mario Sunshine (GameCube). Despite all of that, you can dress Mario up as Don Draper and ride a moped as a t-rex chases you down an alley.
So the level design never even begins approaching manic perfection of Super Mario 3D World (Wii U). It’s hard to be too upset about it when you start to realize just how dense with content every single area in Odyssey really is. When you first touch down in each kingdom, you can barely take 10 steps from your ship without stumbling onto a handful of moons. And what the game lacks in regards to its dedicated platforming challenges, it makes up for with the fever dream of creativity that is allowing the player to throw Mario’s cap at dozens of different creatures and possessing them, each with their own unique controls, movement and abilities.
And look. Even though I’m sorta full up on nostalgia for 8 and 16-bit games at this point, I absolutely am ready for nostalgia for Playstation 1 and Nintendo 64 games, which Odyssey is hopefully kicking off here. I was six-years-old when I played Mario 64 for the first time, and as hyperbolic (and maybe sad) as it sounds, I consider clumsily using an analog stick for the first time to try and make Mario climb trees outside of Peach’s castle to be one of the defining moments of my life. Without spoiling anything, there are a couple moments in Odyssey that brought me hurtling back to that time in my life that nothing has been able to previously. It’s absolutely worth buying a Switch for just to experience Odyssey, despite my opening volley of complaints. Just feel free to stop well before you find all 880(!) moons if you want to leave with the best possible impression.
3. Nier: Automata (PS4/PC) - Generally I don’t consider myself a particularly intelligent person, at least in the grand scheme of things. But by and large, talking about games, especially the kind I like, is a pretty straightforward affair (“Kirby pilots a mech in this one!” “This is a dual ghost fairy type that dresses itself up like Pikachu to trick humans into loving it. Oh wow.”). With Nier though, I find myself mostly feeling intellectually incapable of talking about its story and themes in any meaningful way beyond that a game has never made me feel the way this one did. And maybe not being tempted to make a fool out of myself by talking about things above my education level is for the best, because I would consider being spoiled on such an amazing game in some idiot’s end of year list to be a true shame.
Nier might look like typical anime goofiness on the surface, what with blindfolded french maid sexy butt android fighting wind up toys with a katana. But the game is fully self aware of every single trope it uses, including all of the questions it asks about existence and humanity. It goes some places and has some things to say, man. The one message I feel comfortable in talking about that the game espouses: being human essentially means being in a community and taking care of one another. This is exemplified in what was, for me, maybe the most stunning moment I’ve ever experienced in a game, and during the end credits no less.
This has been a very hard year to be a human living on planet earth. And though Nier is unflinchingly bleak, the overall message of hope and positivity beneath the surface was something that I personally needed. There has never been anything else like this game, and though there are certainly better playing games in 2017, I don’t know if anything will emotionally stick with me the way Nier has.
2. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Switch/Wii U) - Not since I was a teenager with nigh unlimited free time have I been so enraptured with a video game like I was with Breath of the Wild. I put 60+ hours into the game in the first week it was released; it was like Zelda became my second job, only I was being paid in korok seeds and bloodshot eyes. And I say all of that as a person that considers the Zelda series pretty low on my personal Nintendo franchise totem pole!
What Nintendo was able to do with the open world genre, a type of game they’ve never touched before, is nothing short of remarkable. Most ‘open world’ games are open world only in the sense that there’s a lot of empty space to drive around in to get to an arbitrary objective marker, with no mechanics to give players a way to actually have fun in all of that space. Zelda lives and dies by how the world reacts to everything the player (and enemies) are doing. Sure, there’s simple examples like rolling a boulder down a hill to kill an unsuspecting group of enemies. But getting into a battle with enemies shooting fire arrows at you on a grassy plain, having the hill catch fire, and then escaping after realizing that the wildfire has created warm air that can push you on your paraglider up and out of harm’s way is one of the most amazing moments I’ve ever experienced in a game.
There are definitely issues with the game. For a game with so much time spent in menus, you’d think Nintendo could have come up with a far less cumbersome menu navigation method. And I do very much miss having full length Zelda-styled dungeons (though I do think breaking them up into 120 individual puzzles is a very interesting design decision that totally fulfils its intended goals). It’s easy for me to ignore a few rough edges in a game that made me totally forget what it meant to live life away from a TV screen for an entire week, though.
1. Cuphead: Don’t Deal with the Devil (Xbox One/PC) - I hesitate to call many things, in any medium, “perfect”. And when I do, it’s things like Shaun of the Dead. No, Shaun is not high art in the slightest, but I can’t think of any other movie that so deftly delivers on its intent while making it seem effortless. With the way modern video games are developed, my ideal of perfect (besides being as subjective as it can possibly be) seems nigh unattainable; how is a consumer product that’s touched the hands of hundreds, if not thousands, over the course of years of development supposed to sustain a singular, unified vision across the entire experience? Even the two best games of the past few years, Bloodborne (PS4) and Super Mario Maker (Wii U), really fall flat on their faces in certain regards, albeit in completely different ways. Make no mistake: Cuphead is the perfect video game, as well as the best game in maybe the best year for video games ever.
It’s not just the game’s tireless devotion to the “rubber hose” era of animation. Nor is it just how the game’s biggest video game inspirations, Gunstar Heroes (Sega Genesis) and Punch-Out!! (NES) are in and of themselves two perfect action games. The combining of a long dormant style of art with a (mostly) dormant style of games is genius in a way that makes everyone else seem dumb for not thinking of it first. Cuphead feels like something that came from an alternate timeline where polygonal games never became the norm, but art in games continued to grow and evolve, unlike other contemporary retro-styled affairs. Which isn’t meant to disparage games of that ilk, but rather emphasize how Cuphead somehow manages to succeed as a game that owes a lot to works that came before it, while also not relying on direct references to, and nostalgia for, those inspirations. The references and nostalgia are there of course, but aren’t needed for the game’s accomplishments to be appreciated by just about anyone.
Put all of that aside though, and what you have is a really fucking fun game where you get to shoot anthropomorphic waffles with magic finger guns. And it has cooperative play! In fact, the only bad thing that can be said about Cuphead is that the second playable character, Mugman, is relegated to player 2. Maybe ‘perfect’ was a tad hyperbolic.
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CHARACTER SHEET: Roger Jonathan Radcliffe
As I hide behind these books I read / while scribbling my poetry / like art could save a wretch like me / with some ideal ideology / that no one can hope to achieve. / And I am never real; it is just a sketch of me. -- Waste of Paint, Bright Eyes
It takes strength to be gentle and kind. --I Know It’s Over, The Smiths
STATS:
Birthday: 11 October 1991
Hogwarts House (Primary): Ravenclaw (modelling a blend of Hufflepuff and Slytherin)
Hogwarts House (Secondary): Ravenclaw
Myers-Briggs: ISFP
Enneagram: Type 5
Height: 5’11
BACKGROUND OVERVIEW:
Mother: Harriet Martha Hunter Radcliffe
Father: William Jonathan Radcliffe (deceased)
Mother’s Occupation: manager at a fabric store
Father’s Occupation: musician
Family Finances: lower class
Birth Order: only child
Other Close Family: Gran on his dad’s side; he has two male cousins on that side who are pretty Patts-esque lol; didn’t really talk to his mum’s side all that much till about a couple of years ago
Best Friend: Paul Patts
Other Friends: from home: Lucy, Finn, Ed; from here: Anita, Perdita, Berlioz, Stan, Brad, Belle?
Enemies: none, really—Lou?
Pets: 32 Dalmatians lol (he had a Dalmatian named George when he was growing up)
Home Life During Childhood: eh so it was happy till he was about ten, then his father started drinking more than usual and doing bad drugs and there were a lot of fights and broken furniture and all that and Roger blames himself
Town or City Name(s): London, England—East End, near Shoreditch
What Did Her Bedroom Look Like: sloping wall with green-striped wallpaper, lots of books jammed into a little shelf, a little wobbly desk with a single desk lamp, kept a bunch of knick-knacks on his desk, lots of sheet music
Any Sports or Clubs: probably in school band or orchestra, also did theatre
Favorite Toy or Game: He had a stuffed dog that he went to bed with every night till he was like 13 or something and it wasn’t “cool” anymore and one of the bigger kids teased him about it so he stuffed it in the bin, but his mum rescued it and it’s on the shelf above his childhood bed
Schooling: finished secondary
Favorite Subject: Music, of course, and English
Popular or Loner: had his own group of friends, was never really a true loner, also helped that his best mate was like the most popular bloke in school
Important Experiences or Events: Dad died when he was 15, he found the body in the bathroom
Health Problems: prone to addiction, undiagnosed depression probably, also near-sighted if that counts lol (he wears contacts most of the time)
Culture: English
Religion and beliefs: his mum’s family goes to church pretty regularly and he’s, like, the type of guy who wishes he could believe in God but isn’t sure—even so, does Christmas, Easter, that whole thing, and when he’s feeling particularly vulnerable, he will pray
PERSONALITY:
Bad Habits: nervous talker, easily addicted to substances, smokes, drinks too much when he’s in a depressive spell
Good Habits: loyal, dedicated to his craft when he is in a steady spell, very good with kids and animals
Best Characteristic: dedicated—to the people close to him, to his craft, to his passions, he won’t quit on you
Worst Characteristic: low self-worth—he doesn’t think much of himself at all and it’s a big hindrance to, like, his life
Worst Memory: finding his dad’s dead body ha ha ha
Best Memory: when Powell approached him and introduced himself and said he had talent
Proud of: his musical ability
Embarrassed by: uh his like,,,everything—his looks, his background, his finances, his grades
Driving Style: he’s very average, speeds a little but remembers his turn signals
Strong Points: kind, artistic, passionate, intelligent, goofy
Temperament: melancholic
Attitude: can be broody
Weakness: tbh he’s like really sensitive if you doubt the one thing he is proud of (musical ability); also fuck with Paul/Anita/his mom (and Perdita by extension), he will get upset
Fears: not living up to his artistic potential, turning into his father
Phobias: turning into his father highkey
Secrets: sometimes he’s happy? His dad died bc it really put his mum out of a lot of misery…
Regrets: getting good at music, because that’s what ultimately drove his dad down the drain
Feels Vulnerable When: talking about himself in general lol, he likes talking to other people and does genuinely want to know more about them but he hates it when it’s about him
Pet Peeves: snobby rich people—he can deal with regular rich people who aren’t snobs and think that his social class is his own fault, kale (really does not like kale)
Conflicts: desire to follow his artistic dreams vs how freakin’ hard it is to do, as well as not wanting to like totally leave his mum in the dust
Motivation: to be a true, genuine artist and hoping success will follow
Short Term Goals and Hopes: get some sort of record deal—either as a musician or a composer
Long Term Goals and Hopes: gosh—make a decent living as a composer, trying not to be a sell-out, but also still getting his time in the limelight
Sexuality: bisexual, if we’re talking Kinsey-scale it’s like a 2.5 (prefers women, but still likes men)
Exercise Routine: gets most of his exercise from working tbh
Day or Night Person — Night.
Introvert or Extrovert — Introvert.
Optimist or Pessimist — Pessimist
LIKES AND STYLES:
Music: jazz, of course! He grew up listening to the greats and has a fondness for Charlie Parker. Errol Garner is another favorite. Other than that he listens to a lot of classic rock—London’s a great city for classic rock, eh? Got the Stones and the Beatles and the Who—real great place, music’s everywhere, didya know that lots of the classic rock bands were influenced by jazz? Roger can show you where they played. Also really into the Smiths. And indie stuff. Fan of the occasional really good musical. Just doesn’t really like pop is all (ok except for some songs....)
Books: classics, he’s partial to the 1920s era—Hemingway (yes, I know), Fitzgerald, Stein, and all that good stuff. Also a fan of Virginia Woolf. Also a huge Jane Austen fan, he won’t admit that right away but it’s easy to pry out of him.
Magazines: tbh not many,,,he keeps up with music stuff online
Foods: good pub food—he likes a good steak pie with loads of green peas and mashed potatoes on the side. Also a good English breakfast (his favorite part’s the sausage).
Drinks: tea—black, the English Breakfast blend. Likes a good beer as well, or a shot of whiskey.
Animals: Dogs. No, but seriously, he’s always been fond of them and will take care to point them out on the street to whoever he is with.
Sports: He plays football but sucks at it haha, but he follows Paul’s team!
Social Issues: LGBTQ+ rights, he’s like really against gentrification, having lived it firsthand
Favorite Saying: “Life is like jazz; it’s a lot better when you improvise.”
Color: Grey. He likes how varied it is. It reminds him of home and of silver and the sky and the Thames and a lot of things he likes.
Clothing: he’s like very particular about how he dresses, tries not to wear shorts and t-shirts, he likes to keep it dressy casual, like hipster style (wow, roger)
Jewelry: he has a nice watch his dad passed down to him and a ring his granddad gave him when he graduated
Games: played pokemon when he was younger, will take a turn on those first-person shooters when he’s with friends, likes the Legend of Zelda
Websites: Instagram, tumblr, has his own like wordpress or something with music reviews, posts some piano covers on youtube (not terribly many)
TV Shows: Fools and Horses, other british sitcoms which i am too lazy to research r now but he’s a sitcom sorta bloke when he does watch tv
Movies: he likes weird horror movies, big zombie fan; secretly really adores Love, Actually, but says his favourite movie is Ray (which is a great movie, he just likes Love, Actually more....); prefers the BBC Pride and Prejudice over the Kiera Knightley one and is passionate about that
Greatest Want: to be a true artist™
Greatest Need: to overcome his bad self-esteem and love himself
CURRENTLY:
Home: lives in the Dalmatian Plantation farmhouse, on the top floor in an attic bedroom
Household furnishings: lots of sheet music, he keeps his closet pretty neat, but the rest is quite messy. Always has a stack of books on his bedside drawer. There’s usually an empty mug of tea because he’s too lazy to bring it downstairs lol. Bed is usually not made.
Favorite Possession: probably a book from either Paul or Anita (or both)
Most Cherished Possession: the piano in his house in London, which belonged to his dad and his dad’s dad; also the watch his dad left him
Married Before: Nope.
Significant Other Before: Finn, Sarah (those are the only significant ones)
Children: n/a
Relationship with Family: very close with his mum, they stuck together when it got really bad on his homelife end; she’s always been supportive of him; his mum’s family used to not speak to them much, but recently have been reaching out; dad’s family talks to them more
Car: n/a
Career: dog care-taker, record shop clerk, musician/composer
Dream Career: composer/jazz musician [music teacher, but he doesn’t know that yet]
Dream Life: ok so honestly—Roger’s destined to become a teacher. He’s great with kids and in the end, he will (hopefully) realize that his passion for music is meant to be passed down to others. Sure, he’s gonna still write the occasional almost-famous tune and play in ensembles and venues, but he’s gonna be truly happy as a teacher.
Love Life: uh—kinda dating Anita? What is? Going? On?
Hobbies : playing music, reading, walking the dogs lol, likes playing football sometimes (sucks at it), acting
Guilty Pleasure : will, on occasion, like a pop song; rom-coms
Sports or Clubs: n/a
Talents or Skills : great musician—plays piano excellently, trumpet pretty well, and can manage a bit on saxophone and guitar; has a good singing voice too (baritone)! Decent driver (can drive manual wow that’s impressive to me tbh); good with kids and animals (also impressive to me lmao)
Intelligence Level : artistically inclined—he was bad at science/math classes, but good at music, literature, and history. He’s not dumb by any means, but his strengths aren’t really in a technical area. He’s knowledgeable and interested in learning about things, but don’t ask him to solve some intricate mathematical proof
Finances: manages alright on his own (he basically doesn’t have to pay rent, so he’s doing p good; sends money back home too)
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7 Of The Worst Movies Based On Games
The video game and movie industries have had a very rocky relationship ever since they first got together. That much is pretty well documented already. I mean, there have been some good, or at least average, movies that were based upon games… The first Resident Evil movie comes to mind, as does the first Silent Hill movie. However, there have also been some outright terrible attempts to create video game related movies.
From films that utterly miss the point of the games to ones that would have been better off without the video game connection, we’ve had our fair share and more of bad tie-ins. Everyone knows that a video game tie-in to a movie is usually going to be terrible, but the same is true the other way around. That’s why, today, we’re going to look at 7 of the worst movies based upon video games that have ever been created!
7. Doom
The Doom game franchise was once the king of first-person shooters… Whilst the gaming side of the franchise may have reinstated this title in recent times with the release of DOOM (aka Doom 4) on the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC, it will never escape the legacy of the live action movie. Rather than dealing with the religious aspect of Doom, whereby the creatures are literally coming from Hell, the movie decided to go down a much more generic route. With scientists on Mars bringing to light an artificially created chromosome that subsequently infects the entire colony, people who lived and worked there are turned into a variety of different monsters.
However, to make this change in the base plot even more detached from the actual games, this infection will only turn you into a monster if you were already inherently evil. I mean, I would like to say that this feels like it could have been written by a child, but then, they would probably have come up with something better. Add to this the fact that the characters are wholly unrelatable and just unlikeable, and you have a recipe for disaster. The movie even features Karl Urban (a tremendous actor) and The Rock, but even that super-team couldn’t make this movie work.
Also, why does a movie based on a first-person shooter end with a battle of fists?
6. Double Dragon
Now, you’d think that taking a beat-em-up gaming and turning it into an action movie would be one of the easiest things you could possibly do, right? I mean, the entire formula is there for you already! Sure, the storyline of Double Dragon isn’t exactly Oscar-worthy, but then, you wouldn’t expect a particularly deep story from an action movie anyway. So you would need to really do a bad job to screw up a movie based on Double Dragon, right?
Well, that’s exactly what the director and crew of the Double Dragon movie decided to do! Taking place in the year 2007 after a huge earthquake totalled most of Los Angeles, leaving it a flooded shell of a city, the movie features some of the most un-gang-like gangs ever! On top of that, they somehow managed to make Robert Patrick (of Terminator 2 and X-Files fame, amongst other great roles) look even more pointless as an antagonist that Samuel L Jackson’s character in Kingsman – the big difference being that Kingsman did it on purpose and it worked well because of that.
Everything about this movie screams a misunderstanding of the game itself, or a blatant lack of care about it.
5. Resident Evil: Extinction (And All Subsequent Sequels)
Now, I’m in the minority of gaming fans who actually enjoy Resident Evil: Apocalypse, the second movie in the live action series. Yes, Paul W S Anderson had made his wife (Milla Jovovich) the main character, pushing Jill Valentine to the background, despite the movie being (very loosely) based upon Resident Evil: Nemesis… But it was still an entertaining action movie (but not a horror movie in the slightest). For me, the entire movie series went downhill when we got to Resident Evil: Extinction (and onwards).
RE: Extinction featured Alice (Jovovich’s character) using telekinesis to move flames around the air and burn all of the zombie crows. It took one of the video game series’ most beloved characters, Claire Redfield, and stripped her of all likeable qualities (likely so that attention would be focused on Alice), and turned an already messed up Carlos into a shadow of his former self. From there, things just got worse, with the characters that we loved from the games being treated like afterthoughts! The first movie was an interesting take on the Resident Evil idea, but the reason it worked was that Alice wasn’t an over-powered Goddess and it didn’t feature any of the characters from the games to tarnish. The second was an average yet entertaining affair, whilst everything after that would do best being put in the nappy-bin where they belong.
4. Mortal Kombat: Annihilation
The first Mortal Kombat movie was an entertaining romp featuring some reasonable fight scenes and a plot that actually managed to fit in with the game, mostly. But by the time the sequel came around, we were all in for a laughable excuse for a movie! To begin with, they recast a number of returning characters, killed off one of them right at the beginning, and had some of the worst CGI I have ever seen in a film. Even as a young lad, I knew how absolutely terrible the movie was!
The dialogue is also atrocious, making the original Resident Evil (with it’s “Jill sandwich line included) looking like Oscar-worthy gold! In fact, the only reason I would ever put this movie on again is to listen to the epic theme song. But then, I could just listen to it on Spotify and save myself the torture that is Mortal Kombat: Annihilation.
3. BloodRayne
Looking back on the genre as a whole, Vampire movies haven’t had a very good time this century. From being absolutely tarnished by the likes of Twilight, to the fact that the Underworld series started off so well and then just went downhill with every movie after the third, the genre has had a lot of trouble. One movie that did nothing but make this even worse was BloodRayne. Now, the games that this movie was based on are actually really rather fun to play. Sadly, Uwe Boll got hold of the movie rights, and that spelt doom for the film straight away.
With everything from the wrong time period for the setting, action sequences that look like they would be more fitting on an episode of East Enders, and acting from top quality actors that feels like the “phone in” equivalent, it really is an awful movie. How did it go so wrong? Oh yeah… Uwe Boll.
2. Super Mario Bros
Well, here we are; the video game movie that started the crossover industry, and also the first one to let us all down. It is rather common knowledge that this movie is utterly terrible, but what you might not know is that the directors actually wanted to make a cyberpunk movie, which is why everything in Super Mario Bros looks so dystopian and futuristic. As fans of the games, this caused a lot of confusion and outright annoyance for viewers, due to the complete change in the way that the Mushroom Kingdom looked. On top of that, the goombas look horrific, bearing no resemblance to their video game counterparts.
Another interesting fact about the movie comes from the casting; Mario and Luigi are supposed to be brothers, right? So why are they from two different ethnicities? Everything about Super Mario Bros is confused, contrived and just downright badly made. This movie set the precedent for video games movies to come, and for that alone, it would feature high up on this list. However, add to that the fact that it is just a generally terrible movie, and it more than earns the number two spot!
1. House of the Dead
Zombie movies are everywhere these days. In fact, zombies, in general, have taken over the big screen, small screen and gaming industry like a digital apocalypse. Sadly, that means that you’ll naturally get some films that were best left to rot. It should come as no surprise that this particular “gem” of a movie was directed by Uwe Boll (again). It starts off as a generic teen horror movie with a bunch of people going to a rave on an island that then because infested with zombies. From there, we get one of the most confusingly directed movies ever. Scenes will switch between the teenagers screaming and running for their lives, to shots of them pulling of Trinity-esque slow motion kicks from The Matrix!
This, plus the complete lack of a connection to the game, makes you wonder how Uwe Boll ever manages to get the rights to anything anymore!
And That’s All Folks
Those are 7 of the worst movies ever made based on video games. There are, of course, a reverant tonne of others that could have made this list, so I may make a sequel to this post in the future.
What video game movie do you hate the most? Let me know in the comments below!
from More Design Curation https://www.16bitdad.com/7-of-the-worst-movies-based-on-games/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=7-of-the-worst-movies-based-on-games
source https://smartstartblogging.tumblr.com/post/174335533990
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The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community.
The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.
For the last few weeks, I’ve been dealing with a pretty rough illness of sorts that’s basically had me, more or less, couch-bound, sleeping, low on energy, and incredibly weak/sore. Once I got over the constant sleepiness, I decided to devote the couch time to catching up on a few games that I’ve put aside for the last year — namely, Metal Gear Solid 5: Phantom Pain — and, once I got most of the way through that (well, about 2/3 of the way through), I moved on to some games I’ve been anticipating for quite some time: NieR: Automata (vaguely related to the purpose of this article, so I’m largely ignoring it) and Persona 5. These games, aside from being Japanese-developed, have basically nothing in common whatsoever. Their one commonality is that their all sequels to games that I’ve long admired for one reason or another, especially Persona 5 and MGS5. Final Fantasy Tactics also fits into this whole thing, but it’s largely persisted through re-releases, a remaster on the PSP (Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions), and other platform ports.
This article isn’t about these games, but I’ll give a brief summary as to why they’re important. The final game that really changed things for me is Far Cry 2. Which, well, basically all these games have nothing linking them together whatsoever. Bear with me.
Persona 5
Persona was the first Playstation game that I ever bought. It was also my only Playstation game for a long while. I sunk, well, a lot of time into it over the six-nine months that it remained my sole Playstation game. I started it over, oh, about three or four times because I never felt that I did an adequate job of preparing my team for the later stages of the game. And then in one dungeon about 80–85% of the way through the game, I kept getting lost in the maze (Persona was a first-persona dungeon-crawler) and, since I’m incredibly prone to motion sickness, eventually I had to give up at the dungeon time and time again. It’s irrelevant to this article, but I didn’t succeed in getting beyond that point until it was re-released on the PSP about a decade later. It’s a game that bears little resemblance to the way the series has evolved over the years, but it’s a series I’ve stuck to as best I can. Persona 5 is, essentially, the culmination in everything the series has been building up to (including bits that, I assume, Catherine laid the roots for).
What sticks with me from Persona 5, which is a game I completed to its “true ending” (I hate multi-ending games, by the way) earlier today. Without spoiling too much, the game ends up handling its endgame in a way that reminds me a great deal of Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters 2 in a very specific way: the bonds you form with people and the public perception your group earns over the course of the game play an incredibly important role in the emotional and narrative impact of the final sequence of events.
Metal Gear Solid 5: Phantom Pain
Similarly, Metal Gear Solid was another Playstation game I was incredibly attached to. At the time, I primarily enjoyed its more “serious” tone and approach to narrative. The gameplay was, at best, loosely interwoven with the overall plot, but the series has made strides to bring gameplay and plot closer and closer together over the years. That is until Metal Gear Solid 4 when the series took an overwhelming turn into being narrative-driven to the point of hour-long cutscenes and frequent cutscene interruptions.
Then Metal Gear Solid: Peacewalker came out for PSP. A much lower-budget, “tentpole” title for the series, but one which ultimately laid the groundwork for what became Metal Gear Solid 5: Phantom Pain: a very systems-heavy, gameplay-driven game that mixed together high-level strategy (base-building, team assembly, etc.) with low-level, more Metal Gear Solid-esque gameplay that allowed players bite-sized, portable missions that were far closer to the initial glimpses into its gameplay style that the earlier games often left unexplored. And MGS5became a huge turning point for the series in that it’s, largely, a sandbox game where most of the story-telling (most) occurs throughout gameplay, leaving the player to play the game uninterrupted alongside the narrative. It’s an exquisitely-detailed game, to the point where if you leave your horse in a place for too long, eventually it poos. If a vehicle happens to come in contact with said poo, the vehicle will slide out of control and — usually (in this tremendous edge case) — crash. It is wonderful.
Final Fantasy Tactics
Honestly, I don’t have much to say about this game that I haven’t already said before or has been echoed by others. I was quoted in a Kotaku article years back along with other game developers as to why everyone loves Final Fantasy Tactics. Essentially: it is the quintessential realization of systems-driven gameplay. It doesn’t hurt that the narrative around the game’s battles is one of the most interesting ones I’ve seen in games. It’s ludicrous at times, but it attempts to tie together an intricate plot through political subterfuge, class warfare, war-time alliances between friends, and then there’s silly things about the power of the zodiac turning people into ultra-powerful demons.
Point is: the systems and design of the game are largely what govern gameplay to a degree that, I believe, is unprecedented in the games industry. Like I said in the Kotaku article: there’s a mathematician/arithmetician class. It allows you to combine the powers of your secondary class with formulae for targeting enemies/allies on the battlefield. It’s beautiful.
Far Cry 2
Without going too far into detail, as I’ve written about this game excessively in the past (though I’m not sure the articles survived), but it’s essentially the game that made me pursue game design over programming as a career path. Other than my work with LightBox Interactive/Sony Santa Monica on Starhawk and work on a myriad of mobile games to follow, I’ve largely been employed as more of a programmer than as a designer. To put it as it was once put to me: “why would we want a game designer when we can get a programmer instead?” That’s a digression, but it’s a horribly reductive line of reasoning that has never proven itself out as a well-made decision (in my opinion).
But the work that Clint Hocking (Creative Director on Far Cry 2) and Patrick Redding (Narrative Designer on Far Cry 2) put into the game intrigued me, so I basically read everything from the duo online that I possibly could. I don’t think I’ve ever met either of them in person or had any detailed game conversations with… But, never the less, they both had a profound impact on my change in perspective on how games were made and what they could accomplish.
Far Cry 2 is not an example of system design and narrative culminating in the holy grail of what these two fields of design can accomplish, but it was the first game to really attempt to see how far those as dictating influences could go in a major AAA game.
Other Influences
Likely due to both serendipity and my pushy nature, I eventually got to talk with some designers who believe in system design and narrative design in ways that “closely align with mine” (in quotes because both of these folks are far more experienced than I am): Matthias Worch (most recently worked on the superb Mafia 3) and Harvey Smith (most recently the creative director on Dishonored 2). Conversations with both of these guys, whether they realize it or not, ultimately resulted in my fervent pursuit of system design as a dictating factor in the direction of a holistic game design and development methodology.
Joy Machine and Steel Hunters
For about almost a year now, I’ve been working on establishing my own company with its debut title being Steel Hunters. To say this is an “undertaking” is putting it lightly. I wrote about this not too long ago in “Starting a Game Studio with No Money”. I could have worded that “less than no money” as a more accurate title, but that’s beside the point.
You can still read all about my progress (well, now, “our” progress, as I’ve convinced a team to form together and work on the side — just as I am and have been — on the project) on our site: http://ift.tt/2fjtOHM.
We were planning on releasing our “announcement” (initial) trailer for the game last Friday, but that was planned right before I got ill and, as a result, has been pushed back a few weeks. Likely without us talking about a release date in advance because I want to ensure that we have proper time to put together a trailer that fully represents the game in its current state. No doctored footage (though likely tightly-edited, as we want to keep the trailer short), just what me and my art director have put together as a nice, tight structure to drive the trailer. Well, we hope. Given our lack of any budget whatsoever, which hopefully doesn’t ever even come up as a point worth mentioning, I think it’ll be a wonderful introduction to the game. Our biggest challenge has been trying to infuse a trailer about what, in the simplest terms, is an action/adventure third-person shooter centered solely around robots, explosions, and dynamic gameplay, with the personality that is most representative of the eventual tone of the game as a whole and, well, who we are as a studio.
This is all somewhat of a digression, though. The point of Steel Hunters as it relates to this article is to be the successful game that I have complete confidence it will end up being so that we, as Joy Machine, can pursue further projects in the future without requiring the same level of outside funding that we will need for this project.
My Game Development End-Game
The reason for the self-sustaining company ecosystem that we are aiming for — aside from it being a generally, like, common-sense business strategy? — is that I want to continually push dynamic, system-driven gameplay to a point where the kind of scenarios that Persona 5 ends up achieving through its entirely-scripted (though well-assembled and well-written) structure. It’s still a new game, so I won’t reveal anything about where it ends up going, so I’ll revert to another analogy:
Ghostbusters
If this is spoiling the movie experience for you by now, I have no sympathy for you. The Ghostbusters, as a team, basically take an absurd premise that the core members all fundamentally believe in, prove out despite mockery and ridicule, become mass public sensations, hit a major blockade due to legal, bureaucratic, and petty reasons, but come out on top due to a massive city-wide crisis that has them, eventually, driving through their eventual target amidst enormous public support. The movie then cuts back-and-forth between the public opinion/reaction to the battle that is largely un-seen to them other than the repercussions of Zuul’s lightning zaps. And, well, an enormous Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man that eventually rampages through the city. They notice that one.
Eventually, once the dust settles, all the Ghostbusters emerge victorious and the credits roll as you see huge public support for their actions.
Ghostbusters 2 takes this whole thing in a somewhat different and less effective direction, but what’s of note is the role that the pink slime factors into the storyline. The pink slime, essentially, is intended to harness the negative energy and anger and bitterness and complacency of the public masses to manifest incredibly dark energy for the film’s antagonist to harness. But what the antagonist doesn’t anticipate is the same thing that Persona 5’s antagonist didn’t anticipate: that the bonds that you form with individuals and society as a whole are ultimately critical to your success as a team.
Sure, day-to-day, people are largely solely concerned with their own life and not the lives of the public or country as a whole. Not to take a political stance here, but I think the general public apathy is fairly well-represented in the reprehensible President of the United States right now. And that tangerine shit-show is, now, doing more to unify and inform the country (and, likely to a more effective extent, the world) to the dangers of ignorance, complacency, racism, greed, and all those other things that we’d all like to think we’re above.
I Promised This would Get to a Point
My ultimate goal as a game developer to create a game that serves as a sandbox for players to form meaningful relationships with characters in the world that aren’t solely governed by a scripted progression of emotional bonds. And a game in which the world reacts to the player’s actions in a meaningful way — both positively and negatively. And I want this all to occur in a game genre that is typically not known for evocative, emotional reactions in its players: moderately well-budgeted action games. Personally, I don’t ever really aspire to the level of making AAA games, but I’d adore being able to carve out a niche in the “AA” budget target.
I’m not saying something akin to what many series writers often say about long-running series: I have no inkling as to what form this eventual game will take. No idea whatsoever. Not even a glimmer of a speck of an idea.
What I do know is that I’m an idealist to a borderline-naive degree. I’ve always been most-absorbed with and fascinated by books, shows, games, and movies that explore the human condition in a positive (if not bittersweet) way. I’ve long said that one of my favorite books is The Fall by Albert Camus. And it’s one of my favorite books because it serves as a pitch-perfect example of the main character (who is not the narrator of the book; it’s all a series of stories between the main character to the book’s narrator) preying on what he knows is the weakness of mankind to the point of falling directly into a premeditated trap.
My goal as a game developer is to be able to systemically simulate the the emotional response and player-to-character bonds that tend to form in games like Persona (well, Persona 3 — Persona 5) in a wholly player-driven way. And have those bonds spur the progression of the player through the game. Have the game’s environment (in the Ghostbusters case: the general public) react in accordance with the way the player approaches the game. And then force the player into a world where they must react as best as possible to a situation that is entirely of their own creation through their actions, bonds with other characters, and perspective on whatever the game’s larger purpose/environment may be.
And I’m being vague because that’s, to put it in incredibly understated terms, a difficult design to achieve. But, I believe that it’s possible, and I’m planning on taking “baby-steps” in that direction with every single game I work on in whatever capacity I can influence it within. With Steel Hunters, we’re going to be heavily exploring an angle where a fully-realized physical, turbulent environment centered around enormous bosses which are capable of adapting to player strategies force players into situations where they must take everything they know about the game and adapt to situations they couldn’t possibly expect. But, with that said, these situations are all the result of a series of events which is repeatable and predictable if you take into account all of the factors that led to a given situation. And all of this is done systemically and dynamically. When I say “repeatable” I mean, following the exact same path that both the player and environmental conditions took in a prior play session, the result ends up being the same because the overall game is designed well enough predictability if players are ever able to fully grasp all of the high-level and low-level variables that are all operating in a dynamic, real-time environment — and then take advantage of that to their advantage.
Steel Hunters will definitely not be a game where players form meaningful relationships with in-game characters/AI, but it will, hopefully, be a game where players form meaningful relationships with their co-op partners due to the experiences they’ve all ended up in and worked together to overcome. I have no interest in competitive gameplay, in general, because the way that the internet “is” seems to generally result in competitive gameplay yielding toxic, unapproachable real-world environments. So, to the degree I can with our studio’s debut title, I’d like to focus on teamwork and seeing the positive community that can form around a game where players can form bonds with each other based on unforeseen challenges that required snap decisions and teamwork to overcome.
Which, I think, will be a huge step towards reaching my end goal.
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